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Rasp   Listen
verb
Rasp  v. t.  (past & past part. rasped; pres. part. rasping)  
1.
To rub or file with a rasp; to rub or grate with a rough file; as, to rasp wood to make it smooth; to rasp bones to powder.
2.
Hence, figuratively: To grate harshly upon; to offend by coarse or rough treatment or language; as, some sounds rasp the ear; his insults rasped my temper.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rasp" Quotes from Famous Books



... stood by, watching them, hearing the rasp of steel beneath the apparently casual words. And unconsciously she measured the men, one ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... my ole man, we pick 'im up des like he wuz baby. I come mighty nigh droppin' 'im, suh, kaze one time, wiles we kyarn 'im up de bank, I year de bones in he leg rasp up 'g'inst one er n'er. Yes, suh. It make me blin' sick, suh. We kyard 'im home en put 'im upst'ars, en dar he stayed ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... nothing to keep up with, and I'm inclined to agree with him." The old spacehound's voice took on a quarter-deck rasp. "It's a combination of psionics, witchcraft and magic. None of it makes any kind ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith

... bows through racing seas, till the next order, shriller and more urgent, "Lower avay!" and the stiff canvas fought and slatted as the yards came down. Sea-boots and oilskins were the wear for every watch; wet decks and the crash of water coming inboard over the rail, dull cold and the rasp of heavy, sodden canvas on numb fingers, became again familiar to the men, and at last there arrived the evening, gravid with tempest, on which all ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... stagnant air of the day changed into a fitful breeze which played about their faces. The quick-silvery glaze on the rivers and pools vanished; from broad mirrors of light they changed to lustreless sheets of lead, with a surface like a rasp. But that spectacle did not affect her preoccupation. Her countenance, a natural carnation slightly embrowned by the season, had deepened its tinge with the beating of the rain-drops; and her hair, which the pressure of the cows' ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... are the family treasures, valuable beads, coins, blankets, ceremonial objects, and the like. Piled on the boxes is a variety of pillows, for no Tinguian house is complete without a number of these (Plate LXVI). The other house furnishings, consisting of a spinning wheel, loom, coconut rasp, and clothes beater (Fig. 5, No. 10) find space along the other wall. Behind the door, except in the valley towns, stand the man's spear and shield; above or near the door will be the spirit offering in the form of a small hanger or a miniature ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... snapped back his retort briskly. He was serious. "I agree with you that this poor old town needs help and a hearing. But when I go to the State House I propose to wear out shoe leather instead of pants cloth. If you must rasp Britt, go get ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... away, the tears trickling from her eyes. Nothing was said till the door had closed behind her; then Jeff broke the silence, in a voice with a strange rasp to it. ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... whole body was jarred into a dull torment as a weight pressed upon his twisted legs. Then strong animal breath puffed into his face. Shann lifted one hand by will power, touched thick fur, felt the rasp of a tongue laid wetly ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... small tenon-saw, a chisel, two or three gouges of different sizes, a spoke-shave, and a file with one side flat and the other round. A rough rasp-file and a pair of compasses will also be found useful. All of these ought to be exceedingly sharp. The gouges and the spoke-shave will be found the most useful ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

... walls for an increase of their appointments. From the marrowless bones of these skeleton establishments, by the use of every sort of cutting and of every sort of fretting tool, he flatters himself that he may chip and rasp an empirical alimentary powder, to diet into some similitude of health and substance the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... clavicle imbedded among the muscles; the limbs are comparatively short, but immensely muscular; the body lithe and active; the foot-fall noiseless; the tongue armed with rough papillae, which enables them to rasp the flesh off bones, and their vision is adapted for both night ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... time for the steel. Bud drives the spurs deep into its flanks. The horse plunges forward with a bounding leap. Again the spurs rasp, and again it plunges. The bronco finds that going ahead is the only way in which to avoid punishment. Round and round the corral it gallops until exhausted. The sweat is pouring off the brute in rivulets. It has taken Bud forty minutes to give the ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... and gave the address to the chauffeur. There was a moment's pause, a rasp and wrench of machinery, and the willing little cab flew off toward ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... starting,—whether to trust his water cans on the brown burro or the gray, and whether he had taken enough "cold" shoes along for the mule. And he set down his cup of coffee to go rummaging in a kyack just to make sure that he had the hoof rasp ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... is a graveyard thief; a hyena; a ghoul—not worth consideration." And the rasp in his own voice ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... no creak to those thick, black-wood planks with which Manila mansions are floored. Her outstretched hand had almost reached the knob when her knee collided with a light bamboo bedroom chair. There was instant bamboo rasp and protest, followed by instant vigorous spring across the room, and instant ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... furniture they contain;—to fell, cleave, carve, and polish timber for various purposes;—and, in short, for every conversion of wood—the tools they make use of are the following: an adze of stone; a chisel or gouge of bone, generally that of a man's arm between the wrist and elbow; a rasp of coral; and the skin of a sting-ray, with coral sand as a file ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... wid indignation. There was not a name that a dacint woman cud use that was not given my way. I've had my Colonel walk roun' me like a cooper roun' a cask for fifteen minutes in Ord'ly Room, bekaze I wint into the Corner Shop an unstrapped lewnatic; but all that I iver tuk from his rasp av a tongue was ginger-pop to fwhat Annie tould me, An' that, mark you, is the ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... spiked helmet of the official would be close to the healthy baldness of the prince; then M. Schontz's oiled locks would push in between the two. The sovereign's soft, exquisitely trained voice would say, "Ja, ja, ja!" each word dropping out like so many soft pellets of suet; the subdued rasp of the official would come: "Zum Befehl Durchlaucht," like five revolver-shots; the voice of M. Schontz would go on and on under its breath like that of an unclean priest reciting from his breviary in the corner ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... a long time. See the cutting instruments again. The rasp and the little scissors shadowed beneath the larger symbols. Behold the bed-rock, with crevices to catch the feet, and here, a small road comes near a tunnel, looking ambitiously towards the large avenue where splendor, prestige and power are seen. See modern ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara

... Beetles and Snails, Dragon-flies, Grasshoppers, and Butterflies are familiar enough to us all; yet how many realise how 'fearfully and wonderfully' they are made? What a marvellously complex weapon is the 'sting' of the bee! What a wonderful 'rasp' the snail possesses! How many can tell how an insect smells, and where its organs of taste and hearing lie? Since these are questions which young people often ask again and again, some of them will be answered in the course of these articles. To explain such ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... the result of ordinary or natural selection. Some animals extremely low in the scale have been modified for this same purpose; thus the males of certain parasitic worms, when fully grown, have the lower surface of the terminal part of their bodies roughened like a rasp, and with this they coil round and permanently hold the females. (4. M. Perrier advances this case ('Revue Scientifique,' Feb. 1, 1873, p. 865) as one fatal to the belief in sexual election, inasmuch as he supposes that I attribute all the differences ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... to Lebanon the roads were bad—muddy in the valleys of the streams, and on the higher ground frozen into inequalities like a gigantic rasp. ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... his voice, but there was a rasp in his tone that impressed Mr. Flexen. If a man could give such an impression of dangerousness with his voice, what would he be like in action? He realized that here was a quite uncommon type of V. C. He realized, too, that Lord Loudwater had made ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson

... of good yeast that is not bitter, and as much milk, made a little warm, as will work into a thin light dough. Stir it about, but don't knead it. Have ready three quart wooden dishes, divide the dough among them, set to rise, then turn them out into the oven, which must be quick. Rasp when done. ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... again. Miss King stopped writing and watched them. The day grew hotter, and the spells of mowing became shorter. Miss King gave up the attempt to write, and lay dreamily gazing at the men, roused to active consciousness now and then by the rasp of the hones against the scythe blades. At one o'clock the men, guessing it to be dinnertime, stopped pretending to work and went away. A few minutes later Miss King, feeling the need of luncheon, disentangled herself from ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... breath round the buttress of a gray crag when she noticed the churn of yeasty blackness blotting out the Valley and felt the hushed heat of the air. A jack rabbit went whipping past at long bounds. The last rasp of a jay's scold jangled out from the trees. Then, she heard from the hushed Valley, the low flute trill of a blue bird's love song. Ever afterwards, either of those bird notes, the scurl of the jay or the golden melody of the blue warbler, brought her joyous, ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... helmet and sniffed. "Guk," he said. "If I ever faint and someone gives me smelling salts, I'll flay him alive with a coarse rasp." ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett

... nine o'clock, when Ennis was sent for, was the colonel's way of looking at it. Moreover, he had a rasp up his sleeve for our massive young friend on half a ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... and as ardent sprits were one of his weaknesses, the temptation to stop and pick up the canteen was very strong, but he conquered it and hurried on after his prey. Next followed the fugitive's belt, loaded down with an antique cartridge-box, a savage knife made from a rasp and handled with buckhorn, and a fierce-looking ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... Villefranche. Doubtless they were some sober married women out for a lark. Upon leaving the car they did not at once go into the Casino, but directed their steps toward the terraces, for the band was playing. They sat in the shadow of the statue of Massenet, and near-by the rasp of a cricket broke in upon the music. When the music stopped they linked arms and sauntered up and down the wide sweep of stone, mutually interested in the crowds, the color, and the lights. Once, as they passed behind a bench, the better ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... sea-beach, and washed; the outer skin is carefully scraped off at the same time with a shell; and those who are particular in the preparation scrape out even the eyes. The root is then reduced to a pulp, by rubbing it up and down a kind of rasp, made as follows:—A piece of board, about 3 in. wide, and 12 ft. long, is procured, upon which some coarse twine, made of the fibres of the cocoa nut husk, is tightly and regularly wound, and which affords an admirable substitute for a coarse rasp. The pulp, when prepared, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various

... slight and preliminary though it was, had shown him what he had long and obstinately refused to see—that the estate had seriously gone down in value during the preceding five years; that he had a dozen scraps and disputes on his hands, more than enough to rasp the nerves of any ordinary man—and as far as nerves were concerned, he knew very well that he was not an ordinary man; that, in short, he was impoverished and embarrassed; his agent was a scandal and must be dismissed, and his new lawyers, a grasping, incompetent crew. For a moment, indeed, he ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... The old Squire seemed anxious to be alone, and he restlessly escaped from Marcia's care. He sat all the first day apart, chewing upon some fragment of wood that he had picked up, and now and then putting up a lank hand to rasp his bristling jaw; glancing furtively at people who passed him, and lapsing into his ruminant abstraction. He had been vexed that they did not start the night before; and every halt the train made visibly afflicted him. He would not leave his place to get anything ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... in astonishment. That was the longest speech he had ever heard her make. It was also the first time that her rasp of criticism had ever been applied to him, and with such asperity too. He could not make it out. He looked from his wife to Guida; then, suddenly arrested by the look in her face, he scratched his shaggy head in despair, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... it? Would you leave the heating room? You belong to the slaves who are waiting for you, and will not let you go. You are streaming with perspiration, and the tractator, armed with a strigilla, or flesh brush, is there to rasp your body. You escape to the tepidarium; but it is there that the most cruel operations await you. You belong, as I remarked, to the slaves; one of them cuts your nails, another plucks out your stray hair, and a third still seeks ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... opossums and a number of small birds and parrots. They were much frightened at first, but after a short time became very bold, and, coming to our camp, wanted to steal everything they could lay their fingers on. I caught one concealing the rasp that is used in shoeing the horses under the netting he had round his waist, and was obliged to take it from him by force. The canteens they seemed determined to have, and it was with difficulty we could get them from them. They wished to pry ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... to be pulled open; the rasp of its rattle and sharpness of its flap were somewhat impaired by the wet, but it managed to give the trunk a parting kick as it went out, as much as to say the house ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... stirred within the child's breast. She had read of things like this. Here was her boy lover coming out this bitter night just for the sake of looking up at her window. She adored him for it. Then she heard a window raised with a violent rasp across the yard, and saw her grandmother's night-capped head thrust forth. She heard her shrill, imperious voice call out quite distinctly, ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... outdoor working attire; Prescott, out of deference to his guests, had made some preparation for the meals they shared. Still, the simple dress became him; he was, as she vaguely thought of it, admirable, in a way. His hands and wrists were well-shaped, though scarred and roughened by the rasp of the hot straw. The warmth of the sun seemed to cling to his brown face; a joyous vitality emanated from him, and he had mental gifts. She felt lightly ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... She bakes incomparable bread—firm, close, compact, and white, thin-crusted, and admirably raised. Her yeast always works well. What butter! Before it a primrose must hide its unyellowed head. Then jam of the finest quality, goose, rasp, and strawberry! and as the jam is, so are her jellies. Hens cackle that the eggs are fresh—and these shrimps were scraping the sand last night in the Whitehaven sea. What glorious bannocks of barley-meal! Crisp wheaten cakes, too, no thicker than a wafer. Do not, our good sir, appropriate that ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... For since 'tis fluid, smooth its atoms are And round, with painful rough ones mixed therein; Yet need not these be held together hooked: In fact, though rough, they're globular besides, Able at once to roll, and rasp the sense. And that the more thou mayst believe me here, That with smooth elements are mixed the rough (Whence Neptune's salt astringent body comes), There is a means to separate the twain, And thereupon dividedly to see How the sweet water, after filtering through ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... outspoke the cannon, ere the dawn charged on the night, Not of peace and joy and amity, but of hatred and despair, And a thousand blatant bugles proved it waiting for their spite; And we heard the rasp of bullets in the dark ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey

... the day when you can't eat on my meal-ticket. We tackled the Trail of Trouble together. You were always wanting to lift the heavy end of the log, and when the God of Cussedness was doing his best to rasp a man down to his yellow streak, you showed up white all through. Say, kid, we've been in tight places together; we've been stacked up against hard times together: and now I'll be gol-darned if I'm going to stand by and ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... very different music from that thin wheedling of April. It was now a soft steady vibration, the incessant drone and throb of locust and cricket, and sometimes the sudden rasp, dry and hard, of katydids. Gissing, in spite of his weariness, was all fidgets. He would walk round and round the house in the dark, unable to settle down to anything; tired, but incapable of rest. What is this uneasiness in the mind, he asked himself? The ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... have heard him, Mrs. Macgregor," said Brown, enthusiastically. "He has a tongue like a rasp, and at times it takes off the skin. That was fine, Shock, about the fellows who could not give him answer till they had asked the Lord about it. 'I find a good many men,' the old chap said, 'who, after anxiously enquiring as to the work expected of ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... this large part of the population is being unjustly discriminated against. I believe in doing a reasonable amount for the aid and comfort of the young things that are just beginning to turn their hair up under, or who rub a stealthy forefinger over their upper lips to feel the pleasant rasp, but I don't believe in their monopolizing everything. I don't think it 's fair. All the books printed—except, of course, those containing valuable information; we don't buy those books, but go to the public library for them—all the books printed are concerned with ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood

... creeping over the swamp and meadow. The dry rasp of a dragon-fly's wings was loud in the grass. The stream beneath the beeches darkened and grew moody as the light neared its noon intensity; the beech-leaves hung limp and silent; a catbird settled ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp

... hard, and frowned, as if he laboured to catch from Varney a portion of the cold, ruthless, and dispassionate firmness which he recommended. When he was silent, the Earl still continued to rasp his hand, until, with an effort at calm decision, he was able to articulate, "Be it so—she dies! But ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... he said to me as he started his meal. His voice had the heavy, throaty rasp characteristic of the Martian. He spoke perfect English—both Martians and Venus people are by heritage extraordinary linguists. Miko and his sister Moa had a touch of Martian accent, worn almost away by living for some ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... straightway began to sell lots. Nothing lay more openly abundant than land; the town had but to propagate itself automatically over the wide prairies. The wild flowers waved only to welcome the surveyor's gang; and new home-seekers—in the jargon of the trade—were ever hurrying to rasp themselves upon the ragged edges ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... twice, thrice. At the third rasp, the Colonel became very attentive. He remembered that his brother-in-law had done exactly the same thing at the very apex of a long-departed crisis; indeed, just before he offered spontaneously to take over the mortgages on the ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... of a whitish colour, the body composed of eleven rings; the head armed with a pair of short, hard pincers: the skin of this creature is so rough that on passing your finger over it, it reminds you of a rasp, yet to the eye it is perfectly smooth. You would be surprised at the heap of fine saw- dust that is to be seen below the hole they have been working in all night. These sawyers form a fine feast for the woodpeckers, and jointly they assist in promoting ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... his thigh. He sat upon a stone, tying up his injury with a grave, preoccupied look upon his wrinkled black face, like an old woman piecing together a broken plate. The three others fastened their bayonets with a determined metallic rasp and snap, and the air of men who intended to sell their ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle

... began. The mowers were expected to be in the meadow by sunrise; and all through the day the rasp of their whetstones could be heard, as they dexterously drew them with a quick motion of the hand, first along one side of the scythe and then the other; after which they went swinging across the field, the waving grass falling rapidly before their keen blades, and dropping in swathes ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight

... the carpenter were the ax, adze, handsaw, chisels of various kinds (which were struck with a wooden mallet), the drill, and two sorts of planes (one resembling a chisel, the other apparently of stone, acting as a rasp on the surface of the wood, which was afterwards polished by a smooth body, probably also of stone); and these, with the ruler, plummet, and right angle, a leather bag containing nails, the hone, and the horn of oil, constituted the principal, and ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... Nay—though the rasp of the flesh was so sore, Faith, that had yearnings far keener than these, Saw the soft sheen of the Thitherward Shore Under the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... in thought, whittling at the handle of a spade. A stillness as in church—no sound but the rasp of the knife blade on the wood, and the slow ticking ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... a thrust that ripped my coat in turn, and then followed the rasp of our blades. It was almost dark above us now, but a lance height from the ground the horizon was still flaming red. We could barely see each other's blades, but guided ourselves by the little circles ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... a proper Season to put up Rasp-berries, either in Sweetmeat, or to infuse in Brandy; but they must be gather'd dry. There are certain People who know how to mix these with Port Wine, and imitate the richest ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley

... The rasp of grating chains and rush of air Awoke the sleeping page From frightful dreams. A voice he heard. Alas! 'twas fierce with rage, While on his sight there flashed the fitful gleams Of warders' arms. In haste they clangour down ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer

... teacher went on shaving the handle smooth and rounding the ends. "You want," said he, "a rasp or coarse file for the ends, and then you could finish it finely. But what are you making this formidable ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott

... that holds you in its grasp Is to my peace of mind a rasp, It claspeth what I can not clasp, Correct ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... sounds, the sounds within:— In mild remoteness falls the household din Of porch and kitchen: the dull jar and thump Of churning; and the "glung-glung" of the pump, With sudden pad and skurry of bare feet Of little outlaws, in from field or street: The clang of kettle,—rasp of damper-ring And bang of cookstove-door—and everything That jingles in a busy kitchen lifts Its individual wrangling voice and drifts In sweetest tinny, coppery, pewtery tone Of music hungry ear has ever known In wildest famished yearning and conceit Of youth, to just cut loose and eat ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley

... Mistress Dingley is to be found in Swift's letter to Stella of October 23, 1711. "Then there's the miscellany," he writes, "an apron for Stella, a pound of chocolate, without sugar, for Stella, a fine snuff-rasp of ivory, given me by Mrs. St. John for Dingley, and a large roll of tobacco which she must hide or cut shorter out of modesty, and four pair of spectacles for the Lord knows who." The tobacco was clearly not for smoking, but for Dingley ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... sympathetic. Sophia, by an accident unfortunate for the grocer, caught them in the corridor. She was beside herself, but the only outward symptoms were a white face and a cold steely voice that grated like a rasp on the susceptibilities of the adherents of Aphrodite. At this period Sophia had certainly developed into a termagant—without ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... and examined the horse's hoofs. "Your shoes are too heavy, Dutchman," he said; "but that pig-headed blacksmith thinks he knows more about horses than I do. 'Don't cut the sole nor the frog,' I say to him. 'Don't pare the hoof so much, and don't rasp it; and fit your shoe to the foot, and not the foot to the shoe,' and he looks as if he wanted to say, 'Mind your own business.' We'll not go to him again. ''Tis hard to teach an old dog new tricks.' I got you to work for me, not to wear out your strength ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... expected to be the father of a French Roll, that the brushes of All Nations were laid in, to rasp Augustus George? Am I to be told that his sensitive skin was ever intended by Nature to have rashes brought out upon it, by the premature and incessant use ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... this instrument he planed the pannel in an oblique direction, in order to take off very short shavings, and to avoid the grain of the wood: by these means he reduced the pannel to 2/3 of a line in thickness. He then took a flat plane with a toothed iron, whose effect is much like that of a rasp which reduces wood into dust: in this manner he contrived to leave the pannel no thicker ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... distance the audiphonic receiver. This sort of telegraphy is original and natural with human beings, and it is common to them and the lower animals. All the creatures that have vocality use this method. It were hard to say how humble is the creeping thing that does not rasp out some kind of a message to its fellow insect. Some, like the fireflies, do their telegraphing with a lantern which they carry. The very crickets are expert in telegraphy, or telephony, which is ultimately the ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... The hand flashed out; Carse shot and again missed. Then a narrow cone was along the corridor, a blinding orange streak. Instantly, with a rasp of thunder, it was gone, and ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore

... Boston has prepared and published, under copyright, Froebel's First Gift, consisting of six soft balls of the three primary and the three secondary colors, which are sold in a box, with a little manual for mothers, in which the true principle and plan of tending babies, so as not to rasp their nerves, but to amuse without wearying them, is very happily suggested. There is no mother or nurse who would not be assisted by this little manual essentially. As it says in the beginning,—"Tending ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various

... came on the river-side cafes, built on piles and filled with splenetic-eyed Arabs sipping coffee and various coloured sweet drinks. A cheap gramophone playing a thin Eastern music, may be sounding. The conversation is animated and guttural, constantly interspersed with that hollow, metallic rasp that is like the noise of an engine exhaust. The town is of white mud and stone, with wooden balconies painted a vivid blue, and flat roofs. A minaret rises behind it with a blue-tiled extremity supporting the upraised hand and ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne

... cellar of the Haunted Bookshop was, to Bock, a fascinating place, illuminated by a warm glow from the furnace, and piled high with split packing-cases which Roger used as kindling. From below came the rasp of a shovel among coal, and the clear, musical slither as the lumps were thrown from the iron scoop onto the fire. Just then the bell rang in ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... man in a glow. "They ride horses and they know naught of them; and they laugh at a horseman! Your hand, sir!" He shook it. "And is that your horse in number four? I wondered! He's the first animal I've seen here properly shod. They use the rasp, sir, on the outside the hoof, and on the clinches, sir; and they burn a seat for the shoe; and they pare out the sole and trim the frog—bah! You shoe your own horse, I take it. That's right and proper! Your hand again, sir. Your horse has ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... who knows better; the effect of it being coolly to put me on low ground. I admire you very much; you are a woman of strong head and great talent; but the strongest head, and the greatest talent, can't rasp a man for forty years without making him sore. So I don't care for your present eyes. Now, I am coming to the paper, and mark what I say. You put it away somewhere, and you kept your own counsel where. You're an active woman at that ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... stitching away faster than before, and Bellew thought she kept her rosy cheeks stooped a little lower over her work. Meanwhile the Sergeant continued to regard the tree with the same degree of lively interest, and to rasp his fingers to and fro across his chin. Suddenly, he coughed behind hand, whereupon Miss Priscilla raised her head, and ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol

... lacking but one thing to make it ideally perfect. It ought to have crickets and cicadas in it, to rasp away as the warm afternoons turn into evening, and tree hylas to make throaty music in ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... Hallock," he denied. And then, with a bit of the man-driving rasp in his voice: "See here, Judson, don't you let McCloskey's prejudices run away with you; make a memorandum of that and paste it in your hat. I know what you have been instructed to do, and I have given my consent, but it is with the understanding ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... two stones; and the crushing teeth of the hyena make the best models we know of for hammers to break stones on the road. The tongue of certain shell fish—of the limpet, for instance—is full of siliceous spines which serve as rasp and drill; and knives and scissors were carried about in the mandibles and beaks of primeval ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... day. The sluggish air was noisy with voices, and the edge of the forest receded gradually before the busy pioneers, replacing the tall timbers with little, high-banked homes of spruce and white-papered birch. From dawn till dark arose the rhythmic rasp of men whip-sawing floor lumber to the tune of two hundred dollars per thousand; and with the second steamer came a little steam sawmill, which raised its shrill complaint within a week, punctuating the busy day with ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... only so fur and no furder," asserted Luce, sullenly, holding down his loose upper lip with his yellow teeth as though to keep it from flapping in the wind. Within the mansion there was the mellow rasp of a tin of biscuit on an oven floor, the slam of an oven door, and Mrs. Luce appeared dusting flour from her hands. All who knew Mrs. Luce knew that she was a persistent and insistent exponent of the belief of the Millerites—"Go-uppers," they ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... back, Dick stops at Hickman's tavern. While he's pourin' in a gill of corn jooce, a wag who's present subtracts the pig an' puts in one of old Hickman's black Noofoundland pups. When Dick gets home to Bill Hatfield's, Bill takes one look at the pup, breaks the big rasp on Dick's head, throws the forehammer at him, an' bids him go back to Jedge Chinn an' tell him that he, Bill, will sally over the first dull day an' p'isen his cattle an' burn his barns. Dick takes the basket full of dog on his arm, an' goes p'intin' for Jedge Chinn. Nacherally, Dick stops ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... hand on a person's lips and throat, I gain an idea of many specific vibrations, and interpret them: a boy's chuckle, a man's "Whew!" of surprise, the "Hem!" of annoyance or perplexity, the moan of pain, a scream, a whisper, a rasp, a sob, a choke, and a gasp. The utterances of animals, though wordless, are eloquent to me—the cat's purr, its mew, its angry, jerky, scolding spit; the dog's bow-wow of warning or of joyous welcome, its yelp of despair, ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... Rasp some crumb of bread; put it over the fire in butter; put over it a minced veal kidney, with its fat, parsley, scallions, a shalot, cayenne pepper and salt, mixed with the whites and yolks of four eggs beat: put this forcemeat on fried ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury

... of Mr. Angele, of Berlin, shown in the annexed cuts (Figs. 1 and 2), the potatoes, after being cleaned in the washer, C, slide through the chute, v, into a rasp, D, which reduces them to a fine pulp under the action of a continuous current of water led in by the pipe, d. The liquid pulp flows into the iron reservoir, B, from whence a pump, P, forces it through the pipe, w, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... such attack on the shell he had built against the intrusion of Red Springs, for a second or two feeling once more the rasp across raw nerves. "We don't get much time for sleep when the General's on the prod. Horse stealin' and such keeps us a mite busy, accordin' to your Yankee friends. And we have to pay our respects to them, just to keep them reminded that this is Morgan country. ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... forth," it cried; "the sky is wide and it is a far cry to the world's end. The fire crackles fine o' nights below the firs, and the smell of roasting meat and wood smoke is dear to the heart of man. Fine, too is the sting of salt and the rasp of the north wind in the sheets. Come forth, one and all, unto the great lands oversea, and the strange tongues and the hermit peoples. Learn before you die to follow the Piper's Son, and though your old bones bleach among grey rocks, what matter ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... pressure of fierce determination the task persisted, until, quite unexpectedly as it seemed, the boot was free; and then, shoving and squeezing the wallaby as a cushion for my right arm, the sole of the left boot began to rasp away at the instep of the right. In such a constrained position the operation, which could be persevered in by fits and starts only, was exasperatingly slow. The sun sopped up the morning mist and boldly explored the crevice, revealing the marvellous precision of the space between the walls. No ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... him. For a moment he surveyed it with a drunken leer, then went lurching across the hall towards the door that led to the servants' quarters. The three men sat on, watching his antics in contempt, curiosity, and amusement. They saw him gain the heavy oaken door and close it. They heard the bolts rasp as he shot them home, and the lock click; and they saw him withdraw the key and ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... diagnosis is made the shoes must be removed, the toe shortened with the hoof pincers and rasp and the subject is put in a well bedded box-stall. If the animal is very lame and the inflammation is acute, ice-cold packs should be applied to the feet. As soon as acute inflammation has subsided the foot may be so ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... gloom was punctuated by the occasional flare of a match, and the silence broken now and then, as he worked before the safe, by the metallic click and scrape of steel against steel, and by the muffled rasp and whine of his file against the wax-covered key which from time to time he fitted into the unyielding safe lock. As he filed and tested and refiled, with infinite care and patience, his preoccupied mind ranged vaguely along the channel of thought which the events of ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... did!" said George, giving her a glance that was a little troubled, and a little wistful, too. "It was insulting, it was unwarrantable. But, my Lord, Mary, you know how I love your mother!" he continued eagerly. "She and I are the best of friends. We rasp each other now and then, but we both love you too much ever to come to real trouble. I'm no angel, Mary," said George, looking down his cigar thoughtfully, "but as men go, I'm a pretty decent man. You know how much time I've spent at the club since we were married. ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... for you, Cicely," she said, and her voice, metallic enough at all times, seemed, for the bitterness of it, to bite the close air like a rasp. "'Tis well enough for you, Cicely, who had but little to do with him, but do you forget that I was his affianced wife? I have stood up in the Meeting House at Feldwick, and we prayed together for grace. The hypocrite. The abandoned wastrel. That he, who might have ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim

... into the first chapter, thinking more of James's graceful style than of his matter, there was a great rattle, an incessant hammer-and-rasp ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... for a day and then would break forth in violent argumentation against religion and all who held to it. He sorely missed The Duke, who was away south on one of his periodic journeys, of which no one knew anything or cared to ask. The Duke's presence always steadied Bruce and took the rasp out of his manners. It was rather a relief to all that he was absent from the next fortnightly service, though Moore declared he was ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor

... all ready at the ranch house the minute I give the signal. They'll get us to town before morning. You've only to say the word, and I'll give the sign." Again, nervously, shortly, he repeated the needless rasp, "How may, as you say, not interfere; but it's useless, to take any chances. There's been enough tragedy already between you two, without courting more. Besides, the past is dead; dead as though it had never been. My lawyer is over at the ranch house now. He'll straighten ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... excellent, most loyal, calculated to impress the people in the most favourable way. But, deuce take it, why did the man smile while he talked, and why did his voice change from a ring of a trumpet to the rasp of a file? The Chamber at large was ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... many copper rivets of all sizes—they are the best quick-repair known for almost everything, from putting together a smashed pack-saddle to cobbling a worn-out boot. Your horseshoeing outfit should be complete with paring-knife, rasp, nail-set, clippers, hammer, nails, and shoes. The latter will be the malleable soft iron, low-calked "Goodenough," which can be fitted cold. Purchase a dozen front shoes and a dozen and a half hind shoes. The latter wear out faster on ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... long as you air yo' voices. You play like an angel on that mouth harp of yores, Sam, but you talk like a rasp. Mormon ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn



Words linked to "Rasp" :   abrade, wood file, rasping, rasp fern, abrase, talk, vocalization, verbalise, raspy, corrade, utter, mouth, speak, file



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