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Turf   Listen
noun
Turf  n.  (pl. turfs, obs. turves)  
1.
That upper stratum of earth and vegetable mold which is filled with the roots of grass and other small plants, so as to adhere and form a kind of mat; sward; sod. "At his head a grass-green turf." "The Greek historian sets her in the field on a high heap of turves."
2.
Peat, especially when prepared for fuel. See Peat.
3.
Race course; horse racing; preceded by the. "We... claim the honors of the turf." Note: Turf is often used adjectively, or to form compounds which are generally self-explaining; as, turf ashes, turf cutter or turf-cutter, turf pit or turf-pit, turf-built, turf-clad, turf-covered, etc.
Turf ant (Zool.), a small European ant (Formica flava) which makes small ant-hills on heaths and commons.
Turf drain, a drain made with turf or peat.
Turf hedge, a hedge or fence formed with turf and plants of different kinds.
Turf house, a house or shed formed of turf, common in the northern parts of Europe.
Turf moss a tract of turfy, mossy, or boggy land.
Turf spade, a spade for cutting and digging turf, longer and narrower than the common spade.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Turf" Quotes from Famous Books



... sisters sat down beneath a great fig-tree. No sunshine, no shower, could penetrate its thick foliage. The wide space beneath the spreading branches was a little parlor, cool and sweet, and full of soft, green lights, and the earthy smell of turf, and the ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... land is uncertain, and it is not possible to distinguish them in such compounds as Acland (Chapter XII), Buckland, Cleveland, etc. The name Lander or Launder is unconnected with these (see p.186). Flack is Mid. Eng. flagge, turf. Snape is a dialect word for boggy ground, and Wong means ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... the one man in all the parish that would ha' risked his neck to let me free. 'Twas Lancy Doane, who's give me as many beatings in his time as I him. We were always getting foul one o' t'other since I was big enough to shy a bit of turf at him across a dyke, and there isn't a spot on's body that I haven't hit, nor one on mine that he hasn't mauled. I've sat on his head, and he's had his knee in my stomach till I squealed, and we never could meet without back-talking and rasping 'gainst the grain. The night before he joined ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... busy idlers (that is not intended for a joke)—I go racing a bit, and of course "have a bit on" like other people, and having tried all the turf-prophets in turn, with unsatisfactory results, I was delighted to hear from a friend that "a new DANIEL had come to judgment" in the person of a tipster on Punch, who was "wonderful good"—(it was just the time when she did blunder on to a winner)—and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various

... over his shoulders, in which he carries his load, and, with a bunch in his hand, he saunters along the street, proclaiming his trade, "Grun-sel, grun-sel, grun-sel!" Besides the groundsel and the chick-weed, he has small pieces of turf for sale, of ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various

... attend much to her answer. He was working the point of his stick into the turf, and his eyes were bent ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... were budding symmetrically along the avenue below; and Paul, looking down, saw, between windows and tree-tops, a pair of tall iron gates with gilt ornaments, the marble curb of a semi-circular drive, and bands of spring flowers set in turf. He was now a big boy of nearly nine, who went to a fashionable private school, and he had come home that day for the Easter holidays. He had not been back since Christmas, and it was the first time he had seen the new hotel which ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... over it. Later, he went about, first on the shore which gradually widened and became so large that there was room for fields and meadows and farms—then up on the flat highland, which lay in the middle of the island, and where there were no buildings except windmills, and where the turf was so thin that the white cement ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... great majority of them were so crowded together that there was no chance of broad, free growth either for trees or for shrubbery. There was nothing of that exquisitely beautiful play, upon expanses of green turf, of light and shade through wide-expanded boughs and broad masses of foliage, which gives such delight in any of the finer English or American parks. Down to about half a dozen years since it had apparently been thought best not to interfere, and even when attention was called to the dark, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... surface of the water. These stakes are placed at intervals in an oblong form, and are bound together by reeds and rushes twined in and out and across, until a kind of stationary raft is made, on which earth and turf are piled. In this soil seeds are sown, and the crops of melons and other fruits raised in these fertile beds are extremely ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... the flower-garden with Mrs. Costell. He had been reading up a little on flowers and gardening, and he was glad to swap his theoretical for her practical knowledge. Candor compels the statement that he enjoyed the long hours stretched on the turf, or sitting idly on the veranda, ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... on the cultivator straightened as the horses walked from the soft, spongy ground of the cornfield to the firmer turf at the side of the road. He spoke sharply to the plodding team and turned the cultivator around, lowering the blades for another row. Then, when the horses had fallen into a slow walk, he slouched down, and with bent head watched the hills of young ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... for another word, for we hurried off down the uneven track, sliding and slipping on the rain-soaked turf. Springing into our saddles we dashed down the gorge, through the grove, and so out on to the road in time to see the troop disappear in the distance, and to meet the solitary ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... preserved in his vestband, repeated the whole of his rosary, and besought the intercession of the prophet for his deliverance from future dangers. After this he walked onwards till evening, the fruits of the forest his food, his drink the water of the streams, and his resting place the green turf. Such was his progress, that after three days he reached the spot under the mountain where he had been taken up by the roc in the camel's skin. He now recognized the road he had come; and after measuring back his steps for nine days, beheld on the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... attract game to particular spots, in the same way that stockholders burn parts of theirs in proper seasons; at least those who are not influenced by the erroneous notion, that burning the grass injures the richness and density of the natural turf. The natives, however, frequently burn the high and stiff grass, particularly along shady creeks, with the intention of driving the concealed game out of it; and we have frequently seen them watching anxiously, even for lizards, when other game ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... leaped into a pool glassy clear; thence it stole away between grassy banks, nursing the trees before it vanished in the thirsty sand. A few narrow paths were noticeable about the margin of the pool; otherwise the space around was untrodden turf, at sight of which the guide was assured of rest free from intrusion by men. The horses were presently turned loose, and from the kneeling camel the Ethiopian assisted Balthasar and Iras; whereupon the old man, turning his face to the east, crossed his hands reverently ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... exclaimed I, thou knowest not as yet the whole extent of thy happiness: the foundation of thy civil polity must lead thee in a few years to a degree of population and power which Europe little thinks of! "Long before this happen," answered the good man, "we shall rest beneath the turf; it is vain for mortals to be presumptuous in their conjectures: our country, is, no doubt, the cradle of an extensive future population; the old world is growing weary of its inhabitants, they must come here to flee from the ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... and elms, stood the saddled horses of the customers. Most of them waited, half asleep, with sagging limbs and drooping heads. But one, a long-legged roan with a curved neck, snorted and pawed the turf. Him the Kid mounted, gripped with his knees, and slapped gently with the owner's ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... round-headed trees and wide meadows as a gentleman's park. The road, a particularly meandering one, passed through Hollymount—a lovely place—and through Carrowmore, my companions telling me of the landlords and the tenants as we drove along. The rent was high and hard to make up, the turf far to draw, that was all. There was no account of vexatious office rules or special acts of tyranny related ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... saddle. "Miss Pond," he said seriously, "there's hardly a man that goes to races in all England that doesn't know him. His name's Woolley—that's one of his names, anyhow. He was a kind of jockey once, and since then he's been the lowest, meanest little sharper in all the dirty little turf swindles that was ever kicked off a racecourse. If I wasn't sure I wouldn't say so; but you ought to know whom you ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... far it may fly, it has to come back to earth as we all do. It comes to our lawn to feed upon earthworms. The other birds are all busy picking up some minute fly or insect that harbors in the grass, but the plover is here for game that harbors in the turf. His methods are like those of the robin searching for grubs or angle-worms. He scrutinizes the turf very carefully as he runs about over it, making frequent drives into it with his bill, but only now and then seizing the prey of which he is in search. When he does so, he ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... train over the prairie. Fences and trees and furrows passed by and under Travers like a panorama run by electricity, and he only breathed by accident. They went on at the stream and the hill beyond as though they were riding at a stretch of turf, and, though the whole field set up a shout of warning and dismay, Travers could only gasp and shut his eyes. He remembered the fate of the second groom and shivered. Then the horse rose like a rocket, lifting Travers ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... reached Castro, the ancient capital of Chiloe, but now a most forlorn and deserted place. The usual quadrangular arrangement of Spanish towns could be traced, but the streets and plaza were coated with fine green turf, on which sheep were browsing. The church, which stands in the middle, is entirely built of plank, and has a picturesque and venerable appearance. The poverty of the place may be conceived from the fact, that although containing some ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... severed company, Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo To give me answer from her mossy couch. COMUS: What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus? LADY. Dim darkness and this leafy labyrinth. COMUS. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides? LADY. They left me weary on a grassy turf. COMUS. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why? LADY. To seek i' the valley some cool friendly spring. COMUS. And left your fair side all unguarded, Lady? LADY. They were but twain, and purposed quick return. COMUS. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. LADY. How easy my misfortune is to ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton

... fifties rose up again in Clarke's imagination; the sense of dazzling all-pervading sunlight seemed to blot out the shadows and the lights of the laboratory, and he felt again the heated air beating in gusts about his face, saw the shimmer rising from the turf, and heard the myriad murmur of ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... through his passion for the green cloth, that it would have been the height of absurdity to even suspect him of roguery. Indeed, "Ducie's luck" was a proverbial phrase at the whist-tables of his club. He was not a "turf" man, and had no knowledge of horses beyond that legitimate knowledge which every soldier ought to have. His money had all been lost either at cards or roulette. He was one of the most imperturbable of gamblers. Whatever the varying chances of ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... Brahmana's dish are like ambrosia. They are like the lacteal sustenance that is yielded by the mother's breast. People highly prize those remnants. The good, by eating them attain to Brahma. He who pounds turf to clay (for making sacrificial altars), or he who cuts grass (for making sacrificial fuel), or he who uses his nails only (and not weapons of any kind) for eating (sanctified meat), or he who always ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... myself in these intervals that the contents of my Essay could not be true. The more, however, I reflected upon them, or rather upon the authorities on which they were founded, the more I gave them credit. Coming in sight of Wades Mill, in Hertfordshire, I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end. Agitated in this manner, I reached home. This was in the summer ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... it seemed to offer to our grateful eyes a small, rude synthesis of the great English social order. Passing out upon the highroad, we came to the common browsing-patch, the "village green" of the tales of our youth. Nothing was wanting; the shaggy, mouse-colored donkey, nosing the turf with his mild and huge proboscis, the geese, the old woman—the old woman, in person, with her red cloak and black bonnet, frilled about the face and double-frilled beside her decent, placid cheeks—the towering ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... Valmai should be bending over a musty book in a dimly-lit room? while outside were the velvet turf of the cliffs, the plashing waves, and ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... holy cheerfulness yet filled her eye, Willing she was to live, willing to die. As the good Shunammite (the Scriptures tell), When her son died, said meekly, "It is well," So when Sophia lost her infant boy, And felt how dear-bought is a mother's joy, When with green turf the little grave she spread, "Not lost, but gone before," she meekly said. And now they sleep together 'neath the willow The same dew drops upon their silent pillow. Return, O mourner, from this double ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... lead their dances by moon-light; impressing upon the surface the mark of circles, which sometimes appear yellow and blasted, sometimes of a deep green hue; and within which it is dangerous to sleep, or to be found after sun-set. The removal of those large portions of turf, which thunderbolts sometimes scoop out of the ground with singular regularity, is also ascribed to their agency. Cattle, which are suddenly seized with the cramp, or some similar disorder, are said to be elf-shot; and the approved cure is, to chafe the parts affected ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... much greater advantages of every kind might accrue to himself and his family from the alliance of the wealthy young Earl, than could have been derived from any share of his spoils which he had proposed to gain by superior address in play, or greater skill on the turf. But his pride was hurt when he recollected that he had placed himself entirely in Lord Etherington's power; and the escape from absolute ruin which he had made, solely by the sufferance of his opponent, had ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... think of Elizabeth, sweetly resting under the turf at home. I think of my little son, and pray our Heavenly Father to be kinder to him than his earthly one has been. I think of my mother, whose heart I broke, and, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... painted and whitewashed. The air was heavy and dark; there were no blossoms on the heath; the autumn winds whirled the yellow leaves towards the boatman's hut, in which strangers dwelt; but the little farm stood safely sheltered beneath the tall trees and the high ridge. The turf blazed brightly on the hearth, and within was sunlight, the sparkling light from the sunny eyes of a child; the birdlike tones from the rosy lips ringing like the song of a lark in spring. All was life and joy. Little Christina sat on Ib's knee. Ib was ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... of rain Suddenly lights may break, the earth was set Beneath us, and we stood and paused to see The Dussel river from a parapet Of earth and rock. Then bending curiously, As reaching, in a moment with his hand He scraped the turf and stones, pried up a key Of harder granite, and at his command, When he had made an opening, I slid And sank, down, down through the Devonian land Until with him I reached a cavern hid From every eye but ours, and where no light But from our faces was, a pyramid Of hills that ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... pleasure in life, ma'am, only every horse he has in the world is out o' messages, and drawing turf and one thing or another to-day—and he is ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... roofs of stacks; and I judged that a manor-house had in some way declined to be the residence of a tenant-farmer, careless alike of appearances and substantial comfort. The marks of neglect were visible on every side, in flower-bushes straggling beyond the borders, in the ill-kept turf, and in the broken windows that were incongruously patched with paper or stuffed with rags. A thicket of trees, mostly evergreen, fenced the place round and secluded it from the eyes of prying neighbours. As I came in view ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... cries, shouts, hysterical laughter, and the sound of clapping hands and thumping feet. Here and there dancers fell exhausted, until by elimination the dance resolved itself into a duet, all yielding the turf to Many Daughters, the little, lovely leper, and Kekela Avaua, chief of Paumau. These left the lawn and advanced to the veranda, where so contagious had become the enthusiasm that the governor was doing the hurahura opposite Bauda, and Ah Yu danced with Apporo, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... "he was seen," advisedly, for the maid with the golden hair saw him. Any ordinary observer would have said that she had scarcely raised her eyes from the ground since sitting down on a niece of flower-studded turf near the edge of the cliff, and that she certainly had not turned her head in the direction of the town. Yet she saw him,—however absurd the statement may appear, we affirm it confidently,—and knew that he was coming. ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... a Friday evening, near the middle of September and just before dusk, that they reached the summit of a hill within a mile of the place they sought. There were high banked hedges to the coach-road here, and they mounted upon the green turf within, and sat down. The spot commanded a full view of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... had chosen the right path: why, then, had he not overtaken her? If she met that band which he had just broken through—He wavered in the darkness, and was turning wildly to race back, when a sudden light sprang up before him in her window. He plunged forward, in at the gate, across a plot of turf, stumbled through the Goddess of Mercy bamboo that hedged the door, and went falling up the dark stairs, crying aloud,—for the first ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... examined, it was at length determined that it must have been the work of some body-snatcher; and the story having spread, the grave was minutely examined, but as the body had not been removed, the community considered themselves fortunate in having made so narrow an escape. The turf was replaced, and the grave again carefully covered up. On the following morning the turf was again displaced, and a hole, deeper than before, yawned in the side of the sad receptacle. Speculation ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... are so scarce in this country, I sometimes wish we could dispense with turf altogether, and have at our tournaments the same surface which finds favour abroad, at places like Cannes, Homburg, and Dinard. The bound of the ball on these courts is absolutely uniform, the surface being hard sand. ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers

... a knock-down; but young Wesley just saved himself by touching the turf with his fingertips and, resting so, crouched for a spring. What is more, he timed it beautifully; helped by Randall himself, who followed up at random, demoralised by the happy fluke and encouraged by the shouts of Hutton's to "finish him ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... lover, wanted to hear her speak, was desirous of being talked to, and perhaps thought that he should by rights be allowed to sit by her, and hold her hand. No such privileges were accorded to him. If they had been alone together, walking side by side on the green turf, as lovers should walk, she would soon have found the use of her tongue,—have talked fast enough no doubt. Under such circumstances, when a girl's shyness has given way to real intimacy, there is in general no end to her power of chatting. ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope

... those columns of the Times, devoted to such criminalities, will give a very good general idea of his. All that his mother's remnant of his father's hoarded wealth could do, was done, to prove him guiltless, but in vain. Counsel pleaded, some of his turf friends, themselves of doubtful reputation, spoke to his character, and he sat through his trial as imperturbably as if he had been at a dinner-party. The prosecutors, Sir Samuel Spendall and Sir Horatio Simpson, met with deserved reproofs ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... in the "peat" or "turf." The word "bog," so well known in India, and other portions of the East, as meaning a garden, has the same signification in Irish, and marks the places where gardens or woods once flourished, now ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... his coat. They laid her upon it. James Harrington knelt upon the turf, and lifted her head to his knee. The face was pale as death; purple shadows lay about the mouth, and under the eyes; her flesh was ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... least four times with my living cross, on the stones of the path. At last the hill became easier. We entered a small lane bordered by bushes, and soon discovered on our left the first roofs of Vallars. We laid our burden softly on the turf, and for a moment took breath. Lifting up the abbe again, we ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... and the rest watched the servant-girls take the partition-boxes and place them among the rocks, and seat themselves some on boulders, others on the turf-covered ground, some lean against the trees, others squat down besides the pool, and thoroughly enjoy themselves. But in a little time, they also perceived Yan Yang arrive. Her object in coming was to carry off goody ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... disappointed to find that neither his quarry nor anyone else was visible in the half-darkness. As they passed Torrence Hall, however, an open window on the first floor sent a flood of light across the walk, and Tom, crossing the narrow strip of turf that divided building from pavement, raised himself on his tiptoes and looked into the room. The next instant a face appeared with disconcerting suddenness within a foot of his own and the occupant of the room, who ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour

... ear, sweet as distant echoes. The saddened train of the living no longer hush their breath as they glide on with noiseless precaution, as if not to disturb the sleep of those who have just departed, over whose graves the turf is not yet green; the imagination no longer evokes only the gloomy shadows of the past. In the Polonaises of Lipinski we hear the music of the pleasure-loving heart once more beating joyously, giddily, happily, as it had done before the days of disaster and defeat. The melodies breathe more and ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... Robin Greve emerged from the side door into the gardens of Harkings. It was a still, mild day. Moisture from the night's rain yet hung translucent on the black limbs of the bare trees and glistened like diamonds on the closely cropped turf of the lawn. In the air was a pleasant smell ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine

... shock, so that the splintering of the shafts reechoed to the clouds. Truncheons (8) were seen flying out before the palace from the hand of many a knight. This was done with zeal. At length the host bade cease the tourney and the steeds were led away. Upon the turf one saw all to-shivered (9) many a mighty buckler and great store of precious stones from the bright spangles (10) of the shields. Through the ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... the spinning spear-shaft: the waters roar: over the racing river poor Camilla shoots on the whistling weapon. But Metabus, as a strong band now presses nigher, plunges into the river, and triumphantly pulls spear and girl, his gift to Trivia, from the grassy turf. No cities ever received him within house or rampart, nor had his savagery submitted to it; he led his life on the lonely pastoral hills. Here he nursed his daughter in the underwood among tangled coverts, on the milk ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... humour between frowns and smiles wrote to him no more. And now the strange, poignant, pathetic, brilliant creature is gone into the night, and the voice is silent that uttered so much excellent discourse; and I am sorry that I did not write to him again. Yet I am glad for him; light lie the turf! The Saturday is the only obituary I have seen, and I thought it very good upon the whole. I should be half tempted to write an In Memoriam, but I am submerged with other work. Are you going to do it? I very much admire your efforts that way; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... cars were assembled. Our camp was close to a Turkish hospital. There were two great crescents and stars laid out for a signal to warn our aeroplanes not to drop bombs. One of the crescents was made of turf and the other of limestone. The batteries took turns in making the reconnaissances, in the course of which they would come in for a good deal of shelling. The road was unpleasant, because the camels and transport animals ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... narrow,—the bush thickens round you,—it winds, it rises, it descends: all on a sudden it opens with a bit of cleared ground full twenty yards in extent, and a felled tree in the midst. Here let us pause, and, kneeling on the turf, uncovered, pour forth the voice of health, of cheerfulness, and gratitude to Him who guides and guards us on our way. And now, onward again. The land falls suddenly, and we cross a brook, which a child may stride, but whose waters are a blessing both to man and beast. And now we rise again; ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... the dining-room reached to the ground, and without the closing light just enabled one to see a thick copse of wood, which, at a very brief interval of turf, darkened immediately opposite the house. While the old man was thus bending over the fire and conning his evening contemplations, a figure stole from the copse I have mentioned, and, approaching the window, looked pryingly into the apartment; then with ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ones, which seem dwarfed. Their tops were cut off by the Lord of Ashleigh on the day that Lady Jane Grey was beheaded. Queen Elizabeth heard of it and threatened to confiscate the estate. Look at the turf, my friend. Ages have gone to the making ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... seen all I wanted of these weary and dismal thoroughfares. Here and there was a strip of discolored turf, like an old worn-out bit of woolen carpet; and now and then a bit of kitchen garden, in which grew potatoes, cabbage, and lettuce, almost diminutive enough to suggest the idea ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... pre-knowledge of the Pickwick Club, one may usefully employ the imagination in tracing out the possible careers of Sam Weller's chubby little boys; grown into old men, and themselves, perchance, leaving progeny that may have married into the peerage from the Turf, or have entered the War Cabinet at the beckoning of Mr. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... Yet English gardening gains ground here prodigiously—not much at a time, indeed—I have literally seen one, that is exactly like a tailor's paper of patterns. There is a Monsieur Boutin, who has tacked a piece of what he calls an English garden to a set of stone terraces, with steps of turf. There are three or four very high hills, almost as high as, and exactly in the shape of, a tansy pudding. You squeeze between these and a river, that is conducted at obtuse angles in a stone channel, and supplied by a pump; and when walnuts come in I suppose ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... back, a little to left of counter, there is a door into the open air, then, more to the left, there is a settle with shelves above it, with more jugs, and a table beneath a window. At the left there is a large open fire-place, with turf fire, and a small door into inner room. Pegeen, a wild looking but fine girl, of about twenty, is writing at table. She is dressed in the ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge

... Suzanne reached their outspan place in safety a little before sunset. I used to know the spot well; it is where one of the numerous wooden kloofs that scar the mountain slopes ends on a grassy plain of turf, short but very sweet. This plain is not much more than five hundred paces wide, for it is bordered by the cliff, that just here is not very high, against which the ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... Mr. and Mrs. Tuggs, and the captain, had ordered lunch in the little garden behind:—small saucers of large shrimps, dabs of butter, crusty loaves, and bottled ale. The sky was without a cloud; there were flower-pots and turf before them; the sea, from the foot of the cliff, stretching away as far as the eye could discern anything at all; vessels in the distance with sails as white, and as small, as nicely-got-up cambric handkerchiefs. The shrimps were delightful, the ale better, and the captain even more pleasant ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... On the brown turf in front of the house were two men, stretched side by side, as if other hands had laid them there, dead. One man was much bigger than the other. He was of exceptional stature. Jocelyn recognised them almost immediately—Guy Oscard and Joseph. They had arrived during the night, and, not wishing ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... of the God of Abraham be with you!" exclaimed the poor woman; "your servant hath not tasted food since sunset." And, seated on the turf not far from Judas, the widow and her son partook of the dried figs with the eagerness of those ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... each touching the wall, and the other ends projecting out into the room. The area formed by the crossed brushes and the wall he would fill up with hand-brushes, rush baskets, books, boots, sticks, cloths, dried turf, or any thing portable. As the work grew high, he supported himself on his tail, which propped him up admirably: and he would often, after laying on one of his building materials, sit up over against it, apparently to consider his ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... of the energy that they might otherwise have used in life's real battle. But the greyness of commonplace existence became more bearable when they listened to tales of the heroic deeds of the past. In the evening, the living-room (bastofa), built of turf and stone, became a little more cheerful, and hunger was forgotten, while a member of the household read, or sang, about far-away knights and heroes, and the banquets they gave in splendid halls. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... The rich, green turf on the lawn which sloped to the lake, was dotted with magnificent old trees undisturbed for a century. Back of the house, or rather beyond the barn, was another swell or mound, which like the first, was so regular in its form as almost ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie

... imposition of sundry trials on the temper of Mr Jonas, felt that a new shadow came between her and the sun. Raising her eyes in the expectation of seeing her betrothed, she was not a little surprised to see old Martin instead. Her surprise was not diminished when he took his seat upon the turf beside her, and opened ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... sense of his son, it contains none of that praise which no marble can make the bad or the foolish merit; which, without the direction of a stone or a turf, will find its way, sooner ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... herself skilfully from the buzzing circle on the veranda, and the two stepped out on the springy turf. The undulating prairie was covered with a golden haze. Half a mile west a thin line of trees pencilled the horizon. The golf course lay up and down the gentle turfy swells between the club-house and the wind-break of trees. The polo grounds were off to the left, in a ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... until he lay on the turf with his antagonist kneeling on his chest. He dared not struggle, he dared not exert himself. Presently he might get a chance, and if he did it would go hard with ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... could descry dim outlines of the surroundings of our path and even of the Mountain, silent above us like a huge black ghost. We toiled up the steep stair, guiding ourselves by feeling, and in a few minutes Were at Prospect Point, that jutting bit of turf on the precipice's edge where the trees draw back and allow in daytime a wide view of the city and surrounding country, and we both stood breathless there in the dimness, in front of a sight bewilderingly grand enough to of itself take one's ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... number to preserve for him a unique place among America's most original characters, scholarly wits, and poets of brightest fancy. Yorick is no more! But his genius will need no chance upturning of his grave-turf for its remembrance. When all is sifted, its fame is more likely to strengthen ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... a divided life, of enjoying at once the sweets of the flesh on the "Turf," and the security of the "Towers," is the text of Red Cotton Nightcap Country. The sordid hero of the poem is gradually driven to choose between the alternatives. The best of his luck, ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... blew keenly. We got out our wraps one by one, wanting more. If the scenery is less wildly beautiful here than between Mende and St. Amans, it is none the less charming, were we only warm enough to enjoy it. The pastoralness of many a landscape is Alpine, with brilliant stretches of turf, scattered chalets, groups of haymakers, herds and flocks browsing about the rocks. Enormous blocks of granite are seen everywhere superimposed after the manner of dolmens, and everywhere the peasant's spade and hoe is gradually ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... excitement: he knew that he had made a splendid first impression; he was burning to deepen it. But on his eager way back to Colet House, he walked warily, feeling before him with his stick for clotheslines. He came out of the dark lane into the broad turf road, which runs across the common to the house, with a strong sense of relief and became once more his hearty ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... containing a little room, and three cells, on each side of a central passage; it is surrounded by a fence of corrugated iron, and shows, over the top of that, only a gable end with the inscription O LE FALE PUIPUI. It is on the edge of the mangrove swamp, and is reached by a sort of causeway of turf. When we drew near, we saw the gates standing open and a prodigious crowd outside - I mean prodigious for Apia, perhaps a hundred and fifty people. The two sentries at the gate stood to arms passively, and there seemed to be a continuous circulation inside and out. The captain came to ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... but little Frank was willing to give up his claim to it. It grieved him to hear his brothers quarrelling and saying unkind words to each other; and he also thought that the poor glow worm ought not to be kept a prisoner under the glass, instead of flying over the green turf or mossy bank. But when he tried to bring John and Robert to the same opinion, they would not hear to him. So Lucy, who was a kind sister, when she found that the pleasure she had procured for them was the occasion of their naughty conduct, sat ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"

... the turf above thee, Friend of my better days! None knew thee but to love thee, None named thee ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... The Lover rode as hasty lovers ride, And reach'd a common pasture wild and wide; Small black-legg'd sheep devour with hunger keen The meagre herbage, fleshless, lank, and lean: Such o'er thy level turf, Newmarket! stray, And there, with other black-legs, find their prey. He saw some scatter'd hovels; turf was piled In square brown stacks; a prospect bleak and wild! A mill, indeed, was in the centre found, With short sear herbage withering all around; A smith's black shed ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... irrepressible pulpit gestures of the hand. The fellow traveller, albeit lavender-hued from an autumn east wind, was obediently observing the anaemic patches of oats and barley, pale and thin, like the hair of a starving baby, and the huge slants of brown heather and turf bog, and was interjecting "Just so!" at decent intervals. Now and then, as the two tall brown mares slackened for a bout of collar-work at a hill, or squeezed slowly past a cart stacked high with sods of turf, we, sitting in silence, Irish wolves in the ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... sound of another horse's hoofs; and, looking back, she saw approaching her at a rapid rate a gentleman whom she knew to be a stranger. Not caring to be overtaken, she chirruped to the spirited Gritty, who, bounding over the velvety turf, left the unknown rider far ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... gradual one, leading chiefly through cultivated ground; but the aspect of the south-eastern or Stretton side is wild in the extreme, the whole face of the mountain being broken up into deep ravines, with precipitous sides, where purple rocks project boldly through the turf, and in many places even the active sheep and mountain ponies can scarcely find a footing. Down each of these ravines runs a small stream of exquisitely pure water, one of which, near the entrance of the valley, becomes considerable enough to turn a mill for carding wool. This stream falls over ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr

... of ragged turf and mallow where the woodstack hid her from the parsonage windows; and sat there in the morning sun—unconsciously, as usual, courting its full rays. Between her and the stack the ground was bare, strewn with straw and broken twigs. She ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... that were not too new come or too far gone to hear, the sound of hoof beats upon the turf. They came nearer.... They stopped. Came the sound of spurred heels striking upon the trodden dirt without the door.... There stood in the opening the figure of a man. He was tall, and well-proportioned, though ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne

... more, even in whispers. His head fell back upon the turf. He was dead. When the litter was set down in the courtyard of Las Palmas it carried only a corpse! Don Rafael had turned back for his horse, and to bid a hasty adieu to ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... head of Hurricane Island, whose foot the Votaress was then passing. They and the Gilmores were still down at the forward edge of the texas roof, the players finding the Carthaginians very attractive: fluent on morals, cuisine, manners, steamboats, the turf, fashions, the chase; voluble on the burdensomeness of the slave to his master, the blessedness of the master to his slave; but sore to the touch on politics and religion—with their religion quite innocently adjusted ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... very unfavorable notion of the intelligence of the people. The architecture of these huts consists in laying down some large stones, in a circle of about eight or ten feet in diameter, by way of a foundation. These stones are covered with earth or turf, and then with successive layers of stones and earth, until the wall attains the height of about four feet: at the point most sheltered from the wind, an opening of a foot and a half or two feet high serves as ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... he must. But how? He had tried the tables, but luck was against him; he made a desperate venture upon the turf, a grand coup that would have set him on his legs for some time, but the venture turned out the wrong way, and Sir Francis was a defaulter. He began then to think there was nothing for it but to drop into some ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... lower. The fresh turf steeped in the last rays, the birds sang, the warming earth seemed to have touched the very core of spring. Her hopes had answered the eager years, but her miracle was too wonderful ...
— A Reversion To Type • Josephine Daskam

... a narrow terrace at the rear of the building, which was sodded with turf and starred with pansies and ox-eyed daisies, and on the wide, stone window sills sat boxes and vases filled with maiden-hair ferns and oxalis, with heliotrope and double white violets. Three lines ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... Not a weed nor a shell: "death's altar by the lone shore." The drear analogies succeed one another; she sees them everywhere, in everything. The dead grass, the dead rock. . . . But now, what is this on the turf? A gay blue cricket! A cricket—only that? Nay, a war-horse, a magic little steed, a "real fairy, with wings all right." And there too on the rock, like a drop of fire, ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... chalk and dirty peasants, I seem in a terrestrial purgatory that is neither town or country. The face of England is so beautiful, that I do not believe Tempe or Arcadia were half so rural; for both lying in hot climates, must have wanted the turf of our lawns. It is unfortunate to have so pastoral a taste, when I want a cane more than a crook. We are absurd creatures; at twenty I loved nothing ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... again until tomorrow morning. I've just come from the cabin, and the boys there are about wild over your disappearance. I explained that I found your hats not far from a piece of torn and bloody turf, and that seemed to make ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman

... Royallieu, the leathers might just as well never have been cleaned, them hounds jump about him so; old Champion's at his saddle before you can say Davy Jones. Tops are trials, I aint denying that, specially when you've jacks, and moccasins, and moor boots, and Russia-leather crickets, and turf backs, and Hythe boots, and waterproofs, and all manner of varnish things for dress, that none of the boys will do right unless you look after 'em yourself. But is it likely that he should know what a worry a Top's complexion is, and how hard ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... arms like a whirligig and 'That's all right,' says he. Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of each village by the arm and walks them down into the valley, and shows them how to scratch a line with a spear right down the valley, and gives each a sod of turf from both sides of the line. Then all the people comes down and shouts like the devil and all, and Dravot says—'Go and dig the land, and be fruitful and multiply,' which they did, though they didn't understand. Then we asks the names of things in their lingo—bread ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... pass, supporting herself on my shoulder, and stopping to rest every twenty paces. After a toilsome descent of about two hours, weak with years of fever, but for the moment strengthened by success, we gained the level plain below the cliff. A walk of about a mile through flat sandy meadows of fine turf, interspersed with trees and bush, brought us to the water's edge. The waves were rolling upon a white pebbly beach. I rushed into the lake, and, thirsty with fatigue, with a heart full of gratitude, I drank deep ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... done it. A shade of perplexity darkened Payne's face. He fired again. This time his aim was true. The heavy expanding bullet tore straight through bone and muscle and heart, and Last Bull lurched forward upon his head, ploughing up the turf for yards. As his mad eyes softened and filmed, he saw once more, perhaps,—or so the heavy-hearted keeper who had slain him would have us believe,—the shadowy plains unrolling under the wild sky, and the hosts of his vanished kindred drifting ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... their large dark eyes, who raise their heads one moment from the pasture while you pass; and to the plants that grow beneath your feet. The latter end of May is the time when spring begins in the high Alps. Wherever sunlight smiles away a patch of snow, the brown turf soon becomes green velvet, and the velvet stars itself with red and white and gold and blue. You almost see the grass and lilies grow. First come pale crocuses and lilac soldanellas. These break the last dissolving clods of snow, and stand upon an island, with the cold wall they have thawed ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds



Words linked to "Turf" :   cover, sward, sod, turf out, jurisdiction, ground, soil, greensward



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