Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Stitch   Listen
noun
Stitch  n.  
1.
A single pass of a needle in sewing; the loop or turn of the thread thus made.
2.
A single turn of the thread round a needle in knitting; a link, or loop, of yarn; as, to let down, or drop, a stitch; to take up a stitch.
3.
A space of work taken up, or gone over, in a single pass of the needle; hence, by extension, any space passed over; distance. "You have gone a good stitch." "In Syria the husbandmen go lightly over with their plow, and take no deep stitch in making their furrows."
4.
A local sharp pain; an acute pain, like the piercing of a needle; as, a stitch in the side. "He was taken with a cold and with stitches, which was, indeed, a pleurisy."
5.
A contortion, or twist. (Obs.) "If you talk, Or pull your face into a stitch again, I shall be angry."
6.
Any least part of a fabric or dress; as, to wet every stitch of clothes. (Colloq.)
7.
A furrow.
8.
An arrangement of stitches, or method of stitching in some particular way or style; as, cross-stitch; herringbone stitch, etc.
Chain stitch, Lock stitch. See in the Vocabulary.
Pearl stitch, or Purl stitch. See 2nd Purl, 2.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Stitch" Quotes from Famous Books



... down the ladder it was with Mrs. Tweedie with him, and they pulled ashore and were married by the Kanaka pastor, and went a-honeymooning in the Peep o' Day, bringing up in Papiete three weeks later, to buy her some clothes, for every stitch to her name was beating up to ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... she did not lift a stitch. Where there is no positive compulsion the hand is only handmaid to the heart, and it does the work only which the heart wishes. At this hour Denas hated her knitting, and there being no necessity on her to perform it, her hands lay idle upon her lap. ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... the ear because of their alliteration; that is to say, two or three of their words begin with the same letter. Examples of this are: "Look before you leap." The proverb "A stitch in time saves nine" has something of both these attractions, though it is not exactly a rhyme. Other examples of alliteration in proverbs are: "Delays are dangerous," "Speech is ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... incredible to her that after all her struggles to keep up an appearance things should have turned out as they had; it seemed incredible that after all her sacrifices her children should not consider her more. "They have no consideration for me," she reflected, while she took the finest stitch possible to the needle she held. "If Jane had considered me she would never have married Charley. If Gabriella had considered me, or anybody but herself, she would not have gone to work in a store." No, they had never considered her, they had never ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... conviction that more than half of them had been lost overboard, "if only the truth was known," and retired to the other end of the bridge. Jukes, exasperated by this unprovoked attack, broke the needle at the second stitch, and dropping his work got up and cursed the heat in a ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... hard. How provoking he was! But anyhow she would have enough thread to feather-stitch that hem. She'd got that much out of him. The thought made up to her for some of the annoyance of the morning. She put a towel around her shoulders under her wet hair, and waited till he was actually ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... tweed cap was lying on the seat, and I picked it up almost sentimentally. The lining was frayed and torn. From my suit case in the van I got out a small sewing kit, and hanging the reins on a hook I began to stitch up the rents as Peg jogged along. I thought with amusement of the quaint life Mr. Mifflin had led in his "caravan of culture." I imagined him addressing the audience of Whitman disciples in Camden, and wondered how ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... different was the behaviour of his landlord's grandfather. 'Many a time would his worship send for me to go a-hunting or shooting with him; often would he take me with him on his visits and would introduce me as his friend. The country gentlewoman and the parson's wife, that used to stitch for themselves, are now so hurried with dressings and visits and other attractions that they hire ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... was the first to recover herself. She stood up and brushed herself, remarking: "By jove, that parachute cloak of yours is a great dodge. I wish I'd thought of it. I always keep my full-dress togs put away, like the ass that I am. A stitch or two, and a few lengths of whalebone ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson

... in her: the long-boat still Kept above water, with an oar for mast, Two blankets stitch'd together, answering ill Instead of sail, were to the oar made fast: Though every wave roll'd menacing to fill, And present peril all before surpass'd, They grieved for those who perish'd with the cutter, And also for the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... air 'ithin the geaerden wall Wer deadly still, unless the bee Did hummy by, or in the hall The clock did ring a-hetten dree, An' there, wi' busy hands, inside The iron ceaesement, oben'd wide, Did zit an' pull wi' nimble twitch Her tiny stitch, young ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... dropped a stitch. She bent lower still over her knitting. There was a distinct frown upon her forehead, her ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... these words, "The king's order," and was let in with his friend.) The poor fellows had enough to do, and did their best, to reply to the demands of the customers in the absence of their master, leaving off drawing a stitch to knit a sentence; and when wounded pride, or disappointed expectation, brought down upon them too cutting a rebuke, he who was attacked made a dive and disappeared under the counter. The line of discontented lords formed ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... had left the bright cafes and shops behind, to plunge back into the middle ages. Anything, it seemed, might happen in the queer, shadowed streets of tall old houses with mysterious doorways, through which the Aigle cautiously threaded, like a glittering crochet needle practicing a new stitch. Then, in the quiet place, asleep and dreaming of stirring deeds it once had seen, we stopped before a dignified building more like some old ducal family mansion ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... his eyes on account of the glare caused by the reflection on the water, he grunted with pleasure and content. Malva was coming. A few minutes more and she would be there, laughing so heartily as to strain every stitch of her well-filled bodice. She would throw her robust and gentle arms around him and kiss him, and in that rich sonorous voice that startles the sea gulls would give him the news of what was going on ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky

... well. The thought of her dress worried her. She had conceived the idea of a black gown ornamented with cretonne roses, carefully applied. She and Sally cut out the flowers, and applied them with buttonhole stitch, sewing until their fingers were sore, their faces flushed, and their hair in frowsy disorder. It was slow work. Miss Pepper, the seamstress, engaged for one day only to do the important work on both Sally's and Martie's gown, ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... guarantee that the robe should be permeated with the spirit of rejuvenation. As the undoubted embroiderer of the robe—one Min of the family of Hsi—had admittedly Passed Beyond almost with the last stitch, it was evident that she could only have conveyed by her touch an entirely contrary emanation. If, as Shen Heng never ceased to declare, Min was still somewhere alive, let her be produced and a fitting token of reconciliation would be forthcoming; otherwise, although ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... Mary. She had missed a stitch somewhere, and it irritated her greatly. That was evident by the way she picked at it. She remedied the trouble somehow, recovered her composure, ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... eighteen, or thereabouts, to three-score; and now I was engulfed in the misery of punishment, and had an infamous death just at the door, and yet I had no sense of my condition, no thought of heaven or hell at least, that went any farther than a bare flying touch, like the stitch or pain that gives a hint and goes off. I neither had a heart to ask God's mercy, nor indeed to think of it. And in this, I think, I have given a brief description of the ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... kind mamma showed her very carefully how to pull a stitch through with the other needle, before it had time to be off on its travels; and the dear little child, with a bright smile, kissed her mother, and said, "It is all tight now; oh, how glad I am!" And she put out her chubby little leg to try ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... you said so!" cried Elnora. "But you needn't, now! I can buy every single stitch I need myself. Next summer I can gather up a lot more stuff, and all winter on the way to school. I am sure I can sell ferns, I know I can nuts, and the Bird Woman says the grade rooms want leaves, grasses, birds' nests, and cocoons. Oh, isn't this world lovely! I'll be ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... sail packed upon her, until every available inch of canvas was spread, that we might not lose a breath of the fair wind. We could now see how much she was cramped and deadened by her cargo; for with a good breeze on her quarter, and every stitch of canvas spread, we could not get more than six knots out of her. She had no more life in her than if she were water-logged. The log was hove several times; but she was doing her best. We had hardly patience with her, but the older sailors said, "Stand ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... Lady Mar in 1725). "I ride a good deal, and have got a horse superior to any two-legged animal, he being without a fault. I work like an angel. I receive visits upon idle days, and I shade my life as I do my tent-stitch, that is, make as easy transitions as I can from business to pleasure; the one would be too flaring and gaudy without some dark shades of t'other; and if I worked altogether in the grave colours, you know 'twould be quite dismal. Miss Skerritt is in the house ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... Rachel's doll had a round head whittled From a bit of soft pine wood; And Polly's was only a corn-cob, With a calico slip and hood. My doll was a lovely rag-baby, With badly-inked eyes and nose; Her cheeks were painted with cherry-juice; And I made every stitch ...
— The Nursery, Number 164 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... a-breathing hard your name; But never do I hear and never do I see, I with my head low, working out my shame, Eyes burning dry and my heart like a flame; For I hate you then—I hate you, Jim of Tellico, And grip my needle tighter, every stitch a sin, The hate growing bigger till the thing I sew Seems a shroud I'm glad a-making ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan

... shoes, for there is not courage among cordwainers either to fight with us or to molest us." "I know nothing thereof," said Pryderi. "But I know," answered Manawyddan; "and I will teach thee to stitch. We will not attempt to dress the leather, but we will buy it ready dressed and will make ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... you might find you weren't well enough to travel," she answered thoughtfully, with her face still bent over the work which she was spoiling with every clumsy, feverish stitch. ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... hand sewing machine, which is an old-fashioned thing, to be fastened to a table and the wheel turned by hand. It was brought from the old country, and looks quite well worn, but is still useful and far better than no machine, if it does have a chain stitch which is liable to rip easily. We have a lot of amusement with this machine, for when Alma is sewing and one of the boys happens to be idle about her she makes him turn the wheel while she guides the cloth ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... is made of two cushions, each 9 inches long and 4 broad, sewn on a piece of leather, lying parallel to one another, and 4 inches apart. The space between the cushions corresponds to the backbone of the horse. To keep the whole in shape, it is usual to stitch four or five laths of wood lengthways to the upper surface of the pad; upon these laths the bag will rest. If there be occasion to carry a bag on horseback for a short distance, pass one of the stirrup-leathers through its string; then throw the bag over to the other side of the saddle: ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... you. But this also is a delusion. On the contrary, his resources only begin to develop themselves when he has got all he wants. First one of the leather things on the horse's hind feet gives way and has to be cobbled, then a rope wears out and must be replaced, then a buckle gets loose and wants a stitch. But his chief reliance is on the headstall and the nose-bag. When these have got well into use, one or other of them may be counted on to give way about every other day, and when nothing of the original article is left, the patches of which it ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... Monsieur Le Gros screamed, and gave twenty orders in a minute, while the other sixteen men made more noise than would be heard among a thousand Americans. Heavens! what a clamour these chaps kept up, and all about nothing, too, the ship having every stitch of canvass on her that would draw. I felt like the Arab who owned the rarest mare in the desert, but who was coming up with the thief who had stolen her, himself riding an inferior beast, and all because the rogue did not understand the secret of making the mare do her best. "Pinch ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... in the county, starting off that morning in our red uniform,—Nancy took a sight of pains with my shirt, sewing it up stout, for fear it should bother me ripping, and I with nobody to take a stitch for me all winter. The boys went off in good spirits, singing till they were out of sight of town, and waving their caps at their wives and babies standing in the window along on the way. I didn't sing. I ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... not mean to say that Clara Morton is going to earn her own living," said little Effie. "The last person in the world! Why, I do not believe she ever sewed a stitch in her life. She never even brought her own books to school, but had them carried ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child

... having lain becalmed with every stitch of canvas set, bounds away before the breeze which springs up astern, so the mind of Descartes, poised in equilibrium of doubt, not only yielded to the full force of the impulse towards physical science and physical ways of thought, given by his great contemporaries, Galileo and Harvey, ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... Darning: Make an original border design on square paper using any two geometric units, or a conventional flower or animal form. Apply the design to a towel in crochet, cross-stitch ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... entered the room. Belinda, under the pressure of the circumstances, forgetting somewhat of her mother's injunctions, hurried to the door to welcome the stranger. Lady Aylmer kept her chair, and even maintained her stitch, till Clara was half across the room. Then she got up, and with great mastery over her ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... said tonight. It is very inconvenient for me to attend to you at this hour." At the same time, however, Gervaise amiably laid down her work and went for the dirty clothes, which she piled up in the back shop. It took the two women nearly an hour to sort them and mark them with a stitch of ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... Mr. Slick, "I was only in jeest, but you are in airnest. What you have said is too true for a joke, and I feel it. I was only a sparrin'; but you took off the gloves, and felt my short ribs in a way that has given me a stitch in the side. It tante fair to kick that way afore you are spurred. You've ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... We've driven them all into the little corral on the level, and shut the gates. It's over my head down in the creek bottom now. I haven't a dry stitch on me. I guess I'll follow Mahailey's advice and get in the tub, if you can ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... Mother dropped a stitch, so keenly was she listening. A moment later she dropped a needle too, and the two men picked it up, and handed it back together as though ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... as expressmen and such workers use, with straps going over the shoulders. I took a tape-line and carefully measured the sewing on one pair of these overalls. When they come to the seamstress, there has not been a stitch taken in them—they are simply cut out. There are thirty separate and distinct seams to be sewed, making in the aggregate thirty-two and a half feet of sewing, for which she receives the gross amount of five cents, out of which she has to pay the carrying ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... particular, Mr Rob, sir," he said; "stitch in time saves nine. Bit of observation now may save us hours of walking and fighting our ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... holding you warm and close in the embrace of her body, thought of you and loved you. She wondered how you would look; she dreamed of you; she fancied she could feel the touch of your fluttering fingers; she made your little wardrobe and with each stitch wove in some tender thought of the baby whom she had never seen. Then one day she cried out with great anguish of body but joy of heart, 'O my baby is coming.' Then through long hours she suffered, ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen

... I mean to keep this little hand—you may pull it away if you choose—but it is mine, and the pretty little maid, and all that belongs to it. And I will take you and both your hands, bewitched fingers and all, home with me. There they may weave and stitch as much as you like; but as man and wife no one shall part us, and we will lead a life such a life! The joys of Paradise shall be no better than a rap on the skull with an ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... bookbinder. Fact. One has to play all sorts of things here—and the more the better. My work was to stitch, fold, (fold first) and cover, so many copies of the New Testament as I had brought with me—printed, but in sheets. I did them strong! more than that I will not answer for; but I wish I could send you a copy. It would ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... ken how it was, but there was something; pitiful in seeing her take up the mittens and begin working cheerily at one, and me kenning all the time that they would never be finished. I watched her fingers, and I said to mysel', 'Another stitch, and that maun be your last.' I said that to mysel' till I thocht it was the needle that said it, and I wondered ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... words of the minister were met, after their transmission over seas, with a smile of derision,—with an empty gratitude, that said, "Good fellow!" and forgot their burden,—with a stitch of the heart, that made solemn pause and thoughtfulness, and short, in struggle against the habit of a life, we will not say; our story may not tell, perhaps. But to the mind of the parson it was clear that at some great ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... I went, but in no conquering mood. I did not scrutinize the festive dresses; Of the sad hearts I thought, the poor thin hands That put of life somewhat in every stitch For a grudged pittance. All disguises fell; Voices betrayed the speakers in their tones, Despite of flattering words; and smiles revealed The weariness or hatred they would hide. And so, preoccupied and grave, I looked On all the gayety; and reigning belles Took heart to find in ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... almost puts your eyes out, that makes you tired and behindhand and sure of a scolding. She shows me how to rip her way. The two threads of the machine, one from above and one from below, which make the stitch, must be separated. The work must be turned first on the wrong, then on the right side, the scissors must lift first the upper, then the under thread. I begin by cutting a long hole in the trousers, which I hide so Frances will not see it. She has frightened me into ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... hide the facts from him. They must have queer notions of cities, those monarchs. They must fancy everybody lives in a flutter of flags and walks about under triumphal arches, like as if I were to stitch shoes in my Sunday clothes." By a defiance of chronology Crowl had them on to-day, and they seemed to ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill

... might'st alledge, To keep thee busy from foul evil, 720 And shame due to thee from the Devil? Did no committee sit, where he Might cut out journey-work for thee? And set th' a task, with subornation, To stitch up sale and sequestration; 725 To cheat, with holiness and zeal, All parties, and the common-weal? Much better had it been for thee, H' had kept thee where th' art us'd to be; Or sent th' on bus'ness any whither, 730 So he had never brought thee hither. But if th' hast brain ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... old English homes were very industrious. They worked crewel bed hangings and cross-stitch and tent-stitch upholstery in the seventeenth century, and in still earlier times richly ornamented linens and other fabrics with flowers and scriptural subjects. Writing in reference to Queen Mary, the wife of William III, Sir ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess

... hoped everything would be, for he had not been able to hold Robin to serious study since the holidays. And poor Harkness had developed a stitch in his back hanging the pictures Miss Lewis sent and laying clean white paper in ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... no, my noble Queen! Think no sic thing to be; 'Twas but a stitch into my side, And ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... saved in the relentless strife, I knew lamenting was in vain, So patient went to work again. By constant work, a day or more, My little mansion did restore: And if each tear which you have shed Had been a needle-full of thread, If every sigh of sad despair Had been a stitch of proper care, Closed would have been the luckless rent, Nor thus the ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... the present day is of such varied character and make that all would-be workers will find among the diversities of stitch and material some description that suits their particular ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various

... late invention of Mrs. Catharine Cross-stitch, mantua-maker, the petticoats of ladies were too wide for entering into any coach or chair, which was in use before ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele

... mean pride towards others, but accepted the incidents of life with imperturbable good-sense and insight. They were not dressed as well as other pupils, for economy at that time was the rule of their household. The girls had to stitch all over their new gloves before wearing them, by order of their mother, to make them wear longer. Their dark blue cloth coats were worn when too short, and black beaver bonnets quite plainly trimmed, with the ease and contentment ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... alone, impeccably neat, even to her profile. She was so orderly, so well balanced, one stitch of her hand-sewed organdy collar was so clearly identical with every other, her very seams, if you can understand it, ran so exactly where they should, that she set me to pulling myself straight. I am rather ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... work very early; how can one of your age see so well? Even if it were lighter, I question whether you could see to stitch." ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... who tasted the leather strap in our school days—being invited to swell the number, and to complete the welcome home. Supper ended, I was made the recipient of various gifts from my parents and sisters. Amongst other things which my mother gave me was a jersey which she had knitted— every stitch of it. It happened one day that my sister took the work in hand and did a little in the making of it, but when my mother discovered this transgression, she lovingly unravelled the stitches, for ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling

... run to the southward till we were somewhere off the latitude of Lisbon, when a gale sprung up from the eastward which drove us off the land, and not only carried every stitch of canvas clear of the bolt-ropes, but very nearly took the masts out of the vessel. It was my watch below when the gale came on, and I was awoke by the terrific blows which the schooner received on her bows; ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... are five in all) comes the date, "September 19, 1823," and in the lower corner another date, "October 24," when the square was completed, with the name of the child who wrought it, long since grown to womanhood, and now nearly forty years dead, but there recorded, in pink silk cross stitch, ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... the audience). I think, by Jove, that I haven't the health I used to have, since I became reutendiener. I've got a stitch—oh, oh!—right here in my left side. You laugh at it, good people, but I am really in earnest. Ma foi, I am afraid that before I know it I ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg

... it soon passed off. A moderate dinner and early to bed finished the day, and Miller was justified in his parting remark to the Captain, "Well, if we don't win, we can comfort ourselves that we hav'n't dropped a stitch this last two days, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... I wanted. The whole town is drowned in white, wet vapour off the sea. Everything drips and soaks. The very statues seem wet to the skin. I cannot pretend to be very cheerful; I did not see one contented face in the streets; and the poor did look so helplessly chill and dripping, without a stitch to change, or so much as a fire to dry themselves at, or perhaps money to buy a meal, or perhaps even a bed. My heart shivers ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... could. Then he unbuckled a big belt that he wore, and opening a pouch on it drew out two or three needles and some strong white thread. Having threaded one of the needles he began now, in as matter-of-course a manner as though he were mending a shirt, to stitch up the whole great wound so as to draw its sides together. During the whole lengthy operation the black hound only moved her head twice, in a faint, undecided manner, and almost as though from an intelligent desire to watch Bill's progress; certainly with no hint of any wish to interfere with ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... showing himself, pronounced merely these words, "The king's order," and was let in with his friend.) The poor fellows had enough to do, and did their best, to reply to the demands of the customers in the absence of their master, leaving off drawing a stitch to turn a sentence; and when wounded pride, or disappointed expectation, brought down upon them too cutting rebukes, he who was attacked made a dive and disappeared under the counter. The line of discontented lords formed a very remarkable picture. ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... Bebee; they only muddle folks' brains; for one book tells them one thing, and another book another, and so on, till they are dazed with all the contrary lying; and if you see a bookish man, be sure you see a very poor creature who could not hoe a patch, or kill a pig, or stitch an upper-leather, were it ever so.' But I do not believe that Bac ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... the needle, and thereby to avoid wearing the same, and to produce more easily operating parts; also, a secure, permanent, and reliable arrangement of apparatus, and calculated also to be more certain to form the stitch. ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... until she came to the last stitch on her needle, then she lay down her work, and looked at Ruth ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis

... burden to bear; it's come like a thief in the night; but bear it you must, and ALONE! They say death's a going to bed; I doubt it; but anyhow life's a long undressing. We came in puling and naked, and every stitch must come off before we get out again. We must stand on our feet in all our Rabelaisian nakedness, and watch the world fade. Well then, and not another word of sense shall you worm out of my worn-out old brains after today—all ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... clothes—every stitch of them—and if any one asks for admittance, deny them. Quick, now," as the king hesitated. "My life is forfeited unless I can escape. If I am apprehended I shall see that you pay for my recapture with your ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... nature, after assembling the family to return thanks for the good news, went quietly on with her usual duties, expecting every one else to do the same; but to Millicent this seemed impossible. How could she be expected to sit and stitch wristbands, when, only six miles away, the sun, shining so quietly in at the window, was looking down on the battlefield? 'Oh, if I had only been a man,' she cried, 'to ride forth ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... right, miss," said La Judge, obsequiously. "Prevention is better nor cure, and they say 'a stitch ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... entrance of the dancers runs thus:—"Enter six country wenches, all red petticoats, white stitch'd bodies, in their smock-sleeves, the fiddler before them, and Gillian with her tippet up in ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... stop Mrs. Anerley from seeing to the bedrooms. She kept them airing for about three hours at this time of the sun-stitch—as she called all the doings of the sun upon the sky—and then there was pushing, and probing, and tossing, and pulling, and thumping, and kneading of knuckles, till the rib of every feather was aching; and then (like dough before the fire) every well-belabored ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... head into his hands. He had not spared himself of late, and the marshal had been working his aides-de-camp particularly hard. The last three weeks of campaigning in horrible weather had affected his health. When overtired he suffered from a stitch in his wounded side, and that uncomfortable sensation always depressed him. "It's that ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad

... of money," she answered, in a sweet, quiet voice, whose very tone suggested simplicity and straightforwardness; "but they will last you a long time. Just look at the work, Mr. Helmer. You see how they are made? It is much more difficult to stitch them like that, one edge over the other, than to sew the two edges together, as they do with ladies' gloves. But I'll just ask my father ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... that night, and next mornin' we put up a blanket an the end av a pole as well as we could, and then we sailed illegant; for we darn't show a stitch o' canvas the night before, bekase it was blowin' like bloody murther, savin' your presence, and sure it's the wondher of the worid we worn't swally'd alive ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... is done in much the same way as mending paper, excepting that a little greater overlap must be left. It is well to put a stitch of silk at each end of a vellum patch, as you cannot depend on paste alone holding vellum securely. The overlapping edges must be well roughed up with a knife to make sure that the paste will stick. A cut in a vellum page is best mended with fine silk with a ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell

... the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Then he filled up his glass, and drank the wine off with such a mournful, resigned air, and wiped his lips so gently with his cambric handkerchief (I saw that it was a hem-stitch), that I had no voice to ask him to take a bit of the cold chicken, which he did, however, without my asking him. But when he said in the same low voice, "A little more breast, dear Mrs. Potiphar," I was obliged to run into the drawing room for a ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis

... questions she wanted to ask, so many little matters on which she needed advice. There was not even the Moredock phonograph to listen to now, for it had not been wound up since the beginning of Mrs. Downs' illness, lest its playing disturb her. All she could do was to sit and stitch as patiently as she could, till she heard the bedroom door open, and then fly to make her mother a cup of tea and have a tempting little supper ready for her when she should come out, dressed and ready to go ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... mi markets, Stitch on buttons, an' th' stockins' to mend, Then aw've all th' Sundy clooas to luk ovver, An' that brings a week's wark ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... very tired, and not in exceptionally good tempers, as Amphillis soon found out, since she was invariably a sufferer on these occasions. They declared themselves, the next morning, far too weary to put in a single stitch; and occupied themselves chiefly in looking out of the window and exchanging airy nothings with customers. But when Clement came in the afternoon with an invitation to a dance at his mother's house, their exhausted energies rallied ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... good soul that she is, would take the last stitch off her back for what she calls honest need, but I've seen her slam the door in the face of one of our neighbor girls in trouble who's come to my father begging for help—medicine. That's what I'm up against, Miss Parlow, keeping ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... to whip the window-pane to knit the mesh, stitch the sigh on tiptoe the seventh instant to go marketing 19 a poem to swear the mystery solemn the misfortune to confide by way of answer to double-lock a door he ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... not done a stitch of poetry since I left Switzerland, and have not, at present, the estro upon me. The truth is, that you are afraid of having a fourth Canto before September, and of another copyright, but I have at present no thoughts of resuming that poem, nor of beginning any other. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... foe was a long time showing himself; and we were reaching strange outland country, uncivilised, wherein lions might be expected to prowl at nightfall. I had a stitch in my side, and both Harold's stockings had come down. Just as I was beginning to have gloomy doubts of the proverbial courage of Frenchmen, the officer called out something, the men closed up, and, breaking into a trot, the troops—already ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... the old man, 'that in their private and domestic life, as well as in their labouring career, the lower classes of this country are improvident, thriftless, and extravagant. A stitch ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... stony ways in the same boots, he will be believed when he says that his boots are good boots. No assertion to the contrary from any by-stander will receive credence, even though it be shown that a stitch or two has come undone, and that some required purpose has not effectually been carried out. The boots have carried the man over his stony roads for six months, and they must be good boots. And so I say that the Constitution must ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... happened to be without hair upon his face at this period, and who looked every inch his part; "their very boots, we have only borrowed! I will tell you presently where we dropped the rest of their kit. We left them a suit of pyjamas apiece, and not another stitch, and we blindfolded and drove 'em into the scrub as a last precaution. But before we go I shall also tell you where a search-party is likely to pick up their tracks. Meanwhile you will all stay exactly where you are, with the exception of the store-keeper, who will kindly ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... church," replied Dorothea, somewhat inconsequently. "Ah! more than once, we had. And I'd ha' been as true to him, and was, as ever a needle to a stitch. Well, sir, when he slights of me, and leaves of me, why it's natural as I should run up and down the streets a-lookin' for him like wild. So one day, after I'd done my work, and put things straight, for ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... it is," assented Marilla gloomily. "I daresay I'll tell Mary I'll take them. You needn't look so delighted, Anne. It will mean a good deal of extra work for you. I can't sew a stitch on account of my eyes, so you'll have to see to the making and mending of their clothes. And you ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... articles, of a fashion so antique, and of ornaments so ingenious and rich, as to announce that they had been transported from beyond sea. Above the mantel were suspended the armorial bearings of the Heathcotes and the Hardings, elaborately emblazoned in tent-stitch. ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... Pao-ch'ai, "she told me that when she was at home she had ample to do, that she kept busy as late as the third watch, and that, if she did the slightest stitch of work for any other people, the various ladies, belonging to her ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... went down the leak took up. When it came to bending a fresh set of sails the crew demanded to put back—and really there was nothing else to do. Boats gone, decks swept clean, cabin gutted, men without a stitch but what they stood in, stores spoiled, ship strained. We put her head for home, and—would you believe it? The wind came east right in our teeth. It blew fresh, it blew continuously. We had to beat up every inch of the way, but she did not leak ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad

... but ebbs under a new temptation. He buys some odd volumes of Dryden for three-and-sixpence, and on coming home tears his only coat, which he manages to patch tolerably with a borrowed needle and thread, pretending, with a pathetic shift, that they are required to stitch together manuscripts instead of broadcloth. And so for a year the wolf creeps nearer the door, whilst Crabbe gallantly keeps up appearances and spirits, and yet he tries to preserve a show of good spirits in the Journal to ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... an honest shoemaker, who was very poor. He worked as hard as he could, and still he could not earn enough to keep himself and his wife. At last there came a day when he had nothing left but one piece of leather, big enough to make one pair of shoes. He cut out the shoes, ready to stitch, and left them on the bench; then he said his prayers and went to bed, trusting that he could finish the shoes on the ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant

... bows a far-reaching area of snowy foam, while her wake was as wide as any two ordinary ships ought to make. Five or six times a day the flying East India or colonial-bound English ships, under every stitch of square sail, would appear as tiny specks on the horizon astern, come up with us, pass like a flash, and fade away ahead, going at least two knots to our one. I could not help feeling a bit home-sick and tired of my present surroundings, in spite of their interest, when I saw those beautiful ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... into her heart that made a tumult there and would not bear turning over even in her mind in the presence of all these curious people. She put it resolutely by as she taught newcomers how to turn the heel of a sock, but now and then it crept back again and was the cause of her dropping an occasional stitch. ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill

... or utensils can be well cared for without good, clean dishcloths and towels, and plenty of them. An excellent dishcloth may be either knit or crocheted in some solid stitch of coarse cotton yarn. Ten or twelve inches square is a good size. Several thicknesses of cheese-cloth basted together make good dishcloths, as do also pieces of old knitted garments and Turkish toweling. If a dish mop is preferred, it may be made as follows: Cut a groove an inch from ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... bring him back again, The days when we were wed. But he shall never know—my man— The lack o' love or bread, While I can cast a stitch or ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a nudge of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After that, he slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no other reference to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, and writing ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... the first illustrate most aptly what has just been said about the influence of the classics. Their supreme interest was style, generally Latin. To clothe a chronicle in the toga of Livy's periods, to deck it out with the rhetoric of Sallust and to stitch on a few antitheses and epigrams in the manner of Tacitus, seemed to them the height of art. Their choice of matter was as characteristic as their manner, in that their interest was exclusively political and aristocratic. Save ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... your dropped stitch; I shall not pick it up. I know that Mrs. Orme's husband is in Europe, and I was assured that motives of a personal character induced her to make certain professional engagements in England and upon the Continent. I am not ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... I'm a-going to make is calc'lated to blow every stitch of sail as you can carry, clean out of the bolt-ropes, and bring you on your beam ends with a lurch. Not one of them letters was ever delivered to Ed'ard Cuttle. Not one o' them letters,' repeated the Captain, to make his declaration the more solemn ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... the middle of the mass, and missed him by half an inch. Once more he felt his surroundings flying upwards, but this time they fell more lightly. They formed the outside of a stitch of ten. As the fork was withdrawn the binding of the sheaf was loosened. He could breathe with comfort, and he could also see. He peered out, and found the whole face of Nature changed. The waving cornfield ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... pins or by a bandage applied from below upward. As suture material, ordinary cotton thread is good, if well sterilized, as are also horsehair, catgut, silk, and various kinds of wire. If the suture is made too tight the subsequent swelling may cause the stitch to tear out. In order to make a firm suture the depth of the stitch should be the same as the distance the stitch is from the edge of the wound. The deeper the suture the more tissue is embraced and the fewer the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... a stitch in my side, and then slowed down to a dog-trot. The one thing to do was to get a long way ahead of my pursuers, for surely at the outset they would stick ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey

... Royale, we returned to the Boulevard. "And now, if you've quite finished maundering over the beauties of a landscape which you can't see, supposing we focussed on the object with which we set out. I've thought out a new step, I want to show you. It's called 'The Slip Stitch.' Every third beat you stagger and cross your legs above the knee. That shows you've been twice to the Crusades. Then you purl two and cast four off. If you're still together, you get up and repeat to the end of the row ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... "but a stitch in my side. I'm subject to that—it pains me very much while it lasts, and laves me face, as you say, the color of dimity; but about Connor, upon my throth, I'm main proud to hear it; she's a purty girl, an' besides ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... you've come home by yourself. A good job, too. Let me see. How fur have I sewed? To there—to there!" sleepily murmured the maid, and realizing that she had on that afternoon of best intentions accomplished the magnificent distance of two inches! "Two inches, if it's a stitch. Two inches a day for—How many days will it take to hem—to hem—Huh! I can't bother! But if I'm to go to school next quarter as Madam says I may, I'll have to do faster 'n that. Might get it ready for my outfit, like Monty says," remarked the ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... were but counting their "moneys." . . . For the chorus ladies are certainly rather attractive, and even a svelte figure has been known to hold a big dinner! But the fact still remains . . . if one night some wicked dresser takes it into his evil head to stitch up their trouser pockets, every one of the young men will have to come on and do physical "jerks," or go outside and ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... this morning; and the brig, under every stitch of canvas that will draw, is staggering through the seas enveloped in a dense fog, through which even her topgallant sails show mistily. Should the wind continue and the fog be dissipated we may hope to see ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... investigation, we scarcely find that this is the case. What we discover is that the children of to-day are taught, not new lessons, but the old lessons by a new method. Sewing, for example: little girls no longer make samplers, working on them the letters of the alphabet in "cross- stitch"; they learn to do cross-stitch letters, only they learn not by working the entire alphabet on a square of linen merely available to "learn on," but by working the initials of a mother or an aunt on a "guest towel," which later serves ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken

... machine never came into general use. Several patents had been issued on sewing machines in the United States, but without any practical result. An inventor named Walter Hunt had discovered the principle of the lock-stitch and had built a machine but had wearied of his work and abandoned his invention, just as success was in sight. But Howe knew nothing of any of these inventors. There is no evidence that he had ever seen the ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson

... a small machine like a dice-box, constructed to hold them, which is placed under a press, when a firm touch compresses the whole together in the neat form, which any one may examine on a black dress coat, without stitch or adhesive matter." ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... had dropped to about seventy-five cents a day in the overcrowded cities, and in the winter, in either city or country, many unskilled workers were glad to work for merely their board. The lot of women workers was especially pitiful. A seamstress by hard toil, working fifteen hours a day might stitch enough shirts to earn from seventy-two cents to a dollar and twelve cents a week. Skilled labor, while faring better in wages, shared with the unskilled in the universal working day which lasted from sun to sun. Such in brief were the conditions that brought home to the laboring masses that homogeneous ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... mast. They battened down the ports and bulls'-eyes, which is a method of walling up a ship. These evolutions, though executed in a lubberly fashion, were, nevertheless, thoroughly effective. The hooker was stripped to bare poles. But in proportion as the vessel, stowing every stitch of canvas, became more helpless, the havoc of both winds and waves increased. The seas ran mountains high. The hurricane, like an executioner hastening to his victim, began to dismember the craft. There came, in the twinkling of an eye, a dreadful crash: the top-sails were blown from the bolt-ropes, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... could not resist the temptation to stop at a tavern for another glass of brandy, notwithstanding he began to entertain a suspicion as to the true cause of the disturbance. The doctor happened to be in. "I think I'd better have a little medicine, doctor," said he, on seeing his medical adviser. A stitch ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... graces of life by some impecunious naturalist, who thus repaid a gift of charity with a perennial treasure. Some local artist whose heart had misguided his brush had painted portraits of M. and Madame Popinot. Even in the bedroom there were embroidered pin-cushions, landscapes in cross-stitch, and crosses in folded paper, so elaborately cockled as to show the ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... hold something in front of you at full length—even a walking stick will do, or a coat rolled up. It pulls you along. You look like an idiot, of course, but that doesn't matter. No one who minds looking foolish will ever have a really good time. It is a good thing to prevent a stitch in your side to carry a little pebble in your mouth. Squeezing a cork in each ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas

... is the born doctor, an' so he is," continued Tom, warming to his theme, "for wid his hands red wid blood an' his face as white as yer apron, ma'am, niver a shiver did he give until the last knot was tied an' the last stitch was sewed. Bedad! there's not a man in the county could do ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... embroidered either in satin stitch, silk braid, or gimp, are in vogue, the preferred colors being burnt-bread and black. Short velvet cloaks, of the paletot shape, half tight, trimmed with lace, embroidered entirely in satin stitch, and with narrow braiding, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... embroidered with gold; others of blue kid, delicately traced in crimson lines; foxes heads stared at us in startling perspective from a scarlet ground; or black jim-crow figures disported themselves on orange tent-stitch. Then these slippers were all more or less of an easy fit, and had a way of flying out on the lawn suddenly, startling my dear dog Nettle out of ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... which was to fill the little room with melody, as the roses and flowers of June now filled the garden with fragrance. The pretty fire-screen must stand in a conspicuous corner, for that spoke particularly of home, and of the hours delightfully passed in the dear family circle while tracing it stitch by stitch; and I fancied that into each bright flower which stood out so life-like from the canvas some emotion of her heart had been indelibly wrought. How many lovely home associations will the pretty ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... fill out at shoulders, thighs, and base of tail with some chopped tow. The breast also may need some filling. Sew up the skin beginning at the breast and finishing at the base of tail, lacing it together with the ball cover stitch. ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham

... needle and a length of thread," said I. She scuttled off to do my bidding, like nothing so much as one of the rats that tenanted her unclean sty. She was back in a moment, all servility, and wondering whether there was a rent about me she might make bold to stitch. What a key to courtesy is gold, my masters! I drove her out, and eager to conciliate ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... possibility of her daring to ask to be let alone. So they, in their over-zeal and ambition, either make the path of love so easy and inevitable that all the zest is taken out of it for both (for lovers never want somebody to go ahead and baste the problem for them; they want to blind-stitch it for themselves as they go along), or else, by critical nagging, and balancing the eligibility of one suitor against another, these friends so harass and upset the poor girl that she doesn't know which man she wants, and so ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... your storms here, Captain; but if it were in the Levant I should get every stitch of canvas off her excepting closely- reefed topsails, a storm jib, and fore stay-sail. The first burst over, one can always shake out more canvas. However, you know these seas, and ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty

... needing protection. But a first labor converts these substances into forage; a second into wool; a third into thread; a fourth into cloth; and a fifth into garments. Who can pretend to say, that all these contributions to the work, from the first furrow of the plough, to the last stitch of the ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat



Words linked to "Stitch" :   stitcher, knitting stitch, backstitch, hemstitch, saddle stitch, stitchery, fix, crochet stitch, without a stitch, garter stitch, half cross stitch, fasten, lazy daisy stitch, sewing stitch, hem, double stitch, secure, shell stitch, hemming-stitch, sew, retick, fell, conjoin, pucker, machine stitch, tuck, blanket stitch, purl stitch, flame stitch, tack, stitching, buttonhole stitch, overhand stitch, running stitch, chain stitch, cross-stitch, baste, knit stitch, single stitch, satin stitch, tent stitch, finedraw, slip stitch, cast off, faggot stitch, fagot stitch, embroidery stitch, plain stitch, sewing, overcast, sew together, stockinette stitch, hurting



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com