Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Sloping   Listen
adjective
Sloping  adj.  Inclining or inclined from the plane of the horizon, or from a horizontal or other right line; oblique; declivous; slanting. "The sloping land recedes into the clouds."






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





"Sloping" Quotes from Famous Books



... about a mile from the harbor.[2] My father's side—probably the fifth generation from the first English arrivals in New England—were at the same time farmers on their own land—(and a fine domain it was, 500 acres, all good soil, gently sloping east and south, about one-tenth woods, plenty of grand old trees,) two or three miles off, at West Hills, Suffolk county. The Whitman name in the Eastern States, and so branch and South, starts undoubtedly ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... that gently-sloping, formidable abyss, into which we slide so easily! we may say every thing that is bad of it, and also every thing that is good, and it will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... the terrible "ram," fallen into disuse since the days of the Greek galleys, to be taken up again by naval architects in the nineteenth century. Then on the deck was built a pent-house of oak and iron, with sloping sides just high enough to cover the engine. The two towering smoke-stacks, the pride of the old river-steamers, were cut down to squat pipes protruding a foot or two above the strange structure. In the sides ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... sixteen. I cut deep mortices in the trees, about ten feet distant from the ground, and again ten feet higher, to form a second story; I then placed in them strong poles: this was the skeleton of my house—solid, if not elegant; I placed over this a rude roof of bark, cut in squares, and placed sloping, that the rain might run off. We fastened these with the thorn of the acacia, as our nails were too precious to be lavished. While procuring the bark, we made many discoveries. The first was that of two ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... to undergo the various tumblings and tossings of doubt and consultation, than to set up its rest and to acquiesce in whatever shall happen after the die is thrown. Few passions break my sleep, but of deliberations, the least will do it. As in roads, I preferably avoid those that are sloping and slippery, and put myself into the beaten track how dirty or deep soever, where I can fall no lower, and there seek my safety: so I love misfortunes that are purely so, that do not torment and tease me with ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... for some time, too lazy to speak, almost to think. The beautiful flower-garden which lay before us, sloping towards the river, looked rather brown and sere, after the hot winds, although the orange-trees were still green enough, and vast clusters of purple grapes were ripening rapidly among the yellowing vine-leaves. On the whole, however, the garden was but a poor subject of contemplation for ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... iron and copper in the pagoda style, thoroughly ugly, but by reason of the mellow peacock hues time had given its roof, full of personality and charm. They entered by a green door in the brick wall and crossed a lawn sloping down to the little river to reach the shade of a tulip tree in full bloom, where seated in one of those tall wicker garden chairs shaped like an alcove was an elderly lady as ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... stern gray eye scanning the ocean-line again, as the mare turned into the more open plains of sand sloping down to the sea. It was up-hill work with him, talking to this young lady. He was afraid of a woman who had lectured in public, nursed in the hospitals, whose blood seemed always at fever heat, and whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... going, smooth, sloping rocks and the "Trough" with its endless rock-slides that move like giant treadmills beneath the climber's feet. The pace I set was very slow. The man wanted to go faster, but I called attention to Glacier Gorge below, the color of the lakes in the canyon, in short, employed ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... with trees thick-growing, rose a wood; From earliest ages there the biting axe Had never sounded; in the plain it rear'd Facing the sloping fields. The youths arriv'd; Some spread the knotted toils; some loose the hounds; Some strive the foot-prints of the boar to trace, Their danger anxious seeking. Low beneath A hollow vale extended, where the floods Fresh showery torrents ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... was of adobe, plastered white, but stained and battered where the walls were not hidden by rank-growing creepers, convolvulus, and Madeira vines. If the girl had read its description in some book—the veranda, formed by the steep-sloping roof of the one-story building; the patio, walled mysteriously in with a high, flower-draped barrier; the long windows with green shutters—she would have imagined it ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... mountains to the north, now studded with rural villages, pleasant farms, and cultivated fields. The island itself showed us smooth lawns and meadows of emerald verdure, with orchards and corn-fields sloping down to the water's edge. After a confinement of nearly five weeks on board, you may easily suppose with what satisfaction we contemplated the prospect of spending a few ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... had returned to the hut and was composing a tale of smugglers by the light of a candle. He was much intrigued by his subject. He wrote fast in an illegible hand in great sloping lines, his brows frowning, his tongue protruding from his mouth as it always did ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton

... land was there no more fair or stately Minster than this of the Black Monks, with the peaceful township on one side, and on the other the sweet meadows and the acres of wheat and barley sloping down to the slow river, and beyond the river the ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... can do it," was the reply, and Joe climbed beyond an angle to find himself in a sloping, flattened cave, whose roof was about four feet above his head; how far it extended the darkness beyond the ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... which shuts in the anchorage, and excludes a view of the town, leaving only the heavy brow of this mountain visible, you pass along a coast composed of a long sloping hill in the proportions of a lion couchant. It extends eastwardly and westwardly, and the "Lion's Head" is first seen as you approach from the eastward. Upon the mount called thus, is a large rock, very similar in appearance ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... herself a little, beautiful trees, and the splendid spire of the Cathedral rising, as she dreamily thought, like a finger pointing upwards. Nearer were several more narrow windows along the side of the room, and that beside her bed had the lattice open, so that she saw a sloping green bank, with a river at the foot; and there was a trim garden between. Opposite to her there seemed to be another window with a curtain drawn across it, through which came what perhaps had wakened her, a low, clear murmuring tone, pausing and broken by the full, sweet, if rather ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... subdued, sensational scenes lost in the dimmed perspective. To a chance observer, the prospect would have been deeply suggestive; in the woman it stirred many memories. She put back her veil; her face glowed; a long sigh escaped her lips. Slowly she walked down the steps, along the sloping path to a turn, where she sank down on a bench. A rosy, tired child, rather the worse for mud-pies, and hanging reluctantly at the hand of its nonchalant nurse, brought a bit of the woman's emotion to the surface. She smiled radiantly at the ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... His eyes could scarcely distinguish what was below, as the only glimmer of light came from a far distant street lamp at the end of an alley, the faint rays creeping in through holes in the fence. Yet one black shadow seemed to promise the sloping roof of a shed directly below; but even with that to break his fall, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... D. C., was the very happiest of men three days later, when he watched Madame Alixe Delavigne gracefully presiding over a pretty tea table, a la fusse, in the quaint old mansion, bowered in a garden sloping down to the Thames, where Miss Mildred Anstruther, a venerable maiden aunt, had her "local habitation and, a name!" A lonely woman of colossal wealth and blue blood, high in rank, ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... branding now will mark me; And shame will run before me, and await My coming, wheresoever I would lodge. For out of Shushan to the ends of the earth Great news runs, with a hidden soundless speed Through secret channels in the folks' dim mind, As water races through smooth sloping gutters. Swifter than any feet could bear the tale, Going unheard, already posts abroad A buried river, and will soon burst up In towns and markets, far as the width of day, A bubbling clamour, wonderful wild news: "Vashti ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... shortly after breakfast, and the long, sloping descent began. Angel was ahead swinging from tree to tree, and before they had proceeded a mile began chattering from the tree top, in his peculiar way betokening alarm. George ran up, called him ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay

... extended his firmly-knit length of figure on the sloping ground near by, and flung aside his cap; thus revealing more clearly the rugged contour of his head, and the black hair whose obstinate ripple no amount of brushing could subdue. With leisurely deliberation he filled his pipe, and surrendered himself to the enchantment of the hour, before it ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... interrupted Freda, in her turn. "We'd have to take off our shoes and stockings, of course, and we can't do that on the sloping bank; under the bridge is just the place. And we can pretend it's the sea, and that we're going to bathe properly, and shiver and shudder and push each other in. Oh! it'll be great fun—come along, all of ...
— The Christmas Fairy - and Other Stories • John Strange Winter

... ambition and adventure. For, from of old, have not poets lived in garrets? And are not all poets young even if their beards are white? Round and round the poet climbs, up these bare creaking flights to the very top. There is a stove to be lighted—unless the woodbox fails—a sloping ceiling and a window huddled to the floor. The poet's fingers may be numb. Although the inkpot be full, his stomach may be empty. And yet from this window, lately, a poem was cast upward to the moon. And youth and truth still rhyme in these upper rooms. Linda's voice is still the ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... but once inside, the combined fleets of the world might find good anchorage under the shallow of the lofty hills which surround its deep, clear waters. The extreme length of the harbor must be about four miles, by two in width. Tall, dark pines and a verdant undergrowth mark the deep ravines and sloping hill-sides, upon which European dwellings may be seen overlooking the bay, interspersed with a few Buddhist temples. During a delightful afternoon stroll and climb among these hills, we came upon many wild flowers, shaded ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... mainland, called Woolnorth; but from the rocks and inlets that encumber the passage and the rapid rush of the tide it is only navigable for small vessels with great caution. Point Woolnorth is a rather low sloping point composed of the same rock as Hunter Island. Ten miles south of it a raised beach again occurs 100 feet above the level of the sea. Behind Point Woolnorth the country swells into hills nearly six hundred feet high. Three miles from ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... inquired Hal, as they approached a side passage sloping slightly down, and barred by a ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... described him in this wise: "His personal appearance was that of the typical New Englander of college-bred ancestry. Tall, spare, slender, with sloping shoulders, slightly stooping in his later years, with light hair and eyes, the scholar's complexion, the prominent, somewhat arched nose which belongs to many of the New England sub-species, thin lips, suggestive of delicacy, but having nothing like primness, still less of ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... they went. Whatever the emergency, he was ready with devices and expedients. When the earthworks were still uncompleted he procured hundreds of yards of cotton, which he dyed the colour of earth, and spread out in long, sloping lines, so as to deceive the Arabs, while the real works were being prepared farther back. When a lack of money began to make itself felt, he printed and circulated a paper coinage of his own. To combat the growing discontent and disaffection of the townspeople, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... heads, more bushy tail, and being altogether more compact. Their habits, however, are much the same, A farmer in New Hampshire was one night awakened by a noise in his hog-pen; on looking out he saw, what he supposed to be a fox, on the low, sloping roof of the sty. He went out, but found that the animal was a grey wolf, which, instead of making off, fiercely attacked him, rushing down the roof towards him; and before the man had time to move back, the wolf had ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... over 10,000 feet above high water mark, Fahrenheit, the South Park, a hundred miles long, surrounded by precipitous mountains or green and sloping foot-hills, burst upon us, In the clear, still air, a hundred miles away, at Pueblo, I could hear a promissory note and cut-throat mortgage drawing three per cent a month. So calm and unruffled was the rarified air that I fancied I could hear the thirteenth assessment on a share of stock at ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... tall frigate, under full sail, and had all the quaint primness of the pictures of a hundred years ago. The group of people supposed to be standing on the wharf was composed of gentlemen in very tight trousers and ladies with very sloping shoulders and absurd, tiny parasols. The vessel floated on impossible scalloped billows, but no old-fashioned stiffness could disguise the free beauty of the ship's lines and the grace of her curving sails. Her name was inscribed in faded gold ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... realized that something was going to happen and settled himself firmly. It was well he did so. Without any warning, the horse's back arched like a bent bow, and all four feet came off the ground. It was an extraordinary experience for Vaughan—everything sloping away from him. Then the back straightened suddenly and the hoofs struck the ground with such impact that, if the boy had not been very firmly in the stirrups, he would have been tossed in the air like a ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman

... uttered these words he smiled;—and with one wistful, yearning look at him, Valdemar obediently and instantly departed. He left the house, carrying with him a huge pile of dry brushwood, and with the air of a man strung up to prompt action, rapidly descended the sloping path, thick with hardened snow, that led downwards to the Fjord. On reaching the shore, he looked anxiously about him. There was nothing in sight but the distant, twinkling lights of Bosekop—the Fjord itself was like a black pool,—so still that even the faintest murmur of its rippling against ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... torn clothing of various gaudy colours gave a picturesque, but hardly an attractive, appearance to the group. The bazaar was entered at right angles with the quay; the streets were paved with stones of irregular size, sloping from both sides towards the centre, which formed the gutter. Camels, mules, bullock-carts, and the omnipresent donkeys thronged the narrow streets, either laden with produce for the quay, or returning after ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... his college on the river. If the friendship was to develop, Steavenson must undoubtedly become interested in intellectual matters, but not less certainly Dilke must learn to row. It was a very useful discipleship for the future politician. Sloping shoulders, flat and narrow chest, height too great for his build: these were things that Cambridge helped to correct. Dilke, a willing pupil, was diligently coached by the stronger man, until he became an accomplished and effective oar. In general Judge Steavenson's recollection confirms Sir Robert ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... forms and fantasies more splendid than I had ever known; the visions of young poets who died in want before the world could learn of what they had seen and dreamed. But we did not set foot upon the sloping meadows of Zar, for it is told that he who treads them may nevermore return to ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... bent to fit the sloping sides of the iron. The holder and iron can be moved at the same time. —Contributed by W. A. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... and of the walls of Coblentz fell deep over the waves, checkered by the tall sails of the craft that were moored around the harbour. But clear against the sun rose the spires and roofs of Coblentz, backed by many a hill sloping away to the horizon. High, dark, and massive, on the opposite bank, swelled the towers and rock of Ehrenbreitstein,—a type of that great chivalric spirit—the HONOUR that the rock arrogates for its name—which demands so many sacrifices of blood and tears, but which ever creates in the restless ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... west and south mostly mountains (Alps); along the eastern and northern margins mostly flat or gently sloping ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... garden, very rich in flowers in the summer. It faced south and west, commanding a view of a winding valley, very peaceful and still, a great part of which was overgrown with stunted oak copses, or divided into large sloping fields. At the end, the water of a tidal creek—Tressillian water—caught the eye. The only sounds that ever penetrated to the car were the cries of birds, or the sound of sheep-bells, or the lowing of cows, with ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson

... above the enclosure, raised high on platforms, are commodious dressing-rooms, where, instead of being cooped up in an uncomfortable bathing-machine, you may have a lounge outside in the bright sunshine while you dress. The water is a clear blue, and there is a sandy bottom sloping down from the shore into any depth,—a glorious ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... picture represented a typical specimen of American manhood of that Anglo-Semitic type so often seen in persons of mixed English and Jewish extraction. The figure was well over five feet two inches in height and broad in proportion. The graceful sloping shoulders harmonized with the slender and well-poised waist, and with a hand pliant and yet prehensile. The pallor of the features was relieved by a drooping ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... condition of the walls and roof. Sometimes a shingle roof will be found in good order or at most have one or two minor leaks which can be repaired. More often an entire new roof is needed and, in extreme cases, new boarding beneath. As with sills, roofs sloping to the north and east are more apt to be out of repair and ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... the hills and descending from their crescent-shaped expanse, we find a broad extent of low ground, sloping gently toward the bay. On this low-lying flat was built all of San Francisco's business houses, all its principal hotels and a large part of its tenements and poorer dwellings. It was here that the earthquake was felt most severely and that the fire ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... was more given to the bottle than the trencher. His thin white beard gave a threatening expression to his profile by the stiffness of its short bristles. The eyes, too small for his enormous face, and sloping like those of a pig, betrayed cunning and also laziness; but at this particular moment they were gleaming with the intent look he cast upon the river. The sole garments of this curious figure were an old blouse, formerly blue, and trousers of the coarse burlap ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... staircase and emerged into a dark garret, running the whole length of the house without a partition. The beams and rafters were visible, for the sloping sides were not plastered. Herbert felt that he might as well have been in the barn, except that there was a small cot bedstead in the center of ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger

... [166] The sloping floor which was replaced was not dated, but probably was installed when the courthouse was renovated following the ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton

... to bail with gourds kept handy for the purpose. But, hurrah! There, on the near shore ahead, was another little village, Pena Blanca, its low huts showing dimly through the spume of the storm. Straight for it made the canoe—hit the sloping bank, and stuck while out stumbled the passengers, the captain ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... smothered by the waves, in an incredibly short time they were on the scene of the accident, where, rounding to, the work of salvage was carried out in a most plucky and seamanlike manner. These boats have no stem, the bows, which are square and about four feet in width, sloping away underneath in a gentle curve, so that their tendency is to skim over the water like a dish instead of cutting through it. They are decked forrard flush with the gunnel for nearly half their length, when a low cabin takes ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... revealed a small chamber, with the ceiling partly sloping. There were two windows. It was very plainly furnished, but looked very comfortable. Andy glanced about him with a look of satisfaction. It was considerably more attractive than the bed in the attic ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... said Darrel, with a little gesture of his right hand, "the theatre o' the woods! See the sloping hills, tree above tree, like winding galleries. Here is a coliseum old, past reckoning. Why, boy, long before men saw the Seven Hills it was old. Yet see how new it is—how fresh its colour, how strong its timbers! See the many seats, each with ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... in the hold; the wreck was sinking deeper and deeper into the sea. The sloping edges of the ship were covered by a thin gnawing wave, which was rising. All were crowded on the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... President lifted the shade behind the couch and looked out across the smooth velvet turf, sloping gently to the river bank in one long, even stretch, broken by an occasional posy-bed, and liberally dotted with giant oaks and stately lindens. It was an ideal spot for a picnic or lawn social such ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown

... "Come, enter here," in tone so soft and mild, As never met the ear on mortal strand. With swan-like wings dispread and pointing up, Who thus had spoken marshal'd us along, Where each side of the solid masonry The sloping, walls retir'd; then mov'd his plumes, And fanning us, affirm'd that those, who mourn, Are blessed, for that comfort shall be theirs. "What aileth thee, that still thou look'st to earth?" Began my leader; ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... retreat and solitude hung about the rooms and about their inhabitant. He was much worn, and so were they. Their sloping ceilings, cumbrous rusty locks and grates, and heavy wooden bins and beams, slowly mouldering withal, had a prisonous look, and he had the haggard face of a prisoner. Yet the sunlight shone in at the ugly ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... and Grounds of the Observatory was commenced in 1844, and was still in progress.—On Mar. 19th I was employed on a matter which had for some time occupied my thoughts, viz., the re-arrangement of current manuscripts. I had prepared a sloping box (still in use) to hold 24 portfolios: and at this time I arranged papers A, and went on with B, C, &c. Very little change has been made in these.—In reference to the time given to the weekly report on Meteorology to the Registrar General, the ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... miles from the city here, and on the sloping banks of the stream noted more for its plenitude of "chubs" and "shiners" than the gamier two- and four-pound bass for which, in season, so many credulous anglers flock and lie in wait, stands a country residence, so convenient to the stream, and ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... of Varennes lies dark and slumberous; a most unlevel Village, of inverse saddle-shape, as men write. It sleeps; the rushing of the River Aire singing lullaby to it. Nevertheless from the Golden Arms, Bras d'Or Tavern, across that sloping marketplace, there still comes shine of social light; comes voice of rude drovers, or the like, who have not yet taken the stirrup-cup; Boniface Le Blanc, in white apron, serving them: cheerful to behold. To this Bras ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... water soaking through the lath bottoms, and floating the dead leaves from the vegetable-baskets with which they were loaded. Miserable little back yards, opening to the water, with steep stone steps down to it, and little platforms for the ducks; and separate duck staircases, composed of a sloping board with cross bits of wood leading to the ducks' doors, and sometimes a flower-pot or two on them, or even a flower,—one group, of wallflowers and geraniums, curiously vivid, being seen against the darkness of a dyer's back yard, who had been dyeing black all day, and all was black in his ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... is on—the ground chosen is the little plateau within the lines of the 43rd just below the Officer's tents, flanked on one side by a sloping grassy hill on the other by a row of ancient trees shading a little hidden brook that gurgles softly to itself all day long. On the sloping hill the soldiers of the various battalions lie stretched at ease in khaki colored kilts and trews, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... as populous as Massachusetts already is, it would have more than 75,000,000 people. A glance at the map shows that, territorially speaking, it is the great body of the Republic. The other parts are but marginal borders to it, the magnificent region sloping west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific being the deepest and also the richest in undeveloped resources. In the production of provisions, grains, grasses, and all which proceed from them this great interior region is naturally one of the most important in the world. Ascertain from statistics ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... windfalls than they know what to do with, all picked up in their immediate neighbourhood, my Lycosae have built themselves donjon-keeps the like of which their race has not yet known. Around the orifice, on a slightly sloping bank, small, flat, smooth stones have been laid to form a broken, flagged pavement. The larger stones, which are Cyclopean blocks compared with the size of the animal that has shifted them, are employed ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... saw the gardens and orchards of Damascus, watered by the streams of Abana and Pharpar, with their sloping swards inlaid with bloom, and their thickets of myrrh and roses. I saw also the long, snowy ridge of Hermon, and the dark groves of cedars, and the valley of the Jordan, and the blue waters of the Lake of Galilee, ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke

... woman's head is square and shapely. Swift's head is a refutation of phrenology, being small, sloping ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... knowledge from Wyatt himself that "the Londoners would not fight:"[223] but Norfolk was confident; the men had assured him of their loyalty; and at four o'clock on Monday afternoon he was on the sloping ground facing towards Rochester, within cannon-shot of the bridge. The duke was himself in front, with Ormond, Jerningham, and eight "field-pieces," which he had brought with him. A group of insurgents were in sight ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... darting across their path, and large drops of rain were falling upon them when they neared a house constructed of logs, yet bearing some evidence of taste in the grounds around it, as well as in its position, which was on the side of a gently sloping hill, looking out upon a landscape through which wound a clear and ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... windlasses turning at the bottom. When these are ready, let forestays be attached and left lying slack in front; let the backstays be carried over the shoulders of the machine to some distance, and, if there is nothing to which they can be fastened, sloping piles should be driven, the ground rammed down all round to fix them firmly, and the ropes ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... images, this must be a spot sacred to Achelous and the Nymphs. How delightful is the breeze:—so very sweet; and there is a sound in the air shrill and summerlike which makes answer to the chorus of the cicadae. But the greatest charm of all is the grass, like a pillow gently sloping to the head. My dear Phaedrus, you have been ...
— Phaedrus • Plato

... was on a little elevation, and looked across the road, near which it stood, and over a sloping field or two, to sea. From the windows you could count the sail in the North Channel, and look down the coast and follow with the eye the long, low curving line of shore until at Indian Point it vanished; or look up shore ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin

... to the vertical sides, to afford protection from in-bursting waves. Rows of portholes, covered with thick, stout glass, indicated the location of the superposed decks. On each side four gangways gave access to the interior, and long, sloping approaches offered means of entry from ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... Blake, and I saw that Joshua held a pistol in his hand, the old, single-ball dueling weapon that had belonged to his father. His face was white, and the pallor seemed to refine still further the blade-like features of the Blake, the aquiline nose, the sloping, patrician forehead, the narrow lip, blue to the pressure of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... up scent, (13) see how they show their mettle by rapidly quitting beaten paths, keeping their heads sloping to the ground, smiling, as it were to greet the trail; see how they let their ears drop, how they keep moving their eyes to and fro quickly, flourishing their sterns. (14) Forwards they should go with many a circle ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... which is intended to remove the matter in suspension in the water to be treated by subsidence and not by filtration. The apparatus consists of a vertical iron tank or cylinder, inside which are a series of plates arranged in a spiral direction around a fixed center, and sloping at an angle of 45 deg. on both sides outward. The water to be dealt with flows through a large inlet tube fixed to the bottom of the cylinder, rises to the top by passing spirally round the whole circumference, and depositing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... the Strand three days before this Function was to take place, when I saw in an empty shop window about twenty-five wooden chairs, arranged in tiers one above the other upon a sloping platform, and lettered from A to Y. In the window was a large notice, very clearly printed, and it ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... in new and fragrant growth, the velvet turf gives out a perfume to the night air and looks like emerald in the moonlight. Beds of flowers are cut in it here and there, a few clumps of shrubbery, the pretty summer-houses, the sloping terrace, and the river surging with an indolent monotone, make a rarely beautiful picture. The columns upholding the porch roof are wreathed with vines, but the spaces between are clear. The low windows are all open, and it is fairyland without and within. Floyd ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... the pathless plains below, The dark blue rocks, in barren grandeur piled, The cuckoo sighing to the pensive wild! Far different these from all that charm'd before, The grassy banks of Clutha's winding shore: The sloping vales, with waving forests lined; Her smooth blue lakes, unruffled by the wind. Hail, happy Clutha! glad shall I survey Thy gilded turrets from the distant way! Thy sight shall cheer the weary traveller's toil, And joy shall hail me to my native soil." He remained ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... forward into another. I felt his hands fly round, clutching at me and missing me. The little pink sloth-creature dashed at me, and I gashed down its ugly face with the nail in my stick and in another minute was scrambling up a steep side pathway, a kind of sloping chimney, out of the ravine. I heard a howl behind me, and cries of "Catch him!" "Hold him!" and the grey-faced creature appeared behind me and jammed his huge bulk into the cleft. "Go on! go on!" they howled. I clambered ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... from a distance at the foot of the Tivoli hills—sloping olive woods and domes of pines. What a place! The Armida gardens for a Faust-Rinaldo. Antiquity like a belle au bois dormant in the groves of colossal ilexes, the rows of immense cypresses, above all, enclosed in the magic of those thick old silver-coloured huge unpruned ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee

... B. C. it was found necessary to enlarge the platform in the centre of which the temple stood; and as the hill was sloping, even precipitous, on three sides, it was necessary to raise huge foundation walls from the plain below to the level of the platform, a work described by Pliny (xxxvi. 15, 24) as prodigious, and by Livy (vi. 4) as one of the wonders ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... if not, and, as was most probable, he insisted on their walking on as before, they should lag behind, and limp on till they came to a certain spot which she described. They would rise for some time, till the road led along the side of a wooded height, with cliffs on one side, and a steep, sloping, brushwood—covered bank on the other, with a stream far down in the valley below. There was a peculiar white stone at the side of the road, on which they were to sit to pretend to rest themselves. If they could manage to slip behind the stone for an instant, they might ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston

... tormented background of tall cones, bluffs, and falaises; and we anchored, at 4 P.M., in the roadstead of Las Palmas, north of the spot where our s.s. Senegal whilom broke her back. The capital, fronting east, like Santa Cruz, lies at the foot of a high sea-wall, whose straight and sloping lines betray their submarine origin: in places it is caverned for quarries and for the homes of the troglodyte artisans; and up its flanks straggle whitewashed boxes towards the local necropolis. The dryness ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... retirement of Rutherford the glasses had been discarded as effete; but not a degree of the other's manner betrayed the influence of his Gargantuan draughts of liquor. The lantern flickered on the sloping, cobwebby roof, on the shaggy horses as they lay clumsily down to rest, on the crumpled figure of ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... or double curved chute gates, O O, when formed with surfaces tapering or sloping from their centers towards their ends, and so arranged, relative to intermediately situated diaphragms or plates, r r, that one of the tapering ends of said chute gates, O O, shall project beyond the circumferences of the rims, a ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... at every turn. Just as one moment we are in lake- like waters, smooth as a mirror, the next apparently in mid-ocean, so we pass from sweet idyllic scenes into regions of weird sternness and grandeur. Now we glide quietly by shady reaches and sloping hills, alive to the very top with the tinkle of sheep-bells; now we pass under promontories of frowning aspect, that tower two or three thousand feet above the water's edge. The colours of the rock, under the shifting clouds, are very beautiful, and ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... measured. Under the log-slip is the steam "flipper" or "kicker," Fig. 38, by means of which the scaler or his assistant, throwing a lever, causes the log to be kicked over to one side or the other, on to the log-deck, an inclined floor sloping toward the saw-carriage. Down this the log rolls until stopped by a log-stop, or log-loader, Fig. 39, a double-aimed projection, which prevents it from rolling on the carriage till wanted. This stop is ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... this attempt, too, was fruitless, for the chimney, built in the old fashion, rose in a perfectly perpendicular line from the hearth to a height of nearly fourteen feet above the roof, affording in its interior scarcely the possibility of ascent, the flue being smoothly plastered, and sloping towards the top like an inverted funnel, promising, too, even if the summit were attained, owing to its great height, but a precarious descent upon the sharp and steep-ridged roof; the ashes, too, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... St. Louis, Iberville returned to his fleet, where, after consultation, he determined to make a settlement at the Bay of Biloxi. On the east side, at the mouth of the bay, as it were, there is a slight swelling of the shore, about four acres square, sloping gently to the woods in the background, and on the bay. Thus this position was fortified by nature, and the French skilfully availed themselves of these advantages. The weakest point, which was on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... a sloping lawn and was standing by the side of a little stream that gargled and bubbled in joyous career to the nearby loch. She had thrown a white shawl over her head and shoulders, and looked adorably sylphlike as she turned on hearing his footsteps; the moonlight shone on her face and was ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... be called, for a reason presently to be stated, the Judgment angle. Within the square formed by the building is seen its interior court (with one of its wells), terminated by small and fantastic buildings of the Renaissance period, which face the Giant's Stair, of which the extremity is seen sloping down ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... this later time, had flowered here —flowered with something of Aspasia's grace and something of the haughty coldness of Agrippina. And yet it was American. Here and there in the boxes was a thoroughbred portrait by Copley—the long shapely neck, the sloping shoulders, the drooping eyelids, even to the gown in which the great-grandmother ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... is used for working the edges of table-covers, mantel valances, blankets, &c., or for edging any other material. It is simply a button-hole stitch, and may be varied in many ways by sloping the stitches alternately to right and left; by working two or three together, and leaving a space between them and the next set; or by working a second row round the edge of the cloth over the first with a different shade ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin

... the natives, who had assembled in some thousands to witness the spectacle, in which he explained to them the motive and object of baptism, my husband assisted the girl down a sloping green bank which led to a beautiful stream, and walked with her into the water till he was up to his waist; then, after offering up a long and fervent prayer that this first victory over the false worship of the ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... worked in their construction. To protect them from bombs, and the men at the batteries from grape, or descending shot, a hanging roof was contrived; which was worked up and down by springs. The roof was composed of a strong rope-work netting, laid over with a thick covering of wet hides, while its sloping position was calculated to prevent shells from lodging, and to throw them off into the sea before they could burst. To render the fire of these batteries the more rapid, a kind of match had been contrived, so to be placed that all the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... sand, and she was less closely held than before. Of her rightful crew but five survived the fight; one was the sailing-master, Peters, and all were imprisoned under jailers in the forecastle. On the schooner's sloping decks, when Dolores and her party climbed aboard, were a score of nondescript pirates, besides the crew's custodians, at a loss to account for the escape of the sloop, and worked up to a pitch of nervousness where they were ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... near Kuessnacht, sloping down from behind, with rocks on either side. The travellers are visible upon the heights, before they appear on the stage. Rocks all round the stage. Upon one of the foremost a projecting cliff overgrown ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... the end, we could only knot the two together, and tie one end to the rail of the washstand. It was not long enough then, but I scrambled out and let myself down to the end, and then dropped, and by good providence managed to steady myself on the roof beneath. It was not so very sloping as roofs go, and the gutter was deep, and made a kind of little wall round the edge. I called to Vere to follow, and promised to catch her, but it took, oh, ages of coaxing and scolding before she would venture, and it was only by a miracle that we didn't both fall to the ground, for ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... blending a thousand twists and turns into one exquisite, harmonious whole. There was no discordant note, not one harsh contrast; even the hay-ricks seemed to have been modelled rather than pitched into shape; their sloping sides and finely pointed apexes giving them the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd



Words linked to "Sloping" :   slanting, gradual, diagonal, slanted, sloped, sloping trough, aslant, downward-sloping



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com