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Sponge   Listen
noun
Sponge  n.  (Formerly written also spunge)  
1.
(Zool.) Any one of numerous species of Spongiae, or Porifera.
2.
The elastic fibrous skeleton of many species of horny Spongiae (Keratosa), used for many purposes, especially the varieties of the genus Spongia. The most valuable sponges are found in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and on the coasts of Florida and the West Indies.
3.
Fig.: One who lives upon others; a pertinacious and indolent dependent; a parasite; a sponger.
4.
Any spongelike substance. Specifically:
(a)
Dough before it is kneaded and formed into loaves, and after it is converted into a light, spongy mass by the agency of the yeast or leaven.
(b)
Iron from the puddling furnace, in a pasty condition.
(c)
Iron ore, in masses, reduced but not melted or worked.
5.
(Gun.) A mop for cleaning the bore of a cannon after a discharge. It consists of a cylinder of wood, covered with sheepskin with the wool on, or cloth with a heavy looped nap, and having a handle, or staff.
6.
(Far.) The extremity, or point, of a horseshoe, answering to the heel.
Bath sponge, any one of several varieties of coarse commercial sponges, especially Spongia equina.
Cup sponge, a toilet sponge growing in a cup-shaped form.
Glass sponge. See Glass-sponge, in the Vocabulary.
Glove sponge, a variety of commercial sponge (Spongia officinalis, variety tubulifera), having very fine fibers, native of Florida, and the West Indies.
Grass sponge, any one of several varieties of coarse commercial sponges having the surface irregularly tufted, as Spongia graminea, and Spongia equina, variety cerebriformis, of Florida and the West Indies.
Horse sponge, a coarse commercial sponge, especially Spongia equina.
Platinum sponge. (Chem.) See under Platinum.
Pyrotechnical sponge, a substance made of mushrooms or fungi, which are boiled in water, dried, and beaten, then put in a strong lye prepared with saltpeter, and again dried in an oven. This makes the black match, or tinder, brought from Germany.
Sheep's-wool sponge, a fine and durable commercial sponge (Spongia equina, variety gossypina) found in Florida and the West Indies. The surface is covered with larger and smaller tufts, having the oscula between them.
Sponge cake, a kind of sweet cake which is light and spongy.
Sponge lead, or Spongy lead (Chem.), metallic lead brought to a spongy form by reduction of lead salts, or by compressing finely divided lead; used in secondary batteries and otherwise.
Sponge tree (Bot.), a tropical leguminous tree (Acacia Farnesiana), with deliciously fragrant flowers, which are used in perfumery.
Toilet sponge, a very fine and superior variety of Mediterranean sponge (Spongia officinalis, variety Mediterranea); called also Turkish sponge.
To set a sponge (Cookery), to leaven a small mass of flour, to be used in leavening a larger quantity.
To throw up the sponge, to give up a contest; to acknowledge defeat; from a custom of the prize ring, the person employed to sponge a pugilist between rounds throwing his sponge in the air in token of defeat; now, throw in the towel is more common, and has the same origin and meaning. (Cant or Slang) "He was too brave a man to throw up the sponge to fate."
Vegetable sponge. (Bot.) See Loof.
Velvet sponge, a fine, soft commercial sponge (Spongia equina, variety meandriniformis) found in Florida and the West Indies.
Vitreous sponge. See Glass-sponge.
Yellow sponge, a common and valuable commercial sponge (Spongia agaricina, variety corlosia) found in Florida and the West Indies.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sponge" Quotes from Famous Books



... is a charming shadowy dialogue between kettle-drums (struck with sponge-headed sticks) and harps, in harmonics, carrying out Berlioz's stage directions—"Les esprits de l'air se balancent quelque temps autour de Faust endormi et disparaissent peu a peu." The piece ends with a chord barely whispered on the clarinets, pppp, which, as Hadow ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... see that his was 'the best Beast of the two.' So he has remained true to his old Will Waterproof Colours—and so he was prevented from calling on you—his hand, Hallam says, swelled up like 'a great Sponge.' Ah, if he did not live on a somewhat large scale, with perpetual Visitors, I might go ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... indoors thoughtfully, with a general feeling that something like a hand had grasped his brain and was squeezing it like a sponge. He was free from his carking anxiety now, but it seemed to him that he was paying a heavy price for his liberty. Mechanically, he counted out the bank-notes, and almost as mechanically he cut his initials on the gun-metal inside the cigar-case. ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... the child as any crone of a midwife would have done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of Biggleswade's thermos bottle, and put it to his lips; and then they wrapped him up warm in some of their own woollen undergarments, and took him into the kitchen ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke

... food and exercise also helped, while for me nothing could have been better than my daily plunge in the salt water. I kept this up as long as the bath house was open and in the winter took a cold sponge and rub-down every night. So, ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... her knees. Siegmund felt slightly amused to see her stout little calves planted so firmly close together. She carefully sponged her cheeks, her pursed-up mouth, and her neck, soaping her hair, but not her ears. Then, very deliberately, she squeezed out the sponge and proceeded ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... earthly existence a baby is in a jelly-fish state, from which no one can say what he will emerge. His brain is a sponge. He receives everything and gives nothing. He is pretty to look at, and seems made for nothing but love. He coos and gurgles, he seldom does anything more intelligent than to smile, and he prefers men ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... quite an event at "Clear Spring" farm, he hastened with it to the house, finding "Aunt Sarah," as she was called by every one (Great Aunt to Mary), in the cheery farm house kitchen busily engaged kneading sponge for a loaf of rye bread, which she carefully deposited on a well-floured linen cloth, in a large ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... a sponge to be dipped in vinegar, and reached up to Him on a stick so that the dying man ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... enjoyment of these conditions, when I took into consideration the fact that I was in no way responsible for their existence. I was accepting something from the community, but giving nothing in return. I felt that in living at the Waldoria, and doing no work for the community, I was like a great sponge soaking up the life-blood of honest toil, and returning nothing for the sustenance it afforded me. I felt that I should at least go to work and do something that would help to pay for my keeping. True it was that I had the money to pay for these things, but where did the money come from? ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... sponge may be securely tied on the end of a piece of ratan, whalebone, or other flexible material, and inserted in the mouth, may be carried over the tongue down the throat against the foreign article, which may then be gently pushed before it. If this should not ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... yourselves some buns or sponge-cakes, or whatever you fancy-like,' said old Nurse, giving Cyril a shilling. 'Don't go getting jam-tarts, now—so messy at the best of times, and without forks and plates ruination to your clothes, besides your not being able to wash your hands ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit

... declared Rattleton. "Frank walked into the room a short time ago, went into his bedroom, took a sponge bath and changed his clothes, and we have been telling ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... formation of coral-reefs, and witness the gathering of sponges in the Bahamas. "These are brought to the surface by hooked poles, or sometimes by diving. When first drawn from the water they are covered with a soft gelatinous substance, as black as tar and full of organic life, the sponge, as we know, being only the ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... he, authoritatively, in virtue of his greater age and superior size, "let's have fair play. If you must fight, do it ship-shape, an', accordin' to the articles of war. We must form a ring first, you know, an' get a bottle an' a sponge and—" ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... game go out of the room. One of the inside players, who is to represent the potentate, then mounts a chair and is covered with a sheet which reaches to the ground. At the point where it touches a shoe is placed, the toe of which is just visible. In the potentate's hand is a sponge full of water. One of the players outside is then invited in; he is told to kneel down and kiss the toe; the potentate on the chair leans forward a little to bring his sponge immediately over the subject's head; and a shower-bath follows. Then another subject is admitted, ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... the superscriptions in chalk and pencil of idle authorship, would have found that it was The Retreat. Probably this would have been revealed even if the texts had been merely Bowdlerised with Indian-rubber or a sponge, because there were a ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... with Peepy, taking off his clerical hat, asking him if he remembered us, and so on. Peepy retired behind his elbow at first, but relented at the sight of sponge-cake and allowed me to take him on my lap, where he sat munching quietly. Mr. Jarndyce then withdrawing into the temporary growlery, Miss Jellyby opened a conversation with ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... whiteness, ever sinking in slow fall upon the slippery peat and the heather and the gray old stones. By and by the pools would be filled, and the hidden caves; their sides would give way; the waters would rush from the one into the other, and from all down the hill-sides, and the earth-sponge would ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... in the warm sitting-room," said she; "and Ann shall carry in some sponge cake and currant shrub, for ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May

... son, and Willie had a chance to beat the drum in the attic, and Mrs. Gillett secretly emptied Frank's haversack of its rations of pork and hard tack, and filled it again with excellent bread and butter, slices of cold lamb, and sponge cake. Moreover, a delightful repast was prepared for the visitors, at which Frank laughed at his own awkwardness, declaring that he had eaten from a tin plate so long, with his drumhead for a table, that he had almost forgotten the use of ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... should stand in a tub containing a little warm water, and a large bath sponge filled with cold water should be squeezed two or three times over the body. This should be followed by a vigorous rubbing with a towel until the skin is quite red. This may be used at three years, and often at two years. For infants a little higher temperature ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt

... 'get a chamois leather and sponge—we'll want 'em anyway—and you might give the buggy a wash down in the creek, coming home. It's sure to ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... packed for me at the Blahs this morning. A sin of omission rather than commission, though he did put my sponge-bag into my collarcase," I added musingly. "They're both round, you see. ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... Dick went on. "I ought to know. I've had some of everything. It'sh almost too good for kids. But it'sh a good thing I went in first. After I'd been in a little time I saw a sponge-cake on the table, and when I tried it, what d'ye think I found? It was as full inside of brandy-an'-sherry as it could be. All it could do to shtand! I saw d'rectly it washn't in condition come to table, and ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... made a few preliminary ascents with the balloon held captive, and then the two intrepid Frenchmen took their stand on opposite sides of the gallery, each furnished with bundles of fuel to feed the furnace, each also carrying a large wet sponge with which to extinguish the flames whenever the machine might catch fire. On casting off the balloon rose readily, and reaching 3,000 feet, drifted away ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... large data file entirely into {core} before working on it. This may be contrasted with the strategy of reading a small piece at a time, processing it, and then reading the next piece. "This program slurps in a 1K-by-1K matrix and does an FFT." See also {sponge}. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... rise from his grave and gaze upon even our best landscape paintings he would certainly take very little pleasure in them; he would consider them daubs executed after a recipe according to which one can obtain the most beautiful foliage by throwing a sponge dipped in green paint ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... presence except the use of gunpowder and fire-arms, the culture of tobacco and the habit of smoking, the naturalization of a few foreign words and of several strange diseases, and, as an odd addition, the introduction of sponge-cake, still everywhere used as a favorite viand. As for Christianity, the very name of Christ became execrated, and was employed as the most abhorrent word that could be spoken in Japan. The Christian faith was believed to be absolutely extirpated, and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... each give different answers. Again, a bright day or a cloudy, the presence of a slight haze, or the juxtaposition of other colours, alters it very much; for the dandelion is not a glazed colour, like the buttercup, but sensitive. It is like a sponge, and adds to its own hue that which is passing, sucking ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... purchaser took his treasure to Ribet, the first Parisian picture-cleaner of the day, to be cleaned. Ribet set to work; but we may fancy his surprise as the superficial impasto of Zincke washed off beneath the sponge, and Shakespeare became a female in a lofty headgear adorned ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... so she can ride herd on the Kid," Pink informed then. "I heard the Little Doctor tell her to pack up, and 'never mind if she did have sponge all set!' Countess seemed to think her bread was a darned sight more important than the Old Man. That's the way with women. They'll ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... as it were, pushed out of the body—appearing as sensible heat. And whenever any body is expanded, its specific heat is increased; and the additional quantity of heat requisite is, as it were, sucked in from surrounding bodies—so producing cold. This action may be compared to that of a wet sponge from which, when compressed, a portion of the water is forced out, and when the sponge is allowed to expand, the water is drawn back. This effect is manifested by the increase of temperature in air-compressing machines, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... Be ye gracious, groves and mountains, Full of grace, ye darksome thickets, Peace and, plenty to my cattle, Through the pleasant days of summer, The Creator's warmest season. "Knippana, O King of forests, Thou the gray-beard of the woodlands, Watch thy dogs in fen and fallow, Lay a sponge within one nostril, And an acorn in the other, That they may not scent my cattle; Tie their eyes with silken fillets, That they may not see my herdlings, May not see my cattle grazing. "Should all this seem inefficient, Drive away thy barking children, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... to disappear; and the whole weed, accustomed at times to long drought, acquires the habit of drinking in water greedily at its rootlets after every rain, and storing it away for future use in its thick, sponge-like, and water-tight tissues. To prevent undue evaporation, the surface also is covered with a thick, shiny skin—a sort of vegetable macintosh, which effectually checks all unnecessary transpiration. Of this desert type, then, the cactus is the furthest possible term. ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... soul,' thought Mildred, 'even though she does dress shabbily. It is pure kindness of her to have me here; she doesn't want the three pounds a week I pay her. But I had to pay something. I couldn't sponge on her hospitality for six months... I wonder she doesn't say ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... all be saved:" the second all be is a most unnecessary tautology. The poem was perfect and faultless, if you could have let it alone. I wonder how your mischievous flippancy could help maiming that most new and beautiful expression, "sponge Of sins;" I should not have been surprised, as you love verses too full of feet, if you have changed it to "that scrubbing-brush ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... feeling that he had forgotten something. It wasn't the spare sponge; it wasn't the extra shaving-brush; it wasn't the second pair of bedroom slippers. Just for a moment the sun went behind a cloud as he wondered if he had included the reserve razor-strop; but no, ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... some unique auxiliaries to the painting which added to its spirited effect. These were genuine wooden and iron implements, and were prominently disposed round about the figure: a bundle of nails; the hammer to drive them; the sponge; the reed that supported it; the cup of vinegar; the ladder for the ascent of the cross; the spear that pierced the Saviour's side. The crown of thorns was made of real thorns, and was nailed to the sacred head. In some Italian church-paintings, even by the old masters, the Saviour ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... life has been enlivened, the old relationships have gained a new value, the old gossip is taken up with a comfortable zest; the old rooms are the best, after all; the homely language is better than the outlandish tongue; it is a comfort to have done with squeezing the sponge and cramming the trunk: it is good to be ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... classes, thus: "The first may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in, and it runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes every thing, and returns it merely in the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... rod with a sponge at the end. It is introduced into the esophagus or larynx to remove ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... Genuine radicalism is only to be respected when it understands the connexion of things and is not afraid of consequences. It must understand—and I shall make it clear—that its rapid advance will kill culture; and the proper conclusion is that it ought to despise culture, not to sponge on it. The early Christians abolished all the heathen rubbish and abominations, the early Radicals would have hurried, in the first instance, to ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau

... A man always promises that when he wants a girl to be kind to him. But why should he stick to it? What can he get by marrying Nina—a penniless girl, with a pauper for a father? The Trendellsohns have squeezed that sponge dry already." ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... first round sparred the other under the chin with such superabundant energy that he immediately became a recumbent for a lengthy period, and, on being elevated to a chair, only recaptured sufficient consciousness to abandon the sponge. ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... Simpson, and his photograph was in every shop window, in honour of the man who first used chloroform as an anaesthetic. In former days they tried to dull pain by using the hasheesh of the Arabs. Dr. Simpson's wet sponge was a blessing put into the hands of the surgeon. The millennium for the souls of men will be when the doctors have discovered the millennium ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... makes Troo especially interesting is that the whole height is like a sponge, perforated with passages giving access to halls, some of which are circular, and into store-chambers; and most of the houses are wholly or in part underground. The caves that are inhabited are staged ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... were left. King took command of them, put up a tent on deck to escape the contagion, ministered to the sick, buried the seventeen who died, was compelled to go below with his respiratory organs masked by a sponge soaked in vinegar, and through all this navigated the vessel to the ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... use, the Umbrella should be protected from dust and injury of any kind by its silk or oilcloth case. When dirty, alpaca umbrellas are best cleaned with a clothes-brush; but brushing is useless for those of silk. Ordinary dirt may be removed from a silk umbrella by means of a clean sponge and cold water, or if the soil should be so tenacious that this will not remove it, a piece of linen rag, dipped in spirits of wine or unsweetened gin, will generally effect the ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster

... moisture and air. The necessary conditions are supplied in the very best way by growing them on sponge, but it would be difficult to raise enough for a large class in this manner. Place a piece of moist sponge in a jelly-glass, or any glass that is larger at the top, so that the sponge may not sink to the bottom, and pour some water into the glass, but not so much as to touch the sponge. ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell

... opened before the feet of Elizabeth. School was filled with wonder and delight. She absorbed knowledge like a sponge in the water, and rushed eagerly from one study to another, showing marvellous aptitude, and bringing to every task ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill

... conductor, who had been warned by the spirits never to travel without a flower of some sort carried between his lips, and who had preserved his own life and the lives of his passengers for many years by this simple device. His presence lent the sponge cake and rhubarb pie and baked beans a supernatural interest, and reconciled Basil to the toughness of the athletic bird which the mystical ex-partner of fate had sold him; he justly reflected that if he had heard the story of the restaurateur's superstition in a foreign ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... point of attack by deposits of nacre. Thus, a slight protuberance arises which becomes the base of a blister or button or the starting-point of a pear-shaped gem. Many a lovely gem is, therefore, nothing more than the imperishable record of aggression on the part of a flabby sponge on a resourceful oyster. Occasionally valuable pearls are found within huge blisters. Such pearls originate, no doubt, in the ordinary way, but, becoming an intolerable nuisance on account of increasing size, are confined ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... face of ... Personally I have no objection to divorce. If a man marries a woman under the impression that she is a good cook, and after the waning of the honeymoon finds that she does not know the difference between sponge-cake and a plain common garden sponge, why should he be forced forevermore to court dyspepsia on her account? I fail to see either justice or reason in this, though as to the method of divorce I cannot ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... arose from the earth, on which he had prostrated himself, and walking into the hut where the patient lay extended, he drew a sponge from a small silver box, dipped perhaps in some aromatic distillation, for when he put it to the sleeper's nose, he sneezed, awoke, and looked wildly around. He was a ghastly spectacle as he sat up almost naked on ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... I became a pupil in a gymnasium, and worked there regularly. One thing seemed strange in the way they treated us. When we were as hot as possible with exercise, at the moment of leaving off and changing our dress, men came to the dressing-rooms to sponge us with ice-cold water. They said it did nothing but good, and certainly I never felt any ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... postpone till a future occasion a discussion of all the structures of this remarkable substance and of the resemblances and differences which they present to the mineral opals on the one hand, and to those of the opals of animal origin found in sponge spicules, radiolarians, and the rocks formed from them, some of which have recently been admirably investigated by Dr. G.J. Hinde (Phil. Trans., ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... and more immediate and practical end in view. A primeval forest is a great sponge which absorbs and distills the rain water. And when it is destroyed the result is apt to be an alternation of flood and drought. Forest fires ultimately make the land a desert, and are a detriment to all that portion of the State tributary to the streams through the woods where they occur. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... with whom he found himself in remarkable contact. The ends of the world brought together by one war! How could his memory ever hold all that had come to him? But it did. Passion liberated it. He saw now that his eye was a lens, his mind a sponge, his heart ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... the liquid into its pores, and swells. The same thing happens in wet weather to gates and even doors; the wood swells, so that if they fitted at all tightly before, they can then scarcely be opened. Anything that swells in this manner by absorption is said to "plim." A sponge does not "plim"; it is not apparently larger when full of water than previously, and it is still limp. To "plim "up implies a certain amount of enlargement, and consequent tightness or firmness. Snow-flakes are called "blossoms." The word snow-flake is unknown. A big baby is always ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... be as different as possible in the hands of Ali. With him they will be gentle and docile as lambs." Ali had, indeed, given proof of this; for, approaching the animals, who had been got upon their legs with considerable difficulty, he rubbed their foreheads and nostrils with a sponge soaked in aromatic vinegar, and wiped off the sweat and foam that covered their mouths. Then, commencing a loud whistling noise, he rubbed them well all over their bodies for several minutes; then, undisturbed by the noisy crowd collected ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Maclear. The havildar demoralised. The discomfited chief. Beaches Marenga's town. The earth-sponge. Description of Marenga's town. Rumours of Mazitu. Musa and the Johanna men desert. Beaches Kimsusa's. His delight at seeing the Doctor once more. The fat ram. Kimsusa relates his experience of Livingstone's advice. Chuma finds relatives. Kimsusa solves the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... Rotifer—we are thinking of Hydatina—has nine hundred odd cells, whereas the Protozoon has only one, except in forms like Volvox. Secondly, it is a luminous fact that every many-celled animal from sponge to man that multiplies in the ordinary way begins at the beginning again as a "single cell," the fertilised egg-cell. It is, of course, not an ordinary single cell that develops into an earthworm ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... capacious barns where knowledge is stored like hay to become musty because it is never used. I have seen hundreds of boys of this character, graduate with great honor in college (where the only criterion applied was the capacity to absorb knowledge as a sponge does water), only to be eclipsed in after years by the boys who graduated at the foot of the class, who were practically in disgrace on Commencement day. In our popular public school and collegiate system, there is too much stuffing of knowledge, and too little attention given ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... of quantitative analysis implies a necessity for all possible care in guarding against loss of material or the introduction of foreign matter. The laboratory desk, and all apparatus, should be scrupulously neat and clean at all times. A sponge should always be ready at hand, and desk and filter-stands should be kept dry and in good order. Funnels should never be allowed to drip upon the base of the stand. Glassware should always be wiped with a clean, lintless towel just before use. All filters and solutions ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot

... their dreams to those who are left, that long night's march in the desert. It was like a dream itself, the silence of it as they were borne forward upon those soft, shuffling sponge feet, and the flitting, flickering figures which oscillated upon every side of them. The whole universe seemed to be hung as a monstrous time-dial in front of them. A star would glimmer like a lantern on the very level of their path. They looked again, and it was a hand's-breadth ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle

... an Artist, Mr. Lewis Hind invented a new kind of art criticism—a pleasing blend of the Morelli narrative (minus the scientific method) and Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour. He contrives a young man, ignorant like the Russian, Lermoliev, who receives certain artistic impressions, faithfully recorded by Mr. Hind and visualised for the reader in a series of engaging half-tone illustrations. The hero's name is itself suggestive—Claude Williamson ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... our Lord, at Damascus, which is a very fair and rich city, and full of all manner of merchandise; and I have been by Byzantium, and have seen all the holy relics there kept; to wit, the cross of our Lord, and His coat, and the sponge and reed wherewith the heathen Jews ['Cursed be they!' interposed Friar Andrew] did give Him to drink, and more blessed relics else than I have the time to write of, the which nathless be named, as I think, in the Travels ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt

... they cried. "Nevertheless, dispose your engaging band of mendicants about the place freely until it suits your refined convenience to proceed elsewhere, O meritorious Yuen Yan, for your unassuming qualities have won our consistent regard; but an insatiable sponge has already been laid upon the well-spring of our benevolence and the tenacity of our closed ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... the young and I have seen it lying down with the aged in the dust o' their graves. It is a big book—the one we are now opening. God help us! It has more pages than all the days o' your life. Just think o' your body, O brave and tender youth! It is like a sponge. How it takes things in an' holds 'em an' feeds upon 'em! A part o' every apple ye eat sinks down into yer blood an' bones. Ye can't get it out. It's the same way with the books ye read an' the thoughts ye enjoy. They go down into ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... was as great as his voice and his appetite, and he would not sponge on the patrols which had a full membership and were busy with their own concerns. The rock on which he had stood all winter had split in three and there was no place for him on ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... the books aloud to Sally, who had a child's passion for stories, and who could not have spelled them out for herself. He read badly, but to her it was the flower of scholastic accomplishment, and her untrained brain, sponge-like in its acquisitiveness, soaked up many new words and phrases which fell again quaintly from her lips in talk. Lescott had spent a week picking out those books. He had wanted them to argue for him; to feed the boy's hunger for education, and give him some forecast of ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... vouches for the snobbishness, "the mean admiration of mean things," the devotion to the slimmest appearances of rank. All this is credible enough, but, if there existed a society as dull and base as that which we meet in the pages of "Mr. Soapy Sponge," and Surtees's other novels, assuredly it was no theme for the great and generous spirit of Sir Walter. The worst kind of manners always prevail among people whom moderns call "the second-rate smart," and these are drawn in "St. Ronan's Well." But we may believe that, even there, manners ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... things. She took up the kitty, and played to her on the "music," till Ruth's ears were "on edge." After this the harmonica fell into a dish of soft soap, and in cleaning it with ashes and a sponge, ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May

... Oh, the tundra sponge it was golden brown, and some was a bright blood-red; And the reindeer moss gleamed here and there like the tombstones of the dead. And in and out and around about the little trail ran clear, And we hated it with a deadly ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... "Ah me, what brightness wasted upon gloom! (Aloud) Oh fling thy sponge across this wretched face, A patch uncouth ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore

... must be of successful lily culture. Have you ever tried to grow our hardiest native lilies like the red-wood, Turk's cap, and Canada bell-lily in an open border where the porous earth, filled by ice crystal, was raised by the frost to the consistency of bread sponge? I did this not many years ago and the poor dears looked pinched and woebegone and wholly unlike their sturdy sisters of meadow and upland wood edges. Afterward, in trying to dig some of these lilies from ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... Cathartic with calomel. Divide the wounded artery. Bind sponge on the puncture. If coffee or charcoal internally? If ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... for his good companionship in drinking, Demosthenes could not refrain from cavilling at these praises; the first, he said, was a quality which might well enough become a rhetorician, the second a woman, and the last was only the property of a sponge; no one of them was the proper commendation ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... flamingoes and the beautiful hummingbird, as well as wild geese, ducks, pigeons, hawks, green parrots and doves. The waters of the Bahamas swarm with fish; the turtle procured here is particularly fine, and the sponge fishery is of importance. In some islands there are rich salt ponds, but their working has decreased. The portion of Nassau harbour known as the Sea Gardens exhibits an extraordinarily ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... ought never to be put into the fire, and that a razor should be dipped in warm water previous to its being used. Various articles were collected from individuals in the meeting, and successively presented to them, all of which they described. India-rubber, cork, sponge, pocket combs, &c. A small pocket thermometer, with its tube and its mercury, its principles and use, and even the Turkey-leather on the cover, were all fully described. After explaining the nature and properties of coal-gas, one of the boys ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... practises this method of shelter. It seizes a large sponge and maintains it firmly over its carapace with the help of the posterior pair of limbs. The sponge continues to prosper and to spread over the Crustacean who has adopted it. (Fig. 23.) The two beings do not seem ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... about the picture my mirror gives them, and it's natural they should, especially comin' from a Yankee; and they call me a great bragger. But that's nothin' new; doctors do the same when a feller cures a poor wretch they have squeezed like a sponge, ruinated, and given up as past hope. They sing out Quack. But I don't care; I have a right to brag nationally and individually, and I'd be no good if I didn't take my own part. Now, though I say ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... little bundle, bandbox and umbrella," is a burden to herself and a terror to others. Let the satchel contain a flask of some invigorating toilet water—Florida, lavender or whatever is most refreshing, with a soft sponge to bathe the face, hands and wrists, and thereby many a headache can be warded off. If traveling in a sleeping coach, a larger valise should be carried and ought to contain a pretty loose gown of dark silk or wool to serve as a slumber robe, since clad in this one may safely venture from ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... the strength by the quantity of fluid in the battery, so far as volume is concerned, and by means of the plunger as respects intensity. The electrodes should be dampened with warm water. Let the sponge-roll, [a very thin expansion of sponge, quilted upon a muslin lining, and enveloping one of the tin electrodes], be made the positive pole, and be placed under the coccyx—lowest part of the spine. Then attach the positive cord; that is, the cord connected with the negative post, to another ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark

... to gold. Behind her seat, bags filled with coin were piled up to the ceiling. On her right and on her left the floor was hidden by pyramids of guineas. On a sudden the door flies open. The Pretender rushes in, a sponge in one hand, in the other a sword which he shakes at the Act of Settlement. The beautiful Queen sinks down fainting. The spell by which she has turned all things around her into treasure is broken. The money bags shrink like pricked bladders. The piles of gold ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... a single cloud. Tresler was tired, stiff, and consumed by a sponge-like thirst, for he was unused to long hours in the saddle. And he had found a dreary monotony in riding over the endless ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... haemorrhage or a bony splinter. The physiologists imitate this process of nature when they wish, for example, to obtain, in animals under experiment, a state of complete immobility. But did the first surgeon who thought of trepanning the skull in order to exert on the brain, by means of a sponge, a certain degree of compression, ever imagine that an analogous procedure had long been employed in the insect world, and that these clumsy methods were merely child's play beside the astonishing feats ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... his back by all the pillows that had been saved from the fire. His chest was bare, and covered with blood; and a man, Dr. Seignebos, with his coat off, and his sleeves rolled up above the elbows, was bending over him, and holding a sponge in one hand and a probe in the other, seemed to be engaged in a delicate ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... accident might happen to the yacht, and with the lantern and some bed-clothes, he returned to her. He swept up the half-burned shavings, and threw them overboard. There was not a vestige of the fire left, and he swabbed up the water with a sponge. Making his bed on the transom, he lay down to think over the events of the evening. He went to sleep after a while, and we will leave him in this oblivious condition while we follow Laud Cavendish, who, it cannot be denied, was in a most unhappy frame of mind. He ran the ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... his bare shoulder. The whole of Paul's right arm and shoulder was a large open wound, which seemed to have been caused by a burn or scald, and must have been extremely painful. The doctor was bending over him, applying a cooling lotion to the injured place with a small piece of sponge. He turned sharply round on Daddy Tantaine's entrance; and so accustomed were these men to read each other's faces at a glance that Hortebise saw at once what had happened; for Tantaine's expression plainly said, "Is Flavia mad to be here?" while the eyes of Hortebise ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... been but a few hours before in deadly strife. The basest lie which the murderous contrivers of this Rebellion have told is that which tries to make out a difference of race in the men of the North and South. It would be worth a year of battles to abolish this delusion, though the great sponge of war that wiped it out were moistened with the best blood of the land. My Rebel was of slight, scholastic habit, and spoke as one accustomed to tread carefully among the parts of speech. It made my heart ache to see him, a man finished in the ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Chippendale mirror hanging on the opposite wall, and beheld the douce figure of Miss Harding with a Paisley shawl draped over her black silk shoulders, and I breathed again, and said primly that I should be very pleased, and were the dear little ones allowed currants, or were they limited to plain sponge cake? ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... who was perfectly at ease was Fougas. He had passed the sponge over his pranks; out of all the evil he had done, he retained no ill will against any one. Very paternal with Clementine, very gracious with M. and Mme. Renault, he evinced for Leon the ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... Lanites, who is largely interested in the trade at Limasol. The old commanderia was sufficiently sweet to occasion a roughness in the throat, and each quality was far too luscious for English taste, but might have been agreeable to sip like Tokay, by soaking a sponge biscuit. The utterly rude method of producing native wines, which can scarcely be dignified by the term "manufacture," is a sufficient explanation of their inferior quality, but at the same time it is a proof ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... bloodless famine, are not the poor the first that sacrifice their lives to hunger? If war thunders in the trembling country's lap, are not the poor those that are exposed to the enemy's sword and outrage? If the plague, like a loaded sponge, flies, sprinkling poison through a populous kingdom, the poor are the fruit that are shaken from the burdened tree; while the rich, furnished with the helps of fortune, have means to wind out themselves, and turn ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various

... much younger, remains vividly impressed on my memory, and it is the same with Tzschirner's lessons, the knowledge I acquired between my fifteenth and seventeenth year is effaced as completely as though I had passed a sponge over the slate of my memory. A chasm yawns between these periods of instruction, and I cannot ascribe this circumstance entirely to the amusements which withdrew my thoughts from study; for they continued under Tzschirner's rule, though with some restrictions. I wish I could believe that everything ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... laughing as he saw the big, huge-whiskered quartermaster in a side cabin, seated on one bucket, with another full of salt water before him, an apron, made out of a piece of canvas, round his waist, and a large sponge, with a piece of soap in his hand, washing away at the little fellow. The baby seemed to enjoy the cold water amazingly, and kicked and splashed about, and spluttered and cooed with abundant glee, ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... current of air playing upon all sides, which keeps the exterior of the candle cool. No fuel would serve for a candle which has not the property of giving this cup, except such fuel as the Irish bogwood, where the material itself is like a sponge, and holds its own fuel. You see now why you would have had such a bad result if you were to burn these beautiful candles that I have shewn you, which are irregular, intermittent in their shape, and cannot therefore have that nicely-formed ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday

... Justinian is a man; he is a prince; does he not dread for himself a similar reverse of fortune? I can write no more: my grief oppresses me. Send me, I beseech you, my dear Pharas, send me, a lyre, [30] a sponge, and a loaf of bread." From the Vandal messenger, Pharas was informed of the motives of this singular request. It was long since the king of Africa had tasted bread; a defluxion had fallen on his eyes, the effect of fatigue or incessant weeping; and he wished to solace the melancholy hours, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... upper spaces with two groups of wrestling angels, the one bearing a huge cross, the other a column, in the air. The cross and whipping-post are the chief emblems of Christ's Passion. The crown of thorns is also there, the sponge, the ladder, and the nails. It is with no merciful intent that these signs of our Lord's suffering are thus exhibited. Demonic angels, tumbling on clouds like Leviathans, hurl them to and fro in brutal wrath above the crowd of souls, as though ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... meats, mushrooms, toadstools, and other things; if the pupil of the eye is as small as a pin-head, and the sick man is drowsy, he thinks of opium; if something seems to have caught hold of the patient's heart, and to be squeezing it like a sponge, he thinks of digitalis; if the poor victim is being worked like a puppet, and his pupils are large with fear, he thinks of strychnine; if there is great thirst, colic, and cramps in the ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... my wrists, and I saw that one of the men who had sprung from his place of concealment was pouring some liquid from a bottle upon a sponge. I caught a whiff of its odour—an odour too familiar to me—the sickly ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... the matter with you? I ain't sick. What you got in that tumbler? Water! What in time do I want of any more water? Don't I look as if I'd had water enough to last me one spell? I'm—consarn it all, I'm a reg'lar sponge! How far off is Kenelm's from here? How long will it ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... baked in individual molds. Unmold on rounds of sponge cake a little larger than the custard molds, cover with meringue creamed with almond extract. Sprinkle with sugar and brown. Decorate with blanched ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various

... (Kvaen Marja, the maid) pulled us, cowering and reluctant, out of our warm beds, where we lay snug like birds in their nests, between the reindeer skin and the sheepskin covering. I remember how I stood asleep and tottering on the floor, until I got a shower of cold water from the bathing-sponge over my back and became wide awake. Then to jump into our clothes! And now for the lessons! It was a problem how to get a peep at them during the scant quarter hour, while the breakfast was being devoured down in the dining-room with mother, who sat and poured out tea before ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... families still kept the custom of spending their Sabbaths together. And one Sabbath Thaine showed Leigh the books and slate and sponge and pencils he was to take to school the next week. Leigh, who had been pleased with all of them, turned to her guardian, ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... gum and us not seein' them. Every drop of it we use should be scalded well, and oh, ma, I wonder anyone of us is alive for we're not half clean! The poison pours out of the skin night and day, carbolic acid she said, and every last wan o' us should have a sponge bath at night—that's just to slop yerself all up and down with a rag, and an oliver in the mornin'. Ma, what's an ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... was particularly rude to Colonel Newcome and Clive. On Ethel's birthday she had a small party chiefly of girls of her own age who came and played and sang together and enjoyed such mild refreshments as sponge cake, jellies, tea, and the like. The Colonel, who was invited to this little party, sent a fine present to his favourite Ethel; and Clive and his friend J. J. made a funny series of drawings, representing the life of a young lady as they imagined it, and drawing her progress from her cradle ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... forest against the horizontal clouds. The three crosses are put on the extreme right of the picture, and its centre is occupied by the executioners, one of whom, standing on a ladder, receives from the other at once the sponge and the tablet with the letters INRI. The Madonna and St. John are on the extreme left, superbly painted, like all the rest, but quite subordinate. In fact, the whole mind of the painter seems to have been set upon making ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin



Words linked to "Sponge" :   mop, sponge genus, sponge mop, collect, sponge morel, learner, wipe off, sponger, invertebrate, sponge gourd, sponge bath, chuck up the sponge, freeload, bum, vegetable sponge, spongy, absorbent material, mop up, pull together, Madeira sponge, assimilator, leech, cadge, sponge down, sponge off, glass sponge, follower, sponge on, score out, mooch, garner



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