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Mat   Listen
noun
Mat  n.  
1.
A thick flat fabric of sedge, rushes, flags, husks, straw, hemp, or similar material, placed on the floor and used for wiping and cleaning shoes at the door, for covering the floor of a hall or room to protect its surface, and for other purposes.
2.
Any similar flat object made of fabric or other material, such as rubber or plastic, placed flat on a surface for various uses, as for covering plant houses, putting beneath dishes or lamps on a table, securing rigging from friction, and the like.
3.
Anything growing thickly, or closely interwoven, so as to resemble a mat in form or texture; as, a mat of weeds; a mat of hair.
4.
An ornamental border made of paper, pasterboard, metal, etc., put under the glass which covers a framed picture; as, the mat of a daguerreotype.
Mat grass. (Bot.)
(a)
A low, tufted, European grass (Nardus stricta).
(b)
Same as Matweed.
Mat rush (Bot.), a kind of rush (Scirpus lacustris) used in England for making mats.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mat" Quotes from Famous Books



... he made me partake. This I did very willingly, for I was very hungry, and the viands looked very tempting. When I had eaten a good meal, I jumped up and shook the old chief and his son very heartily by the hand; and then sitting down on a mat, I threw myself back, and began singing away at the top of my voice, as if I had been perfectly contented with my lot. When, however, I got up to leave the house, signs were made to me that I was to stay where I was. This, I concluded, was that notice might be given to the people that I was tabooed, ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... labor Male activities Female activities Male industries in detail Boat building Mining Plaiting and other activities Female industries in detail Weaving and its accessory processes Pottery Tailoring and mat making ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... that I was eager to do it. We three were very comfortable at Mat Cottage, "Mat" being the name Charlie Sands, Tish's nephew, had given it, being the initials of "Middle-Aged Trio." Not that I regard the late forties as middle-aged. But Tish, of course, is fifty. ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... in the search, Katherine looked carefully in the hall, but in vain, when her young assistant gave a cry of joy; she had almost trodden on them as they lay between a mangy mat and ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... and the servants' wing, the rest of the house was all Elsie's. She was always a restless, wandering child from her early years, and would have her little bed moved from one chamber to another,—flitting round as the fancy took her. Sometimes she would drag a mat and a pillow into one of the great empty rooms, and, wrapping herself in a shawl, coil up and go to sleep in a corner. Nothing frightened her; the "haunted" chamber, with the torn hangings that flapped like wings when there was air ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... afternoon was dark—lighted by two swinging lanterns suspended from the low roof. By that illumination Father Anthony saw two men stripped naked, save for a loincloth, and circling each other slowly in the center of a ring which was fenced in with ropes and floored with a padded mat. ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand

... to the window, dear, and wait till you hear me open the inside door," said she. "I'll run through the house and enter from the living-room. The key is under the mat, you know." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... of satisfaction possessed the man, and next day Letia, the "show" girl of the village, visiting Challis's store to buy a tin of salmon, saw Nalia, the Lucky One, seated on a mat beneath the seaward side of the trader's house, surrounded by a billowy pile of yellow silk, ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke

... predicaments and frailties, at his decease we resolved, in our trouble, that we would never own another dog. But this, like many another resolution of our life, has been broken; and here is Nick, the Newfoundland, lying sprawled on the mat. He has a jaw set with strength; an eye mild, but indicative of the fact that he does not want too many familiarities from strangers; a nostril large enough to snuff a wild duck across the meadows; knows how to shake hands, and can talk with head, and ear, and tail; and, save ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... surprised, when he reached the house and looked up mechanically at the windows, to see that there was no light. He went upstairs and knocked, but got no answer. When Mildred went out she left the key under the mat and he found it there now. He let himself in and going into the sitting-room struck a match. Something had happened, he did not at once know what; he turned the gas on full and lit it; the room was suddenly filled with the glare and he looked round. He ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... dress as she left her room reached us in the silence. I remained at the open door of the dining-room, and Maria approached and stood near me. We were both frightened. Euneece stepped forward, and stood on the mat at the foot of the stairs, waiting. Her back was toward me; I could only see that she was as still as a statue. The rustling of the dress came nearer. Oh, heavens! what was going to happen? My teeth chattered in my head; I held by Maria's shoulder. Drops of perspiration showed themselves ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... then the abattis of splintered old trunks, of lopped limbs, and entangled branches, piled up like jackstraws to the height of even six or eight feet from the ground; the unsightly mat of sodden old masses of pine needles and cedar fans; the hundreds of young saplings bent double by the weight of debris, broken square off, or twisted out of all chance of becoming straight trees in their ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... closed the door, and Douglas Stone walked down the narrow passage, glancing about him in some surprise as he did so. There was no oilcloth, no mat, no hat-rack. Deep grey dust and heavy festoons of cobwebs met his eyes everywhere. Following the old woman up the winding stair, his firm footfall echoed harshly through the silent house. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... it only one of the multiple phenomena and not the supreme act of existence, and witness it or submit to it with profound indifference. Travellers have often seen a Canaque stretch his body on a mat, while in perfect health, and without any symptom of disease whatever, and there wait patiently for the end, convinced that it is near, and refuse all nourishment and die without any apparent suffering. His relatives say of him, "He feels he is going to die," and the imaginary ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... used. The roses are placed in immense Oriental bowls on polished table tops. The tea table has an immense basket of pink and white roses in rare varieties and the surface of the table is covered with a smilax mat bordered with pink roses and tiny electric light bulbs looking like glow worms. The ice cream is in the shape of a pink cup with green handles filled with fruit the whole being of ice cream and very delicious. With this is served little pink cakes and candy ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce

... grow attached to such as show them confidence and kindness. I often rallied poor Oddity upon his melancholy after the boys had been taken away. Bright-eyes told him that he ought to have been a cat, to sit purring on a mat before the fire, and lick the hand of some old maiden lady, who would feed him with porridge and milk. I said that he should be kept in a gentleman's house, with a bell round his neck, as rats sometimes are in Germany, to frighten ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... up a little, but Sniegirev, the porter, said that it was impossible for me to do so, and that I should only spoil the brush, which belonged to the Government. Thus, my darling, do such fellows rate me lower than the mat on which they wipe their boots! What is it that will most surely break me? It is not the want of money, but the LITTLE worries of life—these whisperings and nods and jeers. Anyday his Excellency himself may round upon me. Ah, dearest, my golden ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... and green boughs, we made for our shelter a roof that was tight enough to keep out the snow. Except that we made a little mat of bark and dry fir brush, to lie on, and that Addison brought an armful of curled bark from the birches and a quantity of dry sticks to burn now and then, that was the extent of our preparation for the night. We ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... serves for every purpose, and is often shared with pigs and poultry. These Indians do not eat meat once a month, nay, scarcely once a year. Some wild fruits are added to their humble fare, which consists almost wholly of tortillas, or cake made from maize and half baked over charcoal. A rush mat serves them for a bed, a serape as an overcoat by day and a blanket at night. The men wear a coarse, unbleached cotton shirt and cotton drawers reaching to the knees, leaving legs and feet bare. The women wear ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... Simons at the table of that good soul's married daughter; the same who had suckled little Sarah. Esther's frequent eulogiums had secured the poor lonely narrow-chested seamstress this enormous concession and privilege. Bobby squatted on the mat in the passage ready to challenge Elijah. At this table there were two pieces of fried fish sent to Mrs. Simons by Esther Ansell. They represented the greatest revenge of Esther's life, and she felt remorseful towards Malka, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... leaning in the doorway to the dining room, with the emptied goblet, and a curious, introspective expression on his mobile countenance. "He ought to be hung!" he exclaimed sharply. The fellow should see himself as a mat for Mariana's feet. But that wasn't life, he realized; existence seemed to become more and more heedless of the proprieties, of the simplest concessions to duty. He saw the world as a ship which, admirably navigated a score or more years ago, had jammed its rudder. No ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... prefixes—devilgrass. It was yellow, the dirty, grayish yellow of moldy straw; and bald, scuffed spots immodestly exposed the cracked, parched earth beneath. Over the walk, interwoven stolons had been felted down into a ragged mat, repellent alike to foot and eye. Perversely, onto what had once been flowerbeds, the runners crept erect, bristling spines showing faintly green on top—the only live color in the miserable expanse. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... twelve Father Goulden and I were both at work, each one thinking after his own fashion, and Catherine was laying the cloth. I started to go out to wash my hands at the pump, as I always did before dinner, when I saw an old woman wiping her feet on the straw mat at the foot of the stairs and shaking her skirts which were covered with mud. She had a stout staff, and a large rosary hung from her neck. As I looked at her from the top of the stairs, she began to come up and I recognized her immediately by the folds about her ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... infuriating benevolence. Lamb—but I am getting tired of his smirk, which might be of irony or kindness. He would look savage enough today, hearing his constantly returning Dissertation on Roast Pig thump the door-mat four times a week; for that, he can be assured, is the way editors would treat it now, and without even preliminary consultations with lady typist-secretaries. Of the whole gallery of the great I felt there was not one worth his wall room. They are pious frauds. This inspiration business ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... turned away with a bow, and called his coxswain—"Williams, you'll go on board, and tell my steward that I have promised to dine with the governor to-day, and that he must come to dress me; and, coxswain, recollect to put the sheepskin mat on the stern gratings of my gig—not the one I used to have when I was on shore in my carriage, but the blue one which was used for the chariot—you know which I mean." I happened to look Swinburne in the face, who cocked his eye ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... said the porter, in reply to my question. He walked off, taking with him the door mat, an umbrella that stood in the hall, four coats and three hats that hung on the rack, besides numerous other small portable articles of vertu that would have come handy ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various

... Sheming, she did not like to think she was stirring up trouble for her school-mate's father. Just then the outer door of the inn opened and a man entered, stamping the snow from his boots upon the wire mat. ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson

... the door mat.] All right, Mrs. Browning. Don't you fluster. Good morning, Dorry. How ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... amazing vigour in many of the rivers, forming stems 12 feet long and 3/4 inch in diameter, and completely choking them up. It cost L300 a year to keep the Avon at Christchurch free from it. The sorrel (Rumex acetosella) covers hundreds of acres with a sheet of red. It forms a dense mat, exterminating other plants, and preventing cultivation. It can, however, be itself exterminated by sowing the ground with red clover, which will also vanquish the Polygonum aviculare. The most noxious weed in New Zealand appears, ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... whose favourite sleeping-place was the mat at his door, lying there as usual, but not asleep. Wide awake, as if on guard. And marvel of marvels! a dear little fair-haired boy fast, fast asleep, with his head on the dog, who was lying so as to make himself into as ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... at all neat about his premises, this old cook was very particular about them; he had a warm love and affection for his cook-house. In fair weather, he spread the skirt of an old jacket before the door, by way of a mat; and screwed a small ring-bolt into the door for a knocker; and wrote his name, "Mr. Thompson," over it, with a bit of ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... a color is that strange mixture which makes, which does make which does not make a ripe juice, which does not make a mat. ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein

... vessels, or in ground cavities lined with skins, by means of heated stones. They were ignorant of pottery. "On entering one of their houses he [Captain Clarke] found it crowded with men, women, and children, who immediately provided a mat for him to sit on, and one of the party undertook to prepare something to eat. He began by bringing in a piece of pine wood that had drifted down the river, which he split into small pieces with a wedge made of the elk's horn by means of a mallet of ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... ill. But no, I must not be afraid of that. Give me a little more, and you may have a sip too, but only a sip; you must not get used to it, my poor, dear child." She stepped up to the bridge on which the boy stood as she spoke, and came on shore. The water dripped from the straw mat which she had bound round her body, and from her gown. "I work hard and suffer pain with my poor hands," said she, "but I do it willingly, that I may be able to bring you up honestly and truthfully, my ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... to them the objects of their expedition, expressing their determination to proceed at all risks, and making them some presents. They requested the assistance of two guides, to put them in their way; which request the natives readily granted, returning for their presents a mat, which served them as a bed during the voyage. The next day, being the 10th of June, the two Miamis, their guides, embarked with them in sight of all the inhabitants of the village who looked with astonishment on the hardihood of seven Frenchmen in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... incomparablement plus porte au mat qu'au bien, et il se fait dans le monde incomparablement plus de mauvaises actions que de bonnes—est aussi certaine qu'aucun principe de metaphysique. Il est donc incomparablement plus probable qu'une action faite par un homme, est mauvaise, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... said Jane, indignantly. "I should have known it at once, even without the hideous sign, for its smugly dreary look of good works! Why must they have that liver-colored glass in the door?" They mounted the worn steps. "And 'Welcome' on the mat! Oh, Michael Daragh, how ghastly! Who did ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... On the rush-mat below and that of fine bamboos above it, May he repose in slumber! May he sleep and awake, (Saying), 'Divine for me my dreams[1]. What dreams are lucky? They have been of bears and grisly bears; They have been of cobras ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... pure lead saturated with a still fluid enriched alloy. If the solidification of an ingot of impure tin be watched it will be evident that the frosted appearance of the surface is due to the withdrawal of the fluid portion from a mat of crystals of purer tin which have been for some time solid and a contraction of the mass. The shrinking of the last part to become solid is further shown by the collapse of the surface of the ingot where weakest; that is, a furrow is formed on the flat surface. In other ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer

... sort of mud cave, man-made and door-less, the uneven earth floor covered with excrement, human and otherwise. I returned to peer into the mat-roofed yard with piles of corn-stalks and un-threshed beans, and met the man of the house just arriving with his labor-worn burros. He was a sinewy peasant of about fifty, dressed like all country peons in shirt and tight trousers of thinnest ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... homes of the foreign residents has a very pleasant look. The "aborigines" have not been crowded out of sight, or into a special "quarter." We saw many groups of them sitting under the trees outside their houses, each group with a mat in the centre, with calabashes upon it containing poi, the national Hawaiian dish, a fermented paste made from the root of the kalo, or arum esculentum. As we emerged on the broad road which leads up the Nuuanu ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... thirty-five years have passed since my father, returning from the scene of Cummins' murder, related the circumstances. With Mat Bailey, the stage-driver, with whom Cummins had traveled that fatal day, he had ridden over the same road, had passed the large stump which had concealed the robbers, and had become almost an eye-witness of the whole affair. My father's rehearsal of it fired ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall

... he, showing us the way through a grove of shrubs, thick enough to hide entirely the entrance into a kind of grotto; we had to stoop to pass into it. It resembled much the entrance of the bear's den, which we found in the remote part of our island. A mat of rushes covered the opening, yet permitted the light to penetrate it. Francis removed the ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... ideas or ideals with his father, whom he was content to accept as a creature of inscrutable motives. Now, he resented his father's incursion. He considered his room as his castle, whereof his rightful exclusive dominion ran as far as the door-mat; and to placate his pride Darius should have indicated by some gesture or word that he admitted being a visitor on sufferance. It was nothing to Edwin that Darius owned the room and nearly everything in it. He was generally ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... meals, nor would he speak a word in bed. Though there were on the table nothing but coarse rice and vegetable soup, he would always reverently offer some of it to his ancestors. If his mat was not straight he ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... keep busy over what you can have;" so she set her brain hard to work over the play, trying to decide whether she would have Mr. Primrose, who was to be Ben, rescue from the bear the white cat, who was to be Phronsie, in the remains of the old white fuzzy mat that Mrs. Henderson had given them to play with, or whether she (Polly), who was to be the fairy, should change her back into the small damsel she was ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney

... noted for long memories, but their intentions were good, and the first day of Aunt Anne's visit passed very well, the children remembering to rub their feet on the mat, shut the door softly, and not fidget at meals. But the exertion seemed too much for them, and the second day began rather boisterously, and did not improve as it went on. After lunch, when the twins ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie

... and of the furniture found in European dwellings, make the rugs essential household articles rather than luxuries. The hearth-rug, the bath-mat, the divan-cover, the sleeping-blanket, and the saddle-mat must be regarded as necessities. Religion also has its requirements, and the prayer rug, sometimes ornamented with the hands of the Prophet, is a part of every household equipment, ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... or a hereditary curse. You may rob this lady's coco-patch, steal her canoes, burn down her house, and slay her family scatheless; but one thing you must not do: you must not lay a hand upon her sleeping-mat, or your belly will swell, and you can only be cured by the lady or her husband. Here is the report of an eye-witness, Tasmanian born, educated, a man who has made money—certainly no fool. In 1886 he was present in a house on Makatea, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the cabin; a door opened to frame a picture of a tall man. He was stooped; the years, or solitude, perhaps, had borne heavily upon him; his face was a mat of gray beard that was a continuation of the unkempt hair above. The rifle ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... however simple may be his own manner of life, and he loves especially to hear of the marvels of either eastern or western magnificence; so that when after an evening spent in listening to such recitals he lays his head upon his mat or his saddle, it is full to bursting of hanging gardens and marble palaces, high towers and the minarets of mosques, the gorgeous ceremonies of courts, the array and glitter of parades, and the gaudy street-pageants and bustle of affairs in the great ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie

... season of pancakes, which was all Lent was to me at the time of which I speak, the Carnival had rushed upon my sight, carrying all our friends through its whirlpool. Every gay cloth, shawl, and mat that could be brought into service I had rejoiced to see displayed upon the balconies. A narrow, winding street the Corso seemed, being so full, and the houses so high; and a merry blue strip of heaven ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... of this hard-worker preclude the notion of any oviparous act, and I take it that one "lays prone" as one lays a mat or strip of carpet, for the purpose of facilitating labour that is done on the knees or stomach. If I am right I should like to get my builder to order some for his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various

... of the face, causing irritation and loss of the hair. If improvement follows, this discharge becomes more tenacious, and tends to cause adhesion to the edges of the upper and lower lids and to mat together the eyelashes in bundles. This gradually decreases to the natural amount, and the redness and congested appearance of the eye disappears, but swelling, thickening, and stiffness of the lids may continue for a time. There may be more or less fever according to the violence ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... slowly and afterward stood for a long time under the shower, rubbing himself down with the care of an athlete, thumbing the soreness of the wild ride out of the lean, sinewy muscles, for his was a made strength built up in the gymnasium and used on the wrestling mat, the cinder path, and the football field. Drying himself with a rough towel that whipped the pink into his skin, he looked down over his corded, slender limbs, remembered the thick arms and Herculean torso of ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... but to their increasing the absorption of the thinner parts of it. So alum applied to the tip of the tongue does not stop in its action there, but independent of its diffusion it induces cohesion and corrugation over the whole mouth. (Cullen's Mat. Med. Art. Astringentia.) Which is owing to the association of the motions of the parts or branches of the absorbent system ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... made their way towards shore a canoe drifted out, and lying in it, wrapped in a native mat, was ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... out the pulpit, and having shut the door, I laid me down on the mat and cushion to sleep; when something thrust and pulled the door, as I thought, for admittance, which prevented my going to sleep. At last it cries, 'Bow, wow, wow;' and I concluded it must be Mr. Saunderson's dog, which had ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... hat from his mat of coarse iron-gray hair, and laid it carefully on the floor. Out of his small sharp eyes ignorance and cunning peered, and the mass of beard that hid the greater part of his face could not hide the hard line of ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler

... after, early in a morning, a great fire was made in a long house, and a mat spread on the one side as on the other; on the one they caused him to sit, and all the guard went out of the house, and presently came skipping in a great grim fellow, all painted over with coale mingled with oyle; and many Snakes and Wesels skins stuffed with mosse, and all their ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... HENSHAW let himself in at the front door, and stood for some time wiping his boots on the mat The little house was ominously still, and a faint feeling, only partially due to the lapse of time since breakfast, manifested itself behind his waistcoat. He coughed—a matter-of-fact cough—and, with an attempt to hum a tune, ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... Devoll (Bilisht), Dibre (Peshkopi), Durres, Elbasan, Fier, Gjirokaster, Gramsh, Has (Krume), Kavaje, Kolonje (Erseke), Korce, Kruje, Kucove, Kukes, Lac, Lezhe, Librazhd, Lushnje, Malesia e Madhe (Koplik), Mallakaster (Ballsh), Mat (Burrel), Mirdite (Rreshen), Peqin, Permet, Pogradec, Puke, Sarande, Shkoder, Skrapar (Corovode), Tepelene, Tirane, Tropoje (Bajram Curri), Vlore note: administrative divisions have the same names as their administrative centers (exceptions have the administrative ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... ready for instant use. Diagonally across his body ran a cord supporting a quiver, from which the feathered shafts of several arrows projected above his left shoulder. Around his waist looped another cord from which dangled a small loin mat. Otherwise he was totally ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... tantrum,—all over nothing at all. Little girls in tantrums are always amusing, but not always naughty. Permit me to assure you that your mother and I have not discussed your interesting affair with Mr. Lapelle. We talked of business mat—" ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... learned it all. Even the slight restrictions which her neat habits imposed on our breezy and turbulent natures seemed all quite graceful and becoming. It was right, in our eyes, to cleanse our shoes on scraper and mat with extra diligence, and then to place a couple of chips under the heels of our boots when we essayed to dry our feet at her spotless hearth. We marveled to see our own faces reflected in a thousand ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... about the garden, or as her white socks slipped over the mat-laid floor, she was the picture of grace itself. When at twilight, with her own hands, she lighted the gay lanterns that hung in festoons along the eaves of the tea-house above the verandah, her bright eyes sparkling, her red petticoats half visible through her semi-transparent crape ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... of red which must be Harry Fisher on his blood-bay, with a long-striding sorrel beside him that could carry no one except grim old Sliver Waldron. Behind these rode one with the light glinting on his silver conchos—Mat Henshaw, the town Beau Brummel—then the black Guss Reeve, and last of all "Ronicky" Joe on his pinto; "Ronicky" Joe, handy man at all things, and particularly guns. It showed how fast Pete Glass could work and how well he knew ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... improved his appearance very considerably. It may be that this growth had encouraged the hair on his scalp or stimulated it by rivalry to renewed effort: more likely the play of sunshine and sea-breeze had done the trick between them; but anyhow Farrell now possessed a light mat of silky yellowish hair on the top of his head—as the nigger song has it, in the place where the wool ought to grow. Shoes, blue dungaree trousers and a striped shirt were his clothing—the shirt opened at the throat and to the second button, disclosing a V of naked chest ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... deserve a place on this road. Why, bless you, you are fit to take my place. Not many trips did old Jack make without taking you with him. I used to fire for him, you know. He had a mat for you at his feet, and when too tired to keep awake longer you slept curled up on the footboard. Ah, it was something such a night as this when poor Jack made his last trip! It wasn't quite so dark it may be, but he was behind ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... with the chin-beard and knocked the portmanteau from his shoulder to the floor. With a face struck suddenly as white as paper, the man with the chin-beard called lamentably on the name of his Maker, and fell in a mere heap on the mat at the foot of the stairs. At the same time, though only for a single instant, the heads of the sick lodger and the Irish nurse popped out like rabbits over the banisters of the first floor; and on both the same scare ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... rug which we ever saw was made in part of a snow-white lamb's-wool mat. This was laid in the center of a stout burlap, which projected six inches beyond the fleece all around, and was bordered with a band of embroidery on canvas six inches wide, the whole being lined with flannel and finished with a cord and a heavy tassel at each corner. A simpler rug is made ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various

... up five copies of a recent "proclamation," entitled "Pobres Frailes" (Poor Friars), a small sheet possibly two inches wide and five long. These, crumpled up, were tucked into the case of the pillow which Mrs. Hervosa used on board. Later, rolled up in her blankets and bed mat, or petate, they went to the custom house along with the other baggage, and of course were discovered in the rigorous examination which the officers always made. How strict Philippine customs searches were, Henry Norman, an English writer of travels, explains by remarking that Manila ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... life,— his eyes sunken and dead, his cheeks fallen in against his teeth, his hands looking like claws; a dreadful cough, which seemed to rack his whole shattered system, a hollow, whispering voice, and an entire inability to move himself. There he lay, upon a mat, on the ground, which was the only floor of the oven, with no medicine, no comforts, and no one to care for or help him but a few Kanakas, who were willing enough, but could do nothing. The sight of him ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... not seem pleased with the captain's nonchalant attitude toward the Breeze and its editorial. She tapped the braided mat ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... had made life interesting to her was suddenly gone. She herself had not known, that, for the month past, since James came from sea, she had been living in an enchanted land,—that Newport harbor, and every rock and stone, and every mat of yellow seaweed on the shore, that the two-mile road between the cottage and the white house of Zebedee Marvyn, every mullein-stalk, every juniper-tree, had all had a light and a charm which were suddenly gone. There had not been an hour in the day for the last four ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... the situation was the dilapidated state of the house. It was built of wattle and mud, had a mat roof and a whitewashed interior. She did not, however, mind its condition; she was so absorbed in the work that personal comfort was a matter of indifference to her. Her household consisted of a young ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... man's equal. His wide-spreading shoulders were more rounded than square; his deep, arching chest, powerful, stocky nether limbs and disproportionately long, huge-biceped arms seeming to fit him as an exponent of the mat rather than the gloves. Truly a daunting figure to meet in a close-quarter, rough-and-tumble encounter! thought Redmond. The top of his head was completely bald; his thick, straight black brows indicating that what little close-cropped ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... twelue names of twelue apostlis and of the lombe. And he that spak with me hadde a goldun mesure of a rehed [reed] that he schulde mete the citee and the ghatis of it and the wall. And the citee was sett in a square, and the lengthe of it is so mych as mych as is the brede [breadth], and he mat [meted, measured] the citee with the rehed bi furlongis twelue thousyndis, and the highthe and the lengthe and breede of it ben euene. And he maat [meted, measured] the wallis of it of an hundride and foure and fourti cubitis bi mesure of man, that is, of an aungel. ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... litters, open at top, each carried on a dromedary, and in each a beautiful woman, who diverted the spectators with light balls of gilt leather, throwing them up both with their hands and feet. Nor were the mat-makers backward in the proof of their dexterity, since, instead of a common banner, they exhibited a large standard of reeds worked with two lines of writing in Kufic, proclaiming the happy names of ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... in its head, I must have been tried for a murder years ago, for I know it was loaded since I was a child, but that the lock has for the same space of time not been on speaking terms with the barrel. While, then, thus confirmed in our suspicions of mischief by Mat's warlike aspect, we both rose from the table, the door opened, and a young girl rushed in, and fell—actually threw herself into papa's arms. It was Nina herself, who had come all the way from Rome alone, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... in the sweating lodge and bath several times, his father commanded him to lie down upon a clean mat, in a little lodge apart from ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... fuelled and fanned by these good people. One day, before Khalid was banished, Shakib tells us, one of them, Father Farouche by name, comes to pay a visit of courtesy, and finds Khalid sitting cross-legged on a mat writing a letter. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... has ordinarily no table but the bare ground, and at best a coarse mat; he has no dishes but banana leaves and cocoanut shells, and no forks or spoons but his fingers. He brings water from a stream in a piece of bamboo about three joints long in which all but one joint ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed

... looked around her wistfully. The whitewashed walls were so painfully bare and staring that she thought they must ache over their own bareness. The floor was bare, too, except for a round braided mat in the middle such as Anne had never seen before. In one corner was the bed, a high, old-fashioned one, with four dark, low-turned posts. In the other corner was the aforesaid three-corner table adorned with a fat, red velvet pin-cushion hard enough to turn the ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... brothers-in-law, who had been in attendance on the body, painted themselves black all over, covered their heads with leaves, and walked in solemn procession, headed by the chief brother-in-law, who carried the skull in the basket. Meantime the male relatives were awaiting them, seated on a large mat in the ceremonial ground, while the women grouped themselves in the background. As the procession of men approached bearing the skull, the mourners shot arrows over their heads as a sign of anger at them for having decapitated their relation. ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... little girls in Miss May's room who stayed at home, too, but nearly every one came. The children thought it great fun to scramble through the snow, and then, when they reached Miss May's, to have Maria stand them on a mat of linoleum and brush them off with a whisk broom so that they should not carry snow ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White

... happy, smiling girl drew from her basket a number of frills and wristlets, a worsted-worked candle mat, and a cambric handkerchief, in one corner of which she had ingeniously worked Angeline's name. "They are all for you, Mother Angeline, all for you," she said, tossing them one after another into her lap. "You are so good. Keep them all until ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... he said, as he laid it down. "To think that Mat Jervoise should be an exile, his old home in the hands of strangers, and he a major in the Swedish service; and that I should never have heard a ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty

... when the coach at length drew up before the little green gate, which opened on the tidy little gravel walk, which led up to the little green wooden porch, which sheltered the little door which admitted you into little Satin Lodge. As Tag-rag stood for a moment wiping his wet shoes upon the mat, he could not help observing, for the first time, by the inward light of ten thousand a-year, how uncommon narrow the passage was; and thinking that Satin Lodge would never do, when he should be the ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... red, which is from October to December, and in this state it is fit to gather. If left for a few weeks longer on the trees, they expand, and become what are termed "mother cloves," fit only for seed or for candying. The ground under the tree is first swept clean, or else a mat or cloth is spread. The nearest clusters are taken off with the hand, and the more distant by the aid of crooked sticks. Great care should be taken not to injure the tree, as it ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... a good day at the office and have never been so loth to leave. I always felt I should get to like my work some time. I arrived home again about six. Celia was a trifle later, and I met her on the mat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various

... the servants were on the spot. In their excitement to subdue it, before the numerous visitors should be alarmed, they opened the aperture still more, so as to give free vent to the smoke. I at once told them their mistake, and, seizing the nearest door-mat, put it over the aperture; my example was followed, and other exits closed, the servants meanwhile carrying buckets of water below, where the fire had originated. Fortunately, the fire was soon extinguished, ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... the soldiers and their families live have no partitions, to each couple being assigned a space about eight feet square, which is chalk-marked on the floor. The only article of furniture in each of these "apartments" is a bed, which is really a broad, low platform covered with a grass-mat, for in a land where the mercury not infrequently climbs to 120 in the shade, there is no need for bedding. Here they eat and sleep and make their toilets, the women preparing the meals for their men and for themselves in ovens out-of-doors. At night the beds may be separated by drawing the flimsiest ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... born actress. We never did anything so well, not even the Witch's Curse,' said Mrs Jo, casting a bouquet of many-coloured socks at the feet of her flushed and panting niece, when she fell gracefully upon the door-mat. ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... again, not even when she presently said good-night to him, after having woke up the old mulatto woman who, with herself and her mother, were the only other inhabitants of the house, and told her to make up a couple of mat beds in the adjoining room. Federigo had before that gone in to his mother, and they could be heard ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie

... dearest child," she said, on the day following the Puppy Show that had coincided with Christian's eighth birthday, when, after a long search, she had discovered her youngest daughter, seated, tailor-wise, in one of the kennels, the centre of a mat of hounds. "This is not a not a place for you! You don't know what you may not bring ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... a mat facing each other, knees bent perpendicularly, toes touching opponent's. Pass stick under knees and clasp your hands in front of knees. When the signal is given, attempt to get your toes under opponent's toes ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low

... asked Elizabeth. She was evidently labouring under some strong excitement, for she panted as she spoke and so far forgot herself in her agitation as to take up the dust in the hall instead of sweeping it under the mat. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various

... being somehow, albeit colossal, yet slight. He was vastly delicate. His eyes and something about his face grew finer—grew, as people say, "interesting." His hair, after one cutting, began to tangle into a mat. "It's the degenerate strain coming out in him," said the parish doctor, marking these things, but just how far he was right in that, and just how far the youngster's lapse from ideal healthfulness was the result of living entirely in a whitewashed barn upon Lady ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... absolution! When these words were heard, the poor little bird Was so changed in a moment, 'twas really absurd: He grew slick and fat; in addition to that, A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat! His tail waggled more even than before; But no longer it wagged with an impudent air, No longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair. He hopped now about with a gait devout; At matins, at vespers, he never was out; And, so far from any more pilfering deeds, He always seemed telling ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... in at the front door, and stood for some time wiping his boots on the mat. The little house was ominously still, and a faint feeling, only partially due to the lapse of time since breakfast, manifested itself behind his waistcoat. He coughed—a matter- of-fact cough—and, with an attempt to hum a tune, ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... to which he might liken Hank, and after that Hank fought like a trapped bobcat, with snarls and kicks and gouging claws. He scratched Jack's neck with his grimy fingernails, and he tried to set his unwashed teeth into Jack's left ear while the two of them rolled over and over on the slippery mat of squaw-carpet. And for that he was pummeled unmercifully before Jack tore himself ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... he let it advance upon the scared boy: my Lady, with admirable presence of mind, kept up what she no doubt intended for a savage growl, though it was more like the purring of a cat: and Uggug backed out of the room with such haste that he tripped over the mat, and was heard to fall heavily outside— an accident to which even his doting mother paid no heed, in ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... world-end palace the strong Prince sat, Taking his ease on cushion and mat, Close at hand lay his staff and his hat "When wilt thou start? the bride waits, O youth."— "Now the moon's at full; I tarried for that, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... by no higher motive than that of pillage and gain. Rumours became rife in every village and hamlet, and as they neared the capital the wildest tales were told in every nook and corner of the city, from the palace of the young Emperor in the Forbidden City to the mat shed of the meanest ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... shelf was a beautiful pink sea-shell, lying on a mat made of balls of red-shaded worsted. This shell was greatly coveted by mother, but she was only allowed to play with it when she had been particularly good. Hiram had showed her how to hold it close to her ear and hear the roar of the sea ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... towards one another over it as a break to the force of the rain. The children might have been worse off though there was no window, and no door to close the opening. That mattered the less in the summer weather, and before winter came, Stead thought he could close it with a mat made of the bulrushes that stood up in the brook, lifting their ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the inner mat the mourner perceived a white square on the floor. He picked it up and carefully examined it, and then ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... a little elated, and she disregarded her father's invitation to be seated. She stood on the mat instead, and looked down on him. "Look here, daddy," she said, in a tone of great reasonableness, "I MUST go to that ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... had little thought of the priceless treasure hidden beneath the Ithaca's clean swept deck as he ordered his savage henchmen up her sides while he lay back upon his sleeping mat beneath the canopy which protected his vice-regal head from the blistering ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and all through his racing career he was not put to any severe test of speed, or most likely his name would have represented the double achievement of being a famous racer, and the sire of famous racers too. He was bought for 1,600l., the purchase being effected on the recommendation of Mat Dawson, the trainer, and the horse was then a two-year-old. That he could go at a terrific pace is proved by an observation made one day by Fred Archer to the trainer. St. Simon was at exercise when Archer's spur touched him, unintentionally by the jockey. He bounded into a gallop—a state ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard

... me before I was born that I might not have come into the world at all. They used to say in the market, and your mamma too, with great lack of delicacy, set off telling me that her hair was like a mat on her head, and that she was short of five foot by a wee bit. Why talk of a wee bit while she might have said 'a little bit,' like every one else? She wanted to make it touching, a regular peasant's feeling. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... before me, I said I was content, and that they could go back to their master, and tell him that in a month's time I would be ready and that he could come for me. This pleased my father, and although at night time I always slept between the two women, as is customary for a taupo, with a mat over me, and they lay on the outside, one on each side, yet in the day time I often met my lover in the forest, ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke

... were not defiled with women; for they are Virgins: and they follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth,' chap. xiv. 4. And as virgins signify the church, therefore the Lord likened it to ten Virgins invited to a marriage, Mat. xxv. And as Israel, Zion, and Jerusalem, signify the church, therefore mention is so often made in the Word, of the Virgin and Daughter of Israel, of Zion, and of Jerusalem. The Lord also describes his marriage with the church in ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... which a motlier crowd of people swarmed to stare at King and his men. There were houses built of stolen corrugated iron-that cursed, hot, hideous stuff that the West has inflicted on an all-too-willing East; others of wood—of stone—of mud—of mat of skins—even of tent-cloth. Most of them were filthy. A row of kites sat on the roof of one, and in the gutter near it three gorged vultures sat on the remains of a mule. Scarcely a house was fit to be defended, for Khinjan's fighting men all possess towers, that are plastered about ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... hour of rest, and are busy sweeping the floor with long palms made into a kind of broom. These are the poor students, whose only meal is of dry bread, and who at night stretch themselves to sleep on the same mat on which they have ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... could be seen a glimpse of madame's bedroom—a dainty interior. The wooden floor was snowy white, with here and there a bright-colored mat spread on it; the brown roughly-hewn bedstead was covered with a quilt of palest pink and blue patchwork, the patient result of the old lady's ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy

... had rung so sweetly over the hillsides of the verdant isle as our young friend Will Corrie. Nothing could delight the heart of the child so much as to witness the mad gambols, not to mention the mischievous deeds, of that ragged little piece of an old door-mat, which, in virtue of its being possessed of animal life, was named Toozle. And when Alice wished to talk quietly,—to pour out her heart, and sometimes her tears,—the bosom she sought on which to lay her head, next to her father's, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... by the same pitiless laws. Cheapest, say the prudent, is the dearest labor. What we buy in a broom, a mat, a wagon, a knife, is some application of good sense to a common want. It is best to pay in your land a skillful gardener, or to buy good sense applied to gardening; in your sailor, good sense applied to navigation; in the house, good sense applied to cooking, sewing, serving; in your agent, good ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... at once there came a tap at my door, as I thought; and I said 'Come in,' just as Mr. Poe did when that unpleasant raven paid him a call. No one came, so I went to see who it was. Not a sign of a human soul in the long hall, only little Jessie, the poodle, asleep on her mat. Down I sat; but in a minute the tap came again; this time so loud that I knew it was at the window, and went to open it, thinking that one of my doves wanted to come in perhaps. Up went the sash, and in bounced something so big and so bright that ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... of the boys gave up their ponies altogether, wore store clothes and took 'em off when they went to bed all the time they were in college; but, try as I would, I couldn't make the answers as ridiculous as his questions. He had me on the mat, two points down and fighting for wind all the time. His thirst for knowledge was wonderful and his objection to believing what his eyes must have told him was still more wonderful. There he was, half-way across the country from New York, and he must have looked out of the ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... them home And midday suns, when from the social meal The wicker window held the summer heat, Praised have those been who, going unperceived, Opened it wide, that all might see you well: Nor were the children blamed, upon the mat, Hurrying to watch what rush would last arise From your foot's pressure, ere the door was closed, And not yet wondering how they dared to love. Your counsels are more precious now than ever, But are they—pardon ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... you some of the seed of this plant, as I perceived a number of little green pods that looked like the buds, but which, on opening, proved to be the seed-vessels. This plant covers the earth like a thick mat, and, I am told, is rather troublesome ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... he saw that it was indeed a beautiful ship. He found the animals gathered round a little door, all talking at once, trying to guess what was inside. The Doctor turned the handle but it wouldn't open. Then they all started to hunt for the key. They looked under the mat; they looked under all the carpets; they looked in all the cupboards and drawers and lockers—in the big chests in the ship's dining-room; ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... stretcher comes, swinging from a bamboo pole, carried on the shoulders of two men. Over it a mat is thrown, and through the little open triangle at one end, you see a pair of brown legs lying. Only legs, no more. ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte

... we found Romata sitting on a mat, in the midst of a number of large bales of native cloth and other articles, which had been brought to him as presents from time to time by inferior chiefs. He received us rather haughtily, but on Bill explaining the nature of ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... the water-line, so I expect they'll make for the run. Now, sir, it's a very good job as I met you just here, because I can show you the lazarette hatch—here it is, under our feet." And he turned back a large mat upon which we were standing, disclosing a small, square hatch flush ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... into your body—or stand on something that will "insulate" you; for instance, rubber gloves or rubber tobacco pouches, dry silk handkerchiefs, other silk garments or newspapers used in place of gloves if necessary. Stand on a rubber mat or on dry boards, or glass, or in dire necessity dry clothes can be used to stand on. They must not be wet as then they will carry the electric current through your body and you must also be ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... solicitors and companies and things are so silly," said Miss Winstock, whose eyes had not moved from the floor-mat. "Thank you." The 'thank you' was ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... he sitteth on his mat Sitteth there upright, With the grace with which he sat While he saw ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... eyes. Poor man! How he must hate her, who was free, and all fresh from the open world and the sun, and people to love and talk to! The 'poor man' scrubbed on steadily, his ears standing out from his shaven head; then, dragging his knee-mat skew-ways, he took the chance to look at her again. Perhaps because his dress and cap and stubble of hair and even the color of his face were so drab-gray, those little dark eyes seemed to her the most terribly living things she had ever seen. She felt that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... come down a tolerably high and steep declivity by sliding down on its hinder quarters, in an attitude known, in more than one part of the British Islands, by the expressive name of "katy-hunkers;" the shaggy hair with which it was covered serving like a thick mat to protect the creature from injury. The Esquimaux prepare the skin sometimes without ripping it up, and turning the hairy side inward a warm sack-like bed is formed, into which they creep, and lie very comfortably. Otho Fabricius, in his "Fauna Graenlandica" (p. 24), informs us that the ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... yards is good now. It was ugly when dilution of labour first came in, but the wages are so high that all that trouble has settled down. I have had what you call sabotage in the shell and gun shops, but never yet in the King's ships. We have had every possible cutter of the wires on the mat before the Captain and me. We have looked into all their records, had their homes visited and their people questioned, inquired of their habits—Mr. Copplestone, here, knows what comes of drink—and found out how they spend their wages. Yet we have discovered nothing. It is the worst puzzle that ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... a house, or houses, would ruin us. We hoped therefore to have been able to purchase land, and build mat houses upon it; but we can get none properly situated. We have in consequence purchased of the Governor's nephew a large house in the middle of the town for Rs.6000, or about L800; the rent in four years would have amounted to the purchase. It consists of a spacious verandah ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... Bayonne. The men ornament their loose, blue linen frocks and brown trousers with the bright scarlet sash so popular in this region. Heavy oxen draw their creaking loads toward the same centres,—their bowed heads yoked by the horns, which are cushioned with a woolly sheepskin mat and tasseled with red netting. They pull strongly, for the loads are not light, and the clumsy wheels are disks of solid wood. Little donkeys trot amiably by, with huge double panniers that recall the cacolet. A file of marching soldiers is overtaken; small villages are passed, each one ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... didn't turn in till an unholy hour. He got up at seven from force of habit, fussed around a while, took some pictures of the neighborhood and developed them, but by that time the poor old door-mat couldn't keep his eyes open. Do you know he wept all the way home last night, telling me how good we ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... children the stove was a household god. In summer they laid a mat of fresh moss all round it, and dressed it up with green boughs and the numberless beautiful wild flowers of the Tyrol country. In winter all their joys centred in it, and scampering home from school ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... set before us rice and beans. After this frugal repast, washed down with cold water, I wanted Lucien to lie down on a large mat; but the restless little being took advantage of his elders being comfortably stretched out to sleep, and ran off to see our hostess's fowls roosting for the night on a dead tree, and then to prowl up and down in company with l'Encuerado. The latter had ferreted out a three-corded ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... Israelites 229, and in the fourth yeare of the Seleuciens, after which account the bookes of Machabees doo reckon, which began in the 14, after the death of Alexander. This Elanius in the English Chronicle is named also Haran; by Mat. Westm. Danius; and by an old chronicle which Fabian much followed, Elanius and Kimarus should seeme to be one person: but other hold the contrarie, and saie that ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (3 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed

... approves, if old age, poverty, ignominy, &c. oppress, and which Fabius expresseth in effect. (Praefat. 7. Institut.) Nemo nisi sua culpa diu dolet. It is an ordinary thing in China, (saith Mat. Riccius the Jesuit,) [2774]"if they be in despair of better fortunes, or tired and tortured with misery, to bereave themselves of life, and many times, to spite their enemies the more, to hang at their door." Tacitus the historian, Plutarch the philosopher, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... the reply as the lower half of the door swung softly toward its mate. Every boy, before entering, rubbed long and faithfully upon the rough mat, and each made his best bow to the old lady and gentleman at the window. Ben was half inclined to think that these personages were automata like the moving figures in the garden at Broek; for they both nodded their heads slowly, in precisely ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... a mat-covered lean-to built against the mud-wall. There was no other protection for the prisoners from sunshine or rain than coarse worn matting spread upon sticks and laid against the walls. The enclosure was without any ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... the early colonists, wrote of Jamestown and Virginia as they were in 1609 and 1610. He described the manner of visiting with the sick among the Indians. According to Spelman, the "preest" laid the sick Indian upon a mat and, sitting down beside him, placed a bowl of water and a rattle between them. Taking the water into his mouth and spraying it over the Indian, the priest then began to beat his chest and make noises with the rattle. Rising, he shook the rattle over all of his patient's body, ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes

... ached to enfold the precious little sinner so grievously worsted in the battle with temptation. "Mamma is very sorry that her darling has been so naughty!" she said, bowing her head upon the pillow beside the mat of curls dampened by the rain from ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... red-gold pennons. All the Carlyles had red hair of varying shades and natures. Audrey's was long and heavy, with a pretty wave in it. Faith's was shorter, darker, and curly. Tom's curled tightly over his head, a fiery mat of curls. Deborah's, finest and silkiest of all, hung in soft auburn waves to her waist. Baby Joan's fluffy curls were the ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... there in a moment: then he'll be better," continued Wassily. (I loved him from that day.) "Friends, is there no mat there? If not, I'll take him by the head and some one ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... in the same haunts, the BLACK CHOKE-BERRY (A. nigra), with similar flowers, the berries very dark purple, was formerly confounded with the red choke-berry. But because it sometimes elects to live in dry ground its leaves require no woolly mat on the underside to absorb vapors arising from wet retreats. No wonder that the insipid little berries. related to apples, pears, and other luscious fruits, should share with a cousin, the mountain ash, or rowan, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... door. Within, it was cleaner than anything Agatha had ever seen. The stair-rail glistened, the polished floors shone. A neat bouquet of sweet peas stood exactly in the center of a snow-white doily, which was exactly in the middle of a shiny, round table. The very door-mat was brand new; Agatha would never have thought of wiping her ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... Ying Tz[)u] is a very wicked place. There were no less than fourteen large tents set up for gambling, and, in addition, some thirty or forty mat-tents for gambling. I was there three days. The first day people were shy. The second day they were not much afraid. The third day I had quite a lot of patients. We sold a good few books, preached a good deal, and doctored a number of patients. From there ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... not kill; do not steal; do not lie; do not drink intoxicating drinks; do not commit fornication or adultery; do not eat unseasonable food at night; do not wear garlands or use perfumes; sleep on a mat spread on the ground. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... Between the high tapering boles of the pines at their back the sky dropped a curtain of purple. Between the long ledges of tawny rock in front the sea stretched a carpet of turquoise. And between pines and sea lay first a rusty mat of pine-needles, then a ribbon of purple stones, then a band of glittering sand. In the air the resinous smell of the pines competed with the salty tang of the ocean. High up, silver-winged gulls curved and dipped ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... work on hinges!" Gray interrupted excitedly. "It slides to the right by means of some arrangement concealed under the mat." ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... Looks as ef he'd no more pluck nor a field-mouse; an' I'm darned ef he takes more 'count of a ghost than he wud of a circuit-preacher. Blest ef I don't think ef a sperrit was to knack at the front door, he'd tell 'un to wipe hes feet 'pon the mat, an' make hissel' at home. Well, well, seein's believin', as Tommy said when he spied ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... 'a grandchild,' made a curtsey the shadow of Aunt Harriet's, received a nod, the shadow of that bestowed upon her, and got out of the way as soon as I could, behind my aunt's chair, where, coming unexpectedly upon three fat pug-dogs on a mat, I sat down among them and felt ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... eaten dry, and in no case may he touch water. The host, on his side, and his servants, both male and female, must neither wash clothes nor bathe so long as the feast lasts, and they have all during its continuance to observe strict chastity. The doctor seats himself on a new mat in his bedroom, and before a small oil-lamp he murmurs, shortly before the feast takes place, the following prayer or incantation: "Grandfather and Grandmother Sroekoel" (the name seems to be taken at random; others are sometimes ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... a scraper and an old lady ran up with a door-mat. Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters insisted ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... sail was near enough to enable us to see that she was a large double canoe, such as is used by some of the islanders of the South Pacific, in their trading voyages. It had two masts, with large triangular mat-sails, and appeared to contain six or seven persons only, whom we supposed to be natives of some neighbouring island. As soon as they were within speaking distance, one of them, to our great astonishment hailed us in French. Arthur undertook to answer in the same language, when ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... it into George's hand. George had taken it firmly, and held it away from him, and had begun to unravel it as if he were taking the swaddling clothes off a new-born infant; and, before he had unwound a dozen yards, the thing was more like a badly-made door-mat ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... might have let it ride at that and gone along about my own affairs, which ain't so pressin' just then. Yes, I might. But I don't. Maybe it was hornin' in where there was no welcome sign on the mat, and then again perhaps it was only a natural folksy feelin' for an old friend I hadn't seen for a long time. Anyway, I'm prompted sudden to take Rupert by the arm and insist that he must come ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... made a fire with dry cattle-dung, and spread a native mat on the ground, close to the smoke, upon which I could sleep if the mosquitoes would allow me. I lay as close to the smoke as possible, with a comfortable log of wood for a pillow, and pondered over the events of the day, feeling very thankful ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... (rrethe, singular - rreth); Berat, Dibre, Durres, Elbasan, Fier, Gjirokaster, Gramsh, Kolonje, Korce, Kruje, Kukes, Lezhe, Librazhd, Lushnje, Mat, Mirdite, Permet, Pogradec, Puke, Sarande, Shkoder, Skrapar, Tepelene, Tirane, Tropoje, Vlore note: some new administrative units may have ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... do but to make the best of it, so we tethered the horses and went down to the river to relieve ourselves of the dust that seemed determined to unite with the dust that we were made of. Mrs. Louderer declared she was "so mat as nodings and would fire dot Herman so soon as she ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... Estevanillo, he went to visit a sick person in a very dangerous condition, being almost dead, with his eyes turned in his head, and no pulse; and so confident were the Indians of his approaching death that his house was already pulled down according to their custom on such occasions. Cabeza took off the mat from the dying man, prayed to God to restore him to health, and when he had several times blessed the man and breathed on him, the attendants presented him with a bow and arrows and a basket of tunas, conducting him to cure others in the same ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... acknowledgment, Laurence subsided upon the grass mat which had been placed for him by the inceku, who had followed him in. Then there was silence for a few moments, while a couple of women entered, bearing large clay bowls of tywala, or native beer; and the liquor having been apportioned out according ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford



Words linked to "Mat" :   canvas, enmesh, dullness, matt-up, unsnarl, mat up, sea mat, master's degree, dull, mousepad, distort, matting, drip mat, change, wrestling mat, pad, floor cover, snarl, Sayeret Mat'kal, disentangle, place mat, mass, prayer mat, water mat, Master of Arts in Teaching, ensnarl, doormat, canvass, mouse mat, matt, twist, matte up



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