Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Ball   /bɔl/   Listen
Ball

noun
1.
Round object that is hit or thrown or kicked in games.  "The mayor threw out the first ball" , "The ball rolled into the corner pocket"
2.
A solid projectile that is shot by a musket.  Synonym: musket ball.
3.
An object with a spherical shape.  Synonyms: globe, orb.
4.
The people assembled at a lavish formal dance.
5.
One of the two male reproductive glands that produce spermatozoa and secrete androgens.  Synonyms: ballock, bollock, egg, nut, orchis, testicle, testis.
6.
A spherical object used as a plaything.
7.
United States comedienne best known as the star of a popular television program (1911-1989).  Synonym: Lucille Ball.
8.
A compact mass.  Synonyms: chunk, clod, clump, glob, lump.
9.
A lavish dance requiring formal attire.  Synonym: formal.
10.
A more or less rounded anatomical body or mass.  "He stood on the balls of his feet"
11.
The game of baseball.
12.
A pitch that is not in the strike zone.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Ball" Quotes from Famous Books



... limit, marked or unmarked. Now, however, the difference between the two words has come to be simply one of usage. As regards territory, we speak of the boundaries of a nation or of an estate; the bounds of a college, a ball-ground, etc. Bounds may be used for all within the limits, boundary for the limiting line only. Boundary looks to that which is without; bound only to that which is within. Hence we speak of the bounds, not the boundaries, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... Edward shot his ball through the forehead of the animal, which fell dead: but they were then obliged to go home for the pony and cart, and ropes to get the animal out of the pit, and a hard job they had of it too; but the pony helped them, and they did get ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... Europeans looked around them, and saw the African beauties squatting on their haunches, or reclining, in graceful negligence, on banks of mud, a great difficulty existed as to whom they should select to be their partners in the African quadrille. We have ourselves been in a ball-room where the beating of the female heart was almost audible, when the object of its secret attachment approached to lead out the youthful beauty to the dancing circle; and although it cannot be supposed, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... in Lena-Wingo, and yet the pitcher may go to the fountain once too often," he mused, as he picked his way with the greatest care. "And that great scout is likely to fall at any time. A single rifle ball may do it, and he cannot tell whether there is not more than one of his own race in hiding, waiting patiently till he shall come that way and receive his death. He has escaped so often that he must become careless of his own safety, and will pay the penalty ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... will take you over the castle and let you see the squalor in which I exist,—my throne room, my chapel, my banquet hall, my ball room, my conservatory, my sepulchre. You may say it is wealth, but I shall call it poverty," she said, after they had watched the black monastery cut a square corner from ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... she would have told an untruth to save her life. Well, of course we used to play on her to tease her. Frank would tell her the most unbelievable and impossible lies: such as that he thought he saw a mouse yesterday on the back of the sofa she was lying on (this would make her bounce up like a ball), or that he believed he heard—he was not sure—that Mr. Scroggs (the man who had rented her old home) had cut down all the old trees in the yard, and pulled down the house because he wanted the bricks to make brick ovens. This would worry her excessively (she ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... the underground apartments built by the Duke was the picture-gallery, or as it was intended to be, the ball-room. It is lighted from the roof by means of bulls'-eyes. An enormous sum was spent in labour, excavating the solid clay in order that this magnificent saloon ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard

... the child "should be treated as having in himself the present, past and future." So, as Dr. Drummond says: "If we feel constrained to present him with a tent because Abraham lived in one, he no doubt enters into the spirit of the thing and accepts it joyfully. But he also annexes the ball of string and the coffee canister to fit up telephonic communication with the nursery." He may play robbers and hide and seek because he has reached a "hunting and capture" stage, but the physiologist points out that violent exercise is a necessity for his circulation ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... daughter's wedding. You will be able to see her in church." It was from Dr. Percepied, as it happened, that I had heard most about Mme. de Guermantes, and he had even shewn us the number of an illustrated paper in which she was depicted in the costume which she had worn at a fancy dress ball given by the Princesse ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... sort of artistic unity, but what can be done in art with a series of negative symbols? Even if the negative were continuous, the artist might express at least a negation; but supposing that Omar's kinetic analogy of the ball and the players turned out to be a scientific formula!—supposing that the highest scientific authority, in order to obtain any unity at all, had to resort to the Middle Ages for an imaginary demon to sort his atoms!—how could art deal with ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... that the lecturer had no menagerie in his pockets. He talked, in a familiar way, about different kinds of spiders and their ways; and as he talked, he wove across the doorway, where he stood, a gigantic spider's web, unwinding a ball of twine in his hand, and looping various lengths on invisible tacks he had ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... the slightest danger. The ball is in your own hands; Mollie is safe as safe in your dreary farmhouse by the sea. Your mother and Sally and Peter are all true as steel; no danger of her escaping ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... begins the voyage. The white stone building which forms the thin end of the wedge dividing the Grand Canal from the Canale della Giudecca is the Dogana or Customs House, and the cape is called the Punta della Salute. The figure on the Dogana ball, which from certain points has almost as much lightness as Gian Bologna's famous Mercury, represents Fortune and turns with the wind. The next building (with a green and shady garden on the Giudecca side) is the Seminario Patriarcale, ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... the "Belle of the Ball." No description of the Peace Conference could be complete without including Mary. One great man said that the most joyous sight he saw in Paris was Mary. Mary doled us out tea and cigarettes in the hall of the "Majestic"—doled them out with a smile of pure health. Mary ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen

... or less temperamental people, suddenly transplanted from a rigorous climate to sunshine and the beauty and abundance of life in Southern California, perhaps give a too highly colored picture, so please make allowance for the bounce of the ball. I mean to be quite fair. It doesn't rain from May to October, but when it does, it can rain in a way to make Noah feel entirely at home. Unfortunately, that is when so many of our visitors come—in February! They catch ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... Strongylus micrurus, which lodges in large numbers in the trachea and bronchial tubes, giving rise to considerable irritation of the air passages and inflammation. Sometimes the strongyles lodge in large numbers in the windpipe, forming themselves into a ball, and thus ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... loose sand on top acts as a natural blanket to prevent evaporation from the underlying layers. Sometimes in dry seasons the Hopi use extraordinary methods to help their seeds to sprout. For instance, they place a seed in a ball of saturated mud which they bury beneath several inches of sand. As the sand prevents evaporation, practically all the water is retained for the use of the seed, which thereupon sprouts and grows some inches by the time the first ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington

... between German philosophy and French poetry, poured out with equal copiousness disquisitions upon Free Will and la raison suffisante, odes sur la Flatterie, and epistles sur l'Humanite, while Voltaire kept the ball rolling with no less enormous philosophical replies, together with minute criticisms of His Royal Highness's mistakes in French metre and French orthography. Thus, though the interest of these early letters must have been intense to the ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... with all its fierce concomitants. The Russians showed throughout the night a constant apprehension of assault, for they threw showers of vertical grape-shot; and notwithstanding the glare of the flames from the burning ships, and the fires in the city, they lighted up their works with fire-ball and carcasses. They repeatedly threw bouquets into the trenches of the French. Thus, until the morning of the 8th, shells and rockets fell in fiery deluge upon Sebastopol, and the roll of the musketry against ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... dash of light and sparkling wit; and, in order to do this opportunely, it was often rather far-fetched. In Marivaux, the impatience to display his finesse and sagacity was quite apparent. Montesquieu, with more calmness, waited for the ball to come to him, but he waited. Mairan watched his opportunity. Astruc did not deign to wait. Fontenelle alone let it come to him without seeking it, and he used so discreetly the attention given him, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... new light-ball to his hookah, and considered the case. If the worst came to the worst, and the boy came to harm, the paper would incriminate nobody. And he would go up to Umballa leisurely and—at a certain risk of exciting ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... he enjoyed talking with her, and every evening when the full moon touched with iridescent beauty the wide, pulsing sea he would tuck the girl into her steamer chair and the two would stay up on deck until the clear golden ball of light had ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett

... glanced into the library. There she saw Mrs. Fox in one armchair, and Olive in another, both reading. In the hall were the two little girls, busily engaged in harnessing two small chairs to a large armchair by means of a ball of pink yarn. Outside, about a hundred yards away, she saw Mr. Hemphill irresolutely approaching the house. Miss Raleigh's mind, frequently dormant, was very brisk and lively when she had occasion to waken it. She made ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton

... blushed hotly, but made no answer; and, indeed, she could not, for she felt as though Bobbie's largest ball were sticking in ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton

... gentleman had decided qualities, positive and negative. He could walk up to a five-barred gate and clear it, alighting on the other side like a fallen feather; could row all day, and then dance all night; could fling a cricket ball a hundred and six yards; had a lathe and a tool-box, and would make you in a trice a chair, a table, a doll, a nutcracker, or any other moveable, useful, or the very reverse. And could not learn his lessons, to save ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... made upon my line by the enemy in columns not less than three lines deep. The first came in front of Horn's regiment, but was anticipated, and McClennan's regiment, moving into the open ground, struck the right flank of the enemy and (firing buck and ball from .69 calibre muskets) did great execution. McClennan was severely wounded, and in consequence was ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... accompanied by a circle of men of some interest and distinction. In the evening, Florence did still more. By this time, the salons were suffocating and airless. Yet there were few nights in the week when, somewhere, the sober reception was not heightened to a ball, sometimes impromptu, more often formally prearranged. Morning found the indefatigable leisure world scattered through one or another of the great galleries, where, before the masterpieces of a by-gone Italy, they recounted all the questionable ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... suppose for an instant that he could manage the whole of that blooming foundation and have any time to spare for hopeful humanity,—do you? Why, it will take a force of half a dozen men to keep the books straight and look after the ever-increasing capital. By the time old Brady is ready to start the ball rolling there will be so much money stored up for the job that Rockefeller will be ashamed to mention the pitiful fortune he controls. In the meantime he can go on saving people's lives while the trust company ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... little earlier for you," she explained as she laid aside the purple shawl while the ball of yarn slipped from her short, plump knees and rolled under the chair in which she sat. Never in his recollection had he seen her put aside her knitting that the ball did not roll from her lap upon the floor, and now as he stooped to follow the loosened skein, he wondered vaguely how she had ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... beginneth existence, around every 'Here' rolleth the ball 'There.' The middle is everywhere. Crooked ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... Our function in the game is like that of the scorers and umpires at Lords or the Oval; men of accurate intellectual habit, and incorruptible integrity from whom not much is to be expected with bat or ball. We are not to do anything "off our own bats." For these reasons I only talk humbly of literature as an interested professional observer. When the philosopher Square spoke of religion, he meant the true religion, and when he said the true religion he indicated the Protestant ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... most part, slashes and blows with cutlasses; for in the darkness and confusion of the fight, only two of the bullets had taken effect. One of the smugglers had fallen, shot through the head, while one of those on board had his arm broken by a pistol ball. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... one of the stern chasers hisself, and the first mate took the other. They fired at the same moment, both aiming at the schooner, which was getting the nearest to us. They were good shots both of them. The mate's ball struck the water some twenty yards in front of her forefoot, and smashed her bow planking some three feet above the waterline; while the captain's struck her bulwark, tore along her deck, and went out astern, doing some damage ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... pistols, for use upon an emergency. Robberies were then of frequent occurrence in the neighbourhood of Bawtry, in Yorkshire; and one day a suspicious-looking character, whom they took to be a highwayman, made his appearance; but "John Rattray talking about powder and ball to the postboy, and showing his whanger, the fellow made off" Mrs. Calderwood started from Edinburgh on the 3rd of June, when the roads were dry and the weather was fine, and she reached London on the evening of the 10th, which was considered a ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... and provide baths for two main bedrooms. Again, shifting a partition a few feet may do it. In one old house, once a tavern, the dance hall on the second floor was reduced nearly ten feet and the space became a combination bath and dressing room. Thus, the rural ball room was translated into a large master bedroom with all present-day appurtenances. In another house a storage space six by eight feet became an excellent bath by having a window cut ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... did better when I was puzzling my brain, as the learned Pott and Zippel had done before me, over the possible origin of churro or tchurro, "a ball, or anything ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland

... again involves the previous meetings of the high-born lover and the menial heroine, transformed for the nonce by her dress into a dame of equal standing. In some of the variants these meetings are in church and not at a ball, royal or otherwise. But the Shoe Marriage Test involves a highly desirable parti who can practically command any wife he desires; this points to some super-chief or king. I have, therefore, reserved the church meetings for the Catskin type of story in which the ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... a lot of 'em over here to act as convoys. Probably this is our escort coming up a little late to the ball," said Joe. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton

... Could Daisy do that? Was her arm long enough, or her eye enough far-seeing? In despair and in humiliation both, I fell on my knees. This must be given up. I must leave armies and battles, yes and every several bullet and cannon ball, yes, yes, and more; I must leave Mr. Thorold's life and heart in other hands than mine. I must put the care of them out of mine; I must give up even the thought of shielding him, or arranging for him. More. Yes, though it pressed upon my heart with the great ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... ought to know it. It's the booming of cannon, but it doesn't frighten these mosquitoes and flies a particle. A cannon ball whistling by my head would scare me half to death, but it wouldn't disturb them a bit. They'd look with an evil eye at that cannon ball as it flew by and say to it in threatening tones: 'What are you doing here? Let this fellow alone. He ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... When Paul rose he drew a long breath and shook his head half humorously at his host. "You and I will have to look to our guns, during the next season, to hold our own, won't we? I've been making Lydia promise to reserve me three dances at every single ball this winter, and I think I'm heroic not to insist on more—but ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... I could guess that behind that hope was a secret fear, which he did not express even to himself. We might have been a little party of people travelling, say, between Surbiton and Weybridge on an autumn afternoon, when the golf-ball flies across the links. Not one of them showed the least sign of anxiety, the least consciousness of peril ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... nightmare. Then, as their beds were quite close to each other, to stand between them in the form of a green, icy-cold corpse, till they became paralysed with fear, and finally, to throw off the winding-sheet, and crawl round the room, with white bleached bones and one rolling eye-ball, in the character of 'Dumb Daniel, or the Suicide's Skeleton,' a role in which he had on more than one occasion produced a great effect, and which he considered quite equal to his famous part of 'Martin the Maniac, ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... aloud, "Treason! treason!" rung the bell of the castle, and discharged his harquebuss at the boat. The ladies crowded on each other like startled wild foul, at the flash and report of the piece, while the men urged the rowers to the utmost speed. They heard more than one ball whiz along the surface of the lake, at no great distance from their little bark; and from the lights, which glanced like meteors from window to window, it was evident the whole castle was alarmed, and their ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... mere tennis ball,' said May, drawing her own higher than ever, 'and no one would know her ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... invariable. In the summer it was less important; and as soon as this friend, an old military gentleman spoken of as "the Major," could be got to understand exactly what had taken place, he readily gave up his quarters at Krakatoa Villa, and returned to his own, at the top of a house in Ball ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... a Frenchman, his arm carried off by a ball: Kneeling,—"O more than my brother! how shall ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... and tailors and lawyers and all, Way! Aye! Blow the men down! They ship for real sailors aboard the Black Ball, Give me some time to blow ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... stole to the window, and flung himself down on two chairs, as if looking into the street from behind the blind; but he saw nothing that passed out of doors, so eager was his hope of hearing something of the Crofton boys,— their trap-ball, and their Saturday walk with the usher. Not a word of this kind did he hear. As soon as Mr Tooke had agreed to stay to dinner, his sisters were desired to carry their work elsewhere,—to the leads, if they liked; ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau

... Mr. Gould soon made the case clear to me, for he held the feathers erect, in the position in which they would naturally be displayed, and now, from the light shining on them from above, each ocellus at once resembled the ornament called a ball and socket. These feathers have been shown to several artists, and all have expressed their admiration at the perfect shading. It may well be asked, could such artistically shaded ornaments have been formed by ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... "and He evidently became the central figure there, manifesting His glory. If one of His followers could capture Mrs. Butterworth's ball for Him it would surely pay to go. If I thought Winnie were to do that I would certainly put on a ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock

... [A jerky little ball of a man, with a red, knowing face, comes into the entry-room.] Good-morning, all! These are fine goings on! Take care! take care! [Threatening with his finger.] You're a sly lot—that's what you ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... ball, and I must go. God knows I never felt less in the humor for festivity, but I must not have it said that I am unfit to appear in public. If I am seen there, and have speech with some of the elders of the university it will go a long way toward ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Fano to see this. Still better would the journey be worth the traveller's while if he could be sure to witness such a game of Pallone as we chanced upon in the Via dell' Arco di Augusto—lads and grown-men, tightly girt, in shirt sleeves, driving the great ball aloft into the air with cunning bias and calculation of projecting house-eaves. I do not understand the game; but it was clearly played something after the manner of our football, that is to say; with sides, and front and back players so arranged ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... camphor-wood, and had a red scarf thrown round it. An altar-table, also of camphor-wood, and painted red, stood in front of the Joss-house, with an incense burner placed upon it. The red ground of the table had gilt carvings of flowers and insects, and the imperial dragons with the ball of flame between them. On each side of the front was a square place painted green, with words in Chinese inviting worshippers to bring gold and agate ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan

... expect nothing but whine and cringe from him: and am so little moved with his nonsense, that I am frequently forced to go to my harpsichord, to keep me awake, and to silence his humdrum. Whereas Lovelace keeps up the ball with a witness, and all his address and conversation is one continual game ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... to waylay us from behind the corner, but came a little too late. When he heard Ayd cry out, he had just time to strike fire and to light the match of his gun, when the boldest of the assailants approached within twenty paces of him and fired; the ball passed through his shirt; he returned the fire but missed his aim; while his opponent was coolly reloading his piece, before his companions had joined him, Ayd cried out to Hamd, to attack the robber with his ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... descend to wear the vile dress hat of civilisation. Spanish was the language of the streets. It was difficult to get along without a word or two of that language for an occasion. The only communications in which the population joined were with a view to amusement. A weekly public ball took place with great etiquette, in addition to the numerous fandangoes in private houses. There was a really fair amateur brass band. Night after night serenaders would be going about the street, sometimes in a company and with several instruments and voice together, ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... when the Austrians were victorious all along the line. Exclaiming, "There is yet time to win another battle!" he led his three regiments straight against the enemy's centre. At the moment of victory Desaix was killed by a musket ball. Napoleon paid a just tribute to the memory of one of the most brilliant soldiers of that brilliant time by erecting the monuments of Desaix on the Place Dauphin and the Place des Victoires ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... pertiest girl in Coldriver," said Pliny. "Dunno but what she could handle Abner all right, too. Call to mind the firemen's picnic last year when she went with Abner, and he busted loose on that feller with the three shells and the leetle ball?" ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... of his position he began to whistle softly as he beat the bowl of his pipe on his boot-heel to empty it of ashes. Then he drew a long-barreled revolver from under a coat that he had thrown aside and examined it carefully to see that the powder and ball were in solid and that none of the caps was missing. From the same place he brought forth a belt, buckled it round his waist, shoved the revolver into its holster, and dragging the coat to him, fished out a letter from an inside pocket. It was a dirty, much worn letter. Perhaps he had read it a ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... Sapor III. and his predecessor, Artaxerxes II., have little about them that is remarkable. Those of Artaxerxes bear a head which is surmounted with the usual inflated ball, and has the diadem, but is without a crown—a deficiency in which some see an indication that the prince thus represented was regent rather than monarch of Persia. [PLATE XIX. Fig. 2.] The legends upon the coins are, however, in the usual style of royal ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... softened and fibrillated and is worn away until the subjacent bone is exposed. If the bone is rarefied, the enlarged cancellous spaces are opened into and an eroded and worm-eaten appearance is brought about; with further use of the joint, the bone is worn away, so that in a ball-and-socket joint like the hip, the head of the femur and the acetabulum are markedly altered in size and shape. More commonly, the bone exposed as a result of disappearance of the cartilage is denser than normal, and under the influence of the movements ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... know everything, how I came to be sufficiently learned in the law to carry on the business of my little world? And in so doing, am I not bound to put on record the memory of the amiable and intelligent man who, meeting the Scribe (another clerk-amateur) at a ball, said, "Just give the office a turn; there is work for you there, I assure you." But do you need this public testimony to feel assured of the affection of ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac

... evidence for blind men. Our power of creating new objects, so to speak, by means of a little mirror, is far more incomprehensible to them, than the stars which they have been condemned never to behold. The luminous ball that moves from east to west through the heavens, is a less astonishing thing to them than the fire on the hearth which they can lessen or augment at pleasure.[68] "Why talk to me," says Saunderson, "of all that fine spectacle which has never been made for me? ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... looked when the wicked sisters left Cinderella alone in the kitchen! How bright when the glittering fairy godmother came to visit her! How their little dangling feet clapped together with joy when the pretty maid went off to the ball behind six little ponies which pranced along under the magical moonlight ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... that loss, but they were much occupied with the social activities of Radstowe and they belonged to an otherwise inactive generation, so that if Rose had a grievance it was that they never played games with her, never ran, or played ball or bowled hoops as she saw the mothers of other children doing. For such sporting she had to rely upon her nurse who was of rather a solemn nature and liked little girls to behave ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG

... the circumstance that her death relieved the King of a pressing anxiety. "God be praised!" he exclaimed, "we are free from all suspicion of war;"[942] and on the following day he proclaimed his joy by appearing at a ball, clad in yellow from head to foot.[943] Every inch a King, Henry VIII. never attained to the stature of a gentleman, but even Bishop Gardiner wrote that by Queen Catherine's death (p. 336) "God had given sentence" in the divorce suit between her and ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... his plan of campaign with gusto. Bedloe was to disappear to the West Country till the time came for him to offer his evidence. Prance was to go about his peaceful trade till Bedloe gave him the cue. It was a masterly stratagem—Bedloe to start the ball, Prance to be accused as accomplice and then on his own account to give the other ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... to her forehead looked at her son. His figure was clearly and sharply outlined against the sky. She could not make up her mind to go up to him. She was ashamed because she was pregnant. And she held an infant in her arms, besides. She walked farther on. Children were playing ball in the field. There were many of them, and the ball was a red one. The infant threw himself forward out of her arms toward them, and began to cry aloud. She gave him the breast, and turned back. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... through the deep thicket, holding the body on high above the ground in their jaws, so the two warrior Aiantes held Imbrios aloft and spoiled his arms. Then the son of Oileus cut his head from his delicate neck, in wrath for the sake of Amphimachos, and sent it rolling like a ball through the throng, and it dropped in the dust ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... dancing at last with the girl whose beauty enthralled his every sense, whose loyalty to him in all his troubles had won his undying gratitude, and whom he loved, humbly 'tis true, yet thrillingly, passionately. He never saw that all over the ball-room curious eyes were watching eagerly. Hers were downcast, while his were fixed almost in adoration on her face. Sweeter, softer, dreamier rose and fell the exquisite strains. Will he ever forget the "Immortellen"? Soft ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... Perceiving that the ball was perforated, she secured it in an instant to the end of the clue, which she held in her hand, and, judging that the object of her friends was to establish a communication from their side, cast it back to them with a great effort, having first passed the twine around the mullion, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... Pluteus the volva and annulus are both wanting, the gills are usually free from the stem, and the stem is easily broken out from the substance of the cap, reminding one in some cases of a ball and socket joint. The substance of the cap is thus said to be not continuous with that of the stem. The spores seen in mass are flesh colored as in other genera of this subdivision of ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... low whistling cry a little grey shape shot through the doorway by which Fu-Manchu had retired, and rolled like a ball of fluff blown by the wind, completely under the table which bore the weird scientific appliances of the Chinaman; the advent of the grey object was accompanied by a ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... that evening and the following day, one might suppose that she succeeded very fully. Sibley, with an unwonted venturesomeness, did risk his one immaculate possession, his clothes, and came from the city through the storm. Ida and himself, between them, brought about the nearest approach to a "ball" possible in ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... of an eye for size you have," cried the tramp as the old man came up to him. "I suppose you've brought me in a boy's suit? What do you take me for? Any girl could go to a ball in the shoes you brought ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner

... could start the wheels. Two of these men were wounded in the face, one of them having his nose completely severed, and the other having a fragment of his jaw knocked out. A third had received a ball among the thews and muscles behind his knee, and his whole body appeared to be paralyzed. Two were wounded in the shoulders, and the sixth was shot in the breast, and was believed to be injured inwardly, as ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... us out. We got in our store of provisions only a fortnight since, and have enough of everything for a three-months' siege. There is no fear of our well failing us; and as for ammunition, we have abundance. Seeing how Harold was using powder and ball, I had an extra supply when the stores came in the other day. There is plenty of corn in the barn for the animals for months, and I will have the corn which the men are cutting brought in as a supply of food for the cows. It will be useful for another purpose, too; we will keep ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... with a ball of string, up the steps we had cut for the descent, with directions to get as near as he could to the top of the main fall, and then send down a stone tied to the string, as I wished to determine the length of the fall. While he was making ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... yet?" he enquired, tossing aside his straw hat and opening a newspaper he carried, "say, the Giants are sure playin' great ball this season—what, are ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... apparently did little but sell liquor, and their names were odd and fantastic in a high degree. We noted a few of them. The "Stump and Pie," the "Hare and Hounds," the "Plume of Feathers," the "Blue Ball Inn," the "Horse and Wagon," the "Horse and Jockey," the "Dog and Parson," the "Dusty Miller," the "Angel Hotel" the "Dun Cow Inn," the "Green Man," the "Adam and Eve," and the "Coach and Horses," are a few actual examples of the fearful and wonderful nomenclature of ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... firing a shot, while Mackay's right poured a hot volley into their ranks, and the leathern cannon discharged their harmless thunder from the centre. A gentleman of the Grants, who was fighting that day among the Macdonalds, was knocked over by a spent ball which struck his target. "Sure, the Boddachs are in earnest now!" he said, as he leaped to his feet with a laugh. It was not till they had reached the level ground that the Highlanders delivered their fire. One volley they poured in, and then, flinging their ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... mostly in gymnasium costumes. They had been tossing the medicine ball; but it was plain that they had gathered here near the path the three freshmen friends ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson

... lead. We are not altogether without hints and hopes of such a change, in the growing orthodoxy of rough and athletic costumes. But if this cannot be, it will be no substitute or satisfaction to turn life into an interminable historical fancy-dress ball. ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... constantly at home didn't seem able to do it here at all. The first morning she had merely thrown up a brief thank you to heaven on getting out of bed, and had gone straight to the window to see what everything looked like—thrown up the thank you as carelessly as a ball, and thought no more about it. That morning, remembering this and ashamed, she had knelt down with determination; but perhaps determination was bad for prayers, for she had been unable to think of a thing to say. And as for her bedtime prayers, on neither of the nights had she said a ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... reached its climax. Darby and Joan, quarrelling through nineteen stanzas as to whether they had been disturbed by a rat or a mouse, discovered in the twentieth that the animal was a ball of wool. The company sighed their relief in a murmur of thanks, and Mallinson crossed the room to ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... September isth, being then almost three hundred leagues west of Ferro, they saw a prodigious flash of light, or fire-ball, drop from the sky into the sea, at four or five leagues' distance from the ships, toward the southwest. The weather was then quite fair and serene like April, the sea perfectly calm, the wind favorable from the northeast, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... wonderful story that Sylvia told of the burning of "Rose Briar," their stately mansion, some years previously: how the neighbours had turned out to extinguish the flames, and failing, had danced a last whirl in the ball-room, while the fire roared in the stories overhead. The house had since been rebuilt, more splendid than ever, and the prestige of the family stood undiminished. One of the sons was an old "flame" of Sylvia's, and another was married ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... thousand cries From the gulf did rise, With a wild discordant sound; Laughter and wailing, Prayer and railing, As the ball spun round ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler

... work table in her sitting room, Mrs. Bilter was putting the last stitches in a white Swiss dress that Renestine was to wear that night to a ball. The puff sleeve close to the shoulder was the last of the dainty dress to be put on. Mrs. Bilter took eager pleasure in dressing her pretty sister in the daintiest of gowns. When she looked up she ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern

... side-feed auxiliary chippers incorporated into hammermills will make short work of smaller green tree limbs; but dry, hardened wood takes a lot longer. Feeding large hard branches too fast can tear up chipper blades and even break the ball-bearing housings holding the spindle. Here ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... such figures as a prancing horse or dancing bear and saw from a single piece of wood. A little below the center of the figure insert a curved wire, on the other end of which is a ball of clay or other weight. The wire must be fastened firmly so that it cannot turn. Adjust so that ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs

... which there is no going. Words can end with no consonant but the most rounded of all, the nasal liquids n and ng. There is about as much likeness to the Aryan and Semitic languages—you can trace about as much analogy between them—as you can between a centipede and a billiard-ball. ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... had been safely traversed. Absolute solitude and silence seemed to reign throughout the woodland tracks. But the darkest of the forest still lay ahead of them, and the red ball of the sun had just dipped ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... shouted, then remembered that his men had no guns at hand now. He whipped out his own pistol and fired. But the distance was too great for such a short-barrelled weapon, and the fugitive ran on, bounding like a rubber ball over sand and grasses until he vanished from sight over the ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... conquering kings, dynasties, cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on granite-blocks, I see at Memphis mummy-pits containing mummies embalm'd, swathed in linen cloth, lying there many centuries, I look on the fall'n Theban, the large-ball'd eyes, the side-drooping neck, the hands folded across ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... first arrival at Montague Square Joan reached home rather late one evening to find her room already occupied. A girl sat, her feet tucked underneath her, on the principal chair under the lamplight; she had been crying, for a tight, damp ball of a handkerchief lay on the floor, and at the sound of Joan's entry she turned a tear-stained face ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... the Spanish vessel, revealing her whole outlines from stem to stern. Those in the canoe had just time to perceive that it was the blaze of a cannon, when the report followed, and the hissing of a ball was heard. Almost on the instant the little craft received a terrible shock; and, in the midst of a cloud of spray thrown around it, the two rowers were seen tumbling over the side and sinking below the surface of the water. Two of ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... started the ball rolling, and he knew that neither Pierre nor Ambrose were likely to let it rest until they had had all the rum they wanted. Everything had been made snug for the night so they only had their own pleasure to consider. As Ambrose's challenge fell upon his ears Jean looked up. His eyes ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum

... singers, was opposite the pavilion erected for the distinguished visitors. Among the fine songs, rendered as only Germans could render them, songs composed by Prince Albert and his brother, and songs written for the day, were sung. Afterwards there was a State dinner and a ball. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler



Words linked to "Ball" :   cobblers, bolus, cotillion, testicular artery, toy, shot, wrap, pellet, bodily structure, clot, spherule, male reproductive gland, ductus deferens, polo ball, rete testis, promenade, manus, family jewels, undescended testis, testicular vein, male genitalia, clew, agglomeration, Wiffle, marble, vas deferens, plaything, delivery, body structure, male reproductive system, punch bag, structure, twine, gob, punching bag, vena testicularis, game equipment, comedienne, male genital organ, cotilion, gonad, coagulum, globule, sole, prom, pitch, roll, sphere, hand, arteria testicularis, paw, jack, cricket ball, spermatic cord, epididymis, complex body part, wind, bowl, anatomical structure, seminiferous tubule, sex gland, undescended testicle, mitt, actress, dance, male genitals, internal spermatic artery, daisy cutter



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com