Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Sill   Listen
noun
Sill  n.  The basis or foundation of a thing; especially, a horizontal piece, as a timber, which forms the lower member of a frame, or supports a structure; as, the sills of a house, of a bridge, of a loom, and the like. Hence:
(a)
The timber or stone at the foot of a door; the threshold.
(b)
The timber or stone on which a window frame stands; or, the lowest piece in a window frame.
(c)
The floor of a gallery or passage in a mine.
(d)
A piece of timber across the bottom of a canal lock for the gates to shut against.
Sill course (Arch.), a horizontal course of stone, terra cotta, or the like, built into a wall at the level of one or more window sills, these sills often forming part of it.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Sill" Quotes from Famous Books



... into the hook in a blaze of temper, hurt and unreasonable, and striding to the rear window flung it up to cool his face. There were bouillon cups upon the sill. Bouillon cups! Bouillon cups! Thunder-and-turf! There were bouillon cups everywhere. Nobody but Brian would have bought so many handles. A future of handles loomed drearily ahead. Brian could talk of disorder all he chose. Half of it was bouillon cups. Bitterly resenting the reproach ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... a desire to protect herself from all reproach of mendacity on the part of the customers, had made the owner of the inn place a wire cupboard upon the sill of one of the windows near the door; in which receptacle were some eggs on a plate, a bit of bread with which David might have loaded his sling, a white glass bottle filled with a liquid of some color intended ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... woman sitting on her door-sill. She appeared to be gazing on the ground, but her sun-bonnet hid her face. Helen approached, and spoke to her. She gave a quick upward glance, and fell to trembling. She was no longer made of iron. Sorrow had ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... bow.—Apron of a gun, a square piece of sheet-lead laid over the touch-hole for protecting the vent from damp; also over the gun-lock.—Apron of a dock, the platform rising where the gates are closed, and on which the sill is fastened down. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... the fact that we noticed nothing of it on land," said Harryman, thoughtfully blowing out a cloud of smoke and swinging himself up backward on the window-sill. ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... devoted myself to a morose cult, and had, so to speak, consecrated my heart to it. One day my father, solicitous about my future, spoke to me of several careers between which he allowed me to choose. I was leaning on the window-sill, looking at a solitary poplar-tree that was swaying in the breeze down in the garden. I thought over all the various occupations and wondered which one I should choose. I turned them all over, one after another, in my mind, and then not feeling inclined to any of them I allowed my thoughts to ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... with black hair and whiskers of the window-brush school, and a face reminding you of the BOURBONS. As, although lighting his lamp, he has, abstractedly, almost covered it with his hat, his room is but imperfectly illuminated, and you can just detect the accordeon on the window-sill, and, above the mantel, an unfinished sketch of a school-girl. (There is no artistic merit in this picture; in which, indeed, a simple triangle on end represents the waist, another and slightly larger triangle the skirts, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various

... fireman, a lad of eighteen, with a curl waving from under his cap, was leaning far out of the cab, smoking a cigarette and looking up at the snowy mountains just visible from White River. He was careless,—alive, and content this fine morning,—his grimy arms bare on the sill of the cab window, the broad earth and its hills spread before him. As the engine shot past, he looked down at Isabelle, curiously, and then up to the mountains again, as if his life were complete enough. A careless figure of the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... sometimes, in avoiding this, risk their lives very foolishly. They step from the train before it has fairly stopped, or put their heads out of the window when the car is in motion, or rest the elbow on the sill of an open window in such a way that a passing train may cause serious, if not fatal, injury. Sometimes they pass carelessly from one car to another when the train is still, forgetting that it may start at any moment and throw them off their balance. Many similar exposures can be avoided ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... dropped the letters for outlying farms at the Monypenny smithy and trudged on. The smith having wiped his hand on his hair, made a row of them, without looking at the addresses, on his window-sill, where, happening to be seven in number, they were almost a model of Monypenny, which is within hail of Thrums, but round the corner from it, and so has ways of its own. With the next clang on the anvil the middle letter fell flat, and now the likeness ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... out at the open window, which was about fifteen feet from the ground. Something white loomed up through the darkness: it was the awning of one of the wagons, which stood just under the window, to the sill of which it reached within a few feet. Walker, brought up in the rough-and-ready school, had lain down to rest with his trousers on. A sudden inspiration now seized him: he slipped them rapidly off, and dropped them silently on to the roof of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... painted walls, no rug on the floor and no furniture except a table (with nothing on it) and two chairs: one a leather easy-chair and the other a stiff little brute with a wooden seat. There was one window with the shade pulled down to the sill, but the sun was bright outside, and ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... of mind. The concentration of the flames, which threatened every moment to bring down a portion of the ponderous roof in one destroying crash, left a freer passage. She advanced quickly—she put her foot on the smouldering sill; she paused, hesitated. It was ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... I swung the muzzle of the gun around on the window-sill until the bead drew dead upon the thief. The cow in her stall beside me did not stir. I knew that four small boys in the bedroom window had their eyes riveted upon that fox waiting for me to fire. It was a nervous situation, so early ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... dog, a countryman's dog in search of his master; smelling at everybody's heels, and touching little Annie's hand with his cold nose, but hurrying away, though she would fain have patted him. Success to your search, Fidelity! And there sits a great yellow cat upon a window-sill, a very corpulent and comfortable cat, gazing at this transitory world, with owl's eyes, and making pithy comments, doubtless, or what appear such, to the silly beast. O sage puss, make room for me beside you, and we will ...
— Little Annie's Ramble (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... said Marjorie, softly, as she stepped over the sill, and stood in the soft moonlight, looking down on the ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

... the whitewash was grimy, the ceiling and windows unclean. Ashes of a peat fire still lay upon the cracked hearthstone, and a pair of worn-out boots, left by a tramp or the last tenant, stood on the window-sill. Dust and filth were everywhere, but no ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... of the pair, "I don't like the way that window's broken, for one thing, and if you look at it you'll see what I mean. The broken glass is all outside on the sill. But that's not all, ma'am; and, as you have a cab, we might do worse than drive to the station ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... took his seat in the rumble, and in a few minutes they were bounding over the road at a very different pace to that at which they had before traversed it. "There's the house among the trees," Peter said at last, "with aunt's pigeons on the roof as usual, and there's Minnie asleep on the window-sill, and there! ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... habitable. Above the rooms occupied by Mrs. Borisoff and her guests was that which had imprisoned the Queen of Scots; a chamber of bare stone, with high embrasure narrowing to the slit of window which admitted daylight, and, if one climbed the sill, gave a glimpse of far mountains. Down below, deep under the roots of the tower, was the Castle's dungeon, black and deadly. Early on the morrow Helen led her friend to see these things. Then they climbed to the battlements, where the sun shone hot, and Helen pointed out the ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... perambulator, a baker's boy, a young woman with a large parcel, a vendor of boot laces, and a man delivering circulars. Gwen looked at them with languid attention, drumming her fingers idly on the window sill; then quite suddenly an expression of keen interest flashed across her face and she leaned out over the ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... about the tower, and looking up into the lantern saw on the north side a seam of old brick filling; and on the south a thin jagged fissure, that ran down from the sill of the lantern-window like the impress of a lightning-flash. There came into his head an old architectural saw, "The arch never sleeps"; and as he looked up at the four wide and finely-drawn semicircles they ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... Its appearance entirely overthrew the theories which my young companion had nourished. A small, but neatly-furnished apartment, with a clean bed, a chest of drawers, and a quantity of flowers on the window-sill, by no means came up to the ideas which he had entertained of monastic asceticism; and when, over and above all this, he found more than a breviary and a crucifix within reach, namely, a sort of pocket-library and a lute, his astonishment found ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... course of examining material from fissure deposits of early Permian age collected from a limestone quarry near Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the author recovered several tooth-bearing fragments of small pelycosaurs. The fragments were examined, compared with descriptions of known kinds appearing in the literature, and determined to be new genera within the ...
— Two New Pelycosaurs from the Lower Permian of Oklahoma • Richard C. Fox

... contenting himself to remain there on his precarious perch; indeed, only that he did not wish to seem to be interfering with Jack's plans Joel certainly would have ventured across the window sill. Unable to beep silent any longer, he finally gave ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... is shown in detail. As he drops from the window he is supported by Saint Nicholas on the one side, and an angel on the other, and underneath the painting is the legend "Emporte par Miracle." It is said, too, that in former times the prints of his hands on the stone window-sill, and of his naked feet on the rock below, were both plainly visible. Eight hundred years later the good Father Pierre Verre celebrated mass in the old room in which Bernard was confined; and he reports at that time there was both on the window-sill ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... she could not open it, she ran to the nearest window which looked out on the lawn and the path-head. Tugging at the sash she flung it open, and next fell to work at the shutter-bars. As she threw wide the shutters, and put one knee on the sill, Milo Standish caught her by the shoulder. Roughly drawing her back into the ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... head of the fish firm, and he returned once more to the cap-sill of the wharf. He saw that if the young man attempted to sell out his fare at retail, the business of the market would be ruined ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... west end, but the old Saxon portion is composed of large chestnut trees split asunder and set upright close to each other with the round side outwards. The ends are roughly hewn so as to fit into a sill at the bottom, and into a plate at the top, where they are fastened with wooden pins. There are 16 logs on the south side where are two doorposts, and on the north side twenty-one logs and two spaces now filled with rubble. There is a tradition ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... old man, and chatted in my somewhat unintelligible French, with every one I met. Happening to go into my own room in the evening, I found the window open, and looking out, I saw that the height from the sill to the ground was not more than from twelve to ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... him at the drawing-room window, or on the balcony; and when he appeared, her expectant face lighted up with joy, while the others at the high window, and always on the watch too, clapped their hands, and drummed them on the sill, and called to him. The elder child would come down to the hall, and put her hand in his, and lead him up the stairs; and Florence would see her afterwards sitting by his side, or on his knee, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... in position upon the sill of one of the glazeless windows, Ramblethorne took a careful bearing in a seaward direction. This done, he pointed the projector of the signalling apparatus in precisely the same direction, and threw a waterproofed cloth over ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... on the veranda without too much of a creaking I knew I could see in all right. There's a lot of cat in a sailor, even to the nine lives and the dislike of getting wet, and I was soon on my knees at the sill, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... and mixed it with the syrup again, and her mother drank of it eagerly; then she laid her head wearily upon the low window-sill, and beckoned her little daughter to come to her side. It seemed to the child that her mother could not be comfortable, and she fetched a pillow from the bed, and placed it carefully under her mother's head. Then she sat ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri

... There had been no barking of dogs, and, after listening intently, he became convinced that no living thing was out of doors in the vicinity of the shack. With infinite caution he wormed his way along the ground and, reaching a window in the rear of the house, drew himself to the sill and peered over ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... inch by inch, above the sill of the westerly window. I could see only its shadow, but a sharp, sibilant breath from Smith told me that he, from his post, could see the ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... quite touched, and, full of melancholy, went and leaned against the sill of the open window. The moon had just risen, the sky was beautifully clear, whiffs of delicious perfumes assailed my nostrils. I saw in the shadow of the trees glowworms sparkling on the grass, and, in the masses of verdure lit up mysteriously by the moon, I traced strange shapes ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... leaning his forehead on his hand, and his elbow on the sill of the open window, that looked towards the grave-yard, he talked with Roger Chillingworth, while the old man was examining a bundle of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... reverse. He fanned himself with his hat for one brief, uncertain moment, dazed beyond belief. Then he resolutely strode over to face the situation, trusting to luck to keep him from blundering his game into her hands. Just as he was about to put his foot upon the lamp-lit door-sill the solution struck him like a blow. She was expecting ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon

... I'll try Something more difficult,—put all my skill, Knowledge, and work into one little piece." Bravely she strove: it was a simple scene, But with accessories as yet untried, And done in oil with microscopic care; An open window with a distant landscape, And on the window-sill a vase of flowers. It was a triumph, and she knew it was. "Come, little housekeeper," she said to Rachel, "We'll go and seek our fortune." So she put Under her arm the picture, and they went To show it to the dealer who ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... Gianetto was already lying on the litter ready to set out. When he saw Mateo and Gamba in company he smiled a strange smile, then, turning his head towards the door of the house, he spat on the sill, saying: ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... for the entertainment at the Burns warehouse exceeded the young minister's estimates. The standing audience was greater than the number that found seats. A few venturesome lads who had never seen a midget climbed up to the braces that held sill to pillar to get a better view. But withal it was a quiet, orderly gathering of the men, women, and children of the little city and ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... sleep again, although I lay till all the rest had gone to the parlour. I found them seated round a blazing fire waiting for my father. He came in soon after, and we had our breakfast, and Davie gave his crumbs as usual to the robins and sparrows which came hopping on the window-sill. I fancied my father's eyes were often turned in my direction, but I could not lift mine to make sure. I had never before known ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... Hunter, Sir Joseph Banks and others their compeers, was above the dismay, and the superstitious panic which accompanied it. Finding it still dark when he rose to dress, he opened (so the story used to run) his window; found it stick, and felt upon the sill a coat of soft powder. 'The volcano in St. Vincent has broken out at last,' said the wise man, 'and this is the dust of it.' So he quieted his household and his Negroes, lighted his candles, and went ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... until they passed the drawbridge, and finally disappeared behind the intervening rampart, and then bowing her head between her hands, and sinking upon her knees, she reposed her forehead against the sill of the window, and awaited unshrinkingly, yet in a state of inconceivable agony, the consummation of her ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... shoot up in the most unexpected places. An exquisite yellow hollyhock last summer sprouted unnoted beneath our dinning-room window, and we were not aware of it till one July morning when it poked up above the sill. A few days later, when we came down to breakfast, there it was abloom, nodding in at the ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... somewhat discredited. Three of the young wolves even went so far as to besiege a solitary cabin, where a woman and some trembling children awaited the return of the man. For two hideous moonlit hours they prowled and howled about the door, sniffing at the sill, and grinning in through the low window; and when the sound of bells came near they withdrew sullenly, half-minded to attack the man ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... gate; postern; porch, portico. Associated words: lintel, jamb, sill, threshold, stile, panel, rail, mullion, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... strange thing happened. The higher the young man climbed the higher the birds seemed to be, and when he looked down the earth below appeared no bigger than a star. Sill he tried to go back, but he could not, and though he could not see the birds any longer he felt as if something were ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... up the path and leaned on the window-sill, still looking dreadfully uncomfortable, hardly daring to glance at me. Then he said, nervously, "What are you playing with, up ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... and then three weeks, passed without a sign from Bisesa. Trejago, thinking that the rupture had lasted quite long enough, went down to Amir Nath's Gully for the fifth time in the three weeks, hoping that his rap at the sill of the shifting grating would be answered. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... of them spoke. It was a dark, cold morning; far below them stretched the cheerless expanse of snow-covered roofs; from countless chimneys smoke was rising heavily to the lowering sky, and soot was sifting down; the snow on the window- sill was speckled with black. Below, in the courtyard of the hotel, ice-carts rumbled in and out, and milk-cans were banged down on the cobblestones; a dull day, an empty sky, a futile interview, up here in this wretched little room under the eaves. David ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... planed one—so there was no yoking them. I then placed the first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall, leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all, especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... than an hour Zinti came to the camp, which was formed of unlaagered waggons and tents pitched at the foot of a koppie, along one base of which ran the river. About fifty yards in front of the camp stood a single buck-waggon, and near to it sill glowed the embers of ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... Walter. He had escaped from Juno's charge. As he flew about the rooms downstairs, a whole sash and shutter in the south-east room were driven in by a blow of an immense beam, and in another second half the body of a smuggler was above the window-sill. But with a tremendous leap Ugly reached him and pinned him by the throat. They tumbled back together. Then we ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... it stand that way! Come here a bit now an' I'll give you a piece o' whip cord. [She takes the cord from the window-sill and gives it to him.] An' how ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... sounds, as of someone struggling, had come before he reached his room. As he bounded in he beheld his suit-case, over at the window, jerking against the sash and sill as if possessed of evil spirits. No thief was visible. The fellow, with the trap upon his fingers, had ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... hat fell on the window-sill, slipped off, and dropped on to the pavement below. With a natural impulse Chupin picked it up, and he was turning it over and over in his hands, when M. Wilkie leant out of the window and shouted in a voice ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... themselves a constant pain. She forgot everything except the thought of what it might mean to those others who were dear to her if she should fail in her task. Her face seemed suddenly aged as she sat there, crushing down the sweeter things, clenching her fingers upon the window-sill, and telling herself that at any cost she must succeed, hopeless though ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... moment too soon. Scarcely had she regained the window-seat, when the hall door opened and Thomas appeared on the sill, almost filling the opening with his tall figure. As a rule he wore his very splendid footman's livery of dark blue coat with dull-gold buttons, blue trousers, and striped buff waistcoat. Now he wore street clothes, and he had a leash in ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... eyes were swelled up with sleepiness. "It's all misty and thick, and the window-sill's wet, and the roses outside look drenched. Heigh, ho, ha, hum!" he yawned. "I shall go to bed for half an hour longer—till ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... old times," said the road-agent, as he leaned back against the door-sill, and gazed at the mountains, grand, majestic, stupendous, and the starlit sky, azure, calm and serene. "Recalls the days of early boyhood, that were gay, ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... a terrible sight. Just as we got to that one big window—a passage one, I believe, which looks out into this street—we saw this poor boy and a black man up on the sill, with all the glare of light behind them, screaming out ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... along to the window, and just before she jumped up on the sill so she could jump on the shelf I saw a mouse run along the shelf where the fish was and jump into a ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker

... beastly place!" exclaimed Faustina; "there is no table, no stand; you will have to leave them on the floor or set them on the window sill." ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... herring-heads. He had an appointment with a friend. So he cleaned himself carefully on the landing outside the pantry, evaded a couple of caresses from the young footman lately come from the country, and finally leapt on the window-sill, and sat there regarding the back garden, the smoky wall beyond seen in the light of the pantry window, and the chimney-pots high and forbidding against the luminous night sky. His tail moved with a soft ominous ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... said to herself: "It is good to be of some use in the world!" So when one day the breeze took her to the town, she stopped in a flower-pot full of earth that stood upon the dingy window-sill of a poor little house. "I shall be valued here," she said, "and the poor folks will think a lot of me for growing in such a place. After all, it's a fine ...
— Laugh and Play - A Collection of Original stories • Various

... seen him come down the hall at dawn this morning. Us Westerners are early risers, you know, and when he reached Miss Turtle's door, he pulled a little slipper out of his pocket and kissed it and put it in front of the sill." ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... inscriptions are barely legible because of the peculiarity of the Gothic letters. Haweis mentions seeing the initials J.R. ("John Ruskin") in the deep sill of the staircase window; underneath a slight design of a rose window apparently sketched with the point of a compass. Ruskin loved the Malines Cathedral well, and made many sketches of detail while there. I looked carefully for these initials, but I could not find ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards

... Calista's mind made her look at Mary for a minute as though the child had manifested strange powers. She went to the window and her thimble clicked on the sill as she leaned forward; then she touched her cheek. "Do you ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... man, with a face which was pale and characterless, brought in the samovar and quickly hastened out of the room, with short steps. The old man was undoing some bundles on the window-sill and ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... articles of winter wear, had been shaken out of their summer quarters for the purpose of beating the moths out of them and ventilating them generally, with a view to which they were placed upon the sill of an open window. By some means Sam obtained access to the room, where he was discovered in the act of mauling a valuable otter-skin cap, which he had selected out of the whole collection for his particular amusement. This dog had never seen an otter; but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... Denver, thus making a competitor for the Kansas Pacific Railway. Mr. Jay Gould who at that time (1879) was the principal owner of the latter line, while out on an inspection trip over the line instructed his General Manager, "Sill Smith" Mr. Sylvester T. Smith to build into their territory and parallel them. Out of this grew the Junction City and Fort Kearney Railway (now a part of the Union Pacific Railroad). Smith was unable to buy sufficient rails to build and accordingly took ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey

... feebly towards the window on hearing it rattle in the night, whereupon his wife, who was watching him, said softly. "It's only the wind, dear"; to which he replied, with a sense of humour indomitable to the last, "Then put a Peppermint lozenge on the sill." ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... mob. Then she rose. She shuddered as she heard the creaking of the limb where the body hung. But resolutely she crawled to the window and peered out into the moonlight; she saw the dead man writhe. He stretched his arms out like a cross, looking upward. She gasped and clung to the window sill. Behind the swaying body, and down where the little, half-ruined cabin lay, a single flame flashed up amid the far-off shout and cry of the mob. A fierce joy sobbed up through the terror in her soul ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... had to be escorted upstairs by his considerate host, to the best bedroom, where he soon laid his head on his pillow in great peace and contentment, knowing that his new-found friend, the River, was lapping the sill of his window. ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... suddenly from her seat in the window-sill, the living dread of shepherds, for she travelled the country with a brilliant reputation for witchcraft, and thus she broke in upon the narrative: "I vow, young man, ye tell us the truth upset and down-thrust. I heard my douce grandmother say that on the night when Elphin Irving disappeared—disappeared ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... mechanically lit the lamp, sat again to stare at it, then, finding his eyes watering, he turned from it with an incoherent whimper, as if it had been a person from whom he would conceal the fact that he was weeping. He leaned his arm, against the window sill and dried his eyes ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... was Victorine's, and she reached it only by a narrow, ladder-like stairway from her mother's bedroom; so the young lady's movements were kept well in sight, her mother thought. It was an odd thing that it never occurred to Jeanne how near the sill of Victorine's south window was to the stout railing of the last broad platform of the outside staircase. This railing had been built up high, and was partly roofed over, making a pretty place for ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... long breath, but curiously it broke, as if a sharp spasm had gripped her heart. She stood, struggling with herself. And then suddenly she dropped upon her knees by the sill with her arms flung wide and her head with its cloudy ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... rejoined the boy, resting his ragged arms on the window-sill, and looking down on the weather-beaten man with an expression of patronising interest, "you've come to the right shop, anyhow, for that keemodity. In Lun'on we've got old women by the thousand, an' young uns by the million, to say nuffin o' middle-aged uns an' chicks. Have 'ee got a partikler ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne

... into the room And back again, pausing awhile to bask And wink its painted fans on the warm sill; A bird piped in the roses and there came Into the childless mother's ears a sound Of ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes

... bar-room, I presume—while I went to my room. I put a single shirt in my pocket; the distance from my window to the ground was not more than twelve or fifteen feet, and I let myself down from the window sill and ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott

... plain-spoken, that you came here to ask me to give you my husband," I retorted as quietly as I could, not because I preferred the soft pedal, but because I nursed a strong suspicion that Struthers' attentive ear was just below the nearest window-sill. ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... mysterious note found yesterday in the bunch of flowers, and once more to meditate undisturbed upon its contents. Louise knew the note was from the handsome gardener Fritz Wendel; from him came the beautiful flowers she found daily upon the sill of her window, and he only could have concealed the note amongst them. There were but a few lines, entreating her to meet him that night at eight o'clock, in the grotto of the conservatory, where she should learn ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... he threw an appealing look at Hepzibah and Phoebe, who were with him at the window. They comprehended nothing of his emotions, and supposed him merely disturbed by the unaccustomed tumult. At last, with tremulous limbs, he started up, set his foot on the window-sill, and in an instant more would have been in the unguarded balcony. As it was, the whole procession might have seen him, a wild, haggard figure, his gray locks floating in the wind that waved their banners; a lonely being, estranged from his race, but now feeling himself man again, by virtue ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the house, where the waters floated free again, stood vast, still trees above the clustering rushes; and in glimpses between their spreading boughs lay the far-stretching countryside, now dimmed with the first mists of approaching evening. So absorbed he became as he stood leaning over the wooden sill above the falling water, that eye and ear became enslaved by the roar and stillness. And in the faint atmosphere of age that seemed like a veil to hang about the odd old house and these prodigious branches, he fell into a kind ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... lovingly. It was quite bare except for the bed, the washing stand and a chair, and there was no fire-place. But he arranged the books, David Copperfield, Don Quixote, Henry Lessingham, The Roads, The Downs, on the window sill, and the little faded photograph of his mother on the ledge above the washing basin. He had scarcely finished doing these things when there was a tap on his door. He opened it, and found the Signor, no longer in a tail-coat, but in a short, faded ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... shadow of a small one will vary just as much, in proportion to its length, as that of a long one will. So, instead of taking a wooden stake, out of doors, you might take a large pin, and drive it down a little way into the window sill, in the house. Then you can mark the shadow with ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott

... iron-studded gates locked, as was to have been expected at that hour. He knocked, and presently the postern gaped, and a lantern was advanced. Instantly that lantern was dashed aside and Sir Oliver had leapt over the sill into the courtyard. With a hand gripping the porter's throat to choke all utterance, Sir Oliver heaved him out to his men, who ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... If she had looked, she would have seen his face white and his eyes shining with a strange new light. He drew back a little in the dark of the window casement, with his hand on the sill. It touched hers and closed over it. Then, somewhere from the dark came a night-sound heard only in June, the broken dream-trill of a bird in its sleep. When she spoke, her voice was low, keyed as the dream-voice ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... jacket, and a little flounced frock of a dark silk figured with blue, that looked slightly fuzzed out; and perhaps she was not at ease in this fine dress, for she stood with her head down, and one hand on the window-sill, pretending to look out of window, ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge

... crept up against the pane... the silhouette of a small, malformed head, a dog-like head, deep-set in square shoulders. Malignant eyes peered intently in. Higher it arose—that wicked head—against the window, then crouched down on the sill and became less sharply defined as the creature stooped to the opening below. There was a ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... the road! And bent over the window-sill which is my desk, my fingers are not presentable with the splattering of this vile pen in consequence of my position. Two hours yet before sundown, so of course I am not dressed. They come nearer still. Now I see them! Dr. ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... and while the congregation sang, Josi placed his arms on the sill which is in front of pews and laid his ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans

... castle, among the straggle of offices, and presently found a long, fairly light ladder; though it was heavy enough for one, goodness knows! And I thought at first that I should never get it reared. I managed at last, and let the ends rest very quietly against the wall, a little below the sill of the larger window. Then, going silently, I went up the ladder. Presently, I had my face above the sill and was looking in alone with ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... small twigs with the leaves adhering to them, in place of mortar or cement so as to level your bundles and prevent their rocking on uneven surfaces. The doorways and window openings offer no problem that a rank outsider cannot solve. Fig. 27 shows the window opening, also shows you how the window-sill can be made firm by laying rods over the top of the fagots. Rods are also used across the top of the doorway upon which to place the bundles of fagots or twigs. Twigs is probably the best term to use here, as fagots might be thought to mean larger sticks, which may be stiff and ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard

... minute of silence. Alexey Alexeitch, red, perspiring and exhausted, sat down on the window-sill, and turned upon the company lustreless, wearied, but triumphant eyes. In the listening crowd he observed to his immense annoyance the deacon Avdiessov. The deacon, a tall thick-set man with a red pock-marked face, and straw in his hair, stood leaning ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... assistant awoke to find that the collector was not in bed. He rose and stalked to the window. Across from the adobe he saw the grim face of the collector framed in the office window. He was smoking a cigar and gazing toward the south, his long arm resting on the sill and his chin in ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... she saw the mountain girl's head and twisted shoulders outlined above the window-sill. A moment more, and Auntie Sue was at ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... bricks disposed on the lawn I indicated the size of the box, and then, while the carpenter crawled out through the crevasse in the side of the house, we laid a deep foundation of stone. We had just brought the base to the level of the sill when—the ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... far as I heard; and he smiting his hand petulantly on the window-sill, went on, in the voice ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... at an inopportune moment, I could not resist the temptation to raise my eyes level with the sill of the window. So did Uncle Jap's Lily. We both peered in. Uncle Jap was facing Leveson; in his hand he held the long-barrelled six-shooter; in his eyes were tiny pin-point flashes of light such as you see in ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... voice asking admittance. An instant later, a huge, bearded, broad-shouldered man stepped inside, shaking himself free of the snow, laughing half-sheepishly as he did so, and laying his fur cap and gloves with exaggerated care on the wide window-sill. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... drawing caricatures of the master Paul Bhool, for letting a bird loose in school Jabez Breeding, for not knowing the place at reading Levi Stout, for stopping too long when let out Guy M'Gill, sharpening a knife on the window-sill Duncan Heather, pinning two boys' coat-tails together Ezekiel Black, pinning paper on another boy's back Patrick O'Toole, for bursting a paper-bag in school Eli Teet, for putting cobbler's wax ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... could. He wished to explain affairs to John Massingbird, and hand over documents and all else in due form, but he was not allowed. Business and John had never agreed. John was sitting now before the window, his elbows on the sill, a rough cap on his head, and a short clay pipe in his mouth. Lionel glanced with dismay at the confusion ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... he was preaching, she and Mrs. Gaunt's gardener were filling his bow-window with flower-pots, the flowers in full bloom and leaf. The said window was large and had a broad sill outside, and inside, one of the old-fashioned high window-seats that follow the shape of the window. Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves, sent up a cart-load of flower-pots, and Betty and the gardener arranged at least eighty of them, small and great, inside ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... window to see what was to be seen. A flower-garden right below; a meadow of ripe grass just beyond, changing colour in long sweeps, as the soft wind blew over it; great old forest- trees a little on one side; and, beyond them again, to be seen only by standing very close to the side of the window-sill, or by putting her head out, if the window was open, the silver shimmer of a mere, about a quarter of a mile off. On the opposite side to the trees and the mere, the look-out was bounded by the old walls and high-peaked roofs of the extensive farm-buildings. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... blank. Bat considered for only an instant as to what was best to do. His strong fingers gripped at the sash, and to his satisfaction and gratification it slid upward; with a pull he had lifted his heavy body upon the sill and was in the room. His steps were soft and long as he moved toward the door through which the two had just gone; his hand was reaching out for the knob when he saw it turning slowly. He shrank away intuitively, and against the wall, while the ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre

... swirled about the interior of the cabin in a miniature gale. The girls did not mind it at all. They thought it delicious. This was getting the real benefit of being at the sea shore. Harriet rolled in her blanket directly in front of the door with her head pillowed on the sill. To enter the cabin one would have to step over her. She went to sleep after lying gazing out over the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge

... a soft and disconcerting plop upon the top of his head, cannonaded thence against the window-sill, and shot out into the night again. He came back with a start to his reality: that he had promised the children an Extra Day, that for twenty-four hours, in spite of the paradox, Time should cease its driving hurry—and that, for the moment at any rate, he was very sleepy ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... after I had assured her that the "Pocahontas" was a steady ship, she just said: "You'll have to look after me in certain ways—like Uncle Hurlbird is looked after. I will tell you how to do it." And then she stepped over the sill, as if she were stepping on board a boat. I suppose she ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... or low screen consisting of a coping or rail supported on balusters (q.v.). Sometimes it is employed purely as a decorative feature beneath the sill of a window which was not carried down to the ground. Sometimes flowing foliage takes the place of the parapet, and sometimes so-called balustrades are formed of vertical slabs of stone, pierced as in the Ca' d'oro at Venice and the balconies ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... as she and her sister sat waiting for the fly in which Mrs. Hooper had gone to meet her husband's niece at the station, ran persistently on her own childish recollections of this visit. She sat in the window-sill, with her hand behind her, chattering to ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... with the load acting over the entire area of the specimen, and (2) with a load concentrated over a portion of the area. (See Fig. 2.) The latter is the condition more commonly met with in practice, as, for example, where a post rests on a horizontal sill, or a rail rests on a cross-tie. The former condition, however, gives the true resistance of the grain to ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... she was twenty, and her name was Florence; that she trimmed hats in a millinery shop; that she lived in a furnished room with her best chum Ella, who was cashier in a shoe store; and that a glass of milk from the bottle on the window-sill and an egg that boils itself while you twist up your hair makes a breakfast good enough for any one. Florence laughed ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... sudden sound of a window being raised made him look up, and in an instant, swift as a passing cloud-shadow, his moodiness was gone. Daisy was leaning on her window-sill, ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... suited?" said Nailor, when the hinder end o' Lang Lammitter was slidden through the sill an' the head of Lammitter was lost in ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... a bite to eat, but there wasn't any suet there. That pig of a Sammy Jay had managed to get it untied and had carried it all away. Of course that made me angry, and twice as hungry as before. I was trying to make up my mind what to do next when I happened to look over on the window sill, and what do you think ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess

... had shone up the vale to the eyes of the bonfire group, was uncurtained, but the sill lay too high for a pedestrian on the outside to look over it into the room. A vast shadow, in which could be dimly traced portions of a masculine contour, blotted half ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... he saw the open street and the hills beyond the town. Catching his breath, he sprang across the sill, and ran for the free fields at the top of ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... was ajar, and outside I saw du Tertre-Jouan, Jolivet, and Berquin, listening and peeping through. Suddenly the window bursts wide open, and du Tertre-Jouan vaults the sill, gets between Boulot ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... gone in at the gate,' said Varvara, and she suddenly got up on the window-sill and opened ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... to glow I went—I could not choose but go— To that same dairy on the hill; And while sweet Mary moved about Within, I came to her without. And leaned upon the window-sill. ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... asleep with a new doll and a white bear in my arms. Next morning it was I who waked the whole family with my first "Merry Christmas!" I found surprises, not in the stocking only, but on the table, on all the chairs, at the door, on the very window-sill; indeed, I could hardly walk without stumbling on a bit of Christmas wrapped up in tissue paper. But when my teacher presented me with a canary, my cup ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... streamed in through the open window; the keen spring air blew freshly across the house-tops; and on the window-sill a band of grimy, joyous sparrows twittered and preened themselves. In the middle of the room stood Loder. His coat was off, and round him on chairs and floor lay an array of waistcoats, gloves, ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... sill of the kitchen door lay the culinary treasure whose lobster croquettes the Prince of Wales had likened unto a dream of Lucullus. Within the kitchen were signs of disorder. Chairs were upset; the table was lying flat on its back, with its four legs held rigidly up in the air; the kitchen library, ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... pantomime through the flowers that stood on the window-sill, not ill-pleased, and was waiting her son's return. An hour passed, and he did not come. Another hour, and she began to grow anxious. When it was near midnight, she roused her nearest neighbor and asked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... sight of the animal moving about in the snow, holding up first one foot then another. Farther away, among the bushes of the clearing, stood another fox; and, still farther off in the woods, a third was barking querulously. Tracks in the snow led to a large hole under the sill of the house where a part of the cellar wall ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... a moaning of women, a sobbing of children. Shadowy hands helped him, and a last time he raised himself to the window, and his eyes were filled with the glare of the burning cabin. He struggled to lift his rifle, and behind him he heard the exultation of his people as he rested it over the sill and with gasping breath leveled it at something which moved between him and the blazing light of that wonderful sun which was the burning cabin. And then, slowly and with difficulty, he pressed the trigger, and Sokwenna's last shot sped on ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood



Words linked to "Sill" :   windowsill, stone, rock, doorstep, geology, doorsill, threshold



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com