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Puncture   Listen
verb
Puncture  v. t.  (past & past part. punctured; pres. part. puncturing)  To pierce with a small, pointed instrument, or the like; to prick; to make a puncture in; as, to puncture the skin.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Puncture" Quotes from Famous Books



... and with it, Miss Watts, Isabelle departed with a feeling of a day well spent. She turned her thoughts to the next event. They had a puncture on the way, and the terrace and halls were deserted when they arrived home. Miss Watts hurried her off to the schoolroom, for supper, and urged her to take her bath and go to bed after her strenuous day. The child was ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... and Bates tells me that the flowers are in the most marked manner neglected by bees and lepidoptera in Amazonia. Now the curious projections or horns to the stamens of Monochaetum are full of fluid, and the suspicion occurs to me that diptera or small hymenoptera may puncture these horns like they puncture (proved since my orchid book was published) the dry nectaries of true Orchis. I forget whether Rhexia is common; but I very much wish you would next summer watch on a warm day a group of flowers, and see whether they are visited ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... thee, shallow man! God make incision in thee! Thou art raw." And raw he is like to remain for all his learning, and for all incisions that can be made in the horny hide of a self-conceit to be pierced by the puncture of no man's pen. It was bad enough while theorists of this breed confined themselves to the suggestion of a possible partnership with Fletcher, a possible interpolation by Jonson; but in the descent from these to the alleged ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... it in the streets of St. Louis there was nothing in his business or financial capacity different from that of the small farmers about him; but when, as President of the Republic, he found it his duty to puncture the fallacy of the inflationists, to throttle by a veto the attempt of unwise legislators to tamper with the American credit, he penned a State paper so logical, so masterly, that it has ever since been ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... was to show why the Lutherans "do not accept the Confutation," and to puncture the papal boast that the Augustana had been refuted with the Holy Scriptures. In its Preface we read: "Afterwards a certain decree was published [by the Emperor], in which the adversaries boast that they have refuted our Confession from the Scriptures. You have ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... through her, leaving two holes which would admit quite a quantity of water, unless the savages happened to possess the means to plug them. My shot went true, for as the smoke blew away I saw a small white puncture show in the bottom of the canoe for an instant before it was hidden by the roll of the craft. A loud yell of astonishment greeted my first essay, showing that these particular savages had never before had experience of firearms; but the yell was not wholly the result of ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... speak of it, as though your sympathy unmanned him, but you could see that he suffered. This notably happened in my remembrance from a review in a journal which he greatly esteemed; and once when in a notice of my own I had put one little thorny point among the flowers, he confessed a puncture from it. He praised the criticism hardily, but I knew that he winced under my recognition of the didactic quality which he had not quite guarded himself against in the poetry otherwise praised. He liked your ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... out of the window, she gave a faint scream. Her husband was returning. He had a puncture. She retained her presence of mind, however, long enough to step to the telephone. Just as she had finished delivering the ...
— Best Short Stories • Various

... see," said William, stooping down to examine the place on which Joe's hands were convulsively pressed. With some difficulty he pulled them away, and tearing down the stocking, actually saw a small bleeding puncture over the ankle bone! ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... nose of a mouse, a small puncture was made with a surgeon's needle, bedewed with the oil of tobacco. The little animal, from the insertion of this small quantity of the poison, fell into a violent agitation, and was dead in ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey

... of the poisoning Pope Alexander VI. (Borgia), that he caused a somewhat similar key to be used in opening a cabinet; but the Pope's key was poisoned in the handle, and provided with a small sharp pin, which gave a slight puncture sufficient to allow the poison to pass below the skin. When the Holy Father wished to rid himself of an objectionable friend, he would request him to unlock his cabinet; as the lock turned rather stiffly, a little pressure was necessary on the key-handle, sufficient to give the trifling ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... "After that we all got orders to report at their Scout headquarters, and I decided to try to make my way back here. On the way I ran into one of their outposts, and a man with a motorcycle chased me. But he had a puncture—I think that was because I dropped my knife in the road—and he had to stop to repair that. While he was doing it, I worked up behind him, and I managed to get the motorcycle and came on. I knew he'd have a good chance to catch me, because I didn't know the roads ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland

... made some tobacco juice and squirted it over the creatures, when they recoiled in great disgust. Owing to the exercise I was obliged to take, the bites bled for several hours. I do not remember feeling the first puncture. I have now heard that these blood-suckers infest leaves and herbage, and that when they hear the rustling made by man or animal in passing, they stretch themselves to their fullest length, and if they can touch any part of his body or dress they hold on to it, and as quickly as possible reach ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... orange colour from the light colour of the farina which adheres to them, but this changes to deep brown. All that part of the stalk that is exposed seems as if it had been pricked with needles, and had exuded blood from every puncture; and the grain in the ear withers in proportion to the number of fungi that intercept and feed upon its sap; but the parts of the stalks that are covered by the leaves remain entirely uninjured; and, when the leaves ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... saltspoonful of salt, one saltspoonful sweet marjoram or thyme, one salt spoonful of black pepper, moisten with sweet milk. Boil small ham until tender, remove bone and skin, fill in the cavity with dressing, wind with cord into shape, puncture with skewer in the fat parts and fill the holes with dressing. Bake in a closed pan in ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various

... at dusk, when I had gone to a local garage where I kept my motor bicycle, I had discovered the back tire to be perfectly flat and had been forced to contain my soul in patience whilst the man repaired a serious puncture. The result was of course that for more than half an hour I had not had Dr. Stuart's house under observation. And a hundred and one things can happen in ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer

... creatures attacked soon grow weak and die. They attack men, too,—as Martin knew to his cost; and they usually fix upon the toes and other extremities. So gentle are they in their operations, that sleepers frequently do not feel the puncture, which they make, it is supposed, with the sharp hooked nail of their thumb; and the unconscious victim knows nothing of the enemy who has been draining his blood until he awakens, faint and exhausted, ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne

... to be, it is not more surprising than that the body of one's fellow-creature, directly after death, and before putrefaction has commenced, should often be of so deleterious a quality that the mere puncture from an instrument used in its dissection ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... will!" said Tom reassuringly. "He may have had a puncture, or something like that. Bicyclists are just as liable to them as autoists," he ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton

... then took a bottle of beef extract, which in Russia is popular with all classes in preparing their cabbage soup, and refilling the syringe, plunged the needle through the cork, afterwards placing a spot of melted resin upon the puncture. ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... forlorn hope at best, and he knew it. Moreover, an accident was as apt to happen to him as to De Morbihan: given an unsound tire or a puncture, or let him be delayed two seconds by some traffic hindrance, and nothing short of a ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... 411. Puncture any part of the cuticle with the finest instrument that has upon its point the smallest conceivable quantity of the vaccine virus, or small-pox matter, and it will be brought into contact with the lymphatic vessels, and through their agency conveyed into the system. The result is, that persons ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... such fairy tales. It's the same with whalers. I've chased plenty of cetaceans, I've harpooned a good number, I've killed several. But no matter how powerful and well armed they were, neither their tails or their tusks could puncture the sheet-iron plates ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... with a fine needle the surface of the little black egg-sphere (not merely of the jelly surrounding it) when it is shed by the female frog into perfectly pure water free from sperms or anything of the sort. The slight artificial puncture acts as does the natural puncture by the swimming sperm-filament, and is sufficient! The egg proceeds to develop quite regularly. There is no fusion of the nucleus of the egg-cell with any matter from the outside; ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... corresponding alterations of form, are either only incidentally alluded to, or are wholly passed over; such, for instance, as alterations in the period of flowering, in the duration of the several organs, and so forth.[9] Pathological changes, lesions caused by insect puncture or other causes, also find no place in this book, unless the changes are of such a character as to admit of definite comparison with normal conformation. Usually such changes are entirely heteromorphous, and, as it were, foreign to ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... tough luck. Both those companies have been issuing stock, and there's been a lot of speculation in it. This market's so inflated now that a puncture at one place might blow ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper

... Ophiurae and Ophiocomae and other Asteriadae, with two kinds of Echinus, are also plentiful under blocks of coral (Astraea and Maeandrina) in the pools; one of the last, remarkable for its very long, slender, black spines, has the power of giving an exceedingly painful puncture, if carelessly handled—for a few minutes the sensation is similar to that caused by the sting of a wasp; of the others, a fine Ophiura is remarkable for its great size and grass-green colour, and an Ophiocoma for the prodigious ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... sure poisonous to strangers." Then he looked over the car critically. "These automobiles are all right, but whenever I want to go somewhere and get back I take a team of hay-burners. Mules don't puncture. The first automobile Paloma had nearly scared me to death. On the road to Brownsville there used to be a person who didn't like me—we'd had a considerable unpleasantness, in fact. One day Paloma and I were lickety-splittin' ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... state, but could never find in any part of the bark a fissure or break whence such a substance could flow. Wherever it appeared, moreover, the red-eyed cicadae were in abundance. I was inclined to think that the puncture produced by these suctorial insects into the tender shoots for juice, would in all probability give an exit for such a substance; but by wounding the tender branches with a sharp-pointed knife, I could never obtain a ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... 'It's a puncture,' said Anthea, stooping down, and standing up again with a thorn which she had got ready for the purpose. ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... manner of laying on the cat-o'-nine-tails, and that always brought away with it little knobs of flesh wherever the knots fell, and so neatly, that blood would, at every blow, spout from the wounds, as from the puncture of a lancet. Besides, the torture was also doubled by first scoring over the back in one direction, and the right-handed floggers coming after in another. They cut out the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... for it, he knocked down an old woman and a child carrying a bottle of milk, and fought his way like a demon into the mass of spectators. Already in the inner line stood Violet Seymour with one sleeve and two gold fillings gone, a corset steel puncture and a sprained wrist, but happy. She was looking at what there was to see. A man was painting upon the fence: "Eat Bricklets ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... about twenty to thirty-six inches. Above this is a flour-like gray layer varying in thickness from an inch to ten inches, but below the tight clay the subsoil seems to be more porous, and I am hoping that we may lay tile just below the tight clay and then puncture that clay stratum with red clover roots and thus improve the physical condition of the soil. I asked Mr. Secor, a friend who operates a coal mine,—and farms for recreation,—if he thought alfalfa could be raised on this type of soil. He ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... disease germs into the system, usually by puncture of the skin or hypodermic injection; many diseases so introduced assume a mild form, and render the subject not liable to the severe form. Inoculation for smallpox, the virus being taken from actual smallpox pustules, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... use for their food the juices of other animals or of plants do not find them so easy to gather. In the mosquito most of the mouth parts are developed into slender pointed bristles wrapped in a hind lip. These bristles serve to puncture the skin of the creature attacked, while the curled lip serves as a tube through which ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... him securely bound," said Hamilton. "Confine him. We'll see how long it will take to refresh his mind. We'll puncture the big windbag." ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... was among the most virulent of substances known to toxicology. A puncture of the skin was sure to be fatal unless some remedy, of whose existence he held ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... that," said Toinette, in a motherly tone, "else you'll tear it yourself, you know." She broke off the thorn as she spoke, and gently drew it out. The elf anxiously examined the stuff. A tiny puncture only was visible and ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... in the leg, Monsieur Dollon complained of, need not cause any anxiety. It is a very slight superficial wound. A slight swelling above the broken skin possibly indicates an intra-muscular puncture, which might have been made by someone unaccustomed to such operations, for it is a clumsy performance. It is ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... Greeks called him, Astyages, the son of Cyaxares.** According to the custom of the times, the two contracting parties, after taking the vow of fidelity, sealed the compact by pricking each other's arms and sucking the few drops of blood which oozed from the puncture.*** ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... teeth or points . . . they dip the teeth into a mixture of a kind of lamp-black . . . The teeth, thus prepared, are placed upon the skin, and the handle to which they are fastened being struck by quick smart blows, they pierce it, and at the same time carry into the puncture the black composition, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... little blood to be seen when Wilbur gently unwrapped the torn sleeve of a blouse that had been used as a bandage. Just under the armpit was the mark of the bullet—a small puncture already closed, half hidden under a clot or two of blood. The coolie lay quite unconscious, his eyes wide open, drawing a faint, quick ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... bare bodkin Harrison Gray Otis thought to puncture the Southern panic. But the slaveholders had correcter notions of the nature and tendency of the Abolition enterprise than had the Boston mayor. They had a strange, an obstinate presentiment of disaster from the first instant that the Liberator loomed upon their horizon. It ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... and I must say it does you credit; but when you come to know grizzlies better, and appreciate their terrible strength, you'll agree with the rest of us that a man has to forget such things when he gets a chance to puncture the hide of so fierce a monster as this old rogue. He could kill a horse with a single blow, or tear one into shreds with those claws. If I can get my mount to go a little closer, I'll try to wind him up with a single ball, but it's difficult to ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... surgical and medical books, put into my hands by Mr Cophagus, who explained whenever I applied to him, and I soon obtained a very fair smattering of my profession. He also taught me how to bleed, by making me, in the first instance, puncture very scientifically, all the larger veins of a cabbage-leaf, until well satisfied with the delicacy of my hand, and the precision of my eye, he wound up his instructions by permitting me to breathe a ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... The accidents of life—of mine especially—often drive one to acts of cruelty for which I am the first to blush. But have no fear for your son: it's a mere prick, a little puncture in the arm which I gave him while we were questioning him. In an hour, at the most, you won't know that it happened. Once more, all my apologies. But I had to make sure of your silence." He bowed again, thanked M. de Velines for ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... mad, she swept two rulers off her desk on to the floor. But she knelt down and set them cross-wise, and then straightened herself and crooked her arms above her head, and began to dance a sword-dance. Even her filial relations to him hardly justified such a puncture of office discipline, and he sat blowing at it until he saw that this was a new phase of her so entertaining misery. It is always absurd when that pert and ferocious dance, invented by an unsensuous race inordinately and mistakenly vain of its knees, is performed by a graceful girl; ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... little scratch on my left side and he suffered an equally glorious little puncture in his right arm. The seconds declared enough. Then we fell into the arms of each other and became friends for life. A year later I went back to New Orleans, and I was the best man at the wedding of Gerard and Flora, one of the happiest and handsomest pairs I ever saw, God bless 'em. Their ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... same line. There was others who joined in. They bragged of chipped gears that was shipped through with the bad cogs covered with grease, of flawy drivin' shafts, of cheesy armor-plate that you could puncture with a tack-hammer. ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... and found two purple spots high on the chest, one to the right, and one to the left. From that on the left ran a tiny trickle of blood, but that on the right was only a small puncture in the midst of a bruise. He was far past ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... presence of a new girl, while quiet Kit contented himself by slipping in a witty remark that was pointed enough to puncture Ben's gas bag of grand talk once in a while, to the great amusement of the army girl, who had never before met such fine, free, and ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... spies in the service of the International, had made his acquaintance and had dinner with him at the "Monico," and was found dead the next morning with an empty morphia syringe in her hand and a swollen puncture in her left arm. ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... many others, appeared to dispute the scene with us, to break the magic of the moonlight, and to puncture the vast silence of the desert with their cooings and gurglings and chatterings in German, English, Arabic, and every other language known since the Tower of Babel. Arab guides lit up the Sphinx with flaring magnesium, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... the following manner. A puncture is made with a special trocar and canula in the lumbar region between the second and third or third and fourth lumbar spines. The sheath of the sac having been entered, as is evidenced by the loss of resistance to the point of the trocar, and by the fact that ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... lamed in the left foot, potted shot after shot at each retirement, aiming at no one target, but, as he observed. "Even if I don't 'it 'im, I might puncture 'is bloomin' ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... we missed," said Cecil quickly. "The fact is we got into a road that did not go there at all, and then Miss Gertrude had a puncture, and then a second, and by the time we got back to the right road we knew it was too late to ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh

... gall, occasioned by the puncture of the Coccus ilicis on the leaves of the Quercus coccifera, or Kermes oak; an article of commerce from Spain, used ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... flank, and a good purse is always worth L1 to a bullock in London. If the purse should get much swelled after castration, warm fomentations should be applied two or three times a-day, or even a poultice if the case be very bad. If there is an accumulation of pus, it may be necessary to puncture the purse, and the animal ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie

... physical and moral, came from the bite Camille had given him in the neck. At certain moments, he imagined that this scar covered the whole of his body. If he came to forget the past, he all at once fancied he felt a burning puncture, that recalled the murder both to ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... the patient on the knee of another man, and the rest of the party kept off the crowd by mingled persuasion and violence, he produced a lancet and summarily reduced the swelling by lancing it. He then dressed the puncture neatly with appliances for that purpose which he carried about him, and shouted in Mellish's ear to rouse him. But the trainer only groaned, and let his head drop inert on his breast. More shouting was resorted to, but in vain. Cashel impatiently expressed an opinion that ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... saying that they were sugar refiners, but when he saw the motor-cycle that awaited him he forgot his question and gave a sharp cry of exultation. It was a beautiful machine, with tires so strong and thick they were practically puncture proof and were evidently equal to any demand that was likely to be made upon them. Evidently the engine was one of great power. The frame of the machine was a dark gray; and Henry instantly noted the fact that ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... the car catch up with the truck. At the end of the first half mile, the horrible roadbed began to take toll of the elderly tires. There were two punctures, in rapid succession. Then came a blowout. And, at the bottom of the mountain a third puncture varied the monotony of the ride. Thus, the truck reached the Place well ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... in a Hudson River town. Only a few miles away a negro boy, shortly after, was struck by a copperhead on the bare leg. The wound was a deep, double-fanged puncture. While the boy's father rushed for whisky, his mother ran for the doctor. The doctor got there first. He opened up the wound and rubbed in permanganate of potash to oxidize the venom and destroy its toxic properties. When I talked with the boy, two days ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... good for rough roads. He would wear out a car in no time, to say nothing of the passengers. Can't think why we haven't had a puncture before now!" said Jack gloomily; whereupon Margaret called him ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... N. hole, foramen; puncture, perforation; fontanel[obs3]; transforation[obs3]; pinhole, keyhole, loophole, porthole, peephole, mousehole, pigeonhole; eye of a needle; eyelet; slot. opening; aperture, apertness[obs3]; hiation[obs3], yawning, oscitancy[obs3], dehiscence, patefaction|, pandiculation[obs3]; chasm &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... his side—there came across his disfigured features a queer twisted smile—he sighed softly and slowly sank in a crumpled heap. A clean little puncture in the breast of his coat told the whole story. Patsy felt herself slipping.... All ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne

... blood, actually form, by their mutual pressures, an impassable dam at the root of the organ. That this is the true condition has been more than once verified from the instant relief given to the whole condition by the prompt employment of the supra-pubic puncture or aspiration, as catheterization in such cases is altogether out of the question, and should never be attempted or employed unless a ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... herself that she would not have him there. Thus, doubly she shows the devotion of a sweetheart, fearing at once his death, and desiring that honour may be his. And Cliges sword in hand attacks the other three, who face him bravely and puncture and split his shield. But they are unable to lay hands upon him, or to pierce the meshes of his hauberk. And whatever Cliges reaches cannot stand against his blow, but must needs be split and torn apart; for he turns faster than a top driven and lashed by the whip. Boldness and love, which holds ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... became necessary again and again to repeat the process. And unhappily there was no absolute security of immunity from bad consequences. However carefully the procedure was conducted, it sometimes happened, even though the puncture seemed healing by first intention, that feverish symptoms declared themselves in the course of the first or second day, and, on inspecting the seat of the abscess, the skin was perhaps seen to be red, implying the presence of some cause of irritation, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... to hide the deficiency. The thumbs, in particular—how squat, how stunted! They appeared to have only two joints instead of three. Somehow they gave her a feeling akin to nausea.... She sponged the puncture with iodine, smoothed down the skirt, cleaned and replaced the needle in its case, and all the time she was thinking of those oddly repulsive hands. Repulsive to her, that is. She knew that not many people would have ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... if the men be of different races. Mysterious as this circumstance appears to be, it is not more surprising than that the body of one's fellow-creature, directly after death, and before putrefaction has commenced, should often be of so deleterious a quality, that the mere puncture from an instrument used in ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... covered, it must become a painful as well as tedious process, especially as, for want of needles, they often use a strip of whalebone as a substitute. For those parts where a needle cannot conveniently be passed under the skin, they use the method by puncture, which is common in other countries, and by which our seamen frequently mark their hands and arms. Several of the men were marked on the back part of their hands; and with them we understood it to be considered as a souvenir of some distant deceased person ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... seemed coming toward him, and yet was still very far away. It must be a car at the Detour. In a moment it would turn down the bumpy road toward Sabbath Valley, and very likely some of those old broken whiskey bottles along the way would puncture a tire and the guy would take till morning getting anywhere. Perhaps he could even get away in time to come up innocently enough and help him out. A guy like that might not know how to ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... how it sucks the blood of its victim, for its snout and the leafy appendage around its mouth—from whence it derives the name "phyllostoma"—are admirably adapted to that end. But how does it make the puncture to "let" the blood? That is as yet a mystery among naturalists, as it also is among the people who are habitually its victims. Even Guapo could not explain the process. The large teeth—of which it has got quite ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... listen to them. He's a maniac, that's what he is. He doesn't know what those two women are suffering through his darned foolishness, and if he did know it wouldn't trouble him. If you want the real extract of selfishness you must make a puncture in a scientific guy with a hobby, and you can get as ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... according to the size of the animal. Dilute with milk before administering. In bad cases, the paunch should be at once punctured. The best instruments are the trocar and canula, but in the absence of these a pocket knife and goose quill may be made to answer. The puncture is made on the left side, at a point midway between the last rib and hook point, and but a few inches from the backbone. The thrusting instrument should point downward and slightly inward going into the paunch. With much promptness the canula or the quill should be pushed down into the ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw

... and jabbed at his scalp with his pencil as though he meant to puncture his skull. "Wait until you've been here a few weeks and you'll have ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... incited. The introduction of a sterile instrument into a joint cavity, under strict asepsis, where a perfect technic is executed, does not cause perceptible manifestation of the injury, if the opening so made is small—such as a suitable exploratory trocar makes. But a puncture made in a similar manner and with the same instrument without due regard to asepsis is likely to cause an infectious synovitis and ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... pungent smell of her physical womanhood. There was a plumpness about her body, a ruddiness to her lips, that gave me the phantasy that, perhaps, the moment before, she had drunk of my father's blood, and that she was preventing me from going in to where he lay till a certain tiny, red puncture over his jugular vein ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... most indefatigable merry-maker that ever turned night into day, a past-master in the art of mimicry, the most inveterate practical joker that ever violated the proprieties of friendship, time, and occasion to raise a laugh or puncture a fraud. As his friend of those days, E.D. Cowen, has written, "as a farceur and entertainer no professional could ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... term gave birth to a male child that was idiotic. Beatty relates a curious accident to a fetus in utero. The woman was in her first confinement and was delivered of a small but healthy and strong boy. There was a small puncture in the abdominal parietes, through which the whole of the intestines protruded and were constricted. The opening was so small that he had to enlarge it with a bistoury to replace the bowel, which was dark and ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... order now for them earrings we were mentionin', Mr. Deadeasy. You see, I had to puncture this one so folks would know ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... that no comprehension was possible. However, there was no misunderstanding their brusque motions ordering us away from the plane or the threatening noises which reinforced the command. No sooner had we reluctantly complied than they proceeded methodically to puncture the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... work, I should say that this must be because no competent writer ever thought it worth his pains to criticize it. Its argument contains about as much solid consistency as a distended balloon, and collapses as readily at the first puncture. It attempts to prove, first, that the conversion of St. Paul cannot be made intelligible except on the assumption that there was a miracle in the case; and secondly, that if Paul was converted by a miracle, the truth of Christianity is impregnable. Now, if ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... the "Critical Notices"—where small authorship comes to pick up chips of praise, fragrant, sugary, and sappy—always are to them! Well, life would be nothing without paper-credit and other fictions; so let them pass current. Don't steal their chips; don't puncture their swimming-bladders; don't come down on their pasteboard boxes; don't break the ends of their brittle and unstable reputations, you fellows who all feel sure that your names will be household words a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined arm-chair with ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of terrible agony, and could not speak. Gregorios took from his case a tiny syringe and a small bottle containing a colorless liquid. It was the work of an instant to puncture the skin of Laleli's hand, and to inject a small dose of morphine,—a very small dose indeed, for the solution was weak. But the effect was almost instantaneous. The Khanum opened her small black eyes, the contortion of her wrinkled ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... because any announcement of her plans for the afternoon would have made them seem less certain of fulfilment. Perhaps, too, she had felt an unacknowledged fear of certain of her mother's phrases that could delicately puncture delight. ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... a friend I ask you don't do a ballet on them crackers. Run over the mutt. What care we for life. Gee, the canine is right there as the artful dodger. Ah! what? Bing! What was that? A puncture! My! For goodness sake, how long will we be bogged down. Oh, we can wait that long, can't we, dears? Pipe the yokel. Shall I hand him a game of chatter? ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... deadly substance which has ever been discovered. It is indeed good for humanity that it is known to only a few toxicologists, but that in itself reveals the fact, monsieur, that an exceedingly clever and secret attack has been made upon your life. A single puncture of the skin with one or other of those pins which were placed so conveniently at your bedside when you sprang out to meet the intruder, and you would by this time have been buried as one whose death had been due ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... a man who hasn't had time to take his spurs off yet, why you stood all kinds of chances getting a puncture! You don't want to forget things ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... have had this cover on the rear wheel of my 3-1/2 h.p. Humber Motor Cycle and have ridden same 7,000 miles, six of these without a puncture."—Advt. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various

... replied, that his father had much to occupy him. But the little man—who, to do him justice, cared no more (in his own phrase) for imminent danger or death, than he did for the puncture of a flea's proboscis—did not so easily renounce the secret object of his ambition, which was to acquire the notice of the large and lofty Sir Geoffrey Peveril, who, being at least three inches taller ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... leg by the foot—it was quite cold—while the orderly removed a bandage from the thigh. The bone had been shattered. A bullet had also entered the man's chest, making a small round puncture. A shell fragment had struck his upper lip, leaving a jagged triangular hole below the nose. Several teeth had been knocked out. The upper palate had been gashed and partly separated from the bone. It hung ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... hero, and he feels the puncture of a pin; throw him into battle, and he is almost insensible to vital gashes. So in war. Impelled alternately by hope and fear, stimulated by revenge, depressed by shame, or elevated by victory, the people become invincible. No privation can shake their fortitude; no calamity break their spirit. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... alert, hanging on the lips of a speaker for his next word. After all, it is all a question of manhood, for a stuffed doll has neither convictions nor emotional tension. If you are upholstered with sawdust, keep off the platform, for your own speech will puncture you. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... than an experiment, and need not be regarded as a step necessarily fatal." And in order to save Mr. Hawthorne, and stem the tide of corruption, he is willing to point out his error. Nevertheless, he is somewhat at a loss to know where to puncture the heart of the offence, for "there is a provoking concealment of the author's motive," he confesses, "from the beginning to the end of the story. We wonder what he would be at: whether he is making ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... perforate hither and thither leaving behind them a disgusting network of burrows. The tiny buttons, about as soon as they appear at the surface of the ground, are infested, but this does not check their growth, and when they become mushrooms large enough for gathering, unless it be for a dark looking puncture or tracing now and then visible on the outside of the caps and stems, there are but few signs to indicate to the inexperienced eye the presence of maggots. And this is why maggoty mushrooms are so often found exposed for sale in summer. But in large or full-grown mushrooms, and especially ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... I wet on both sides and thumb-tack over an oil canvas the size of the picture to be painted. It dries tight as a drum, and the canvas backing protects it from puncture ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith

... at her flushed face. "Rely on me to puncture your balloon if it's needed, Miss Pat," he said in a tone that was very comforting, and, as she dropped a light kiss on his dark, waving hair, he added more soberly, "It's a mighty hard thing for a singer to be unselfish and generous, I warn you, my dear. It's going to ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther

... with the organization. And it is this which remains with devilish pertinacity and mischief-working power in the infant Native Christian Church of India. It is this same extreme evil which the social reformers of India are trying to puncture. But all that they dare to struggle and hope for is the right of members of subdivisions of any caste to intermarry. A generation ago, there were 1886 divisions in the Brahman caste alone, no two of which could enjoy connubial or convivial ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... Europe. All these oak-apples and nut-galls are of importance, but the latter more especially, and they form an important article of commerce. A substance called "gallic acid" resides in the oak; and when the puncture is made by the cynips, it flows in great abundance to the wound. Gallic acid is one of the ingredients used in dyeing stuffs and cloths, and therefore the supply yielded by the nut-gall is highly welcome. The nut-galls are carefully collected from the small oak on ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... said, "I thank her. She has made me feel that nine parts in ten of my heart have always been sound as a bell, and the tenth bled from a mere puncture: a lancet-prick that will heal in ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... as he quickly shut off the power. "It's a puncture. One of the inner tubes of the tire has been pierced. I was afraid ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton

... I, "it came pretty near finishing you off. You have had a heavy dose. I want to know who did it." I caught up his arm, and thrust the puncture under his ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... cave, cavern, hollow, depression, perforation, puncture, rent, slit, crack, chink, crevice, cranny, breach, cleft, chasm, fissure, gap, opening, interstice, burrow, crater, eyelet, pore, bore, aperture, orifice, vent, concavity, dent, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... used it on their arrow points in the chase, animals killed by it being quite wholesome. I also told her that curari may, except in very large doses, be swallowed with impunity, but if introduced into a puncture of the skin, so as to mix with the blood, the effect is instantly fatal, and leaves no trace of poison behind it. She asked me how to obtain a solution of the drug, and I explained in detail; then, seeing she was ready to go, I rose and put the bottle of curari back on its ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... made of the body in hope of discovering a puncture that might be construed as the place where the needle of the hypodermic-syringe had been inserted, but no such puncture had been discovered, though subjected to the most careful examination with the ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown

... pieces of button or bone, and little round pieces of wood. Some women possess glass beads secured in trade from the Christianized natives. Often two or three white or black beads are used for ear ornaments, though it is not a very common practice to puncture the ears for this purpose as in Bataan, where leaves and flowers are often worn stuck in a hole through the lobe of the ear. What appears to be a necklace and really answers the purpose of such is a string of dried berries, called "a-mu-yong'," which are said ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed

... my opinion, as in those of the several specialists consulted, was due, not to the blow on the head, but to the presence, slightly below and to the right of the first cervical curve of the spine, of a minute puncture—undoubtedly caused by a hypodermic syringe. Then, unconsciously, poor Denby furnished the last link in the chain; for undoubtedly, by means of this operation, Fu-Manchu had designed to efface from Eltham's mind his plans ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... great puff of white smoke; this turned into a blue wraith, drifted down the aisle, between the seats, gathering momentum as it went, and finally, with the rapidity of a mint julep mounting a sucked straw (that isn't split) and spun long and fine, it was drawn through a puncture of the isinglass in the stove door and went up the chimney in company with other smoke, and out into the storm. Aladdin, full of anticipation and glee, smoked away with great spirit. Presently, for the car was empty but for himself, Aladdin launched into the ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris

... required no attention, but just beyond Otis, while stopping to inquire the way, we discovered a rusty round nail embedded to the head in the right rear tire. The tire showed no signs of deflation, but on drawing the nail the air followed, showing a puncture. As the nail was scarcely three-quarters of an inch long,—not long enough to go clear through and injure the inner coating on the opposite side,—it was entirely practical to reinsert and run until it worked out. A very fair temporary ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... playing croquet, a game which requires vast muscular strength. However, he said that his tyres were something quite new, and that in one minute one man, or even one child, could stick one postage-stamp, or anything of the sort, over that puncture and mend it. So all the rest of us and the butler, principally the butler, who is an expert in bicycles, went at it vigorously, and after we had all worked for nearly an hour the tyre was patched up, and Tomkins, having finished his game, rode coolly away. I was going to do the same, but Robinson ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton

... pretty Catharine (here he sank his voice to a whisper), I desire to be informed whether your fair fingers have been employed upon it, agreeably to your promise? But I need not ask you, for my poor heart has felt the pang of each puncture that pierced the garment which was to cover it. Traitress, how wilt thou answer for thus tormenting the heart that loves thee ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... as this merits the warmest praise. In the non-combatant, who has none of the excitement bred of actual fighting to sustain him, it requires a high decree of courage to kneel or stoop when every one else is lying down, and in this exposed position first to find the tiny bullet puncture, and then bandage the wound satisfactorily. Many and many a life has been saved by this conduct on the part of our medical staff, for if an important artery is severed by a bullet or shell-splinter a man ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett

... turn the meat with a fork. The intense heat has sealed or seared the surface and caused the meat to retain its juices, and if you use a fork to turn it you will puncture or make an opening so that these ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson

... hasn't a puncture," said Bobby. "I was so interested in listening to you I never heard anything. What's wrong, ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... pure or nearly isolated state, it exists chiefly in the inner bark of vascular and especially exogenous trees, and is preserved in the interior with the greatest care: its escape externally results either from disease, as in the case of plum and cherry-trees, from the puncture of insects, cracks in the bark, or by artificial incisions. The death of the tree soon follows the loss of this important juice, and thousands of trees of the genus acacia are annually sacrificed in different parts of Africa to procure ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various

... fast had the puncture from the aseptic little pellet of civilized warfare healed under civilization's medical treatment, the judge's son was up and about, though very weak. But the rules strictly confined his promenades to the barracks yard. There might be news coming down the traffic-gorged castle road out of the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... down our long, low-roofed barracks, counting the men gathered round the hearth and laughing as he counted. M. Radisson affected not to hear, telling Jean to hoist the cannon and puncture embrasures high to the bastion-roofs ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... protest against the cruelty of the project. "Nonsense!" she said to herself; "most girls flirt for sport, and it is a pity if I cannot with such a purpose in view. He will soon get over a little puncture in his heart after I have sailed away to my bright future beyond the sea, and perhaps Susie will comfort him;" and she smiled at the thought. Dennis saw the smile and was entranced by its loveliness. How little he ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... coming along all right," said Wally, "and would have been home before ten. But when we were about nine miles from nowhere and going over a bad road, I had a puncture. ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... few minutes. There is a preparation something like putty which you force into the puncture, and which dries in a very few minutes. Of course, a tire fixed in this way would never be considered as satisfactory as a new inner tube, yet they have been known to go many miles without the slightest trouble. In fact, you are more apt to get a new puncture, than ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond

... behind my temporary rank," I answered hotly. "I waive it, gladly. Anything, for a chance to puncture that rotten carcass of yours or to get a good fair crack at your ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... However, Robert had enough to eat, and that was something. Quietly but persistently the miserable four took it in turns to try and persuade the Lamb (or St. Maur) to spend the rest of the day in the woods. There was not very much of the day left by the time he had mended the eighteenth puncture. He looked up from the completed work with a sigh of relief, and ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... the fluid being secreted so abundantly that it is impossible for the tear duct to carry it away; hence, there will be a continuous overflow of tears down the horse's face. The formation of a film or scum over the eye need not cause alarm if the eye shows no sign of puncture. ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... will fix up the spelling wherever needed and attend to the punctuating; but all the rest of it will be my own just like I puts it down. I reads and writes very well but someway I never learned to puncture. So the places where it is necessary to be punctual in order to make good sense and keep everything regulation and make the talk sound natural is his doings and also some of the spelling. But everything else is mine ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... puncture the skin are poisonous, and after the operation the girl has her eyes, cheeks, and lips so horribly swelled that she "looks like a Stygian fury." If she groans while undergoing the torture, or shows signs of pain in her face, the old woman who operates on her exclaims, in a rage: "You will die single, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... the early stage is enjoined as in inflammatory pneumonia, which the reader will consult—counter-irritation and purgatives. Bleeding never should be resorted to. When effusion takes place, it is necessary to puncture the sides with a trochar, and draw away the fluid, giving internally one of the following purges three times a day: rosin, eight ounces; saltpetre, two ounces, mix, and divide into eight powders. Half-drachm doses of the iodide of potash, ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... abstraction the Senior Surgeon stared unheeding into the whizzing black road. Pulses and temperatures and blood-pressures were seething in his mind; and sharp sticks and jagged stones and the general possibilities of a puncture; and murmurs of the heart and rles of the lungs; and a most unaccountable knock-knock-knocking in the engine; and the probable relation of middle-ear disease; and the perfectly positive symptoms of optic neuritis; and a damned funny ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... College, as young gentlemen are received at college; and nowhere else, I hope, for the credit of Christendom. They showed him a hole in the roof, and called it an "Attic;" grim pleasantry! being a puncture in the modern Athens. They inserted him; told him what hour at the top of the morning he must be in chapel; and left him to find out his other ills. His cases were welcomed like Christians, by the whole staircase. These undergraduates abused one ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... silent, giant-gray thing in the black silence of the corridor, grim, intent and seeming irresistible, he swept along it; and every second he knew that a raygun might spit from where it had been waiting in ambush to puncture his suit and kill him. For whether or not Ku Sui was aware that he was being tracked by his old, bitter foe, Carse ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... defamation, Who will hear thee? and to artifice, What canst thou perform? But, my son, despise not thou the malice of the weakest, remember that venom supplies the want of strength, and that the lion may perish by the puncture ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... bitten a person and withdrawn the stylets, a small area about the puncture whitens, then soon becomes pink and begins to swell, then to itch and burn. Some people suffer much more from the bites of mosquitoes than do others. For some such bites mean little or no inconvenience, indeed may pass wholly unnoticed, to others a single ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane

... instead of the blue-edged puncture which a bullet makes as it enters, there was nothing but a shallow ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges

... upper surface of a leaf and, covering it with silk, drew it together so that nothing could be seen of the work inside. They began spinning some on the forty-second, some on the forty-third day, when about three inches in length and plump to bursting. I think at a puncture in the skin they would have spurted like a fountain. They began spinning at night and were from sight before I went to them the following morning. So I hunted a box and packed them away with ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... a torrential rain fell, but it lulled neither wind nor sea. The hurricane was unleashed at a speed of forty-five meters per second, hence almost forty leagues per hour. Under these conditions houses topple, roof tiles puncture doors, iron railings snap in two, and twenty-four-pounder cannons relocate. And yet in the midst of this turmoil, the Nautilus lived up to that saying of an expert engineer: "A well-constructed hull can defy any ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... accomplished woman of the world was laughing at him. "For my own sake I want to know," he blurted out. "I haven't an idea why I suspect you, and it is possible that you are what you say you are. Certainly you are far too clever not to have an alibi it would be difficult to puncture. But I sensed something that first night . . . something beyond the fact that you were a European and did a curious thing—which, however, I understood immediately. . . . It was something more. . . . I don't think I can put it ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... needle at him. The one relieving factor was the low gravity; on an asteroid, the problem of sleeping on a bed of nails is caused by the likelihood of accidentally throwing oneself off the bed. The probability of puncture or discomfort from ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... canned goods, save every tin can when empty, melt off the top, and with nail and hammer puncture a hole on two opposite sides near the top, and fasten in a rootlet handle. These cans make very serviceable ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... haul, Her hatbrim tilted across her eyes; The cricketer dips to the flying ball, His white pants billowing round his thighs; But thou, Charivari, week by week Remaining (I take it) quite unique, Shalt shake with laughter and pink them all With points that puncture the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various

... may have thought the doctor was about to inflict a vicarious puncture on himself. Skenedonk, with respect for civilized surgery, waited. I did not wait. The operator bared me to the elbow and showed a piece of plaster already sticking on my arm. The conviction of being outraged in ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... fat, which is like lard, had been put inside of them. Holding the moulds shut, and placing them in very cold water, they kept turning them around until the melted fat had hardened into a thin shell exactly the size of a bullet. Then a small puncture was made through this thin casing of fat, and the interior carefully filled up with fine sand. It was not difficult then to stop up the orifice with a little fat. It was then carefully coloured like a bullet, and at a distance could hardly be distinguished from one. When put in a gun ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young

... the King they must make a puncture in about four hours, he desired it might be made at once if ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)

... called, "let's have another damage control crew back here on the triple. Get the medics back here, too." Clay and his men put on masks and moved off. I borrowed one from a man standing by and followed. The large exit puncture was in the forward cargo lock. The room was sealed ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer

... guess we all do the best we can. I guess we can't see very far ahead in this world." And then he smiled grimly. "I guess we never know when we're going to get a puncture. There's got to be patches on the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... the heart—that should be easier! And the miscreant, not quite a Cato, gave a feeble stab, that made a little puncture. Not yet, Simon Jennings; no, not yet; you shall not cheat the gallows. "Ha! hanging, hanging! why had I not thought of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... of intellect which never fails to recognize the obvious, you have correctly diagnosed the case. We have picked up a puncture." ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... the bag began to distend and then the balloon took shape and form. The bag was of the usual cigar shape, divided into many compartments so that the puncture of one would not empty out all ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton

... scares you people cook up in the stock market." To this they made no answer beyond delicately polite insinuations about being tired of paying for that which was theirs of right. I did not argue; it is never necessary to puncture the pretenses of men of affairs with a view to saving them from falling into the error of forgetting that whatever "right" may mean on Sunday, on week days it means that which ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... it. I caught a dizzying glimpse of the abyss. Then it receded as we bounced the other way. And then we fell to the grid. His helmet bashed against mine, striking as though butting with the side of his head to puncture my visor-panel. His gloved fingers were trying to rip at ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... through that almost imperceptible wound under his chin. This wound, so far as I have yet been able to examine it without a glass, was made with a somewhat blunt instrument, able, apparently, to little more than puncture the skin and draw a drop or so of blood. Of course, on such a theory, death must have resulted from poisoning. The essential point is: Where is the ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... that awful juncture my presence of mind? ... but no! I leaned and felt for the puncture, and plugged it there with my toe.... Hand over hand by the Members' Stand I lifted and eased her up, Shot—clean and fair—to the crossbar there, and ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... like an air-tight proposition, he admitted, at last. But, he said to himself, anything air-tight could be punctured. And undoubtedly a fine flow of currency would result from such a puncture. So he kept on looking about, asking casual questions, listening. In the language of the street he was ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... was within a few miles of Pineford, Tom took a road that branched off and went around it. Stopping at night in a lonely farmhouse, he pushed on the next morning, hoping to get to the woods that night. But a puncture to one of the tires delayed him, and after that was repaired he discovered something wrong with his batteries. He had to go five miles out of his way to get new cells, and it was dusk when he came to the stretch ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton

... last thing in life Jafe ever did was try to shove himself away from those rocks. That, and the force of air coming out of that puncture for the first second or two, was enough to throw him up off the surface. It threw him up too high, and ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake

... the moral damage likely to be done to his friend by this flattering incident, sought to puncture Honnell's unhealthy pride by saying, "Plaho?" (or "bad") as a suggestion to the critics; but this only caused them to say repeatedly and with emphasis, "Dobra!"—which was one of Honnell's six ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various

... a one-inch-wide strip of newspaper into an old-fashioned paper lighter, which is merely rolling the strip spirally into a round stick; this is the mast. Cut a paper sail, not too large, puncture holes in it and slide the sail on the mast; add a small paper pennant on the extreme top; then insert the base of the mast into a common wooden spool and glue the spool tight to the bottom of the boat at the centre ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard

... whose miserable death we had witnessed, twas a light delicate little fellow, about fourteen years old, of the name of Duncan; he was the smallest boy of his age I ever saw, and had been badly hurt in repelling the attack of the pirate. His wound was a lacerated puncture in the left shoulder from a boarding pike, but it appeared to be healing kindly, and for some days we thought he was doing well. However, about five o'clock in the afternoon on which we made Jamaica, the surgeon accosted Mr Douglas as we were ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... signals at a height out of range of these guns, or at least so great that the chances of their being hit were but slight. It was amazing the manner in which an airplane could navigate a stretch of air full of bursting shrapnel and yet escape serious injury. The mere puncture, even the repeated puncture, of the wings did no damage. Only lucky shots that might pierce the fuel tank, hit the engine, touch an aileron or an important stay or strut, could affect the machine, while in due course of ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... Abeille, chief physician to the hospital at Ajaccio, has an interesting communication—On the employment of electricity to counteract the accidents arising from too long inhalation of ether or chloroform. He found that patients submitted to galvano-puncture could not be rendered insensible by the effects of ether—the galvanism invariably restored sensation—and taking this accidentally-discovered fact as the basis of further research, he set to work and made a series of experiments on living animals, and arrived at results ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various

... of the microscopic mandibles. Those two delicate spikes are incapable of chewing anything, but they may very well serve to pierce the epidermis with an aperture smaller than that made by the finest needle; and it is through this puncture that the Leucopsis sucks the juices of his prey. They are instruments made to perforate the bag of fat which slowly, without suffering any internal injury, is emptied through an opening repeated here and there. ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... a mosquito impinged upon the stillness, something settled on his neck and there followed a swift sting like the puncture of a hypodermic needle. Instantly he slapped the place with his hand, and retreated behind his smoke-smudge. There he threw himself once more on the pack that served him for seat and ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... shall have as eloquent pleas in defence of the mosquito, and perhaps oven of the tzetze-fly, as Toussenel and Michelet have framed in behalf of the bird. The silkworm, the lac insect, and the bee need no apologist; a gallnut produced by the puncture of a cynips on a Syrian oak is a necessary ingredient in the ink I am writing with, and from my windows I recognize the grain of the kermes and the cochineal in the gay habiliments of the holiday ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... elephant with a pea-shooter to imagine that any human weapon could cripple that mighty bulk. And yet I aimed better than I knew, for, with a loud report, one of the great blisters upon the creature's back exploded with the puncture of the buck-shot. It was very clear that my conjecture was right, and that these vast clear bladders were distended with some lifting gas, for in an instant the huge cloud- like body turned sideways, writhing desperately to find its balance, ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... I am sure. I was about to say that there was a slight abrasion in the palm of the left hand, a sort of scratch or puncture, as though from a pin, but as she was in the jewelry business and, as I understand it, often made slight repairs herself to brooches and pins brought in, this could ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele

... hydrocephalus (or water on the brain), where there is an abnormal secretion of cerebro-spinal fluid acting to increase the pressure on the brain, the simple expedient of withdrawing the fluid by lumbar puncture brings about normal mental life. As the fluid again collects, the mental life becomes cloudy, and the character alters (irritability, depressed mood, changed purpose, lowered will); another lumbar puncture and presto!—the individual is for ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... the 'Psychology of Touch,' and which he erroneously thought to be the counterpart of the optical illusion for open and filled spaces. One of the earliest notices of this illusion is that given by James,[13] who says, "Divide a line on paper into two equal halves, puncture the extremities, and make punctures all along one of the halves; then, with the finger-tip on the opposite side of the paper, follow the line of punctures; the empty half will seem much longer than ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various



Words linked to "Puncture" :   vilipend, separate, deflate, mishap, hole, create, depreciate, deprecate, depressurize, pinhole, spinal puncture, misadventure, depressurise, scarify, break, make, pricking, perforation, split up, pinprick, fall apart, activity, mischance, come apart, lumbar puncture, venipuncture, prick



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