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Tap   Listen
verb
Tap  v. t.  
1.
To pierce so as to let out, or draw off, a fluid; as, to tap a cask, a tree, a tumor, a keg of beer, etc.
2.
Hence, to draw resources from (a reservoir) in any analogous way; as, to tap someone's knowledge of the Unix system; to tap the treasury.
3.
To draw, or cause to flow, by piercing. "He has been tapping his liquors."
4.
(Mech.) To form an internal screw in (anything) by means of a tool called a tap; as, to tap a nut, a pipe, or tubing.
5.
To connect a listening device to (a telephone or telegraph line) secretly, for the purpose of hearing private conversations; also, to obtain or record (information) by tapping; a technique used by law enforcement agencies investigating suspected criminals. In the United States it is illegal without a court order permitting it.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tap" Quotes from Famous Books



... south side of a ripening plum, 280 And each rock-maple on the hillside make His ten days' sunset doubled in the lake; The very stone walls draggling up the hills Seemed touched, and wavered in their roundhead wills. Ah! there's a deal of sugar in the sun! Tap me in Indian summer, I should run A juice to make rock-candy of,—but then We get such weather scarce one ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... paper. I want everything, as I told you; Don't you remember the sketch I gave you of my ideals? But I want it in the right way and of the right brand. If I can't get it in the shape I like it I don't want it at all; first-rate first-hand information, straight from the tap, is what I'm after. I don't want to hear what some one or other thinks that some one or other was told that some one or other believed or said; and above all I don't want to print it. There's plenty of that flowing in, and the best part of the job's ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James

... cessation of the ceaseless tap tap, he listened. Silence was never profounder than in this forest on that windless night. Earth and air seemed, to his strained ear, emptied of all sound. The clatter of his own steady, unhastened ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... Sanders, dropping into a big chair and stretching back, with his clasped hands behind his head. He eyed the man gravely and without resentment, for no spy would tap upon his window at night save that the business was a ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace

... wooden box about a foot on a side, with a round orifice in the middle of one side, and the side opposite covered with stout cloth stretched tight over a framework. A saucer containing strong ammonia water, and another containing strong hydrochloric acid, will cause dense fumes in the box, and a tap with the hand upon the cloth back will force out a ring from the orifice. These may be made to follow and strike each other, rebounding and vibrating, apparently attracting each other and being attracted by ...
— The Machinery of the Universe - Mechanical Conceptions of Physical Phenomena • Amos Emerson Dolbear

... to that strict surveillance to which those who had broken the law were supposed to be submitted. It was of his own free will that he disregarded the various privileges which lay open to him: others in his place would have frequented the passages, hung about the yards and grown familiar with the tap, where spirits were openly bought and sold. Money could do much in those days of lax discipline, and the man who could pay and could give need have very few wants unsatisfied. But Adam's only desire ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... Never can hear the —— coming, in them carpet slippers. Turned round and found him standing right to my back this morning. Could have stuck a knife into me easy. 'Look here!' says I, and fetched him a tap on the ear that will make him walk louder next time, I warrant. He could have stuck a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... "A silent tap upon the shoulder aroused him from his abstraction, and looking up he perceived the person of the Indian standing in the shadow of a myrtle bush close to ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... violently, looked round, and were relieved to see a sporadically rosy face beneath a furry silk hat. "Tap?" asked the ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells

... cinders, and ought to have been run out at 7.30 P.M. But Snape and his mates, engaged in talking and drinking, neglected their duty, and in the meantime, the iron rose in the furnace until it reached a pipe wherein water was contained. Just as the men had stripped, and were proceeding to tap the furnace, the water in the pipe, converted into steam, burst down its front and let loose on them the molten metal, which instantaneously consumed Gardner; Snape, terribly burnt, and mad with pain, leaped into the canal and then ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... afterwards, as Lady O'Shane was sitting with her back to the glass-door of the green house, which opened into the ball-room, she was startled by a peremptory tap on the glass behind her; she turned, and saw young Ormond, pale as death, and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... Giambresi, have invented an improvement suggested by a dodge of the Indians on the Amazon River. They make machines which are only in tune with each other. Their machine fires off a message which no other machine can receive or tap except that of their customer, say Mr. Macrae. The other receivers all over the world don't get it, they are not in tune. It is as if Jones could only appear as a wraith to Miss Smith, ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... Dominion: Knowledge, Will,— These two are strong, but stronger yet the third,— Obedience, the great tap-root, that still, Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred, Though the storm's ploughshare spend its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... one of the hall chairs, but started up again and would have liked to run away when she heard the familiar tap of the crutches on the polished floor. It was silly to feel so embarrassed, she thought; she had meant well, at least, in what she had done, and if she had gone too far she was sorry but it couldn't be helped now. She tried to think only of the game they were playing and said ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick

... A faint tap at the door at last apprised Kearney that some one was without, and he hastily, half angrily, cried, 'Come in!' Old Kearney almost started with surprise ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... groups do these persons belong? What are the interests of these groups? What sort of means do the groups use to promote their interests? How strong are these groups, as compared with groups that have conflicting interests? These questions go to one tap root of all social interpretation, whether in the case of historical events far in the past, or of the most practical problems of our ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... knowing that we are apparently securely bound, won't keep as strict guard as they should, I hope. Once freed, perhaps we can tap one of them over the head and appropriate his uniform. After that another uniform and so on until there are garments for all. We'll climb into them. Then we'll crawl under the tent, and once outside, ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes

... right and a arf, mate, I am, and ain't going' to rough up, no fear! Becos two or three second-hand 'ARRIES is tipping the public stale beer. The old tap'll turn on now and then, not too often, and as for the rest, The B.P. has a taste for sound tipple, and knows when it's served ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various

... Was it possible that it could be Miss Selby? But before she could ask herself the question, there was a light tap at the door, and the girl had entered, and was holding out ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... Morton had retired to bed; and her husband, who had, according to his wont, lingered behind to smoke a cigar over his last glass of brandy and water, had just thrown aside the stump, and was winding up his watch, when he heard a low tap at his window. He stood mute and alarmed, for the window opened on a back lane, dark and solitary at night, and, from the heat of the weather, the iron-cased shutter was not yet closed; the sound was repeated, and he heard a faint voice. He glanced at the poker, and ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... After all, there is no certainty in the matter; Garth is stupid enough betimes for one of his own boars, and there was a christening-party at the barracks last night. You know what that means—the can clinking until the tap runs dry." ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... lavished all his hoard, full tale; They did not blench, they did not quail. His plethora of plums he spilt; They did not wince, they did not wilt. Poor fellow! As they left him there, He heard one beardless boy declare, "Jove! what a milk-and-water chap! I thought non-coms. had oaths on tap." Another said, "We'd soon be fit If we were only cursed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various

... contradicted. "Manufacturers' claims to the contrary, there is no such thing as a tap-proof radio. Maybe he wasn't supposed to leave his post, but if he did, he used his head ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper

... the whole the fault is ours. The first, and least important, of the three passages—that of the blow—seems to me the most doubtful. I confess that, do what I will, I cannot reconcile myself with it. It seems certain that the blow is by no means a tap on the shoulder with a roll of paper, as some actors, feeling the repulsiveness of the passage, have made it. It must occur, too, on the open stage. And there is not, I think, a sufficiently overwhelming tragic feeling in the passage to make it bearable. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... result is a composite of what we see and what we shudderingly guess: eye and mind are satisfied alike. Even in a mere sketch, such as that of the blind beggar at the opening of the same romance, with the tap-tap of his stick to announce his coming, we get a remarkable example of effect secured by an economy of details; that tap-tapping gets on your nerves, you never forget it. It seems like the memory of a childhood terror on the novelist's ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... and the precious metal would be washed fra the hills in the same way as I tauld ye of, and the second river bed would be also covered o'er, and sae the same game went on and is still progressin'. Sae when the first miners came doon tae this land of Ophir the gold they got by scratchin' the tap of the earth was the latest deposit, and when ye gae doon a few hundred feet ye come on the second river—or rather, I should say, the bed o' the former river-and it is there that the gold is tae be found; and these dried-up rivers we ca' leads. Noo, laddie, ye ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... me up again. Had a sprained ankle once afore, and I used to sit on a high stool with my foot in the back-kitchen sink under the tap." ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... village to village, carrying their stage furniture in their little carts, and acted in their booths and tents the grand stories of the mythology; so in England the mystery-players haunted the wakes and fairs, and in barns or taverns, tap-rooms, or in the farm-house kitchen, played at saints and angels, and transacted on their petty stage the entire drama of the Christian Faith. We allow ourselves to think of Shakespeare or of Raphael or of Phidias as having accomplished their work by the power of their own individual genius; ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... knowledge of Pope; and it is safe to say that if you love Pope you would loathe Homer. Pope held that water should manifest, so to say, through Kew or Versailles fountains; but it was essentially to be from the Kitchen-tap—or even from the sewer. Homer was more familiar with it thundering on the precipices, or lisping on the yellow sands of time-forgotten Mediterranean islands. Which pronunciation do you prefer for his often-recurring and famous ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... the cool water wash it out thoroughly. If you are sure that the thing you cut it with was clean, let the blood dry on the cut and form a scab over it. If the wound is large, or there is any danger of the water of the well, or tap, having sewage in it (see chapter IX), it is better to boil the water before using it. Unless the blood is spurting in jerks from a cut artery, or bleeding very freely indeed, it is better to let ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... woodpecker began a tap-tapping soft and insistent somewhere out of sight, a small noise yet disturbing, that followed them wheresoever they went. Thus they wandered, close entwined, but ever the wood grew darker until they came at last to a mighty tree whose sombre, far-flung branches shut out the kindly sun. And ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... sheep, and gave one bottle of powder and five flints. We slept there, and next day early went round and crossed the river Kirgout again. At nine A.M. passed Maretoumane; farther on, passed a large rock called Tap-pa. Arrived at noon at Camatingue, after crossing five rivers; we staid there two days; received a bullock and a sheep from the Seracoolies residing in Casso. I gave to Nare-Moussa, the Chief, half a bottle of powder, and ten grains of amber. One of my slaves was there redeemed, ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park

... there came a little resolute tap at the door, and Beth walked in without waiting to be asked, and seeing in a moment with that further faculty of hers into the old lady's heart that it was sad, she went to her impulsively, and laid her unkempt brown head against ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... freshness. The only very noticeable change was the excessive depression of the abdominal walls, which seemed crowded downward to the posterior side; at the right, a slight elevation indicated the place of the liver. A tap of the finger on the various parts of the body produced a sound like that from dry leather. While Leon was pointing out these details to his audience and doing the honors of his mummy, he awkwardly broke off the lower part of the right ear, and a little ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... a more appalling greatness than Thor or Odin in his battles; when a Kiawaqu', or Jotun, rises to the clouds to oppose him, Glooskap's head touches the stars, and scorning to slay so mean a foe like an equal, he kills him contemptuously with a light tap of his bow. But in the family circle he is the most benevolent of gentle heroes, and has his oft-repeated little standard jokes. Yet he never, like the Manobozho-Hiawatha of the Chippewas, becomes silly, cruel, or fantastic. ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... tap sounded at the door, and then it slowly opened; and to the astonished gaze of the two sitting by the hearth, there appeared the figure of a little child. A snow-white robe draped his slender limbs. In one hand he bore a lighted ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... stage were late, and could she make the long journey alone and in safety, he asked himself a thousand times as he impatiently paced up and down the platform of the station; the tap of his gold-headed cane marking the time of his steps on the boards ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... the dark Jack knows he is on duty; and he went past that lantern steady and swift; only, as he went, he groaned and shuddered. For about 2500 of Jack's steps we only pass one house - that where the lantern was; and about 1500 of these are in the darkness of the pit. But now the moon is on tap ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... I said, "of explanations of every conceivable difficulty. You have only to tap me and an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various

... operations can be carried on irrespective of the general economic condition of the country. Trikoupis saw how much potential wealth was locked up in these mineral seams. The problem was how to attract the capital necessary to tap it. The nucleus round which have accumulated those immense masses of mobilised capital that are the life-blood of modern European industry and commerce, was originally derived from the surplus profits of agriculture. But a country that finds itself reduced, like Greece in the nineteenth ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... minute. "I've always been land-poor," he explained apologetically. "Never kept much of a reserve working- capital for emergencies, you know. Whenever I had idle money, I put it into timber in the San Hedrin watershed, because I realized that some day the railroad would build in from the south, tap that timber, and double its value. I've not as yet found reason to doubt the wisdom of my course; but"—he sighed—"the railroad is ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... git heem—an' she would. A'm know 'bout dat, too. A'm know Tex. A'm know he gon' git drunk today, sure as hell. So A'm com' long tonight an' git heem hom'. He lov' dat oman too mooch. Dat hurt heem lak hell een here." The old half-breed paused to tap his breast, and proceeded. "He ain' wan' see dat 'oman no more. She com' 'long, w'at you call, de haccident. Me, A'm ain' know how dat com' dey gon'—but no mattaire. Dat all right. Dat good 'oman an' Tex, he good man, too. He ain' harm ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx

... back a step or two before this onslaught of feminine virtue, and the movement did not tend to raise him in the lady's esteem. He felt that he would rather face General Grant a thousand times than this person. She was, indeed, preparing to sweep away when there came a familiar tap-tap behind them on the bare floor, and he turned to behold Ephraim hobbling toward them with the aid of his green umbrella, Cynthia ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... move until he, of his own accord, expressed his enthusiasm for the plan and asked for a share in the holdings. You know, perhaps, how he can laugh, too. Well, he laughed that way and confessed that we had just beaten him to it. He said it would tap a gold mine—this 'strip of steel,' as he called it. He even told us that he'd parallel our road with a competitor, jokingly to be sure, if we hadn't tied up the only available and practicable ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... engaged, Mavis heard a tap at the door. She got up impatiently as she called to whomsoever it ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... the procession and awful conclave were to assist His Serenity in restoring the water to wholesomeness, impossible, in the belief of consumers, except by solemn exorcism.... Heed now, my friend—I am about to tap the heart of my story. A plague struck the city—a plague of crime. A woman disappeared. There was search for her, but without success. The affair would have been dismissed within the three days usually allotted wonders of the kind, had not another like it occurred—and then another. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... able to pause in the door while the match burned and his mind raced. There leaped to the eye of his imagination the two stricken figures he had seen slinking from the house, the weeping of the woman, the muffled tap of the man's crutch. There followed, in an inevitable sequence, the memory of them in their torment as they sat at meat with ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... come in, she jumped up, and stood staring at me. I went to the tap, and turned the flow off, and then ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... illumining. It seemed to include us all. She held out both her hands. Mabane seized one and bent over it with the air of a courtier. The other was offered to me. Arthur was content to beam upon us all from the background. At that precise moment came a tap at the door. Mrs. ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... England. Once there, the Authorities took pity on the poor fellow;—furnished the modicum of cash and help; sent him with Admiral Norris to assist the Portuguese, menaced with Spanish war at this time; among whom he gradually rose to be Major of Horse. Friedrich Wilhelm cited him by tap of drum three times in Wesel, and also in the Gazettes, native and Dutch; then, as he did not come, nailed an Effigy of him (cut in four, if I remember) on the gallows there; and confiscated any property he had. Keith had more pedigree than property; was of Poberow in Pommern; son of poor gentlefolks ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... it, feeling very miserable the while, for he was growing very much attached to his nervous, excitable companion, when both started violently, for some one had come up in perfect silence and given a sharp tap ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn

... he cried, and, suddenly stooping down and examining the tap of the air apparatus, he saw that it had been only half turned off. Consequently the air was gradually getting more and more impregnated with this powerful gas, colorless, odorless, tasteless, infinitely precious, but, unless when strongly diluted with nitrogen, capable of producing fatal ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... innkeeper told Mr. Mayhew that "he would rather have twenty poor Englishmen drunk in his tap-room than a couple of poor Irishmen, who will quarrel with anybody, and sometimes clear the room." But this remark, if it shows any thing, shows only how and why the Irish have obtained that reputation of being a nation of drunkards, which is slanderous and false. IV. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... already so many more nutritious roots at our disposal—turnips, mangels, and potatoes. Simply for this reason:—Between the departure of the roots and the advent of the grasses, there is a kind of interregnum.[33] Now we want a good tuberous, bulbous, or tap-rooted plant to fill up this interregnum. Such a plant we have in the radish. The root is certainly a small one, but then it grows so rapidly that a good supply can be had within thirty days from the sowing of the seed, and a crop can be matured before ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... top of one's skull suddenly lifted off by some surgeon Asmodeus, and the noonday sun poured into every cranny of his brain, he suffers a shock compared with which any galvanic battery, not fatal, gives but a gentle tap. The suddenness of the transition—no gentle fading out of half-remembered dreams, no slow lifting of lids, no pleasant uncertainty of time and place gradually replacing itself by dawning outlines of familiar chair ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... came a soft tap on the outer door, which Constance at once recognized. Mechanically she moved forward and opened the door. Mrs. Lamotte ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... "Except I am convinced that it required dexterity to slip Grimes inside the casket. The butler is small and slight, but he must have been unconscious from that tap on the forehead and, therefore, a dead weight. Whoever picked him up must have been some athlete, and"—running his eyes up and down Colonel McIntyre's well-knit, erect frame—"pretty familiar with the workings ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... purpose and ambition. You have studied the first shrinkage of the earth when the plains wrinkled and broke into mountain peaks. The mystery of the stars is to you as familiar as your garter. If such depth is yours, I am content to sit before you like a bucket below a tap. ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... lying flat in bed on New-Year's Day, thinking of the foolishness of humanity, when I heard a tap at the door. I looked at the ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... but the dyke-side brat o' the late Grizel Cawm'ell, 'at the fowk tuik for a sant 'cause she grat an' said naething. I laid the Cawm'ell pup i' yer boody (scarecrow) airms wi' my ain han's, upo' the tap o' yer curst scraighin' bagpipes 'at sae aften drave the sleep frae my een. Na, ye wad nane o' me! But I ga'e ye a Cawm'ell bairn to yer hert for a' that, ye auld, hungert, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... There came a tap at the door, and Maggie Oliphant entered, looking fresh and bright. She gave Prissie an affectionate glance and nod and then began to busy herself, helping Miss Heath with the tea. During the meal a little pleasant murmur of conversation was kept up. Miss Heath and Maggie exchanged ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... for a relay of horses and some dinner—for it was then past five o'clock—I found the host, a hale old fellow of five-and-sixty, as he told me, a man of easy and garrulous benevolence, willing to accommodate his guests with any amount of talk, which the slightest tap sufficed to set flowing, on ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... tap at her chamber door the lady turned with a guilty start to find the fresh-colored, impertinent face of the French maid ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley

... was interrupted by a light tap upon her shoulder. Ruth glanced around and up quickly. She saw standing beside her the tall old gentleman who had been sitting two seats behind on the other side of the aisle ever since the train ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson

... his quality of Bishop of Meaux, has the right of entry into this house; he has come here three times since my arrival; he has given me each time a little tap on my check in token of goodwill, and such as one gets at confirmation; he told me that he longs to see me take the veil of the Ursulines, as well as my little scholar; it is by that name ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... all, captain," interposed Payne. "You looked so wicked with that knife, I just happened to tap you in ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... John, "I'll show you something." So he got a stout stick and began to tap the tree. Tap, tap, tap, tap, as if he were beating time to music. This tapping had a strange effect upon A-bal-ka. At first he was greatly excited and tried to run farther up the tree. Soon he gave this up, turned around, and began to come down head foremost. ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix

... for the whole day, and comes back white and exhausted, worn to a shadow, and sleeps for many hours? Sometimes he is in his room all right, but awake. I can hear him moving backwards and forwards, and hammering, tap, tap, tap, ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a soothing way, as though he grieved to see Invidious torments prey upon a nice young chap like me. He waves me to an easy chair and hands me out a weed And pumps me full of that advice he seems to know I need; So sweet the tap of his philosophy and knowledge flows That I can't help wishing that I knew a half what ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... Set ringing helmets by the ears, And scatter plumes about? Or blood—if they are in the vein? That tap will never run again— Alas! the Casque ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... is still possible to pick up interesting reminiscences of Longfellow and Lowell from old neighbors or townsmen, proud even to have seen these celebrities as familiar objects upon the street. "And Margaret Fuller," you suggest, further to tap the memory of your venerable friend. He smiles gently and says, Margaret Fuller was before his time; he remembers the table-talk of his youth. He remembers, when she was a girl at dancing-school, Papanti stopped his class and said, "Mees Fuller, Mees Fuller, you sal ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... cannot be insured by the common method, as it tends considerably to weaken the plant, and renders it very liable to fog off, before taking root. By potting them low, and only just covering the roots at first, the stems of the plants become hardened, and strike very freely upwards: as the tap roots of a cucumber always decay when forced with a strong ...
— The art of promoting the growth of the cucumber and melon • Thomas Watkins

... "Go tap on her door, please, Bates, and tell her that I am back with nothing to report. Wait—take Mr. Krech up with you and show him my room. He has a forehead he ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... land is fitted for the profitable growth of any particular plant. Depth of soil, and facilities for deepening it, with the nature of the subsoil, so as to know whether it retains or parts with water, are also important considerations, because tap-rooted plants require free scope for penetrating deep into ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... and whip, knee, heel and spur to execute a movement which the master had compelled his horse to perform while apparently holding himself as rigid as bronze. "I ride here, sir," was the grim answer, with another tap ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne

... merrily, and Zwanziger grinned. His boss was a source of humour. At night, when he sat in his favourite tap-rooms over his beer, he would entertain his boon companions with the witticisms of Schimmelweis, ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... the clash of the garden gate, a tap at the door, and its opening. Christian Cantle appeared in the room ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... as he found immediately afterwards, when, as he was kneeling down at the tap, trying to coax the last few drops of hot water into his can, a voice behind ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... a tap on the door; it was Ben's. I fell back a step, and he came in. "Will you bring Cassandra to the ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... only rebuke; and she added, with a tap on his cheek: "It is lucky I shall have a sword ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... contemptuous nieces. He sent them gorgeous fans, and watch bracelets, and velvet bags. He took two expensive rooms at a downtown hotel, and there was something more tear-compelling than grotesque about the way he gloated over the luxury of a separate ice-water tap in ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... gentle tap came to my door, and Tom entered. He looked pale and anxious, and there was an uncertainty about his motions which ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... all alike, these ardent sweepers: in their excessive zeal, they fear lest they should block up the place with a speck of dust which they might drop in front of the new house. The glass tubes, which I myself have rinsed under the tap, are not exempt from a scrupulous cleaning. The Osmia dusts them, brushes them thoroughly with her tarsi and then sweeps them out backwards. What does she pick up? Not a thing. It makes no difference: ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... a quarter to six, a little tap came to Mr. Audley's door, and Angela stood there, saying, with a most serious face, 'Please, Mr. Audley, Cherry wants to know whether you don't think something must have happened.' And going upstairs, he found the poor young deputy in a nervous agony of despair at the non-return ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not begin until she has company, and decides to tap a little of her choice fruit. After the supper is well under way, she sends for a jar, and tells the servant to unscrew the top, and pour the fruit into a dish. The girl brings it into the kitchen, and proceeds to unscrew the ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... Come in, Lebret. I know the tap. My old friend and chief has always got a cask of wine smuggled away somewhere or other, even when all the rest of Paris is ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... his work, and she to the sitting-room. He read industriously for some time, occasionally pausing to annotate; and once or twice he raised his head and listened. A light tap at the door was followed by the entrance of the two girls. Irene came very reluctantly, fearful of intruding; but he rose, and placed a chair for her close to his own, assuring her that he was glad to see her there. Louisa found the portfolio, and, bringing it to the table, began to exhibit its ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... against the wall of the cottage. Well, when its master entered the door, leaving this wonderful staff behind, what should it do but immediately spread its little wings, and go hopping and fluttering up the doorsteps! Tap, tap, went the staff, on the kitchen floor; nor did it rest until it had stood itself on end, with the greatest gravity and decorum, beside Quicksilver's chair. Old Philemon, however, as well as his wife, was so taken up in attending to ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... midshipman took his heavy glass from under his arm to tap both blacks on the head: but second thoughts stayed his hand, and he glanced forward to see Tom Fillot's figure dimly as he leaned over the bulwark staring ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... footsteps, he ran along the passage, and knocked timidly. He heard a low, a very low murmur in the room, but there was no answer. He knocked again a little louder; still no notice; then, overdoing it in his fright, he gave a very loud tap indeed. ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... issues: tap water is not potable; poaching has diminished reputation as one of last great wildlife refuges; desertification natural hazards: hot, dry, dusty harmattan winds affect northern areas; floods are common international ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... beneath it for the accommodation of the foot-traveler, or, perchance, some idle dreamer like myself. It seemed to look round with a lordly air upon its old hereditary domain, whose stillness was no longer broken by the tap of the martial drum, nor the discordant clang of arms; and, as the breeze whispered among its branches, it seemed to be holding friendly colloquies with a few of its venerable contemporaries, who stooped from the opposite bank of the pool, nodding gravely now ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... guessing it'll be a match as ye say. Oh the b'y's doing well. He ain't for every market, as I'm bound to admit. Ef she wan't deaf she wouldn't look at him, no doubt. But she has scads of money—they won't need to do a tap of work unless they like—and she's a good housekeeper too her aunt tells me. She's pretty enough to suit him—he's as particular as never was—and he wan't crooked and she wan't deaf when they was born, so it's likely their children ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the lad's lips; but there was a stern decision in Sir Robert's eyes and tones which silenced it, and with quivering lip he stood listening to his father's instructions, till there was a tap at the door, and an officer appeared to announce that the ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... varying in size from that capable of holding from one to twenty gallons, and covered with water; to the pan a dome-shaped lid is fitted, terminating with a pipe, which is twisted corkscrew fashion, and fixed in a bucket, with the end peeping out like a tap in a barrel. The water in the still—for such is the name of the apparatus—is made to boil; and having no other exit, the steam must pass through the coiled pipe; which, being surrounded with cold water in the bucket, condenses the vapor before it can arrive at the tap. With the steam, the ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... himself exchanging urbane chatter with other beautifully turned out characters, who hung on his every word. He'd seen himself striding between low-bowing lines of assorted courtiers and soldiery, pausing now and then to tap at the pavement with his jeweled ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole

... must be the social intercourse of the respected departed. It is worthy of note, also, that if the spirit, I will not say the medium, perceives, after one knock, that it were wiser to say yes, he can conveniently add the second tap. Some such arrangement in real life would, it appears to me, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... skipping along as if the musicians were dancing at the head of the marchers. As the procession approaches and the music becomes louder, one hears in the bass an accentuation of the characteristic rhythm, like the tap of a bass drum. When the march has swelled to a forte, it sinks to a brief piano, as if the winding path had led the procession away again. Then there is another brief outburst, this time fortissimo, as if the marchers were quite near; and then a pianissimo, as if ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb

... sleepless, with his hands folded under his head, there came a light tap at his door, and he knew his mother had come to him. She wore a rose-colored dressing-gown, and at sight of it he remembered, with tenderness, how she had always longed "to ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane

... excellency," she ejaculated, gasping after each word. "That Amalia Ludwigovna, ah! Lida, Kolya, hands on your hips, make haste! Glissez, glissez! pas de basque! Tap with your ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... every time you can, boys," he advised. "It doesn't take so much of a tap to put them across the fence there; and if you can't get so far land a few in the bleachers for ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... seen Hamish more annoyed. When he had secured the money, he gave a pretty sharp tap to Annabel, and ordered her, in a ringing tone of command, not to meddle with his things again. He quitted the room, and Annabel ran after ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... store closet, and a sort of baggage-room, fitted with berths for two servants, occupied the end of the car nearest the engine. Then came a dressing-closet, with ample marble basins where hot water as well as cold was always on tap; then a wide state-room, with a bed on either side, and then a large compartment occupying the middle of the car, where by day four nice little dining-tables could be set, with a seat on either side, and by night six ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... buried beneath this mass. But our most sensational discovery was the fact that two enormous pieces of shell, weighing certainly 15 pounds each, were found touching the legs of my chair, and the smallest tap from one of these would have prevented our ever seeing another sunrise. Needless to say, we left our ruined quarters that evening, and I reposed more peacefully in my bomb-proof than I had done for many nights past. The air at the convent had accomplished ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... The tap of his crutches, and the slow motion with which he raised himself from step to step, was heard, and Amy, who was leaning against her mother, started ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... be a tank on the top of each staircase, with a tap from it on each landing, with six fire buckets hung near it, and three small hand pumps in every staircase; the officers and workpeople seeing these every day would be certain to run to them in case of fire, and by having a constant supply of ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood

... discreet tap at the door. She looked up. "Come in, come in." A face, round and childish, within its sleek bell of golden hair, peered round the opening door. More childish-looking still, a suit of mauve pyjamas made ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... when he was seated in the library, he heard a gentle tap at the door, and Mademoiselle entered, looking very pale. Somewhat astonished, he rose and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... France that cafe noir is a much more ready and abundant tap than water, and so it was here; notwithstanding which, the bedroom apparatus was most comfortable and complete. The chambermaid was a boy, and under his auspices a sheet of postage-stamps and a lead pencil vanished from the table. When it ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... postpone my task for a few weeks longer, I may fall in with my memories some time in the raging days of the dog-star, when the overwhelming sense of dog, in which, for the true working out of these memories, I must first dip my mind, may debar me from enjoying to the fullest extent the bounteous tap of Croton water which tinkles with such rivulet chiming from the silver (German) faucet into the marble (wash-hand) basin with which one side of my apartment is adorned. Hydrophobia is one thing, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... O the trees! Beneath their shade the hairless coot Waddles at ease, Hushing the magic of his gurgling beak; Or haply in Tree-worship leans his cheek Against their blind And hoary rind, Observing how the sap Comes humming upwards from the tap- Root! Thrice ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman

... would you have me say?" persists Beauclerk still lightly, with wonderful lightness, in fact, considering the weight of that playful tap upon his bent knuckles. "That we shall not be sorry? Would you have me lie, then? Fie, fie, Miss Maliphant! The truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth! At all risks and hazards!" here he almost imperceptibly sends flying ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... which pervaded every part of his uncle's establishment, he gave the usual gentle knock at the bolted door, by which he was accustomed to seek admittance, when accident had detained him abroad beyond the early and established hours of rest at the house of Milnwood. It was a sort of hesitating tap, which carried an acknowledgment of transgression in its very sound, and seemed rather to solicit than command attention. After it had been repeated again and again, the housekeeper, grumbling betwixt her teeth as she rose from ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Just then a timid tap upon the door of the reception-room was followed almost simultaneously by the entrance of Mrs. Waul, who held a card in ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... this led me to think that there might be a void space in it some way up. "Should this prove to be the case," I said, "our work will be half done, for we shall then have but to fix the stairs in the tree round the trunk." The boys got up and went to the top of the root to tap the trunk, and to judge by the sound how far up the hole went. But they had to pay for their want of thought; the whole swarm of bees came out as soon as they heard the noise, stung their cheeks, stuck to their hair and clothes, and ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin

... the entire staff—Domenico and the boy Giuseppe coaxing the patent stove to burn, restraining it when it burnt too fiercely, using the bellows to it when it threatened to go out, relighting it when it did go out; Francesca anxiously hovering over the tap regulating its trickle, because if it were turned on too full the water instantly ran cold, and if not full enough the stove blew up inside and mysteriously flooded the house; and Costanza and Angela running up and down bringing pails of hot water ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... studies for the best part of an hour, uninterrupted by the ladies, who each, in profound silence, pursued some female employment. At length, a light and modest tap was heard at the parlour door. "Is that you, Caxon?come ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... he who at length Shall tap at my door and shall cry, 'The king to new health and new strength Is returning; the king will not die!' Then she, who were now better dead, Will run, the news-bearer to see, And kiss him for what he hath said, That her brother ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... sought the kitchen and, making a light, washed up at the tap, then foraged for breakfast. Persistence turned up a spirit-stove, a half-bottle of methylated, a packet of tea, a tin or two of biscuit, as many more of potted meats: left-overs from the artist's stock, dismally scant and uninviting in array. With these he ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... A coy tap sounds on her door and she glides to it. "Who—who?" But in spite of her it opens to the bearer of ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... good, Charley," he said, "and one of those savages may in a moment give you a tap with his club, and kill you, as an idle boy does ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston

... would. Now I'm going to telephone your Aunt Jessica that you feel better, and you just lie quiet and go to sleep. Then you will feel better still. I'll put the bell right here beside the bed. If you want anything, tap it." ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... there was a tap on Hale's window just at his bedside, and when he looked out he saw the Red Fox's big rifle, telescope, moccasins and all in the moonlight. The Red Fox had discovered the whereabouts of Rufe Tolliver, and that very night he guided Hale and six of the guard to the ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... been out. But the sisters were awake; Virginia had not even gone to bed. She was sitting by her window, gazing out on the hushed, gloomy, breathless summer night,—waiting, waiting, she scarce knew for what,—when she was aware of a figure approaching, and knew Penn's light, quick tap at the door. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... Pretorius, dismounted one evening at the farm of a Mr. B. in the district of Bethulie. The farmer, hearing a tap at the door, went and opened it. Pretorius, who posed as an English officer, asked Mr. B., "Where are the Boers?" The latter, pointing to certain ridges in the distance, said in rather broken English, "Do you see those kopjes yonder? They are full of ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... cigaritos, and the children made merry. In the long summer evenings sweet strains of Spanish music from violin and guitar filled the air, and the hard earthen floor of the courtyard resounded to the tap-tap of high-heeled slippers, the swish of silken skirts, and the jingle of silver spurs, as the young people took part ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... was gaining ground with me: I was reasoning myself into something above esteem for him, and I turned to put my hand in his, when there was a tap at the window, and the little bird, struggling from my hand, burst into such a flood of singing that the whole place ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various



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