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Buoy   /bˈui/   Listen
Buoy

noun
1.
Bright-colored; a float attached by rope to the seabed to mark channels in a harbor or underwater hazards.



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"Buoy" Quotes from Famous Books



... fortunate for Frances that she did have this expectation of a visit to the Manor to buoy her spirits, for the season scarcely seemed Christmas. Warm weather and plentiful flowers did not appeal to one accustomed to the holiday in wintry Boston, but not the weather alone disturbed Fran. For ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown

... bathed in all the great rivers of the world." Then he added, "the water of the sluggish Ouse is the sweetest of them all." Oddly enough his name was "ZINCKE," though evidently he must be a first-rate "Zwimmer." With genuine love for his old school, he might have added that he wished he was a Buoy again. But he seems to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various

... At this moment the manhole cover of the conning tower was raised. Out onto the platform deck surrounding the tower Captain Jack Benson nimbly stepped. As he took the wheel in the open, the craft glided on with hardly perceptible motion to a mooring buoy a few yards distant. Out hopped another boy, in dark blue naval uniform and visored cap. This youth, Eph Somers, ran nimbly forward over the hull. At just the right instant Eph bent over, securing the forward tackle to the buoy, then straightened ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham

... clutched at the base of the enormous pectoral fin, clinging with maniacal strength, mad with fear. Striking out to little purpose, save to help buoy himself, blinded by the flying scud and broken crests, Rainey felt himself upreared, swept impotently on and slammed against the slimy hulk, just close enough to Sandy to grasp him by the collar, as the whale, stung by a killer's tearing at its oily tongue, flailed with its fin and ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... garbage. They are shaped like a wire mousetrap; so that when the lobsters once enter them, they cannot get out again. They are fastened to a cord and sunk in the sea, and their place marked by a buoy. The fish is very prolific, and deposits of its eggs in the sand, where they are soon hatched. On the coast of Norway, they are very abundant, and it is from there that the English metropolis is mostly supplied. They are rather indigestible, and, as a food, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... no explanation except for the way in which they are used on a chart. Supposing, for instance, you wish to steam from Pelham Bay to the red buoy off the westerly end of Great Captain's Island. Take your chart, mark by a pencil point the place left and the place to go to and draw a straight line intersecting these two points. Now place the parallel rulers along that ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper

... from the saluting battery you cannot see. And then there is Southsea Beach to your left. Before you, Spithead, with the men-of-war, and the Motherbank crowded with merchant vessels; and there is the buoy where the Royal George was wrecked and where she still lies, the fish swimming in and out of her cabin windows; but that is not all; you can also see the Isle of Wight—Ryde with its long-wooden pier, and Cowes, where the yachts lie. In fact, ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... deep-gorged, pallid, foaming waves. Yes, bright the beacon glows, Warmly the lighthouse wafts its blaze of welcome o'er the brine; The shore's hard by, but where the hands to whirl the rescuing line? To launch the boat?—to hurl the buoy? The lighthouse men look out Upon their wreck-borne brethren there, their hearts are soft as stout, But signals will not pierce this dark, shouts rise o'er this fierce roar, Rescue may wait at hand, but—there's no cable ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various

... closer in, perfectly fresh, though the depth was from fourteen to fifteen fathoms. As this stream was a sufficient security against any ice coming in, I determined to anchor the ships somewhere in its neighbourhood; and, having laid down a buoy in twelve fathoms, off the north point of the entrance, returned on board, when I found all the boats ahead endeavouring to tow the ships in-shore. This could be effected, however, only by getting them across the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... the end to a buoy," said he, "and the buoy will indicate the exact point where the ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... well amid the furious cannonade till the monitor Tecumseh, taking the wrong side of the channel buoy in her anxiety to ram the Tennessee, ran over the torpedoes, was horribly holed by the explosion, and plunged headforemost to the bottom, her screw madly whirling in the air. Nor was this the worst; for the Tecumseh's mistake had thrown the other monitors ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... the buoy there is affixed a firmly supported tube carrying at its extremity the lantern, c. The gas compressed to 6 or 7 atmospheres in the body of the buoy passes, before reaching the burner, into a regulator analogous to the one installed on railway cars, but modified in such ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... revolving light on Windmill Rock, and the constant rays from the lightship on the Rips. So that by day or night you could never be lonesome, unless, perhaps, on some thick night, when you could see no light, and could only hear a grating knell from the bell-buoy, and could seem to see, through the white darkness, the waters washing ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin

... materially impede her progress, a submarine would consequently be unaware that she had passed through a line of nets and was actually towing a flaming buoy. Even if she became aware of the tell-tale appendage it would be extremely difficult to clear herself, owing to the forward hydroplanes becoming entangled in the wire-netting, before the fast surface ships, waiting in readiness, had spotted the flaming buoy being towed along and were ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife

... that was the place for us. We have often spent many days' hard earnings in a few hours, amid such scenes. On this occasion he fell from the bows of the 'Jubilee' while a strong ebb tide was running. I jumped in after him, and we both went under a tier of vessels that were hung at the buoy, Battle Bridge, London. We came to the surface, but were soon carried under another tier of vessels, and had not the mate have come to our assistance we should have gone under a third tier, but he came at the last extremity and saved us. Charles belonged to a very respectable ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock

... they had light winds varying from south to east, with frequent showers over the land, and the flies so very troublesome that they found Captain Byron's account of them perfectly just. On coming to an anchor, they observed a buoy a little to the southward, with a slip buoy to it, they swept for the anchor, weighed it, and found it belonged to the Charlotte (Gilbert, master) one of the ships from Port Jackson bound to China; ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... the light gondola was dexterous and still strong, though the hairs of him who held the oar were thin and white. A suppliant eye was cast up at the happy faces that adorned the state of the prince, and then the look was changed intently to the water. A small fisherman's buoy fell from the boat, which glided away so soon, that, amid the animation and uproar of that moment, the action was scarce heeded by ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... old Abbot of Aberbrothok Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock; On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, And over the waves its ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... wild it was impossible to send out the life-savers' boats, so the guards were making ready the breeches buoy. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope

... life-buoys were hung on open hooks at the four corners of the poop-deck; thus, without one moment's delay, I dropped a buoy almost into his hands. This he immediately seized with both arms, and I, of course, thought he was safe: the buoy naturally canted up as he first clutched it, and, instead of holding on, to my astonishment ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... given to me by the Government of the Netherlands that no light-house and light dues, tonnage dues, or beacon and buoy dues are imposed in the ports of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; that no other equivalent tax of any kind is imposed upon vessels in said ports, under whatever flag they may sail; that vessels belonging to the United States of America and their cargoes are not required in the Netherlands to pay any ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... into Plymouth by stress of weather. She had been out seven weeks, and had many sick on board. The gale increasing in the afternoon, it was determined to run for greater safety to Catwater; but the buoy at the extremity of the reef off Mount Batten having broke adrift, of which the pilots were not aware, she touched on the shoal, and carried away her rudder. Thus rendered unmanageable, she fell off, and grounded under the citadel, where, beating round, she lay rolling heavily ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... in the midst of the sea, halfway between Portland and the Channel Islands, a buoy, placed there as a caution; that buoy is moored by chains to the shoal, and floats on the top of the water. On the buoy is fixed an iron trestle, and across the trestle a bell is hung. In bad weather ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... life-and-death struggle for our national existence—for the preservation of the Union, for these are synonymous. To succeed, we need an animating spirit that shall carry us through all obstacles; that shall smile at repeated defeat; that shall ever buoy us up with strong hope and confidence in the ultimate success of our efforts. Such a spirit cannot flow from a simple love of opposition, excited by the wicked bravado of our opponents; nor from a desire to prove ourselves the stronger: neither can it flow from the mere wish to destroy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... three adventurers and Nickerson—were lame in every joint, red-eyed from lack of sleep, half-starved, wholly wet and unequivocally disgusted. They had had heavy weather from the day they bade farewell to the whistling buoy off San Francisco Bay until the moment when even patient, docile, taciturn Strokher had at last—in his ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... smell; till it flowed at last by the docks, where the big steamers lay unlading, blowing their loud sea-horns, past weed-fringed piers and shingly beaches, until it was mingled with the moving deep, where the waves ran higher on the blue sea-line, and the great buoy rolled and ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... round sharply, for there was a loud cry, a babble of tongues, and the shouting of fresh orders, and simultaneously a life-buoy splashed in the sea, near where the man had been dragged down; the boat was descending and a white figure was seen to leap on to the bulwarks after a desperate struggle to free itself from those who had held it, and plunge ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... this river, all loaded down with country homes— and passed by the forts to salutes from their biggest cannons. The Abraham Lincoln replied by three times lowering and hoisting the American flag, whose thirty-nine stars gleamed from the gaff of the mizzen sail; then, changing speed to take the buoy-marked channel that curved into the inner bay formed by the spit of Sandy Hook, it hugged this sand-covered strip of land where thousands of spectators ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... found his voice shaking a little as he spoke. The time was not yet ripe for his outbreak. The climactic moment was still some distance away. But he could feel it emerging from the mist just as a pilot sights the bell-buoy ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... sunken mine, and could explode the latter by simply touching a button which allowed the electric current to pass to the torpedo. In the Harbor channels the torpedoes were so arranged as to be exploded on contact of an enemy's vessel with a partially submerged buoy. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

... citizenship. For with fair treatment I would remain in the city (for I trust to your decision); but if, being brought up by these men, I should be unjustly convicted, I should have to leave the city. What hope would I have to buoy me up in living with you, or why should I intend (to do so), knowing the desire of my accusers, and not knowing at whose hands to expect justice? Care then more for justice (than for anything else) and bear in mind that you grant pardon about charges evidently unjust, and do not ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias

... they walked to the diving chamber. Their progress would be easier in the water, which would buoy them up in a measure. Now they ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton

... Westminster in a house that faces the abbey. It is one of my cousin Edward's houses, and you will see the Vere cognizance over the door. Call there at one hour after noon, and I will have a talk with you; but do not buoy yourselves up with hopes as to your going with me." So saying, with a friendly nod of his head Francis Vere ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... on deck, was actually broken in two pieces. It is a well-authenticated fact, that some years ago a shark, playing round a whaling vessel of upwards of 300 tons, whilst lying at anchor during a calm, got entangled in the buoy-rope of the anchor, and in its efforts to free itself actually tripped the anchor. The people on board, perceiving something extraordinary had happened, hove up the anchor, and brought the struggling shark to the surface. Having thrown ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... indolence, he bore with much composure. But, if a cheat were attempted to be practised upon him, by sending him the poorest fish, or if any part of his share was abstracted, if a porpoise or a halibut was hidden, or the head of a finback sunk, with a buoy attached to it, or the fin of a whale buried in the sand, he showed most terrific symptoms of wrath and anger, and never failed to make the Indians pay dearly for their roguery. But those who dwelt in his ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... do, Mr. Flint; stop her, and let go the anchor. Get out a spring astern and make it fast to that buoy," said the commander. ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... advantage of such slender aids to escape as happened to present themselves; and accordingly, as the bows of the ship became depressed, while the stern rose in the air, telling that the Golden Fleece was about to take her final dive, he mechanically sprang to the taffrail and, disengaging a life-buoy that hung there, passed it over his shoulders and up under his armpits. Then, climbing upon the rail, he leapt unhesitatingly into the black, heaving water below him at the precise moment when a loud wail of indescribable anguish and despair from the frantic crowd fighting ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... thus establishing a piston-and-cylinder movement, the water in the tube acting as an immovable piston, while the tube itself acts as a moving cylinder. Thus the air admitted through valves, as the buoy rises on the wave, into that part of the bulb which is above water, is compressed, and as the buoy falls with the wave, it is further compressed and forced through a 21/2 inch pipe which at its apex connects with the whistle. The dimensions of the whistling ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... Sub-Lieut. R. A. F. Montgomerie, R.A., jumped overboard from the bridge, a height of twenty-five feet, to his assistance, swam to him, got hold of the man, and hauled him on to his back, then swam with him to where he supposed the life-buoy would be; but, seeing no relief, he states that after keeping him afloat some time, he told the man to keep himself afloat whilst he took his clothes off. He had got his coat and shirt off, and was in the act of taking off his ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... to perform. The last words of my father—and his injunctions had ever been a law to me—were, "Mind, Jacob, we must be up at the wharf early to-morrow morning." I prepared to obey him. Purchase the anchor I could not; I therefore slipped the cable, lashing a broken sweep to the end of it, as a buoy-rope, and once more the lighter was at the mercy of the stream, guided by a boy of eleven years old. In about two hours I was within a hundred yards of the wharf, and well in-shore, I hailed for assistance, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... impossible for as to get on board, or for the boat to lie near the ship's side, till at last the men rowing very heartily, and venturing their lives to save ours, our men cast them a rope over the stern with a buoy to it, and then veered it out a great length, which they after great labour and hazard took hold of, and we hauled them close under our stern, and got all into their boat. It was to no purpose for them or us, after we were in the boat, to think ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... for the General Board on 24 February, Admiral Waesche listed eighteen vessels, mostly buoy tenders and patrol boats, that would be assigned black crews. All black enlistees would be sent to the Manhattan Beach Training Station, New York, for a basic training "longer and more extensive" than the usual recruit ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... handled, presently came up head to wind, settling away both topsail-yards to the caps as she did so, and, while her crew clewed up the topsails and hauled down the staysail, glided, with the way which she still had on her, up to the weathermost buoy, to which a hawser was promptly run out and made fast. Then, as about a dozen hands climbed into the fore and main rigging and made their leisurely way aloft for the purpose of rolling up the topsails, a light, handsome gig was dropped into ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... the upper framework. A string of bait, consisting mainly of flounders and sculpins, was tied into each trap. About 50 traps were used by each fisherman, and they were hauled once a day. The warps or buoy lines, by which the traps were lowered and hauled, were cut in 12-fathom lengths. Lobsters were so abundant at the Muscle Ridges, at this period, that four men could fully supply Captain Oakes with lobsters every trip. In the course of ten days each man would obtain ...
— The Lobster Fishery of Maine - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 • John N. Cobb

... much-prized fishing hook and rod and went down to the seashore and sat down on the rocks. He baited his hook and then threw it into the sea clumsily. He sat and gazed at the little float bobbing up and down in the water, and longed for a good fish to come and be caught. Every time the buoy moved a little he pulled up his rod, but there was never a fish at the end of it, only the hook and the bait. If he had known how to fish properly, he would have been able to catch plenty of fish, but although he was the greatest hunter in the land ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... a good deal of water sail up toward Angostura in the months of January and February, by favour of the sea-breeze and the tide, they run the risk of taking the ground. The navigable channel often changes its breadth and direction; no buoy, however, has yet been laid down, to indicate any deposit of earth formed in the bed of the river, where the waters have lost their original velocity. There exists on the south of Cape Barima, as well by the river of this name as by the Rio ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... do is to take him home to my own people." The idea was an inspiration of the desperate moment. How to put it into practice he knew not, and she tried to show him that it was impracticable; but he stuck to it as to a life-buoy. He would write to his sister—all the 'people' he owned apparently—and find somebody who was going home; and "Isn't it time to be putting our things together? Miss Pennycuick told us we were to be there for tea at four o'clock, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... doubt she indulged in these boorish discourtesies simply to buoy up her own ego, which must have suffered greatly. She presumed on her sex and my tolerance, taking the same pleasure in baiting me, on whom she was utterly dependent, as a terrier does in annoying a Saint Bernard, knowing the big dog's ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... way without warning you beforehand. Alas! You must not cherish illusions, illusions which this unfortunate article has given rise to, illusions I cannot believe in myself. I speak with all the sincerity of which I am capable, with the keenest desire to be of service to you: I dare not let you buoy yourself up with false hopes.... I assure you then, that from what I have been able to learn, to see, to know, I am convinced that your unfortunate brother is no more!... If there have been moments when ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... question and with an instinct to cheer was almost persuaded to answer in the negative. In his heart he thought Hugh would die. The rapidly failing strength of the man indicated that he would do so unless something came to buoy ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... melt out and float away in the spring," Mary said. "It may be a perch for a sea-gull or a buoy for a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... they made an inclined plane and let the bottle slide down into the water head foremost, like a ship being launched. They could follow it as it curved under the water until it came up slantingly, and stood bobbing up and down on the water like a buoy, with its neck up. The mouse made the funniest leaps up toward the cork to get out; and the boys jumped up and down on ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... shore. The passengers fortunately landed before the accident, and I will just mention to you the method by which the crew were saved. When they found that the ship was ruined and giving way upon the beam right athwart, they made a rope fast to a drift-buoy, which by the surf was driven on shore. By this a stout hawser was convey'd, and those on shore made it fast a good way up a pine-tree. The other end, being on board, was hove taut. On this hawser was placed the heart of a stay (a piece ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... ourselves; we are trying to catch some fish for dinner," said Kate. "Could you wait out by the red buoy while we get a few more, and then should you be back by noon, or are you going for a longer ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... have increased sufficiently to erase the budget deficit. The release of substantial development aid from the Netherlands - which had been held up due to the government's failure to initiate economic reforms - also has helped buoy the economy. Suriname's economic prospects for the medium term will depend on continued implementation of economic restructuring. The new government elected in the fall of 1996 has sent mixed signals about commitment to ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... truest proof? So, by degrees, he resolved that the thing must be done. The man, though he had been bad to his friend, was not all bad. He was one who might become good in good hands. He, Roger, was too firm of purpose and too honest of heart to buoy himself up into new hopes by assurances of the man's unfitness. What right had he to think that he could judge of that better than the girl herself? And so, when many many miles had been walked, he succeeded ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... Gally was launched in Castle's Yard at Deptford[2] about the 4th day of December 1695, and about the latter end of February the said Gally came to the buoy in the Nore, and about the first Day of March following, his men were pressed from him for the Fleet, which caused him to stay there 19 Days,[3] and then sailed for the Downs, and arrived there about the 8th or 10th Day of April 1696; and sailed thence for Plymouth, and on the 23d Day of ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... sticking in the shell of the turtle. It was only the shaft that floated, and that was attached to the head by a string! The latter had been but loosely put on, so that the pressure of the water, as the turtle dived, should separate it from the shaft, leaving the shaft with its cord to act as a buoy, and discover the situation ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... slide through loops for that purpose, forming, as it were, a stout central membrane. As the arms are raised, a tubular lining beneath the vest or tunic becomes, by mechanical contrivance inflated with air, increased or diminished at will by the movement of the arms, and serving to buoy the whole form as on bladders. The wings and the balloon-like apparatus are highly charged with vril; and when the body is thus wafted upward, it seems to become singularly lightened of its weight. I found it easy enough to soar from the ground; indeed, ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... time. All were to sail in the same class; the first prize was a silver vase, and the second a marine glass. The course was to be from the judge's boat, in Belfast harbor, by Turtle Head, around the buoy on Stubb's Point Ledge, leaving it on the port hand, and back to the starting-point. The sailing regulations already adopted by the club were to be in full force. The report was accepted, and the members looked forward with eager anticipation ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... verse, Our trivial song to honor those who come With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum, And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire, Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire: 10 Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, A gracious memory to buoy up and save From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... both on the south side of the river, and both deserted and falling to ruin, and very soon had left behind Tybee Island, with its flashing light, at the mouth of the river. The tug left them when they reached the siren buoy that keeps up a constant moaning on the outer bar; one after another of the ship's sails were loosed and "sheeted home," and then Captain May said it was "high time for the ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe

... bladders are placed in pairs, for the most part, and buoy up the plant, bringing it up to the ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell

... thy cruell Nailes Plucke out his poore old eyes: nor thy fierce Sister, In his Annointed flesh, sticke boarish phangs. The Sea, with such a storme as his bare head, In Hell-blacke-night indur'd, would haue buoy'd vp And quench'd the Stelled fires: Yet poore old heart, he holpe the Heauens to raine. If Wolues had at thy Gate howl'd that sterne time, Thou should'st haue said, good Porter turne the Key: All Cruels else subscribe: but I shall see The winged ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... on the stove, Charlie went out to witness the preparations for beginning fishing, and was just in time to see the men anchor a small buoy, fitted with a light and a flag. This was anchored so that the Sparrow-hawk, by keeping it in sight, should not wander away from the fishing-ground. They were in about twenty-six fathoms of water, and, if they lost sight of the buoy, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... Creek. This latter is one of the principal trout spawning streams of Tahoe, and to prevent fishermen from catching the fish that seek the stream at the spawning season the Fish Commissioners have placed a buoy out in the Lake, some twenty-five hundred feet away, within which bound it ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... behind the painted buoy That tosses at the harbor-mouth; And madly danced our hearts with joy, As fast we fleeted to the South: How fresh was every sight and sound On open main or winding shore! We knew the merry world was round, And we might sail ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson

... the pebbles that fringed the beach. From the deck of a schooner anchored off shore, floated the deep voice of a man singing Schubert's "Ave Maria"; and far, far away over the weird waste of waters, where a buoy marked a sunken wreck, its red beacon burned like the eye of Polyphemus, crouching in ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... the Yaqui Valley, through Arispe, where the filibusters died with Spartan bravery, is a weary jaunt. But high hopes buoy them up. Over mesa and gorge, past hacienda and Indian settlement, they climb passes until the great mountains break away. Crossing the muddy Rio Grande, Valois is greeted by old friends. He sees the Confederate flag for the first time, floating over the turbulent ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... unpunished, "God spared not his own Son," but "was pleased[99], to bruise him and put him to grief" for our sakes; how vainly must impenitent sinners flatter themselves with the hope of escaping the vengeance of Heaven, and buoy themselves up with I know not what desperate dreams of the ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... craft of fifteen hundred tons, flying the house flag of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. Steamers were rare in Sydney Harbour in those days (it was the year 1860), and the Avoca had pride of place and her own mooring buoy, for she was the only English mail boat, and her commander and his officers were regarded with the same respect as if they and their ship were the admiral and staff of the ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke

... shoregoin' blokes don't know abart th' Navy, sir," said the burly one with some contempt, chuckling away to himself. "But if you reely wants to know, bleedin' a buoy means borin' a small 'ole in 'im to let the water art, 'cos they all leaks a bit arter they've bin in the sea. But I must say good arternoon, sir," he added hurriedly, glancing over his shoulder and rising to his feet. ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... Prodigies and Phenomena, that are not in the common Course of Nature. We are grown Epicureans in our Principles, and force our selves to believe, that it is Fear, Superstition, or Ignorance, to fancy that Providence sends the World a Warning in extraordinary Appearances: We buoy our selves up, that we only want such a Portion of Philosophy to account for what startles the Grossness of Sense, and to know that such Appearances must have their Cause in Nature, tho' we cannot readily determine where ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe

... "Although it was built so long ago, it was made immensely strong, and well braced, and as the water did not undermine it at the start, it has been favored by the very density of that which now surrounds it, and which tends to buoy it up and hold it steady. But you observe that it has been stripped of the ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... mist an immense dome, looking like a balloon of huge size about to ascend into the air. It did not ascend, however; but, surrounded by several tall shafts and towers which rose silently out of the mist, it remained suspended over the same spot. Like a buoy at sea affixed to the place where some noble vessel lies entombed, this dome told us that engulphed in this ocean of vapour lay FLORENCE, with her rich treasures of art, and her many stirring ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... "A buoy is a floating body in the shape of two inverted cones united at their bases, made of copper or plate iron. They are used all over the world to mark the bounds of channels, sometimes with fog-bells on them, rung by the action of the waves," ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic

... made," said the lover, rubbing his hands; "and now oie'll go and bid measter and missus good-buoy." ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... the raft asunder. In this crisis he was seen by a compassionate sea-nymph, who in the form of a cormorant alighted on the raft, and presented him a girdle, directing him to bind it beneath his breast, and if he should be compelled to trust himself to the waves, it would buoy him up and enable him by ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... being fortunately to windward, we got into the wake of the floating light, at about 250 fathoms astern, just as the landing-master's boat reached the vessel. He immediately streamed or floated a life-buoy astern, with a line which was always in readiness, and by means of this useful implement the boat was towed alongside of the floating light, where, from her rolling motion, it required no small management to get safely on board, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... at anchor near the man on shore, a sail shot up, then fluttered and snapped in the wind. A moment later it was drawn in, the line holding the craft to the buoy slipped out, and the bow swung sharply around. Mr. Heatherbloom worked swiftly; one desire moved him—to get around that point before being overtaken—to discover what lay beyond. Then let happen what would! He reached for a line and hoisted a jib, though it was almost more ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... family under an assumed name, in the neighbourhood of Chelsea. He was, however, apprehended, and brought to trial at Armagh, in August 1808. He said while in prison, that, if found guilty of murder, he should suffer as an example to duellists in Ireland; but he endeavoured to buoy himself up with the hope that the jury would only convict him of manslaughter. It was proved in evidence upon the trial, that the duel was not fought immediately after the offence was given, but that Major Campbell went home and drank tea with his family before he sought Boyd for the fatal encounter. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... out of there, they pointed her nose nor'west by nor' as though Iceland were only a buoy in a yacht-race.... And the wind held.... The summer nights of the North were on them, the unearthly beauty of the light.... There was no world.... They were sailing on the Milky Way.... Only the gurgle of the water at the bows, the whush of the wake beneath ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... ringing in Tunis Latham's ears. As you make Paulmouth Harbor coming from seaward, on a thick day you hear the insistent tolling of the bell buoy over Bitter Reef. That was the distant, but incessant sound that the captain of the Seamew seemed to hear as he sat on that bench on Boston ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... crushed under this seven years' weight of misery," replied Hester, fervently resolved to buoy him up with her own energy. "But thou shalt leave it all behind thee! It shall not cumber thy steps, as thou treadest along the forest-path: neither shalt thou freight the ship with it, if thou prefer to cross ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... number of knotted ropes'-ends, terminating in fanciful Turks' heads. These were the life-lines, for the drowning to clutch. Inserted into the middle of the cork was an upright, carved pole, somewhat shorter than a pike-staff. The whole buoy was embossed with barnacles, and its sides festooned with sea-weeds. Dolphins were sporting and flashing around it, and one white bird was hovering over the top of the pole. Long ago, this thing must have ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... navigation of ice-yachts. Archie, if you're willing to enter against such a handicap of brains and barnacles, I'll race you on a beat up to the point yonder, then on the ten mile run afore the wind to the buoy opposite the Club, and back to the cove by Dillaway's. And we'll make it a case of wine. Is it ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the steamer 'United States.' The barque sunk in less than seven minutes after the steamer struck us, and I come up out of her suction-like. I found myself swimming there, on top, and not so much as a capstan-bar to make me a life-buoy. I knew the steamer was hove to, for I could hear her blow hoff steam; and once, as I came up on a wave, I got a sight of her boats. They were ready enough to pick us up, and we was ready enough to be picked up, such as were left; but how to do it was another ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... they liked, from four feet to thirty. Except with leave, no boy was permitted to swim beyond the harbour mouth into the open. But leave was constantly being applied for, and as constantly granted; and perhaps every boy, at some time or other, cast wistful glances at the black buoy bobbing a mile out at sea, and wondered when he, like Pontifex and Mansfield, and other of the Sixth, should be able to wear the image of it on his belt, and ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... "I didn't ask," he said, "but I wouldn't be surprised if the good Dr. Ernst hasn't done some advance diving and marked the statue's location with a buoy hung around its neck, just to ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin

... like one of Professor Pepper's patent ghosts, stand out for a moment in brilliant white relief against a background of impenetrable darkness, and then vanish with the swiftness of summer lightning, as the electric beam left it to search for another buoy farther away. ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... have the old ship wrecked, and the lifesavers will put out the life buoy; and we'll bring the passengers ashore. Crickey! that'll be just the thing. I'll save 'em all from drownin'—that's what ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... are the dynamic and the motives that bear men on and buoy them up to do the toil, bear the burdens, stand in the fight of daily living; here are the visions that lift our eyes from the desk and the machine, from profits and discounts, and help us to see the worthy ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope

... about two hundred and fifty yards outside her. As long as she lies quiet there we will leave her alone. If she tries to make off we will board her at once. Anchor with the kedge; that will hold her here. Have a buoy on the cable and have it ready to slip at a moment's notice, and the sails all ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... his lingering hopes to buoy, He saw a sail and a mast, And called "Ahoy!"—but it was not a hoy, And so the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... were aboard the lugger, busily engaged in loosing and setting the sails; and presently they were under way, having slipped their moorings and transferred them to the skiff, which they left behind to serve as a buoy to guide them to the moorings upon their return. The lugger was a beautiful boat, according to the idea of beauty that then prevailed, having been constructed by Mr George Heard—familiarly known as Gramfer Heard—shipbuilder ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... even walk on the lake shore in your company. For why? youd as lief drown a man as one of them there fish; not to throw a Christian creature so much as a ropes end when he was adrift, and no life-buoy in sight! Natty Bumppo, give us your fist. Theres them that says youre an Indian, and a scalper, but youve served me a good turn, and you may set me down for a friend; thof it would have been more ship shape like to lower the bight of a rope or running bowline below me, than to seize an old ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... to the cross-trees, gave them the direction of the trawl buoy-light, and they started. It was a clear, starlit night with only a gentle sea running and no wind to speak of. There was ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... the unforeseen emergency that arose during the action, to pass over the spot where the hidden dangers were said to lie; but in the dispositions for battle the order was given for the fleet to pass eastward of the easternmost buoy, where no torpedoes would ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... infinite strangeness of all life, a pastime which very often engaged him. Then he thought of some one whom he very greatly loved, and was refreshed by that thought; and, indeed, to love and be loved very greatly is the one stake to cling to in these troubled seas, the one unfailing life-buoy. Then, turning his mind into practical channels, he thought of hate, and of Charles Wilbraham, and of how best to strive that day to ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... smiling, "We can find our nets by the bearings, and every buoy has its special mark of ownership. It is hard work to haul in the nets, especially when the sea is rough. Each net is one hundred and twenty fathoms long, and about three fathoms deep;—we sailors do not count ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu

... went forward on the track of the herd, slowly, and searching every dip and hollow. For Lionel it was a period of agonizing uncertainty. One moment he would buoy himself up with the assurance that the keeper must know; the rest he convinced himself that he had missed the stag clean. Now he would be wondering whether this wide, undulating plain really contained ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... a side he wouldn't have run away, or taken the extraordinary pains that he did take to conceal his victim," answered Mark. "Don't buoy yourself up to suppose that will be a possible line of defence. We're far more likely to get him off by proving a homicidal act under the influence of shell shock—and the less reason there was for murdering ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... more tried to sheer across to her, but no sooner did we get into the current again than it mercilessly drove us back. Beaten again! And again we tried the same manoeuvre with the same result. Now we saw them lowering a buoy from the ship—if we could only reach it we were saved; but we did not reach it. They were not exactly blessings that we poured on those on board. Why the deuce could they not bear down to us when they saw the straits we were in; ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... weather-quarter davits, and with such force that he actually broke it. I could scarcely have supposed that he would have escaped being killed in his fall; but, as the ship flew away from him, he was seen rising on the crest of a foaming wave, apparently unhurt. The life-buoy was let go as soon as possible, but by that time the ship had already got a considerable distance from him; and even could he reach it, I felt that the prospect of saving him was small indeed, as I had no hope, should we find him, of being able to pick ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... France which holds our men we passed through divers warlike and sentimental enterprises which lay across our path, and while we relate the story of these adventures, the reader must wait a few moments before we disclose the American flag. But the promise of its coming may buoy him up while the ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... my way," said the man; and as the order was given to slip the anchor, with a small buoy left to mark its place, the informer secured his boat to one of the ringbolts astern, and then drew close in; and mounted over the bulwark to stand beside the man ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... strictly designed for river and harbour defence. She sweated clammy drops of dew between decks in spite of a preparation of powdered cork that was sprinkled over her inside paint. She rolled in the long Cape swell like a buoy; her foc's'le was a dog-kennel; Judson's cabin was practically under the water- line; not one of her dead-bights could ever be opened; and her compasses, thanks to the influence of the four-inch gun, were a curiosity even among Admiralty ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... enough tide to mirror the tall trees that bent towards it, and reflect with a grey gleam one gable of the house behind. Two or three boats lay quietly here by their moorings; beside them rested a huge red buoy, and an anchor protruding one rusty tooth above the water. Where the sad-looking shingle ended, a few long timbers rotted in the ooze. Nothing in this haunted corner spoke of life, unless it were the midges that danced and ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Almena lay at an outer mooring-buoy in Callao Roads, again ready for sea, but waiting. With her at the anchorage were representatives of most of the maritime nations. English ships and barks with painted ports and spider-web braces, high-sided, square-sterned American half-clippers, clumsy, square-bowed ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... fro with the ebb and flow of the tide at the entrance of Mobile Bay, is a buoy which marks the spot of a deed of purest heroism. A few fathoms below that buoy lies the monitor Tecumseh, sunk by a torpedo at the beginning of the battle, as we have seen, and the buoy commemorates, ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... present. Kipling gloried in the material world; he did more—he glorified it. He pierced the coarse exteriors of seemingly prosaic things—things like machinery, bridge-building, cockney soldiers, slang, steam, the dirty by-products of science (witness "M'Andrews Hymn" and "The Bell Buoy")—and uncovered their hidden glamour. "Romance is gone," ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... of the fair widow were nevertheless occasionally interrupted by others not quite so agreeable. Strange to say, he fully believed what Smallbones had asserted about his being carried out by the tide to the Nab buoy and he canvassed the question in his mind, whether there was not something supernatural in the affair, a sort of interposition of Providence in behalf of the lad, which was to be considered as a warning to himself not to attempt anything further. He was frightened, although his feeling for ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... coast appeared immediately beneath us, and we were fairly out at sea. We now resolved to let off enough gas to bring our guide-rope, with the buoys affixed, into the water. This was immediately done, and we commenced a gradual descent. In about twenty minutes our first buoy dipped, and at the touch of the second soon afterwards, we remained stationary as to elevation. We were all now anxious to test the efficiency of the rudder and screw, and we put them both into requisition forthwith, for the purpose of altering our direction more to the eastward, and in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... remark that a sheet of ice of moderate thickness, if it extend over a wide area, may suffice to buoy up the largest erratics which fall upon it. The size of these will depend, not on the intensity of the cold but on the manner in which the rock is jointed, and the consequent dimensions of the blocks into which it splits when falling from ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... were real, if the night and the mystery of the moor had not bewitched him, for she had come to him at night out of the darkness with the wind whistling round her. It was so easy, as he knew, for a solitary being to fasten eagerly on another, like a beaten boat to the safety of a buoy, but while he thus admonished himself, he had no genuine doubt. He knew that she was what he wanted: her youth, her wisdom, her smoothness, her serenity, and the many things which made her, even the ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... then sixty-nine, my mother and I were walking on the beach at Lowestoft, when just round the Ness Light we met Borrow coming: towards us from the Corton side. He got hold of my shoulder, and, pointing to the big black buoy beyond the Ness, he said, "There! Do you see that? I have just been out there. I have not been back many minutes." At the age of nearly seventy he had been round the Ness Buoy and home again—a wonderful performance if, in addition to his age, you remember the dangerous ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... Chelsea. He was, however, apprehended, and brought to trial at Armagh, in August 1808. He said while in prison, that, if found guilty of murder, he should suffer as an example to duellists in Ireland; but he endeavoured to buoy himself up, with the hope that the jury would only convict him of manslaughter. It was proved in evidence upon the trial, that the duel was not fought immediately after the offence was given, but that Major Campbell went home and drank tea with his family, before he sought ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... hundred yards out, the tops of what might almost have been a built wall of nasty pointed rocks formed a perfect lagoon across the face of the promontory. At high tide these would not show, but they were there, always guarding, always bare-toothed, and as far again beyond them a bell-buoy mounted on a similar ledge seemed to point to the existence of a double barrier. It was a great lonesome bay of the Atlantic that he looked at, its arms on either side desolate, scrubby and forbidding, with ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... see, Wal'r,' said the Captain, sagely, 'Hope. It's that as animates you. Hope is a buoy, for which you overhaul your Little Warbler, sentimental diwision, but Lord, my lad, like any other buoy, it only floats; it can't be steered nowhere. Along with the figure-head of Hope,' said the Captain, 'there's a anchor; but what's ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... coal," said Cooper, "has bounced across the room from Jones's picture and set fire to Turner's sea." Turner did not come in again for a day and a half, and then in the last moment allowed for painting, he glazed the scarlet seal he had put on his picture, and shaped it into a buoy." ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... odd reluctance the little roll of bills he handed me, though it was like a life buoy ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... found floating on the water from a wreck; jetsam, goods thrown overboard from a ship which has perished; legan, heavy goods thrown overboard with a line and buoy to mark where they have sunk; derelicts, vessels ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various



Words linked to "Buoy" :   swim, mark, float, reference, support, sustain, point of reference, nun, hold, reference point, can, hold up



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