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Spurt   Listen
verb
Spurt  v. t.  To throw out, as a liquid, in a stream or jet; to drive or force out with violence, as a liquid from a pipe or small orifice; as, to spurt water from the mouth.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spurt" Quotes from Famous Books



... danger, the animal closes its front door by retracting until the disc presses immovably against the circumference of the tube, the retraction being so sudden that a frail spurt betrays the whereabouts of an otherwise secret dwelling-place. In the centre of the disc is the first segment, from which the frontal fringe is extended in the form of an array of keen bristles as a defensive ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... himself in good earnest. His bicycle flew. He resolved that after all he would go to Guadalajara. He crossed the bridge over the irrigating ditch with a brusque spurt of hollow sound, and shot forward down the last stretch of the Lower Road that yet intervened between Hooven's and the town. He was on the fourth division of the ranch now, the only one whereon the wheat had been successful, no doubt because of the Little Mission ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... The final spurt from Mulranney to Achil Sound was pleasant, but devoid of striking incident. This part of the line is packed and ballasted, and the Gazette engine sobered down to the merely commonplace, dropping her prancing and curveting, with other deplorable excesses of the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... up from the wound and of a dark red colour it is venous blood, if it spurt up from the wound and be of a bright red colour it is arterial blood. What has to be done is to place a pressure on the vein or artery to ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... the island, civil or military, seems to have been to blame for the mishap. It was altogether owing to the unwisdom of military authorities at home, who seem to have fancied that they could transform, by a magical spurt of the pen, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... the stairway at a run, with his clothes scorching and the protecting cotton cloth bursting into flame. It was a desperate spurt, but Hodge went through the fire, and with a bound threw himself beyond it, and felt, rather than knew, that he was in some kind of hall, where the fire was not so bad. He pulled aside the flaming cloth, pitched ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... silver-headed Malacca cane, and pacing along the suburban roads with the same measured gait with which he had been wont to tread the poop of his flagship. He wore a good service stripe upon his cheek, for on one side it was pitted and scarred where a spurt of gravel knocked up by a round-shot had struck him thirty years before, when he served in the Lancaster gun-battery. Yet he was hale and sound, and though he was fifteen years senior to his friend the Doctor, he might have passed as ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle

... as they walked up and down, and called on the rowers to keep time to the swing of the tune. The fellows did their best, and some of the Spanish slaves joined in the chorus. The song, poor as it was heartened them a little; but the spurt did not last long and the singing ceased. The boatswains used other means. Sometimes it was a sharp word or an angry oath, at others a crack of the whip in the air; too often the thong came down with a cruel cut on bare ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... the towns. The great men of whom the school-books talked had all been connected with the Government. In Ohio there had been Garfield, Sherman, McPherson the fighter and others. From Illinois had come Lincoln and Grant. For a time the very ground of the mid-American country had seemed to spurt forth great men as now it was spurting forth gas and oil. Government had justified itself in the men ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... which took place a week or two later, gave an additional spurt to Anthony's nationalism. London was all on fire at the return of the buccaneers, and as Anthony rode down the south bank of the river from Lambeth to join the others at the inn, the three miles of river beyond London Bridge were an inspiriting ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... a woman, and somehow I thought I had met him before. Our eyes met. He stood like a statue. He gazed at me with a kind of scared expression. I still did not want to kill him, and am sorry today that I did, for I believe I could have captured him, but I fired, and saw the blood spurt all over his face. He was the prettiest youth I ever saw. When I fired, the Yankees broke and run, and I went up to the boy I had killed, and the blood was gushing out of his mouth. ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... of the players behind him long ago, tossing some to one side and outflanking others; but he had not got clear away from Mavorovitch, bent double, and quietly calculating, a few feet behind him, the exact moment for an intercepting spurt: and then through the sharpness of the icy air and the sense of his own speed an extraordinary certainty flashed into Winn. He was not alone; Claire was there. He called it a fancy, but he knew it was a certainty. A burning joy seized him, and a new ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... a last spurt of effort enabled him to draw himself out into the open, his hands raw, his nails broken and torn. He sat there, stupefied with his ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... usual "spurt" at the finish, and that club won eight out of nine games in October, after giving Chicago a close fight for second place, and came in a good third in the pennant race. New York was second in the October victories, ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick

... holes are often a menace to the life of the plant, especially if drainage is not provided, for the deep hole becomes a tub into which water pours and stands to soak the roots of dying vines. An extra spurt in digging holes cannot take the place of perfect fitting ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... two great ugly lugger-like craft, with one high mast each, and a big square brown sail. A prettier sight one would not wish than to see the three craft dipping along upon so fair a day. But of a sudden there came a spurt of flame and a whirl of blue smoke from one lugger, then the same from the second, and a rap, rap, rap, from the ship. In a twinkling hell had elbowed out heaven, and there on the waters was hatred and savagery and the lust ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Wappinger came within their range of vision, it was only as a distant ship drifts into sight at sea—to drift silently away again. If Dorothea perceived him, she gave no sign. It was clear to Derek that her spurt of rebellion was over, and that her little experience had done her no harm. The name of Wappinger being tacitly ignored between them, he could only express his pleasure, in the results he had achieved, by an extravagant increase ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... musical instruments enough in the house? There's Holofernes Montgomery been blowing away in the garret for ten days with that old key bugle, until he got so black in the face that he won't get his colour back for a month, and then he only gets a spurt out of her every now and then. He's blown enough wind in her to get up a hurricane, and I expect nothing else but he'll get the old machine so chock full that she'll blow back at him some day and burst his brains out, and all along of your ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... his word for it, and munched at tongue and biscuits. As for muscle, we were both in hard condition. He was fresh, and what distress I felt was mainly due to spasmodic exertion culminating in that desperate spurt. As for the fog. it had more than once shown a faint tendency to lift, growing thinner and more luminous, in the manner of fogs, always to settle down again, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... paints fearfully and wonderfully made women with red hair and angular arms—I first met her. Jack and I were great chums at that time—it was just after I sold out—and I used to paint at his rooms. I was going in for painting just then with a great spurt, having nothing but my brush to live upon. You can guess the rest. As Bessie was a very pretty girl, and neither she nor I had a sixpence wherewith to bless ourselves, of course we fell in love with each other. Poor little thing, how pretty she used ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... slackened its speed, as it approached the tree, and then sailed by it at a moderate rate. When it was opposite the flag a spurt of flame came from the pistol of the man in it, and ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... deafening in the confined space of the corridor. With a spurt of flame the leaden pellet struck over my head against ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... preferred the inventions of mechanics to the culture of mind and histrions to philosophers. He adds with vexation that Diophites of Locris passed down to posterity simply because he came one day to Thebes wearing around his body bladders filled with wine and milk, and so arranged that he could spurt at will one of these liquids in apparently drawing it from his mouth. What would Athenaeus say if he knew that it was through him alone that the name of this histrion ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... to Landry Court. She wrote it almost with a single spurt of the pen, and dated it carefully, so that he might know it had been written immediately after he ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... had really done it very well. Not only had he accounted honourably for his repulse, but he had cleared Elise. And he had cleared himself from the ghastly imputation of middle-age. Repulse or no repulse, he was proud of his spurt of ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair

... was as if the ball, realizing a climax, made ready for a final spurt. When Bo reached for the ball it was somewhere else. Dundon could not locate it. And Kelly, rushing down to the chase, fell all over himself and his teammates trying to grasp the illusive ball, and all the time Tay Tay was running. He never stopped. But as he was heavy and fat ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey

... wildly-waving ulsters, but they prove excellent weapons in engagements of this character, I assure you. Profiting by fatiguing experience, we poised the second rocket so deftly that it could not fail to rise. On it we hung our hopes, light enough burdens if they were all as faint as mine. With the spurt of a match we touched it, a stream of flaky gold rushed forth and then, as if waiting to gather strength, biff! and away she went. Never before soared rocket so beautifully; it raked the very stars; its awful voice died out in the dim distance; with infinite grace it waved its ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... still remember the impotent rage and strain of my attempt to put some sort of finish to my story of Mr. Lewisham, with my temperature at a hundred and two. I couldn't endure the thought of leaving that book a fragment. I did afterwards contrive to save it from the consequences of that febrile spurt—Love and Mr. Lewisham is indeed one of my most carefully balanced books—but ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... oft-repeated cry as with her weak hands, hands seemingly dislocated at the wrists, she strove to thrust me to a distance. Yet all the time I kept saying persuasively: "You fool! Bring forth as quickly as you can!" and, as a matter of fact, was feeling so sorry for her that tears continued to spurt from my eyes as much as from hers, and my very heart contracted with pity. Also, never did I cease to feel that I ought to keep saying something; wherefore, I repeated, and again repeated: "Now then! Bring forth as quickly ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... enemy; Which yet's the only way to peace: for if War intermit not during war, how then And whence can peace come? Your own plagues fall on you! Even as I love what's virtuous, hate I you. And here I make this vow, here pledge myself, My blood shall spurt out for this Wallenstein, And my heart drain off, drop by drop, ere ye Shall revel and dance jubilee ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... herself up with a determined settling of her little rose-petal mouth. Swaying, stumbling, staggering, she ran on in one final spurt until she collapsed ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... made his friend's horses, and tried them, and sold them. Then he would take his two bottles of wine,—of course from his friend's cellar,—and when asked about the day's sport would be oracular in two words, "Rather slow," "Quick spurt," "Goodish thing," "Regularly mulled," and such like. Nevertheless it was a great thing to have Major Caneback with you. To the list of those who rode well and quietly must in justice be added our friend Larry Twentyman, who was in truth a good horseman. ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... interest was occurring within the lines of the Northern army. There was a great gathering of officers near a large tent, and beyond them the soldiers were pressing near. A puff of smoke appeared suddenly, followed by a spurt of flame, and the sound of a cannon shot ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... Rather more than a year before, while the Clarion was still enjoying a first spurt of success and notoriety, he had, with a certain recklessness which belonged to his character, invested in new and costly machinery, and had transferred the paper to larger offices. All this had been done ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... to make. On Ganelon such justice shall be done That future ages shall record the doom." They grasp again their swords and hew Each other's gold-encrusted helm with rage So rash that sparkling fires spurt through the air. No power will now disjoint the combatants: The death of one can ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier

... dearest girl," cried O'Brien, with a sudden little spurt of Celtic enthusiasm—"she is the soul ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... nor far, in that first spurt, pausing shortly to turn face towards the rear, a low, musical chuckle coming ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... that a crash was coming. Broughton's rise had been very sudden, and Dalrymple had never regarded his friend as firmly placed in the commercial world. Dobbs was one of those men who seem born to surprise the world by a spurt of prosperity, and might, perhaps, have a second spurt, or even a third, could he have kept himself from drinking in the morning. But Dalrymple, though he was hardly astonished by the story, as it regarded Broughton, was put out by that part of it which had reference to Musselboro. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... plunged again into a stress of work with his old swing and intensity, as if single-handed at one spurt he was to make his way to the close of his labors. He ate his hurried meals at a little restaurant near the laboratory, and came back to his rooms late at night, unexhausted, ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick

... on food. And all the time Doria wrote glowingly of their doings. Adrian had put the book out of his head, was always in the best of spirits. He had completely recovered from the strain of work and was looking forward joyously to the final spurt in London and the achievement of ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... took a fresh penful of ink, squared his elbows, drew closer to the desk, and with a single swift spurt of the pen wrote the last line of his novel, dropping the pen upon the instant and pressing the blotter over the words as though setting a seal of approval ...
— Blix • Frank Norris

... A sudden spurt of white dust shot out into the dim candle-glow, and then another, so near Nawadlook that his blood went cold. Bullets were finding their way through the moss and earth chinking between the logs of the cabin. His arms closed in a fierce embrace about the girl's slim body, and before she could realize ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... discreet material, but, no matter, these precautions are in vain. The male devil is fairly matched by the female devil: Tophet will furnish them of all genders. Caroline has Mephistopheles on her side, the demon who causes tables to spurt forth fire, and who, with his ironic finger points out the hiding place of ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... latter means nothing, though its presence may mean everything," said Holmes. "Unless the powder from a badly fitting cartridge happens to spurt backward, one may fire many shots without leaving a sign. I would suggest that Mr. Cubitt's body may now be removed. I suppose, Doctor, you have not recovered the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... with a spurt,' said Jim. 'And this is how I am going to do it. I have arranged with Mrs. Peach that, as soon as we soldiers have entered the town and been dismissed, I'll meet her there. It is really to say good-bye, ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy

... cried Gedge. "The sight of our lads below there seems to ha' woke me up. I'm ready to die game; but I want to make one spurt for life first." ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... the last man—Dennis Hogan—crawl in. Then Grant, seeing Hogan's coat was afire, looked out and saw flames dancing along the timbers, and a spark with a gust of smoke was sucked into the room by some eddy of the current outside. In a last spurt of terrible effort the hole in the wall was closed and plastered with mud and the men ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... if you can!" challenged Phyllis. With a sign to Madge the two girls began rowing their boat through the water with the speed of an arrow. The first spurt told, for the island was not far away, and the girls' boat grated on the beach before the boys had time to land. But Tom and Jack did jump out and run through the water to pull the "Water Witch" ashore, much to ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... Coppers. But the reality was far beyond his expectations; copper had been strong all day, and in the street afterward there had been renewed buying from quarters which were usually well informed. Bostons had been much in request, and after hours they had had a further spurt, closing at L7 10S. Already in these three days he had cleared his option, and at present prices the shares showed a profit of a point. Mills would have to acknowledge that his perspicacity had been at fault, when he distrusted ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... respects an engaging scoundrel. The Count saw the grey-haired, unshaven ruffian enter the cafe, the glass case hanging from his neck by a leather strap, and, at a word from the waiter, make his shuffling way with a sudden spurt to the young man's table. The young man was in need of a cigar with which Pasquale served him fawningly. The old pedlar was going out, when the Count, on a sudden ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... they settled down with the data sheets and notebook to review them once more. But only one additional fact emerged. Two people thought, but weren't absolutely sure, that they had seen a spurt of fire from the flying stingarees. Rick wondered if they had seen a sudden flare of sunlight from some highly reflective part ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... whom they are addressed. As to poetry, it is very common to find it in love-letters, especially in those that have no love in them. The letters of bigamists and polygamists are rich in poetical extracts. Occasionally, an original spurt in rhyme adds variety to an otherwise monotonous performance. I don't think there is much passion in men's poetry addressed to women. I agree with The Dictator that poetry is little more than the ashes ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... no wit, and Babbitt fell into a great silence and devoted himself to the game of beating trolley cars to the corner: a spurt, a tail-chase, nervous speeding between the huge yellow side of the trolley and the jagged row of parked motors, shooting past just as the trolley ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... doctor chose that moment to perform his operations. The second day after my arrival he ripped a thigh open from top to bottom; I heard a piercing cry; I closed my eyes, not enough, however, to avoid seeing a red stream spurt in great jets on to the doctor's apron. That morning I could eat no more. Little by little, however, I grew accustomed to it; soon I contented myself by merely turning my head ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans

... The feeble flame gave one dispirited upward spurt at this encouragement, causing excitement ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton

... close to a rough, broken, blistered cone of spelter stuff between ten and twenty feet high. There was trouble in that place—moaning, splashing, gurgling, and the clank of machinery. A spurt of boiling water jumped into the air, and a wash ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... little extra spurt of speed was the gallant Ginger's reply, but soon he was forced to sink back again ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... with a valve that opens outwardly, and at its lower with one that opens inwardly, be dipped into water and given a series of up and down motions, the water will be seen to quickly rise therein and finally spurt out at the top. The explanation of the phenomenon is very simple. Upon immersing the tube in the water it fills as far as to the external level of the liquid, and the air is expelled from the interior. If the tube be suddenly raised without removing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various

... to be felt across the continent grew for five years or more up to the beginning of the World War, and then took another spurt after the war. It was not merely a boom, inflation to burst like a bubble. It grew only as more territory was settled and greater areas of land ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... were both nearly spent. Hoopdriver, indeed, was quite spent, and only a feeling of shame prolonged the liquidation of his bankrupt physique. From that point the tandem grained upon them steadily. At the Rufus Stone, it was scarcely a hundred yards behind. Then one desperate spurt, and they found themselves upon a steady downhill stretch among thick pine woods. Downhill nothing can beat a highly geared tandem bicycle. Automatically Mr. Hoopdriver put up his feet, and Jessie slackened her pace. In another moment they ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... hour followed! With the fresh spurt of anger the bull-moose became more savage than ever. He grunted, tramped, and hooked the trees with his horns, so that the pair who were perched like night-birds on the branches had to hold on for dear life, lest a surprising shock should dislodge them. Whenever ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... toppled over to one side. Master Silvain saw it. He gave me one look and said to his wife, "Take the dish away from her." I could not say a word, but I shook my head to say "No." The farmer's look had taken my nervousness away, and I held the dish quite steadily under the spurt of blood which came out from the pig's wound. When the pig was quite still, Eugene came up. He looked amazed at seeing me carefully catching the last red drops which were rolling down one by one like tears. "Do ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux

... never have experienced in his western city. There is, moreover, a certain amount of what is called "roughing it" to be endured by the archaeologist in Egypt; and thus the body becomes toughened and prepared for any necessary spurt of work. To rough it in the open is the best medicine for tired heads, as it is the finest tonic for brains ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... police if there had been any police to spy upon him. The way ran through disused pasture land which was to be irrigated, enriched, and grown with alfalfa; and at a turn in the road he came upon a sight which flashed to his eyes like a spurt of vitriol. He saw the wild cattle break through the fence—the new "bunch" which Carmen had just got from Arizona. He saw them struggling, and trampling each other down, and sweeping through the gap like a wave through ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... Taylor goes on to say, "exists in all the trades and branches of labor investigated, from pick- and-shovel men all the way up the scale to machinists and other skilled workmen. The multiplied output was not the product of a spurt or a period of overexertion; it was simply what a good man could keep up for a long term of years without injury to his health, ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... his hand with both of hers and raising it to her mouth bit deeply into his thumb. He scarcely noticed the pain; seeing the blood spurt he absent-mindedly drew out his handkerchief and wrapped the wound. That too was part of the triumph he supposed—it was inevitable that defeat should thus be resented—and as such ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... of course popular, but I judged one of the sources of his good humour to be precisely that his success was independent of that. He had none the less become in a manner the fashion; the critics at least had put on a spurt and caught up with him. We had found out at last how clever he was, and he had had to make the best of the loss of his mystery. I was strongly tempted, as I walked beside him, to let him know how much of that unveiling ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James

... girls who had come over, in a white, linen-starched wagon load, from Fairfield, gave me my last spurt. Expecting every moment to hear my antagonist grind past me, on the cinders, I ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... a rapid spurt and left his teaser behind. When Old Tilly had come abreast of him again, he reached out a brotherly hand and bestowed a hearty pat on ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... order to April to run, and the whip sounded again about one ox and another, while we were tipped about in all directions as the team suddenly put on a tremendous spurt. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... madame and Anne. Brother Jacques sat opposite, and the vicomte sat at his side. As they left the table to circle round the fire in the living-room, Victor forgot his cloak, and the vicomte threw it around his own shoulders, intending to follow the poet and join him in a game of dominoes. A spurt of flame crimson-hued his face and flashed over ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... the quivering death; white limbs wrapped about the hidden ones, I saw the golden head bend, the hand that held the Keth swept up with a vicious jerk; saw Lakla's teeth sink into the wrist—the blood spurt forth and heard the priestess shriek. The cone fell, bounded toward me; with all my strength I wrenched free the hand that held my pistol, thrust it against the pressing ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... to continue. Suddenly Andy made a spurt and forged ahead of Conrad. The young aristocrat could hardly believe his eyes when he saw Valentine's boat, impelled by a competitor whom he had ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger

... spurt of crawling. My mind ran entirely on edible things, on the hissing profundity of summer drinks, more particularly I craved for beer. I was haunted by the memory of a sixteen gallon cask that had swaggered in my Lympne cellar. I thought of the adjacent larder, and ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... a war cry, again on their right, but much nearer than before. Henry took a longing to look at the creek, but if they attempted to ford it the warriors would almost certainly shoot them while swimming. He and his comrade must make a great spurt to escape being cut off ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... over Devonshire cream was her piece de resistance. Monkey need merely whisper—Miss Waghorn's acuteness of hearing was positively uncanny—'Devonshire cream is what I like,' to produce a spurt of explanation and defence that lasted a good ten minutes and must be listened ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... the choicest piece in urban gardens, where Catharine-wheels on festival nights spurt sidereal spray, and rockets shot into gold-riddled skies fall back in prismatic showers, ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... alert now, knowing that something had happened, for the first time in all our peaceful watery weeks. They were not yet aware of the pirate in pursuit, or that this day was the one of all others when the motor ought not to fail us: but they knew that, after putting on a fine spurt of speed for some reason or other, the engine had turned suddenly sulky, and was ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... a particularly difficult shot which Don had placed close to the net. Biff! he just caught it and gave it a swift cut which sent it whizzing past Don's extended racket to the base line, where it raised a little spurt of dust. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler

... she watched Rose-Red again and again. But if she were a tom-boy, she was also, Maida decided, the most beautiful and the most wonderful little girl in the world. And, indeed, Rosie was so full of energy that it seemed to spurt out in the continual sparkle of her face and the continual movement of her body. She never walked. She always crossed the street in a series of flying jumps. She never went through a gate if she could go over the ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin

... the more unwise: You may have a spurt amongst them now and then; Why should not you, as ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley

... party were soon happily stationed, watching the different trains that came sweeping up and down every few minutes; long luggage trains, pursuing their heavy way with a business-like solidity worthy of their great weight and respectability; short dapper trains, that seemed to take a spurt up the road as if to try their wind and condition; and occasionally a mysterious engine, squeaking, and hissing, and roaring, and then, with a succession of curious jumps and pantings, backing itself half a mile or so down the course, and then spluttering and dashing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... had he been "found," and the kindly storm or not less beneficent brightness of the sun had enabled him to baffle his pursuers. Now there had come one glorious day, and the common lot of mortals must be his. A little spurt there was, back towards his own home,—just enough to give something of selectness to the few who saw him fall,—and then he fell. Among the few were Frank, and Lord George, and our Lizzie. Morgan was ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... our mainsail, foresail, and spritsail, and were obliged to lie hulling till the 18th, when we got up an old foresail; and finding ourselves now in the Channel, we bore up for the coast of England. In less than two hours the old foresail was blown from the yard by a spurt of wind, and we were again forced to lie to till the morning of the 19th, when we got up an old bonnet, or topsail, on the fore-yard, which by the blessing of God brought us to the Isle of Wight in the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... a whirlwind beginning, and had scored two goals before the visitors began to "find" themselves. This would never do, Hugh determined. He gave his players a signal that called for a spurt, and himself led the way by capturing the puck, and shooting it into the cage of their opponents amidst loud footings of great joy from the loyal ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... the prospector noticed it, and immediately explored the creek clear to its source—a spurt of water springing from the roof of a grotto in the cliff. Such a supply, evidently from the rocky heart of the ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... ranked to-day, by the reports of the United States Commissioner of Education, in rank one—among the sixteen best women's colleges in the United States. It hasn't risen to that rank by any quick, money-spurred spurt. It brings with it out of its far past all the traditions of that early struggle for the higher education which, by friction, kindled among women so flaming an enthusiasm for pure knowledge. It remains "collegiate" in the old sense, quiet, cloistral, inhabiting ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... Harbor, which we came to pronounce "Wayback," probably because it seemed such a long way back to anything worthy of human interest, we saw the business of catching cod at its best. They had just "struck a spurt," the fishermen said, and day after day simply went to their traps, filled their boats and bags, took the catch home, where the boys and "ship girls" took charge of it, and returned to the traps to repeat the process. ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley

... The starter's good grey head; the sudden hush; The stern white line; the half-unconscious rush; The deadly bend, the pivot of our fate; The rope again; the long green level straight; The lane of heads, the cheering half unheard; The dying spurt, the ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... thus outstrippped and the boys started to paddle with all their might. For a little while they actually seemed to gain on Randy, but a lively puff of wind came down the creek, and the Water Sprite took a spurt ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... your head roll about as if it were uneasy on your neck, round your shoulders, and slouch your head forward. As to you Jules, your role should be impertinence. Put your cap on the wrong way; hold your nose in the air; pull your short hair down over your forehead, and let some of it spurt out through that hole in your cap. To be quite correct, you ought to address jeering remarks to every respectable man and woman you meet in the streets; but as you know nothing of Parisian slang, you must hold your tongue. See how thoroughly I have got myself up. You would take ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... what he'd been doing with himself all the summer," Barbara went on with a spurt. "He said, 'I've just been received into ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... and is a Volunteer, Drilling on Sundays with the rest of them; He too, amid his hoards of cigarettes, Is void of matches as he's full of veins. So here's a good match in a naughty world, And what to do with it I do not know, Save that somehow, when all the place is still, It shall explode and spurt and flame and burn Slowly away, not having thus achieved The lighting of a pipe or any act Of usefulness, but having spent itself In lonely grandeur as befits the last Of all the varied matches ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various

... may be—had come at last to Tattenham Corner and burst into the full view of everybody. Yet, as they came, a black mare, hugging the railed enclosure on the inner side of the sweep, arrowed forward with a sudden spurt, came like a rocket to the fore, and all the earth and all the sky seemed to ring with the cry: "Wilding! Wilding! Black ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... suddenly went to its knees. But the man leaping clear took the ground on his feet and instantly set off at a run for the line of brush in the draw some seventy or eighty paces away. A last spurt Weir's pony made, bringing his rider to within thirty yards of the cattleman, who glancing over his shoulder halted, swung about, fired a shot and again ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... and put up their stock to a premium, by ending the month's record tied with Boston and Cleveland for first place, each with a percentage of .750, the club's special rival—Comiskey's Cincinnati "Reds"—ending the April campaign tied with Baltimore for fifth place. After this April spurt in the race, however, the "Browns" began to fall back in their record during May, and by the 7th of that month were down to sixth position, and on May 14th they had to give way to Cincinnati, they then falling back into the second division ranks; and on the 17th of May they were down to ninth ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick

... Resident Engineer's brief spurt of energy had already notably relaxed, when, one sunny day near the end of March, a man not a member of the train crew nor a regular passenger came in on the afternoon train. As he emerged from under a coal car, one of the switchmen stared ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... To-day Joel, one of a squad of unfortunates, was relearning the art of tackling. It was Joel's first experience with that marvelous contrivance, "the dummy." One after another the squad was sent at a sharp spurt to grapple the inanimate canvas-covered bag hanging inoffensively there, like a body from a gallows, between ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... wander a little and he corrected automatically, and almost overcorrected! With infinite care he straightened out again, just as the plane was air-borne. Eyes riveted on the horizon, he felt for the switch that pulled up the landing gear and felt the plane spurt ahead as the drag of wheels and ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... the east or to the west. But it will not flow indifferently up or down; it can only flow down. The tendency of human nature is towards what is good, as that of water is to flow downwards. One may, indeed, by splashing water, make it spurt upwards, but that is forcing it against its true character. Even so, when a man becomes prone to what is evil it is because his Heaven-implanted nature has been ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various



Words linked to "Spurt" :   forge, travel, blow, jet, squirt, outpouring, spout, spray, whoosh, spritz, move



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