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Tightness   Listen
noun
Tightness  n.  The quality or condition of being tight.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tightness" Quotes from Famous Books



... the poles, Sarpent, if Sarpent you be," said Hurry, amid the groans that the tightness of the ligatures was beginning to extort from him—"run out one of the poles, and shove the head of the scow off, and you'll drift clear of us—and, when you've done that good turn for yourself just finish ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... ever farther removed from personal vanity than Aunt Mary. She looked like a little Quakeress. Her silvered hair was parted in the middle and had, in spite of palpable efforts towards tightness and repression, a perceptible ripple in it. Grey was her only concession to colour, and her gowns and bonnets were of a primness which belonged to the past. Repression, or perhaps compression, was her note, for the energy confined within her little ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... audience roars wi' laughter when I come to that line. I ken fine they're no laughin' at the wee joke sae much as at what they're thinkin' o' me and a' they've heard o' my tightness and closeness. Do they think any Scot wad care for the cost of a stamp? Maybe it would anger an Englishman did a postcard come tae him wi'oot a stamp. It wad but amuse a Scot; he'd no be carin' one way or anither for the bawbee the ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... lurch, as a corner was turned, nearly precipitating all of us into the darkness beneath, and then continued its downward course with increased speed, until sparks flew from beneath us like flecks of fire from a blacksmith's forge, and in our breasts was a tightness that became ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... tightness which curled the corners downward. Then, as he looked into the questioning eyes and anxious face of his companion, his own eyes softened, and he changed his mind ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... an extraordinary tightness at his heart. He had loved one woman even so; that love was still with him, as the scent clings to the phial; but the sight of this young, joyful love made him feel old in that hour—old as he had never realised before. There was no room in his being for such love again. And yet...? ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... slopes of tree-stocked hills, the vastness of the Black Forest; but they were like the mirage to a man who dies in a desert; he knew, at the pace he went, he could not live to reach them. The blood was beating in his brain and pumping from his heart; a tightness like an iron band seemed girt about his loins, his lips began to draw his breath in with loud gasping spasms; he knew that in a little space his speed must slacken—he knew it by the roar, like the noise of water, that was rushing on his ear, and the oppression, like a hand's hard grip, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... the nock of an arrow, it should be filed so that it fits the string rather snugly, thus when in place it is not easily disturbed by the ordinary accidents of travel. Still this tightness should be at the entrance of the nock, while the bottom of the nock is made a trifle more roomy with a round file. I file all my nocks to fit a certain two-inch wire nail whose diameter is ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... Donal, as he took the chair; "ye're verra condescendin'." Then turning to Ginevra, and trying to cross one knee over the other, but failing from the tightness of certain garments, which, like David with Saul's not similarly faulty armour, he had not hitherto proved, "Weel, mem," he said, "ye haena forgotten Hornie, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... ammonia are intensely irritating, and may give rise to laryngitis, bronchitis, and even pneumonia. Nitric acid fumes sometimes produce no serious symptoms for an hour or more, but there may then be coughing, difficulty of breathing, and tightness in the lower part of the throat, followed by capillary ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... almost leaped forward, but a tightness in his temples stopped him. The distance was too great. And the Jovian must be somewhere about! Quick surprise was his only chance. His gaze roved up to the steepening cliff behind the village, ...
— One Purple Hope! • Henry Hasse

... brethren, "I went out to draw water, and found no rope on the bucket." And they said, "Hold thy peace, brother, lest the abbot know it; till the thing has passed over." But his body was wounded by the tightness and roughness of the rope, because it cut him to the bone, and sank into his flesh till it was hardly seen. But one day, some of the brethren going out, found him giving his food to the poor; and when they returned, ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... Captain Nichols. I met his wife. She was a woman of twenty-eight, I should think, though of a type whose age is always doubtful; for she cannot have looked different when she was twenty, and at forty would look no older. She gave me an impression of extraordinary tightness. Her plain face with its narrow lips was tight, her skin was stretched tightly over her bones, her smile was tight, her hair was tight, her clothes were tight, and the white drill she wore had all the effect of black bombazine. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... drunken must have come upon me. The clearness of vision went from me like a candle that is blown out. I know not what happened after, save that I found myself upon my truckle-bed, with my leathern money-pouch clasped in my hand with surprising tightness, as if I had been mortally afraid that some one would mistake my poor satchel for his ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... rest. The tightness at her side was worse than usual. She almost thought she ought to mention it in her letters home; but then she remembered the premium her father had struggled hard to pay, and the large family, younger than herself, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... was willing to unpack his budget. It was not very reassuring, what he had to tell; in fact, it was somewhat depressing, the general tightness and the panicky uncertainty, until, after a couple of glasses of Scotch, the financial world began to open a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... two, gradually remove the extra clothing. Be careful about going out the next morning, for the body will be especially susceptible to the cold. In this way it is possible to break up a hard cold at once. If there is any tendency to cough, or any tightness or soreness in the chest, place a mustard plaster directly over the chest, and allow it to remain on until the skin is ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... and vigour, and, in the case of most of them, a certain alertness and decision of character. Some hailed from English cities, a few from those of Canada, and some from the bush of Ontario; but there was a similarity between them which the cut and tightness of their store clothing did not altogether account for. They lived well if plainly, and toiled out in the open unusually hard. Their eyes were steady, their bronzed skin was clear, and their laughter had ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... of bronchitis soon present themselves. A short, painful, dry cough, accompanied with rapid and wheezing respiration, a feeling of rawness and pain in the throat and behind the breast bone, and of oppression or tightness throughout the chest, mark the early stages of the disease. In some cases, from the first, symptoms of the form of asthma (q.v.) known as the bronchitic are superadded, and greatly aggravate ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... rarefied atmosphere is called by the Chilenos "puna;" and they have most ridiculous notions concerning its origin. Some say "All the waters here have puna;" others that "where there is snow there is puna;"—and this no doubt is true. The only sensation I experienced was a slight tightness across the head and chest, like that felt on leaving a warm room and running quickly in frosty weather. There was some imagination even in this; for upon finding fossil shells on the highest ridge, I entirely forgot the puna in my delight. Certainly the exertion of walking was extremely great, and ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... sailed to the front. She was dressed in a new black alpaca which rustled so very much like silk that nearsighted people might have been deceived by it. With her was a man, apparently suffering from strangulation because of the height and tightness of his collar. "It's Caleb Pratt, from Sandwich," whispered Didama. "Thankful Payne's relation, you know. Have you heard what folks are sayin'? I guess it's true, because—Look at Kyan! you'd think he was goin' ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... but as he had not yet checked her progress, continued to press forward as rapidly as she could. At length, between the hurry she had made, her terror, and the tightness of his embrace, her strength failed her, and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... For the dramatist always, by the very law of his genius, believes not only in a possible right issue from the rightly-conceived tight place; he does much more than this—he believes, irresistibly, in the necessary, the precious "tightness" of the place (whatever the issue) on the strength of any respectable hint. It being thus the respectable hint that I had with such avidity picked up, what would be the story to which it would most inevitably form the centre? It is part of the ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... Wicksteed, engineer of the East London Water Company, having stated to me the inconvenience which had been experienced from the defects in respect of water-tightness, as well as the difficulty of opening and closing the valves of the main water-pipes in the streets, I turned my attention to the subject. The result was my contrivance of a double-faced wedge-shaped sluice-valve, which combined the desirable property of perfect ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... property found on board the wreck. A gourd full of water was placed to Gervaise's lips by one of the men of a kinder disposition than the rest. He drank it thankfully, for he was parched with thirst excited by the pain caused by the tightness with which he had ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... twilight a slight bending form, coming down, holding by the balusters. Violet was in her arms, clasping her with a trembling, almost convulsive tightness, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... an asylum overcrowded with orphans in consequence of the late epidemic." There was still a tightness in Richling's throat, a faint bitterness in his tone, a spark of indignation in his eye. But these the Doctor ignored. He reached out his hand, took the folded paper gently from Richling, crossed his knees, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... less unexpected, than the perfect identity of things manufactured by the same tool. If the top of a circular box is to be made to fit over the lower part, it may be done in the lathe by gradually advancing the tool of the sliding-rest; the proper degree of tightness between the box and its lid being found by trial. After this adjustment, if a thousand boxes are made, no additional care is required; the tool is always carried up to the stop, and each box will be equally adapted to every lid. The same ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... New York up to the lake. There were coffee and tea in the canisters, sugar in the buckets, butter and salt in the boxes; though all these articles had been more or less soaked in the water, depending upon the tightness of the vessels that held them. There was a good fire in the stove, and a bright thought entered Lawry's excited brain; he and his companion would breakfast on fried ham and potatoes, flanked with ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic

... embrace had taken away all the burning tightness from Betsy's eyes and heart. She was very, very tired, and soon after this she fell sound asleep, ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield

... induced, (1834), for higher wages, to become a stone-miner in the same coal-pit, where gunpowder was used extensively in the operations. About six months after he commenced stone-mining, he became affected with a short tickling cough, expectoration of pearly tenacious phlegm, hurried breathing, tightness across the chest, frequent pulse (95), heat of skin during the night, and occasional throbbing in the head. Being young, and fearless of any danger from the occupation, although warned of the consequences, he continued to prosecute it, and twelve months (May 1835) after he first ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar

... silent for some time, but the rigidity of her attitude, and the tightness with which she pressed her lips together, showed that her mind was deeply occupied. They both sat silent for some few moments, looking down toward the distant lights of the city. At the farther end of the double row of bushes that lined the avenue they could see one of King's sentries passing ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... retired in the direction of the kitchen-garden. The kitchen-garden, with its opportunities of occasional refreshment such as would not add uncomfortably to his present feeling of tightness, was the place for a roam. Five minutes later he was leaning against the wire-netting of the chicken-run, and offering an old cock, who asked most pointedly for bread, a stone. To know how to spend a morning was no easier on a birthday than ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... to Michael's ear, and, with tips of fingers instinct with sensuous sympathy, began to manipulate the base of the ear where its roots bedded in the tightness of skin-stretch over the skull. And Michael liked it. Never had a man's hand been so intimate with his ear without hurting it. But these fingers were provocative only of physical pleasure so keen that he twisted and writhed his whole ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... hand, the people were badly off, when the fishing or the harvest failed, when a tightness of money stopped supplies, so that bankruptcies, distress warrants, and forced sales by auction, with heavy law charges were frequent, then it was that ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... female mind as unfolded to him in his domestic life; and yet he thought Mrs. Glegg's household ways a model for her sex. It struck him as a pitiable irregularity in other women if they did not roll up their table-napkins with the same tightness and emphasis as Mrs. Glegg did, if their pastry had a less leathery consistence, and their damson cheese a less venerable hardness than hers; nay, even the peculiar combination of grocery and druglike odors in Mrs. Glegg's private cupboard impressed him as ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... of all Southerners, abetting or justifying it because it will add slave-territory and 600,000 slaves to their possessions;—surely these do not seem indications of the better state of things you anticipate, except, indeed, as the straining of the chain beyond all endurable tightness significantly suggests the probability ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... tightness and plumpness of limbs and person exhibited by Foreign Affairs cannot have escaped observation. This attractive quality may be acquired by purchasing the material out of which the clothes are to be made, and giving the tailor only just as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... out from under the deck, and in the first place proceeded to search for the water complained of. I found it right aft, as Mrs Vansittart had suggested, and in order to test the tightness of the boat I baled it all out, or at least as much of it as could be got rid of with the baler, leaving no more than perhaps half a tumblerful. Then, wading ashore, I sat down on the sand, with my back against the upright oar to which the ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... Mr Sargent's extreme "tightness" caused him to fall asleep on the box when we started again, but the more seasoned Judge ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... mysticism had vanished from the eyes to be replaced by a look that was at once hunted and searching, vindictive and yet woebegone. The mouth was sunken as the mouths of old men become from the loss of teeth, and the thin lips which used to be kindly and vacillating were drawn with a hard, unflinching tightness. The skin that had long been gray was now ghostly, with the shadowy, not quite earthly, hue ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... put his arms round her and tell her that it was all a game—just to see if she had really cared. But the silence of the street and the house was terrible. It choked her, and she pulled at her frock to loosen the tightness about her throat. It was cruel of him to have gone away like that—but of course he would come back. Only why was that cold misery at her heart? Why did she feel as if some one had placed a hand on her and drawn all her life ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole

... flattered by their wonder. But she knew the world too well to be sure of him yet. She knew that it is difficult, in the human tree, to distinguish between blossom and fruit. Deeds of lovely impulse are the blossom; unvarying, determined Tightness is ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... between man and beast. The great golden chestnut raced backwards and forwards like some well-trained greyhound, heading the leading beasts into the desired direction without effort or apparent guidance. It was a grand display of the cowboy's art, and, in spite of his predicament and the cruel tightness of his bonds, Jim Bowley reveled in the sight ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... him,—some fatal attraction drew him on, and he still advanced, when all suddenly he paused, trembling violently. His nerves began to throb acutely,—the blood in his veins was like fire,—there was a curious strangling tightness in his throat that interrupted and oppressed his breathing,—he stared straight before him with large, luminous, impassioned eyes. What—WHAT was that dazzling something in the air that flashed and whirled and shone like glittering wheels of golden ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... slowly by it down the road. Once, looking at the girl, she thought with a half smile how oddly clean she was. The flannel skirt she arranged so complacently had been washed until the colors had run madly into each other in sheer desperation; her hair was knotted with a relentless tightness into a comb such as old women wear. The very cart, patched as it was, had a snug, cozy look; the masses of vegetables, green and crimson and scarlet, were heaped with a certain reference to the glow of color, Margaret ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... other; between them, joining them together, are iron T-bars that give this ship the utmost rigidity. In fact, thanks to this cellular arrangement, it has the resistance of a stone block, as if it were completely solid. Its plating can't give way; it's self-adhering and not dependent on the tightness of its rivets; and due to the perfect union of its materials, the solidarity of its construction allows it to ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... with a growing feeling of suffocation and tightness about her throat and heart, for the droop of ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... learned that the pitch of sound depends on the rapidity of the vibrations. This depends on the length of cords and their tightness for the shorter and tighter a string is, the higher is the note which its vibration produces. The vocal cords of women are about one-third shorter than those of men, hence the higher pitch of the notes they produce. In children the vocal cords ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... manifests itself in one leg first, and later affects the other; it is progressive, and ultimately ends in complete paraplegia. The pain is not confined to the region supplied by any one nerve root, but affects a diffuse area, and the patient complains also of a sensation of tightness in the limbs. There is never absolute anaesthesia, but there is relative anaesthesia for all forms of sensation, which extends as a rule as far as the sixth ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... that he had heard noises in the stables, which was not true. Proceeding thither with a lantern he found only one prisoner, who, on examination, proved to be the constable. He had attacked the unsavoury potato with his teeth as far as the tightness of his gag allowed, and was now able to make an audible groan, which sounded slushy through the moist vegetable medium. When released, he was speechless with indignation, disappointment, and shame. Ben flashed the lantern on the handkerchief, and recognized it as the property of a young ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... of money that I have left, I rely upon you to exercise the greatest economy. I do not know how long it may be before just claims are paid up—perhaps in two months—perhaps in six—but until things are settled there will be tightness. ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... tightness round the top of her head, due to fatigue and lack of sleep, seemed somehow to brace her audacity, and to make ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... without the least vein or flaw, which had been over five years in his wood-store, and nobody was to help Frederick except old Valentine. Not only was Frederick put more and more out of taste with his work by the rough journeymen, but he felt a tightness in his throat as he thought that this masterpiece was to decide over his whole life long. The same peculiar feeling of anxiety which he had experienced when Master Martin was praising his faithful devotion to his handiwork now grew into a more and more distinct shape in a quite dreadful ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... understood if the principle of antagonistic action already referred to be remembered. Speaking generally, the muscles are arranged in pairs which have an opposite or antagonistic action—viz.: (1) Those that open and close the glottis; (2) those that regulate the tension, or degree of tightness, ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills

... a man about town. That is to say, although he was clever enough and had a sufficient touch of humour, he cultivated a languid stare, and was chary of speech; and although he was a well-built young fellow, he walked with his elbows out and his knees in, as if the tightness of his trousers and his boots made it nigh impossible for him to walk at all. Moreover, his dress was more rigidly correct than ever; and of course he carried the inevitable cane—inevitable as the walking-stick of ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... advantage derivable from this fact is, the knowledge that whatever relieves the one benefits the other. Hence, too, the great utility of hot baths in all affections of the lungs or diseases of the skin; and the reason why exposure to cold or wet is, in nearly all cases, followed by tightness of the chest, sore throat, difficulty of breathing, and cough. These symptoms are the consequence of a larger quantity of blood than is natural remaining in the lungs, and the cough is a mere effort of Nature ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... Hill that he first noticed a peculiar feeling, a slight tightness at his knees; but he noticed, too, at the top that he rode straighter than he did before. The pleasure of riding straight blotted out these first intimations of fatigue. A man on horseback appeared; ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... and to a strap close to the girth straps of the near side, at the other end. Before the days of safety bars, its near side end was usually buckled on to the stirrup leather, which was a faulty arrangement, not only as regards the leather (p. 36), but also because its degree of tightness was a constantly varying quantity which entirely depended on the amount of pressure that the rider put on her stirrup. The presence of a properly tightened balance strap helps to prevent lateral movement on the part of the saddle. Also it counteracts, to some extent, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... want everyone to think that, now I'm out for myself, I can't make a go of it? What would Ingram and Biggerstaff think, if I began to talk money tightness? I didn't leave the firm, and strike out for myself to ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris

... This morning I was early at the cave. Yes, there it was, the same wonder-chest that I had dreamed of all night long. It was absurd how the tightness in my ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... feelings. Still no message. Why did he delay? Her heart ached now worse than ever, the choking feeling in her throat returned, and her eyes grew moist. She steadied herself by holding to the door. Her fingers grew white at the tightness of her grasp; eyes and ears were strained in their intent watchfulness ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... this 'monkey that had seen the world' suddenly appeared before the chiefs and warriors of his tribe; and as he stood before them, straight as a ramrod, in a high state of perspiration, caused by the tightness of his finery, while the cool fresh air of heaven blew over the naked, unrestrained limbs of the spectators, it might, perhaps not unjustly, be said of the costumes, 'Which is the savage?' In return for the presents ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... now that the difference in her was a whiteness and tightness of skin, a hollowness of eye, ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... said Terry, with suppressed impatience. He laid a hand on my shoulder and my arm ached from the tightness of his grip. "There," he said pointing with his finger as the light flared up again. "What do you make ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... vessel. Finding it impossible to accomplish the object in this way, I enlarged the wound by degrees sufficiently for the introduction of my fingers in succession, until the whole hand was admitted into the cavity, of which the orifice was still so small as to embrace the wrist with a tightness that prevented any continuous haemorrhage. Being now able to explore the state of matters satisfactorily, I found that there was a large mass of dense fibrinous coagulum firmly impacted into the sciatic notch; and, not without using considerable ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... were three men at my cabin door, besides the four within; Christian had only a cutlass in his hand, the others had muskets and bayonets. I was hauled out of bed, and forced on deck in my shirt, suffering great pain from the tightness with which they had tied my hands. I demanded the reason of such violence, but received no other answer than threats of instant death, if I did not hold my tongue. Mr. Elphinston, the master's mate, was kept in his birth; Mr. Nelson, botanist, Mr. Peckover, gunner, Mr. Ledward, ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh

... she cried and dimly realized that the change in her appearance had something to do with the doctor's prediction of physical disability. She loathed and resented it immediately. Suddenly conscious of her bare legs she ran home, horrified at the tightness of her frock that showed the roundness of her figure. As she passed the Mactavish cottage the mother sat in the doorway, suckling the newest baby. Instead of staying to talk as usual Marcella flew by, her cheeks crimson. As soon as she reached home she ran up to her mother's ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... brain, making vague the cuckoo's call, blurring even the clear sweet notes of the thrush. A delicious drowsiness crept over her. She gave herself to it with conscious delight. It was so exquisite to feel the grim band that had bound her brow with such cruel tightness relax at last and fall away. Very ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... be lost, Sir, with lightness, To labour for life gives me pain; My exchequer's affected with tightness, But begging's the pink of politeness, Like Scribes, Sir, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various

... to the Old Man's face while he waited, his seamed hands gripping the padded arms of his chair. A tightness pulled at his lips behind the grizzled whiskers. It never occurred to him now that the Happy Family might be perpetrating one of their jokes. He had looked at their faces, you see. They meant to quit ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... as she went down. In the pent heat her face seemed cold. She had the appearance of being older. The fine vertical line at the corner of her mouth, which Tisdale had not noticed before, brought a tightness to his throat when he ventured to look at her. How could Weatherbee have been so blind? How could he have missed the finer, spiritual loveliness of this woman? Weatherbee, who himself had been so sensitive; whose intuition was ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... poles and oars, lest they should have any life left in them. Among various kinds of torture invented by him, one was, to induce people to drink a large quantity of wine, and then to tie up their members with harp-strings, thus tormenting them at once by the tightness of the ligature, and the stoppage of their urine. Had not death prevented him, and Thrasyllus, designedly, as some say, prevailed with him to defer some of his cruelties, in hopes of longer life, it is believed that he would have destroyed many more: and not have spared even ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... on his gloves and hat, feeling an unpleasant tightness in his chest and thorax, and walked out in the road. Aristides trotted along by his side, endeavoring to keep pace with his short legs to the master's strides, when the master stopped suddenly, and Aristides bumped up against him. "Where were they talking?" asked ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... the left, this time into Newport Street. Totty felt a strange tightness at her chest, for all at once she ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... Anyone could pick him at once as gregarious in his habits and communicative in his nature, with a quick wit and a ready smile. And yet the man who studied him more closely might discern a certain firmness of jaw and grim tightness about the lips which would warn him that there were depths beyond, and that this pleasant, brown-haired young Irishman might conceivably leave his mark for good or evil upon any society to which ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... coming all this distance in silence and darkness. She hastened to the carriage, and saw him leaning forward, listening for her. His face lighted up at her, "Well, Lionel," and he fairly hurt her, by the tightness of his grasp, when once he had met her hand. "So, you're come! What a time it has been since you went! Now you are come, I ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... her mouth couldn't. To Straker in his illumination all the meaning of Philippa Tarrant was in her mouth. The small, exquisite thing lacked fulness and the vivid rose that should have been the flowering of her face. A certain tightness at the corners gave it an indescribable expression of secrecy and mystery and restraint. He saw in it the almost monstrous denial and mockery of desire. He could not see it, as he had seen Nora Viveash's mouth, curved forward, eager, shedding flame at the brim, giving itself to lips that ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... patient feels desirous, renew for another hour; do this each day at bedtime for a week at least. Rub the body all over with warm olive oil when this is taken off; then place a bandage with only a gentle tightness in such a way as just to help the relaxed bowels, but only just so much—not by any means to try and force them into what might be thought proper dimensions. Give a teaspoonful of liquorice mixture (see Constipation) thrice a day before meals ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... listen with credulity to the stories of hunters, and pursue with eagerness the traces of bears; who expect that courage will rise with the emergency and that the deficiencies of bravery will be supplied by the tightness of the fix, attend to the history of Rasselas, an inexperienced bear-slayer. About noon, as we were making our way along the edge of a narrow grassy valley, bordered by a dense forest of birch, larch, and pine, one of our ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... Generator and check belt tension, mounting bolt tightness and make sure all electrical ...
— Delco Manuals: Radio Model 633, Delcotron Generator - Delco Radio Owner's Manual Model 633, Delcotron Generator Installation • Delco-Remy Division

... influences, the concussion of human atoms, so the other, though only asking to live without too many questions and work without too many rubs, to be glad and sorry in short on easy terms, had become aware of a certain social tightness, of the fact that life is crowded and passion restless, accident and community inevitable. Everybody with whom one had relations had other relations too, and even indifference was a mixture and detachment a compromise. The only wisdom was to consent to the loss, if necessary, of ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... she laid her head upon his arm and whispered to him, "Sing it again, Shaky. The tightness across the top of my head is giving way. It has ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... thing was on us. It was as if we were bathers, up to our shoulders in water, who suddenly are submerged by a rolling wave. An invisible hand seemed to have quietly closed round my throat and to be gently pressing the life from me. I was conscious of immense oppression upon my chest, great tightness within my head, a loud singing in my ears, and bright flashes before my eyes. I staggered to the balustrades of the stair. At the same moment, rushing and snorting like a wounded buffalo, Challenger dashed past me, a terrible ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... its tightness prevents the escape of the sebaceous matter that collects in the sulcus back of the corona, and the resulting irritation on the surface of the glans and the inner mucous fold of the prepuce ends in an inflammatory thickening of the latter, its inner surface becoming thick, undilatable, hard, ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... alone," replied Josephson, slowly endeavoring to tell it exactly as he had seen it, "but that's the strange part of it. He seemed to be suffering from a convulsion. I think he complained at first of a feeling of tightness of his throat and a twitching of the muscles of his hands and feet. Anyhow, he called for help. I was up here and we rushed in. Dr. Gunther had just brought him and then had gone away, after introducing him, ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... the face of the spectator crimsoned, the hot flood burned at her ears, a tightness like a physical hand gripped at her throat; but it seemed that her eyes could not leave the figures before her. Not the alien interest of a watcher at the play, but a more intense, a more personal meaning, ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... stiff from the lack of circulation of blood. But finally he managed to free himself. When he stood up in the dim storeroom, that was now a prison for all save Koku, he found that he could not walk. He almost toppled over, so weak were his legs from the tightness of the ropes. He sat down and worked his muscles until they ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton

... of that time he begins to feel a peculiar corded and tympanic tightness about the epigastrium. A feverish condition of the brain, which sometimes amounts to absolute phantasia, now ensues, marked off into periods of increasing excitement by a heavy sleep, which, after each interval, grows fuller of tremendous ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... he shows us the crowd of living men and women, the endless groups, the landscape back-ground, the cloud and the rainbow, and enriches our imaginations and relieves one passion by another, and expands and lightens reflection, and takes away that tightness at the breast which arises from thinking or wishing to think that there is nothing in the world out of a man's self!—In this point of view, the Author of Waverley is one of the greatest teachers of morality that ever lived, by emancipating the mind from petty, narrow, and bigotted prejudices: ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... The tightness of the box in which the Dead Man was placed, produced no small inconvenience to that worthy, who during the passage was nearly suffocated; however, he consoled himself with the thought that in a short time he would be free. The box was about six feet in length; and two in breadth and depth; and in ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... he answered, his eyes almost starting from his head between his determination to wind himself up to the point, and the tightness of his grasp on the chair. ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer

... to increase the absorption in a wound as covering the whole limb above the sore with a bandage, which should be spread with some plaster, as with emplastrum de minio, to prevent it from slipping. By this artificial tightness of the skin, the arterial pulsations act with double their usual power in promoting the ascending current of the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... need of the Apache's prodding knife point to start him up the ladder. Though he did not relish having to act as a living shield for the attackers, he was more than willing to go first. Unluckily the tightness of his bonds had so bruised the ligaments of his wrists and ankles and left his limbs so numb that he had to climb with ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... over one another. They urinated and defecated with the handcuffs on, all of them hitched together. At various times they complained to their captors that the agony caused by the swelling of their wrists was unbearable—this agony, being the result of over-tightness of the handcuffs, might easily have been relieved by one of the plantons without loss of time or prestige. Their complaints were greeted by commands to keep their mouths shut or they'd get it worse than they had it. Finally they hove in sight of La Ferte and the handcuffs were ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... want to breathe the mornin' breeze that blows against the boat, For there's a swellin' in my heart — a tightness in my throat — We are for'ard when there's trouble! We are for'ard when there's graft! But the men who never battle always seem to travel aft; With their dressin'-cases, aft, With their swell pyjamas, aft — Yes! the idle and the careless, they ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson

... upon her sister like a little whirlwind, her strong childish arms were flung with almost ferocious tightness round Hilda's neck, the skirt of her short frock had swept Jasper's letter to the floor, and even upset an ink-pot in its ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... florid lace-and-glass-fronted restaurant on Forty-third Street, with a mimeographed breakfast menu up against the window. Her food went down through a throat constricted against it. Her tightness would not relax. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... parents were different. All the kids were fed and sent to school by robots. It was just that—well today seemed sort of special. Downstairs Amelia, the roboservant, placed hot cereal on the table before him. After he had forced a few bites past the tightness in his throat, Amelia checked the temperature and his clothing and let him out the door. The newest school was only a few blocks from his home, and Johnny ...
— There Will Be School Tomorrow • V. E. Thiessen

... gradients. This occurred about the commencement of the great Potato Revolution—an event which I apprehend will be long remembered by the squirearchy and shareholders of these kingdoms. The money-market was beginning to exhibit certain symptoms of tightness; premiums were melting perceptibly away, and new schemes were in diminished favour. Under these circumstances, the Provisional Committee of the Slopperton Valley Company were beneficent enough to gratify my wishes to the full, and accorded to me the large ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... with the symptoms of a common cold in the head, some chilliness, feverishness, {334} restlessness, headache, a feeling of tightness across the chest, violent paroxysms of coughing, sometimes almost threatening ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... let herself hope too much, and now a sudden rush of repressed tears threatened a flood like the one which had come outdoors from the broken tightness of ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... which was over: but I could not bear the coffin-lid to be closed—it seemed to stifle me; and still as the nettles wave in a corner of the churchyard over his little grave, the welcome breeze helps to refresh me, and ease the tightness at my breast! ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... herself, but the tears flowed from her eyes with a violence that shook her, and sobs, hurried, devouring sobs, filled the room. I felt a tightness at my heart.... I was utterly stupefied. I had seen Susanna only twice; I had conjectured that she had a hard life, but I had regarded her as a proud girl, of strong character, and all at once these violent, despairing tears.... Mercy! Why, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... MARKISS, stooping down a little stiffly (owing to the tightness of the hose), turned a clock-key. After a few rotations, the dog, being set in the right direction, moved out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various

... white jersey—the surface of it already furred with moisture—low over her hips. For she felt shivery, and the air was thick and chill to breathe causing a tightness in ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... redskin had the start, and ran straight towards the picketed horse, still carrying the lad, who was half stifled by the thick cloak, and practically helpless, owing to the tightness with ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby

... his eyes deepened and a tightness gripped his throat. Slowly two great tears fought their way down through the dust on his face, and dropped lingeringly, one after the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... usual way is decreased also. In consequence, there is a larger balance to be paid in bullion; the store in the bank or banks keeping the reserve is diminished, and the rate of interest must be raised by them to stay the effiux. And the tightness so produced is often greater than, and always equal ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot

... If he had not been so, he would hardly have been tolerated at the chateau, since he was not particularly beautiful, and not especially refined. He was in holy orders, as his tonsured head and clerical costume bore witness—a costume which, from its tightness and simplicity, only served to exaggerate the unusual proportions of his person. Monsieur the Preceptor had English blood in his veins, and his northern origin betrayed itself in his towering height and corresponding breadth, ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... longer? Stretch a rubber band across your thumb and forefinger. Pick the band as you make it tighter, not making it longer, but pulling it tighter with your other fingers. Does it make a higher or a lower sound as you increase the tightness? Stretch the band from your thumb to your little finger and pick it; now put your middle finger under the band so as to divide it in halves, and pick it again. Does a short strand give a higher or lower pitch ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... had drunk from the jars?" He could not tell, but he feared that at least half the company had taken some portion, more or less. He had himself drunk a tumblerful, and he already felt uncomfortable, with a tightness of the throat, and a ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... journeyman tailor lad (he was about sixteen), and perhaps nobody paid any attention to a dusty travelling tradesman, or groom out of place. Feuerbach (who did not see Kaspar till July) says that his feet were covered with blisters, the gaoler says that they were merely swollen by the tightness of his boots. ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... still frequented by yaks, of which we overtook a small party going to Tibet, laden with planks. All the party appeared alike overcome by lassitude, shortness and difficulty of breathing, a sense of weight on the stomach, giddiness and headache, with tightness ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... to the sternum at the lower point and down to fourth lumbar vertebra. It is a continuous slanting floor, above bowels and abdominal organs, and below heart and lungs. It must, by all reason, be kept normal in tightness at all places, without a fold or wrinkle, that could press the aorta, nerves, oesophagus, or anything that contributes to the supply or circulation of any vital substance. Now can there be any move in spine or ribs that would or ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... with an extreme, but somewhat unfortunate, military tightness. They were of an unpleasant greenish tint which did not match the green Homberg hat he wore. In his right hand he carried a short cane and yellow gloves. The morning was hot; his boots were patent leather. Diffusing an agreeable odour of pomatum on the breeze, he walked with ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson

... set in a fat white face. Some support was necessary, for she was very stout, and so compressed that the upper part of her body hung considerably in advance of her feet, which could only trip in tiny steps, owing to the tightness of the skirt round her ankles. The dress itself consisted of a small piece of shiny yellow satin, adorned here and there indiscriminately with round shields of blue and green beads made to imitate hues of a peacock's breast. On the ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... gearings clean, to be clear and definite in their orders, and to read the trade papers; but above everything else to look out for the little things, a little leak in the mill dam, a little too much tightness in a belt, or the idleness of just one spindle. Herein lies, he says, one of the great differences between a successful and ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... floor. I have found them co-operate to protect their cattle to the extent of their devoting the best land for the grazing of their cattle. And they have been found co-operating against a particular rapacious Mahajan. Doubts have been expressed as to the success of co-operation because of the tightness of the Mahajan's hold on the ryots. I do not share the fears. The mightiest Mahajan must, if he represent an evil force, bend before co-operation, conceived as an essentially moral movement. But my limited experience of the Mahajan of Champaran has made me revise the accepted opinion about ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi

... beings persons who are as faint as a breath upon a looking-glass, symbols who can speak a language slow and heavy with dreams because their own life is but a dream. Modern drama, on the other hand, which accepts the tightness of the classic plot, while expressing life directly, has been driven to make indirect its expression of the mind, which it leaves to be inferred from some common-place sentence or gesture as we infer it in ordinary life; and this is, I believe, the cause of the perpetual disappointment ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats

... arm of Michael. It was disabled—but he still clung to his enemy. Anthony strove to disengage himself; but the other, aware that life or death depended on the issue of that struggle, hung on him with a convulsive tightness that rendered the advantage he had gained of no avail. The sword was useless. Anthony threw it into the boiling gulf at his feet. Both hands being now free, whilst one arm of his opponent hung powerless and bleeding at his side, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... of the Gaelic; but what with the long suspense of the waiting, and the scurry and strain of our two spirts of fighting, and more than all, the horror I had of some of my own share in it, the thing was no sooner over than I was glad to stagger to a seat. There was that tightness on my chest that I could hardly breathe; the thought of the two men I had shot sat upon me like a nightmare; and all upon a sudden, and before I had a guess of what was coming, I began to sob and cry ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and, after dividing themselves into pairs, and taking hold of the slew-ropes in their hands, pulled them up as tight as they could. By this effort they caused the cylinder to turn round till its further revolutions were stopped by the increasing tightness of the hawser, which was wound on the cylinder as fast as the slew-ropes were wound off it. When all the ropes had been drawn equally tight, and the whole party of men had been ranged along the top in an erect posture, with their faces all turned one ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall



Words linked to "Tightness" :   pettiness, looseness, feeling, miserliness, distribution, minginess, closeness, immovableness, spatial arrangement, meanness, littleness, lack, tight, concentration, niggardliness, compactness, tautness, stinginess, denseness, spacing, immovability, constriction, smallness, deficiency, stringency, parsimony, density, tightfistedness, niggardness



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