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Spool   Listen
noun
Spool  n.  A piece of cane or reed with a knot at each end, or a hollow cylinder of wood with a ridge at each end, used to wind thread or yarn upon.
Spool stand, an article holding spools of thread, turning on pins, used by women at their work.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spool" Quotes from Famous Books



... drawers is amazing. So great is their delicacy of touch that they can make a thousand yards of silver thread out of a silver dollar; and if you will give one of them a sovereign, in a few moments he will reel off a spool of gold wire as fine as No. 80 cotton, and he does it with the ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... Smite the Sudden Spool, and spring Upon the Swift Elusive String, Thus you learn to catch the wary Mister Mouse or ...
— The Kitten's Garden of Verses • Oliver Herford

... by a letter received in Paris from Dr. Gale, that a spool of five miles of my wire was loaned to you, and I perceive that you have already made some ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... broken stumps of wall to the shelter of a wood, and there, with bullets from snipers occasionally sending twigs, leaves, and even branches pattering down around me, with shells bursting all round, I continued to film the general attack until the spool in the camera ran out. To have changed spools there would have been the height of folly, so I plunged down a side path, where in the shelter of a dell, with thick undergrowth, I loaded up my camera again, and utterly careless ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... giggled Delia. Gypsy, all in a flutter at having her name read right out in school, and divided between her horror lest the kitten she had tied to a spool of thread at recess, had been discovered, and an awful suspicion that Mr. Jonathan Jones saw her run across his plowed field after chestnuts, went slowly up ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... said the Major, as Gwyn went on counting and the reel turned steadily on, Joe turning one finger into a brake, and checking the spool so that it would not give ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... this branch is slid along the rule carrying the graduations, a gearing causes the revolution of a wheel, D, which carries figures corresponding to such graduation. At the same time, two feed rollers, E, cause a small portion of the paper tape (which is wound upon a spool, A) to move forward and wind around a receiving spool, B. After the apparatus has been made accurately to embrace the trunk of the tree to be measured, it is removed and a pressure given to the lever, H, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... grimly. "Wallace and Simms stole an information sound spool from the capsule. On that spool was a detailed description of the energy lock and the adjustable light-key. There were only seven keys in the system up to now. If we don't catch Wallace and Simms, there'll ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell

... for Susan D.'s sewing, the child came most obediently and affectionately; but her thimble was nowhere to be found, and she had mislaid her spool, and, finally, when everything was found, she had not sat still ten minutes, when she was "so thirsty; and must go and get a glass of water, please, ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards

... lines of glue. Hold the shaft under your left arm while with the left thumb, forefinger, and middle finger steady the feathers as they are respectively put in place. With one end of a piece of cotton basting thread in your teeth and the spool in your right hand, start binding the ribs down to the arrow shaft. After a few turns proceed up the shaftment, adjusting the feathers in position as you rotate the arrow. Let your basting thread slip between the bristles of the feather ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... 85 per cent. absolute alcohol, 10 per cent. water, and 5 per cent. carbolic acid, and is then stored in 90 per cent. alcohol. (3) Cladius recommends that the catgut, just as it is bought from the dealers, be loosely rolled on a spool, and then immersed in a solution of—iodine, 1 part; iodide of potassium, 1 part; distilled water, 100 parts. At the end of eight days it is ready for use. Moschcowitz has found that the tensile strength of catgut so prepared is increased if ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... to refuse this request, although at home he was not allowed to enter his mother's kitchen; so the giant carried him in and placed him on a high shelf, where Fiddlecumdoo seated himself on a spool of thread and ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum

... thread, and it is tangled, we pass the spool across and through the skein, now this way, now that way; even so, to finish off the War, we shall send embassies hither and thither ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... optimistic propaganda. Perfectly normal—when one found only three customers in a large department store! Perfectly normal—when the big steamship offices presented in their windows bare blue seas which had once been charted with the going and coming of German ships! Perfectly normal—when the spool of the killed and wounded rolled out by yards like that of a ticker on a busy day on the Stock Exchange! Perfectly normal—when women tried to smile in the streets with eyes which had plainly ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... road rushes toward you, as if a great spool under your wheels were winding it up. The house rushes on with it; grows nearer; details emerge. You see the great square chimney; the tiny window-panes, six to a sash, some of them turned by time, not into the purple ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... a snarl of thread in the work-basket. Don't you remember, the spool rolled under the table, and nobody saw it go, and the boys kicked it up and made it into a mess, an' Mamsie put it into the little bag, an' I was to pick it out when I got time? If you only could do that, Phronsie, just ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney

... upon a thimble after much careful thought. "Oh, no—not that! I don't mean the kind that won't take a knot at the end; what I want is the kind that won't tangle and snarl, even if a child's fingers are tired. There, that's it!" and she tucked a smiling little spool into ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... hadn't. And there, in the undeveloped spool lies HIS MAJESTY superimposed on the back of the Bosch piglet we had photographed outside Ypres. Isn't that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various

... what we will do," spoke the papa giant. "I know, I'll get a spool of thread from the lady giant next door, and that will answer for a table for you, Uncle Wiggily, and you can use another toothpick for ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis

... took from his pockets his spool of very fine wire, attached it low down to a slim young pine, carried it across to the edge of the cliff, and attached the other end to a sapling on the edge of the ledge. On this wire he hung his cowbell and ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... almost every thing that could by any sort of chance, or mischance, get into a young lady's work-basket, was there in rare confusion. Jessie's love of order was not very large. Her temper was often sorely tried by the trouble which her careless habit caused her when seeking a pair of scissors, or a spool of cotton. It was so to-day. She plunged her hand deep into the basket, in search of the colored worsteds required for her uncle's slippers. After feeling round awhile, she drew forth a tangled mess, which she placed on ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester

... loop, and stitch after stitch, by hand. Madam told the workmen who she was, and learned that one had been at work six months on his picture; it was a female figure kneeling to a colossal pair of legs, destined to support a warrior, whose upper proportions waited to be drawn out of the spool-baskets. Another had been a year at work on a headless Virgin with a babe in her arms, finished only to the eyes. Sometimes ten, or even twenty years, are expended by one man upon a single piece of tapestry; but the patience of the workmen is not more wonderful than the art with which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... Cleopathera! I'm sorry you're dead; An' whin lavin' this wondherful needle behind Had ye thought of bequathin' a spool of your thread An' yer thimble an' scissors, it ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... and guide-books, a bottle of soda mint tablets, a spool of dental floss, a Bath bun, a bit of gray frizz that aunt Celia pins into her steamer cap, a spectacle case, a brandy flask, and a bonbon box, which broke and scattered cloves and cardamom seeds. (I hope he guessed aunt Celia is a dyspeptic, and not intemperate!) All this ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... permanent horseshoe magnets, fixed parallel with each other and an inch apart. A very thin spool or bobbin of insulated wire is suspended, like the pendulum of a clock, between these permanent magnets, in such a manner that the bobbin hangs just in front of the four poles. A counterpoise is fixed at the top of the pendulum bar, which permits the adjusting of the antagonistic ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... effort must begin at once, for time pressed. The old formulas had failed, and a new one had to be made, but, after all, the object was not extravagant or eccentric. One sought no absolute truth. One sought only a spool on which to wind the thread of history without breaking it. Among indefinite possible orbits, one sought the orbit which would best satisfy the observed movement of the runaway star Groombridge, 1838, commonly called Henry Adams. As term of a nineteenth-century ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... The spool was as big around as David's body, and the stuff that looked like rubber tubing looked all twisty, as if there ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins

... Sundries.—Shoe bags, soiled-clothes bags, spool and thimble bags, whisk broom cases, comb and brush cases, hairpin holders, pin cushions, paper and letter racks, bureau covers, stand covers, lamp ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 3, March, 1889 • Various

... also provided, for some reason or other, eight small glass cups, into which he placed the legs of the two tables, and in a business-like manner he set out on the large stand a piece of white paper, a pencil, and a spool of black thread. It is characteristic of Miss Jeremy, and of her own ignorance of the methods employed in professional seances, that she was as much interested and ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... tells about Moses and the Lamb. I'll tell you a story, Helen, about a Lamb that was slain. I've told you a great many, but never one like this. Come nearer, for I can't speak very loud. Take care, the thread is sliding off the spool. Cut it, doctor, cut it; it's winding round my heart so tight! Oh, my God! ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... fairy-land," she gasped, as they rolled down past Forty-seventh Street. "Oh, look at the kitten chasing the spool, all ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... out a big coil of something that looked like rubber tubing which was wound on a great wooden spool. ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins

... the value of an ohm can be obtained if we remember that a 300-foot length of common iron telegraph wire has a resistance of 1 ohm. An approximate ohm for rough work in the laboratory may be made by winding 9 feet 5 inches of number 30 copper wire on a spool or arranging it in ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... fence. He had never done this before. The spools of wire weighed on him heavily. A crowbar thrust through the core made them a sort of axle with which to carry it. Thus they walked forward, revolving the heavy spool with the greatest care while the strand of wire unwound behind them. Every once in a while a coil would kink, or buckle back, or strike as swiftly and as viciously as a snake. The sharp barbs caught at their clothing, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... thread when sewing is shown herewith. The dimensions may be varied to admit any number or size of spools. Each pocket is made to take a certain size spool, the end of the thread being run through the cloth front for obtaining the length for threading a needle. This will keep the thread from becoming tangled and enable it always to be readily drawn out to the required length. —Contributed by Miss L. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... sleeper, dome car; surface car, tram car, trolley car; box car, box wagon; horse car [U.S.]; bullet train, shinkansen [Jap.], cannonball, the Wabash cannonball, lightning express; luggage van; mail, mail car, mail van. shovel, spool, spatula, ladle, hod, hoe; spade, spaddle^, loy^; spud; pitchfork; post hole digger. [powered construction vehicles] tractor, steamshovel, backhoe, fork lift, earth mover, dump truck, bulldozer, grader, caterpillar, trench ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Raybold. "That's nonsense. He's not in the least like an actor. Anybody could see by his tread and his air that he's never been on the stage. He's more like a travelling salesman. The next thing he'll do will be to pull out of that bag some samples of spool thread or ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton

... exclaimed Mother, rendering the smile from out over her glasses. "I didn't see you all day yesterday and not the day before, neither. But I put it down to a work-hold on us both, and didn't worry none. And now here you are, with some of the little folks! Here's a empty spool for little Bettie," and she held out the treasure to the toddler, who sidled up to her knee with confidence to grasp ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... driver from the car. Even Madaline forgot her own timidity, and seeing a switch button for what she thought to be lights, she crossed to the corner and quickly pressed a tiny button. As she did so she felt something like a wire with a spool attached, and almost unconsciously she gave the spool a yank. Instantly a flood of light of marvelous brilliancy ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis

... we are winding, It chances to tangle, then, as perchance you may know, through the skein This way and that still the spool we keep passing till it is finally clear all again: So to untangle the War and its errors, ambassadors out on all sides we will send This way and that, here, there and round about—soon you will find that the War ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes

... of the boss's ideas of scientific management. Nothing in the factory was ever where anyone could find it. It almost drove me crazy. What was my joy then when one day the boss told me to put the spools in order. There was a mess of every-colored spool, mixed with every other color, tangled ends, dust, buttons, loose snappers, more dust, beads, more spools, more dust. A certain color was wanted by a stitcher. There was nothing to do but paw. The spool, like as not, would ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... us, and would dearly like to try the machine herself, but every time she comes near, Olga says: "Be careful, mother, you'll despise it." And when the spool needs filling, and her mother takes the shuttle in her hand a moment, the child is once more afraid it may be "despised." [Footnote: Foragte, literally "despise." The word is evidently to be understood as used in error by the girl herself, in ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... wardrobe. She thought of the home with its bare, clean rooms and its spotless floors. She rose abruptly and went out to the rear of the house, where Tommy was playing with Europena Wiggs. They were absorbed in trying to hitch the duck to a spool-box, and ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice

... a spool of the slender, tough wire that is sometimes used to nip the buds of expensive roses, to prevent them from blossoming ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... running at the mouth with the finest flow of language I iver heard. I learned a lot of it, and Cap knows the stuff, and I'm goin' to have him get you the book. But, Dannie, he wouldn't drink with us, but he stayed to iducate us up a little. That little spool man, Dannie, iducatin' Jones of the gravel gang, and Bingham of the Standard, and York of the 'lectric railway, and Haines of the timber gang, not to mintion the champeen rat-catcher of ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... her hand on the spool of silk, when Babiche stood on her absurd head, a trick she'd not performed before Felice. Her mistress ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... for me," thought Christie, longing to cry out: "No, no; send the girl away and let me be all in all to you." But she only turned up the lamp and pretended to be looking for a spool, while her heart ached and her eyes were ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... An enormous spool on wheels, which in the darkness seemed a mile high, was rolled silently from somewhere or other, the wheels staked and bound to the ground, and braces were erected against it. Very little sound was made and there were no lights save in the houses, which ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... they do return, they're generally too busy lobbying for essentials to bother telling tall tales. So, comparatively few people are really familiar with star ships and the ins and outs of paraspace. Ask a starman, you won't have any trouble recognizing one, even in mufti; or, better yet, get a spool labeled: "THE CONQUEST OF PARASPACE: A History of the Origins and Early Application of Star Drive." It's old, but good, and it was ...
— Attrition • Jim Wannamaker

... of wire which was on hand was then coated with a thin layer of the ramie fiber, which was carefully wrapped around, so that the different layers of wire could not touch each other. When this was completed, a spool was constructed, which fitted over the little bar or rod, because they were rounded off, and one end of the soft iron rod ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay

... belt he had found matches, and weapons, and clothing, the latter of thin material wound as tightly as cotton on a spool; and, as stated, as the fire burned and blazed and crackled, he felt quite comfortable; and, as the storm broke over his cabin, a warm glow of ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"

... was thinking how I'd dress her for the last spool in the big fire scene. Well, anyway, I'm this Hawaiian princess, and my father, old King Mauna Loa, dies and leaves me twenty-one thousand volcanoes ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... ex-brewer. He struggled hard. Ian crushed him in his arms, raised him, crammed him into a chair, seized a pliant rope and bound him therewith, winding him and the chair round and round in his haste—for there was no time to tie knots—until he resembled a gigantic spool of ravelled thread. Not a moment too soon! There was a snap outside; the rope was gone! A grind, a slide, and then a lurch, as of a ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... fellows, whom he now realized were desperate robbers, but to escape a possibly far worse fate. Just as he started to follow out this idea, Slippery stepped around the corner, and after he once more warned the lad not to falter in shooting to kill, he gave Joe a spool of fine copper wire to hold and when the surprised boy wished to know the reason, he showed Joe where he had the other end of the same wire twisted about his wrist, and cautioned him to hold it taut and that every time he gave the wire a sharp ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... until ten P.M. At first the novelty of working against time, with a room full of grown people, and of seeing the great stacks of unfinished garments change into great stacks of finished ones, was stimulation in itself. She was proud of her cushion full of strong needles and her spool of coarse thread. She was pleased with the nods of approval gentle Mrs. Lavinski gave her work in passing, and of the slight interest with which she was regarded by the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... to go out to Uncle Dan's for greens, they took the buckboard, and I went to Keyser's for the cheese-cloth, and he had only eighteen yards of pink, but he thinks Kelley's have more, and there are the tacks, and they don't keep spool-wire, and the electrician will be here ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... on a spool of light music and stretched back, completely exhausted. I don't ever want to see or taste a dinosaur steak again, he thought. ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg

... and if it is, it would be well for you to stop and see if a wheel is not loose. It might be either the little belt wheel or one of the little cog wheels. If you find these are all right, examine the spool on the crank shaft from which the governor is run and you will probably find it loose. If the engine has been run for any length of time, you will always find the trouble in one of these places, ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard

... time and labor the total enhancement of price due to the tax. Women who earn their own living probably earn on an average seventy-five cents per day of ten hours. Twenty-four minutes' work ought to buy a spool of thread at the retail price, if the American work-woman were allowed to exchange her labor for thread on the best terms that the art and commerce of today would allow; but after she has done twenty-four minutes' work for the thread she is forced ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner

... laughter which greeted this was renewed when the tiny animal began making playful passes at a spool on a string which the dignified professor held before it, remarking, ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... impatiently. "No," he said. "Not at all. I mean that he babbled. Literally. Here: I've got a sample recording in my files." He got up from his chair and went to the tall gray filing cabinet that hid in a far corner of the pine-paneled room. From a drawer he extracted a spool of common audio tape, and returned ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett

... was spoken between father and son. But as Jim Hargis walked in his direction, Beach pulled himself up out of his chair, stepped around behind the spool case that stood on the end of the counter, leered at his father and moved toward him. Beach came within three feet of his father. The next ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... her wrist bag and opened it, but discovered only some money, a handkerchief, a spool of thread and packet ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... man, build the barn, Thinner man, spool the yarn, Longen man, stir the brew, Gowden man, make a shoe, Littlen man, all ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... were merely friendly and chatty, telling of money troubles, successes and family affairs. To these he recorded a few friendly remarks on wire spool, telling the same joke to each, and slipped each loop of wire into an ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye

... weights of platinum, aluminium, and brass, they and the brass hinges all having been photographed from a closed box, without any indication of the box. Also a photograph of a coil of fine wire, wound on a wooden spool, the wire having been photographed, and the wood omitted. "The rays," he continued, "passed through all the metals tested, with a facility varying, roughly speaking, with the density of the metal. These ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various

... across the river to see the new orange grove, and the children were left alone save for old Uncle Pomp who was hoeing in the truck patch, something happened that made quite a scare. Hetty went into mamma's room for a spool of white thread, and when she came out there was a frightened ...
— Dew Drops Vol. 37. No. 17, April 26, 1914 • Various

... with the line reeled to within fifteen inches of the end of the rod, holding the thumb on the reel spool. With a rather strong overhead sweep, bring the rod forward. At the proper instant, which is just as the point of the rod goes over your head, release the pressure of your thumb and the bait will go forward as the line runs out rapidly. When the bait lands, ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... And before her, like an irremovable stain, hung that yellow face with the scant mustache, and the squinting eyes staring at her with malicious pleasure. Resentment and bitterness were winding themselves about her breast like black threads on a spool; resentment and bitterness toward those who tear a son away from his mother ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... came to an end. The seemingly endless spool of legal red tape having unrolled over a period of four and a half years, suddenly snapped off. Anthony and Gloria and, on the other side, Edward Shuttleworth and a platoon of beneficiaries testified and lied and ill-behaved generally in ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... the others who crowded about him. Grotesque, almost ludicrous—twenty men, armed with clumsy sub-machine guns; the others would follow later. A searchlight was on a tripod at the center, and a spool of electric cable. ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin

... which the inventor styles a bouquetiere, consists of a stationary rod (shown to the right of the figure), upon which slides a spool wound with twine, and the lower part of which is provided with three springs for keeping the twine taut. A horizontal arm at the top supports a guide or pattern whose curve is to be followed, on placing the flowers in position. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... he murmured. "Something valuable, I would think." He picked up a round drum and opened it. A spool fell to the floor, unwinding a black ribbon. He examined it, holding it ...
— The Gun • Philip K. Dick

... trouble with a number of the riveted splices on the banding. Such a splice occurs for every spool of banding used. In every case where one of these splices has pulled apart, the break was the result of defective riveting, permitting the rivets to pull out. In no case has a rivet been found sheared off, and ...
— The Water Supply of the El Paso and Southwestern Railway from Carrizozo to Santa Rosa, N. Mex. • J. L. Campbell

... sewing and was now busy with it. From moment to moment Hafiz took liberties with her spool of thread where he sprawled beside her, patting it this way and that until it fell upon the floor and Dane ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... Cleo's eyes brightened. The spool of wire seemed to her a fruit suddenly born from her words; she had accomplished something, it was perhaps the first real accomplishment ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... heliographing ironic messages with her eyes. Polly was hemmed in by the wife of a railroad juggler, who was furious at the Administration because it did not put all its transportation problems in her husband's hands. She would not have intrusted him with the buying of a spool of thread; ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... stopping her work as she spoke, she made her wheel go faster than before; and I gazed with admiration at her deft fingering of the wool, from which the thread flowed in a continuous line, as if it had been something plastic, towards the revolving spool. ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... earlier rotating hook the tension depended upon the friction developed between the spool and the hook. This tension, therefore, varied in proportion to the speed of the latter, and could never be constant. This was quite apart from the frictional resistance offered to the upper thread in passing over ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various

... says: "All the ladies who do not play cards pick gold. It is the most general fashion I ever saw, and they all carry their bags containing the necessary tools in their pockets. They even begged sword knots, epaulettes, and galons that they might add more of the precious threads to the spool on which they wound the ravelled bullion, which they sold." To the appreciative collector this ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster

... to a raft that bore a man and four women that whirled like a spool in the rapid waters. Then suddenly the raft was sucked down in the water and another chapter was added to ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... a calico or gingham dress pattern they threw in their profit by giving a spool of thread (two hundred yards), hooks and eyes and lining. In the thread business, however, it was only a few years after that thirty and fifty yard spools took the place of the two hundred yards."—"History ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... metal segments are set in an insulating disk as shown at D. A metal contact called a brush is fixed on either side of the wheel. It costs about $7.00 and the motor to drive it is extra. The choke coil is wound up of about 250 turns of No. 30 Brown and Sharpe gauge cotton covered magnet wire on a spool which has a diameter of 2 inches and a length of ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins

... Yarn is wound on bobbins on the ring or mule spinning frame. These bobbins are transferred to a machine called a spooler where the yarn is re-wound on a spool preparatory to making ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... while with the light drag and the thumb-brake. So far only the heavy drag had frozen. I tried Dan's idea, to my exceeding discomfort; and the result was that the swordfish drew far away from us. Presently the reel froze solid. The handle would not turn. But with the drag off the spool ran free. ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... and the rector or one of the servants looked in to see "Jinny" or "Miss Jinny dressed for the party," and when such interruptions occurred, Mrs. Pendleton, who sat on an ottoman at the dressmaker's right hand and held a spool of thread and a pair of scissors in her lap, would say sternly, "Don't move, Jinny, stand straight or Miss Willy won't get the bows right." At these warning words, Virginia's thin shoulders would spring back and the filmy ruffles stir gently ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... a corkscrew, a box of matches, a paper-covered copy of a book entitled "Mary, the Beautiful Mill-Hand," a bottle of embrocation, a spool of cotton, two pencil-stubs, and other useful and entertaining objects. It contained, in fact, almost everything except a paint-splashed shoe, and Baxter gazed at ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... until the lawhounds arrived, he needed a start against the handicap of high-powered cars. He was in high humor as the buckboard was greased, a team of buckskins given a special feed and a rub-down, and various articles gathered for transportation. Among these were a spool of barbed wire ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... devices on which the devil holds the patent and demands a royalty. So there is nothing really strange in the statement that Piggy Pennington took from his Sunday clothes, beneath a pocketful of Rewards of Merit for regular attendance at Sunday-school—all dated before the Christmas-tree—a spool with notched wheels, a lead pencil, and a bit of fishline. The line wound round the spool. Piggy put the pencil through the hole in the spool, and held the notched rims of the spool against the window pane by pressing on the pencil axle. He gave the ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White

... flitting. Light forms darted up and down the stairs and past the windows, appearing now at the back, now at the front of the house, with a picture, or a postage stamp, or a dish, or a penwiper, or a pillow, or a basket, or a spool. The chorus of "Where shall we put this, Muddy?" "Where will this go?" "May we throw this away?" would have distracted a less patient parent. When Gilbert returned from school at four, the air was filled with sounds of hammering and sawing and filing, screwing and unscrewing, and it was joy unspeakable ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... is unique. Child as she is, she still understands all that men do, and does it. Under her hands the estates in Virginia have developed even more than under the hands of my brother. She controls like another Elizabeth. She has made those estates run like a spool of thread, and she will do the same here with Salem. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... days) has not only thrown much light on this branch of ancient art and craftsmanship in America generally, but added some peculiar forms to the museum's stock, chiefly in the line of pendent ornaments. One of the forms procured, represented by many specimens, was a spool-shaped ear-ring: something like it had been seen heretofore, but its purpose had been a mystery. Several of the ornaments of copper were covered with native silver, which had been hammered out into thin ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... and about ten bungalows for the officers, single-storied brick or rubble-walled buildings, thatched or tiled. Some of them were unoccupied and were tumbling in ruins. There was nothing else—not even the "general shop" usual in most small cantonments. Not a spool of thread, not a tin of sardines, could be purchased within a three days' journey. Most of the food supplies and almost everything else had to be brought from Bombay. Around the bungalow the compounds were simply patches of the universal sands surrounded by mud ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... back to the scout. Climbing into the craft, he picked up the audioscriber microphone and recorded a brief message. Removing the threadlike tape from the machine, he returned to the house and left it on the spool of the audioscribe-replay ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell

... stick about two feet long and whittle it to a shape similar to Fig. 2. The bottom must be heavy enough to fall first so that the parachute will fall in the right direction to be opened out. You can weight the end by tying a piece of lead or a spool on it. Cut your tissue paper to a shape shown in Fig. 2 and place a thread through every scallop. If the paper tears right through, a good plan is to reinforce the edges of the circle by pasting a strip of tough paper or muslin all ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... thought his pal had missed, then he realized what Scotty had done. The spear shaft was attached to a long wire leader, and the leader to a safety line coiled around a spool just ahead of the pistol grip. Scotty had deliberately fired ahead of the propeller, knowing that the wire leader would be caught and would ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin

... beech nuts under Massah Jeffres' saddle, and so broke his fetched neck, 'fore he raise sich a muss, runnin' calico so high that Miss Ellis 'clar she couldn't 'ford it, and axin' fifteen cents for a paltry spool ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... the town-seal his device is found, Grapes, flax, and thread-spool on a three-foil ground With Vinum, Linum, ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... daughter was never asked to go out and buy a spool of thread, much less was she consulted in the household economies. All she noticed was that her clothes were smarter than Cousin Marthe's, who had a real dressmaker, and was subject to fits of jealous sulks. No wonder that when money was poured into her lap out in this ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... well-shaped spinners can be had in every toy shop at a very low price. However, good little tops can be made from the wooden spools on which sewing thread comes. Two tops, that will amuse the younger children, can be made from each spool, by whittling down from the rims to the middle of the spool till the parts break at the opening. A peg driven through answers for a spindle. These can be made in a few minutes, and may afford some ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort

... look to tell me her name. Mean cell though it was that held her, and mean her seat, the worn face could belong to no one meaner than a Queen. A spool of thread had rolled from her hand, across the floor; yet her hands upon her lap were shaped as though they still held it. As she sat now, rigid, with her eyes on the bed, she must have been sitting for minutes. So, while Dom ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... sneaking trick to play. She's the meanest girl. I wouldn't have told about her. I hope No. 24 won't take the spool out of the camera, because there are three undeveloped snaps of the Villa Camellia on it, and I shall be wild if I lose them. He couldn't be so heartless. If I only knew Italian better I'd try and ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... supposed to be exceptionally free from lint; but the fagged children crowded to the casements with instinctive longing for the outdoor air which could not of course enter through the glass; or plodded their monotonous rounds to tend the frames and see that the thread was running properly to each spool, and that the spools were removed, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... content to sit upon the floor all day long, with his big eyes watching Hannah knit, sew, spin, or weave, as the case might be. And if she happened to drop her thimble, scissors, spool of cotton, or ball of yarn, Ishmael would crawl after it as fast as his feeble little limbs would take him, and bring it back and hold it up to her with a smile of pleasure, or, if the feat had been ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... If I'll spin the straw once more for you?" "Ah me, I can give not a single thing," She cried, "except my finger-ring." He took the slender toy, And slipped it over his thumb; Then down he sat and whirled the wheel, Hum, and hum-m, and hum-m-m; Round and round with a droning sound, Many a yellow spool he wound, Many a glistening skein he reeled; And still, like bees in a clover-field, The wheel went hum, and hum-m and hum-m-m. Next morning the king came, Almost before sunrise, To the chamber where the maiden was, And could scarce believe his eyes To see ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... I have mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jew's harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool-cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog-collar—but no ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... on the job, if we are, and I'll keep him busy to-morrow morning. You go to the market as usual, then go into that big department store, Ahearn & McManus'. There's a mail chute there, next the notion counter on the ground floor. Buy a spool of thread or somethin', and while you're waitin' for change, drop the letter in the box. You used to be pretty slick in ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... was one grand dash that Redwheels and I made out Providence Road and over Paradise Ridge down to Spring Hill in less than thirty-five minutes. In the moonlight the road was like a lovely silver ribbon that we wound up on a spool under the machine, and a Southern spring breeze seemed to be helping the gasoline to waft us on more rapidly in our flight as it stung our faces with its coolness, which was scented with the sap that was just beginning to rise ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess

... storeroom, but remained near the open doorway in a concave and pessimistic attitude. Penrod felt in a dark corner of the box and laid hands upon a simple apparatus consisting of an old bushel-basket with a few yards of clothes-line tied to each of its handles. He passed the ends of the lines over a big spool, which revolved upon an axle of wire suspended from a beam overhead, and, with the aid of this improvised pulley, lowered the empty basket until it came to rest in an upright position upon the floor of the storeroom at the ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... each child takes or is given a string from the chandelier and proceeds to wind it around an empty spool or piece of pasteboard, until a prize is reached. The strings must not be broken. An extra prize may be awarded to the child who first ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... man working it occasionally calling out the number of feet of blank film left on the spool so that the director might know whether to hasten or retard the ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... a beam in the shed there hung the side of a fat heifer-the other half sold to people in Honfleur-which the cold would keep fresh till spring; sacks of flour were piled in a corner of the house, and Tit'Be, provided with a spool of brass wire, set himself to ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... usual," returned the same cheery voice, its owner changing the position of the garment in her lap and reaching for a spool of silk. ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter

... evenings as she played checkers, or read aloud, or sewed, or played guessing games. She felt rather hurt, too, that Eleanor paid her so little attention, and several times she tried hard to make her stay, trailing in front of her a spool tied to a string or rolling a worsted ball across the floor. But Eleanor seemed to have lost all her taste for the things she had liked so much. Invariably, the moment the door was opened, she darted ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield

... some secret sin get the mastery over you, binding you hand and foot? It is growing. Every sin grows. When I was speaking to five thousand children in Glasgow some years ago, I took a spool of thread and said to ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody

... o'er my mind doth roam, So many miles away from home, With thoughts thread-like wound in a spool— O God, wilt Thou ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones

... Mississippi Valley furnishes many examples of this fabric. It is made of twisted cords and threads of sizes similar to those of the other work described, varying from the weight of ordinary spool cotton to that of heavy twine. The mesh is ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes

... the same way but so fastened that at one end they could be either raised up above the level of the first row or dropped beneath it. Sitting at the tied end her mother would throw a little wooden boat skimming between the two sets of threads, from one side to the other, the boat being laden with a spool of yarn and dragging a thread behind it. When the boat reached the other side, the thread would be drawn tight. Then with the foot in a strap the loose bar would be drawn down, taking one set of threads with it, and there ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... thee do that. I'm only going for the mail, and some little things at the store, that make no weight at all. Thee mustn't think I'm like the young women in the city, who,—I'm told,—if they buy a spool of cotton, must have it sent home to them. Besides, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... fast! 3. Such air as we breathe in our school-room is hurtful. 4. My brother's tools are always out of place. 5. What? not going to the party to-night? 6. Vic! Ribbons are out of place on school-girls. 7. What spool-cotton is the best to use? 8. Boys, stop that racket! 9. Lily made skips going along to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... make any promises; if I need a spool of thread and can save a walk, I shall go over there to get it," Miss Sarah ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard

... crochet needle into her spool. "I usually dip my smelts in bread crumbs. Have you ever tried them ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... realities that cannot be treated untruthfully. To this end various kinds of hand work and scientific study have been useful. It is impossible for the child to cheat the tools of the workshop or his instruments of precision; it is impossible to make a spool of thread do the work of two or three; or one cannot make the paint go farther by applying the brush faster. It is concrete reality that can teach the imaginative child reality; in the things he learns from ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... to it if there was. Pinkrosia learned him what she could; but we hain't many books, you see. But now! why that boy comes into the house singin' and spoutin' poetry at the top of his lungs,—jest as happy as a kitten with a spool. What was that he was shoutin' this mornin', Pinkrosia, when he scairt the old black ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... Saturday night, the Sabbath being just departed, ghost stories were particularly in favor. After two or three of the creepy legends we began to move closer together under the lamp. At the end of an hour or so we started and screamed if a spool fell, or a window rattled. At bedtime nobody was willing to make the round of doors and windows, and we were afraid to bring a ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... bestowed in the lower drawer of one of the deep bureaus, Betty felt as if it might have to come out again next day, but there it stayed, and was abandoned to neglect unless its owner needed the tumbler in its stiff leather box for a picnic, or thought of a particular spool that might be found in the traveling work-bag. But with all the quiet and security of her surroundings, sometimes her thoughts followed papa most wistfully, or she wondered what her friends were doing on the other side of the sea. It was very queer to be obliged ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

... consists of two spools of hard rubber RR, held apart at a distance of 10 centimetres by bolts c and nuts n, likewise of hard rubber. Each spool comprises a tube T of approximately 8 centimetres inside diameter, and 3 millimetres thick, upon which are screwed two flanges FF, 24 centimetres square, the space between the flanges being about 3 centimetres. The secondary, ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla

... expected to. My mother and Jacob call me Lisbeth Longfrock, and I am from Peerout Castle. Mother sent me here with the woolen yarn she has spun for you. She told me to say that she could not come with it before, for she did not get the last spool ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud

... 1. The title page added to printouts by most print spoolers (see {spool}). Typically includes user or account ID information in very large character-graphics capitals. Also called a 'burst page', because it indicates where to burst (tear apart) fanfold paper to separate one user's printout from the next. 2. A similar ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... [Nat], can you give us a declamation?" and Nat was never known to refuse. He always had one at his tongue's end, which would roll off, at his bidding, as easily as thread unwinds from a spool. ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... began hunting for her spool of thread which had rolled off into the grass. When she found it she stitched away in silence as if she had forgotten ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston

... heed that in thy work Naught unbeautiful may lurk. Ah, how little signifies Unto thee what fortunes rise, What others fall! Thou still shall rule, Still shalt twirl the colored spool. Though thy yearning woman's eyes Burn with glorious agonies, Pitying the waste and woe, And the heroes falling low In the war around thee, here, Yet the least, quick-trembling tear 'Twixt thy lids shall dearer be Than life, to ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... necessaries, save corn and bacon, became desperate. Salt and wheat bread were rare luxuries. In 1864 a suit of jean cost $600, a spool of cotton $30, a pound of bacon $15. It should, of course, be borne in mind that these high prices in part represented the depreciation of Confederate paper money. Drastic drafting and the arming of negroes could avail little for lack of accoutrements ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... see the holes, but on calm days we waded knee-deep in the clear water, stepping carefully and peering intently for the homes of the sea-centipede. Finding one, we cautiously lowered into the hole a spool fitted with a ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... road that had already unrolled. The Cowardly Lion, looking very anxious, followed. No sooner had they done so than the road gave a terrific leap forward that stretched the three flat upon their backs and started unwinding from its spool at a terrifying speed. As it unrolled, tall trees snapped erect on each side and began laughing derisively at the three travelers huddled together ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... heard and answered our prayers, but fearing you will take less pleasure in reading we will forbear, only saying that God has been petitioned for corn for our horse, and the prayer answered in a marvelous way before the day was over. We have asked God for a spool of thread, and our prayer has been answered at once. One time wife was on her knees asking God for soap, when there was a rap at the door, and upon opening it a lady presented her with a bar of soap. Almost ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... spool-thread and tape in a dry- goods store at Ogdensburg, on the St. Lawrence River, State of New York. He Rallied Round the Flag, Boys, and HAILED Columbia every time she passed that way. One day a regiment returning from the war Came Marching Along, bringing An Intelligent ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne

... begun ginning cotton on several places. The gins are of the rudest construction. Two rollers, about the size of a spool of thread, one above the other, horizontal, just touching, are turned in opposite directions by two upright fly-wheels, moved by a single treadle. The cotton, with the seed in it, is presented to these rollers, which catch it and draw it through, leaving ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... Mr. Dillingham did the shooting!" declared the nurse with violent partizanship. "Look at the way he sneaked home, and left the other young man to get a doctor and help move Sheeley to the hospital. Yes, sir, it's time for your medicine, just wait 'till I finish this spool and I'll go down and ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... week to see if he could be of any service, when he was aware that Mr. Minford had hired a woman, who lived on the floor below, to do all their household work, marketing, cooking, and general errands. He knew that Pet, on these occasions, asked him to go for a spool of thread, or a paper of needles, or a package of candy, merely to gratify him with the idea that he was making himself useful. When he came into the room tidily dressed, and highly polished as ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... apron material which has been cut out in the previous lesson, each pupil should provide her own spool of thread (number sixty white thread will probably answer for all the work), a piece of cardboard 5 inches wide for a gauge, and pins to use in fastening ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... the oddest stories—odd only because it is like myself. Every character creates it own stories; we are like spools, and each spool fills itself up with a different-coloured thread. The story, such as it is, began one evening in Victoria Street at the end of a long day's work. A letter began it. She wrote asking me to dine with her, and her letter was most ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... stooped, and recovered the spool, and, taking her embroidery frame in her hand, left the piazza, and mounted ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks

... round, paying or dealing out and down the turns of the skein or coil right to the earth floor, the ground, where it lies in a heap, as it were, or rather is all wound off on to another winch, reel, bobbin or spool in Fancy's eye, by the moment the bird touches earth and so is ready for a fresh unwinding at the next flight. Crisp means almost crisped, ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins



Words linked to "Spool" :   bobbin, computer science, wrap, filature, roll, shuttle



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