Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Rake   Listen
noun
Rake  n.  The inclination of anything from a perpendicular direction; as, the rake of a roof, a staircase, etc.; especially (Naut.), The inclination of a mast or funnel, or, in general, of any part of a vessel not perpendicular to the keel.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Rake" Quotes from Famous Books



... empty; something had taken them. Addison said that it was most likely a crow, but possibly a snake. We often found the nests, while haying in the fields; the scythe generally passed over them without doing any harm, and to save them from the rake, we would put up a stick close beside them. But their enemies are wofully numerous; not half the nests of young are reared. Ants, I think, kill numbers of the nestlings, soon after they are hatched, when they chance ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... commit it to memory, as the event proved, with but indifferent success. He comprehended, in a vague way, that the warriors were to do battle for the honor of their true loves, but, at the critical moment, the lines escaped him and he had to improvise. The lances were rake-handles, and, as this was not to be a fray a l'outrance, about the end of each formidable weapon was wadded and tied an empty ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... not face the bayonets," cried Brace. "Gallop," he shouted; and he led us toward a bit of an eminence, where he evidently meant to take up position, and rake the ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... in a rabbit warren while George Harrison set springes in accordance with the principles laid down by the Third Internationale for rabbit-snaring? or the Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND standing in gum-boots in the middle of a stream and flicking George Harrison about the trousers if he didn't rake out old tin cans at forty to the minute as laid down by the Moscow Code? Now ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various

... how, You've got detectives, haven't you? Find out all about him, where he comes from, who his people were. Rake his life with a fine tooth comb from the day he was born. He's a bad egg. We all know that. Dig up ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... set the man to work with it—to rake up, slowly and deliberately, the surface of the sawdust, himself vigilantly superintending the operation, and directing the man to proceed regularly, and to leave no spot untouched. I need not say with what intense interest I watched this proceeding. I felt as if life ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... them. At each end of the long ridge the situation at the dawn of day was almost identical. In each the stormers had seized one side, but were brought to a stand by the defenders upon the other, while the British guns fired over the heads of their own infantry to rake the further slope. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Goose. There was no refusing him, for he had got the complete upper-hand of the community, and the peaceful burghers all stood in awe of him. But what a time would the quiet, worthy men have, among these rake-hells, who would delight to astound them with the most extravagant gunpowder tales, embroidered with all kinds of foreign oaths; clink the can with them; pledge them in deep potations; bawl drinking songs in their ears; and occasionally fire pistols over their heads, or under the table, and ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... the feet of the woman are sundry articles, amongst which a bundle of rags, an iron pot, and a tin saucepan, are the most conspicuous. The man to whom she is talking is a tall, gaunt specimen of Irish poverty and famine. He holds a rake and pitchfork in his hand, and leans upon them for support. Gazing into his face is a rough, surly-looking youth, who seems cordially to agree with all ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... every time. Whatever Burke done, it was Mann behind him; and when Burke got a rake-off of a thousand, Mann got two. As I'm tellin' you, they arranged the whole affair in my rooms. There was Mann and Burke, and McAdoo, and one or two others, and myself. I ain't claiming to be any better than the rest. I was there—not that ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow

... bushes have been rooted out, the undergrowth burnt off, and the thickets removed—ploughing is commenced in September. When the ground has twice been deeply ploughed, the weeds and roots must be brought together with the rake and carefully burnt. The depth of the ploughing must be regulated by the nature of the ground. In all kinds of cultivation, deep ploughing is recommended, but in Java we ought not to plough deeper than the stratum of fertile soil, as a ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... their misery, while to Rosalind he confesses that he loves melancholy better than laughing. ''Tis good to be sad and say nothing.' He has, he says, a melancholy of his own, the result of his experience and reflection, which wraps him in a most humorous sadness. Jaques, in fact, is a rake turned cynical philosopher. He regards man and nature as only so much material ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams

... could not permit my scientific calm to be interrupted by the blackmailing visits of so insignificant a person. And then after many years you came, Maisie. You also got between me and that work which was life to me. You also showed that you would rake up this old matter and bring dishonour upon a name which has stood for something in science. You also—but you will forgive me. I have held on to life for your sake as an atonement for my sins. Now, I go! Cumberledge—your notebook. Subjective sensations, swimming in the head, light flashes ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... avail. Every now and then a shout of discovery went up, but the booty of the grappling hooks invariably proved to be only watersoaked logs or mud-filled wreckage. Once they were all electrified at a black-haired body dislodged by a clam-rake, that came heavily to the surface and then sank, to be the subject of ten minutes frantic dragging, only to be finally revealed as the body ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart

... Swindles, "what I makes out is this. I was riding within a pound or two of nine stone, and The Rake is, as you know, seven pounds, no more, worse than Bayleaf. Ginger rides usually as near as possible my weight—we'll say he was riding nine two—I think he could manage that—and the Demon, we know, he is now riding over the six stone; in his ordinary clothes ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... ostler. I asked the master if we were still in the land of the Maragatos; but he told me that we had left it behind nearly a league, and that the lad was an orphan and was serving until he could rake up a sufficient capital to become an arriero. I addressed several questions to the boy, but the urchin looked sullenly in my face, and either answered by monosyllables or was doggedly silent. I asked him if he could read. "Yes," said he, "as much as that brute ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... for baking or any purpose after the first four hours, let the fire burn low, then take off the covers, and with the poker from the bottom rake out all the ashes thoroughly. Then put in two or three sticks of wood, fill as before with fresh coal, and the fire is good for another four hours or more. If only a light fire be required after dinner ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... House," as the man called it, was a place where a gardener, a cook, and a maid were kept by a rich family, and the gardener used to rake up the trash in the yard and keep it until the rubbish man called with his wagon to take ...
— The Story of a Lamb on Wheels • Laura Lee Hope

... a rake, a man of professed gallantry? impossible. To me, a common rake is as odious as a common prostitute is to a man of the nicest feelings. Where can be the joy, the pride, of inspiring a passion which ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... on more quietly. "I'm no Galahad and I make no pretences to virtue, but I'm no rake or despoiler of women either. I dare you to doubt it. You didn't doubt it—there—in the studio. You can't doubt it now. Women of your sort—and ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... above mentioned, we cannot tell what year,) Mau-mau Bett told James she would make him a loaf of rye-bread, and get Mrs. Simmons, their kind neighbor, to bake it for them, as she would bake that forenoon. James told her he had engaged to rake after the cart for his neighbors that morning; but before he commenced, he would pole off some apples from a tree near, which they were allowed to gather; and if she could get some of them baked with the bread, ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth

... were heated on Sabbath, they are forbidden for washing and drinking. But if on a holiday, as if hot waters were heated on a holiday, they are forbidden for washing but allowed for drinking." "A skillet with attached brazier?" "If one rake out the coals (on Friday evening), persons may drink its hot waters on Sabbath." "A pan with double bottom?" "Even though the coals are raked out, they must not drink ...
— Hebrew Literature

... reception. There were hundreds of men and women, dressed for a party, and it did not seem like a gambling hell, except that there were, piles of gold as big as stoves, on all the tables, and the guests were provided with silver rakes, with long handles, to rake in the money. Dad said in a whisper to the Dakota man: "What is the use of taking the trouble to run a gold mine, and get all dirtied up digging dirty nuggets, when you can get nice, clean gold, all coined, ready to spend, by betting right?" And then dad turned to me and he said; "Hennery, don't ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... and they are plainly of the same age. Their outer branches interlace in brotherly companionship to make a solid leafy arbor, beneath which the wayfarer may find a shady retreat. On the summit of the hill, outlined against the sky, is a hay wagon followed by a man with a rake. At a distance, also clearly seen against the sky, on the ridge of the hill, sits a ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... live there." With this hint at certain speculations of Father Wynn in public lands for a homestead, he added that "If they [Brace and Wynn] could bring him along any older American settler than an Indian, they might rake down his [Dunn's] pile." Unprepared for this turn in the conversation, Wynn hastened to explain that he did not refer to the pure aborigine, whose gradual extinction no one regretted more than himself, but to the mongrel, who inherited only ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... confusion, at others, neatly packed in square stacks. Now, they bring us to a huge circular oven, with at least half-a-dozen firmly closed iron doors, and as many glowing caves; and a swarthy man, armed with an iron rake, swinging open one of the iron doors with a ring and a clatter, we look in upon a small lake of molten silver, fuming, and steaming, and bubbling. The iron rake is thrust in, and scrapes off the crumbling crust—the oxide of lead, which has formed upon its surface. The silver fumes and flashes, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... frankly that the circumstances of married life have hitherto hampered the expression of that which is in me, and confined the scope of my individuality within narrow and uncongenial limits. I am not complaining; I have no intention to rake up the past; but it is proper you should know that I believe myself capable of larger undertakings than have yet been afforded me, and worthy of ampler recognition than I have yet received. If I accept you as a husband, it will be because ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... steep, overhanging sides of stranded fishing-boats. The clear, heavy water-edge of ocean rising and falling close to their bows, in that unaccountable way which the sea has always in calm weather, turning the pebbles over and over as if with a rake, to look for something, and then stopping a moment down at the bottom of the bank, and coming up again with a little run and clash, throwing a foot's depth of salt crystal in an instant between you and the round stone you were going to take in your hand; sighing, all the while, ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin

... in lickety smash, and invest all the money they can rake and scrape, in these inflated stocks. Suddenly you prick the bubble, when, alas! besides the cry-sis, there's more cry-bubs in and about Wall Street than there was in Egipt, when NAPOLEON BONAPART chopped off the heads off all the first born. Instances have been ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various

... not a reformed rake, but only a ruined one then. Austin was very good to him. Mr. Danvers says it is quite unaccountable how Silas can have made away with the immense sums he got from his brother from time to time without benefiting himself in the least. But, my dear, he played; and trying ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... and he were there We nead neuer feare Of the feendes blacke For I undertake He wold so brag and crake That he wold than make The deuils to quake To shudder and to shake Lyke a fier drake And with a cole rake Bruse them on a brake And binde them to a stake And set hel on fyre At his own desire He is such ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... an hour's notice—his mind never weds any of the strange, fantastic idealities, which he woos for a time so passionately—deep disgust succeeds to the strongest attachment for them—he is as great a rake among the wayward "rebusses of the brain" which fall under his notice as that "wandering melodist—the bee of Hybla"—with the blossoms of spring. He has no affection for the schemes, or "vain imaginations" of other men—no one can ridicule them ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various

... beds should be marked off in breadths of four feet, with one-foot alleys between. Break all lumps with the spade, and work the surface to a regular and finely crumbled texture. Light soil should be trodden over to consolidate it, and then the surface may be carefully touched with the rake to prepare it for the seed. March and April are the usual months for spring sowing, although in mild districts seed is sometimes put in as early as January. Space the rows from nine to twelve inches apart, according to the character of the sort and the ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... May. The Lady May was a relic of the time before Issy was assistant depot master, when he gained a precarious living by quahauging, separating the reluctant bivalve from its muddy house on the bay bottom with an iron rake, the handle of which was forty feet long. Issy had been seized with a desire to try quahauging once more, hence his holiday. The rake was broken and he had put in at Denboro to have it fixed. While the blacksmith was busy, ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the rathskeller were upon him. He was as fresh as a collard and as ingenuous as a hay rake. He let his eye rove about the place as one who regards, big-eyed, hogs in the potato patch. His gaze rested at length upon Miss Carrington. He rose and went to her table with a lateral, shining smile and a ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... (reuten), corresponding to Low Ger. roden, and related to our royd, a clearing (Chapter XII). This word is apparently not connected with our root, though it means to root out, but ultimately belongs to a root ru which appears in Lat. rutrum, a spade, rutabulum, a rake, etc. ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... not. A man like Weedie can get anywhere, because he's no scruples and he can rake in mere numbers to back him. And it's all right. This is a democracy. If the majority of the people want a demagogue to rule over them, they've a perfect right to go to the devil ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... know that James,—but naturally you wouldn't know, having just landed, my dear Jane. You haven't seen Braden Thorpe, so it isn't likely that you could have heard. I fancy he isn't saying much about it, in any event. The world is too eager to rake up things against him in view ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... Mahjekewis, adj. the eldest Meskoodesemin, n. a bean Mategwahkezinekaid, n. a shoe-maker Menahwenahgowd, v. look pleasant Meneweyook, v. be fruitful Megeskun, n. a hook Mezesok, n. a horse-fly Mahwahdooskahegun, n. a rake Mookoojegun, n. a plane, or drawing-knife Mahskemood, n. a bag Moonegwana, n. a meadow-lark Meshawa, n. an elk ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield

... Rake, after Roving and Tipling all Night, For his Groat in the Morning may set his Head right. And the Beau, who ne'er fouls his White fingers with Brass, May have his Sixpen' worth of—Stare ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... carry four or five hundred pounds considerable distances on the portage," said he. "It isn't best for them, but they're always rivaling one another in these feats of strength. Saunders here, the captain, used to carry five hundred pounds in his day—all the salt pork and boxes you could rake up on top of him. You see this is a country of large distances and the seasons are short. You talk about 'hustling' down in the cities, but I suppose there never was a business carried on which 'hustled' as long and hard as the ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough

... to calm: They see the green trees wave On the heights o'erlooking Greve. Hearts that bled are stanched with balm, "Just our rapture to enhance, Let the English rake the bay, Gnash their teeth and glare askance As they cannonade away! 'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!" How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's countenance! Out burst all with one accord, "This ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... confession. I little thought I should ever have another. Late as it is, shall I avail myself of it? Nay! if not before, why now? Why now?—when there are so much stronger reasons for silence—when to speak would be to knock to atoms the newly-built edifice of Barbara's happiness—to rake up the old and nearly dead ashes of Frank's frustrated, and for aught I know, sincerely repented sin? So I answer, faintly indeed, yet quite audibly ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... had something of a crotch on the end of it and with this he began to rake among the dead leaves that had blown into the hollow log. He brought out a great quantity but no ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.

... moisture and manure they want, for the nuts fall first. In a plentiful year, a large proportion of the nuts are thus covered loosely an inch deep, and are, of course, somewhat concealed from squirrels. One winter, when the crop had been abundant, I got, with the aid of a rake, many quarts of these nuts as late as the tenth of January, and though some bought at the store the same day were more than half of them mouldy, I did not find a single mouldy one among these which I picked from under the wet and mouldy leaves, where they had been snowed on once or ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... body of John Cole: His master loved him like his soul; He could rake hay; none could rake faster, Except that raking ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... position in the plain. The Earl of Lucan and the British cavalry advanced beyond that position. The Russians occupied a gorge between two hills, flanked with field-pieces, a line of horse artillery in front, and guns of position placed Upon the heights so as to rake the ground upon which an attacking force must approach. To draw the British to attack them in this strong position, was the strategy of the Russian general. He succeeded. The cavalry were ordered to charge; the order was conveyed from Lord Baglan to Lord ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... his head, blinks his eyes, and grunts twice. Then he says, 'you still want go America?' 'Sure!' our Chink answers. 'All light,' says Foy Lee. 'You come with me.' The rascal knows all the time what to do, only he wants to make it seem hard, so he can get his little rake off. ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker

... rake, the mountain summits, Or waves that own no curbing hand, How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... would cause your unhappiness, and the unhappiness of those near and dear to you." I laughed then at the words, yet how true they were. My father, too, spoke several times as if he had pierced the veil that hides the future. To-day the remembrance is too late. I know it is useless to rake up the ashes of the past, but I cannot help it. I am sorry for myself, but more sorry still for Aniela. She would have been a hundred times happier with me than with Kromitzki. Supposing even I should have subjected her at first to analysis, and discovered ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... are always willing to espouse the cause of the "black sheep," and to further the matrimonial success of the penitent roue. Many mothers are willing to marry their daughters to the polished villain of society, who is known as a rake and debauchee, if his family connections are desirable. It has been even held that a youth who did not "sow his wild ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... its use has become common, the spread of the mowing machine making it a necessity, cutting the grass so fast that only a very large number of men with the old forks could keep up with it. The tedder also rendered raking by hand too slow, and the horse-rake, patented first in 1841, has immensely improved ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... bird—also shown in the heading above—is found in the tropical and temperate regions of the globe, and frequents marshes and shallow lakes. In deep water flamingoes swim, but they prefer to wade, for then they can bend down their necks and rake the bottom with their peculiar-shaped bill in search of food. Flocks of these birds, with their red plumage, when seen from a distance, have been likened by observers to troops ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... shews, that as it only serves to amuse a Crowd of ignorant Wretches, unless meerly with temporal Views (Sectarists generally calculating Religion for their Interests) so it gives a License to all manner of Indecencies, and the Congregations usually resort thither with the same Regard as a Rake of the Town would do to Mother Wybourn's, or any publick ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe

... churches, they may paint frescoes, organize pageants, make Homeric songs about their heroes. Communist art will begin, and is beginning now, in the propaganda pictures, and stories such as those designed for peasants and children. There is, for instance, a kind of Rake's Progress or "How she became a Communist," in which the Entente leaders make a sorry and grotesque appearance. Lenin and Trotsky already figure in woodcuts as Moses and Aaron, deliverers of their people, while the mother and child who illustrate the statistics of ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell

... pardonable? A male sheep with a fleece as white as that of a ewe-lamb,—is he not considered to be, among muttons, somewhat insipid? It was of this taste which Pope was conscious when he declared that every woman was at heart a rake. And so it comes to pass that very black sheep indeed are admitted into society, till at last anxious fathers and more anxious mothers begin to be aware that their young ones are turned out to graze among ravenous ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope

... had ploughed, the man went back to his cart and unloaded another farm implement. This one was like a three-cornered platform of wood, with a long, curved, strong rake under it. It was called a harrow, and it looked like the diagram on ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant

... reared his spines An idler in the fields; the crops die down; Upsprings instead a shaggy growth of burrs And caltrops; and amid the corn-fields trim Unfruitful darnel and wild oats have sway. Wherefore, unless thou shalt with ceaseless rake The weeds pursue, with shouting scare the birds, Prune with thy hook the dark field's matted shade, Pray down the showers, all vainly thou shalt eye, Alack! thy neighbour's heaped-up harvest-mow, And in the greenwood from a shaken ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... any thesis, and the thesis is not hurt thereby. The Vatican wisely employs an advocatus diabolus, whose paradoxical function is to establish the sanctity of a candidate for canonisation by alleging all of what is not saintly that he can rake up in the candidate's career. Your correspondent has acted as advocatus diabolus to "Made in Germany." He has said what there is to be said for the other side, and my book, I respectfully submit, ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox

... how I got up them stairs, for they were beginning to burn too. I opened her door—all red and glowing it was inside! like an oven when you open it to rake out the ashes on a baking-day. And I tried to get in, because all I wanted then was to save her—to get her out safe and sound, if I had to roast myself for it, because we had been brought up together from little things, and I loved her like a sister. And while I was trying to get my jacket ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit

... glanced at Nannie as he spoke, and she nodded her head sadly. "I used to know Erveng; he was a classmate of mine," went on Max, thoughtfully, wrinkling up his eyebrows at the fire. "I wonder how it would do to rake up the acquaintance again, and bring him over unexpectedly to call on the professor,"—papa's friends all call him Professor Rose,—"and surprise him into showing ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... farmhouses, with rustic beauties smiling at the windows and wiser fathers scowling at the doors,—on they ride. To the Royalists, these troopers are "Prince Robert and the hope of the nation";—to the Puritans, they are only "Prince Robber and his company of rake-shames." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... of calm study vanished away. I had to partake in the debauchery of a young rake, and all ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... "Like clouds that rake the mountain summits, Or waves that own no curbing hand, How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... interrupted the conversation. "It doesn't quite follow," he suggested. "You people don't, I regret to say, understand the destiny of this child. The fact is that even the old Hanlin scholar Mr. Cheng was erroneously looked upon as a loose rake and dissolute debauchee! But unless a person, through much study of books and knowledge of letters, so increases (in lore) as to attain the talent of discerning the nature of things, and the vigour of mind to fathom the Taoist reason as well as to comprehend the first principle, he is not ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... rose from the deck of the English ship. On she stood, with her broadside ready to rake her antagonist, who had fallen off before the wind. Just as she was about to deliver her fire, a man jumped into the ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston

... said Hugh, and he eyed him largely. The garret was empty save for the mattress and the blanket that lay on it, and two or three plates, with the refuse of food, on the floor. It was a low room, with a skylight in the rake of the roof, which sloped down to a sharp angle. There was no window. The walls were half timbered, and had once been plastered, but the laths were now ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... lumber that one age flings aside as worthless for the next to pick up from the dust-heap and regard as precious. Surely the genius of culture in our century might be compared to a chiffonnier of Paris, who, when the night has fallen, goes into the streets, bag on back and lantern in hand, to rake up the waifs and strays a day of whirling life ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... my brother Reuel. He used to have rheumatiz; had it bad. One day there was a thunder-storm, and he was out gettin' in his hay, and was struck by lightnin'. Fluid run along the rake and spit in his face, he used to say. He lost the use of his eyes and hands for six months, but he never had rheumatiz again for twenty years. Swore it was the electricity; said he swallered ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards

... being thus begun, was continued with unremitting fury. Every method was practised on both sides to gain an advantage, and rake each other; and I must confess that the enemy's ship being much more manageable than the Bonhomme Richard, gained thereby several times an advantageous situation, in spite of my best endeavours to prevent it. As I had to deal with an enemy of greatly ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... "You could sing and dance in this entertainment, do just what you pleased, it would make it all the better. I'll deliver the lecture and your daddy, (he was becoming insultingly familiar), could sit at the door and rake in the money. Hasn't the old man talked to you about it? I've been talking ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... he reckons I'm going to cross his bows and rake him," he whispered. "He reckons I'll keep my course to sarve his consort the same. He reckons to come up under my starn and rake me fore and aft, while his consort wears ship and pounds me with her broadside. That's his little game. 'Tain't mine though, ye know, Mr. Caryll—'tain't mine." ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... 1st, A rake shaft or head, arranged outside of the periphery of the wheels, projecting laterally beyond them, and so jointed that its sections can be folded vertically upon the carrying frame without detaching any of the parts of the rake, substantially ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... executioners thereof, and before our men there went a couple of criers, which cried as they went, "Behold these English dogs, Lutherans, enemies to God," and all the way as they went, there were some of the Inquisitors themselves, and of the familiars of that rake-hell order, that cried to the executioners, "Strike, lay on those English heretics, Lutherans, God's enemies;" and so this horrible spectacle being showed round about the city, and they returned to the Inquisitors' House, with their backs all gore blood and swollen with great bumps. They were then ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt

... laid his express command on her never to see Hugh Trevor, my father, more, on the very night that she eloped. Add to which, she had the example of an elder sister, to terrify her from such dereliction of duty; who, having married a rake, had been left a widow, poor, desolate, and helpless, and obliged to live an unhappy dependent on her offended father. 'I'll please my eye though I break ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... Opie a couple of good loads of the soil from the meadow bottom where the red bell-lilies grow, and mix this with the good loam, together with a scattering of bone, before replacing it. The bed should not only be full, but well rounded. Grade it nicely with a rake and wait a week or until rain has settled it before planting. When setting these lilies, let there be six inches of soil above the bulb, and sprinkle the hole into which it goes with fresh-water sand mixed ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... to rake over the ground, fished up some objects and various papers, shoved them into the sack and turning his ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... little about the fittingness of women working in the fields. Cecilia thought it preferable to washing dishes, and one of us, who believes herself not born to sew, maintained that to rake hay was more agreeable than sitting at sewing-machines or making shirts at twenty cents apiece after the manner of New-York workwomen. But once indignation and excitement took possession of us all as we caught sight of a bare-footed, slight young girl toiling up a ladder and carrying mortar ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... said carelessly. "Jack Vernon was always a rake and a roue; though, as I am a friend of his, I ought not to tell you this. But for your ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... would not have a garden in April? to rake together the rubbish and burn it up, to turn over the renewed soil, to scatter the rich compost, to plant the first seed or bury the first tuber! It is not the seed that is planted, any more than it is I that is planted; it is not the dry stalks and weeds that are burned up, any more ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... cut-throat," said the Duke, as much impatient of Colonel Blood's claim of acquaintance, as a town-rake of the low and blackguard companions of his midnight rambles, when they accost him in daylight amidst better company; "if you dare to quote my name again, I will have you ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... in the sixteenth century to commemorate the visits of different monarchs. King Frederick II., 1585, must have had many friends with him. Like our modern guest-book, each guest left his name and motto, which was painted on the walls, with his motto and his particular sign, such as a mug or a rake (I hope these did not refer to his personal attributes). One that King Frederick wrote seems to me to be very pathetic, and makes one think that his friends must have been ultra-treacherous and false. It reads: ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... both his eyes. While he learned, as with the mind of some one else, that the Desmonds had been very much opposed to Phyllis's playing at the Inn, but had consented partly with their poverty, because they needed everything they could rake and scrape together, and partly with their will, because Miss Axewright was such a nice girl, he was painfully adjusting his consciousness to the fact that the girl at the piano was not the girl whom he had seen at Boston and whom he had so ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... annuitant does not lead the most regular life. Besides, I am credibly informed he is choleric and rash, so that he may be concerned in a duel. Then there are such things as riots in the street, in which a rake's skull may be casually cracked; he may be overturned in a coach, overset in the river, thrown from a vicious horse, overtaken with a cold, endangered by a surfeit; but what I place my chief confidence in, is an hearty pox, a distemper which hath been fatal to his whole family. Not but that the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... cou'd not go, tho' 'tis upon Life and Death, without taking leave of dear Chargee. Besides, this Fellow buz'd in my Ears, that thou might'st be so desperate to shoot that wild Rake which haunts the Garden-Gate; and that wou'd bring ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre

... cramming to stupidity, would cram you from their pouch, as the monkey served Gulliver on the house-top. The whole tribe are foul feeders, at best love trash and fatten upon scraps; the worst absolutely rake the kennels, and prey on garbage. They stick with amazing tenacity, almost resembling canine fidelity and gratitude, to the remains of the dead lion. But in fact, their love is like that of the ghowl; worse than ghowls, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... children, all in such a rampant state that busy mothers wondered how they ever should be able to keep their frisky darlings out of mischief; thrifty fathers planned how they could bribe the idle hands to pick berries or rake hay; and the old folks, while wishing the young folks well, secretly blessed the man who ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... rack and rode out to the field, Asa driving and Addison coming on behind, to rake after the cart. Jim and Halstead had gone on ahead, to ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... woman of no small spirit), "if you don't leave this ground I'll have you pushed out with pitchforks, I will—you and your beggarly blackamoor yonder." And, suiting the action to the word, she clapped a stable fork into the hands of one of the gardeners, and called another, armed with a rake, to his help, while young Tug set the dog at their heels, and I hurrahed for joy to see such ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... many goat-feathers that half the people introduce me as Ellis Butler Parker and the other half as Butler Parker Ellis, and if there is a ton of hay growing on my lawn nobody bothers to pick a pint. My father has to cut it and rake it away. ...
— Goat-Feathers • Ellis Parker Butler

... of the Sofala lying alongside the bank made a low, black wall on the undulating contour of the shore. Two masts and a funnel uprose from behind it with a great rake, as if about to fall: a solid, square elevation in the middle bore the ghostly shapes of white boats, the curves of davits, lines of rail and stanchions, all confused and mingling darkly everywhere; but low down, amidships, a single lighted port stared out on the night, perfectly round, like ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... and I thought he was about to dash my brains out with his weapon. Others, in like manner caught my companions. I thought my last moment had come, and expected every instant to see my friends struck to the ground. No sooner had we jumped down than they began to rake out the fire and to pull down the burning portions, though they were only just in time to save the hut from destruction. Immediately a number of them rushed up, and began to bring out our stores of sago and dried mollusc, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... "though I generally trade at the Red Front." I turned the card over for him and he studied the list of humble-born notables, though from a point of view peculiarly his own. "I don't see," he began, "what right they got to rake up all that stuff about people that's dead and gone. Who cares what their folks was!" And he added, "'Horace was the son of a shopkeeper'—Horace who?" Plainly the matter did not excite him, and I saw it would be useless to try to convey to him what the items ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... he whispered. "There is more in this affair than meets the ear, but I like the young man, and why should I rake among the ashes of the past? Which of us would care for an investigation of that kind?" Then he sat down before his fire and mentally followed Roland to the bare loneliness of that poor home where death ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... vessel sighted a large merchantman, off the coast of Spain, and engaged it in a terrible conflict. The merchantman carried twice as many people and heavier guns than the Sea Rover; but by the skilful management of his ship Captain Lane continued to rake her fore and aft until she was forced to strike her colors. When the conqueror went aboard, he found the splintered deck a scene of horror. Cordage, shrouds, broken spars and dead and dying men strewed the deck. Near the gangway was a middle-aged man holding in his ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... nothing but his lavish expenditure and his creditors. I know that the purses of forty women were at his disposal. I know, moreover, that he used to gamble like a prince, and I would never marry my waiting-maid to a gambler and a rake. ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... have told the cause of his distrust or of his secrecy, but he had a general feeling that to let an intriguer like Cuthbert Langston rake up any tale that could be connected with the party of the captive queen, could only lead ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of another farmhouse, so I went to it. The men-folk were away, but a dear old lady of ample proportions and kindly countenance was standing in her garden mourning the damage wrought therein by the heavy weather of the past week. I asked for a spade and a rake; within little more than an hour I had vastly improved things. Vegetables and flowers, which grew side by side in an eccentric jumble, had been flattened out by the rain into a wallow of mud. I obtained the cover of a packing-case; this I split up, ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... ship!" cried Captain Wilson, leaping off the hammocks. "Look out, my lads, and rake her in stays! We'll pay him off for that foul play before we've done with him. Look out, my lads, and take good aim ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... enemy's rudder. In this situation the fore-topsail yard and foretopmast of the Crescent were shot away in quick succession, and the ship flew up head to wind, bringing all her sails aback. For a moment she was in an awkward plight, but the Reunion, drawing away, could not rake; and Saumarez, by adroit management of the rudder and sails, backed his ship round,—always a nice operation and especially when near an enemy,—till the wind came again abaft, restoring the normal conditions of moving ahead under control of the helm. The contest was then renewed, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... drive out of the way to bring her, Laddie wanted to start early; and when he came down dressed in his college clothes, and looking the manliest of men, some of the folks thought it funny to see him carefully rake his hot bricks from the oven, and pin them in an old red breakfast shawl. I thought it was fine, and I whispered to mother: "Do you suppose that if Laddie ever marries the Princess he will be good to her as he is ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... who, not merely in the piece that has so long been the rage of the town, but in a brilliant series of previous successes, has always given us wit without dirt [applause]—a drama in which the hero is not a rake, and the heroine is not perpetually posing and ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... Queen Victoria. Then there is St. Evremond, who is nearly as complete. Do you want the view of a woman of quality? There are the letters of Madame de Sevigne (eight volumes of them), perhaps the most wonderful series of letters that any woman has ever penned. Do you want the confessions of a rake of the period? Here are the too salacious memoirs of the mischievous Duc de Roquelaure, not reading for the nursery certainly, not even for the boudoir, but a strange and very intimate picture of the times. All ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Aunt Gainor's; and to drink and bet, or to see a race or cock-fight, or to pull off knockers, or to bother the ancient watchmen, were now some of my most reputable amusements. I began to be talked about as a bit of a rake, and my Aunt Gainor was not too greatly displeased; she would hear of our exploits and say "Fie! fie!" and then give me more guineas. Worse than all, my father was deep in his business, lessening his ventures, and thus leaving me more time to sow the seed of idleness. Everything, as I now see ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... God's house has eaten him up;" but I am sure it has devoured some part of his good manners and civility. It might also be doubted whether it were altogether zeal which prompted him to this rough manner of proceeding: perhaps it became not one of his function to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays; a divine might have employ'd his pains to better purpose than in the nastiness of Plautus and Aristophanes; whose examples, as they excuse not me, so it might be possibly supposed that he read them not without some pleasure. They who have ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... soft brogue, to her abashed delight, a song he called "The Gurgling of the Churn." He helped Hetty milk the roan cow and sang while Hetty's apple-cheeks bloomed redder, an exquisite folk tune of a pretty girl who milked a cow in Ireland. Later in the summer he even helped Hughie rake the hay and had a song for that. As Hannah said, he seemed to have songs for everything and what he couldn't sing he could play with dazzling skill on ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... of tile in his head, instead of eyes; his mouth was made of an old broken rake, and was, of course, furnished with teeth. He had been brought into existence amidst the joyous shouts of boys, the jingling of sleigh-bells, and the slashing of whips. The sun went down, and the full moon rose, large, round, and clear, shining in ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... got on everything—down to one sock. I couldn't seem to get on the track of that sock, any way I could fix it. But I had to have it; so I went down on my hands and knees, with one slipper on and the other in my hand, and began to paw gently around and rake the floor, but with no success. I enlarged my circle, and went on pawing and raking. With every pressure of my knee, how the floor creaked! and every time I chanced to rake against any article, it seemed to give out thirty-five or thirty-six ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Wilts men raked the moon yet out of the pond? Did they lend thee their rake, Tib, that thou hast raked up a couple of green Forest palmerworms, or be they the sons of the man in the moon, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... girl who tells the inconvenient truth to everybody about everything, and you may guess that such candour does not make for peace. Mrs. Payton elects to keep her idiot son in the house, and Freddy thinks an asylum is the proper place for him, and says so. The late Mr. Payton was a rake, and Freddy derides her mother's weeds on the ground that the widow is really in her heart waving flags for deliverance, but daren't admit it. Freddy offers cigarettes to the curate, which is apparently a much greater crime over there than here. Freddy finally, carried ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various

... deck and gun-room. This was the strangeness of that battle. We were pounding through and through her, while she did not fight a gun of her main battery. But Jones was working his quarter-deck guns so as almost to rake our deck from stem to stern. You know, the ships were foul and lashed together. Jones says in his own account he aimed at our main-mast and kept firing at it. You can see that no crew could have lived under such a fire as that. There you have the last two hours of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... excitement, precipitation, disorder and mistaken maneuvers.[5128] On the contrary, on the side of the Convention, with Henriot's old bullies, there are eight or nine thousand regular troops, and Bonaparte; his cannon, which rake the rue Saint Honore and the Quai Voltaire, mow down five or six hundred sectionists. The rest disperse, and henceforth the check-mated Parisians are not to take up their guns against the Jacobin faction whatever ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... well. Nothing is ventured now. The risks of swift passages cannot be abided. Freights are calculated to the last least fraction of per cent. The captains do no speculating, no bargain-making for the owners. The latter attend to all this, and by wire and cable rake the ports of the seven seas in quest of cargoes, and through their agents ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London

... batteries were advanced in front of the main work; and, about half way down the hill, were two rows of abattis. The batteries were calculated to command the beach and the crossing place of the marsh, and to rake and enfilade any column which might be advancing from either of those points towards the fort. In addition to these defences, several vessels of war were stationed in the river, and commanded the ground at the foot of the hill. The garrison consisted ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall

... may not as well as they Rake up some threadbare tales, that mouldering lay In chimney corners, wont by Christmas fires To read and rock to sleep our ancient sires? No man his threshold better knows, than I Brute's first arrival and first victory, Saint ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... and then drew back, looking much disturbed. "You—er—you needn't rake up old times. Those things are all settled, and I've got as much right to be here ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer

... with a rake determined the life of this girl. She fell, not through ignorance or curiosity, but moved by anger and, as it were, out of bravado. Since she was without social position, motherless and isolated, having no family, without a prop and unloved, well, she threw off the yoke ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... although there was nothing prepossessing in his person or in his manners; but he had the reputation of being irresistible, and of course he was so; for, whatever may be the reason, it is a most lamentable fact, that to be called a professed rake, and reputed father of some half dozen illegitimate children, is a man's most irresistible passport, and powerful recommendation to the good graces and smiles of the fair sex at large; every woman is instantly eager to call into exercise that fascinating treachery that ought to doom ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... to their trust. After the distribution of the winnings, Little Ravin told the soldiers to stay and eat. Everybody grew merry. The soldiers went to the government dining room there at Fort Larned and got all the knives and forks they could rake and scrape together and took them to the barbecue. When the Indians saw that the white people had entered into the banquet with such enthusiasm and zest they went to the settlers' store and bought two or three hundred dollars worth of candies, canned goods of all ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... another vessel came slowly and haughtily into view from between the forts. She was as black as the king of England's brougham, and as smart; her two masts and her great single funnel were stepped with the most insolent rake imaginable. Here and there where the light of the setting sun smote upon polished brass she shone as ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... conducting a fair in London for soldiers' wives." My next remark was in the realm of ethics. I had heard that the father of the present Duke was a good deal of a rake and asked the young man whether that was true or not. He said he thought it was like the obituary notice of ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... started in the morning. Then a few hours later run over the field with the tedder. This will loosen the hay and let in air and sunshine. If the weather be fair let the hay lie until the next day, and then rake it into rows for further drying. After being raked, the hay may either be left in the rows for final curing or it may be put in cocks. If the weather be unsettled, it is best to cock the hay. Many farmers have cloth covers to ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett

... midst. This here's a cinch game and we are the fall guys. The contractors are a bum outfit. They'll squeeze us at every turn. There was two plunks to the employment man; they got half. Twenty for railway fare; they come in on that. Stop at certain hotels: a rake-off there. Stage fare: more graft. Five dollars a week for board: costs them two-fifty, and they will be stomach robbers at that. Then they'll ring in twice as many men as they need, and lay us off half the time, so that we just about even up on our board ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service



Words linked to "Rake" :   rake off, scrape, see, graze, glance over, rake-off, rounder, shave, run down, libertine, examine, smooth, loft, profligate, rake in, gather, skim, rip, blood, smoothen, rakehell, brush, pitch, garden rake, rake handle, enfilade, crease, garner, grate, pull together, gradient, slant, scan, move, roue, collect, sweep, debauchee, tool, croupier's rake, slope



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com