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Sheath   Listen
noun
Sheath  n.  
1.
A case for the reception of a sword, hunting knife, or other long and slender instrument; a scabbard. "The dead knight's sword out of his sheath he drew."
2.
Any sheathlike covering, organ, or part. Specifically:
(a)
(Bot.) The base of a leaf when sheathing or investing a stem or branch, as in grasses.
(b)
(Zool.) One of the elytra of an insect.
Medullary sheath. (Anat.) See under Medullary.
Primitive sheath. (Anat.) See Neurilemma.
Sheath knife, a knife with a fixed blade, carried in a sheath.
Sheath of Schwann. (Anat.) See Schwann's sheath.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sheath" Quotes from Famous Books



... glimmers of the ice walls had then changed into blazing streaks. The sparkles from these myriads of diamonds were merging with each other. Swept along by its propeller, the Nautilus was traveling through a sheath ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... was soon relieved by the appearance of a tall, gaunt man, dressed in the usual costume of a western woodsman, jean trowsers, hunting shirt, old slouched felt hat, rifle, powder horn, bullet pouch, and sheath knife. He was an old man, face sallow and wrinkled, and hair quite a ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... situation was one of the greatest uncertainty, and with two hundred thousand soldiers gathered around Ki[o]to, under scores of ambitious leaders, it was hard to keep the sword in the sheath. Soon the line of cleavage found Iyeyas[)u] and his northern captains on one side, and most of the Christian leaders and southern daimi[o]s on the other. In October, 1600, with seventy-five thousand men, the future unifier of Japan stood on the ever-memorable field of Sekigahara. ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... doubtless expected; for, in those days of peril and savage warfare, men worshipped God armed with musket and bayonet, and the hand that was lifted in prayer to heaven would often, at the next moment, draw the gleaming sword from its sheath. At the meeting-house, the savages met with a warm repulse; and were so surprised and affrighted that they retreated back into the wild woods, after wounding but one or two colonists, among whom was Mr. ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams

... on the heroine's part, the Earl of Stafford half drew his dagger from the sheath as if to strike Joan, but the Earl of Warwick held him back. The visitors went out from the prison and handed over Joan to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... looking at him," said Bunce slowly, for he was a big meditative man, and he stood upright, took a piece of flannel from the strap that supported his whetstone sheath, and wiped the ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... and grow along a branching stalk, protected by a sheath, and just above the commencement of the leaf. From them is made the cocoanut-brandy that enables the native to forget his sorrows. Flowers and nuts in every stage of development are on the same tree, a year elapsing between ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... the sunlight that dashes through his glass, and so cheerfully winning the good-will of them all—and of some of the young women who are with them—that he shall find himself at some future time either the sheath for a Roman knife, or the recipient of a great deal of affection, and the purchaser of indefinite ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... blade with the utmost care, searching out spot after spot of rust, to the smallest, with the delicate points of his great bony fingers. Satisfied at length of its brightness, he requested Malcolm, who had returned long before the operation was over, to bring him the sheath, which, for fear of its coming to pieces, so old and crumbling was the leather, he kept laid up in the drawer with his sporran and his Sunday coat. His next business, for he would not commit it to Malcolm, was to adorn the pipes with the new streamers. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... forest. Among the reeds there were open places; small, round pools, and water-lilies were floating there. The tall stalks looked down with mild seriousness on those sensitive beauties, who discontentedly shut their white petals and yellow stamens in a hard, leather-like sheath as soon as the sun ceased to ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... This mark of contempt and apparent disregard of danger and hazard so enraged Lucila's husband (for it was he who had taken his stand by Don Fadrique) that without further delay he drew his sword from his sheath, and with a voice of suppressed rage called out, "Draw, or I shall stab you!" "Very gladly, Senor," replied Fadrique quietly; "you need not threaten me; you might as well have said so calmly." And so saying he placed his guitar ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque

... quite an infernal scorn for nineteen out of twenty of the men and women you met in the circles he most wished to propitiate; and nothing could induce you to keep your knife in its sheath when they jarred on you. The Spanish Main itself would have blushed rosy red at your language when classical invective did not ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... God's judgments are razors, we had better be careful how we use them on other people. In careful sheath these domestic weapons are put away, where no one by accident may touch them, and where the hands of children may not reach them. Such instruments must be carefully handled or not handled at all. But how recklessly some people wield the ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... have formed it of steel. The length of it is about ten inches, and that part close to the handle nearly three inches broad. Its edges are keen, and it gradually tapers towards a point. They wear it in a sheath made of deer leather, neatly ornamented with porcupine quills; and it is usually hung by a string decorated in the same manner, which reaches as low ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... says he, "we are going to Mr. Lemond's, a very ingenious mechanician, and one who has a genius for invention.... He has made a remarkable discovery in electricity. You write two or three words upon paper; he takes them with him into a room and revolves a machine within a sheath at the top of which there is an electrometer—a pretty little ball of feather pith. A brass wire is joined to a similar cylinder, and electrified in a distant apartment, and his wife on remarking the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various

... besides some of the largest pearls I have ever seen; a ruby three-quarters of an inch square; four emeralds nearly two inches long; and a great variety of all kinds of precious stones. The handle and sheath of one sword were entirely covered with diamonds and rubies. There were rings and clasps, and antique bowls filled with uncut stones, particularly emeralds. It recalled the tales of the Arabian Nights. The collection is poorly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... commendatory poems in the first folio edition: And on the stage at half sword parley were Brutus and Cassius.] it was, in the dialogue where Brutus stimulates Cassius to the conspiracy, drawn, as if involuntarily, half out of the sheath.) This does in no way agree with our way of thinking: we are not content without the toga. The present, perhaps, is not an inappropriate place for a few general observations on costume, considered ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... see if he still had his sheath-knife with him; and, sure enough, there it hung—on the back button of his trousers, although it was so diminished that it was hardly as long as a match. Well, at any rate, it served to scale and cleanse fish with; and it wasn't long before the ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... together, the Moor and Sir Lancelot; each had a great spear and brake it in two, as a reed, yet neither felled the other, but each abode upon his steed. Then each drew his sword from its sheath, and set to work therewith, and of a sooth, had not God Himself so willed it both had died there; so mighty were their strokes that by right no man should escape alive. Had it been midnight, and dark as night is wont to be, yet had ye seen the grass and the flowers by the light ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston

... rustling brown beech leaves, between the rounded trunks of the grey trees. The air was full of the promise of early spring. A cold blue sky showed through the lattice work of twigs and branches; but, as yet, no fluttering leaf had crept out of its sheath to soften, with a hint of tender green, the virginal stiffness and straightness of the stems. Grey among the grey tree-trunks little Mary flitted about, gathering her precious windflowers. She was clad in the demure Puritan dress worn by young and old alike in ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... for the psalm goes on: 'This is the generation of them that seek Him, that seek Thy face.' Yes; couched in germ there lies in that last word the great truth which is expanded in the New Testament, like a beech-leaf folded up in its little brown sheath through all the winter, and ready to break and give out its green plumelets as soon as the warm rains and sunshine of spring come. 'They that seek Him'—'if thou seek Him He will be found of thee.' The requirement of righteousness, as I have said, is not abolished by the Gospel, as some people ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... suddenness, and more than once knives were half drawn, only to be slipped back under the tongue-lashing of the hawk-nosed puntero, Jose, who damned the disputants completely and promised to cut out the bowels of any man daring to lift his blade clear of its sheath. Five minutes afterward the fire eaters would be on as good terms as ever, shrugging and grinning at their passengers—particularly Tim, who, shaking ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... to fight her way out of his grasp. She writhed, screaming; and in the frenzy of her fear she all but succeeded in hurling him off. She managed to draw the knife clear of the sheath, yet she couldn't raise her arm to strike. Ray was aiding his confederate now; and in an ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... thumb resting on the blunt end—so—and lift it along and strike downward. The Gaikowar showed us how the thing was done when he gave it to Luigi, and before that night was ended, Luigi had used the knife, and the Gaikowar was a man short by reason of it. The sheath is magnificently ornamented with gems of great value. You will find a sheath more worth looking at than the knife itself, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... heroine was clad in brown which fitted her slender figure perfectly. As Hilda had yellow hair, "like corn silk," this was all right, and if the brown was of the proper golden shade, she was doubtless stunning when Thorpe first saw her in the forest. But the gown could not have fitted her as the sheath encases the dagger, for before the straight-front corsets there were the big sleeves, and still further back were bustles and bouffant draperies. One does not get the impression that The Blazed Trail was placed in the days of crinolines, but doubtless ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... of the seventeen windows, it was as if the river flowed under a sullen sheath which undulated to its curves. On clear days it threw off light like ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... wonderful, struck the sucker from the limb and set him free. Aye, what a mind to think of it! What other man, I ask, would have let go his hold of the rocks when hold meant so much to him and that fish swam below? Nevertheless, the doctor did so. I see it now—the quick turn—the knife drawn from its sheath—the severed tentacle cut clean as a cork, the devil-fish itself drawing back to the depths of the crimson pool. And then once more I am asking the doctor if he is hurt; and he is answering me, cheerily, ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton

... captain, with whom he had long sailed in other seas. The Chilenos were not alone lazy and incompetent seamen, not fit to keep a look-out, nor take the wheel in rough weather, but what was worse, they were treacherous scoundrels, as ready for murder with their long, ugly sheath-knives, as British merchant sailors are with their fists ...
— The South Seaman - An Incident In The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke

... back to water. The men provided the food, but water was the care of the women. The stupid women carried water for most of their lives; the cleverer ones made the vessels to hold it. Their pottery was their most direct appeal to water, the envelope and sheath of the precious element itself. The strongest Indian need was expressed in those graceful jars, fashioned slowly by hand, without ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... golden studs, hung from his shoulder in a silver sheath, and in his hands he bore two great spears, brass-tipped and sharp. As he went forth to meet the foe, Juno and Minerva made a sound as of thunder in the sky, "honoring the king of Mycenæ, rich in gold." Thus did the Argive chief enter the field at ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke

... sailed from Bantam, and the 10th June I put into Tecoo. The 3d July I hove my ship down on the careen to sheath her. It is of great use to double sheath such ships as go to Surat, as though the outer sheathing may be eaten like a honey-comb by the worms, the inner is not at all injured. It were also of great use to have the rudder sheathed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... Adrian raised his sword in act to speak: "By whose command," he cried, addressing his own troops, "do you advance? Who ordered your attack? Fall back; these misguided men shall not be slaughtered, while I am your general. Sheath your weapons; these are your brothers, commit not fratricide; soon the plague will not leave one for you to glut your revenge upon: will you be more pitiless than pestilence? As you honour me—as you worship God, in whose ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... had the end come. There was a heaving struggle, a sharp cry, and Juan sprang back, pressing his hand against his side, where blood came from between his fingers. The Indian had worked his left hand to the sheath of his knife, and stabbed the giant who had so nearly overcome him. Staggering, the two again stood erect, and yet again came the cries from the many red men and the little band of whites who were witnessing this barbarous and brutal struggle. Bows were bending among the blankets, ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... trembled all over when a huge wolf, as thin as if he had fasted for a month, with claws like saws, and mouth as wide as an oven, bounded howling towards her. For a moment her heart failed her, but the next, touching the horse lightly with her spur, she drew her sword from its sheath, ready to separate the wolf's head from its body at ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... to increase after reaching a moderate size, but usually persists indefinitely, although occasionally disappearing without treatment. The swelling contains a gelatinous substance which is held in a little sac in the sheath of the tendon or sinew, but the inside of the sac does not communicate with the interior of the ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... placed as to compress the brachial artery inside the forearm, and with the iron ramrod from a carbine as a lever, we screwed this rough tourniquet up until the circulation was in great measure cut off. Luckily Dunmore had a pocket-knife with him, for the sheath-knives we carried were but rude instruments for surgery, and with the small blade he slashed the bitten part freely, while Lizzie, applying her lips to the wound, did her best to draw out the subtle venom. Some of us carried flasks, containing various spirits, and ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... getting embalmed as he did, and being dug out afterwards by an antiquary with a chisel. For the matter of that I shouldn't care to hear of people writing odes about you on account of your going under while your sword was in its sheath and ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... stood before the sculptors were caused to present to them the piles of gold, and the soldiers that stood behind the sculptors were caused to sheath their ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... strap fashioned from the ribbon of the Star of Persia, and fastened by the star; her strong, slender waist was girdled with a heavy gold cord that supported a long, thin dagger, no toy, in a jeweled sheath; the hem of her single garment rang with gold sequins to the movement of her smoothly muscular knees; her high-arched feet were protected from thorns and shells by sandals of ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... felt that he was afflicted physically rather than mentally, that some protective padding of nerve-sheath or brain-case had worn thin and weak, and left him a prey to strange disturbances, rather than that any new process of thought was eating into his mind. These doubts in his mind were still not really doubts; they were rather alien and, ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... seemingly very desirous of overtaking us. Presently he called out to us to stop, which we did; and when he came up he turned out to be a country student, dressed in brown, with spatterdashes and round-toed shoes. He had a sword in a huge sheath, and a band tied with tape. He had indeed but two tapes, so that his band got out of its place, which he took great pains ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... another story. A cut nerve can grow together; every fiber has an insulating sheath which survives the cut and guides growing stumps back to their stations. In the brain and spinal cord, no sheaths; growing fibers have about the chance of restoring contact that you'd have of traversing the Amazon jungle on foot without ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker

... stack. Clara felt him take her foot out of the stirrup, and she slid softly down into his arms. He kissed her slowly. He was a deliberate man, but his nerves were steel when he wanted anything. Something flashed out from him like a knife out of a sheath. Clara felt everything slipping away from her; she was flooded by the summer night. He thrust his hand into his pocket, and then held it out at arm's length. "Look," he said. The shadow of the straw stack fell sharp across ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... inscription on that old basket-hilted sabre," said Clovis, pointing to a venerable weapon hanging on the wall. "I wish you'd take it to her; my hands are all over oil. Take it without the sheath, ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... grim smile the centurion then threw himself down upon a settee near the door, arranged as properly as possible the folds of his coarse tunic, drew his belt round so as to show more in front his dagger with richly embossed sheath—the sole article of courtly and ceremonious attire in which he indulged—and endeavored to assume an easy and imposing attitude. For an instant he gazed around the room, observantly taking in its wealth of mosaic pavement, paintings, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... "Poor sheath, it is much worn," he wrote of himself from the dreary land of marsh and forest into which he had come while laying down a chain of posts ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang

... to take it out of the sheath, sonny darling," said the gentle, sad-eyed lady as she kissed ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... panthers, jaguars—are the most beautiful as well as the most dangerous of this class. They have long and sharp teeth, and very long claws—five on the forefeet and four on the hinder-feet—and these claws are kept sharp by being guarded within a soft sheath when not wanted; so that all these cat-like creatures tread ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... seven others previously known only as inhabitants of New Guinea and the neighbouring islands.* The first of these which came under my notice was an enormous black parrot (Microglossus aterrimus) with crimson cheeks; at Cape York it feeds upon the cabbage of various palms, stripping down the sheath at the base of the leaves with its powerful, acutely-hooked upper mandible. The next in order of occurrence was a third species of the genus Tanysiptera (T. sylvia) a gorgeous kingfisher with two long, white, central tail-feathers, inhabiting the brushes, where the ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... incision should be made through the skin and subjacent textures, till the sheath of the artery is reached ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... receive us in the gardens. A few minutes later she came swinging toward us across a great stretch of rolling lawn, a splendid figure of a woman, dressed in a magnificent native costume of white and silver, a white scarf partially concealing her masses of tawny hair, a long-bladed poniard in a silver sheath hanging from her girdle. At her heels were a dozen Russian wolf hounds, the gift, so she told me, of the Grand Duke Nicholas, the former commander-in-chief of the Russian armies. I have seen many queens, but I have never seen one who so completely meets the popular ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... Tagal sabre, which bore the following Spanish inscription, in large letters: "No me sacas sin rason, ni me envainas sin honor." "Never draw me unjustly, and never sheath ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... skirts so tightly that her bulk with its swelling curves was revealed in a black silk sheath, and she went with a slow toddle across the hall to the study door. She stood there, her ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... anxious to help them by buying some of their handiwork, but found even this a difficult matter. They were very anxious to give, but when I desired to buy they said they did not wish to part with their things. I wanted what they had in actual use, such as a tobacco-box and pipe-sheath, and knives with carved handles and scabbards, and for three of these I offered 2.5 dollars. They said they did not care to sell them, but in the evening they came saying they were not worth more than 1 dollar 10 cents, and they would sell them ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... sat rakishly on her head, allowing yellow ripples of hair to wave out in jaunty glory. In the higher light it seemed to Anthony that her personality was infinitely softer—she seemed so young, scarcely eighteen; her form under the tight sheath, known then as a hobble-skirt, was amazingly supple and slender, and her hands, neither "artistic" nor stubby, were small as ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... of death, kill none but those who fight; I much repent me of this bloody night: Slaughter grows murder when it goes too far, And makes a massacre what was a war: Sheath all your weapons, and in silence move, 'Tis sacred here to beauty, and to love. Ha—[Sees MONT. What dismal sight is this, which takes from me All the delight, that waits on victory! [Runs to take him off ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... impartial way of looking at things will find something in the possibility and actual fact of man's education, which has the power of logical proof that a spiritual being is struggling for existence within the sheath of the body. He will compare animals with man and say to himself that at the birth of the former there appears certain definite qualities and capacities as something, decisive in itself, which plainly shows how it has been designed by heredity and how it will unfold itself in ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... terminal points in the organism, one of such termini being usually a cell of the brain or spinal cord, the other a distribution-point at or near the periphery—for example, in a muscle or in the skin. Such a fibril may have about it a protective covering, which is known as the sheath of Schwann; but the fibril itself is the essential nerve tract; and in many cases, as Remak presently discovered, the sheath is dispensed with, particularly in case of the nerves of the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... Emilia; "I am glad you have recovered your voice. You play the game of tit-for-tat remarkably well. We will now sheath our battledores. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... speaking terms with the walls, and through a score of crannies at least the wind poured and whistled, so that after shifting my truss of straw a dozen times I found myself still the centre of a whirl of draught. The candle-flame, too, was puffed this way and that inside the horn sheath. I was losing patience when I heard footsteps below; the ladder creak'd, and the red hair and broad shoulders of a chambermaid rose into view. She carried a steaming mug in her hand, and mutter'd all the while in no ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... from the Senator a young squire came forward, proudly bearing a sword with a jeweled hilt, in an intricately wrought scabbard. Giustinian drew it from its sheath, displaying a blade exquisitely damascened with acanthus foliage, as ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... good and great as it is possible for anything operatic to be. They drew on one another, the two men—not like stage-players, but like Macready himself: and she, rushing in between them; now clinging to this one, now to that, now making a sheath for their naked swords with her arms, now tearing her hair in distraction as they broke away from her and plunged again at each other; was prodigious." This was the theatre at which Macready was immediately to act, and where Dickens saw him ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... These hats were an excellent protection against sun and rain, but could hardly be trusted in a high wind. All these men were inveterate smokers, and carried their pipes and tobacco pouches at their waists. Most had sheath knives attached to belts, and some carried flint, steel, and tinder. They formed picturesque groups, some talking with purchasers and others collected around fires or ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... their tinsel livery, And indistinguishable at a sweeping glance, They muster, maybe, As lives wide in irrelevance; A world of her own has each one underneath, Detached as a sword from its sheath. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... sword from the sheath, and places it naked in the hands of the King, who, having lowered it, offers it to God and replaces it ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... conflicts with the giants the god hurled it at the enemies. It always returned to his hand, no matter how far he might hurl it. Frej's sword, referred to, had the power of fighting successfully of its own accord as soon as it was drawn from the sheath. ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner

... the ladies ride, Two fair girls and slender; Modest are their eyes and mild, And their cheeks are tender. Thus young lilies break the sheath, Budding roses render Blushes, and twinned pairs of stars ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... lawful government, and a prosperity purer and more enduring than that which it protected before; that it may win parted friends from their alienation; that it may inspire hope, and inaugurate universal liberty; that it may say to the sword, "Return to thy sheath"; and to the plow and sickle, "Go forth"; that it may heal all jealousies, unite all policies, inspire a new national life, compact our strength, purify our principles, ennoble our national ambitions, and make this people great and ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... well as it is, get off." I made no reply, hoping my sexual force would return, for my prick was in her sheath. She moved to release herself. Stronger far than me, she could in any other attitude have easily done so; but the most difficult position for a woman to disengage herself from a man, is when he is on the top of her, well between her thighs, and clasping her backside ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... robes, each with his hood, half black, half red, on his left shoulder. After them came sheriffs' officers and Mayor's officers, the common serjeant, and the chamberlain. Before the Mayor went the swordbearer in his cap of honour, the sword, in a sheath set with pearls, in his right hand; while on his left came the common cryer, with the great gilt club and a mace on his shoulder. The Mayor wore a long scarlet gown, with black velvet hood and rich gold collar ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... a strange and solemn pause as the judge resumed his seat, and all eyes turned on Henry. The firmness of the judge had touched the right chord at last. The sword dropped back into its sheath, the scowl of passion gave place to the flush of shame, the wild eyes sought the ground, and the haughty head hung down in confusion. Without a word he submitted to the officers of the court, and accompanied them to the place of his ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... the pink dawn like a rose From out night's gray and cloudy sheath; Softly and still it grows and grows, Petal by petal, leaf by leaf; Each sleep-imprisoned creature breaks Its dreamy fetters, one by one, And love awakes, and labor wakes,— The morning comes before ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge

... has five yellow petals joined together to form a corolla. In the centre of the blossom, where these petals meet, each is marked with a spot of deep orange-red colour. The yellow petals are comparatively small, and peep out of a long pale green sheath called ...
— Wildflowers of the Farm • Arthur Owens Cooke

... dagger with a highly ornamented handle. She found Copley in the living-room, attired in a raincoat, standing and looking at the closed door leading to Simon's study. Miss Ocky settled herself in a chair by the lamp on the center table, drew the dagger from its worn leather sheath and proceeded to cut the pages of Henner's "Through Asia." She glanced ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife. Here comes another with a sou'-wester and ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... cross-fertilisation would perhaps make such panicles fertile. (686/1. The meaning of this sentence is somewhat obscure. Darwin apparently implies that the perfect flowers, borne on the panicles which occasionally emerge from the sheath, might be fertile if pollinated from another individual. See "Forms of Flowers," ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... Zyobite workmen were gathered at once. The length of hose—made of some linen-like fabric of tough, shredded sea-weed and covered with a flexible metal sheath—was cut into three pieces each about fifty yards long. These were connected to three of the largest gas ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... never saw Ling Look's work, but I know that some of the sword swallowers have made use of a sheath which was swallowed before the performance, and the swords were simply pushed into it. A sheath of this kind lined with asbestos might easily have served as a ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... a weary thing to lie tossing restlessly from side to side, sleepless, through the silent watches of the night, spirit and matter warring against each other—the sword gnawing and corroding its sheath. A weary and harassing thing it is even where the body is the aggressor—when the fevered blood, darting like liquid fire through the veins, mounts to the throbbing brow, and, pressing like molten lead upon the brain, crushes out thought and feeling, leaving ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... meters between the highest and lowest sea. The apparatus consists, as we said above, of a float and registering device, connected with each other by means of a cable. This latter is formed of three ordinary conductors covered with gutta percha and surrounded with a leaden sheath, which latter is itself protected against accident by means of a strong covering of iron wire and hemp. The return is effected through the earth. We shall enter into details concerning each of these ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various

... his position and barely six feet away from him one of the main power cables of the cavern was suspended from heavy insulators. If the cable had ever had an insulating sheath around it the fabric had vanished during the centuries for the dull silver-colored metal ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells

... in the journal of a missionary's wife in Canada that she had a curious Malay or Cingalese dagger, with a curved blade and wooden sheath, while on the handle was the figure of an idol. One day she showed this to an Indian, and the next day he came with five more, and these again with fifteen, till it seemed as if the whole country had gone wild over it. Very much alarmed at such ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... glimmering far beneath, Hell's children revel along the shuddering heath With dirge-like mirth and raiment like a shroud: A worse fair face than witchcraft's, passion-proud, With brows blood-flecked behind their bridal wreath And lips that bade the assassin's sword find sheath Deep in the heart whereto love's heart was vowed: A game of close contentious crafts and creeds Played till white England bring black Spain to shame: A son's bright sword and brighter soul, whose deeds High conscience lights for mother's ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... "To sheath it no more, Khan? An unenviable destiny. Methinks it is better to reign in Bouinaki, than for an empty title to be obliged to hide in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... the unknown thing That hides the past world, like to a set sun Which still elsewhere may rouse a brighter spring— Death laughs at all you weep for:—look upon This hourly dread of all! whose threaten'd sting Turns life to terror, even though in its sheath: Mark how its lipless ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... as thy name,' smiled the chief. 'Thou art indeed worthy of thy eagle plume. Thou art a true Ok-wa-ho.' Then placing his scalping knife in its sheath at his belt he lifted his palm to his lips, a long, strange, quivering yell rent the forest trails—a yell of defiance, of mastery, of challenge; his feet were ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... in relief with guns, horns and other implements of the chase. Shell guard. Boar-head pommel. Quillions shaped like deer feet. Double-edged blade, in original sheath. ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker

... pigeonhole, cove, oriel; cave &c. (concavity) 252. capsule, vesicle, cyst, pod, calyx, cancelli, utricle, bladder; pericarp, udder. stomach, paunch, venter, ventricle, crop, craw, maw, gizzard, breadbasket; mouth. pocket, pouch, fob, sheath, scabbard, socket, bag, sac, sack, saccule, wallet, cardcase, scrip, poke, knit, knapsack, haversack, sachel, satchel, reticule, budget, net; ditty bag, ditty box; housewife, hussif; saddlebags; portfolio; quiver &c. (magazine) 636. chest, box, coffer, caddy, case, casket, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... of danger, sudden illness, or even death; it also betokens slander and dangerous gossip; to lovers it is a bad omen of quarrels; a sword in its sheath shows honour and glory for someone dear to you; a broken sword predicts the triumph ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent

... the trees drop their leaves in the autumn and their buds are done up in a brown sheath until the spring sunshine softens it and the tiny green leaf comes out, and why the birds go to warmer countries, because they cannot stand snow and sleet, and return again; why the bee shuts himself up in the hollow tree and sleeps, and a hundred beautiful things. And ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... think I'd have kept the onza, whether it was mine or not." He paused and pulled a knife from its sheath. The handle was ornamented and the narrow blade glittered in the light, although its point was dull. "But what is this? Has ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... Protestant to three Ecclesiastical votes in the Electoral College; while to the Elector of Bohemia, as to the Archduke of Austria, the possession of the Imperial dignity was an important check, if the Protestants properly availed themselves of it. The sword of the Union might keep within its sheath the sword of the League; or if matters actually came to a war, might make the issue of it doubtful. But, unfortunately, private interests dissolved the band of union which should have held together the Protestant members of the empire. This critical ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... 1901, when the birds ware just over three months old, the adult feathers of the tail were all growing. The growing condition can be distinguished by the presence of a horny tubular sheath extending up the base of the feather for about one inch. When growth ceases this sheath is shed. In cock A growth continued till the end of the following March, when the longest feathers, the central rectrices, ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... you gratify my query," said Turnbull, laughing and letting back his blade into the sheath, "I do not care for what reason you ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... attack him, David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone, and slung it and struck the Philistine in the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth. Then David ran and stood over the Philistine, and drawing his sword from its sheath, he killed him and cut ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... began the youth again, "I begged a hasty kiss from the beauty, which certainly blooms for all, and she—" He raised his hands and eyes imploringly to the despot; but Caracalla had already snatched Macrinus's sword from its sheath, and before Aurelius could defend himself he was struck first on the head with the flat of the blade, and then received a series of sharp cuts on his brow ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... across the river the corn stood thin and frail. Over there a drought was on it; and when drifting thistle-plumes marked the noontide of the year, each yellow stalk had withered blades and an empty sheath. Everywhere a look of vague trouble lay upon the face of the mountains, and when the wind blew, the silver of the leaves showed ashen. Autumn ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.

... The shimmering sheath of silver and chiffon she wore to-day, as it happened, rejoiced in the name of "First Love." It was all white. She was being very careful of its virginal purity; but it occurred to her that unless the sea's passion died, the frock would soon have to be renamed "Second Love," or even "Slighted ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... the feet, were ordinarily bare, although these last had sometimes the protection of a very simple sandal. [PLATE XCVI., Fig. 2.] Swordsmen used a small straight sword or dagger which they wore at their left side in an ornamented sheath, and a shield which was either convex and probably of metal, or oblong-square and composed of wickerwork. [PLATE XCVI., Fig. 2.] Spearmen had shields of a similar shape and construction, and carried in their ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... equally skilful, for he could use the blade to pick up the oil from his plate instead of licking it up with a spoon, or, in a quarrel, make it find a sheath in the leg or arm ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... went into the house, to return with a heavy cartridge-belt and gun-filled sheath and a long rifle; these she handed to him, and as he buckled on the belt she stood ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... belonged to man (1) a visible body, which {xiii} was again dichotomized, and believed to be composed, according to many of the Gnostics, of a subtle element like that of which they supposed Adam in his unfallen state was made, which they named the hylic body, and a sheath of gross earthly matter which they called the choical body.[5] There was also (2) another, invisible, "half," generally divided into lower and higher stories. The lower story, the psychical, was created or furnished by the Demiurge, or sub-divine ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... wisdom in the council shown, Malyavan, sage and faithful guide. Thus to the monarch's speech replied: "Long reigns the king in safe repose, Unmoved by fear of vanquished foes, Whose feet by saving knowledge led In justice path delight to tread: Who knows to sheath the sword or wield, To order peace, to strike or yield: Prefers, when foes are stronger, peace, And bids a doubtful conflict cease. Now, King, the choice before thee lies, Make peace with Rama, and be wise. This ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... suppression of the flowers on one side of the stem. I have also in my herbarium a leaf of Arum maculatum, with a stalk single at the base, but dividing into two separate stalks, each bearing a hastate lamina, the form of which is so perfect that were it not from the venation of the sheath it would be considered that there was here a union of two leaves rather than a bifurcation of one. A garden Pelargonium ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... at her. There was just one moment's pause; perhaps he tried to bridge the years, and to believe that it was Letty who spoke to him—Letty, whom he had last seen that wintry night, pale and weeping, in the slender green sheath of a fur-trimmed pelisse. If so, he gave it up; this plump, white-haired, bright-eyed old lady, in a wide-spreading, rustling black silk dress, was not Letty. She was ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland

... from his vestband, and presenting it in the sheath to the princess, said, "Take this knife, sister, and give yourself the trouble sometimes to pull it out of the sheath: while you see it clean as it is now, it will be a sign that I am alive; but if you find it stained with blood, then ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... weakness; for, to serve your husband, I have just taken more exercise than my doctors allow". Then turning round to a servant, "Give me a glass of wine," said he, showing Darnley his bloody dagger before putting it back in its sheath, "for here is the proof that I have well earned it". The servant obeyed, and Ruthven drained his glass with as much calmness as if he had just performed the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... this is impossible unless he use drugs like chloroform or violence, so as to make the patient faint or she be exceptionally weak. "Good Queen Bess" hit the heart of the question when she bade Lord High Chancellor sheath his sword, she holding the scabbard-mouth before him and keeping it in constant motion. But it often happens that the woman, unless she have a loathing for her violator, becomes infected with the amorous storge, relaxes her defense, feels pleasure in the outer contact of the parts and almost ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... resorting to an extreme measure, for which he had already made his preparations. Drawing out a piece of oil paper which he had brought with him, and spreading it over the mats, he sat down upon it; then he took the small knife which he carried in the sheath of his dirk, and stuck it into his own thigh. For awhile the pain of the wound kept him awake; but as the slumber by which he was assailed was the work of sorcery, little by little he became drowsy again. Then he twisted the knife round ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... while they flew about and fed their mates. The leaves were not out; their buds only looked like green eggs spotting the trees, excepting that here and there a horse-chestnut, forwarder than its brethren, was pushing its crumpled foliage out of the pale-pink sheath. Everywhere saplings had been cut down, and numbers of them strewed the damp mossy ground; but light penetrated, and water trinkled, there was a pleasant scent of herbs and flowers, and the whole place was ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... are America's men, Brave, dauntless and true; We are America's men, Ready to dare and do; Ready to wield the sword with might, Ready the tyrant's brow to smite— And ready to sheath the sword—for Right! We are ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... her own reading—like some great flower that bursts its sheath. But such pain—oh, such pain! She presses her little fingers on her breast, trying to drive back this humiliating truth that is escaping her, tearing its way ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... bears in its beauty the promise of delicious fruit? Put a red Astrachan beside a sorry crab, a Bartlett pear next a tough, diminutive wild pear such as it is descended from, an ear of milky corn in contrast with an ear one-fourth its size, each grain of which, small and dry, is wrapped in a sheath by itself; and rejoice that fruits and grains as well as flowers can learn new lessons and remember them. At Concord, Massachusetts, in an honoured old age, dwells Mr. Ephraim W. Bull. In his garden he delights to show the mother vine of the Concord grape which he developed from a native ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various

... Pecksuot forth, self-vaunting, insulting Miles Standish: While with his fingers he petted the knife that hung at his bosom, Drawing it half from its sheath, and plunging it back, as he muttered, "By and by it shall see; it shall eat; ah, ha! but shall speak not! This is the mighty Captain the white men have sent to destroy us! He is a little man; let him go and work ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... the end nearer the muscle fibres is drawn away from the other, leaving a gap which is speedily filled by blood-clot. In the course of a few days this clot becomes permeated by granulation tissue, the fibroblasts of which are derived from the sheath of the tendon, the surrounding connective tissue, and probably also from the divided ends of the tendon itself. These fibroblasts ultimately develop into typical tendon cells, and the fibres which they form constitute the new tendon fibres. Under aseptic conditions repair is complete in from ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... trembling, Psyche listened. Drop by drop the poisonous words passed into her soul. She had thought him king of all living things—worthy to rule over gods as well as men. She was so sure that his body was worthy sheath for the heart she knew so well.... She had pictured him beautiful as Eros, son of Aphrodite—young and fair, with crisp, golden locks—a husband to glory in—a lover to adore. And now she knew, with shame ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... their jackets, displaying their rough flannel shirts and belts, in which were carried sheath knives, chose their partners and went at it with a will, to Dick's music, while he fiddled and shouted such directions as "Sashay down th' ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... possessed of so much brute strength, and, since the days of Hercules and Omphale, brute strength in man has ever appealed to woman. Before either of them could speak, St. Aulaire struggled to his feet and, wrenching his dress sword from its sheath, staggered toward Calvert, thrusting wildly and ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... this interference he grew still more furious, and well-nigh foamed at the mouth, swearing by all the saints in his calendar that he would slay me where I stood. But at a word from the monk he smiled a grim, meaning smile, and thrusting back his rapier into its sheath turned away from us with a face full of hate ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher

... fine buck, which had come to the creek to drink. He instantly raised his trusty gun to his face. A flash and report, and the noble animal fell dead upon the bank of the stream. The day had now far advanced, and he drew his knife from its sheath and dressed his venison with dispatch. He then hung up three of the quarters upon the trees, cutting off a limb to form a hook on which it would hang safely from the wolves that were nightly prowling along the stream. He then took the remaining ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes

... Father, but he would not demand my surrender to such as you. Here is the chief to whom the Indian yields," he said, turning to the lieutenant, and then, riding a pony length closer, gravely swung his handsome repeating rifle from its gayly-fringed sheath of skins and extended it, butt ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... weapon in Nature, the paw of a tiger, or, indeed, of any cat, for they are all of one pattern. The sharpened flint of the savage has become the scimitar of Saladin, keeping the keenness of its edge in a velvet sheath and flashing out only on the field of battle. Compare that paw with the foot of a dog, and you will, perhaps, see with me that the servility and pliancy of the slave of man has usurped a place ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... mortally wounded, but succeeded in the subsequent confusion, in gaining the steerage. McKay was seriously injured and thrown overboard. In the boats surrounding the ships were a number of women, and they despatched the unfortunate partner with their paddles. The captain whipped out a sailor's sheath knife which he wore, and made a desperate fight for his life. The sailors also drew their knives or caught up belaying-pins or handspikes, and laid about them with the energy of despair, but to no avail. They ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... already too late to file and fit a skeleton key. His first impulse was to bury the box under a muffling pile of bedding and send a bullet or two through the lock. But his wandering eye caught sight of a Morocco sheath-knife above them on the wall, and a moment later he had the point of it under the steel-bound lid, and as he pried it ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... She is an impartial priestess of fortune. Maxime waits only to hear her speak. She is silent, save the monosyllabic French words of the game. Is she Cuban, Creole, French, Andalusian, Italian, or a wandering gypsy star? A jewelled dagger-sheath in her corsage speaks of Spain or Italy. Maxime notes the unaccustomed eagerness with which Hardin recklessly plays. He seems determined to attract the especial attention of the divinity of the hour. Hardin's color is unusual. His features are sternly set. Near him stands "French ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... am glad I was not there," Sir Ralph said, "for I think not that I could have kept my sword in its sheath, even though it had cost ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... hand to the budget and taking it, carried it aside and opened it and found in it food of the best. He ate his fill and refreshed himself and drank water, after which he hung up the provision-bag in its place and drawing the eunuch's sword from its sheath, took it, whilst the slave slept on, knowing not whence destiny should come to him. Then the Prince fared forwards into the palace and ceased not till he came to a second door, with a curtain drawn before it; so he raised the curtain and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... the phrase and the method were suggested by Faye, who estimated the average depth of the luminous sheath of spots at 2,160 miles. Comptes Rendus, t. lxi., p. 1082; t. ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... Travelling was particularly dangerous at that time, for besides the usual perils which beset wayfarers, the southern parts of England were in a lawless and disturbed state which bordered on insurrection. The young man, however, having loosened his sword in his sheath, so as to be ready for every eventuality, galloped cheerily upon his way, guiding himself to the best of his ability by the ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... morning outside the Vane Arms with all the air of one setting out on his travels in distant lands. He had a field glass slung over his shoulder, and a very large sheath knife buckled by a belt round his waist, and carried with the cool bravado of the bowie knife of a cowboy. But in spite of this backwoodsman's simplicity, or perhaps rather because of it, he eyed with ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton



Words linked to "Sheath" :   lorica, aglet, husk, protection, protective cover, sheath knife, scabbard, covering, natural covering, cocktail dress, medullary sheath, holster, cot, case



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