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Skull   Listen
noun
Skull  n.  A school, company, or shoal. (Obs.) "A knavish skull of boys and girls did pelt at him." "These fishes enter in great flotes and skulls."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Skull" Quotes from Famous Books



... apartment some hours after death. It was the only wound discovered on the body, and having probed it, he had found and extracted the bullet which he now handed to the jury. It was lying in the brain, having entered at the base of the skull, passed obliquely upward, and at once struck the medulla oblongata, causing instant death. The fact of the ball having entered the brain in this peculiar manner he deemed worthy of note, since it would produce not only instantaneous death, but an utterly motionless ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... on the ground) I have seen a vision under a green hedge, A hedge of hips and haws-men yet shall hear The Archangels rolling Satan's empty skull Over the mountain-tops. ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats

... form—I felt that I existed throughout a vast extent of space. The blood, pulsed from my heart, sped through uncounted leagues before it reached my extremities; the air drawn into my lungs expanded into seas of limpid ether, and the arch of my skull was broader than the vault of heaven. Within the concave that held my brain, were the fathomless deeps of blue; clouds floated there, and the winds of heaven rolled them together, and there shone the orb of the sun. It was—though I thought not of that at the time—like ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... height. They have the long, wavy, and soft hair which is a general characteristic of the whole Caucasian group, although its light flaxen color is distinctive. The blue eye and florid complexion accompany the light color of the hair. The skull is of the longer type, the jaws and forehead are straight and square, the nose is large and long without a distinct arch, and the teeth are relatively small. It is not so well known that the Scandinavian type is so closely ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... have been startled when I sent in my name, for he didn't of course expect to see me yet—nobody expected me. He advanced soft-footed down the room. With his jutting nose, flat-topped skull and sable garments he recalled an obese raven, and when he heard of the disaster he manifested his astonishment and concern in a most plebeian manner by a low and expressive whistle. I, of course, could not share his consternation. My feelings in that connection were of a different order; but I ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... She reached over and extended the hood till it protected his skull. "Please wear it that way, for my sake. Nothing must happen to ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... he said, "or you can poison them. I shot Bruno through his head into his neck. There's a right place to aim at. It's a little one side of the top of the skull. If you'll remind me I'll show you a circular I have in the house. It tells the proper way to kill animals: The American Humane Education Society in Boston puts it out, and it's ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... Esclarecido Varon Don Cristoval Colon (Illustrious and renowned man, Don Christopher Columbus). On the two ends and on the front were the letters, "C.C.A."—Cristoval Colon, Almirante (Christopher Columbus, Admiral). The box contained bones and bone-dust, a small bit of the skull, a leaden ball, and a silver plate two inches long. On one side of the ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... removed to the abbey of Chaise Dieu, in Auvergne, where his tomb was violated by the Huguenots in 1562. Scandal says that they made a football of his head, and that the Marquis de Courton afterwards converted his skull into a drinking-cup. ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... the Lombards. With the two united, Alboin invaded Italy and conquered all the North. Ravenna, Verona, Milan, and all the large towns held out bravely against them, but were taken at last, except Venice, which still owned the Emperor at Constantinople. Alboin had kept the skull of Kunimund as a trophy, and had had it set in gold for a drinking-cup, as his wild faith made him believe that the reward of the brave in the other world would be to drink mead from the skulls of their fallen enemies. ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... inches in diameter at the other. Behind him, each of the natives had laid his stabbing-knife, skinning-knife, and whetstone. At the word the killing began. Each native brought down his club simultaneously, the first blow invariably crushing the slight, thin bones of the fur seal's skull and stretching it out unconscious. The six or seven seals that fell to each man's share were clubbed in less than a minute ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... spoken above a whisper for days. Richard opened his door, and went in. But when he saw Arthur, he could scarcely recognize him, he was so wasted. His eyes stood out like balls from his sunken cheeks, and the smile with which he greeted him was all teeth, like the helpless smile of a skull. Overcome with tenderness, the stronger that he would have passed him in the street as one unknown, Richard stooped and kissed his forehead, then stood speechless, holding the thin leaf of a hand that strained his. Arthur tried to speak, but his cough came ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... should be sent on board; but as the weather was too tempestuous to allow even a masullah boat to pass the surf, I was obliged to give it to a catamaran man. The poor fellow drew off his head a small skull-cap, made apparently of some kind of skin, or oil-cloth, or bladder, and having deposited his despatches therein, proceeded to execute ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... glance—seen straight in front—the face of the house seems to live still, rosy with colour, gazing with immense blue eyes through a light green veil. But a second glance brings a shock to the heart. The face is a mask held up to hide a skull; the blue of the eyes is the open sky framed by glassless windows; the rosy colour is stained with dark streaks of smoke and flame; the chateau among its trees, and the chapel with its stopped clock ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... of the skull easily detached, and no hemorrhage was noticeable. 2. The skull bones were of average thickness and uninjured. 3. On the hard membrane of the skull there were two small discolored spots of about the size of four centimetres, the membrane itself being of a dull gray color, et cetera, et cetera, ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... surgeon, had been called in to see Mr. Axworthy, and arrived at seven o'clock A. M. Found him dead, from a fracture of the skull over the left temple, he should imagine, from a blow from a heavy blunt instrument, such as the stock of a gun. Death must have been instantaneous, and had probably taken place seven or eight hours before he was called in. The marks upon the rifle before ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Face.—(14) The facial region of the skull is large as compared with the cerebral; (15) the forehead is not prominent, and is generally retreating; (16) the superciliary ridges are more prominent; (17) the edges of the jaws are more prominent; (18) the chin is less prominent; (20) the cheek bones are more prominent; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various

... and told an officer that he was glad to be a prisoner, as he heartily disliked the task imposed upon him. Some little distance north of the Modder bridge is a small white house. Within this was found a Boer lying on a table stone-dead, with a shrapnel bullet in his skull. His Mauser, still clutched in his stiffened hands, lay on a tripod rest in front of him and the muzzle pointed through a vertical slit made in the masonry of the cottage. Every house in the neighbourhood was more or less injured by shrapnel, and one of them was the scene of a sanguinary conflict ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett

... paralysing the brute. It writhed and bit and twisted, throwing up the earth and leaves, while blow after blow was rained upon it, till at length with a convulsive struggle and a stifled roar it lay still—the brains oozing from its shattered skull. ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard

... of it. We encamped here at sunset. Plenty of buffalo skulls were lying around, bleaching in the sun; and sprinkled thickly among the grass was a great variety of strange flowers. I had nothing else to do, and so gathering a handful, I sat down on a buffalo skull to study them. Although the offspring of a wilderness, their texture was frail and delicate, and their colors extremely rich; pure white, dark blue, and a transparent crimson. One traveling in this country seldom has leisure to think of anything ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... accidentally against a man of very grave aspect wearing a black coat closely buttoned. He was almost bald save for some long, thin, gray locks that hung about his huge ears, his cheeks had a hectic color and his skull was yellow. He entered this salon in a hesitating, inquisitive way, with wide-open eyes and a gourmand's movement of the nostrils, and gazed about the room, warm with lights ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... "It's a skeleton of a man. The skull is over there," he explained as he pointed to his right. "The other bones have been scattered. Probably some wolves or buzzards have been at ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay

... an old man, with long yellowish-white hair streaming from beneath a velvet skull-cap, and bright black eyes deep set in a pale thin face. His nose was a sharp aquiline, and gave something of a bird-like aspect to a countenance that must once have been very handsome. He was wrapped in a long dressing-gown of some thick ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... by sympathy, however, is much older than DIGBY'S or TALBOT'S Sympathetic Powder. PARACELSUS described an ointment consisting essentially of the moss on the skull of a man who had died a violent death, combined with boar's and bear's fat, burnt worms, dried boar's brain, red sandal-wood and mummy, which was used to cure (?) wounds in a similar manner, being applied to the weapon with which the hurt had ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove

... are remarkably large and prominent, and the hands reach only a short distance below the knees. The head is rounded and short, without prominent beetling ridges above the eyes, or a strong crest along the middle line of the back of the skull; and the tusks of the old males are of no very great length and prominence. Moreover, there is no very marked difference in the size of the two sexes. Gentleness and docility are specially characteristic of the species, even when full-grown; while in the native ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... hitherto seen, was rolling his loose-knit body up and down the platform, smiling at the people and mopping a great bony skull, on which, low down, a few scanty wisps of colourless ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... his trusty falchion, and, whirling it round his head, kept the fearful beak from approaching his helmet, for well he knew that one thrust from its deadly point would pierce through steel and skull as easily as a lady's bodkin ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... blood, like herself? To her, there was no more in those associations which made Carrington groan in the silence of his thoughts, than if he had been old Kaspar, and she the little Wilhelmine. What was a skull more or less to her? What concern had she ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... perfect; but the boys knocked out some of the teeth with stones, and then set up the head as a mark to throw at. By a most fortunate chance I found a perfect tooth, which exactly fitted one of the sockets in this skull, embedded by itself on the banks of the Rio Tercero, at the distance of about 180 miles from this place. I found remains of this extraordinary animal at two other places, so that it must formerly ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... Joaquin Valley, California, goes back to the distant age of the Drift; and the Calaveras skull, admitting its authenticity, goes back to the Pliocene epoch, and is older than the relics or stone implements from the drift gravel and the ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse

... the exultant Shawnees. There was no checking them, and throwing all his mighty strength in his right arm, Oonomoo hurled his tomahawk like a thunderbolt among them. Striking an Indian fair between the eyes, it clove his skull as if it had been wax; and striking another on the shoulder, cut through the flesh and bone as if they were but the green leaves of the trees above, Fluellina sunk down by the feet of her husband in prayer, ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis

... was now slit open lengthwise, disclosing an oblong cistern or "case" full of liquid spermaceti, clear as water. This was baled out with buckets into a tank, concreting as it cooled into a wax-like substance, bland and tasteless. There being now nothing more remaining about the skull of any value, the lashings were loosed, and the first leeward roll sent the great mass plunging overboard with a mighty splash. It sank like a stone, eagerly followed by a few small sharks ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... monstrous; and then read them as an enlightened chemist of the present day would read the writings of the old alchemists, or as a Linnaeus might peruse the works of Pliny and Aldrovandus. If he can do this, well;—if not, he will line his skull with cobwebs. ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... been made to open this mound. One of these had been made in the top, and the large skull before you was then obtained. A more extensive effort was that made in 1883, by Mr. E. McColl, Indian agent, Mr. Crowe, H. B. Co. officer of Fort Frances, and a party of men. Their plan was to run a tunnel from north to south through ...
— The Mound Builders • George Bryce

... not be so bad if it were not for the skull. Three times in the last half-hour I have started to take it down from its shelf over my crude stone fireplace, where pine logs are blazing. But each time I have fallen back, shivering, into the bed-like ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... Grand Duchess of Weimar, anxious to gratify her great guest, sent her carriage to fetch the author of "Oberon"; and rather than detain the illustrious dictator, the poet started as he was, in his ordinary garments, with unpowdered hair, wearing his little skull-cap and felt shoes. The meeting was therefore most dramatic. The dancing almost ceased when Napoleon advanced to meet his visitor, for the company crowded in a wide circle to look on and catch what they might hear. But the conversation was in ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... the whole incident, telling every single thing just the way old Jed did. She showed the dark places on the birch-bark where the blood had stained it, and she said the skull of the animal, with its one horn sawed off, was over among the relics in her ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... Sultan Mahmoud's vassal, and wore an Amir's tassel In his green hadj-turban, at Nungul. Yet the head which went so proud, it is not in his shroud; There are bones in that grave,—but not a skull! ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold

... the leeward side, he thought he saw something gleam, far out across the wrathful night. A wavering red spark— He brushed a stiffened hand across his eyes, wondering if the madness of wind and water had struck through into his own skull. A gust of sleet hid it ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson

... great, overgrown country girl, and tied on the front of her wheel she had a bundle that I took for some sort of marketing stuff; but, just as she met me, it popped open and out tumbled a whole assortment of bones, human bones, legs and arms and a skull. What do you suppose she could have been doing with them? She was too young and fair to have been ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... delight at the touch of old-time ghastliness. "And I forgot for the moment you are a 'Heave-ho-me-Bully-Boy sailor!' able to spot a place from afar off by the direction of the sun at midnight. Gee! This is regular stuff, Barry. Mystery, secret gates, skull and crossbones, and nobody home! ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... feast of death; but he calmly rose, his spirit steeled for the worst. His guide entered a wigwam and ordered him to follow; and, as he bent his head to enter, a savage concealed by the door cleft his skull with a tomahawk. On the following day Lalande shared a similar fate. Their heads were chopped off and placed on the palisades of the town, and their bodies thrown into the Mohawk river. The Mission of the Martyrs was at an end for the ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... powder sounded behind her and a charge of heavy shot raked her hips and loins as she gained the trees. Shot pierced both ears and furrowed along her skull. The man turned and pulled the second barrel at the rearmost pup and he went down limply, a puff of fur flung into the air above him, his life snuffed out in a single instant as the heavy charge pulverized him from end ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... forward heavily upon her face. It may have been muscular exhaustion, it may have been the mere wind of her hasty-tempered matrimonial master's stone hatchet as it whiffed by her skull; an inquest now would be too great an irony; but something blew ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... unconscious, this coward seizes his sword, loudly proclaiming he has triumphed; but, at his first touch, Roland—recovering his senses—deals him so mighty a blow with his horn, that the Saracen falls with crushed helmet and skull. Having thus recovered his beloved Durendal, Roland, to prevent its again falling into the enemy's hands, vainly tries to break it by hewing at the rocks around him, but, although he uses all the strength he has left to deal blows that cut through the stone, the good sword remains undinted. Full ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... were found adorned with silver and gold ornaments. One of the most remarkable is illustrated here. It is a female skull encircled by a band of silver, to which is attached a thin plate of the same metal. It is not known whether it was originally worn in the position as when found, or, as is most likely, had been accidentally displaced after ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various

... stood ready to receive him. Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiakim in fetters to all the cities of Judah, then he slew him, and, his rage still unabated, threw his corpse to the dogs after having stuck it into the carcass of an ass. (128) The dogs left nothing of Jehoiakim's body over except his skull, on which were written the words: "This and something besides." Many centuries later it was found by a Rabbi near the gates of Jerusalem. He tried in vain to give it burial; the earth refused to retain ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... thick soles are studded with hobnails. Over his breast, and with flaps over the shoulders, he will wear a corslet Of leather covered with hoop-like layers, or maybe scales, of iron or bronze. On his head will be a plain pot-like helmet or skull-cap of iron. For the rest he will possess also a thick cloak or plaid to be used as occasion needs. In his right hand he will carry the famous Roman pike. This is a stout weapon, over 6 feet in length, consisting of a sharp iron head fixed in a wooden shaft, and the soldier may either charge ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... the law, and, most likely the majority of the spectators would have found themselves in the street in an exceedingly short space of time. But Dumnoff yielded to the inevitable; a couple of well-planted blows delivered by the rescuing party on the sides of his thick skull made him shake his head as a cat does when its nose is sprinkled with water, and the mujik reluctantly relinquished the struggle. At the same time the porter who had claimed the doll came forward and touched his bare head with a ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... there are in town abundance of people from Ireland; half a dozen bishops at least. The poor old Bishop of London,(5) at past fourscore, fell down backward going upstairs, and I think broke or cracked his skull; yet is now recovering. The town is as empty as at midsummer; and if I had not occasion for physic, I would be at Windsor still. Did I tell you of Lord Rivers's will? He has left legacies to about twenty paltry old whores by name, and not a farthing ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... I have been your counsellor, and has resolved to destroy us both. We must fly this very night, or we are lost. Take an axe, and strike off the head of the white-headed calf with a heavy blow, and then split the skull in two with a second stroke. In the brain of the calf you will find a shining red reel, which you must bring me. I will arrange whatever else is needful." The prince thought, "I would rather kill an innocent calf than sacrifice both myself ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... the sharp angles of which are clusters of pale brown spines, from 1/2 in. to 1 in. long, arranged in a star, each cluster 1 in. apart. Instead of the cylinder-like cap of the Turk's-Cap species, this one has a short, broad tuft of white wool and red spines, like a skull-cap. The flowers are small, and soon wither, but remain attached to the oblong berries, which stand erect in a dense cluster in the centre of the cap, and are of a delicate rose-colour. The first introduced plant of this was sent home by Mr. ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson

... covered with red excrescences, to which he owed his nickname of "Coloquinte," indicated a personage behind the lattice as the Cerberus of the paper. This was an elderly officer with a medal on his chest and a silk skull-cap on his head; his nose was almost hidden by a pair of grizzled moustaches, and his person was hidden as completely in an ample blue overcoat as the body of ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... them to Elsin. She regarded them listlessly from her saddle, and they removed their round skull-caps of silver moleskin and ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... gushed from his mouth, and he fell dead. The most strange part of the story is to come. We buried him in the church of San Gennaro. In doing so, we took up his father's coffin; the lid came off in moving it, and the skeleton was visible. In the hollow of the skull we found a very slender wire of sharp steel; this caused surprise and inquiry. The father, who was rich and a miser, had died suddenly, and been buried in haste, owing, it was said, to the heat of the ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... skull all naked and bare, And here's his skull with a tuft of hair! His heart is in the eagle's maw, His bloody ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... with blood. On the other side of the bushes a shoe was projecting. We ran round, and there lay the unfortunate rider. He was a tall man, full bearded, with spectacles, one glass of which had been knocked out. The cause of his death was a frightful blow upon the head, which had crushed in part of his skull. That he could have gone on after receiving such an injury said much for the vitality and courage of the man. He wore shoes, but no socks, and his open coat disclosed a night-shirt beneath it. It was undoubtedly ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... notion of those eyes of his," Ditmar said, reminiscently. "They looked right through a man's skull, no matter how thick it was. If anything went wrong, I never wasted any time in telling him about it, and I guess it was one reason he liked me. Some of the people up here didn't understand him, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... a little more, Clare might have asserted that the men about the menagerie were at least as respectable as almost any farmer with a horse to sell. But he knew next to nothing of wickedness, whence many a man whose skull he had brains enough to fill three times, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... Wherever she can get to drink her fill of sunlight she pushes forth fantastically. As for that wandering ship of the drunken pilot, the mutinous crew and the angry captain, called Human Nature, 'fantastical' fits it no less completely than a continental baby's skull-cap the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... forward by Mr. Benton. The Senate had at last come under the sway of the President, and it was clear that the resolution would pass. This precious scheme belongs to the same category of absurdities as the placing Oliver Cromwell's skull on Temple Bar, and throwing Robert Blake's body on a dung-hill by Charles Stuart and his friends. It was not such a mean and cowardly performance as that of the heroes of the Restoration, but it was far more "childish-foolish." ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... Cunimond, king of the Gepidae. She was compelled to marry Alboin, king of the Lombards, who put her father to death A.D. 567. Alboin compelled her to drink from the skull of her own father, and Rosemond induced Peride'us (the secretary of Helmichild, her lover), to murder the wretch (573). She then married Helmichild, fled Ravenna, and sought to poison her second husband, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... with all strangers; this he did in imitation of Hercules, who always returned upon his assailants the same sort of violence that they offered to him; sacrificed Busiris, killed Antaeus in wrestling, and Cycnus in single combat, and Termerus by breaking his skull in pieces (whence, they say, comes the proverb of "a Termerian mischief"), for it seems Termerus killed passengers that he met, by running with his head against them. And so also Theseus proceeded in the punishment of evil men, who underwent the same violence from him which they had inflicted ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... hesitated for a second. The warriors prodded him again, and before they could raise their arms he had jerked loose, snatched a musket from one, and swinging it around his head, sent the two to the ground, one with a cracked skull. Before those in the lines could fairly see what had happened, he was running toward the hut with two captured muskets and a knife. In front of the hut the three other Indians were struggling with Father Claude, who was fighting in a frenzy, and the maid. She was hanging back, and one redskin had ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... to the shoulders; the Cagayans longer and hanging over the shoulders; the Ilocans shorter, and the Visayans still shorter, for they cut it round in the manner of the oldtime cues of Espana. The nation called Zambals wear it shaved from the front half of the head, while on the skull they have a great shock of loose hair. The complexion of the women in all the islands differs little from that of the men, except among the Visayans where some of the women are light-complexioned. All of the women wear the hair tied up in a knot on top of the head with a tasteful ribbon. Both men ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... convent where the silence about me crushed me like a too tight bodice. The walls of the vast antechamber, where I was left to wait, were covered with various texts in Latin, and several times repeated were these words under a skull. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... despair, he locked Aleck in his arms and tried to throw him, he received such a stunning blow between the eyes that he loosened his grasp to shake his head, which the next moment was knocked steady and inert, the big fellow going down all of a heap, and the back of his big bullet skull striking the pier stones with a ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... so, and, sitting on Ned's chest, with a heel ready to beat in his skull at a treacherous movement, contrived to strike a light and verify by the brief flame of the tow the existence of a list of names. As time was now of ever-increasing value, Philip took it for granted that the list was really what Ned declared it. He then ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... tone of remonstrance). No—no, not that ridiklous fice! We don't want to see what yer will be—it's very loike yer, I know, but still—(The Skull changes to the Bust.) Ah, that's more the stoyle! (Takes the Bust by the neck and hands it round for inspection.) And now, thenking you for your kind attention, and on'y orskin' one little fyvour of you, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various

... riding through a forest. On a hilltop in the distance are the turrets of a castle; a lean hound follows the knight; on the ground between his horse's hoofs sprawls a lizard-like reptile; a figure on horseback approaches from the right, with the face half obliterated or eaten away to the semblance of a skull, and snakes encircling the temples. Behind comes on a demon or goblin shape, with a tall curving horn, which is "neither man nor woman, neither beast nor human," but one of those grotesque and obscene monsters which ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... refining and diminishing nature as in a drawing-room mirror. This fancy was strengthened in the course of conversation, by his expatiating on the greatness of Racine. I think he had a volume of the French Tragedian in his hand. His skull was sharply cut and fine; with plenty, according to the phrenologists, both of the reflective and amative organs; and his poetry will bear them out. For a lettered solitude and a bridal properly got up, both according to law and luxury, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829. • Various

... must know, it was an Injun's head that the Doctor had saved, to take to Washington with him. It had a sort of a malformed skull or jaw-bone or something. But he left it behind—I guess it got a leetle to old for him to carry," he laughed. "Somebody told me there was a head in the yard, but I forgot all about it. Lucky thing you didn't see ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... Turks saw a chance to help his captain and made a vicious blow at his opponent with his scimiter. Reuben James, a sailor, who was so wounded in his arms that he could not use them, thrust his head forward and received the stroke upon his skull. The wound was a frightful one, but, beyond dispute, it saved the life of Decatur, who never forgot the man that had done him ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... horse galloping through the glen in which the buck had been feeding. Jacob had never yet seen the Parliamentary troops, for they had not during the war been sent into that part of the country, but their iron skull-caps, their buff accouterments, and dark habiliments assured him that such these must be; so very different were they from the gayly-equipped Cavalier cavalry commanded by Prince Rupert. At the time that they advanced, Jacob ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... then turned to the Mexican who had done the deed. The fellow tried to pierce Dan with his steel, but more by instinct than reason the youth leaped to one side. Then Dan's gun came crashing down, and the Mexican with it, his skull cracked by ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer

... of ato Sigichan there are at present three skulls of men from Sagada, one of a man from Balugan, and one of a man and two of women from Baliwang. Probably not more than a dozen skulls are kept in a fawi at one time. The final resting place of the skull is again under the stones of the fawi. Samoki does not keep the skull at all; it remains where buried under the ato court. As was stated before, a skull is generally buried under the stones of the fawi court whenever ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... connected with matters worse than bad whiskey had overstrained the patience of the long-suffering citizens. Soon the suggestive and mysterious triangular little pieces of paper dropped upon the sidewalks of the town, surmounted with the skull and cross-bones, called the vigilantes to a meeting at which the death of Slade and two of his companions was determined upon. The next morning following the evening of the meeting, Slade came to town with his two men, actually sober, and went into a drug-store for a prescription. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... room stood a very large table. At the one end were the bookbinder's tools; at the other, writing materials. The inkstand was a skull; the ruler was a fore-arm; the paper-weight was a guillotine, and the ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... fallen right between the horses of the two-horse wagon, blowing the animals to pieces, splintering the wagon, and killing the driver. Something sailed swiftly over my head, and landed just behind the ambulance. It was a chunk of the skull of one of the horses. The horse attached to the wagon ahead of me went into a frenzy of fear and backed his wagon into my ambulance, smashing the right lamp. In the twinkling of an eye, the soldiers dispersed. Some ran into the fields. ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... twilight that a voice below uttered an exclamation. Then came a pause. The old sergeant's voice ordered care and a pause, somewhere below the opening with, "Sir, the spades have hit upon a skull." ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... grazed the negro's head and had left a deep furrow from which blood was running freely. But for the thickness of his skull I believe ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... the first. He was hurt close to that big heart of his, as well as having a fractured skull. He talked a lot of the selections and old John Tierney, of the old bark school; and the Never-Never country with Jack—and, later on, of the present. "What's Ben sayin' now, Jim?" asked one young bushman as another came out of the ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson

... children could join in it. They were there, with their bundles of dry sticks, to keep the fire blazing, and their long switches, to beat the prisoner. Fearful that their victim might die too soon, and thus escape their cruelty, the women would knead cakes of clay and put them on the skull of the poor sufferer, that the fire might not reach his brain and instantly kill him. As the poor frantic wretch would run round the circle, they would yell, dance, and sing, and beat him with their switches, until he fell exhausted. At other times, a poor prisoner ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip

... father's command, for I was extremely anxious to see the world, and my feet would hardly wait for me. I put my estate into the hands of old Mickey Clancy, and told him not to trouble the tenants too much over the rent, or they probably would split his skull for him. And I bid Father Donovan look out for old Mickey Clancy, that he stole from me only what ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... The steel grazed my left side, and crashed through the wall behind me, to which I was pinned by the clothes, and as he tried to withdraw his weapon, I had a fair stroke at him in return. The axe was very sharp; rage and despair seemed to have doubled my strength, and I split his skull half-way down to the jaw. Brains and blood were scattered over me, as he sank dead at ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan

... an old friar with a pale face, and dressed all in white and black, and a black skull-cap on his head, came to me in a dream, and bid me go to Ireland, to a certain spot in a certain county that I know very well, and under the slab of his tomb, that has a cross and some old Romish letters on it, in an old abbey I often saw before now, I'd find a treasure that would ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... Dead; and because the creature could not spit Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove. Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin uppermost, As though in pain; for still upon the flint 50 He ground severe his skull, with open mouth And eyes at horrid working. Nearest him Asia, born of most enormous Caf, Who cost her mother Tellus keener pangs, Though feminine, than any of her sons: More thought than woe was in her dusky face, For she was prophesying of her glory; ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... their first efforts to slay these they shot them full in the forehead, and were dismayed to find that their bullets rebounded harmlessly. They solved the mystery later, discovering the hide on the skull of a dead bull to be an inch thick and covered with a mat of gnarled hair in itself almost a shield against bullets. Joel Rae, with the divine right of youth, drew for them from ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... you have not wished me good-day yet. Come, old friend, lay by these tablets, or you will crack the inner machinery of your skull, as our friend yonder has got the outer-case of his damaged.—Good-night, quotha! I mean not to part with you so easily. I came to get my four hours' nunchion from you, man, besides a tune on the lute from my god-daughter, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... doctor said peremptorily. "No. A woman, with a fractured skull. Beautiful case. Van Kirk was up to his eyes and sent for me. Hemorrhage, right-sided paralysis, irregular pupils—all the trimmings. Worked for ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... where I find my uncle and aunt Wight, and supped with them upon my leads with mighty pleasure and mirthe, and they being gone I mighty weary to bed, after having my haire of my head cut shorter, even close to my skull, for coolnesse, it ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... a little man, neither fat nor lean, with a tolerably handsome face, keen expression, piercing eyes sparkling with cleverness; a little cloak, a satin skull-cap over his grey hairs, a smooth collar, almost like an Abbe's, and his pocket-handkerchief always between his coat and his vest. He used to say that it was nearer his nose there. He had taken me into his friendship. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... is that over there?" inquired Durtal, perceiving, in a corner, an enormous fragment of rounded metal, like half a gigantic skull-cap. On it the dust lay thick, and and in the hollow the meshes on meshes of fine silken web, dotted with the black bodies of lurking spiders, were like a fisherman's hand net weighted ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... these dark, moth-peopled places? Here shall my craving heart find rest? Must I perchance a thousand books turn over, To find that men are everywhere distrest, And here and there one happy one discover? Why grin'st thou down upon me, hollow skull? But that thy brain, like mine, once trembling, hoping, Sought the light day, yet ever sorrowful, Burned for the truth in vain, in twilight groping? Ye, instruments, of course, are mocking me; Its wheels, cogs, bands, and barrels each one praises. I waited ...
— Faust • Goethe

... concussion of the skull, but not dangerous," was his opinion. "I shall not be able to tell the full seriousness of his injuries until I have him stripped on a table or bed. Probably there are other broken bones,—ribs or something. We must get him down to Bowenville as quickly as ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... rogues did not run up the skull and crossbones; because they did not swagger up and down the deck, knives and pistols in their sashes, she couldn't be made to ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... troops and the bodyguard marched the other mercenaries—regiments of black Soudanese, with wild-beast skins thrown over their ebony shoulders; and light-coloured Libyans from the West, each with a couple of feathers stuck in his leather skull-cap. ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie

... England chapel (established in the bathroom of a former Sultan's harem), where service was frequently held, all received much attention. Occasional trips by souvenir hunters were made to the adjacent "Dead City." These were sometimes fruitful, for in one barrack room an ancient skull was observed reposing on a shelf above ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett

... "Forbade his strength to hurl it on the foe: "And on Cometes, who beside him stood, "Dropp'd the huge bulk. Nor Rhaetus then his joy "Disguis'd, exclaiming:—Such may be the aid "That all your friends receive!—Then with his brand "Half burnt, his blows redoubling, burst the skull "With the strong force; and on the pulpy brain "By frequent strokes the bones beat down. From thence "Victor, Evagrus, Corythus, he met "And Dryas. Corythus o'erthrown, whose cheeks "The first down shaded; loud ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... be all right in another week, save for this wound in my shoulder. As for that on my head, it is but of slight consequence. My skull was thick enough ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... would hasten supper, it seemed to Wallie that wood and water were of more importance than clearing a place to sleep, so he collected a small pile of twigs and dead sagebrush, then took an aluminum kettle from his camping utensils and walked along the bank of Skull Creek looking for a pool which contained enough water to fill the kettle. He finally saw one, and planting his heels in a dirt slide, shot like a toboggan some twenty feet to the bottom. Filling his kettle he walked back over the boulders looking for a more convenient ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... was owing to their being much sought after; that they did not breed fast; and were of slow growth. Leeches were formerly 2s. 6d. the 100; now they were 30s. He had been hurt in driving a cart, his leg broken, his body driven over, his skull fractured. He felt no pain till he recovered from his first insensibility. It was late in the evening, when the light was just ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... Sandford and Merton, in which he was much interested, he was roused by a loud knocking at the house door. He ran to open it: but how much was he shocked at the sight he beheld! It was Mrs. Dolly! her leg broken, and her skull fractured! ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... with the swelling bombast of bragging blank verse, indeed it may be the ingrafted overflow of some killcow conceit, etc. Among this kind of men that repose eternity in the mouth of a player I can but engross some deep read school men or grammarians, who have no more learning in their skull than will serve to take up a commodity, nor art in their brains than was nourished in a serving man's idleness, will take upon them to be ironical censurers of all when God and poetry doth know they are the simplest ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... he is white, like the skull of a dead man. And some say he is dark, like the socket of ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore

... time, but soon after returning on board, was informed of the above circumstances; and found the quarter-deck crowded with the natives, and the mangled head, or rather part of it, (for the under-jaw and lip were wanting) lying on the tafferal. The skull had been broken on the left side, just above the temples; and the remains of the face had all the appearance of a youth ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... to the hall of justice, which was named the 'tribunal of god.' Here on a golden throne sat Montezuma, administering justice in such pomp as I cannot describe. About him were his counsellors and great lords, and before him was placed a human skull crowned with emeralds so large that a blaze of light went up from them. In his hand also he held an arrow for a sceptre. Certain chiefs or caciques were on their trial for treason, nor were they left long in doubt as to their fate. For when some evidence had been ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... Every living race is still human; no single one has yet been found that we can designate as Simian or quasi-Simian. Even when in certain ones phenomena appear which are characteristic of the apes—e.g., the peculiar ape-like projections of the skull in certain races—still we cannot on that account alone say that these men are ape-like. As regards the Lake dwellings, I have been able to submit to comparative examination nearly every single skull that has been found. The result has been that we have certainly met ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... the temptation must have been great to have inquired whether it were not "like a weasel"; but this might have been stretching the jest too far; so the lieutenant merely called to the signal midshipman, and desired him to skull up to the mast-head with his glass, to see what he made ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... village between us and Portici the scene of two assassinations, still kept in remembrance. The one I believe was from the motive of plunder. The head of the assassin was set up after his execution upon a pillar, which still exists, and it remained till the skull rotted to pieces. The other was a story less in the common style, and of a more interesting character:—A farmer of an easy fortune, and who might be supposed to leave to his daughter, a very pretty girl and an only child, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... that after all the impossible might be accomplished, and the valour of his comrade stem the accursed horde. To no purpose. As he turned like lightning to deliver a thrust to the left, a blow from a billhook on the right crushed his skull; he dropped, and his bleeding body was instantly robbed and dragged ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... required him to devote earnest attention to the badger-holes, he could not manage this. Without knowing very well what to do, he continued the chase, meditating as to whether it were better to try to ride over the bear, or to attempt the breaking of its skull with the butt end of his gun. As, however, it was all he could do to keep pace with the brute, ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne

... not wilfully interposed his own head to save him from the blow of a Spanish sabre, which this generous man plainly perceived must otherwise prove fatal to his beloved master; and, though the poor fellow thus readily received the diverted stroke, it inflicted on his skull a very dangerous wound, which was for some time thought to be incurable. Even before this unexampled proof of attachment, had that worthy and gallant man saved Sir Horatio, more than once during the conflict, from the dangerous blows of his numerous ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... preferred them in the form of soup, so she went sailing slowly through them with her cavernous mouth very wide open. Every now and then she would shut her jaws and give two or three great gulps, and her little eyes, away back at the base of her skull, would almost twinkle ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... acquire this latter: the secretary might have been an early, bad photograph of the magnate. To see Masticator, he was the creature of brotherly love, the preacher of benign gospels, the teacher of female academies; no smell of Senate or Syndicate hung about him. Bald, with a silken skull-cap, bland, with his ten pointed fingers meeting as if to bless, with a sunrise smile, and a black coat as long and unlovely as conscious virtue, he stood before us in benevolent silence, and we rose as one scholar. But at once he motioned us to ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister

... gracilis Miller (N. Amer. Fauna, 13:126, October 16, 1897) only three specimens are known; two are from Piaxtla, Puebla, and the third is from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Only the specimen from the Isthmus has a complete skull. The broken skull of the holotype is partly separated from the skin of the head and in such a manner as to reveal the teeth. The skull of the holotype seems to be broader (relative to its length) across the mastoids and posterior ...
— Taxonomic Notes on Mexican Bats of the Genus Rhogeessa • E. Raymond Hall

... abbat, he learned, that the shinbone of the said Arthur being set vp by the leg of a verie tall man (the which the abbat shewed to the same Gyraldus) came aboue the knee of the same man the length of three fingers breadth, which is a great deale more likelie than the other. Furthermore the skull of his head was of a woonderfull largenesse, so that the space of his forehead betwixt his two eies was a span broad. There appeered in his head the signes and prints of ten wounds or more: all the which were growne into one wem, except onelie that whereof it should ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed

... struck in the dark I scrutinised my knife, blade and haft, yet found nowhere on it any trace of blood, so that 'twas manifest the fellow had worn some protection—chain-shirts were common enough and many a rogue went with a steel skull to line his hat. So it seemed the fellow lived yet and (black rogue though he was) I was vaguely glad 'twas not my hand had sent him to ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... that parted from this first gap rested on the skull of the perjured traitor who first introduced Episcopacy into Scotland; this second notch was made in the rib-bone of an impious villain, the boldest and best soldier that upheld the prelatic cause at Drumclog; this third was broken on the steel head-piece of the captain who defended ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... friends, and gave them for lost, as men devoted to divine vengeance. Which soon overtook them; for they had not gone many leagues before a dreadful tempest arose, which burst their cables; down came their mast, crushing the skull of the pilot in its fall; off he fell from the stern into the water, and the bark wanting his management drove along at the wind's mercy; thunders roared, and terrible lightnings of Jove came down; first a bolt struck Eurylochus, then another, and then another, till all the crew were killed, and ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB

... weapon, thrown back, had not Phineus gone behind an altar, and {thus} (how unworthily!) an altar[3] protected a miscreant. However, the spear, not thrown in vain, stuck in the forehead of Rhoetus; who, after he fell, and the steel was wrenched from the skull, he {still} struggled, and besprinkled the laid tables with his blood. But then does the multitude burst forth into ungovernable rage, and hurl their weapons. Some there are, who say that Cepheus ought to die with his son-in-law; but Cepheus has ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... moth, too, that flies at the flame of the lamp, is numbered among the bad potions,' evidently alluding to their being used in philtres or incantations. There is a kind called the death's head moth; but it is so called simply from the figure of a skull, which appears very exactly represented on its body, and not on account of any noxious qualities known to be inherent ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... supply it with a fanciful entity, e.g. "The Mind (a useful term to express the aggregate action of the brain, nervous system etc.) of man is immortal." The next step is personification as Time with his forelock, Death with his skull and Night (the absence of light) with her starry mantle. For poetry this abuse of language is a sine qua non, but it is deadly foe to all ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton



Words linked to "Skull" :   vomer, jugal bone, os, caput, eye socket, skull practice, orbital cavity, malar bone, jaw, brainpan, cheekbone, zygomatic bone, skull and crossbones, bone, skull session, axial skeleton, os zygomaticum, sphenoid, sphenoid bone



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