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Clamber   /klˈæmbər/   Listen
Clamber

verb
(past & past part. clambered; pres. part. clambering)
1.
Climb awkwardly, as if by scrambling.  Synonyms: scramble, shin, shinny, skin, sputter, struggle.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Clamber" Quotes from Famous Books



... gets is from the forest and the streams. From them he learns to trap the timid deer and to catch the wily fish. In them he acquires a quick step, a sharp eye, and a keen ear. In the ways of nature he is a scholar, because the first moment that he can clamber down the notched pole he betakes himself to the surrounding forest and schools himself in all her ways ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... travelled for many a day—now scaling rugged mountain passes where it seemed doubtful whether the horses would be able to clamber, anon traversing rich meadows, and frequently meeting with and shooting deer, bears, Rocky Mountain goats, and the other wild inhabitants of the region. But, in course of time, they reached a particularly barren part of the mountains, to travel through which was a matter ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne

... while to clamber up to Thiepval from our lines. The road runs through the site of the village in a deep cutting, which may have once been lovely. The road is reddish with the smashed bricks of the village. Here and there in the mud are perhaps three courses of brick ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield

... shirks an inevitable duty. I felt assured that the Time Machine was only to be recovered by boldly penetrating these underground mysteries. Yet I could not face the mystery. If only I had had a companion it would have been different. But I was so horribly alone, and even to clamber down into the darkness of the well appalled me. I don't know if you will understand my feeling, but I never felt ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... the vessel is crowded to the full as much as the genteeler quarter. There are four carriages, each with piles of imperials and aristocratic gimcracks of travel, under the wheels of which those personages have to clamber who have a mind to look at the bowsprit, and perhaps to smoke a cigar at ease. The carriages overcome, you find yourself confronted by a huge penful of Durham oxen, lying on hay and surrounded by a barricade of oars. Fifteen of these horned monsters maintain an incessant mooing ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray

... which forms the summit of the mountain, a few hundred feet above us. Here Karl suddenly refused to allow us, and to shake him out of his effeminacy I had to send back the guide for him, who, at our request, succeeded in bringing him along, half by force. But now that we had to clamber from stone to stone along the precipitous cliff, I soon began to realise how foolish I had been in compelling Karl to share our perilous adventure. His dizziness evidently stupefied him, for he stared in front of him as though he could not see, and we had to hold him fast ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... the beast. Koko! Koko!" Frederick arose and let the great, rosy-white seafarer clamber on his hand. "I like animals better than I do most people I meet," ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... to the crumbling bricks. Below was the little window of the loft. With one end of the riem tied round the gable, the other end round his waist, how easy to slide down to it, and to open it, through one of the broken panes, and to go in, and to fill his arms with books, and to clamber up again! They had burnt one book—he would have twenty. Every man's hand was against his—his should be against every man's. No one would ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... been looking on the tower which the children of men had builded, and had recognized his desire to clamber up into it again. He was not without the perception that a more fiery temperament than his own—perhaps a nobler one—would have cursed the race that had done him wrong, and sought to injure it or shun it. Misty recollections of proud-hearted ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... the cliff! Creep, crawl, wriggle, slide, clamber, scramble, clutch, climb, here jumping—actually jumping, I!—over a crevice, then drawing myself round an insuperable jut by two honest sturdy weeds—many thanks to them!—which had the consideration to be there and to plant ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... small hole in the rock, through which we were glad to crawl; and having got to the secure side of it, prepared ourselves, by a little rest, to proceed further; but not, I assure you, without some apprehensions, that if there was no better road down, we must have become hermits. After a second clamber, not quite so dreadful as the first, but much longer, we got into some flowery and serpentine walks, which lead to two or three of the nearest hermitages then visible, and not far off, one of which hung over so horrible a precipice, that it was terrifyingly picturesque. We were now, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... them with a close and deadly fire. The surprised soldiers recoiled and fell into confusion; and they were for the second time saved from disaster by the gallantry of Colonel Hammond, who with voice and action rallied them, endeavoring to keep them firm while a detachment was sent to clamber up the rocks and outflank the Indians. At the same time Lieutenant Hampton got twenty men together, out of the rout, and ran forward, calling out: "Loaded guns advance, empty guns fall down and load." Being joined by some thirty men ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... the Baris did not comprehend. They had only been accustomed to face the slave-hunters' irregular companies, and they had never seen a charge borne with the bayonet. They now began to clamber up the rocks and ascend the mountain with the activity of baboons, while a sharp fire from the snider rifles acted like a spur upon their movements. A shell from the gun now burst over a number of the enemy who had collected about 800 ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... dropped in great heaps under the steady fire of the musketry—as Philip Flaming, looking on, exclaimed—like apples when the autumn wind blows through the orchard. And as the foremost still pressed nearer and nearer, striving to clamber up the shattered counterscarp and through every practicable breach, the English, Hollanders, and Zeelanders, met them in the gap, not only at push of pike, but with their long daggers and with flaming pitchhoops, and hurled them ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... was not in the mood to listen to a recital of her own blessings. "Deborah couldn't sit on a chair, or the floor, but must actually clamber on to my bed, with her boots on too! Just look at the mess she has made my white quilt in! It—it looks as though it had been slept on ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... sick or his mother was dead. At any rate, there he wasn't. And in order not to irritate Culhane, a second hostler had been dressed and given his seat and horn—only he couldn't blow it. As we began to clamber in I heard him asking, "Can any of you gentleman blow the trumpet? Do any of you gentleman know the ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... Shylock to his daughter, "lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum, and the vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife, clamber not you up into ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... we were safe from the howling mob, for since leaving the great cavern all was silence, and it was now evident from the confident manner in which Goliba went forward that he was assured of the way. Soon we negotiated a steep ascent, now and then so difficult that we were compelled to clamber up on all fours, and for a long time this continued until our hands and feet were sore with scrambling upward. A spring shed its icy drippings upon us for some little distance, soaking us to the skin and rendering us chilly and uncomfortable, but at length we reached what seemed to be a ponderous ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... twenty yards off; and I waded through the long, dewy grass of the churchyard, and tried to peep over the wall, in hopes to discover some tangible and traceable remains of the edifice. But the wall was just too high to be overlooked, and difficult to clamber over without tumbling down some of the stones; so I took the word of one of our party, who had been here before, that there is nothing interesting on the other side. The churchyard is in rather a neglected state, and seems not to have been mown for the benefit of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... not good for man to be alone, preserve me from the more prodigious monstrosity of being never by myself. I forget bed time, but even there these sociable frogs clamber up to annoy me. Once a week, generally some singular evening that, being alone, I go to bed at the hour I ought always to be abed, just close to my bedroom window, is the club room of a public house, where a set of singers, I take them to be chorus-singers ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... mechanical contrivance peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other vessel at a moment's warning. Now, it is no very easy matter for anybody —except those who are almost hourly used to it, like whalemen —to clamber up a ship's side from a boat on the open sea; for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards .. the bulwarks, and then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. so, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied with the kindly invention, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... We clamber up into the long jungle grass region and go on our way across a series of steep-sided, rounded grass hillocks, each of which is separated from the others by dry, rocky watercourses. The effects produced by the seed-ears of the long grass round us are very beautiful; ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... trouble I managed to clamber on board, and found the ship deserted. I had suspected that this would be the case, for as I had drawn near I would have seen some sign that my approach was noticed had there been anybody on board to perceive it. But I found food and ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... faces, with mortal fright showing through the rouge—some trembling, some in tears—the screams and calls, confused talk—redoubled, trebled—two or three manage to pass up water from the stage to the President's box—others try to clamber up. Amidst all this, a party of soldiers, two hundred or more, hearing what is done, suddenly appear; they storm the house, inflamed with fury, literally charging the audience with fixed bayonets, muskets, and pistols, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... but merely to say he had been there. After an hour on the summit of the enormous mass of stone, he came down; and I should have liked to ask him what he reckoned to be the net profit accruing to him for his little exploit. Wise men do not want to clamber up immense and dangerous Alps; there is a kind of heroic lunacy about the business, but it is not useful, and it certainly is not inviting. If a thoughtful man goes even in winter among the mountains, their vast repose sinks on his soul; his love of them never ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... narrower and narrower," continued Mr. George, "until it is finally lost among the rocks, and you have to clamber around the point of some rocky cliff a thousand feet in the air, with scarcely any thing but the jagged roughness of the ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott

... handsome petted boy Uttama; and Suneetee, less beloved, The mother of another son whose name Was Dhruva. Seated on his throne the king Uttanapado, on his knee one day Had placed Uttama; Dhruva, who beheld His brother in that place of honour, longed To clamber up and by his playmate sit; Led on by Love he came, but found, alas! Scant welcome and encouragement; the king Saw fair Suruchee sweep into the hall With stately step,—aye, every inch a queen, And dared not smile upon her co-wife's son. Observing ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... Raisins. pudding. baked bullace. Dates. Buttered wheat, and Pistachios, or fistic Chestnut and wal- flummery. nuts. nuts. Water-gruel, and Figs. Filberts. milk-porridge. Almond butter. Parsnips. Frumenty and bonny Skirret root. Artichokes. clamber. White-pot. Perpetuity of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... when the fierce heat of the noon-day sun overwhelmed everything, and the country side lay asleep and silent under its pitiless rays, it was my habit to clamber up to the top of the old wall that enclosed the garden, and there I sat astride and immovable for a long time. The branching ivy reached to my shoulders and innumerable flies and locusts buzzed around me. From the height of this observatory I had a view of the hot and lonely region lying beyond, ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... didn't seem like the others we've been hearing; d'ye think it means anything has happened?" Bob called, as he started to clamber up the rough face of the wall, taking advantage of every jutting rock, and showing a nimbleness a mountain goat ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson

... a town in which to ramble for an hour, uphill, down and around; stopping now to delight in a crumbling stone wall, tied together with Kenilworth ivy; now to watch a woman making apple butter in a great iron pot; now to see an old negro clamber slowly into his rickety wagon, take up the rope reins, and start his skinny horse with the surprising words: "Come hither!"; now to look at an old tangled garden, terraced rudely up a hillside; now to read the sign, on a telegraph ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... take on the journey more than 150 pounds. When the baggage had all been weighed and strapped on the coach, when the horses had been attached, and the waybill, containing the names of the passengers, made out, the passengers would clamber to their seats through the front of the stage and sit down with their faces toward ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... grown and mild, I knew you once a romping child, Obstreperous much and very wild. Then you would clamber up my knees, And strive with every art to tease, When every art of yours could please. Those things would scarce be proper now, But they are gone, I know not how, And woman's written on your brow. Time draws his finger ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... in a simple design we all know. This is lattice, not trellis, and in no way should be confounded with the trellis room on the entrance floor. This white-painted lattice covers the wall space. Growing vines are placed along the walls and clamber to the beams. The glass ceiling is supported by white beams. There are always blossoming flowers and singing birds in this room. The effect is springlike and joyous on the bleakest winter day. The room is heated by two huge stoves of green Majolica brought over from ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... aid him in getting up. I saw him struggling and clinging by the garments of the body, which he tore—so tender was the material—into shreds. As his hold gave way, he clutched the body itself, which, sinking with his weight, disappeared, leaving him to clamber for support round the lower part of the benches. I could not see him drown, though I shuddered at the danger which awaited me when he might recover his position. At that very moment I distinctly ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... to old man Packard," continued Temple, somewhat hasty about it now that he had fairly plunged into the current of what he had to say, as though the water were cold and he was anxious to clamber out upon the far side. "Not much in a way; a good deal when you figure on how tight money is and how little we've seen of it these last few years. Now, Packard sends Blenham across with a message; he's going to foreclose; ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... bertholetias, and symphonias. The branches and foliage are in motion, and all the lately slumbering dreamers are now awake, and bathe in the refreshing air of the morning. Beetles fly, gnats buzz, and the varied voice of the feathered race resounds from every bush; the apes scream as they clamber into the thickets; the night moths, surprised by the approach of light, swarm back in giddy confusion to the dark recesses of the forest; there is life and motion in every path; the rats and all the gnawing tribe are hastily retiring to their holes, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various

... 16,000 feet over Ostend, had the machine's tail shot off by the direct hit of a shell—a very unusual occurrence. The machine turned upside down, out of control, and the pilot was thrown out of his seat. By some inexplicable maneuver he managed to clamber on to the bottom of the fuselage of the machine, astride of which he sat as if he was riding ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... About its roots you may find the lady-slipper and the dog-tooth violet, each in its season. Its bark often bears the rarest lichens, and, near the ground, short green moss as soft and thick as velvet. The poison-ivy and the beautiful Virginia creeper like to clamber up the rough trunk, sometimes clothing the huge tree from foot to top in a mantle of brown feelers and glossy leaves. Seen at a distance, the tulip-tree and the black-walnut-tree look very much alike; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... a passion far out of the common. I know nothing more terrifying than the chill embrace of the sea at night-time. To strike out through the slimy weeds which lie close along the surface at the ebb point of a spring tide, to clamber on low rocks, half awash for an hoar or two at midnight, these are things which I ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham

... the ground gave one feeble kick as he stretched himself out on his side, and yielded up the ghost. Frightened by the sudden shock, the women shrieked loudly, and the men, running to their assistance, helped them to clamber out of the chariot. Mme. Leonarde and Serafina were none the worse for the fright, but Isabelle had fainted quite away, and de Sigognac, lifting her light weight easily, carried her in his arms to the bank at the side of the road, followed by the duenna, while Scapin bent down ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... cultivating his powers to the highest point of which they were susceptible; it had raised him from the level of an unlettered laborer to stand on a starlit eminence, whither the philosophers of the earth, laden with the lore of universities, might vainly strive to clamber after him. So much for the intellect! But where was the heart? That, indeed, had withered,—had contracted.—had hardened,—had perished! It had ceased to partake of the universal throb, He had lost his hold of the magnetic ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... and gentlemen are flourishing their hats. The captain blows the whistle, and the engineer stops the boat with such a sudden reversion of our screw that we are pitched forward out of the seats. Some of the passengers clamber up at the landing-places, and others clamber down and take their places. The little engine sets up its terrific scream again; the hot steam hisses and fizzes all over the boat; involuntary thoughts of maimed limbs and scalded skins are palpably impressed ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... I had swathed myself in wrappings until I could scarcely clamber into the panting little car, and we had darted off along the smooth lake drives, while the wind whipped the scarlet into our cheeks, even while it brought the tears to our eyes. There was no chance for conversation, even if Von Gerhard had been in talkative mood, which he was not. He seemed more ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... to clamber out, Queen Mab and all her Fairy rout, And come again to have a bout With Oberon yet madding: And with Pigwiggin now distraught, Who much was troubled in his thought, That he so long the Queen had sought, And ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... little rest; for the way he had come, although long and tiring, was as child's play compared with the difficulties he had yet to overcome. He had to climb the steep and dizzy heights that towered above his head; and instead of walking along a narrow foot-path, he would have to clamber over rocks and loose stones, to pass close to the most dreadful precipices, and across foaming mountain streams, till he reached the height at which the refreshing green disappeared, with nothing visible but huge masses of brown and gray rock; where no other sight met the eye but that ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... not without danger we continued our tour of this circumvallation, where it seemed that nature had worked as man does, with careful regularity. Nowhere was there any break in the fortification; nowhere a fault in the strata by which one might clamber up. Always this mighty wall, a hundred ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne

... must have had them made thus on purpose. Suppose some of those who hated him—which means all the others—should have become strong enough to clamber up the walls on the outside,—was it not well to make it impossible for them to enter ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... under me, as if I had been for months bed-rid. Only by holding on to my horse could I stand erect! What could it mean? My Arab turned his face towards me, as if making the same inquiry! I endeavoured to remount him, but could not. I was unable even to clamber upon his back; and after an unsuccessful effort, desisted—still supporting myself against his body. Had he moved away, at the moment, I should have fallen. And I must have fallen—after my senses left me. In the last gleam of consciousness, I remembered ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... at the roadside behind the truck, the second man leaped upon the machine. The watcher grunted again as he saw that this man was also masked. The driver was disarmed and searched, then forced to clamber down from the truck into the road, where the man in the slicker kept him covered while the other quickly searched about the seat and cab of the truck. Then the second man released the brakes and dropped nimbly from ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... apparent object in view, but evidently looking for something. And spite of the weatherwise head-waiter of the 'Salutation' and of him of Coniston Inn, the day was beautiful. We had to give up the ponies when we were half a mile from the top, and clamber up ourselves. The guide was very intelligent, and pointed out the lakes, Windermere, Coniston; and the mountains, Helvellyn, Skiddaw, and Saddleback; but at one time he spoke a name that I couldn't ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... she knew she had bumped her pretty nose against the dam. She thought at once of escaping over the logs and into the sea. When she tried to clamber over the top and get through the fence, her hair got so entangled between the bars that she had to throw away her comb and mirror and try to untangle her tresses. The more she tried, the worse became the tangle. Soon ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis

... not take me long to clamber over its side and drag Nobs in to comparative safety, and then I glanced around upon the scene of death and desolation which surrounded us. The sea was littered with wreckage among which floated the pitiful forms of women and children, ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... mouth of the Paris moat, and then made for the left bank. Exhaustion seized me as I laid hold of the earth, but I had strength to clamber up. I fell into a sitting posture and rested my tired arms and legs. What pains of cold and heat I felt I cannot describe. Presently, with returning breath, came the strength to walk,—a strength of which I would have to avail myself, ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... town, in an open roadstead, with the whole swell of the Atlantic driving straight on shore. The little steam launch gives all who go in her a good ducking, as she bobs about on the big rollers; and my old gymnastic practice stands me in good stead on boarding and leaving her. We clamber down a rope ladder hanging from the high stern, and then taking a rope in one hand, swing into the launch at the moment when she can contrive to steam up under us - bobbing about like an apple thrown into a tub all the while. The President of the province and his suite tried to come off ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that this was utterly impossible for mortal man to do and retain his strength and faculties. It was therefore with a feeling akin to superstitious awe that I held down my hand and assisted him to clamber up the steep rocks. But no such feeling affected Peterkin. No sooner did Jack gain the rocks and seat himself on one, panting for breath, than he threw his arms round his neck, and burst into a flood of tears. "Oh, Jack, Jack!" said ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... hastening, just at that moment. As the cakes of ice were broken from the field, they were driven upward by the vast pressure from without, and the whole line of the shore seemed as if alive with creatures that were issuing from the ocean to clamber on the rocks. Roswell had often seen that very coast peopled with seals, as it now appeared to be in activity with fragments of ice, that were writhing, and turning, and rising, one upon another, as if possessed ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... have set a watch over every road," murmured Mr. Haydon. "Do you know of any way to get out without following a path, Me Dain, any way by which we can clamber over the hills?" ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... made late in the afternoon, and dusk had fallen while the fight was still going on. Now it was quite dark, and Frank rose to his feet, intending to clamber out of the shell hole, taking his prisoner ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall

... with a brave show of interest in the bare November woods, unroofed and open to the sunlight, and was rewarded by a throb of real interest to observe that she was where she had not been for forty years, when she used to clamber over the spur of Hemlock Mountain to hunt for lady's-slippers in the marshy ground at the head of the gorge. A few steps more and she would be on her own property, a steep, rocky tract of brushland left her by her great-uncle. She had a throb as ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... to it and explored it with his arm. The slit widened at the other side, and there was evidently a chamber beyond. He clapped his hands against the lip of the slit, and set his feet against the wall, and pulled with the utmost of his strength. If once he could widen the opening sufficiently to clamber through, possibilities lay beyond. But from the weight of wall pressing down above, he could not budge a single brick by so much as a hairs-breadth, and so he had to give up this idea, and, stewing with ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... attack was probable, and shifting to the coast itself when that ceased to threaten. Such sea-trading handicraft towns as Bruges, Venice, Corinth, or London were the largest towns of the vanishing order of things. Very rarely, except in China, did they clamber above a quarter of a million inhabitants, even though to some of them there was presently added court and camp. In China, however, a gigantic river and canal system, laced across plains of extraordinary fertility, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... forget their nun-like habit," she added, "put on a frolicsome mood, and clamber out and flush all the deep ruts of the carriage-road ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... among the branches of an elm, is twitching from one rigid attitude to another, electrified by the crisp atmosphere and the inspiration of the snow. Again he is leaping over the white surface to clamber up the repellent bark of a tall hickory. Among the larger limbs he disappears. As he never attempts to hide, he must have retired into his own dwelling to partake of the store laid by in the season of plenty. Hickory ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... this time, drinking in, with eager, flashing eyes, the beauty and brilliant colour of the picture presented by the emerald island in its setting of sapphire sea; but as I sprang into the rigging I noticed that her gaze followed me; and when I swung myself out to clamber over the rim of the top—a performance which, to the eye of the landsman, appears distinctly hazardous—she suddenly clasped her hands upon her breast, as though in terror for my safety. The action was trifling enough, perhaps, yet I was disposed to regard ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... fern-banked stream—I see and hear it now, and the sinking sun as it turns to a sheet of flame the mirror hanging in the backyard in the laundry veranda, before which the station hands were wont to comb and wash themselves. Oh, the memories that crowd upon me! Methinks I can smell the roses that clamber up the veranda posts and peep over the garden gate. As I write my eyes grow misty, so that I cannot see ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... Very well, thin, consider yourself under arrest this minute," said Haney, beginning to clamber out ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... let us say. When a young man and a young woman, who are the least bit inclined one to another, witness Shakespeare's great educative effort, the young woman can not help imagining herself leaning over the balcony watching the attempts of the young man to clamber up ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various

... stairs above, or the rough stone pivot around which they twist. Durdles has lighted his lantern, by drawing from the cold, hard wall a spark of that mysterious fire which lurks in everything, and, guided by this speck, they clamber up among the cobwebs and the dust. Their way lies through strange places. Twice or thrice they emerge into level, low-arched galleries, whence they can look down into the moon-lit nave; and where Durdles, waving his lantern, waves the ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... but I must still like thee, thou knave, for once thou wert a pretty fellow; and my little daughter likes thee too. Out of the crystal thou wilt never come unless I help thee; up thither I cannot clamber; but my cousin gossip the Rat, that lives close above thee, will gnaw in two the shelf on which thou standest; thou shalt jingle down, and I catch thee in my apron, that thy nose be not broken, or thy fine sleek face at all injured; ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... making slow progress up the river. The towpath is here on the left bank, sixty feet above the present level of the river. Barefooted trackers, often one hundred in a gang, clamber over the rocks "like a pack of hounds in full cry," each with the coupling over his shoulder and all singing in chorus, the junk they are towing often a quarter of a mile astern of them. When a rapid intervenes ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... arose perpendicularly a rock as high as the top of the mountain before them; that the river then made a bend which concealed its future course from view, and as it was alike impossible to descend the river or clamber over that vast mountain, eternally covered with snow, neither he nor any of his nation had ever been lower than at a place where they could see the gap made by the river on entering the mountain. To that place he said he ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... them; but, instead of that, we have a girl to do the work, and look after a little boy about two years old, which, I may fairly say, is the mother's own child. The brat must be humoured in every thing: he is therefore suffered constantly to play in the shop, pull all the goods about, and clamber up the shelves to get at the plums and sugar. I dare not correct him; because, if I did, I should have wife and maid both upon me at once. As to the latter, she is as lazy and sluttish as her mistress; and because she complains ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... drew his automobile up in front of the Transley summer home with Grant and Murdoch on board. Wilson had been watching, and rushed down upon them, but before he could clamber up on Grant a great teddy-bear was thrust into his arms and sent him, wild ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... Violet; for her brother was at the other side of the garden. "Bring me those light wreaths of snow that have rested on the lower branches of the pear tree. You can clamber on the snowdrift, Peony, and reach them easily. I must have them to make some ringlets for our ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... coldly, choosing the biggest stone by the side of the water, and trying to clamber up and sit upon it. "Really?" he repeated, looking directly at Laevsky. "What of 'Romeo and Juliet'? Or, for instance, Pushkin's 'Night in the Ukraine'? Nature ought to come and bow ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... left with his menials to clamber back into his plundered carriage. Gabinius drove his horse at topmost speed, and before morning was saluted by the remainder of the banditti, near their mountain stronghold. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... in the car, he stretched out his arms and said, "Orpen, I feel like a young Greek god!" And, after a pause, added: "But only a fragment, you know, only a fragment." He was a great man, and could clamber over trenches with his wooden stump ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen

... dome of polished marble and tholus full of fire; The dying look of sunset just fading from the spire; The towers of its prisons, the spars and masts of fleets, And lines of lamps that clamber ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... "No—confound you and your boat." Of course those forward knew nothing of my being on board. The man who had thrown me the rope—a passenger, a certain Major Cowper, going home with his wife and child—had walked away proudly, without deigning as much as to look at me twice, as if to see a man clamber on board a ship ten miles from the land was the most usual occurrence. He was, I found afterwards, an absurd, pompous person, as stiff as a ramrod, and so full of his own importance that he imagined he had almost demeaned himself by his condescension in throwing down the rope in answer ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... the Schildburgers understood thereby that the cat lifted up its hands and swore an oath that it would not leave their treatment of it unrevenged. Then one of them took a long pole and struck at the cat, but the cat caught hold of the pole, and began to clamber down it, whereupon all the people grew greatly alarmed and ran away, and left the fire to burn as it might. And because no one regarded the fire, nor sought to put it out, the whole village was burned to a house, and notwithstanding that, the cat escaped. ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston

... centres, now, are narrowed down to those of intelligence, capital and population. As I said before Washington is the nearest to those and you don't have to paddle across a river on ferry boats of a pattern popular in the dark ages to get to it, nor have to clamber up vilely paved hills in rascally omnibuses along with a herd of all sorts of people after you are there. Secondly, the removal of the capital is one of those old, regular, reliable dodges that are the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... wrongs of the Church!' 'Down with the friend of Heathens, Jews, and Barbarians!' 'Down with the favourite of Hypatia!' 'Tyrant!' 'Butcher!' And the last epithet so smote the delicate fancy of the crowd, that a general cry arose of 'Kill the butcher!' and one furious monk attempted to clamber into the chariot. An apparitor tore him down, and was dragged to the ground in his turn. The monks closed in. The guards, finding the enemy number ten to their one, threw down their weapons in a panic, and vanished; ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... from this man Jenkins calmed him still further. The woman had acknowledged, on leaving him, that she was going to seek work at the factory. "A little old for the job," the man volunteered, "but spry. How she did clamber ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... direction of the keel boat and an instant later saw Slosson clamber over its side. The tavern-keeper crossed to the cabin, where he was met by Bess, who placed in his hands what seemed to be a wooden bowl. With this he slouched off to one of the outbuildings, which he entered. Ten or fifteen minutes slipped by, then he came from the shed and ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... of locomotion is marvellous: a slight push with the foot, or a thrust with a stick, will swing the climber twenty feet to a side. Few rocks are so precipitous but that a climber can generally make some use of his hands and feet; enough to cling to the rock when he wishes, and to clamber about its face. The wind is seldom a gale above, but the air will be comparatively quiet upon the face; and therefore there is no danger of a chance gush dashing the climber against the rocks. A short stick is useful, but not necessary. There are three cautions to be borne in mind. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... final details of his enterprise were completed. He heard the horses come up; he heard the two men clamber from the caboose and get into the saddle. Then, at last, he turned, and moved off ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... hard for you. Let me continue. Your mama said that, if she and your sister withdrew and left you with me, if you put forth your charms (and God knows there were never such!), 'twas possible you might set the sweetest trap for the rich man, and with his aid clamber out of the mud and sit secure beside him. Confirm me if I don't ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... end I got it open, and shouldering the strips of linen which I had rolled up like bundles of flax upon two sticks, I went forth and directed my steps towards the latrines of the keep. Spying from within two tiles upon the roof, I was able at once to clamber up with ease. I wore a white doublet with a pair of white hose and a pair of half boots, into which I had stuck the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... was drawn up now for the last time, and as soon as Delarey had dressed they set out to walk to the caves on the farther side of the rocks, where they meant to sleep till Carmela was about and ready to make the frittura. To reach them they had to clamber up from the beach to the Messina road, mount a hill, and descend to the Caffe Berardi, a small, isolated shanty which stood close to the sea, and was used in summer-time by bathers who wanted refreshment. Nito and the rest walked on in ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... ladies. To ride in one is to incur considerable fatigue, for they are as rough as an old-fashioned country wagon. Unlike the European omnibuses, they have no seats on top, but an adventurous passenger may, if he chooses, clamber up over the side and seat himself by the Jehu in charge. From this lofty perch he can enjoy the best view of the streets along the route of the vehicle, and if the driver be inclined to loquacity, he may hear many a curious tale to repay him for his ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... now clamber out of King Pluto's dominions, and see what Mother Ceres has been about since she was bereft of her daughter. We had a glimpse of her, as you remember, half hidden among the waving grain, while the four black steeds were swiftly whirling along the chariot in which her beloved Proserpina ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... after his horse. The beast was well out on the market-place, and Eve watched him catch it and clamber into the saddle. Then she turned away with a sigh, and found herself looking into the beautiful face of her brother. He had silently crept up to ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... at the crowd of natives and another at the shore, and a wild idea came into Lannigan's head. He whispered to Tariro, who went up for'ard and said something to the natives. In another ten seconds some of them began to clamber out on the jib-boom, the ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... pair could recline with the minimum of discomfort—and in that position he firmly lashed the two together with the lashings still attached to them. Then he helped Miss Trevor to get out of her life-buoy and clamber up on the top of the fragile structure; finding, to his satisfaction, when he had done so, that the raft possessed just enough buoyancy to support her comfortably, when reclining at full length upon it, although, unfortunately, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... works into the flesh of the shoulder, and strikes one's feet. Mine tries to cling to me and pull me up and throw me to the ground. With this malignantly heavy thing, animated with barbarous and powerful movement, I cross the ruins of a railway station, all stones and beams. We clamber up an embankment which slips away and avoids us, we drag and push the rebellious and implacable burden. It cannot be reached, that receding height. But we reach it, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... descend hither, to return is next to impossible, so dark and intricate is the country, so many steep ascents of flaming iron are there on the way, and huge imminent rocks, overhanging glaciers of insurmountable ice, and here and there, a headlong cataract, all too difficult to clamber over, if ye have not nails as long as a devil's. Ho there! convey these blockheads to our paradise to their companions." Just then I heard voices drawing nigh, swearing and cursing fearfully. "Fiends' blood! ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... Balaclava could not but be a rough one. The exposure by day was enough to try any woman's strength; and at night one was not always certain of repose. Nor was it the easiest thing to clamber up the steep sides of the "Medora;" and more than once I narrowly escaped a sousing in the harbour. Why it should be so difficult to climb a ship's side, when a few more staves in the ladder, and those a little broader, would make it so easy, ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... race, insubordinate, independent, irrepressible, almost as troublesome to their friends as to their foes; but there is good stock in them,—brain and brawn, and brain and brawn will yet carry the day over court and crown, in the name of the right, which shall overpower all things. We clamber down into arched passages, choked with debris, over floors tangled with briers, and join in the wild wassail of the bold outlaw, fired by his victorious career. We clamber up the rugged sides and wind around to the headland. Brilliant in the "morning-shine," exultant in the ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... grappling-hooks still lay where they had fallen, but they afforded me no chance of return; it was impossible to re-attach them to the rock above, and the sides of the rock were too sheer and smooth for human steps to clamber. I was alone in this strange world, amidst the ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... attraction. Here is the old, old garden, and although the ephemeral blossoms of the present springtime shine brightly forth, the box, full twenty feet high, speaks of another epoch. Foxgloves lean against the "pleached alley," and roses clamber on a wall that doubtless bore the weight of ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery



Words linked to "Clamber" :   mount, climb



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