Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Tar   Listen
noun
Tar  n.  A sailor; a seaman. (Colloq.)






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





"Tar" Quotes from Famous Books



... pounds of clean iron filings, and a somewhat larger quantity of the flowers of sulphur. Mix the two together and knead them well with water into a stiffish paste. Then wrap this pudding in a cloth, and put another cloth about it, which has been smeared with common or coal-tar. Dig a hole in some quiet corner of your garden, pop your dumpling into it, and cover it well up with earth, treading it down firmly with your feet. Not many hours will elapse before you will see the ground swell like a molehill; an eruption will ensue, and you will be the happy possessor ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous

... one of the commodore's bargemen, had attended close by his side throughout this perilous adventure. To him the commodore gave in charge the swords of the Spanish officers, as he received them; and the jolly tar, as they were delivered to him, tucked these honourable trophies under his arm, with all the sang-froid imaginable. It was at this moment, also, that a British sailor, who had long fought under the commodore, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... delighted with the picturesque sight, and overwhelmed Herrick with questions, that the old tar answered ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... burden of his cry is, "There is a large supply of fresh haddies in the market!" The walls are placarded with advertisements of sheep smearing and dipping substances; the leading ingredients of which appear to be tar and butter. A recruiting sergeant of the Scots Fusilier Guards is standing by the Clachnacudden Stone, apparently in some dejection owing to the little business doing in his line. Men don't come to the "Character" Fair to 'list. It strikes me that ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... stood out in the office rumblin' to the old man, but that didn't bother me no more than the north wind when you're in bed under four blankets. Alta she played me some tunes on her git-tar and sung me some songs. I tell you, Duke, I just laid back and shut my eyes. I felt as easy as if I owned the railroad from here ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... I have left an hour before. Merciful heaven, how hot it is! I am just back from a hot climate, but it was nothing compared to Paris in July. The asphalt melts underfoot; the wood pavement is simmering in a viscous mess of tar; the ideal is forced to descend again and again to iced lager beer; the walls beat back the heat in your face; the dust in the public gardens, ground to atoms beneath the tread of many feet, rises in clouds from under the water-cart to fall, a little farther on, in white showers upon ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... palpitating heart; and the next moment, the door was locked from the outside and the key withdrawn. The interior was long, low, and quite unfurnished, but filled, almost from end to end, with sugar- cane, tar-barrels, old tarry rope, and other incongruous and highly inflammable material; and not only was the door locked, but the solitary ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... the big dangerous fisheries, in the frigid regions where the summers have no night. She was a very old ship, as old as the statuette of her patron saint itself. Her heavy, oaken planks were rough and worn, impregnated with ooze and brine, but still strong and stout, and smelling strongly of tar. At anchor she looked an old unwieldy tub from her so massive build, but when blew the mighty western gales, her lightness returned, like a sea-gull awakened by the wind. Then she had her own style of tumbling over the rollers, and rebounding more lightly than many newer ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... itself for four weeks and how the wind blew it right into port and how not even a shoestring was lost overboard. It was really wonderful and I am thankful you reminded me of it." And then Tom walked off, leaving Bahama Bill staring after him in dumb amazement. The old tar realized dimly that for once he had met his match at yarn spinning, and it was several days before he attempted to tell any more ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer

... ventured for this amazing assertion is this, that "all philosophers agree that matter is naturally indestructible by any human power. You may boil water into steam, but it is all there in the steam; or burn coal into gas, ashes, and tar, but it is all in the gas, ashes, and tar; you may change the outward form as much as you please, but you can not destroy the substance of anything. Wherefore, as matter is ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... large black book he held in his hand, Never his eyes from the page he took, With steadfast soul the page he scanned. The Devil was in his best humour that day, That ever his Highness was known to be in,— That's why he sent out his imps to play With sulphur, and tar, and pitch, and resin: They came to the saint in a motley crew, Twisted and twirl'd themselves about,— Imps of every shape and hue, A devilish, strange, and rum-looking rout. Yet the good St. Anthony kept his eyes So firmly fixed upon his book, Shouts nor laughter, ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... one. If there be iron ore, and streams whereupon to set the mills, iron is a brave commodity where wood aboundeth. Making of bay-salt, if the climate be proper for it, would be put in experience. Growing silk likewise, if any be, is a likely commodity. Pitch and tar, where store of firs and pines are, will not fail. So drugs and sweet woods, where they are, cannot but yield great profit. Soap-ashes likewise, and other things that may be thought of. But moil not too much under ground; for the hope of mines is very ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... certain big village. The activity of the sanitary authorities (and many and vain had been the efforts to rouse them to activity BEFORE) was, for them, remarkable. A good many heads of households died with fearful suddenness and not less fearful suffering. Several nuisances were "seen to," some tar- barrels were burnt, and the scourge passed by. Not long ago a woman, whose home is in a court where some of the most flagrant nuisances existed, in talking to me, casually alluded to one of them. It had been ordered to be removed, she said, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... however, better to pass the gas through some hydrated oxide of iron to remove the sulphureted hydrogen. The oxide can be used over and over again after exposure to the air, and the purifying is thus effected without smell or appreciable expense. Gas made by this process and with anthracite coal has no tar and no ammonia, and the small percentage of carbon dioxide present does not sensibly affect the heating power. A further advantage of this gas is that it cannot burn with a smoky flame, and there is no deposition of soot even when the object to be heated is placed over or in the flame, and this is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... It was the day of the shearing. The sheep, visibly whiter and more fleecy for a washing of some days before, had been gathered into stone folds. Clippers were seated on creels ranged about a turf fire, over which a pot of tar hung from a triangle of boughs. Boy "catchers" brought up the sheep, one by one, and girl "helpers" carried away the fleeces, hot and odorous, and hung them over the open barn doors. As the sheep were stripped, they were ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... been removed by the Boers; there only remained what we believe the trade terms hard and soft goods. A pile of stinking sheep-skins, a few rolls of questionable longcloth, two packets of candles, some sheep-shears, gin-traps, and a keg of tar. As the Intelligence officer wearily set about his business of cross-examination, he was interrupted by the entrance of the Supply officer. This youth, as has previously been shown, was possessed of ready resource,—so ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... innumerable rivulets. The leaders of the colony set a contagious example of activity. Poutrincourt forgot the prejudices of his noble birth, and went himself into the woods to gather turpentine from the pines, which he converted into tar by a process of his own invention; while Lescarbot, eager to test the qualities of the soil, was again, hoe in hand, at work all ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... gardeners. As early as 674, we have a record, describing a pleasant and fruit-bearing close at Ely, then cultivated by Brithnoth, the first Abbot of that place. The ecclesiastics subsequently carried their cultivation of fruits as tar as was compatible with the nature of the climate, and the horticultural knowledge of the middle ages. Whoever has seen an old abbey, where for generations destruction only has been at work, must have almost invariably found it situated ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various

... fiery darts do especially appeal: desires, appetites, passions; or—to use the word which refined people are so afraid of, although the Bible is not, 'lusts—which war against the soul,' and which need only a touch of fire to flare up like a tar-barrel, in thick foul smoke darkening the heavens. There are fiery darts that strike these animal natures of ours, and set ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... back de nex' night, en sho' 'nuff, Aun' Peggy tol' 'im w'at ter do. She gun 'im some stuff w'at look' lack it be'n made by poundin' up some roots en yarbs wid a pestle in a mo'tar. ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt

... style) the youth of the village assemble about dusk, and make the necessary preparations for the celebration of the 'cl[a]vie.' Proceeding to some shop, they demand a strong empty barrel, which is usually gifted at once; but if refused, taken by force. Another for breaking up, and a quantity of tar are likewise procured at the same time. Thus furnished, they repair to a particular spot close to the sea ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... unexpected but welcome end of strife was soon made known throughout the island. In the towns and villages tar-barrels blazed all through the winter-night, and the best cider flowed free in ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... said this true tar, saluting the rear-admiral, as one neighbour would greet another, on dropping in of an evening, for they occupied different cabins. "Mr. Cornet told me you would like to say a word to me, before I turned in; if, indeed, turn in at all, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... nothing seems to remain except the font. It consists of nave and chancel, both on a very small scale, and a wooden bell-turret, with one small bell. The north and west walls are of sandstone, the former covered with a thick coating of tar to keep out the moisture; the east wall has alternate layers of brick and sandstone. Some improvements have been made in recent years, much needed to make it even a decent place of worship. The two two-light trefoiled windows in the south wall of the nave have been framed in stone instead of ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... graphite, chromite, coal, bauxite, salt, quartz, tar sands, semiprecious stones, mica, ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Father Clement!" answered the glover; "when thou fallest into that vein of argument, thy words savour of blazing tar, and that is a scent I like not. As to Catharine, I must manage as I can, so as not to displease the young dignitary; but well is it for me that she is far ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... "'Tis the tar-water used for syringing the cattle," she whispered, "ye must not touch it, master. Where did you ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... compare with the neat, well-arranged office at Burnsville—pleasant Burnsville!—nor even as attractive as the country store of Benjamin Jessup, at Hampton. It is dark and disagreeable. It smells of tar, bacon, cheese, and cordage, blended with a suspicious odor of bilge water. This last does not really belong to the store, but comes from the docks, which are in close proximity. The place is ample. It has a large front, runs back deep, and you will find, if you walk far enough, a respectable counting-room, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... only had you down where I come from, Mr. DROOD," cries MONTGOMERY, tickled into ungovernable wrath by the ferule of the umbrella, I'd tar and feather you like a Yankee teacher, and then burn ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various

... all rigged out ez fine ez silk, an' go down the Lavergne turnpike, at a sharp canter, jes ez though ye war gwine somewhar. Nobody on our lines 'll be likely ter say anything ter ye, but ef they do, ye'll show 'em a pass from Gineral Rosy, which, howsoever, ye 'll tar up afore ye reach Lavergne, fur ye 'll likely find some o' t' other folks thar. Ef any o' them at Lavergne axes ye imperent questions, ye must hev a story ready 'bout yer being the Nashville niece o' Aunt Debby Brill, who lives on the ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... my sweet wife, upbraid me not with that; gain savours sweetly from any thing; he that respects to get, must relish all commodities alike, and admit no difference between oade and frankincense, or the most precious balsamum and a tar-barrel. ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... in the sloop. For some time every movement I made was closely watched. They were particularly interested in what I ate. One day, after I had been "boot-topping" the sloop with a composition of coal-tar and other stuff, and while I was taking my dinner, with the luxury of blackberry jam, I heard a commotion, and then a yell and a stampede, as the children ran away yelling: "The captain is eating coal-tar! The captain is eating coal-tar!" But they soon found out that this same ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... was merely a light wooden frame, covered with some waterproof stuff that looked like a mixture of rubber and tar. Over this—in fact, over the whole roof—was pitched an awning of heavy sail-cloth. I noticed that the house was anchored to the sand by chains, already rusted red. But this one-storied house was not the only building nestling in the south shelter of the big dune. A hundred feet away ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... have been expected to know better. But, indeed, he and O'Flynn had the same object in view, which was simply to sell their paper; and as a means to that great end, to pander to the fiercest passions of their readers, to bully and silence all moderate and rational Chartists, and pet and tar on the physical-force men, till the poor fellows began to take them at their word. Then, when it came to deeds and not to talk, and people got frightened, and the sale of the paper decreased a little, a blessed change came over them—and they awoke ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... where the French weavers wrought for the Linen Company. Here I got a fresh direction for Pilrig, my destination; and a little beyond, on the wayside, came by a gibbet and two men hanged in chains. They were dipped in tar, as the manner is; the wind span them, the chains clattered, and the birds hung about the uncanny jumping-jacks and cried. The sight coming on me suddenly, like an illustration of my fears, I could scarce be done with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... indeed fool enough to acknowledge a compact with the Evil One, which would have been a swift and ready road to the stake and tar-barrel. Her fairy, she said, like Caliban's, was a harmless fairy. Nevertheless, she "spaed fortunes," read dreams, composed philtres, discovered stolen goods, and made and dissolved matches as successfully as if, according ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... of varying strength; the various mercurial ointments; the tar oils, either pure or with alcohol; stimulating lotions, containing varying proportions, singly or in combination, of tincture of capsicum, tincture of cantharides, aqua ammoniae, and oil of turpentine. ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... looking in, and the news going out like a winnowing woman with no one to shut the door after her; our passage was crowding with people that should have had a tar-brush in their faces. And of course a good score of them ran away to tell that the Captain had murdered his father. The milk-man stood there with his yoke and cans, and his naily boots on our new oil-cloth, and, not being able to hide himself plainly, he pulled ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... timbers,' 'Heave ahoy,' The Tar, those times a breezy boy With shiny hat and pigtail long And love for lass and glass and song. Discovery of About this date Electric Force Electric Force Dawns on mankind. Before, of course, In ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison

... calico. Spare collar-check. Spare leather, for hobbles and neck-straps. Spare buckles for same. Spare bells. Spare hobble-chains. 6 lbs. of sulphur. 2 gallons kerosene, to check vermin in camels. 2 gallons tar and oil, for mange in camels. 2 galvanised-iron water casks (15 gallons each). 2 galvanised-iron water casks (17 gallons each), made with bung on top side, without taps, for these are easily broken ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... miles from town, to see the Hospital for Seamen. Charles II. built this place for a royal palace,—and a noble one it is,—but William and Mary gave it up to the use of old and worn-out seamen; and as England owes every thing to Jack Tar, it seems fit that, when old and crazy, his last days should be made comfortable. A very large income arises from the exhibition of the fine picture gallery here to be seen. Here is quite enough to please any one who is curious, and to gratify boys ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various

... Legislature, who had pledged himself to his Constituents not to steal, brought home at the end of the session a large part of the dome of the Capitol. Thereupon the Constituents held an indignation meeting and passed a resolution of tar and feathers. ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... with golden fish; whilst on the bason's brim were placed stands for exotics, whose fragrance charmed our sea-worn traveller, so lately emancipated from those sad drawbacks to a voyage, the odours of tar ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... and Ispahan. Tiflis armor, caravan teas. European bronzes, Swiss clocks, velvets and silks from Lyons, English cottons, harness, fruits, vegetables, minerals from the Ural, malachite, lapis-lazuli, spices, perfumes, medicinal herbs, wood, tar, rope, horn, pumpkins, water-melons, etc—all the products of India, China, Persia, from the shores of the Caspian and the Black Sea, from America and Europe, were united at this corner ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... and lined the adjacent walls to witness the ceremony and hear the speeches; but Elder Penno was neither a speech-maker nor a spectator. He could not, for nervousness, leave the quay, where he stood ready beside a cauldron of bubbling tar and a pile of lead pegs, to pay the ship over before she took the water, and trim her as soon as ever she floated. But when, amid cheers and to the strains of the Temperance Brass Band, she lay moored at length upon a fairly even keel, with the red ensign drooping ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... tell some interesting story after he had gone, and he lingered on. He did not go into the question whether what Ivan Ivanovitch had just said was right and true. His visitors did not talk of groats, nor of hay, nor of tar, but of something that had no direct bearing on his life, and he was glad and ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... gas enters the drum, E, at the lower part of the furnace. To prevent the choking up of the pipe, R, the latter is provided with a joint permitting of dilatation. The gas on leaving E goes to the condenser, G G, where it is freed from its tar. The latter flows out, and the gas proceeds to the washer, J, and the purifiers, I and I, to be purified. The amount of production is registered by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... Miltonic account and the circumstantial evidence, we ought to have abundant evidence of the existence of birds in the Carboniferous, the Devonian, and the Silurian rocks. I need hardly say that this is not the case, and that not a trace of birds makes its appearance until the Tar later period ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... Want if not the total Absense of Discretion. Now I would ask my Friend, whether the Character of a blunt & honest officer entitles him to the Command of one of our Capital Ships if he is "deficient in point of Experience & Discretion." The Characteristick of a Sailor is the blunt honest Tar. They carry this Character to an inimitable Height. But surely every honest blunt or even brave Tar is not fit for Command in our Navy. I some times fear there was an Error in the beginning. Thus ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... evidence. This is generally true of the lower class of Italians throughout the United States, whether in the city or country. They live under worse conditions than at home. You may go through the railroad camps and see twenty men sleeping together in a one-room built of lath, tar-paper, and clay. The writer knows of one Italian laborer in Massachusetts who slept in a floorless mud hovel about six feet square, with one hole to go in and out by and another in the roof for ventilation—in order to save $1.75 per month. All honor to him! Garibaldi ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... were receiving news of your friend. I then passed through Persia, looked in at Mecca, and paid a short but interesting visit to the Khalifa at Khartoum the results of which I have communicated to the Foreign Office. Returning to France, I spent some months in a research into the coal-tar derivatives, which I conducted in a laboratory at Montpellier, in the south of France. Having concluded this to my satisfaction and learning that only one of my enemies was now left in London, I was about to return when my movements were hastened by the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of officials. It is very true that husband and wife frequently vote alike—as the magnet draws the needle they go to the polls together. But women are not coerced. If a man were known to coerce his wife's vote I believe he would be ridden out of town on a rail with a coat of tar and feathers. Women's legal rights have been improved in Colorado since they obtained the ballot, and there are now no civil distinctions. Equal suffrage tends to make political affairs better, purer and more desirable for all who take ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... course did not exist. The countries with which they expected to trade ranged all the way from India to Canada; the political services which their governments imposed upon them varied from the production of tar, pitch, and turpentine to the weakening of naval rivals; while the personal qualities of the founders of the companies, and the sovereigns or ministers who gave the charters differed widely. Moreover, the later development of many of these companies ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... what tar-brush was talking to the interpreter about," suggested Buck, and they went at once and found the man, who had returned to his post on the platform. The interpreter readily told them that the half-caste had offered him a liberal sum ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... Valley Church in Magoffin County, or in Old Tar Kiln Church in Carter County; it could be in Bethel Church high up in the Unakas, or Antioch Church in Cowee, Nantahala, Dry Fork, or New Hope Chapel in Tusquitee, in Bald or Great Smoky. Anywhere, everywhere that an Association of Regular Primitive Baptists hold forth, and they are ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... no exchange of civilities between the officers of the two ships, the sailors harmonized amiably and got drunk together ashore with mutual good will. A jack tar is probably the only representative left of the old "free lance," who served under any flag where he was sure of pay and booty. The blue jackets will fight under any colors, where there is a fair prospect of adventure and ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... alphabet, showing that Greek was included in their curriculum. And once were found written in charcoal, and only partly legible, the words, "Enjoy the fire, Christian," a scoff at the martyrs who, soaked in tar, were burned ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... world, and lose his own soul?' (Mark 8:36). He loseth then, he loseth greatly that getteth after this fashion. This is the man that is penny-wise and pound-foolish; this is he that loseth his good sheep for a half-penny-worth of tar;[52] that loseth a soul for a little of the world. And then what doth he get thereby but loss and damage? Thus he getteth or rather loseth about the world to come. But what doth he get in this world, more than travail and sorrow, vexation ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... in a terrifically gruff voice. Before I had time to look about me, the two monsters had dragged me forward before his marine majesty and his spouse; and one producing a huge cold tar brush, and the other a piece of rusty hoop, I found my face paid over with some most odorous lather. I cried out to Jerry, who I thought, as a friend, ought to help me; but he pretended to be in a dreadful fright, and when the monsters ran after him he managed ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... as a member of the tribe dies a shallow grave is dug within the hogan or dwelling by one of the near male relatives, and into this the corpse is unceremoniously tumbled by the relatives, who have previously protected themselves from the evil influence by smearing their naked bodies with tar from the pinon tree. After the body has thus been disposed of, the hogan (composed of logs and branches of trees covered with earth) is pulled down over it and the place deserted. Should the deceased have no near relatives or was of no importance in ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... of carrying out this process, and the relative suitability of these methods depends on a good many, so to speak, accidental circumstances. For instance, if the intention is to finish the polishing at a sitting, the polishing tool may be faced with squares of archangel—not mineral or coal-tar—pitch and brought to shape simply by pressing while warm against the face of the lens. A tool thus made is very convenient, accurate, and good, but it is difficult to keep it in shape for any length of time; if left on the lens it is apt to stick, and if it overhangs ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... we obtained others to replace them. Well, we were not particular in this connection. We found empty tea cans and empty bully-beef tins, and by manipulating barbed wire we speedily converted these crude materials into serviceable culinary implements. We preferred the tar cans because the beef tins often came to pieces after the solder with which they are fastened had been subjected to the heat of the fire. I remember that one day our parson gave as much as five shillings for ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen

... accomplishment of their purpose, that a declaration in its favor was defeated only by a small majority, and that on the ground of expediency. At a still later period, abolitionist lecturers and teachers were mobbed, assaulted, and threatened with tar and feathers in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and other States. One of them (Lovejoy) was actually killed by a mob in Illinois as ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... Carroll County, fifty miles south of Far West. As soon as the citizens heard that Stewart had arrived they notified his wife's brothers and father that an armed mob intended to take him out and whip him severely, and then tar and feather him. His friends warned him of the fact, and he attempted to make his escape, but the mob was on the watch. They caught him, and, holding two pistols at his head, forced him to take off his coat, kneel down, and receive ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee

... forth," with that he cried, "And Calcabrina, and Cagnazzo thou! The troop of ten let Barbariccia lead. With Libicocco Draghinazzo haste, Fang'd Ciriatto, Grafflacane fierce, And Farfarello, and mad Rubicant. Search ye around the bubbling tar. For these, In safety lead them, where the other crag Uninterrupted traverses the dens." I then: "O master! what a sight is there! Ah! without escort, journey we alone, Which, if thou know the way, I covet not. Unless thy prudence ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... have discovered, with a genius for buying. This Forant has purchased for me 350,000 pounds of iron in balls, 200,000 pounds of powder, twelve cargoes of Northern timber, matches, grenades, pitch, tar—I know not what! with a saving of seven per cent upon what all those articles would ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... oxen, and it tuk a long time to git de seeds out of de cotton dat way. I'se seed 'em tie bundles of fodder in front of de critters so dey would go faster tryin' to git to de fodder. Dey grez dem gins wid homemade tar. De big sight was dem old home-made cotton presses. When dem old mules went round a time or two pullin' dat heavy weight down, dat ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... presence known by the plant assuming an unhealthy appearance, the leaves curling up, etc. Frequently swarms of ants (which feed upon the aphides) are found beneath the plants attacked. Syringe the plant all over repeatedly with gas-tar water, or with tobacco or lime-water. The lady-bird ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink

... very full account of the state of manufactures in all the provinces. New York, for example, had no manufactures "that deserved mentioning;" the trade there "consisted chiefly in furs, whalebone, oil, pitch, tar, and provisions." In Massachusetts "the inhabitants worked up their wool and flax, and made an ordinary coarse cloth for their own use, but did not export any." In Pennsylvania the "chief trade lay in the exportation of provisions ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... with a chuckle. "I arn't going to spyle a ship for the sake of a ha'porth o' tar. There we are," he continued, spreading the melted pitch all over the patch with a thin piece of wood till, as it cooled, it formed a fairly level surface ready for the pieces of planking intended to form ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... "I can guess the rest. We'll have to tar and feather him some day, and ride him out of town on a rail. I'd kick him myself, only his father is a director in the bank where I work, and I'd be fired if I did. Can't afford any such pleasure. But some day I'll give Andy ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... one is. Well, we read it through, and Moriarty said to me, 'Can we let this stay as it is?' And I said, 'No. We can't.' 'Well,' said Moriarty to me, 'what are we to do about it? I should like to tar and feather the man,' he said. 'We can't do that,' I said, 'but why not tar and feather his statue?' I said. So we thought we would. Ye know where the statue is, I suppose? It's in the recreation ground just ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse

... Beyond the cows come a heap of cotton-bags, beyond the cotton-bags more carriages, more pyramids of travelling trunks, and valets and couriers bustling and swearing round about them. And already, and in various corners and niches, lying on coils of rope, black tar-cloths, ragged cloaks, or hay, you see a score of those dubious fore-cabin passengers, who are never shaved, who always look unhappy, and appear getting ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray

... smell of wood fires from the cabins of the married men and from the ovens of the cookhouse, the ammoniacal whiffs from the stables, the smell of ripening apples from "Boston's" orchard—while over all and through all came the perfume of the witch-hazel and tar-weed from the forests and mountain sides, as pungent as myrrh, as ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... above year, Thomas L. Willson, an electrical engineer of Spray, North Carolina, was experimenting in an attempt to prepare metallic calcium, for which purpose he employed an electric furnace operating on a mixture of lime and coal tar with about ninety-five horse power. The result was a molten mass which became hard and brittle when cool. This apparently useless product was discarded and thrown in a nearby stream, when, to the astonishment of onlookers, a large volume of gas was ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly

... through pipes to our houses to take the place of lamps or candles, which until that time had been the only light. But, after making the gas, there was a thick, pitchy substance left from the coal, called coal-tar. It was only a trouble to the gas-makers, who had no use for it, and even threw it away, until some one, more thoughtful than the others, found out that water would not pass through it. And so it began to be used to cover roofs of buildings, and, mixed with some other substances, ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews

... at the girl's face for a few moments, then said: "Tell me your name and address: I am going to write it out now, that this quilt is to be yours any time I die; and you must be as careful of it as we have been. Always keep tar-paper, or tobacco in it, during summer when ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... of a column of lurid flame and smoke made us wonder for a moment whether the vessel in distress was not on fire as well as wrecked. But I recollected that the "Wolf King" had burned tar-barrels all night long as a signal of distress, and this we rightly concluded was what was taking place on ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... for nothing they whistle. The fact that girls strangle their illegitimate children and go to prison for it, and that Anna Karenin flung herself under the train, and that in the villages they smear the gates with tar, and that you and I, without knowing why, are pleased by Katya's purity, and that every one of us feels a vague craving for pure love, though he knows there is no such love—is all that prejudice? That is the one thing, brother, which has survived intact from natural selection, ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... handsome in spite of his rusticity. It was getting late, and he left the street just as I saw him. I followed, waiting until we got to a private place before I would speak to him, however, as I knew he would be mortified to be taken for the friend of a Jack-tar, in ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... the sun, are split up into four subsepts: the Ada Solia, who hold their weddings at sunrise; the Japa Solia, who hold them at sunset; the Taria Solia, who hold them when stars have become visible after sunset; and the Tar Solia, who believe their name is connected with cotton thread and wrap several skeins of raw thread round the bride and bridegroom at the wedding ceremony. The Moharia sept worship the local goddess at the village of Moharia in Indore State, who is known ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... seen trolley-cars, electric lights, smart rows of new brick houses on lots thirty by one hundred, negro policemen in uniforms patterned after those worn by the Broadway Squad, streets torn up by sewers and conduits, steam-rollers with an unsavory smell of tar and asphalt, push-buttons and ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... the wound. The cavity must first be treated in accordance with approved tree surgery practices. In shade tree work, quite a variety of substances have been used to fill cavities with more or less success; e. g., wood blocks and strips, asphalt and sawdust, asphalt and sand, clear coal tar, clear asphalt, elastic cement, magnesian cement, Roman (or Portland) cement, etc. Of these only two—wooden blocks and Portland cement, have been in general use more than a few years. Blocks of wood were used in France to fill ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... consolidated the fibers of men's thoughts. Ah! already I shudder for these comparatively degenerate days of my native village, when you cannot collect a load of bark of good thickness, and we no longer produce tar ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau

... then the devil put it into Jack to resume his torture. He laid down the card and sat silent, the waiter still at his elbow. "Well, what shall it be?" asked Farrell, a trifle faintly. Jack, like the Tar-Baby, kept on saying nothing. The waiter looked about him, and fetched back his attention politely. "What shall it be?" Farrell repeated. Then, as Jack stared quietly at the table, not answering, "Go and attend to the next table," said he to the man. ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... prince vanquish this bulwark, this stronghold of the foe; which was three times greater in size, strength, and number of its crew, than Farnese's vessel. What did he care, what recked he of the shower of bullets and tar-hoops ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... son of a Scottish chieftain, had once plied his trade there and murdered many people, whose bodies were supposed to be buried somewhere on or near the premises. He was said to have had a terrible though decidedly unorthodox ending—falling into a vat of boiling tar, a raving madman. But what were the phantasms of the ape and cat? Were they the earth-bound spirits of the highwayman and his horse, or simply the spirits of two animals? Though either theory is possible, I am ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... self. The same turbid blending of anger and self-regard impelled his arm to the passionately repeated strokes, which, in his heat, he substituted for the quiet words that he was bidden to speak. The Palestinian Tar gum says very significantly, that at the first stroke the rock dropped blood, thereby indicating the tragic sinfulness of the angry blow. How unworthy a representative of the long-suffering God was this angry man! 'The servant of the Lord must not strive,' nor give ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... answered; "and she is blazing like a tar barrel. If the rain doesn't come within the next two or three minutes they will have their work cut out ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... shoaler as to make it necessary to proceed with greater caution. About this time, also, a great deal of high land came in sight to the northward and eastward, which, on the first inspection of the Esquimaux charts, we took to be the large portion of land called Keiyuk-tar-ruoke,[001] between which and the continent the promised strait lay that was to lead us to the westward. So far all was satisfactory; but, after sailing a few miles farther, it is impossible to describe our disappointment and mortification in perceiving an ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... He gave the tar a piece of gold, And with a flag of truce commanded He should be shipp'd to England Old, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... scurvy; another had cut his hand; and others had got nearly well, but said that there were plenty aloft to furl the sails, so they were sogering on the forecastle. There was only one "splicer" on board, a fine-looking old tar, who was in the bunt of the fore-topsail. He was probably the only sailor in the ship, before the mast. The mates, of course, and the boat-steerers, and also two or three of the crew, had been to sea before, but only whaling voyages; ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... attack on Beauport was made, the French again paid the fleet the undesired attention of a large fire raft composed of several small vessels chained together and laden with all sorts of combustibles—shells, guns loaded to the muzzle, tar barrels, etc., and again this was grappled by the boats and towed away to a place of safety; and then Wolfe, sending in a flag of truce the next morning, said that if the performance were repeated he ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... where he had caused the brig "Jeune-Hardie" to be constructed at his own expense. Several successful voyages had been made in the North, and the ship always found a good sale for its cargoes of wood, iron, and tar. Jean Cornbutte then gave up the command of her to his son Louis, a fine sailor of thirty, who, according to all the coasting captains, was the ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... great white stacks, or swinging in the air from the necks of mighty cranes, cranes that could nip up an elephant with as little ado, and set him down on the wharf, with a box on his ugly ears for his cowardly trumpeting. It is the end that smells of tar, the domain of the harbourmasters, where the sailor finds a 'home,'—not too sweet, and where the wild sea is tamed in a maze of granite squares and basins; the end where the riggings and buildings ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... with broad, heavy features, and dull, cold, snake-like eyes. His black, unkempt hair, and long, wiry beard, fell round his face like tow round a mop handle, and his coarse linsey clothes, patched in many places, and smeared with tar and tobacco juice, fitted him as a shirt might fit a bean pole. The legs of his pantaloons were thrust inside of his boots, and he wore a fuzzy woollen hat with battered crown and a broad flapping brim. He looked the very picture of an ex-overseer under a cloud, or an itinerant sporting man, anxious ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... into the street (which was strange enough to me) and smelt the fish, and pitch, and oakum, and tar, and saw the sailors walking about, and the carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I had done so busy a place an injustice; and said as much to Peggotty, who heard my expressions of delight with ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... chief colouring principle of madder. It is also the name for an extensive series of chemical colours produced from anthracene, one of the coal tar hydrocarbons discovered ...
— Vegetable Dyes - Being a Book of Recipes and Other Information Useful to the Dyer • Ethel M. Mairet

... Huh! Instantly he was a prey to misgivings. He recalled shudderingly brother engineers whose wives dragged about with them, living on the edge of construction camps under canvas in summer, in rough-boarded, tar-papered shacks in the winter; or perhaps in half-furnished cottages ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... projected into the cylindrical case. When the gas has been several times subjected to the washing process, it passes off by the pipe, K. Fresh cold water is supplied to the vessel by the pipe, L; and M is the outlet for the tar.—Journal of Gas Lighting. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various

... station. Beaulings had a short row of unpainted two-story structures, the single street cut into deep muddy scars; stores with small dusty windows; eating houses elevated on piles; an insignificant mission chapel with a tar-papered roof; and a number of obviously masked depots for ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... to the dilatation produced by the freezing of infiltrated moisture in the mass of snow; others accounting for it entirely by weight and pressure. There is yet a third class, who, disregarding the real properties of ice, would have us believe, that, because tar, for instance, is viscid when it moves, therefore ice is viscid because it moves. We shall see hereafter that the phenomena exhibited in the onward movement of glaciers are far more diversified than has generally ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... a sailor; not that his dress belonged to that noble calling, but his build, the roll of his walk, the tie of his cravat, a blue anchor tattooed on that great brown hand: certainly a sailor; a British tar! poor man. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... wise, pointed to her indigo skirt, and continued: "You get your dyes from the benzene of coal tar, but they do not stand washing or sunlight, as well as our bright and strong vegetable dyes. We take our indigo plant, and steep the leaves in water for twelve hours, in a stone tank. Then Fil drains off the yellow liquor. This soon turns green. Then blue sediment ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson

... and we will keep the wedding festivities in the new castle. But if he fails to execute this my royal command, then, as a just but mild monarch, I shall give orders that you and he are taken, and first dipped in tar and then in feathers, and you shall be executed in the market-place for ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang

... well excited to wait, sahib! She is of the North, you know. She loves the North, and the men of the 'Hills'; and she knows them because she loves them. There came a tar (telegram) from Peshawur, from a general, to say King sahib comes to Delhi; but already she had completed all arrangements here. She was in a great stew, I can assure you. Finally she said, 'Why should I ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... a hydrocarbon isolated from the fraction of coal-tar boiling at 260 deg. -270 deg. by M. P. E. Berthelot, who, in conjunction with Bardy, afterwards synthesized it from a-ethyl naphthalene (Ann. Chem. Phys., 1873, Yol. xxix.). It forms white needles (from alcohol), melts ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... took charge of Hythe, the corps fought its battles in a miserable little barn known as 'The Tar-Tub,' located in a back lane. How could she hope to get crowds of people into that place? She simply would not suffer the indignity. There was land to be had, money in the place, and sympathy. A proper ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter

... produce a chaos of activity very uncommon in the towns of our North American colonies. But too often, murky-looking wharfs, storehouses, and half-dismantled ships, are enveloped in drizzling fog—the fog rendered yet more impenetrable by the fumes of coal-tar and sawdust; and the lower streets swarm with a demoralised population. Yet the people of St. John are so far beyond the people of Halifax, that I heartily wish ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... He had come to warn Constantine Jopp that a crowd were come to tar and feather him, and to get him away on his ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... docks—when the smoke clouds lie, Wind-ript and red, on an angry sky— Coal-dumps and derricks and piled-up bales, Tar and the gear of forgotten sails, Rusted chains and a broken spar (Yesterday's breath on the things that are) A lone, black cat and a snappy cur, Smell of high-tide and of newcut fir, Smell of low-tide, fish, weed!—I swear I love every blessed smell ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... long-shafted trident, called a waster, is much practised at the mouth of the Esk and in the other salmon rivers of Scotland. The sport is followed by day and night, but most commonly in the latter, when the fish are discovered by means of torches, or fire-grates, filled with blazing fragments of tar-barrels, which shed a strong though partial light upon the water. On the present occasion the principal party were embarked in a crazy boat upon a part of the river which was enlarged and deepened by the restraint of a mill-wear, while others, like the ancient Bacchanals in their ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Heaven!" declaimed Tom Taffrail, "for Heaven at least is my witness, that beneath the tar-stained shirt of a British sailor there may beat the ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Collins, Forest Pathologist in the Department of Agriculture in Farmer's Bulletin No. 467 on "The Control of the Chestnut Bark Disease" gives the following: "The essentials for the work are a gouge, a mallet, a pruning knife, a pot of coal tar, and a paint brush. In the case of a tall tree a ladder or rope, or both may be necessary but under no circumstances should tree climbers be used, as they cause wounds which are very favorable places for infection. Sometimes an axe, a saw, and a long-handled tree pruner are convenient ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... Crews loiter about the Town: A. Percival, Frost, and Jack in his Kingfisher Guernsey: to whom Posh does the honours of the place. He is still busy with his Gear: his hands of a fine Mahogany, from Stockholm tar, but I see he has some return of hoseness. I believe that he and I shall now sign the Mortgage Papers that make him owner of Half Meum and Tuum. I only get out of him that he can't say he sees anything much amiss in the Deed. ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome

... gable-chimneyed houses, the long lumber-yards reflected in the swampy harbor among the canoes, pungies, and sharpies moored there, the small houses sidewise to the sandy streets, the larger ones rising up the sandy hills, the old box-bush in the silvery gardens, the bridges close together, and the smell of tar and sawdust pleasantly inhaled upon the lungs, made a combination like a caravan around some pool in the Desert of ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... Dublin Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Manufactures, Arts and Sciences. This society was the parent of the present Royal Dublin Society. His "List of the Absentees of Ireland" was published in 1729. He also issued "Observations on Coin" (1730), and "An Authentic Narrative of the Success of Tar Water in Curing a great number and variety of Distempers" (1746), to which ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... in coking are wasted in the old-fashioned "beehive" ovens, but in modern "by-product" coke ovens these gases by proper treatment yield valuable coal tar products and ammonia. It is estimated that the sum of the value of the products thus recovered from a ton of coal multiplies the value of the ton of coal at the mine by at least thirteen times. The importance of this fact from the conservational standpoint ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... is not that a pretty poem? Who could have the heart to find fault with that, or criticise the dear child for her dutiful love to me? I'll not burn that." And the old tar slipped the precious document into his pocket, to be hoarded next his heart, and to be worn until death bade them part, within the enamelled case which contained the miniature of ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... little brute of a missionary chap, and we made up our minds to tar and feather him before he converted us; but long before we had found out which of the new trebles was the model Christian, old Shapcote had caught us two pitching into one another, because I said Bexley was a snobbish place ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with jewels sits in the cafe, Spraying light like a fountain. Diamonds glitter on her bulbous fingers And on her arms, great as thighs, Diamonds gush from her ear-lobes over the goitrous throat. She is obesely beautiful. Her eyes are full of bleared lights, Like little pools of tar, spilled by a sailor in mad haste for shore... And her mouth is scarlet and full—only a little crumpled— like a flower that has ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... clear the grounds, and so this timber might be had almost for nothing. Masts might be also had in the country, on account of the number of pines which the coast produces; and for the same reason pitch and tar would be common. For the planks of ships, there is no want of oak; but might not very good one be made of cypress? this wood is, indeed, softer than oak, but endowed with qualities surpassing this last: it is light, not apt to ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... associations of enjoyment even over utensils and tools. In the corner stood the sheep-crook, and along a shelf at one side were ranged bottles and canisters of the simple preparations pertaining to ovine surgery and physic; spirits of wine, turpentine, tar, magnesia, ginger, and castor-oil being the chief. On a triangular shelf across the corner stood bread, bacon, cheese, and a cup for ale or cider, which was supplied from a flagon beneath. Beside the provisions lay the flute, whose notes had lately been called forth by the lonely ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... in a manner I cannot repeat; no epithet ever stood by itself. When I was young the boys relished these dreadful words because they seemed to smell of tar and battle-smoke, when every English boy was for being a sailor and daring the Black Gentleman below. In all truth, the bad words came from him; though an excellent scholar has assured me they should be taken ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire will be delighted to read this story. It tells of the strange and mysterious adventures that happened to the Patrol in their trip through the "mountains of the sky" in the Moonshiners' Paradise of the old Tar Heel State, North Carolina. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... negro, rather a young fellow, and as black as tar. The whites of his eyes looked staring as he followed the movements of that threatening gun, ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... procure from other sources the substances which give to the exuviae of man and animals their value in agriculture, we should not need the latter. It is quite indifferent for our purpose whether we supply the ammonia (the source of nitrogen) in the form of urine, or in that of a salt derived from coal-tar; whether we derive the phosphate of lime from bones, apatite, or fossil excrements ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... employed another device to destroy the fleet of the invaders and carry terror into their ranks. A flotilla of fire-ships was loaded to the gunwale with pitch, tar, powder bombs, grenades, and scrap-iron; and towards midnight these floating hell-boats slipped their moorings and drifted with the tide towards the English fleet riding at the Point of Orleans. Tide and stream ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... instant afterwards there appeared a little wizened fellow with a cringing manner and a shambling style of walking. He wore an open jacket, with a splotch of tar on the sleeve, a red-and-black check shirt, dungaree trousers, and heavy boots badly worn. His face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile upon it, which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his crinkled hands were half closed in a way that is distinctive of sailors. As ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... a-rearing on her hind legs, a-pawing, and snickering. This hoss didn't see the cute of them notions; he was for examining, so I goes to jump off and lam the fool; but I was stuck tight as if there was tar on the saddle. I took my gun, that there iron, my rifle, and pops Blue over the head, but she squealed and dodged, all the time pawing; but it wasn't no use, and I says, 'you didn't cost more than two blankets when you was ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... being Thames Street, the consequence was terrible, for the shops and warehouses of this thoroughfare containing inflammable materials, required for the shipping trade, such as oil, pitch, tar, and rosin, the houses at one side the street were immediately wrapped, from basement to garret, in sheets of angry flame. And now flaunting its yellow light skywards, as if exulting in its strength, and triumphing in its mastery over men's efforts, the fire rushed to the church of St. ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... work as a newspaper man, without a thought that it was a masterpiece, a work of genius. The first charm of the book is that it fascinates children with its frolicsome adventures of Brer Rabbit, Brer Tarrypin, Brer B'ar, Brer Fox and the wonderful Tar Baby; the second, that it combines in a remarkable way a primitive or universal with a local and intensely human interest. Thus, almost everybody is interested in folklore, especially in the animal stories ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... say who saw one sea-corpse cold He was all of lovely manly mould, Every inch a tar, Of the best we boast our ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... Baluseck, departed from Kaigan and crossed the Great Wall. This colossal defensive work consists of double crenelated ramparts, locked together, at intervals of about 100 yards, by towers and other fortifications. The ramparts are built of brickwork and ash-tar cemented with lime; measure twenty feet in height, and twenty-five to thirty feet in thickness; but do not at all points preserve this solidity. In the province of Kansou, there is but one line of rampart. The total length of this great barrier, called Wan-ti-chang (or ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... necessity, she had to travel at the cheap rate, among the crowd of poorer passengers who were herded aft the packet boat, leaning up against one another, sitting on bundles and packages of all kinds; that part of the deck, reeking with the smell of tar and sea-water, damp, squally and stuffy, was an abomination of hideous discomfort to the dainty, fastidious lady of fashion, yet she almost welcomed the intolerable propinquity, the cold douches of salt water, which every now and then wetted her through and through, for it was the consequent sense ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... last to specialism. The Indian black bear is a "handy man," like the British Tar—good all round. Its great soft paw is a very serviceable tool and weapon, armed with claws which will take the face off a man or grub up a root with equal ease. When a black bear has found an ant-hill it takes but a few minutes to tear up the hard, cemented clay and lay the deep ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... Road. (a) Bridges can be rendered temporarily useless by removing the flooring, or, in the case of steel bridges, by burning the flooring (if obtainable, pour tar or kerosene on flooring), particularly if there is ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... regular blizzard pursuing the train. Now isn't it revolting? Isn't it disgusting? ... I have no goloshes, I pulled on my big boots, and on my way to the refreshment-room for coffee I made the whole Ural region smell of tar. And when we got to Ekaterinburg there was rain, snow, and hail. I put on my leather coat. The cabs are something inconceivable, wretched, dirty, drenched, without springs, the horse's four legs straddling, huge hoofs, gaunt spines ... the droshkies here are a clumsy parody ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... the exception of spars and a barrel or two of tar, they could find nothing of value. There was no want of staves and iron hoops of broken casks, and these, Ready observed, would make excellent palings for the garden when they had time ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat

... to facts, Schlosser is always blundering. Post-office directories would be of no use to him; nor link-boys; nor blazing tar-barrels. He wanders in a fog such as sits upon the banks of Cocytus. He fancies that Burke, in his lifetime, was popular. Of course, it is so natural to be popular by means of 'wearisome tediousness,' that Schlosser, above ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... put into the long-boat, into which the captain entered, with ten sailors, six musicians, and myself. We found horses and mules waiting for us on the shore, and we soon reached the house of death, before which a great many tar barrels were burning, and in the centre stood a bier, upon which the coffin was placed. A number of mourners, among whom were twelve or fifteen ladies, now greeted us. We returned their salutations and ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... Mog was a leary flash mot, and she was round and fat, [1] With twangs in her shoes, a wheelbarrow too, and an oilskin round her hat; A blue bird's-eye o'er dairies fine— as she mizzled through Temple Bar, [2] Of vich side of the way, I cannot say, but she boned it from a Tar...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... his name to this just and laudable association, he shall be tumbled from St. Michael's mount, or buried alive in a tin-mine; and if any emissary shall be found seducing Cornishmen to their former state, he shall be smeared with tar, and rolled in feathers, and chased with dogs out ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... bringing a scent of tea and tar, and was greeted with an imploring injunction to brush his hair and wash his hands—both which operations he declared that he had performed, spreading out his brown hands, which might be called clean, except for ingrained streaks of tar. Mr. Rollstone tried to console his mother by declaring that ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... village; but each store or cottage seemed to have been placed as suited the fancy of the owner, the whole wearing a very nautical, shipwreck appearance. Many of the roofs were formed of the bottoms of boats; sails, with a coating of paint or tar, were nailed over others; and the planks and ribs of vessels had entered largely into the construction of all the edifices. I made these observations as we were shortening sail and coming to an anchor. It was very clearly a pirate stronghold, and had been ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... a low hill; its docks and wharves and the mean streets which intersected them had been made on a stretch of marshland that lay between the foot of that hill and the river. And down there was the smell of tar and of merchandise, and narrow alleys full of sea-going men and raucous-voiced women, and queer nooks and corners, and ships being laden and ships being stripped of their cargoes and such noise and confusion and inextricable mingling and elbowing that Copplestone thought it was as likely to find ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher

... who had a culinary engagement, and could not appear, and then walked to the top of the hill, where a number of the faithful were heaping tar-barrels and shavings about the solitary cider-mill. Regarding their operations from a little distance stood Deacon Greenlaw; his face wore an expression of grim humor, underlaid by a shrewd intelligence of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... seaman. "It was about spillin' some tar on the deck, an' now the Dago's got to stop up this arternoon an' holystone it clean ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... and the captain, a jolly English tar, red in face and round in figure, came down, with a loud voice and cheering ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... ends of those shoes are sharp; and twelve sacks of rye, and twelve sacks of barley, and twelve roasted oxen we must have with us; and mind, we must have the twelve ox-hides, with twelve hundred spikes driven into each; and, let me see, a big tar-barrel—that's all ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... been made of twenty-seven barrels of pitch which had been imported in a ship from Dantzic. But the Revenue officers discovered that these casks were peculiarly constructed. Externally each cask resembled an ordinary tar-barrel. But inside there was enclosed another cask properly made to fit. Between the cask and the outside barrel pitch had been run in at the bung so that the enclosure appeared at first to be one ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... across, and is arched with combs, each having the ends closed, with the exception of a small hole (like an inverted flower-pot), which admits a current of air to circulate through the floor. The roof of this gallery is flat, and covered with slate embedded in a composition of hot coal-tar, lime, and sand: the roofing of the other parts of the palace is mostly covered with a similar composition, but not slated. The approach to the gallery is up the grand stairs, and through several rooms, in which will be disposed the king's magnificent collection of armour. The floors ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 278, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various

... been in salt about a week, to be well washed, and put into a brown earthen pan with a pint of water; cover the pan tight with two or three thicknesses of cap or foolscap paper: never cover any thing that is to be baked with brown paper, the pitch and tar that is in brown paper will give the meat a smoky, bad taste: give it four or five hours ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... overtaken and surrounded by a mob of one hundred or more and his ears saluted with such remarks as "the lecherous old hypocrite," "the sanctified murderer," "the black-coated villain," "lynch him," "tar and feather him," and others still more harsh and threatening. Then one man seized him by the collar, while others brought a fence rail and ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... burnt here pursuant to her sentence. She was brought out of the prison about three o'clock in the afternoon, barefoot; she was covered with a tarred cloth, made like a shift, and a tarred bonnet over her head; and her legs, feet, and arms had likewise tar on them; the heat of the weather melting the tar, it ran over her face, so that she made a shocking appearance. She was put on a hurdle, and drawn on a sledge to the place of execution, which was very near the gallows. ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... tobacco shops, where you will find many brands that require a strong head. Red Snapper, Panhandle Scrap, Pinch Hit, Red Horse, Brown's Mule, Jolly Tar, Penn Statue Cuttings, Nickel Cross Cut, Cotton Ball Twist. In the shop windows you will see those photographs illustrating current events, the two favourites just now being a picture of Mike Gilhooley, ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... I, "give me but a lieutenant, sergeant, and corporal, with a dozen privates, all of my own choosing, do you see, and if I don't soon give you a good account of those villains, you may, with all my heart, give me a good suit of tar ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... he would treat it all like a graveyard. But while he pointed out the tombs I felt the swift approach of Spring. It was March, and in a crude way of its own the harbor was expressing the season—in warm, salty breezes, the odor of fish and the smell of tar on the bottoms of boats being overhauled for the Summer. Our Italian dockers sang at their work, and one day the dock was a bright-hued mass of strawberries and early Spring flowers landed by a boat from the South. Everywhere ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... appreciation of the humour of others. He laughs as if he were amused, not like a man discharging a painful duty. It is true that he will not answer letters; but then his writing-paper is generally drowned deeper than plummet can sound; his pens are rusty, and his ink is of the consistency of tar; but he will always answer questions, with an incredible patience and sympathy, correcting one's mistakes in a genial and tentative way, as if a matter admitted of many opinions. If a man, for instance, maintains that ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... penetrating masses of leaves, branches, bark, wood, roots, etc., of trees that had accumulated in shallow water, and whose most delicate relief and finest impressions have been preserved by this species of tar solidified by cooling. (2) It has also been considered as the result of the more or less complete decomposition of plants under the influence of heat and dampness, which has led them to pass successively through the following ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various

... of these worthy people that little Maria was sent when she was ill, and she was doctored by them both physically and morally. 'Bishop Berkeley's tar-water was still considered a specific for all complaints,' says Mrs. Edgeworth. 'Mr. Day thought it would be of use to Maria's inflamed eyes, and he used to bring a large tumbler full of it to her every morning. ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... towering perhaps fifteen thousand feet in the air above the little town which, small as it is, has hardly room to stand, while outside the wall there is scarcely a foot of level ground. It is wedged into the angle where three valleys come together, the Tar and the Chen rivers meeting just below the town to form the Tarchendo, and our first view of the place as we turned the cliff corner that here bars the gorge, was very striking, grey walls and curly roofs standing out sharply ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall



Words linked to "Tar" :   bo's'n, coat, sea lawyer, seaman, seafarer, deckhand, pine-tar rag, sailor, pitch, old salt, ship's officer, whaler, coal-tar creosote, tar paper, bo'sun, sea dog, lighterman, tar-wood, bos'n, mineral tar, wood tar, able seaman, gob, tar-and-feather, jack, tar pit, bitumen, crewman, officer, Tar Heel State, bargee, Jack-tar, steersman, steerer, mariner, bargeman, bosun, surface, roustabout, pine tar



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com