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Litter   Listen
verb
Litter  v. t.  (past & past part. littered; pres. part. littering)  
1.
To supply with litter, as cattle; to cover with litter, as the floor of a stall. "Tell them how they litter their jades." "For his ease, well littered was the floor."
2.
To put into a confused or disordered condition; to strew with scattered articles; as, to litter a room. "The room with volumes littered round."
3.
To give birth to; to bear; said of brutes, esp. those which produce more than one at a birth, and also of human beings, in abhorrence or contempt. "We might conceive that dogs were created blind, because we observe they were littered so with us." "The son that she did litter here, A freckled whelp hagborn."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Litter" Quotes from Famous Books



... tree selected was six to eight inches in diameter at the base, and twenty to twenty-five feet high. It was chosen and felled with some solemnity, including the ceremony of the "filled pipe," and was carried in the fashion of a litter, symbolizing the body of the man who made the dance. A solitary teepee was pitched on a level spot at some distance from the village, and the pole raised near at hand with the same ceremony, in the centre of a circular ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... in the liver of a beast, than in so old and experienced a captain as I am?" Marcellus, who had been five times consul, and was augur, said, that he had discovered a method of not being put to a stand by the sinister flight of birds, which was, to keep himself close shut up in his litter. ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... heavy pack on his back and in all sorts of weather. A tradition existed in our neighbourhood that Jack had once been met crossing the Amuri Downs with a small barrel-organ, an American cooking stove, and a sow with a litter of young ones, all packed on his back, "and stepping out bravely under them all," as my informant added. But I cannot vouch for the truth of the items of this load. Jack's fame as a stock-horse, as well as a pack-horse, stood high in the Malvern ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... the physicians declared to my poor benefactress that the air of La Jonchere was fatal to her, and that her only chance of recovery was to establish herself in Paris. One of her nephews offered to have her taken to his house in a litter. She would soon get well, they said; and she could then go to finish her convalescence ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... into a shout when they saw the temple. A company of young men flew by, singing a song. Charmides passed a sick man. The slaves had set down his litter, and he had stretched out his hands toward the temple and was praying. For the sick were sometimes cured by a visit to Olympia. The boy's father had struck his heels into his horse's sides and was galloping forward, calling to his ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall

... 1504 to be carried ashore on a litter, and to learn that the Queen of Spain was dead. He was friendless, penniless, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... whole history, Free Traders are entitled to say that the attempt of tariffists to cite the Paris Resolutions in support of the pitiful policy of taxing imports of German fabric gloves, or the rest of the ridiculous "litter of mice" that has thus far been yielded by the Safeguarding of Industries Act, is the crowning proof at once of the insincerity and ineptitude of tariffism where it has a free hand, and of the adamantine strength of the Free Trade case. If any further ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... and small, had prepared the scene well for what was to follow. The sentences about the world of inaudible sound had dropped the right kind of suggestion into the secretary's heart. His mind still whirred with a litter of half-digested sentences and ideas, however, and he was vividly haunted by the actuality of truth behind them all. His whole inner being at that moment cried "Hark!" through a hush of ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood

... work-room, yet it had a note of elegance that surprised me. Musicians are not a tidy race; but here there was none of the admired disorder that one instinctively associates with an artist's sanctum. There was no litter. The well-used pianoforte could be approached without circuitous negotiation of a rampart of books and papers, and the chairs were free from encumbrances. On a table stood some large sketch-books, one open ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson

... the castle, sleeping at the foot of a tree. Trumpet-calls, repeating the motive first heard in the prelude, arouse them from their sleep; and as they offer up their morning prayer the chorale is heard again. As they wend their way to the castle, they meet two knights preceding the litter upon which the wounded Amfortas, King of the Grail, is carried. In the subsequent dialogue Gurnemanz tells the story of the King's mishap. He is suffering from a wound which refuses to close, and which has been inflicted by the sacred spear,—the spear, according to the legend, with ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... this journey and had to be carried on a litter. There he lay unconscious and delirious with fever, and lost entirely his count of time. The troop moved again towards Tanganyika, and was to cross the lake in canoes to the Ujiji country on the eastern shore. If he ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... said, "There, it had better all be destroyed, I will have no luck with it more." Shortly afterwards a fish-staging fell on his son, for which the dead wolf was held responsible. As the female wolf has from three to five young at a litter and as the mother buffalo gives birth to but one calf, Fate, in both birth-rate and death-rate, would seem to favour the smaller animal. It is up to the red-coated lads of the river-edge to appear in the drama as gods-from-the-machine. While one's sympathy is with the shaggy bison ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... by the sword, and purified by fire, Then had we seen proud London's hated walls: Owls should have hooted in St Peter's choir, And foxes stunk and litter'd in ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... grim, silent man, left, Foyle turned again to his work. He began a careful search of the room, even rummaging among the litter in the waste-paper basket. But there was nothing else that might help to throw the faintest light ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... nearly an hour before they took to the road again. The boss insisted on starting them off with a hearty breakfast, and there were good-bys to be said to the rough, kindly folk who had taken them in as friends. Except for the litter of hand-bills and peanut-shells, the last vestiges of the circus were being removed from the lot as they finally departed, and what had been to Lou a wondrous, glittering pageant ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant

... thing to give for a fever, and if you can find anything in the garden to make a drink of that sort, do; but I hope he will doze off for some time. When you have done, you had better get this place tidy a little; it is in a terrible litter. Evidently no one has been in since ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... their own, is a bugbear not known in Japan. A chest of drawers for clothing, a few mats, two or three quilts for a bed on the floor, some simple kitchen utensils, and the house is furnished. Why should we litter these neatly matted rooms, why cover with paint and gilding virgin wood of faultless grain, or mar the sweet simplicity and airy roominess of our (Japanese) chambers by loading them with all kinds ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... avons une traduction Francaise par le Franc de Pompignan. [Footnote: Melanges de litter. de poes. et d'hist. par ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt

... detachment of the troops of the line from the garrison of Paris, sent by the authorities, was waiting to serve as an escort. The bier, still covered with the pall, was carried on a litter on the shoulders of four men, who relieved each other two at a time; it was preceded by six or eight men, headed by a sergeant. The procession was accompanied a long way by the crowd, and a great number of persona followed it even to the cemetery. The name of "Little Capet," ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... litter, adorned with ostrich feathers at the corners. Chains of crystal and garlands of pearls beat against the closed hangings. It was followed by camels sounding the great bells that hung at their breasts, and having around them horsemen clad from shoulder to heel ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... action—or believes himself to be—he unhesitatingly sacrifices all that will incommode him in the serious business of war. In consequence the ground recently vacated appeared at dawn to our astonished eyes covered with a litter of discarded possessions. When we moved camp it was our honourable custom to pick up and burn or bury every tin, every fragment of paper and every match and cigarette end and to leave the desert swept and garnished as we found it—or better. So our ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... before Franklin was recalled. He was then so feeble that he could not walk, and could only ride in a litter. Mr. Jefferson succeeded him. Upon his arrival in Paris, the ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... went in quest of him to his villa, called Astura, near the sea-shore. Their leader was one Popilius Laenas, a military tribune, whom Cicero had formerly defended with success in a capital cause. They overtook Cicero in his litter. He commanded his servants to set him down, and make no resistance; then looking upon his executioners with a presence and firmness which almost daunted them, and thrusting his neck as forward as he could out of the litter, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... decrease. It will become apparent that their persistence is bad economy. Fires will grow fewer and the state will aid in patrol. Reforestation in itself is a method of fire prevention when it places a green young growth on a fire-inviting tract of sun-dried litter and weeds. Taxation will be deferred. As the country develops interest rates will fall; making it easier to carry forest investments and harder to gain more through other investments. The state itself ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen

... Alwynn dearly loved peace and quiet, but these dwelt not under the same roof with Mrs. Alwynn. Nay, I even believe, if the truth were known, he liked order and tidiness, judging by the exact arrangement of his own study, and the rueful glances he sometimes cast at the litter of wools and letters on the newspaper-table, and the gay garden hats and goloshes, hidden, but not concealed, under the drawing-room sofa. Conversation about the dearness of butchers' meat and the enormities of ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... head, and head over heels, Dizzily down the abyss he wheels,— So fell Darius. Upon his crown, In the midst of the barnyard, he came down, In a wonderful whirl of tangled strings, Broken braces and broken springs, Broken tail and broken wings, Shooting stars, and various things,— Barnyard litter of straw and chaff, And much that wasn't so sweet by half. Away with a bellow flew the calf, And what was that? Did the gosling laugh? 'Tis a merry roar from the old barn-door, And he hears the voice of Jotham crying; "Say, D'rius! how de ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... battle, when all around is darkness, lit by the lurid cannon glare and the piercing musket flash—when the wounded strew the ground, and the dead litter your path—then remember, soldiers, that God is with you. The eternal God fights for you—He rides on the battle cloud, He sweeps onward with the march of the hurricane charge—God, the Awful and the Infinite, fights for you, and ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... compliment with a demure and conscious droop of the eyelids, and gracefully steering her dress among the mingled litter, now with a smile, now with a sigh, reviewed the wonders of the two apartments. She gazed upon the cartoons with sparkling eyes, and a heightened colour, and in a somewhat breathless voice, expressed a high opinion of their ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... the poetical, the classical, the military story of Italy, from the day of AEneas, from whom it received its appellation, down to the annals of the late war. On the site of our inn, (the Albergo di Cicerone,) stood Cicero's Formian Villa; and in an adjoining grove he was murdered in his litter by the satellites of the Triumviri, as he attempted to escape. I stood to-night on a little terrace, which hung over an orange grove, and enjoyed a scene which I would paint, if words were forms, and hues, and sounds—not ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... their arms in slings, others again had their heads bound up; but one could perceive, by their serious, determined faces, that they were animated by a high and cheerful courage, which placed them above physical suffering. In their midst, on a litter, was borne the brave General von Seidlitz, whose wounds, received in the battle of Kunersdorf, had not yet healed; but the danger which threatened Berlin had roused him from a bed of suffering, and, as he could not walk, he had himself carried ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... very quiet. There were no bare feet pattering down the hall to see what Santa Claus had left from his pack. No exulting shouts had awakened her. In the rooms below, there was no cheerful litter of toys and games and pop corn and candy and nuts with bits of string and crumpled paper from hastily opened parcels and shining scraps of tinsel from the tree. There were no stockings hanging on the mantle. At breakfast, there would be a few friendly gifts and, later, ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... folding-doors into the back parlor were closed, and for nearly a fortnight before Christmas there was great litter of fallen plastering, and laths, and chips, and shavings; and Elizabeth Eliza's carpet was taken up, and the furniture had to be changed, and one night she had to sleep at the Bromwicks', for there was a long hole in her ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale

... cared nothing. The girl it was who now preoccupied his every thought. And as they made their way through the litter of the explosion, toward the exit, slowly and cautiously, he spied out every foot of the place ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... had been previously betrothed. And so his new bride came to him, not as other brides come, but unabashed and undismayed, her virtue lost, her modesty gone, her bridal-veil a mockery. Cast off by her previous lover, she brought to her wedding the name without the purity of a maid. She rode in a litter carried by eight slaves. You who were present saw how impudently she made eyes at all the young and how immodestly she flaunted her charms. Who did not recognize her mother's pupil, when they saw her dyed lips, her rouged cheeks, ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... solid, and the internal part, being, filled with pith, is highly esteemed for Dunstable work, for thatching and litter, and it is also used to ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... and given his hack to the now half-drunken Leather, followed Sir Harry through a foil and four-in-hand whip-hung hall to the deserted breakfast-room, where chairs stood in all directions, and crumpled napkins strewed the floor. The litter of eggs, and remnants of muffins, and diminished piles of toast, and broken bread and empty toast racks, and cups and saucers, and half-emptied glasses, and wholly emptied champagne bottles, were scattered up and down a disorderly table, further littered with newspapers, letter ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... Mingled with the hideous litter of all these things are dirtiness, a disgusting odour, spots of oil and tallow, and dust everywhere. In the corner near the bed stands an enormous sack of shavings, and on a chair beside the sack lies an old ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... the Rao of Ilore, Slender and tall was he. When his litter carried him down the street I peeped through the thatch to see. Ah, the eyes of the Rao of Ilore, My lover ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope

... citadel with roses. Their door would have to yield to the pressure when a mountain of carnations should be piled up against it. The place in truth had been brutally neglected. The Venetian capacity for dawdling is of the largest, and for a good many days unlimited litter was all my gardener had to show for his ministrations. There was a great digging of holes and carting about of earth, and after a while I grew so impatient that I had thoughts of sending for my bouquets to the nearest stand. ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James

... Riders was brought to the dressing station with a shattered ankle, and Church, after bandaging it, gave him his choice of riding down to Siboney on a mule, or of being carried, a day later, on a litter. ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... foraged, giving a touch of life and colour to the unending colourless landscape. The trees stood naked and bare. The gardens where once the corn waved and the hollyhocks flaunted their brazen beauty, now lay a tangled litter of stalks, waiting the thrifty farmer's torch to clear them away before the snow came. The earth had yielded of her fruits and now rested from her labour, worn and spent, taking no thought of comeliness, but waiting in decrepit indifference ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... was up betimes, and stood at the window looking out over the sprawl of the south side of the river to the dome of Bedlam and the tower of Southwark Cathedral, the clustered chimneys, and the gray litter of ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... consequence perhaps; the choir, at least, did not trouble much about them. The musicians were followed by a troop of Chinese bearing silken banners, upon which were represented their idols, and dragons of all sorts and sizes, surrounded by hieroglyphical devices. Next followed, in a kind of litter richly ornamented, a young Chinese girl with a pair of scales in her hand, and intended, as I was told, to represent Justice, a virtue for which her country-people, in these parts, have not much cause to applaud themselves. Another set of musicians surrounded the goddess, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... some people will say, after this Holabird story is printed so far. Then we just wish they could have seen mother make a pudding or get a breakfast, that is all. A lady will no more make a jumble or litter in doing such things than she would at her dressing-table. It only needs an accustomed ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... has often proved fatal, even at a very early period of the year. In a battle fought by king Baldwin IV. near Tiberias in Galilee, as many are said to have died in both armies by the heat as by the sword; and an ecclesiastic of eminence, although carried in a litter, expired under mount Tabor, near the river Kishon, in consequence of the excessive heat. Shunem was in the neighbourhood of ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... I took his advice. I could eat no food, but I packed some up to take with us, and made ready ropes, and a rough kind of litter. If we found them they would scarcely be able to walk. Ah! if we found them! How slowly the time passed! It seemed hours before the moon rose. But ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard

... then reappearing! It was take and give, hot and heavy, for an hour or so about Planchenoit. A ball grazed my elbow and another went through my cap; but at sunset the French were broken, and we swept after the rout as well as we could through the litter, along the southward roads. We were at a halt for a minute, I remember, when a rider in a chapeau with a plume, and a hooked nose underneath, trotted up, wrapped in a military cloak, and somebody said it was Wellington." ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... for his son's future, Robert set out on his pilgrimage. He visited Rome and Constantinople, everywhere displaying his magnificence, together with his humility. He fell ill from sheer fatigue whilst crossing Asia Minor, and was obliged to be carried in a litter by four negroes. "Go and tell them at home," said he to a Norman pilgrim he met returning from the Holy Land, "that you saw me being carried to Paradise by four devils." On arriving at Jerusalem, where he was received with great attention ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... season that reveals to the full the horrors of Chinese travelling. The loess is slippery beyond description, and the litter or cart in which you travel may be stuck for hours in a pit of greasy mud, black by reason of the coal dust so plentiful throughout the district, so deep that nothing but the mule's head is visible, the plunging body being ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... noise of his band was deafening. I had had both my tents pitched, and one of them handsomely fitted up, as it always is, for occasions of ceremony like the present. He came to within twenty paces of the door on his elephant, and from its back, as it sat down, he entered his splendid litter, without alighting on the ground.[5] In this vehicle he was brought to my tent door, where I received him, and, after the usual embraces, conducted him up through two rows of chairs, placed for his followers of distinction and my own, who are ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... from any source that Richard Perry Stanlock was entitled to the slightest credit for these magnificent doings. He spent Christmas at home in a quiet unassuming way amid the family decorations of holly and mistletoe, and a vast litter of presents, oranges, ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis

... volumes of flame and smoke were swept by the wind, enveloping the Kremlin, and showering upon it and into it, innumerable flakes of fire. The queen was thrown into a paroxysm of terror; the attendants hastily placed her upon a litter and bore her, almost suffocated, through the blazing streets out of the city, to the village of Kolomensk. The emperor then returned to assist in arresting the conflagration. He exposed himself like a common laborer, inspiring others with intrepidity by mounting ladders, carrying ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... high, and that it must be after noon. In the distance the sound of firing told him that the troops were finding plenty of action. But the village street of Bremerton was deserted. There was no sign, except a litter of papers and scraps, that an army had ever disturbed the peace of the little ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland

... of shading is the mulching of land with straw or other barnyard litter, or with leaves, as in the forest. Such mulching reduces evaporation, but only in part, because of its shading action, since it acts also as a loose top layer of soil matter breaking communication ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... not to let me live at all, it seems," he thought with a passion of hatred in his heart. He began to walk up and down, and his hands and feet were constantly knocking up against child's toys, books and feminine belongings; he called Justine and told her to clear away all this "litter." "Oui, monsieur," she said with a grimace, and began to set the room in order, stooping gracefully, and letting Lavretsky feel in every movement that she regarded him ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... the little room which Temple called his den, which was a litter of letter-books, stock-lists, and the advertising pamphlets of wine-merchants. The walls were covered with the portraits of trotting horses; a smell of perpetual tobacco was in the air. Temple unlocked a cupboard, and took out a decanter and some ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... look on me reverteth, was the beam Of one, whose spirit, on high musings bent, Rebuk'd the ling'ring tardiness of death. It is the eternal light of Sigebert, Who 'scap'd not envy, when of truth he argued, Reading in the straw-litter'd street." Forthwith, As clock, that calleth up the spouse of God To win her bridegroom's love at matin's hour, Each part of other fitly drawn and urg'd, Sends out a tinkling sound, of note so sweet, Affection springs in well-disposed breast; Thus saw I move the glorious wheel, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... save by their leave. I must build my fire in a pipe, or pay ten shillings fine? Things ha' come to a pretty pass—a pretty pass, indeed!" He kicked the rushes that were strewn upon the floor, and ground the clay with his heel. "This litter will ha' to be all took out. Atkins will be here at six i' the morning to do the job, and a lovely mess he will make o' ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... earth were equally mysterious and inscrutable. He inserted himself cautiously into the aperture of the shelter, where Resmith already lay asleep, and, having pushed back his cap, arranged his right arm for a pillow. The clammy ground had been covered with dry horse-litter. As soon as he was settled the noise of the rain ceaselessly pattering on the waterproof became important. He could feel the chill of the wind on his feet, which, with Resmith's, projected beyond the shelter. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... from the Cordera to Hispaniola shore, and so in a litter to his own house in Isabella. All our town was gathered to see him carried there. He began to improve. The second day he said to Don Bartholomew, "You shall be my lieutenant and deputy. ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... she saw Bea rush out, heard a faint scream, and a strange voice say, "catch her, she's falling;" then there came a tramp of feet across the porch, and four men crossed the hall, and came into the room with a strange burden; a rude litter, with a motionless figure on a mattress! Bea had fainted, for she had followed it, but as the men set their burden down with pitying faces, there came a shrill scream and a fall, for Ernestine dropped to the floor, and ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... hand aided by his teeth. He stooped and felt on the ground in the darkness and rain, for a stick, by means of which to tighten it still more; for the bleeding, though considerably checked, was by no means stanched. But sticks, stones, and every kind of litter, had long been banished thence; his fingers came in contact with nothing but the smooth, velvety turf, and with a muttered curse, he rose and fled again; for the flashing of lights, the loud ringing of a bell, peal after peal, and ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley

... an old soldier wearing rusty good-conduct stripes, is always lying on the litter with a pipe between his teeth. He has a grim, surly, battered-looking face, overhanging eyebrows which give him the expression of a sheep-dog of the steppes, and a red nose; he is short and looks thin and scraggy, but he is of imposing deportment and his fists ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Street litter, rundown parking strips and yards, dilapidated fences, broken windows, smoking automobiles, dingy working places, all should be the object of our ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... will have some sort of litter rigged up and we will carry you. I am not going to let you walk ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... live a life of cultivated enjoyment. Only be careful to nurse your weak health and to continue your present care of it, so that you may be able to visit my country houses and make excursions with me in my litter. I have written you a longer letter than usual, from superabundance, not of leisure, but of affection, because, if you remember, you asked me in one of your letters to write you something to prevent you feeling sorry at having missed the games. And if I have succeeded in that, I am ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... be backward, and the corn not off the ground, the booths, nevertheless, are erected, the farmers being, as they admit, more than indemnified for their losses in that case, by the immense quantity of litter, offal, and soil left on the ground after the standings and booths are cleared away; besides which, they seize on every thing left upon the land after a fixed day. This has sometimes occurred, and the forfeiture of the goods and chattels so seized has ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various

... control herself. There were piles of newspapers heaped up against the shelves; books run to the ceiling, old, old books with the covers tumbling off them. On the stone mantelpiece was a perfect litter—old pipes, bundles of letters, a ball of string, some yellow photographs, a crucifix and a small plant dead ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... churchyard wall, look like litter driven thither by the steppe wind, and as liable to be whirled away again whenever the wind shall choose. Three of the party are sleeping, and the remainder either mending their clothing, or killing fleas, or lethargically munching bread collected at the windows of the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... searchers have been equally successful. As soon as a body is found it is placed on a litter and sent to the Morgue, where it is washed and placed on a board for several ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... beyond the cabin Breed and Shady were educating their third litter of pups. The nature of the country had prevented the excavating of a proper den and Shady had taken possession of a windfall. Breed was vastly disgusted with this new land, heartily sick of being shut in by the interminable hills and of traveling through swampy jungles of tall brush, ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... antique shops of the French quarter, with their gray, undulating floors and their piled-up, dusty litter of old furniture, plate, glass, and china, and the equally numerous old book stores, with their piles of French publications, their shadowy corners, their pleasant ancient bindings and their stale smell, are peculiarly reminiscent of similar ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... day, and month, and year, His Honor, Doctor Juan Martinez de Rozas, Councilor of the Royal Audience of this Kingdom, and learned in the law of this Intendency, ordered the captain of the ship San Dominick, Don Benito Cereno, to appear; which he did, in his litter, attended by the monk Infelez; of whom he received the oath, which he took by God, our Lord, and a sign of the Cross; under which he promised to tell the truth of whatever he should know and should be asked;—and being ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... or the campus, in the circus, in the bath? Has he caught the plague or got a sunstroke? Nothing of the kind; the Christians have caught hold of him. Young and old, rich and poor, my lady in her litter and her slave, modest maid and Lydia at the Thermae, nothing comes amiss to them. All confidence is gone; there's no one we can reckon on. I go to my tailor's: 'Nergal,' I say to him, 'Nergal, I want a new tunic,' The wretched ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... long beards, the yellow streaks of sect, the turbans and the flowing robes, the spears and the silver maces, the elephants with their canopies of state, the gorgeous palanquin of the prince, and the close litter of the noble lady, all these things were to him as the objects amidst which his own life had been passed, as the objects which lay on the road between Beaconsfield and St. James's Street. All India was present to the eye of his mind, from the hall where suitors laid gold and perfumes ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the other hand, the captain of the guard, who ought to have kept the sentinels to their duty, was thrown headlong from the Capitol. In memory of this event, a goose was annually carried in triumph on a soft litter, finely adorned; whilst dogs were held in abhorrence, and were impaled every year on a branch ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... besides, that Pericles made use of engines of battery in this siege, being much taken with the curiousness of the invention, with the aid and presence of Artemon himself, the engineer, who, being lame, used to be carried about in a litter, where the works required his attendance, and for that reason was called Periphoretus. But Heraclides Ponticus disproves this out of Anacreon's poems, where mention is made of this Artemon Periphoretus several ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... open door. The staircase was brilliantly lighted: servants carrying wax candles in massive silver candlesticks stood there, and bowed low before an old woman, who was being brought downstairs in a litter. The proprietor of the house stood bare-headed, and respectfully imprinted a kiss on the hand of the old woman. She was his mother. She nodded in a friendly manner to him and to the servants, and they carried her into the dark narrow street, ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... interesting. The scavengers, constables and officers of the wards were ordered, "on pain of death," to see all streets and yards kept clear of dung and rubbish and all other filthy and corrupt things. Carts went round every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, to carry off the litter from the houses, and on each of those days twelve buckets of water were drawn for "every person," and used in cleaning their ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... sweet to him. He felt the relief of coming to an end after a journey that had not been without dangers. For, during his intercourse with Sir Graham, he had often walked upon the edge of tragedy. Now he no longer looked down from that precipice. He leaned his arm on the table, among the litter of papers connected with parish affairs, and rested his head in his hand. Almost unconsciously, at that moment he began to rejoice at his own boldness in deviating from the strict path of uncompromising rectitude. For ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... the mean room, with its litter of newspapers and reports, its shabby furniture, and these seemed to have become incongruous, out of figure in the chair facing me keeping with the thoughtful figure in the chair ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... trampled down, the windows broken, and one of the lower ones smashed in as if an entry had been effected here. The door was riddled with bullet holes. Upon this being opened the destruction within was seen to be complete, rooms being strewn with broken furniture and litter ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... slaughtered two fat pigs which had been brought on purpose. The middle deck was swept out, all the litter was cleared away, and flags were hung round the walls and ceiling. The Chukchis brought willow bushes from the valleys beyond the mountains to the south, and branches were fastened round a trunk ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... back) I and old Mrs. Thorndyke's gardener carried a sick woman on a litter from Pagley Railway Station to the White Lion, at Market-Sinfield. Oh, she was a weight! (sits ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero

... farm wagon was heaped the litter of household effects. These people were whipped, starved out, beaten. Ham Burton turned on his heel and trudged away. His father's farm was little more productive than this one, but his father had that uncompromising iron in his blood that ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... animal about the place knew it. The cat jumped fearlessly to his knee, sure of a welcome. The cow lowed after him if he showed himself at the window. The little chicks fluttered to his shoulder when he appeared in the door-yard, and the old sow with her litter of pigs kept close at his heels as he paced the orchard, ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... offer, which Eagle Eye interpreted for them, with many signs of pleasure; and in a moment had taken down the cottonwood lodge-poles cut the previous day, and brought straps and ropes. But it was mid-afternoon before the rude litter was finished. Two poles were fastened to the hind axle of the wagon, the width of the wheels apart; across them other poles were roped after having been chopped into short lengths; and on top of these were laid some buffalo robes, ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... was sitting at his desk, confronted by a litter of papers and letters, which I knew to be the mail he had just brought home and flung there. But he wasn't looking at anything on his desk. He was merely sitting there staring vacantly out of the window ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... and setting off to right and to left Saale-ward, are what we take to be two brooks; at least are two hollows: and behind these, the country rises higher; undulating still on lazy terms, but now painted azure by the distance, not unpleasant to behold, with its litter all lapped out of sight, and its poor brooks tinkling forward (as we judge) into the Saale, Merseburg way, or reverse-wise into the Unstrut, the last big branch of Saale. Southward from our Janus Height, eight or nine miles off, may be seen some ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... their officers at their head. Four hundred of the sultan's young pages carried flambeaux on each side, which, together with the illuminations of the sultan's and Aladdin's palaces, made it as light as day. In this order the princess, conveyed in her litter, and accompanied also by Aladdin's mother, carried in a superb litter and attended by her women slaves, proceeded on the carpet which was spread from the sultan's palace to that of Aladdin. On her arrival Aladdin was ready to receive ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... three ounces of bay salt, two ounces and a half of saltpetre, and one pound of the coarsest brown sugar, in a quart of strong old beer. When this pickle is cold, well rub the hams or faces with it every day for a fortnight. Smoke them with horse litter for two hours; then hang them to dry in a chimney where wood is burned for a fortnight, after which, hang them in a dry place till wanted for use. They are not so good if used under eight months or after a ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury

... her and her innocent infant. But no! She was [274] doomed to captivity; and with her helpless babe in her arms, was led off from this scene of horror and of wo. The wounded savage was carried on a rough litter, and they all departed, crossing the ridge to Bingamon creek, near which they found a cave that afforded them shelter and concealment.[5] After night, they returned to Edward Cunningham's, and finding no one, plundered and fired ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... a low hovel made of mud and thatched with rushes. It was about fifteen yards long, with only one small door, and seemed to be uninhabited, for no person answered me when I rode round it shouting aloud. I heard a grunting and squealing within, and by and by a sow, followed by a litter of young pigs, came out, looked at me, then went in again. I would have ridden on, but my horses were tired; besides, a great storm with thunder and lightning was coming up, and no other shelter appeared in sight. I therefore unsaddled, loosed my horses to feed, and took ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... his poor heart-stricken wife plead that he might be left there until he recovered, or even until his wound was dressed; but she pleaded in vain. On a litter, faint from loss of blood, and groaning with pain, he was carried off to prison. By his side walked her whom no ill treatment or ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... nodded. "I know it, too; 'Musky' is the very word—the smell of sun-warmed fur. Jove, how it carries me back! I remember once, years ago, coming upon a litter of lion cubs, in a cave, when I ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... scattered about. Easels with and without pictures, studies, paintings in oil and water-colors, bric-a-brac of every shape and kind, from pretty to ugly, a cabinet, some book-shelves, a wide, tempting lounge in faded raw silk, with immense, loose cushions, two tables full of litter, and several lounging chairs. Evidently Marcia is not of ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... then placed upon an easy litter, formed of great-coats buttoned together, and supported by the strongest men present, who held it one or two at each corner. In this manner they advanced at a slow pace, until they reached Owen Reillaghan's house, where they found ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... The poor fellow was carried out of the jungle in an evidently dying state, and a caste dispute arose over him, the particulars of which I have given in my chapter on caste. After doing what we could for him we placed him on a rough litter and he was carried to the rear. I confess that after such an exhibition of temper on the part of the tiger and the nature of the jungle I, being Europeanly speaking single-handed, was not so very comfortable at the idea of approaching him, but ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... lamented, there came men bearing Hercules in a litter. He was asleep, for the pain had left him for a space, and the old man that was guide to the company was earnest with Hyllus that he should not wake his father. Nevertheless, Hercules heard the young man's voice, and his sleep left him. Then he cried aloud in his agony, complaining to ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church

... was no litter, as could be found in any city. No fallen twig or leaf was allowed to remain on the ground of the village. Grass and moss grew on unused ground and on hillsides, but before each hut, the growth gave way to the forecourt and the ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole

... morning the cavalcade dispersed. The wounded diverged towards the river, with the intention of taking water at Peekskill, in order to be transported to the hospitals of the American army above. The litter of Singleton was conveyed to a part of the Highlands where his father held his quarters, and where it was intended that the youth should complete his cure; the carriage of Mr. Wharton, accompanied by a wagon conveying the housekeeper and what baggage had been saved, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... He felt hot and uncomfortable. He stretched himself and rolled over on his back. He gazed upward through the tangle of branches and tried to relax again. But the heat had become unbearable. He struggled to his feet and brushed the litter from his clothes. Away in each direction stretched the field. It was dry and dusty and covered with a short, cutting stubble beneath the upper surface of waving grass and weeds. It no longer held any allurement for him and yet he did not want to go back to the house. He looked at his ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... to open the gate and soon arrived at the spot with a litter, guided by the groom, whose horse had refused to jump the brook, and who since then had followed the race on foot outside the track. While the General placed Zibeline on the litter, the groom took Aida by the bridle, and the sad procession made its way slowly ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa

... when, after the achievement of Independence, and the final fulfilment of all that was declared in the verse of Turgot, he undertook to return home, the Queen—who had looked with so little favor upon the cause which he so grandly represented—sent a litter to receive his sick body and carry him gently to the sea. As the great Revolution began to show itself, his name was hailed with new honor; and this was natural, for the great Revolution was the outbreak of that spirit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... I. dedicated the litter in which he had journeyed thus far, and mounting his horse at the cathedral door rode through the priory gateway bent on the conquest of Scotland. He never lived to reach that country, for he died in sight of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley

... 300,000 men and 5000 elephants. His particular guard was 30,000. When the king rides abroad, he is accompanied by a strong guard and many nobles, and often rides on an elephant having a great castle on its back superbly gilded; sometimes he travels on a great frame of wood like a horse-litter, having a small house or canopy upon it, covered over head, and open at the sides, which is all splendidly gilded with gold, and adorned with many rubies and sapphires, of which he hath an infinite store, as a vast many of them are found ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... the soldiers, many of whom had borne with the cruelty and insolence of their prisoner, were little inclined to mercy. He struggled, cursing, but they bore him down, binding him hand and knee to an open litter, so he stood, like a beast, upon all fours, for such, indeed, was the order of the king. Then they put on him the skin of a wild ass and carried him up and down, jeering as the long ears flapped. Vergilius, returning, removed ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller

... to see the door open and the coffin brought out. A funeral procession in India is of much greater possible interest, because most Hindus are carried to the place of burning, or burial, as the case may be, on a flat bamboo litter with the face visible, so that you have the opportunity of recognising, or not, the face of a friend in the passing corpse. Yet few use the opportunity, and the sight does not appear to excite the slightest curiosity. Nobody bestows ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... o'clock, and strolled westwards towards Bexhill. Our pleasure was exquisite. Who can tell, save the imprisoned Londoner, the joy of walking on the clean sea-sand! What a delight that was, to say nothing of the beauty of the scenery! To be free of the litter and filth of a London suburb, of its broken hedges, its brickbats, its torn advertisements, its worn and trampled grass in fields half given over to the speculative builder: in place of this, to tread the immaculate shore over which breathed a wind not ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford

... also lost sight of his prey. And while he endeavoured to find out the east of the place he was in, he perceived at a distance a pretty large troop of men. He approached them, and as he drew near he could distinguish a body of forty knights,[11] surrounding a splendid litter, the brightness of which was heightened by the rays of the sun. This carriage was made of rock crystal, the mouldings and hinges were of carved gold, and the roof, in form of a crown, was made of wood of aloes, having ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... mechanic as well as surgeon, proceeded to invent, and with his own hands in a great measure construct, a kind of litter, which, with a water-bed laid upon it, could be placed in our own carriage for Connie to lie upon, and from that lifted, without disturbing her, and placed in a similar manner in the railway carriage. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... annoyed. Kate stepped into the bare, unkempt room. Remnants of a miserable makeshift meal were to be seen on a rickety cutting-table; the bed was unmade; and on the desk, in the center of the room, a drop-lamp with a leaking tube polluted the air. There was a formidable litter of papers on a great table, and before it stood a swivel chair where Lena Vroom had been sitting preparing ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... us as to one of the Sicilian governors, "which of course he did not in winter, but only at the beginning of spring— not the spring of the calendar but the beginning of the season of roses— he had himself conveyed, as was the custom with the kings of Bithynia, in a litter with eight bearers, sitting on a cushion of Maltese gauze stuffed with rose-leaves, with one garland on his head, and a second twined round his neck, applying to his nose a little smelling bag of fine linen, with minute meshes, filled with roses; and thus he had himself ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... this, he had himself carried in a litter, sick as he was, to the honourable council, and asked them, "Was this justice, to release an incendiary from prison? If they sought justice for themselves, let them deal it out to others. No one had lost more by the transaction than he: his income for the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... discovered something. Black Eyes' fears had not been for herself alone. She is going to have babies. The estimate is for thirty-five little tarsier-eyed creatures. No doctor in the world will be able to do anything but deliver the litter. ...
— Black Eyes and the Daily Grind • Milton Lesser

... begg'd a fortnight more. Her little pups, she said, could hardly walk. In short, the lender yielded to her talk. The second term expired; the friend had come To take possession of her house and home. The bitch, this time, as if she would have bit her, Replied, 'I'm ready, madam, with my litter, To go when you can turn me out.' Her pups, you see, were fierce ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... have been supplied with plenty of litter, fresh dung contains an insufficient quantity of water to induce an active fermentation. In this case, fresh dung can not be properly fermented under cover, except water or liquid manure is pumped over the heap from time ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris

... would lead them to the mouth of the old Shumway cut and push them in," he threatened, shaking his fist toward the door. "I would stand aside and see the whole town struggle and drown in the black water as untouched as though I watched the drowning of a litter of ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson

... appointed rooms on the fourteenth floor, Robert Underwood sat before the fire puffing nervously at a strong cigar. All around him was a litter of objets d'art, such as would have filled the heart of any connoisseur with joy. Oil paintings in heavy gilt frames, of every period and school, Rembrandts, Cuyps, Ruysdaels, Reynoldses, Corots, Henners, some on easels, some resting on ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... lilacs became part of this child, And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird, And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... an extra cot, Mrs. Douglas, and it won't take any time to fix that litter. We can use some of our tent poles. I'll be glad to fix the thing up in ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... man, the less he encumbers himself with matters which can be delegated to others. His desk is clear of all litter and minutia—likewise his mind. Such men keep their physiques and mentalities in fine working order and are not to be goaded into ill temper. A refinement of mind is supremely essential to the man who desires to climb to the very top of the ladder. He cannot afford to close his ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks

... lived there? I asked. Five months. He had found the cave one day when in chase of a wild sow and her litter. Afraid of being shot by the Siumu people? No, he was on good terms with them. Very often he would shoot a wild pig and carry it to a certain spot on the road, and leave it for the villagers. But he could not go ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... The last litter drawn by, the enormous crowd breaks up; tall candles are offered to those standing near, and a procession is formed, headed by the bishop under his gold and white baldachin, a large number of priests following behind, then several hundred men, women, and children, the black and white robes of the ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... world of Agamogenesis. But passing over this difficulty, and supposing a male and female Dog to be produced at the same time from the Hyaena stock, the progeny of the pair, if the analogy of the simpler kinds of Agamogenesis [4] is to be followed, should be a litter, not of puppies, but of young Hyenas. For the Agamogenetic series is always, as we have seen, A: B: A: B, etc.; whereas, for the production of a new species, the series must be A: B: B: B, etc. The production of new species, or genera, is the extreme ...
— Criticisms on "The Origin of Species" - From 'The Natural History Review', 1864 • Thomas H. Huxley

... of all would it occur to Martha Grimm, with a child of her own to rear, to call her in the wrong. With a litter of five hearty pups to provide for, Jenny was animated by a holy maternal instinct. But Tog, which was the one with the black eye, was not to be justified. He was imitating his mother's tactics with diabolical success. A half-circle of ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... caste-fellows sprinkle turmeric and water over the parties. Before the wedding the ceremony of Benaiki is performed; in this the bridegroom, riding on a horse, and the bride on a decorated chair or litter, go round their villages and say farewell to their friends and relations. Sometimes they have a procession in this way round the marriage-shed. Among the Marwari Banias a toran or string of mango-leaves is ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... of the fingers were five other rows of hands, continuing the star-like circle. These were in half relief on the wall, the figure itself standing out some feet, as if to receive and appropriate the offerings of corn, flowers, oil, &c., which already began to be laid at its feet. Among the litter I remarked several tame partridges and "chickore" walking about, probably sacred to ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight



Words linked to "Litter" :   birth, stretcher, stuff, be, litter-basket, animal group, sedan chair, bedding, palankeen, litterer, material, straw, bedding material, conveyance, have, Kitty Litter



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