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Scattering   Listen
adjective
Scattering  adj.  Going or falling in various directions; not united or aggregated; divided among many; as, scattering votes.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scattering" Quotes from Famous Books



... herself in the interests of husband and children, that she may remain a vital factor in their lives; and she will make the home so delightful as to reduce to a minimum the scattering influences that tend to destroy home life. She will weave intangible but indestructible ties of affection, holding all together and to herself. She will keep her interest in the outside world, so that she may better prepare her children to live in it and may resist the narrowing ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... raised the window. "Not very much, and the clouds seem to be scattering. I should think you would be roasting, way over in that corner with all those cushions around you. Why don't you come by the window? The air feels so fresh ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... with a powerful curb, the sharp use of which checked it again and again, till finding its rider ready to meet it at every turn, it gave up the struggle as quickly as it had begun, settled down at once into a gentle amble in the extreme corner of the court, into which it had dashed, scattering half a dozen camels and looking as if it intended to attempt to leap a low tent and ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... like Sybil's leaves, Kindly the scattering winds receive— The gatherer proves a scorner. But hold! I see the coming day! The spectre said—and stalked away, To ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various

... fir-tree on the lawn, and watch the squirrels at their gambols. They would play long, long games of hide and seek among the dark branches, and then, tired of that, they would chase each other from bough to bough, scattering the pine-cones, which dropped with a soft sound on the grass below. Little wagtails ran nimbly about the lawn uttering their shrill "quit, quit," and catching as they ran the gnats and other insects. The small dark heads of ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker

... to rendering establishments is always fraught with danger, unless those who handle them are thoroughly aware of the danger of scattering the virus by careless handling in wagons that are not tight. As a rule, the persons in charge of such transfer have no training for this important work, so that deep burial is to be preferred. Burning large carcasses is not always feasible; it is, however, the most certain means ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... sleighs, the snow was so deep, but it was all so jolly. Zebbie, Mr. Stewart, Jerrine, and I went in the bobsled. We jogged along at a comfortable pace lest the "beasties" should suffer, and every now and then a merry party would fly past us scattering snow in our faces and yelling like Comanches. We had a lovely moon then and the snow was so beautiful! We were driving northward, and to the south and back of us were the great somber, pine-clad Uintah Mountains, while ahead and on every side were the bare buttes, looking like old ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... raised it to the lips of Shibli Bagarag, bidding him drink as a pledge for her sake and her love, and to appease his thirst. As he was about to drink, there fell into the palm of the Princess from above what seemed a bolt of storm scattering the dew; and after he had blinked with the suddenness of the action he looked and beheld the hawk, its red eyes inflamed with wrath. And the hawk screamed into the ear of Shibli Bagarag, 'Pluck up the Lily ere it is too late, O fool!—the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... hundreds sitting on their mats in the extensive open courts, all busily engaged in learning to recite the Koran to masters, or listening to professors who expounded it. Their intense earnestness soon impresses you. From this centre radiate every year thousands of these propagandists, scattering themselves over Arabia and to the farthest boundaries of Islam, and even beyond, warring upon idolatry and proclaiming the unity of God. No one can fail, I think, to receive from such a visit as we paid a much higher estimate of the vitality of Mohammedanism, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... snarl she jerked it from his hands, raised it quickly and brought it down on his head. Of course, the cloth and everything beneath it went scattering to the winds, while he tumbled backward into the water. Not content, she picked up several of the various fruits the tray had held and began to pepper him with such good aim that he hastily and profanely splashed back to the other shore. Then the tray, its cover, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... with hawk in hand. Prithee why should dungbeard boys, Reft of reason, dare to hammer Handle fast on battle shield? For these lads of loathly feature— Lady scattering swanbath's beams[20]— Shall not shun this ditty shameful Which ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... had carried away a yard of the gunwale of the Good Intent, scattering splinters far and wide, which inflicted nasty wounds on the second mate and a seaman on the quarterdeck. A jagged end of the wood flying high struck Diggle on the left cheek. He wiped away the blood imperturbably; it was evident that lack of courage was ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... ten paces and break all in ten shots. For at least half of his hunting he preferred the bow; the gun was useful to him chiefly when flocks of wild pigeons or ducks were about, and a single charge of scattering shot might bring down a ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... his into the air. If it breaks or rolls, it is a bad sign, and the couple is apt to part, or their children die. In such a circumstance, the marriage is usually deferred, and tried again at a later date; but repeated scattering of the rice generally results in the annulling of the agreement. [82] Should anything in the dwelling fall or be broken during the ceremony, it is halted at once; to proceed further that night would be to court misfortune. However, it may be undertaken ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... came off in his paw, and the discomfitted gallant stood with his bare poll in the presence of the giggling and amused Clara Coriander. The amateur gorilla was in a frenzy of delight, and tore up and down his cage, scattering Mr. Jonquil's chestnut curls with savage glee. Old Coriander afterwards had to pay for the wig, of course, but he was so delighted with the stroke of showman genius displayed in its destruction, that he paid the bill without a murmur. None but a wild and savage animal, ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... gold rim vanished also; still there appeared to be no disposition among the party to leave the scene. Twilight began to shimmer, and now the stars trembled forth from the dusky sky. At last night settled on the landscape, and the girls expressed a wish to see the hollow lighted up with torchlight. Scattering ourselves amongst the trees of the bank, some splinters of the pitch pine were procured, and matches kindled each splinter into thick crimson flame. I clambered up as far as the basin of the first "bound" of the "Deer," and looked ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... quiet because we were there? What exchanges of old human fluid will recommence, as who can doubt they do each night between one coffin and another. Formerly these kings and queens, in their anxiety as to the future of their mummy, had foreseen violation, pillage and scattering amongst the sands of the desert, but never this: that they would be reunited one day, almost all unveiled, so near to one another under panes of glass. Those who governed Egypt in the lost centuries and were never known except by history, by the papyri inscribed with hieroglyphics, brought ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... took them through dense forests, and over trackless vacancies of snow-clad spaces into which the highway disappeared. There were a few scattering villages, and near these they encountered travelers, but on the highroad they met no one. In spite of themselves this fact wore upon them. The cold was not severe, but there was a stillness that held a penetrating ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... it," he said, nodding towards the yard. Emma turned to catch the meaning of his remark. Old Martha stood in the middle of a mob of poultry scattering handfuls of grain around her. The turkey-cock, with the bronzed sheen of his feathers and the purple-red of his wattles, the gamecock, with the glowing metallic lustre of his Eastern plumage, the hens, with their ochres and buffs and umbers and their scarlet ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... slave holding communities, for their subsequent unhallowed transportation to our shores. Yet those who were mainly instrumental in forging the chains of bondage, have since rendered the condition of the negro slave more intolerable by fomenting discontent among them, and by "scattering fire brands and torches," which are often not to be extinguished ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... mother. Previous to Mr. Thurston's arrival, a rose had been placed upon the carpet, close to Josephine's feet; and during a pause in the conversation, while apparently in an abstracted mood, she leaned forward, took it up by the stem, and began slowly to pick it to pieces, scattering ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... of the fire-ships which had been burning most furiously, and concealed everything on the other side of her, blew up with a loud explosion, scattering her burning fragments far and wide around her. Several pieces of blazing timber fell into the boat among the men. One or two were much hurt, and they had enough to do to heave the bits overboard to prevent ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... which met at St. Louis, July 9, Judge Parker received 658 votes for President on the first ballot, Hearst received 200, and there were a few scattering votes. The requisite two-thirds came to Parker before the result of the ballot was announced. Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia, was named for the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... attention. It was in a measure the site and centre of a mission—the headquarters, so to speak, of a very earnest and patient effort to infuse energy and ambition into that indescribable class of people known in that region as the piny-woods "Tackies." Within a stone's throw of Azalia there was a scattering settlement of these Tackies. They had settled there before the Revolution, and had remained there ever since, unchanged and unchangeable, steeped in poverty of the most desolate description, and living the narrowest lives possible in this great Republic. They had attracted ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... in lances of light against the ancient chain armor, her golden hair flying behind her like a cloud, on, on, Kathlyn ran, never stumbling, never faltering, till she came out into the square before the palace. Like an Amazon of old, she called to the scattering revolutionists, called, harangued, smothered them under her scorn and contempt, and finally roused them ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... by side, I am so anxious for her to feel it, that I become impatient and irritable. When I am with her, I am in a perpetual ferment. Her beauty and her coarseness hurt me, like two ill-matched colours that attract and wound the eyes. I calm myself by scattering all my thoughts over her promiscuously; and, though most of them are carried away by the wind, I imagine that I am sprinkling them on her life ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... pointed to a great machine which, hauled by four horses, rolled towards them, scattering the black clods in its wake. "I'm doing what I can to achieve it, sir," he said. "In fact, I'm staking somewhat heavily. That team with the gang plows and cultivators cost me more dollars than ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... succeeded in scattering the hits, which, with fine support, enabled him to retire Harvard with ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... brood of half-grown Partridges start up like an explosion, a few paces from me, and, scattering, disappear in the bushes on all sides. Let me sit down here behind this screen of ferns and briers, and hear this wild-hen of the woods call together her brood. Have you observed at what an early age the Partridge flies? Nature seems ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... tablecloth, or diners, sprang upon Don Quixote, and seizing him by the throat with both hands would no doubt have throttled him, had not Sancho Panza that instant come to the rescue, and grasping him by the shoulders flung him down on the table, smashing plates, breaking glasses, and upsetting and scattering everything on it. Don Quixote, finding himself free, strove to get on top of the goatherd, who, with his face covered with blood, and soundly kicked by Sancho, was on all fours feeling about for one of the table-knives to take a bloody revenge with. The canon and the curate, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... and laying foolish wagers in his mesmeric sleep. "Can woman hypnotize man? "Well, I should snigger. She can hypnotize anything that wears pants, from the prince at his gilded poker game, to the peasant scattering worm poison in the lowly cotton patch and revolving in his think tank the tenets of Populism; and I'm not sure but the clothing store dummies and their brother dudes are simply the physical wrecks and mental ruins of her hypnotic medicine. She hypnotizes because she can't help it. She's built ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... through atoms, without appreciably experiencing any effects from them, diminishes. The opposing atoms begin to exert an influence on the path of the ray, deflecting it a little. The heavier atoms will deflect it most. This effect has been very successfully investigated by Geiger. It is known as "scattering." The angle of scattering increases rapidly with the decrease of velocity. Now the effect of the scattering will be to cause some of the rays ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... think the rain is letting up a little, anyway," announced Roger, after the two touring-cars were once more under way. And he was right. That last downfall seemed to clear the sky, and soon they saw the clouds scattering. ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer

... thought Captain Cai, and somewhat disconsolately wheeled about, setting his face for the Rope Walk. Here his spirits sensibly revived. There had been rain in the night, but the wind had flown to the northward, and the sun was already scattering the clouds with promise of a fine day. Cleansing airs played between the houses, the line of ash-buckets grew sparser, and the buckets—for he had encountered the scavenger's cart on the slope of the hill—were ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... more magnificent than the banquet prepared for the coronation. The tables were loaded with golden dishes, and young women passed, scattering flowers, while pages in gay dress ran hither and thither. There, John entered, and sat apart, as had been arranged. He was pale and sad. All was gaiety about him, but he had prepared an awful fate for his betrayers. In the vaults ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... was going to be done had passed from mouth to mouth, until every soul in the town knew and thrilled with expectancy. Men, women and children came swarming to see the sight, and to hear at close range the crash of the cannon. They shouted, in a scattering way at first, then the tumult grew swiftly to a solid rolling tide that seemed beyond all comparison with the population of Vincennes. Hamilton heard it, and trembled inwardly, afraid lest the mob should prove too ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... step of the advancing man grew more hurried and uneven; increasing disquiet was expressed in him; now the light scattering along the unoccupied and silent space the extent of that space, and he himself wandering along through it. What did all this signify? Here and there, in the gildings and polished surfaces, quivered flashes like playful gnomes; at other points, ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... as large enough. I remember they furnished me with a little wooden fork to spread the heavy swath of grass my father cut with easy swings of the scythe, and when it was dry and being loaded on the great ox-cart I followed closely with a rake gathering every scattering spear. The barn was built so that every animal was housed comfortably in winter, and the house was such as all settlers built, not considered handsome, but capable of being made very warm in winter and the great piles of hard wood in the yard ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... earth. A rising wind whistled through the branches of the big maple trees, snatching the remaining leaves in handfuls and tossing them into the air. The tops swayed like whips. Whirlwinds scurried among the piles of dead leaves on the lawns, scattering them, chasing them madly around and ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... my imaginary millionaire—the benevolent man who only wants to be instructed how to spend his money—the 'magnificent man' of Aristotle's Ethics, nonplussed for the moment, and in despair of discovering an original way of scattering largesse for the public good. For, while anxious to further my scheme by conciliating the commercial instinct, I must insist that its true beauty resides in the conception of our railways as vast public parks only hindered by our sad lack of inventiveness from ministering to the ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... frigate. Suddenly a tremendous explosion was heard. Bright flames burst forth from the spot where the brig lay, and a huge pyramid of fire was seen to rush upward towards the sky, where it burst into a thousand fragments, which, scattering far and wide, came hissing back into the mirror-like ocean, reflecting, ere they reached it, a thousand bright ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... flashed over me. A thought came to me. The Chancas were at the door. I must reach them, for perhaps so Quilla might be saved. In front was the table spread for the death feast. With a bound I leapt on to it, shouting aloud and scattering its golden furnishings this way and that. Beyond stood the traitor, Larico, who had trapped me—I sprang at him and lifting Wave-Flame with both hands I smote with all my strength. He fell, as it seemed to me, cloven to the middle. Then some spear cast at me struck ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... With motion like the spirit of that wind Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind. Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet, Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined 525 With many a dark and subterranean street Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep She passed, ...
— The Witch of Atlas • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... Madelene's keen, pretense-scattering gaze was not one to invite to inspect a matter which might not look at all well stripped of its envelopes of phrase and haze. She wished she had not come; indeed, she had been half-wishing it during the whole three-quarters of an hour of watching and thinking on Madelene's wonderful ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... or two came forward with their cloaks of scarlet; the bull made a dash at them, scattering them on either side, then bounded on and with one tremendous leap cleared the hoarding that separates spectators from the rings, and landed bellowing in the corridor that ran round it just below our seats. It was full of onlookers drawn ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... needed to eat, and oftener too) he carried away large quantities of the meal, and wasted it. He never worked harder in his life, not even when he was trying to get away from the jaws of the old cat, than he did when he was scattering this meal over the yard. Well, we had a sort of a court about Billy, after this. My father's corn-house was the court room, and my father himself was the judge. We all agreed that Billy was guilty, though we differed as to the punishment that ought to be inflicted. The question ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... he stooped to bless the incense, and the sunbeams played among the diamonds, he might have recalled some splendid and fearful ice-spirit of the mountains, crowned with rainbows and robed in drifted snow, scattering, with extended hands, a shower of blessings or ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... think a siege no great matter. But when the guns of the eastern battery opened fire, and at the first discharge a round shot, bringing with it a barrowful of stones, came down the kitchen chimney, knocking the lid through the bottom of the cook's stewpan, and scattering all the fire about the place; when the roof of one of the turrets went clashing over the stones of the paved court; when a spent shot struck the bars of the Great Mogul's cage, and sent him furious, making them think what might happen, and wishing they were sure of the politics of the wild ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... glass to watch proceedings, wondering how the visiting collie would play his part. There went Scotch, as I supposed, racing for the yelping pack, but the visiting collie was not to be seen. The pack beat the usual sullen, scattering retreat, and while the dog, which I supposed to be Scotch, was chasing the last slow tormenter into the woods, from behind the crag came the big limping coyote, hurrying toward the willow clump from behind ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... cheer, and, scattering, made their way from the fields just as the cavalry issued into the open space. Hurrying in all directions, the apprentices carried the news, and soon the streets swarmed with their fellows. They were quickly joined by the watermen—in those days a numerous and powerful body. These ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... during the day, begin it with prayer. Not a few hurried words, but minutes of deep, intimate communion with God. Linger at the sacred altar of prayer until you feel particles of glory drop in richness into your soul, scattering sweetness throughout the whole and relating you to the world above. In the early morning hour, when the still, balmy breath of nature plays around, let your soul fly away on the wings of prayer with its message ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr

... with a ceiling in the form of a barrel-shaped vault, which, with its arches curving and its lines diminishing to a point, recedes inwards in such a manner that it appears to be in relief; besides which, there are some angels scattering flowers as they ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... straight cane; And ere he blew three notes There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling, Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling, Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering, Little hands clapping, and little tongues chattering, And, like fowls in a barnyard when barley is scattering, Out came the children running. All the little boys and girls, With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, Tripping and skipping ran merrily after The wonderful music—with ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... thunder burst and pass away— They too did gather round sky-dwelling peaks The trailing garments of the travelling sun, Which he had lifted from his ocean-bed, And swept along his road. They rent them down In scattering showers upon the trees and grass, In noontide rains with heavy ringing drops, Or in still twilight moisture tenderly. And from their sides were born the gladsome streams; Some creeping gently out in ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... carefully, and whenever they came to the edge of an open reach or topped some shoulder of the slope they paused and examined the country ahead very carefully. At last, when they had reached an altitude where the trees were much smaller and more scattering, Uncle Dick stopped and took his field-glasses from the case. He lay for some time, resting the glasses on a big rock, sweeping all the country ahead of him with the glasses. At last they saw him stop and gaze steadily at one ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... present. She should respect the privileges of the host, not occupying his easy chair, appropriating the newspaper or the best position round the lamp. She should give as little trouble as possible and be especially careful about scattering her belongings about the house. This particularly applies to young girls, who are apt to be careless in this respect. It annoys a hostess to find Missy's rubbers kicked off in the hall, her hat on the piano, and a half eaten box of candy on the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... down there; and there I saw pursuivants and seamen and officers all gathered about a carriage, and keeping back the crowd that was pressing and crying out to know who the man was; and presently the carriage drove by me, scattering the crowd, and I could see within; and there sat old Dr. Storey, very white and ill-looking, but steady and cheerful, whom I had seen the very day before in Antwerp. Now this is very grievous for Dr. Storey; and I pray God to deliver him; but surely the Duke and the King of Spain must move ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... The flowers of nature here shall thrive, Affection keep those flowers alive; And they shall strike the melting heart, Beyond the utmost power of art; Planted on graves[1], their stems entwine, And every blossom is a line [Footnote 1: To the custom of scattering flowers over the graves of departed friends, David ap Gwillym beautifully alludes in one of his odes. "O whilst thy season of flowers, and thy tender sprays thick of leaves remain, I will pluck the roses from the brakes, the flowerets of the meads, and gems of the wood; ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield

... ladies goodnight and return to their posts at the batteries. Just as they reached them, the signal was made that the enemy was approaching, and the silence which had hitherto reigned in the fort was suddenly broken by the loud report of the guns as they sent forth their doses of canister, scattering death amid the advancing columns. The musketry opened at the same time; and now the rebels, finding that they were again disappointed in their expectation of surprising the fort, began firing away in return. As gun after gun was discharged, Colonel Ross knew that their slender ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... waited, and again there came the tapping—tap, tap, tap. I rose and slipped the bolt of the door leading to the other room, and again I waited, and again there came the tapping—tap, tap, tap. Then I opened the heavy outer door, and the wind rushed past me, scattering my papers, and the woman entered in, and I closed the door behind her. She threw her hood back from her head, and unwound a kerchief from about her neck, and laid it on the table. Then she crossed and sat before ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... loud roaring of a cannon from the ramparts was heard, and a shower of grape-shot passed over the heads of the detachment, and was seen tearing up the earth around the bomb-proof, and scattering fragments of stone and wood into the air. The men simultaneously and unbidden gave ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... writing the journal of yesterday. I can't write every day. Sometimes several days elapse. Often wonder how Denham could write his journal every day, as he asserts. The wind is high and is scattering sand in every direction. Certainly I require no supply of sand when turning over my sheet wet with ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... around you shows, in a Greek city by the sea. In the light of innumerable lamps, torches, and wax tapers, a procession is moving through the streets. You see Isis, as Pelagia, advancing between two ranks, one of joyous maidens in snow-white garments, adorned with wreaths, and scattering from their bosoms all kinds of dewy flowers; the other of youths, playing upon pipes and flutes, mixed with men with shaven shining crowns, playing upon sistra of brass, silver, and gold. Isis wears a ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... to his church, even to a festal service such as Christmas, you will find that he leaves the orthodoxy mostly to the clergy and the women. I have again and again seen the pews of the most famous churches in England with barely a scattering of auditors in them. Of churches where the hard-working manual toiler may be found side by side with the cultured and the idle and the leisured—there is none. You also hear a great deal about the heterodoxy of the American; ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... behaved very ill to have brought that upon herself! Oh dear! I wish she had never come here; I wish Lily could have stayed at home, instead of scattering her children about the world. The Rotherwoods will never ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... crossing the quadrangle, when a certain incident attracted their notice, unimportant in itself, but indicating a strong contrast in the manner of life at Ronleigh to what they had always been accustomed to at The Birches. A youngster was tearing up a piece of paper and scattering the fragments about on ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... him, scattering dried mud drops in his face, and he caught the sound of bright girlish laughter. Looking after it, he saw the flutter of cherry-coloured ribbons coiling outward in the wind, and he remembered, watching the gay streamers, that ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... that she means to do. Protean divinity that no image could completely describe, here she leaps suddenly forth, like a fountain in the midst of a desert, to disappear after having given birth to an ephemeral oasis; there she returns at regular intervals, collecting and scattering, like migratory birds that obey the rhythm of the seasons. On our right she fells a man and concerns herself with him no further; on our left she bears down another, and furiously worries her victim. But, though she bring favour or ruin, ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... not soften yet, since the sun was overcast by heavy clouds, but the terrible rigor and tension of the cold was relaxed, and men could breathe without constraint. At eight o'clock, when Jim Otis and Madelon started for Ware Centre, there was a white film of fallen snow over the distant hills and scattering flakes drove in ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... also under the poop, with their muzzles turned in-board, so that should the enemy attempt to board, the decks might be swept by their fire. These guns, however, were not loaded with round-shot, but with langrage, which, by scattering around, might kill a number of persons at each discharge. The wind was moderate, the sea tolerably smooth. Captain Jumper stood in the mizen-rigging directing the movements of his ship, while the other officers were stationed in different parts in command of the guns, some on the upper ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... these mutations. In the specimen to which I refer the pigmentation instead of being present on both sides was reversed: the lower side was pigmented from the posterior end to the edge of the operculum (Plate II, fig. 2), while the upper side was unpigmented excepting a scattering of minute black specks and a little pigment on the head (Plate II., ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... be in the right place. The spot is not far from the park wall, where the wood runs up into a wedge-shaped point, and ends in a low mound and hedge. Most of the company at the meet in the park have naturally cantered across the level sward, scattering the sheep as they go, and are now assembled along the side of the wood, near where a green 'drive' goes through it, and apparently gives direct access to the fields beyond. From thence they can see the huntsman in the wood occasionally, and ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... made for the first time He saw, Scattering stars as misers shake their pelf. Then in the last strange wrath broke His own law, And made a graven ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton

... and a considerable treasure was deposited in the city of Arles. Maximian either craftily invented, or easily credited, a vain report of the death of Constantine. Without hesitation he ascended the throne, seized the treasure, and scattering it with his accustomed profusion among the soldiers, endeavored to awake in their minds the memory of his ancient dignity and exploits. Before he could establish his authority, or finish the negotiation which he appears to have entered into with his son Maxentius, the celerity of Constantine defeated ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... of this wheatfield there were the remnants of a stone wall and scattering trees and brush, which made a natural line for the opposing force to form behind. As soon as I got into my place I kept my eyes to the front, and in a few seconds I saw first one or two men come toward us on a ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller

... my companies are on picket, scattered up the valley for miles, and half of the other two are doing guard duty in the neighborhood of the camp. I do not, by any means, approve of throwing out such heavy pickets and scattering our men so much. We are in the presence of a force probably twice as large as our own, and should keep our troops well ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... threats were uttered against the gallant Marquis who had thus captured the queen of the "Birds," but Ninon explained her reason in such a plausible manner that their complaints subsided into good-natured growls. She hoped to prevent a political conflagration emanating from her social circle by scattering the firebrands, and she succeeded admirably. The Marquis was constantly with her, permitting nobody to intervene between them, and provided her with a perpetual round of amusements that made the time ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... one of the sheep ranches. On this truck the marshal and his men piled three heavy sacks of wool. Stooping low, Buck Patterson started for Calliope's fort, slowly pushing this loaded truck before him for protection. The posse, scattering broadly, stood ready to nip the besieged in case he should show himself in an effort to repel the juggernaut of justice that was creeping upon him. Only once did Calliope make demonstration. He fired from a window, and some tufts ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... arriving in the drawing-room pretty fast, and the Colonel's hand began to burn a good deal with the sharp squeezes which many of the visitors gave it. Conversation, which had begun like a summer-shower, in scattering drops, was fast becoming continuous, and occasionally rising into gusty swells, with now and then a broad-chested laugh from some Captain or Major or other military personage,—for it may be noted that all large and loud men in the unpaved districts ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... embers and a sudden scattering of ashes woke him out of his dreaming. The old Scots land was many thousand miles away. His past was wiped out behind him. He was alone in a very strange place, cut off by a great gulf from youth and home and pleasure. For an instant the extreme loneliness of an exile's ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... of the ages. If they had the power to treat the English or Italian Premier quite literally as a traitor, and shoot him against a wall, they are quite capable of turning such hysterical rhetoric into reality: and scattering his brains before they had collected their own. They do not feel atmospheres. They are all a little deaf; as they are all a little short-sighted. They are annoyed when their enemies, after such experiences as those of Belgium, accuse ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... or early breakfast of coffee and bacon. Below the former home of the Spanish comandante, which General Wheeler had made his head-quarters, lay the camp of the Rough Riders, and through it Cuban officers were riding their half-starved ponies, and scattering the ashes of the camp-fires. Below them was the beach and the roaring surf, in which a thousand or so naked men were assisting and impeding the progress shoreward of their comrades, in pontoons and shore boats, which were being hurled at the beach ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... not without effect, but we found the people so filled with false doctrine that it was almost impossible to get the truth to them. Even the brother who was so anxious for us to come to California was scattering false doctrine wherever he went. Among other things, he opposed women's preaching. God put us on his trail and kept us after him until the enemy was thoroughly rebuked, and he humbled himself and ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole

... in a little while there is an end before God to all living; let me therefore string together beauteous and yellow feathers, and mingling them with the dancing butterflies rain them down before you, scattering the words of my song ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton

... Tuscan sculptors of the Quattrocento had already converted into more joyous and more earthly beings than their predecessors had imagined. Such painters of the North, in touch with the South, as Albrecht Duerer, Mabuse, and Jacob Cornelissen van Oostsanen, delighted in scattering through their sacred works these lusty, thick-limbed little urchins, and made them merrier and more mischievous still, with their quaint Northern physiognomy. To say nothing on this occasion of Albani, Poussin, ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips

... pattered down noisily on our camp and a sudden flash of lightning and a thunderbolt startled the sleepy stock and brought us to our feet, dazed for an instant. Another light volley of rain, another sheet of lightning and roar of thunder, and the cloud was gone, scattering down the Arkansas Valley. But in that flash all of Jondo's cause for anxiety was justified. The widening draw was full of Kiowas, hideous in war-paint, and the ridges on either side of us were swarming with Indians beating dried skins to frighten and stampede our stock, and all yelling like fiends, ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... hailstorm or the like," said Paul, who was always prepared for the worst. But no; the harvest wagons came in one after the other heavily laden, swaying from side to side, and kept pouring the profusion of golden ears into the granary, scattering grains around until it was full up ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... father. Whenever they were engaged in play with the sons of Dhritarashtra, their superiority of strength became marked. In speed, in striking the objects aimed at, in consuming articles of food, and scattering dust, Bhimasena beat all the sons of Dhritarashtra. The son of the Wind-god pulled them by the hair and made them fight with one another, laughing all the while. And Vrikodara easily defeated those hundred and one children of great energy as if they were one instead of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... called out as he tethered the calf in the yard, 'Hail, stranger friend! My eyes fill with tears as I look on thee. For even now, clad as thou art in rags, thou dost make me think of my master Odysseus, who may be a wanderer such as thou in friendless lands. Ah, that he might return and make a scattering of the wooers in his hall.' Eumaeus the swineherd came up to Philoetius and made the same prayer. These two, and the ancient woman at the quern, were the only ones of his servants whom he heard ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum

... disunion. I can continue to point out the narrow faith of Sumner and Seward. I shall not abate my contempt for the ragged insurrectionists who are going about the country for lack of better business, scattering dissension. Am I to be President? There is trouble now in Kansas and Nebraska. Can I help that? I have stood for the right of the people there to have slavery or not as they chose. But if any trick is played on either of them, whether in favor of slavery or against it, they will find me on the ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... people from England first came to dwell in the wilderness of Massachusetts Bay, they settled in groups upon small irregular-shaped patches of land, which soon came to be known as townships. There were several reasons why they settled thus in small groups, instead of scattering about over the country and carving out broad estates for themselves. In the first place, their principal reason for coming to New England was their dissatisfaction with the way in which church affairs were managed in the ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... Peterwaradin's cousin and attache. The delighted Prince, having less retenue than his French diplomatic colleague, insisted upon taking a turn with the charming creature, and twirled round the ball-room with her, scattering the diamonds out of his boot-tassels and hussar jacket until his Highness was fairly out of breath. Papoosh Pasha himself would have liked to dance with her if that amusement had been the custom of his country. The company made a circle round her ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... through the doorway, scattering the astounded boatmen to either side, and ran out on the pier. But they quickly recovered and ran after him, shouting with glee at the new phase the situation had taken on. It was a night long remembered ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... shadows lay over the trees which lined the curving walks leading across a little park to the stately white house beyond. From that direction now appeared several gentlemen, advancing in scattering groups. They might almost have been made up of conspirators, so intent they seemed, so apprehensive lest even their thoughts might be read. Two of them drew apart,—one of these a slender bony man, the other a tall and dark man. The latter ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... Wellesley, like Harvard and other large colleges, has its uninspiring level stretches of mediocrity; but it has its little leaping hills, its soaring peaks as well. Every class has its band of devoted students for whom the things of the mind are supreme; every class has its scattering of youthful scholars to give ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... fear lest newer deeds than yours should make dull your old triumphs, and the scattering of the pirates should be as nothing to the conquering of Gaul. The practice of many wars has so exalted you, O Caesar, that you cannot put up with a second place. Caesar will endure no superior; but Pompey will have no equal. Whose cause was the better the poet dares not inquire! Each will have ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... deserted, for the scattering which takes place after graduation is hard to understand unless one is upon the ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... Holy Father! But first there appeared, mounted on a white mule and clothed in a magenta mantle, a grave dignitary bearing aloft a silver cross. The golden coach followed, drawn by six horses gorgeously caparisoned, and within, the smiling white- haired Pio Nono, scattering his benedictions, while the multitude fell upon its knees as one man. Such were the daily spectacles of coloured pomp and of antique solemnity, which so long as the sun was shining, at any rate— dazzled the onlooker into a happy forgetfulness of ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... human brotherhood outlasted that event. The disciples, instead of scattering, organized. They associated themselves on a principle of communism, each throwing into the common stock whatever property he possessed, and all his gains. The widows and orphans of the community were thus supported, the poor and the sick sustained. From this germ was ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... meets and it is plain from the first that the two strongest candidates are Lord Rosebery and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. There are scattering votes for Mr. Morley and Mr. Asquith, each of them getting the vote of one or more small Counties. But after the first ballot, which is always more or less preliminary, it is apparent that neither of those gentlemen can hope to be chosen, so the Counties ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... readiness in a few days thereafter, Mr. Hughes, Johnnie West and I had started for the new trapping ground, taking Juan along, again, to fetch our horses home. We had to travel over some rough country on the way, but found the North Park a fine region, with scattering pine timber on the hills and quaking-asp and willows along the streams. I have been told that this park is now owned by sheep men, and it is an excellent ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan

... themselves drunk with the Zoyland cider. The incapacity of Feversham, who commanded in chief, was notorious. Even at this momentous crisis he thought only of eating and sleeping. Churchill was indeed a captain equal to tasks far more arduous than that of scattering a crowd of ill armed and ill trained peasants. But the genius, which, at a later period, humbled six Marshals of France, was not now in its proper place. Feversham told Churchill little, and gave him no encouragement to offer any suggestion. The lieutenant, conscious of superior abilities ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... signal, and Tip, Caldwell, Scotty, and White tore out of the doorway on their frightened horses, heads low, scattering as they came. Kid Wolf whistled sharply for Blizzard and pulled himself effortlessly into the saddle as the big white horse went by at a mad gallop. He tossed away the keg ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens

... atmosphere with death. Yes, yes; let us pray! Let us to church and dip our fingers in the holy water at the portal! They that come after us will perish as by a pestilence! Let us sign crosses in the air! It will be scattering curses abroad in the likeness of ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... like the rest of the monasteries, and the rounded cobblestones of the large courtyard bear to-day a black stain where, the curious inquirer will be told, the caretakers of the empty house have been in the habit of cooking their bread on a brazier of charcoal fanned into glow with a palm leaf scattering the ashes. But the true story of the black stain is in reality quite otherwise. For it was here that the infuriated people burnt the chapel furniture when the monasteries of Saragossa ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... princess," she murmured, "I could scatter largess to the populace. But even if I am only a pretend princess, I can invent little things to do for people. Things like this. She was just as happy as if it was largess. I'll pretend that to do things people like is scattering ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Cape La Hogue in 1692, after a five days' engagement, had his fleet all but annihilated, a memorable victory which freed England from the danger of invasion by Louis XIV.; was created a marshal in 1693, and a year later closed his great career of service by scattering an English mercantile fleet and putting to flight the convoy squadron under Sir ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... sung—of a Deity bringing this people out of Egypt, making a path for them through the depths of the sea, reining back its foaming waves as a rider his white-maned steed; giving to the thirsty—water from the rock, to the hungry—bread from the skies, and scattering the foes of Israel before them, as chaff is driven by the wind. I have heard of the sun's fiery chariot arrested in its course by the voice of a man, speaking with authority given to him by an inspiring Deity. Tell me what is the name of the ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... her fingers, uprooting tufts of withered grass, and struggling to thrust them into her mouth, scattering soil over her terrible, inhuman face and bloodshot eyes, the woman writhed like a strip of birch bark in a wood fire. Indeed, by this time a little head was coming into view, and it needed all my efforts to quell the twitchings of her legs, to help the child to issue, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... division. Buschbeck has been speedily formed by a change of front, before Devens and Schurz have left the field, in the line of intrenchments built across the road at Dowdall's at the edge of the clearing. No sooner in place than a scattering fire by the men is opened upon friends and foes alike. Dilger's battery trains some of its guns down the road. The reserve artillery is already in position at the north of this line, and uses spherical case with rapidity. Howard and his staff are in the ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... fire, revolver in hand. I saw the pink tongue of Montgomery's pistol lick out once, close to the ground. He was down. I shouted with all my strength and fired into the air. I heard some one cry, "The Master!" The knotted black struggle broke into scattering units, the fire leapt and sank down. The crowd of Beast People fled in sudden panic before me, up the beach. In my excitement I fired at their retreating backs as they disappeared among the bushes. Then I turned to the black heaps upon ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... Death were gently sharpening his scythe in the dark. And now Rodriguez was giving ground, now his antagonist pressed him; thrusts that he believed invincible had failed; now he parried wearily and had at once to parry again; the unknown pressed on, was upon him, was scattering his weakening parries; drew back his rapier for a deadlier pass, learned in a secret school, in a hut on mountains he knew, and practised surely; and fell in a heap upon Rodriguez' feet, struck full on the back of the head by ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany

... BY THE PHOENICIANS.—While scattering the germs of civilization and culture broadcast over the entire Mediterranean area, the enterprising Phoenicians were also lending aid to almost every great ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers



Words linked to "Scattering" :   small indefinite amount, sprinkling, diaspora, shower, extinction, rain shower, activity, spread, dispersion, natural action, spreading, sprinkle, dissipation



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