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Curve   /kərv/   Listen
Curve

verb
(past & past part. curved; pres. part. curving)
1.
Turn sharply; change direction abruptly.  Synonyms: cut, sheer, slew, slue, swerve, trend, veer.  "The motorbike veered to the right"
2.
Extend in curves and turns.  Synonyms: twist, wind.  "The path twisted through the forest"
3.
Form an arch or curve.  Synonyms: arc, arch.  "Her hips curve nicely"
4.
Bend or cause to bend.  Synonym: crook.  "The road curved sharply"
5.
Form a curl, curve, or kink.  Synonyms: curl, kink.



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"Curve" Quotes from Famous Books



... dealer—in the studio. She sat with a book unopened in her hand, gazing intently into the fire, which cast responsive flickers over her face, giving a shadowed emphasis to the faint line which had begun to display itself, not unattractively, between her eyebrows and the irregular curve of her brown hair. She was growing very weary of it all, the distraction which she had sought, the forgetfulness of self which she had hoped to achieve, by living perpetually in a crowd. Indeed, to such a point had she carried her endeavours, that Mrs. ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... desired, medium-sized ones that are uniform in size and color should be selected. With regard to shape, they should have a comparatively long oval shell, one end of which is blunt and the other, a sharp curve. ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... shelter shed he bethought himself and turned a farewell tender smile on the white-haired woman who stood watching him through a mist of tears. Then his eyes went back for one last glimpse of the girl; and so he flashed out of sight around the curve. ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill

... curve inland, and, after winding in and out to make the best of the contour of the hills, the train finally steams very heavily and slowly into Ravenscar Station, right over the Peak and 630 feet above the sea. On the way you get glimpses of the moors inland, and grand views over the curving bay. ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... this point (that the generalissimo must not allow his sense of proportion to be distorted by local successes or reverses) is clearly brought out in The Point of View, a story in "The Green Curve" by ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... lovely curve of Rowena's cheek. She was sure now—quite, quite sure! It was not merely a foolish, girlish imagination. Guy loved her. Guy wanted her for his wife. She had entered into her woman's kingdom, and, womanlike, began instantly to adopt ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the lowest point of my curve of ups and downs is gradually rising—but I have by no means reached the point when I can cheerfully face anything. I got over the Board of Visitors (two hours and a half) better than I expected, but my deafness was ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... invention, which the younger Bernouilli has so well and learnedly described, as your worships may see—Act. Erud. Lips. an. 1695—to these a lead weight is an eternal balance, and keeps watch as well as a couple of centinels, inasmuch as the construction of them was a curve line approximating to a cycloid—if not ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... however, was visible to all as the pair moved together up to the altar rails, and that was the size of the bridegroom as contrasted with the smallness of his bride. He looked like a great rough bear and she like a silver fairy. There was something intensely pathetic in the curve of his broad shoulders as he bent over the little hand to place in its proud position the diminutive golden circlet which was to unite their ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... the highest type of a commodious freight-carrier in this or any other country—the Conestoga wagon, "the finest wagon the world has ever known." They were first used in any considerable number about 1760. They had broad wheel-tires, and one of the peculiarities was a decided curve in the bottom, analogous to that of a galley or canoe, which made it specially fitted for traversing mountain roads; for this curved bottom prevented freight from slipping too far at either end when going up or down hill. This body was universally painted a bright blue, and furnished with ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... car at last swept around a curve and took the shore road, Benton caught, far away as yet, the red and green glint of tiny port and starboard lights on the bridge of the Isis, and the long ruby and emerald shafts quivering beneath in the calm waters of the bay. In the light of a low moon, swinging down the midnight sky, ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... I can never doubt I have!—is the hour when dawn falters on the boundaries of the dark sky. Then, filled with the same quivering as leaves and grass, thrilled to the very tips of my wing quills, I feel myself a chosen instrument. I accentuate my curve of a hunting-horn, Earth speaks in me as in a conch, and ceasing to be an ordinary bird, I become the mouthpiece, in some sort official, through which the cry of the earth ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... her hand a great curve in the air, to indicate the immensity of the horizons she had opened up to Monsieur de Lucan. Then, drawing her mother toward the dining-room, and snuffing the air with ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet

... once her singularly youthful face grows as old as it ought to be—a vindictive curve round the mouth makes that usually ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... stood loosely beside her, his hat brim pulled well down over his forehead. As she looked she saw his eyes narrow and his lips curve ironically. ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... years old when his father kissed him good-by and rode away for Philadelphia with John Hancock and Samuel Adams (who rode a horse loaned him by John Adams). Abigail stood in the doorway holding the baby, and watched them disappear in the curve of the road. This was in August, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-four. Most of the rest of that year Abigail was alone with her babies on the little farm. It was the same next year, and in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six, too, when John Adams wrote home that he had made ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... along the big curve which the northern branch of the Walnut makes at that point, there suddenly sprang from their ambush in the timber on the margin of the stream about three hundred Indians, whooping and yelling. The two troopers of course, immediately whirled their horses and ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... woman. It is therefore rather large in proportion to other parts of the body, with the exception of the head, which comparatively is larger still. The horizontal outline of the shield cartilage is a very gentle curve, and the upper horns are short, in consequence of which the voicebox is close to the tongue. The wedges, according to Merkel, are strongly developed; the vocal ligaments are short and thick, and the pockets deep. Up to the third year the voicebox ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke

... Lawrence is to let him beat himself," said Jack Danby to Bob Hart before the game. "He knows how to pitch two good curves, and he's been striking out ten and twelve fellows in every game he played just because they've swiped at those curve balls." ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland

... latest style from toes to head, they are still savages from the waist up." This seems difficult to believe, in spite of the numerous scars one sees, as one could not but feel friendly toward the Filipinos. Their courtesy is typified in their road signs that we passed, "Slow please," and after the curve was ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer

... rod be given a gentle curve of a radius twenty or thirty times the diameter of the rod, the side unit pressure will be from one-twentieth to one-thirtieth of the unit stress on the steel. This being the case, and being a simple principle of mechanics which ought to be thoroughly ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey

... that enable him to place a shell at that point at just the right second. In this battle the shells of the British ship took about twenty seconds to go from the mouths of the guns to the German hulls. And they made a curve at the highest point of which they reached a distance of more than two miles; and most wonderful of all was the fact that at the beginning of the firing a man standing on the deck of one of the German ships could not even see the ship which was firing the shells at her, though the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... to be as compact and firm as it could have been made by any workman in Europe, except that the steps, which range along its greatest length, are not perfectly straight, but sink in a kind of hollow in the middle, so that the whole surface, from end to end, is not a right line, but a curve. The quarry stones, as we saw no quarry in the neighbourhood, must have been brought from a considerable distance; and there is no method of conveyance here but by hand: The coral must also have been fished from under the water, where, though it may be found in plenty, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... No. 30 the protruding brim gives the head and face the unattractive proportions of the capital letter "F." The length of the nose is emphasized by the line of the hat-rim above it and it appears unduly obtrusive. The flat arrangement of the hair and the curve of the hat-brim in the back also exaggerate the obtrusive qualities of the features. By choosing a hat somewhat similar to the one sketched in No. 31, the unattractive sharpness of the profile is modified, and the alert, agreeable quality of the ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley

... shouting. The wheels were very marvels of construction. Stout bands of burnished bronze reinforced the hubs, otherwise very light; the spokes were sections of ivory tusks, set in with the natural curve outward to perfect the dishing, considered important then as now; bronze tires held the fellies, which were of shining ebony. The axle, in keeping with the wheels, was tipped with heads of snarling tigers done in brass, and the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... closer and closer, reached abreast of them. The excitement of the chase was in the sparkling eyes of the girls. The dog, scrambling up and falling in its seat, yelped madly. Here, the beach broadened to a sharper ascent of the ridge. Josephine shifted the wheel. The car swung in a wide curve and drove straight toward the panic-stricken troop, as if it would soar up to them. Fear took pride's place in the leader's heart. He sounded a command. The flying drove veered, vanished from the ridge top. The muffled ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... the second line of defence has been gained is suddenly made known by a contrasting wind from a new quarter, coming over with the curve of a cascade. These novel gusts raise a sound from the whole camp or castle, playing upon it bodily as upon a harp. It is with some difficulty that a foothold can be preserved under their sweep. Looking aloft for a moment I perceive that the sky ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... Fort was a beautiful stretch of level turf, which extended a considerable distance in front of the gates. It crossed a clear open country towards the forest, where it terminated, and, sweeping round in an abrupt curve, formed, as it were, a loop; so that competitors, after passing over the course, swept round the loop, and, re-entering the original course again, came back towards the fort, where a long pole ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... future in order to provide for an excessive and discontented population in the present. During the present century we have begun to be conscious that our foreign trade is threatened; and so sensitive is the birth-rate to economic conditions that it has begun to curve very slightly downward in relation to the death-rate, instead of descending with it in parallel lines.[23] This may be partly due to the curtailment of facilities for emigration, owing to the filling up of the new countries. For emigration ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... hair in the right way—the Greek way. A diadem on the top—the only way when the hair and the head are beautiful. It leaves the outline free—the exquisite curve that unites neck and head. Now the ivy wreath; and how will ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... the watchful, excited Hiram heard him say, working the wheel as cautiously as an automobilist rounding a sharp curve. ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood

... Plateau de l'Algerie over the roofs of the houses, and now that his alarm had subsided he could even watch with a certain degree of admiration the flight of the projectiles as they sailed over Sedan in a wide, majestic curve, leaving behind them a faint trail of smoke upon the air, like gigantic birds, invisible to mortal eye and to be traced only by the gray plumage shed by their pinions. At first it seemed to him quite evident that what damage had been done so far was the result ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... to be accurate in an account of anything, however simple. Zoologists often disagree in their descriptions of the curve of a shell, or the plumage of a bird, though they may lay their specimen on the table, and examine it at their leisure; how much greater becomes the likelihood of error in the description of things which must be in many parts observed ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... graceful and delicate in its vertical arrangement of trees and the curve of the fountain stream, coming from the side of a hill. Women, children, and men have congregated, taking their turn in filling all sorts of vessels, some carried on their heads, some in their arms. Brangwyn's clever treatment of zological and botanical detail is well shown in flowers ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... were sufficiently broad to hold it nicely in place and it fell with a gracefulness upon my hips, but at my waist it collapsed on account of a slimness in that locality. The fit of the tweed, which had been like to that of a bag, had been very correct and had not revealed the curve of waist, but now it ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... saw of Mr. Mabie and Billy, they were waving their big hats vigorously on the little station platform. Then a curve of the road shut them out, and the four chums settled back in their seats to talk over the thousand and one ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... followed. The other end of the brush, wet with whitewash, described a curve through the air, coming toward the mean bully. And as the blow of Andy's foot jarred the brush loose, the next moment it fell right on Andy's head, the white liquid trickling down on his clothes, for Eradicate was not a miser when it came to putting ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton

... which had been so red-stained and fierce during the long ride after Canby was now bright and gentle. At every turn she pricked her small sharp ears as if she expected home and friends on the other side of the curve. And now and again she tossed her head and glanced back at the master for a moment and then whinnied across some ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand

... phenomenon at a time," said Mary; "that is, the descent of the pebble. You see the attraction of the earth causes the pebble to go down if it can, and the confinement of the string prevents its going down in any other way than in that curve or arc. For the string keeps it always just its own length from the branch, and so that makes the curved line the arc of ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott

... trouble and enamels the exterior with false flushes and smiles. She enveloped herself in her feelings. She tinctured her voice with them; she made her eyes languid with them; and the touch of her hand, the curve of her lips and the droop of her head were eloquent ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... it dashed along, and the boys hung on to whatever offered for dear life. Around curve after curve they shot with a lurch, the locomotive threatening at every turn ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes

... pioneer in the realm of landscape. With Michael Angelo not a blade of grass grew; his problem was man alone. Raphael's backgrounds, on the other hand, are life-like in detail: his little birds could fly out of the picture, the stems of his plants seem to curve and bend towards us, and we look deep into the flower they ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... them, so that the upper reaches of the canyon could be seen, the distant bed of it towering high above their heads. They were rounding the curve, leaning toward the inside, gazing before them at the swift-growing picture. There was no sound of warning. She heard nothing, but even before the horse went down she experienced the feeling that the unison of the two leaping animals ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... regiment that held this wood had a good record and meant to-day to better it. Its target was visible enough, and close, full before it in the last golden light. A grey officer fell, the sword that he had brandished described a shining curve before it plunged into a clump of sumach. Five men lay upon the earth; the colour-bearer reeled, then pitched forward. The man behind him caught the colours. The 58th fired again, then, desperately, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... hand on either cheek. He scrutinized every contour, the color of the eyes, the low, broad brow, the curve of the chin. Out of the past he conjured up the mother's face. Yes, beyond any doubt, there was a haunting likeness, and he ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... downward toward Farnham, and so, as it proved, away from the robbers, who had doubtless watched them closely from the dense brushwood which skirted the road. Coming round a curve, Nigel and Aylward were aware of a tall and graceful woman who sat, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, upon the bank by the side of the track. At such a sight of beauty in distress Nigel pricked Pommers with the spur and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the telegraph and signaled "slow" to the engine-room. Already the golden pathway behind the Andromeda had changed from a wavering yet generally straight line to a well-defined curve. There was a hiss and snort of escaping steam as the sailor inside the chart-house endeavored to ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... reports. My purpose does not require great accuracy; it is enough, that only a very small fraction of the body makes up the average audience. If an official were posted to record the fluctuating numbers at intervals of five minutes, the attendance might be recorded and presented in a curve like the fluctuations of the barometer; but this would be misleading as to the proportion of effective listeners—those that sat out entire debates, or at all events the leading speeches of the debates, or whose intelligence was mainly fed from the speaking in each instance. The number of this ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... against the tree, looking up at the sky, where the first red of the afterglow was spreading. She did not hear Menard; and he paused, a few yards away, to look at the clear whiteness of her skin and the full curve of her throat. Her figure and air, her habits of gesture and step, and carriage of the head, were those of the free-hearted maid of the seignory. They told of an outdoor life, of a good horse, and a light canoe, and the inbred love ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... see how many disagreeable sentiments they all three contrived to express, without untwining their arms, or loosening their fond and graceful hold on each other. A slight elevation of the eyebrow, a curve of the lovely mouth, or a shrug from the Parian shoulders,—how expressive,—how surprising! But Fred need not have been surprised; they never set up for Faith, Hope, and Charity. What he most wondered at was that they still looked so lovely, when they were clearly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... not dare to go back towards the pit, but I felt a passionate longing to peer into it. I began walking, therefore, in a big curve, seeking some point of vantage and continually looking at the sand heaps that hid these new-comers to our earth. Once a leash of thin black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flashed across the sunset and was immediately withdrawn, and ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... the pages of her book, staring straight ahead of her at nothing in particular, when she unexpectedly leaped to her feet. Her face flushed, but her lips took on a more determined curve. ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane

... the taller, and had a very stately carriage. Her hair was black as jet—her features were refined and delicate; but they wore a very cold, haughty expression. After a glance at her half-closed eyes, and the swan-like curve of her snowy neck, you unconsciously withdrew from her, as from an inaccessible beauty. The more you looked at her, the more she satisfied your critical scrutiny; but your feelings went not out towards her—they were, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... separate it from the rivers Bechelo and Jiddah and from the table-land of Wallo. It stands almost isolated—amongst gigantic surrounding masses, and viewed from the western side possesses the appearance of a crescent. On the extreme left of this curve appears a small flat plateau called Fahla, connected by a strip of land with a peak higher than the amba itself, and called Selassie (trinity), on account of the church erected upon it, and designated by that name. From Selassie to Amba Magdala itself there is a large plain called Islamgee, several ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... trough) to strike the first ball at right angles to the line of its former descent, at the moment when it began to descend, it would not, as in the former experiment, move diagonally, but would describe a curve. ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... meet with our simile, we would say to him, that the tardy inclination up which he now plods painfully, must, if graphically represented, be shown by an oblique line descending, in fact, below the curve of his possibilities, more rapidly even than it ascends above the horizontal cutting through the point of his setting out. True, with pupils who are spontaneously active-minded from the first, or who at ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... extracted from flowers. In order to obtain its food from the deep recesses of flowers, it possesses a long delicate beak; in some birds straight, in others curved downwards, while some, again, have a double curve. These variations in form are undoubtedly to suit the particular flowers on which they feed. By means of the peculiar structure of its tongue, which is long, filamentous, and doubled nearly to the base, it is enabled to project ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... the right is of brick, the wall at the bottom is of stone. One enters the garden first. It slopes downwards, is planted with gooseberry bushes, choked with a wild growth of vegetation, and terminated by a monumental terrace of cut stone, with balustrade with a double curve. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... shoals and ride the roaring storm, My struggling bark her seamy planks disjoin, Rake the rude rock and drink the copious brine. Till the tired elements are lull'd at last, And milder suns allay the billowing blast, Lead on the trade winds with unvarying force, And long and landless curve our constant course. ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... at the edge of the pavement, staring undecidedly up the curve of the street. When a brace of painted women, emboldened by his attitude, shot covert remarks at him, he turned on them sharply. But, seeing a policeman approaching, he ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... The sweeping curve, the graceful arch, The line so firm and free; A skilful sculptor well might say: "Can this teach aught ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young

... was alone. He was soon satisfied, for at that moment neither of the other two parties were visible. Assured by the silence that reigned around, he looked towards the cascade. The water, which seemed as it fell to form a curve of running silver, opened at one place, and displayed a block of gold, sparkling in the rays of the sun. The most enormous cocoanut that ever hung on a tree did not surpass this block in size. Continually washed by the spray of the cascade, this gold appeared in all its brilliance, as if ready ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... woman, yellow-haired, with blue eyes and a bright colour on her cheeks, lips which showed indulgence in every curve, and a snow-white neck around which was clasped a string of red ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... the results are in general directly opposite. The thallium papers show that the greatest effect is in the daytime, the iodide papers that it is at night. Yearly curves show that the former generally indicate a rise when the latter give a fall. The iodide curve follows closely that of relative humidity, clouds, and rain; the thallium curve stands in no relation to it. A table of results for the year 1879 is given in monthly means, of the two thallium papers, the ozonometer, the relative ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... matter. A good deal may be said in behalf of both systems. The American practice has at least the merit of saving time, an all important object with the American people. When we recall that this remarkable nation will spend millions of dollars to build a tunnel under a river, or to shorten a curve in a railroad, merely that they may save two or three minutes, we are not surprised at the abruptness of their speech. I, as a matter of fact, when thinking of their time-saving and abrupt manner of address, have been somewhat ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... seem to favour; Beck has reined in his horse,—he bends low over the saddle, as if about to fall. Varney utters a half-suppressed cry of triumph, shakes his reins, and spurs on, when suddenly—by the curve of the road, hid before—another chaise comes in sight, close ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... face was frank and fair and free. He was not old, but his hair was thin upon his brow. His nose and his full, high forehead were as cleanly cut as a finely chiseled stone; and his sensitive mouth had a curve that was tender and sad, though he smiled all the while, a glimpse of his white teeth showing through, and his little mustache twitching with the ripple of his long upper lip. His flowing hair was chestnut-colored, like his beard, and curly at the ends; and his melancholy eyelids told of study ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... about Earth. Since his visit to the Dream Shop, he had occasional flashes of recall, isolated pictures of a weathered stone building, a stand of live oaks, the curve of a river seen through willows. This half-remembered Earth filled him with an almost unbearable longing. Like most of the citizens of Omega, his only real wish ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... head, and thick white hair—white from his youth; his brown eyes were soft, yet piercing; his nose somewhat of the 'semitic' type, which gave his face the cast of the young Memnon. His mouth had a generous curve; and his features, for beauty and true power, were such as can have no parallel ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... always to come upon him in a flash, as it were? What chance had the poor student of fulfilling his patient task when, on his approach, he was sure to be met by this surprise of the parted lips, and sudden smile, and bright look? He was far too bewildered to examine the outline of her nose or the curve of the exquisitely ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... of Kukuanaland. At this spot the mountain spur that runs out at right angles to the great range, which stretches its cloud-clad length north and south as far as the eye can reach, sweeps inwards with a vast and splendid curve. This curve measures some five-and-thirty miles from point to point, and across its moon-like segment the river flashed, a silver line of light. On the further side of the river is a measureless sea of swelling ground, a natural park covered ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard

... of the long coaches were just moving out of the station at the Landing. The two girls came about in a graceful curve and struck out for home at a pace that even the train could not equal. The rails followed the shore of the pond on the narrow strip of lowland at the foot of the bluffs. They could see the lights shining through the car ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... you sometimes lie on a very hot summer's afternoon. But it is a queer bed to sleep in, for your head and your heels are both of them stuck up in the air, while your body hangs underneath in a graceful curve. ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... producing the graceful form of lighthouse with which everyone is so familiar. Instead of causing the sides to slope upward in the straight lines of a cone, such as Rudyerd adopted, Smeaton preferred a slightly concave curve, so that the tower was given a waist about half its height. He also selected the oak tree as his guide, but one having an extensive spread of branches, wherein will be found a shape in the trunk, so far as the broad lines are concerned, which ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... our traveler lingered there a little! Humanity called him, for one thing, to drive often with humanely disposed young ladies round the beautiful shore curve to visit the schools for various colors at Hampton. Then there was the evening promenading on the broad verandas and out upon the miniature pier, or at sunset by the water-batteries of the old fort —such a peaceful old fortress as it is. All the morning there were "inspections" ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... be obtained a view of the high and cultivated banks, sweeping in gentle curve until they at length terminated in a low and sandy spot, called from the name of its proprietor, Elliott's Point. This stretched itself toward the eastern extremity of the island, so as to leave the outlet to the lake barely wide enough for a single vessel to pass at a time, and that not without ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... line upon line of grey-slated houses; to the left, at the top of the cliff, were the sunken lines of the huge fort, with the long slopes of its earthworks, the glacis overgrown with grass, and the guns peeping from their embrasures; to the left, dipping to the south, the steep grey crags, curve after curve. The streets were alive with an abundance of merry young sailors and soldiers, brisk, handsome boys, with the quiet air of discipline that converts a country lout into a self-respecting citizen. An old bronzed sergeant led a child ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... beetles, the wing-cases (elytra) meet exactly in the middle line, in Corixae and other water-bugs, the anterior wings, which resemble the elytra of beetles, overlap, which causes the line on the back to curve away to one side at the lower end. In beetles the wings which lie under the wing-cases are folded up on themselves, and when spread out are much larger than the wing-cases. The wings are transparent and very delicate. In Corixae the posterior wings, which lie under the hard and horny anterior ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker

... raised at the will of the bird, and spread out into a pair of elegant fans when the wings are elevated. But this is not the only ornament. The two middle feathers of the tail are in the form of slender wires about five inches long, and which diverge in a beautiful double curve. About half an inch of the end of this wire is webbed on the outer side only, awe coloured of a fine metallic green, and being curled spirally inwards form a pair of elegant glittering buttons, hanging five inches below the body, and the same distance apart. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... know that in the medieval church the vistas of its arcades, the alternation of its lights and shadows, the gradations of its colouring, and all its carefully subordinated wealth of art, pointed to, were concentrated round, one sacred spot, as a curve, however vast its sweep through space, tends at every moment toward a single focus? And that spot, that focus was, and is still in every Romish church, the body of God, present upon the altar in the form of ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... Gracious curve of neck, and fiddle tucked 'neath that entrancing chin— Fain with you would I change places, O thrice ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various

... the same shoulder all the time," said Oncle Jazon, "has made 'im kind o' swing in a curve like. 'Tain't good luck no how to carry yer gun on yer lef' shoulder. When you do it meks yer take a longer step with yer right foot than ye do with yer lef' an' ye can't walk a straight line to save yer liver. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... curve (Fig. 3, No. 3) to pass through the four points thus determined, we find, for 1612, the declination 81/2 deg.. This is, with an approximation closer than that of the measurements that can be made upon ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... the sun again pierces through, a long, low, dark line is seen stretching from the shore into the water like the extremity of some huge saurian of the Silurian period reposing on his native slime and ooze. But the lengthy monster lying in a vast curve is not at peace, for on the jagged ridge of his mighty back a puffing, snorting, smoking plague perpetually runs up and down. The apparent plague, however, is really increasing the size of the saurian. Every day hundreds of ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... with the tongue or horizontal stroke placed not in the middle, as in later uncial manuscripts, but high above it, and extending beyond the upper curve. The loop is often ...
— A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger • Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand

... early Irish copper work is seen at its best in the numerous copper halberd blades found in Ireland. These blades, varying from nine to sixteen inches in length, were fastened at right angles by rivets into wooden shafts. The blades show a slight sickle-like curve and are of the highest workmanship. Halberds somewhat similar in type have been found in Spain, North ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... name of which is already known to millions of readers of this book, is beautifully situated on the river Thames, which here sweeps in a wide curve with much the same breadth and majesty as the St. Jo River at South Bend, Indiana. London, like South Bend itself, is a city of clean streets and admirable sidewalks, and has an excellent water supply. ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... satisfied; His look was all dissatisfied. His beard swung on a wind far out of sight Behind the world's curve, and there was light Most fearful from His forehead, and He sighed, "That star went always wrong, and from the start I ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... between duration and the cycloidal arch, the properties of which duly attended to, have furnished us with our best regulated methods of measuring time: and he who has made himself master of the nature and affections of the logarithmick curve, is not aware that he has advanced considerably towards ascertaining the proportionable density of the air at its various distances from ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... subtle, invisible presence of the Ally, and it was well that someone just then saw the smoke from the coming train two or three miles away, around the curve beyond the ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... leave the river, instead of riding toward that bunch of trees, we'll ride the other way. That will bring us to the railroad track near the curve. Then we'll ride up the track. If we do not reach the station before the train leaves, we can flag it. There is sure to be at least half a dozen guards aboard. We will make ten. Most of the men aboard ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler

... wreaths. The tall column-like tree had inclined to wards the light when struggling among its fellows, and it now so far overhung the lake, that its summit may have been some ten or fifteen feet without the base. A gentle, graceful curve added to the effect of this variation from the perpendicular, and infused enough of the fearful into the grand, to render the picture sublime. Although there was not a breath of wind on the lake, the currents were strong enough above the ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... whose name is preserved in the adjacent street. The well-known architect, Nash, was employed by him to build a house, but Sir James was dissatisfied with the construction. It is said that Nash, then employed in carrying out Langham Place, made it curve, to spite his employer, instead of carrying it on in a continuous line to Portland Place, as was ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... had already gone. He saw them again as the train pulled out, two brown and dirt-grimed faces among many other brown and dirt-grimed faces. The steam floated up tinged with yellow in the bright early morning air as the last car of the train disappeared round the curve into the cutting. ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... her own room, with none to mark the white-hot pallor of the oval face, the scornful curve of quivering nostrils, the dry lustre of flashing eyes. But while she stood a heavy step went blustering down two flights of stairs, and double doors slammed ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... little longer than the width of the pot, about 2-3/4 inches wide and 1 inch thick. In the ends of each of the outer strips a hole is bored to receive the ends of a small branch of pliable wood, which is bent into a regular semicircular curve. These hoops are made of branches of spruce or hemlock, or of hardwood saplings, such as maple, birch, or ash, generally retaining the bark. Three of these similar frames, straight below and curved above, constitute the framework of each pot, one to stand at each end and one in the center. ...
— The Lobster Fishery of Maine - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 • John N. Cobb

... the next morning to open his eyes, to grope his way through the tent opening and stand for a moment alone, watching the alabaster skies. Away eastwards, the faint curve of the blood-red sun seemed to be rising out of the limitless sea of sand. The light around him was pearly, almost opalescent, fading eastwards into pink. The shadows had passed away. Though the sands were still hot beneath his feet, the silent air was deliciously cool. He turned lazily around, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... ball had reached its highest point and was falling in a swift curve toward the goal. As it neared the posts it seemed for a moment to hesitate. Then, as though it had made up its mind, it swooped suddenly downward and crossed the goal bar, just grazing it. The goal had counted and a groan went up from the "Maroon" stands, ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... town do not laugh now when they talk of Tom and the whistle which was shrieking madly as he and his engine plunged down the bank together on that day when the huge boulder rolled from the hillside stone quarry and lay upon the tracks, just on this side of the curve above the town. ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... amorous one—to feed one's eyes on the molten colour that drops from the hollow vaults and thickens the air with its richness. It is all so quiet and sad and faded and yet all so brilliant and living. The strange figures in the mosaic pictures, bending with the curve of niche and vault, stare down through the glowing dimness; the burnished gold that stands behind them catches the light on its little uneven cubes. St. Mark's owes nothing of its character to the beauty of proportion or perspective; there is nothing grandly balanced or far-arching; there ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... results. Breakfast was forgotten, saddles were dispensed with, while the horses, as they covered the mile at a gallop, seemed to catch the frenzy of expectation. Dell led the way, ignoring all counsel, until Dog-toe, on rounding a curve, shied at a dead wolf in the trail, ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... spiritually. He thought, as she knelt there, that never had he seen how lovely and how charged with mystery her features were; the dark large eyes full on the brows; the proud line of a straight nose in right measure to the bow of the lips; reposeful red lips, shut, and their curve of the slumber-smile at the corners. Her forehead was broad; the chin of a sufficient firmness to sustain: that noble square; the brows marked by a soft thick brush to the temples; her black hair plainly drawn along her head to the knot, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... grown careless now, and looked rather at the house than the road. At one point the hillside had slipped down—it must have been recent, for the road was well kept—and I did not notice the landslide till I was on it. I slewed to the right, took too wide a curve, and before I knew the car was over the far edge. I slapped on the brakes, but to avoid turning turtle I had to leave the road altogether. I slithered down a steep bank into a meadow, where for my sins I ran into a ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... have elapsed since their construction. Caesar's camps abound throughout England; it is needless to say that they had nothing to do with Caesar, but were made long years before the Conqueror ever set foot on British land. These early camps are usually circular in shape, or follow the natural curve of the hill on which they stand. Roman camps are nearly always square or rectangular. They consist of a high vallum, or rampart of earth, surrounded by a deep ditch, and on the counterscarp, or outside edge of the ditch, there is often another bank or rampart. ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... for reason and for speech, and it is difficult to say which it means more properly. It means both at once: why? because really they cannot be divided,—because they are in a true sense one. When we can separate light and illumination, life and motion, the convex and the concave of a curve, then will it be possible for thought to tread speech under foot, and to hope to do without it—then will it be conceivable that the vigorous and fertile intellect should renounce its own double, its instrument ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... slender arrow tapped him gently with his sharp flint beak. There was no Iktomi, but two arrows stood ready to fly. "Now, young arrow, this is the one condition. Your flight must always be in a straight line. Never turn a curve nor jump about like a young fawn," said the arrow magician. ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa

... to support the body in climbing. An extremely curious modification is found in Sittosoma: the tail-feathers in this genus are long and graduated, and the shafts, projecting beyond the webs at the ends, curve downwards and form stiff hooks. Concerning the habits of these birds, it has only been reported that they climb on the trunks of trees: probably they are able to run vertically up or down with equal facility, and even to suspend themselves by their feather-hooks when engaged in dislodging ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... the western extremity, are of no great elevation. They form a downward step from the Compass and the Great Winterberg to the Orange river, whose waters they part from those of the Great Fish and Great Kei rivers. The Stormbergen, on the other hand, which sweep in a bold curve round to the north-east until, on the borders of Basutoland, they merge into the central mass, are high, rugged, and pierced by exceedingly few roads, forming a strong line ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... tunnel. Notwithstanding that, they neither of them appeared again. I sat there, believe me, with my eyes fastened upon that path, and when the train started I leaned out of the window until we had rounded the curve and we were out of sight, but I never saw either of those two men again. Now there's the beginning of a film story for you! What do you want more than that? There's dramatic interest, surprise, an ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... perceptible slackening of his fearful speed the leading aviator swept in a graceful curve around the big liberty pole; and having made the complete circuit, once more headed off toward distant Bloomsbury, with the gathering storm grumbling and growling in ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... entrance into politics. 'He was tall, broad-shouldered, with face and figure of somewhat loose formation. His hair was auburn, carelessly flung over his forehead, his eyes of bluish grey, dreamy but kindly. But the mouth—aye, that was the unruly member of his face—with deep lines following the curve of the moustache, it had a determined, masterful, and sometimes scornful expression.... His style of speaking was straight and to the point. He was not a hard hitter in debate—rather a persuader, reasoning and pleading in a conversational way as one more anxious ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... where lay her own little parcel of relics, was the work of a moment. There was certainly no room for doubt. The little, stout, leather shoe which she had treasured so long was the fellow of the one she had just seen in the safe downstairs. There was the very same curve of the sole, made by the pressure of the little foot—her own, and similar inequalities in the upper part. With a sudden movement, she lifted the tiny shoe to her lips. And here was her funny old sun-bonnet! ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... bottom of the caisson, which sinks gradually as the excavation continues. Under this system a length of some two miles of quay wall is being constructed at Antwerp, far out in the channel of the river Scheldt. Here the caissons are laid end to end with each other, along the whole curve of the wall, and the masonry is built on the top of them within a floating cofferdam of very ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various

... itself. That meaning, which things symbolize and express, it cannot be said too often, is not necessarily to be phrased in words. It is a meaning for the spirit. A straight line affects one differently from a curve; that is, each kind of line means something. Every line in the face utters the character behind it; every movement of the body is eloquent of the man's whole being. "The expression of the face ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes

... Harry gathered it quickly into a bundle and ran back to the railroad. He hurried down the track west of a curve which was a few hundred feet beyond the washout, and saw the train coming at full speed. He jumped on a fence skirting the tracks, and waved the ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger

... than later on. Thus full half of the piece seems to be forgotten within the first half-hour, two-thirds of it are forgotten at the end of eight hours, but only four-fifths at the end of a month. He made no trials beyond one month of interval; but, if we ourselves prolong ideally the curve of remembrance, whose beginning his experiments thus obtain, it is natural to suppose that, no matter how long a time might elapse, the curve would never descend quite so low as to touch the zero-line. In other words, no matter how long ago we may have learned a poem, and no matter how ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... dancing. Not a halt nor an ungraceful turn, but every curve and motion was as perfect as if they had danced together all their lives. She gave two or three happy sighs. Her cheeks were like the heart of a blush rose; she never turned very red when she ran or ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... which described a long curve, bathed a row of white houses in the distance, which were reflected in the water. The girl picked the daisies and made them into a great bunch, whilst he sang vigorously, as intoxicated as a colt that has been turned into a meadow. On their left, a vine-covered slope followed the river, but suddenly ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... sat by the window that overlooked the Square. Her brown hair was just touched with gray. Her small round face was a little faded, with faint lines around eyes and lips. It was not an intellectual face, but it was sweet and patient, from the delicate curve of the lips to the slight downward droop of the eyebrows above the clear blue eyes. All the sweetness and patience was there with which the wives of high tempered, obstinate ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... a curve on a steep down-grade, where hardly more than the semblance of a road had been cut into the hillside, Jane caught her breath sharply. Above the roar of their own motor she thought she heard some other noise, something that ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston

... of experience during the Civil War which gave me something of that whole-heartedness necessary to the service of my kind. In the twilight of a summer evening, making a sharp curve in a road, about a dozen men confronted me. They were dressed in blue, a color I was not very partial to at that time. I had read that "he that fights and runs away may live to fight another day." It occurred to me that he who would run without fighting might have a still better chance, but the ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... convenient distance from their habitations. The plan of these dams varies according to the character of the lake or stream. If the current is but slight, they build the dam almost straight; but where the water runs at a rapid rate, it is almost always constructed with a considerable curve, the convex side towards the stream. Frequently, in such cases, if there is any small island in the centre, it is taken advantage of, and the dam is built out to it from either bank. They make use of a variety of materials; employing driftwood when it can be obtained, to save themselves ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... of Asia's handiwork. Across the foot-board of the bed was a spray of what might have passed for cauliflower, the tin boiler was encircled by a wreath of impressionistic roses, and on the window-pane a piece of exceedingly golden goldenrod bent in an obliging curve in order to cover the ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan

... the gossamer dew-weighted. All the larks over the green corn sang it for me, all the dear swallows; the green leaves rustled it; the green brookflags waved it; the swallows took it with them to repeat it for me in distant lands. By the running brook I meditated it; a flash of sunlight here in the curve, a flicker yonderon the ripples, the birds bathing in the sandy shallow, the rush of falling water. As the brook ran winding through the meadow, so one thought ran winding ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... nameless, I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless, Thy port assured in a happier land than mine. But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine, As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding, From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line In the offing scatterest ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... (Fig. 24) shows approximately the degree of phosphorescence in different parts of a tube at an internal pressure of 0.25 millimeter, or 330 M. On the top you see the positive and negative poles, A and B, the latter having the outline of the dark space shown by a dotted line, C. The curve, D E F, shows the relative intensities of the phosphorescence at different distances from the negative pole, and the position inside the dark space at which phosphorescence does not occur. The height of the curve represents the degree of phosphorescence. The most decisive effects ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... his deep-set eyes, which altogether faded, as a candle blown out, when suddenly he perceived the accession to the company. Silence succeeded the dead blank on his features, down hung the violin and its bow on either side, and the corners of his mouth sunk into a dismal curve. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... black raspberry grows fast in the ground and has to stay in one spot for life. It has neither legs, feet, nor wings, and yet it can travel. The bush takes deep root and spreads out its branches, which are sometimes ten feet or more in length; the tips of these branches curve over to the ground six feet away, and finally take root; from these roots new colonies are formed, five to twenty in a year ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal

... assumed a mischievous curve and a tiny dimple appeared in her cheek. "Don't say as a big brother," she cried, "or you will make me feel ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... saw that she was looking towards the far end of the big drawing-room. Jenny was sitting there, under a shaded lamp. She had some work in her hands but her hands were still. Her head was turned away, but her attitude, the curve of her soft, long, white throat, the absolute immobility of her thin body betrayed the fact that she was ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... Isle to solemn session and to exact from them expression of opinion as to the central point of it, the popular, most comfortable and convenient camping-place, there can be no question that the voice of the majority would favour the curve of the bay rendered conspicuous by a bin-gum or coral tree. Within a few yards of permanent fresh water, on sand blackened by the mould of centuries of vegetation, close to an almost inextricable ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... German artists took delight to paint, had condescended to tread awhile this work-day earth in living flesh and blood. The forehead was very lofty and smooth, the eyebrows thin and greatly arched (the envious gallants whispered that something at least of their curve was due to art, as was also the exceeding smoothness of those delicate cheeks). The face was somewhat long and thin; the nose aquiline; and the languid mouth showed, perhaps, too much of the ivory upper teeth; but the most striking point ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... from a common centre, at a considerable elevation from the ground. One of these forms is that of a vase: the base being represented by the roots of the tree that project above the soil and join the trunk,—the middle by the lower part of the principal branches, as they swell out with a graceful curve, then gradually diverge, until they bend downward and form the lip of the vase, by their circle of terminal branches. Another of its forms is that of a vast dome, as represented by those trees that send up a single shaft to the height of twenty feet or more, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... The curve of the nozzle of the present jet is determined by its own size; five times one-half of the difference between the jet to be made and the end of the branch, is set up on each side of the diameter of the upper end of the branch, a straight line is then drawn ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood

... the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves. The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or wave, concave at one end, and convex at the other, like an Italic f, the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve, according to the line of beauty ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... the cranium of the young Bechuana ox, apparently another of the transcendentia, in the collection of Thomas Steel, Upper Brook Street, London, whose "entire length of horn, from tip to tip, along the curve, is 13 ft. 5 in.; distance (straight) between the tips of the horns, 8 ft. 8-1/2 in." However, the size both of the moose and the cougar, as I have found, is generally rather underrated than overrated, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... to write the equation of this curve, refer it to the co-ordinate axes a d (axis of X) and e f (axis of Y), intersecting ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various

... the girl's eyes, and she drew a little nearer to him. Her voice was a caress; the tenor of her hands was a caress; every supple curve of her alluring body caressed. She seemed to coax him, ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... away from the remembrance of the lupins to follow the promise of the laurels. How charming was the curve of that brown, foam-flecked stream, as it rushed swiftly down, from pool to pool, under the ancient, overhanging elms and willows and sycamores! We gave ourselves to the current, and darted swiftly past the ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... a fine parade which leads to open links at Monkseaton. Of these places Cullercoats is most noteworthy. This picturesque fishing village, with quaint old houses perched in every conceivable position on the curve of its rocky bay, is, needless to say, a favourite camping ground for artists. The Cullercoats fishwife, with her cheerful weather-bronzed face, her short jacket and ample skirts of blue flannel, and her heavily laden "creel" of fish is not ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry

... everything in ruins, fire broken out in his room, enemies there at his back who had it in their power to make him lose his brain, his life, his art; that he, meanwhile, having abandoned all desire or intention of saving his life, lost it while he was inquiring, perhaps, into the proportion of the curve to the straight line, of the diameter to the circle, or other similar mathesis, as suitable for youth, as it were unsuitable for one who, being old, should be intent upon things more worthy of being put as the ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... flashed down in a quick circle. Crack! It struck the gutta-percha squarely. The little white sphere zipped away like a rocket, rose in a far trajectory, up, up, toward the water-hazard at the foot of the grassy slope, then down in a long curve. ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... bears a meditative expression, into which has entered a hint of pathos and wistfulness in the dawning wonder as to whether, after all, Ulysses will return. The classic beauty of the pose; the exquisite modelling of the bust and arms and hands, every curve and contour so ideally lovely; the distinction of the figure in its noble and refined patrician elegance, are combined to render this work one that well deserves immortality in art, and to rank as a masterpiece ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... the picture. Talking of Venice brings to mind a bit of Oxford that must often remind the wayfarer to and from the railway of the Italian city. Not far from the old castle tower that has been already mentioned, a branch of the river flows in a lovely curve, and has upon one side weather-stained old brick walls, and on the other a causeway upon which stand ancient gabled houses. These buildings and the causeway reflect in the grey-green water of the river, and when the posts that edge ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How

... much of a hurry to explain or wait for any questions. She simply started across the fields in the direction of the Demi-Lune, where the route nationale from Meaux makes a curve to run down the long ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... proportions. Her hair was deep brown, nearly black, save where the light showed a tinge of red, a glint of gold. It was almost too abundant; like a rich, virulent weed it grew triumphant. Her lips were thin yet perfectly modelled, a long gracious curve; the upper lip a trifle thicker and short below the sensitive, wide-open nostrils. The brow serene and white, heavy over the deep-set blue eyes. And the eyes! No one could ever describe Wilhelmine von Graevenitz's eyes, or no two persons could agree concerning ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... a mean curve that had the small town players buffaloed. They called him "Chaseaway", the "Hoodoo" and "crooked eye" and one small town team was all for having him tarred and feathered! A story crowded with hard and fast baseball—and a dash ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer

... maple-groves in the beginning of an Eastern Indian Summer. Soft, mellow purple flushes the sky to the zenith and fills the air, fairly steeping and transfiguring the islands and making all the water look like wine. After the sun goes down, the glowing gold vanishes, but because it descends on a curve nearly in the same plane with the horizon, the glowing portion of the display lasts much longer than in more southern latitudes, while the upper colors with gradually lessening intensity of tone sweep around to the north, gradually increase to the ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir

... frantically at the reins. The lady, who had fallen back again in her seat, was motionless. On went the horse, and, at every successive leap in his mad career, the sleigh swung wildly first to one side and then to the other. At last there occurred a curve in the line of ice, and reaching this the horse turned once more to avoid it. In doing so, the sleigh was swung toward the water. The shafts broke. The harness was torn asunder. The off-runner of the sleigh slid from the ice—it tilted over; the driver jerked at the reins and made a ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille

... fit them for giving perfection to the senses of smell, sight, and hearing, so necessary to animals of prey. In short, the shape and structure of the teeth regulate the forms of the condyle, of the shoulder-blade, and of the claws, in the same manner as the equation of a curve regulates all its other properties; and as in regard to any particular curve all its properties may be ascertained by assuming each separate property as the foundation of a particular equation, in the same manner ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... for Milner's lamp: but this had visible science in it; the vulgar see no science in the construction of the chair. A hollow semi-cylinder, but not with a circular curve, revolved on pivots. The curve was calculated on the law that, whatever quantity of oil might be in the lamp, the position of equilibrium just brought the oil up to the edge of the cylinder, at which a bit of wick was placed. As the wick exhausted ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... all the roofs and towers of the city of Como pass from view, as if they had been so much architecture painted on a scene and shifted out of sight at a theatre. But other roofs and towers constantly succeed them, not less lovely and picturesque than they, with every curve of the many-curving lake. We advance over charming expanses of water lying between lofty hills; and as the lake is narrow, the voyage is like that of a winding river,—like that of the Ohio, but ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... most detailed and accurate series of observations that has ever been made with regard to the properties of curved wing surfaces. So far as could be done, Lilienthal tabulated the amount of air resistance offered to a bird's wing, ascertaining that the curve is necessary to flight, as offering far more resistance than a flat surface. Cayley, and others, had already stated this, but to Lilienthal belongs the honour of being first to put the statement to effective proof—he made over 2,000 gliding flights between 1891 and the regrettable end of his ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... northern counties most of the meadows lie in parallel undulations or "rigs." These are generally about a furlong (220 yards) in length, and either one or two poles (5-1/2 or 11 yards) in breadth. They seldom run straight, but tend to curve towards the left. At each end of the field a high bank, locally called a balk, often 3 or 4 feet high, runs at right angles to the rigs. In small fields there are generally eight, but sometimes ten, of these rigs, which make in the one case 4, in the other 5 acres. ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... that Isaacs was only a very successful schemer, neither better nor worse than other men, I was conscious of the face that would not be banished from my sight. I saw the beautiful boyish look in his deep dark eyes, the gentle curve of the mouth, the grand smooth architrave of the brows. No—I was a fool! I had never met a man like him, nor should again. How could Miss Westonhaugh save herself from loving such a perfect creature? I thought, too, of his generosity. He would surely keep his promise and ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford

... Rounding a curve in the road, he saw a man walking in the same direction in which he was going; a young man, slight and wiry, walking with quick, jerky ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards

... on the shore in the incoming tide. It came piling in layers in the bays—a most wonderful spectacle! I could not hear my horse's hooves for the cracking and crushing and cannonade of it as it flowed in on a south wind to the front of the Gearran, giving the long curve of the land an appearance new and terrible, filled as it was far over high-water mark with monstrous blocks, answering with groans and cries to every push ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... Hills proper partly lie in Dakota, occupying the south-west extremity of that state, and partly in Wyoming, and are almost encircled by the Cheyenne river, the principal fork of that stream extending in a curve right round the northern limit of the region, to where it joins the lesser tributary, which similarly skirts the southern side of the hills. On the north-east, the two branches then unite in one large river, styled by ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... point passed, I came upon my countryman waiting for us within the edge of the curve described by this falling ocean; he grasped my wrist firmly as I emerged from the dense drift, and ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... fairyland of the valley we came suddenly upon the Grasse railway station, from which a funiculaire ascends to the city far above. Thankful for our carriage, we continued to mount by a road that had to curve sharply at every hundred yards. We passed between villas with pergolas of ramblers and wisteria until we found ourselves in the upper part of the city without having gone ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... laying before him to the best of our powers what we take to be the definite scheme of events undoubtedly present in our author's mind, but never as a whole expressed by him. It is frequently necessary to infer from what he states, the precise curve of his thought: this skeleton of history is deduced only ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... down in 1853, had a concealed recess behind the wainscot over the mantel-piece, formed by the curve of the chimney. In this, tradition says, the Lord Protector was hidden. Nor is this the solitary instance, for a dark hole in one of the gable ends of Cromwell House, Mortlake (taken down in 1860), locally known as "Old Noll's Hole," is said to have afforded him temporary accommodation ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea

... the edge of his feet. He had a pale, sorrowful face, with bags hung under his eyes, drooping eyelids, no beard, no brows, and no chin; for in the place of the two latter, there was a slight frown where the brows ought to have been, and a curve in the place of the chin, merely perceptible from the bottom of his underlip to his throat. He wore his own hair, which was a light bay, so that you could scarcely distinguish it from a wig. I was given to understand ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... beauty, who pastured in the green meadows of Chartres near the monastery and came home every evening to be milked and to rub her soft nose against her master's hand, telling him how much she loved him. Mignon was a very wise cow; you could tell that by the curve of her horns and by the wrinkles in her forehead between the eyes; and especially by the way she switched her tail. And indeed, a cow ought to be wise who has been brought up by a whole monastery of learned men, with Launomar, the wisest person ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown

... a canon, grown up in spruce divided the mountain they were descending from the next one to the north. This next one thrust a rocky shoulder easterly. The valley where the horsemen rode bent round this shoulder in a curve measured in miles. They could not see ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... no 'of course' in it," he said, a humorous curve lifting the corners of his moustache—"You're not bound to love pictures at all! Most people hate them, and scarcely ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... the sand in the pits like a honeycomb, They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it— Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle With side-bars never a brute can baffle; Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards within wards; Or, if your colt's fore foot inclines to curve inwards, Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel And won't allow the hoof to shrivel. {370} Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkle That keep a stout heart in the ram with their tinkle; But the sand—they pinch and pound it like otters; Commend ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... the length of the original line, but only so much of it as would be embraced by the verticals dropped from each end of it, and although line A is the same length as line B its horizontal trace is longer than that of the other; that the projection of a curve (C) in this upright position is a straight line, that of a horizontal line (D) is equal to it, and the projection of a perpendicular or vertical (E) is a point only. The projections of lines or points can ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey

... hard and stony depths, which I shuddered to think a being so pure and gentle as Edith might be doomed to sound and fathom. That he was a man of strong passions and determination of will, was testified by every curve of his square, massive head, and every line of ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren



Words linked to "Curve" :   gooseneck, bend, crenature, snake, delivery, be, envelope, regression line, extrados, curliness, crenelle, Gaussian shape, quadric surface, shape, bell, exponential curve, road, pitch, curvey, S-shape, crescent, meander, Cupid's bow, roulette, form, turn, hairpin bend, conformation, sinuosity, blind curve, configuration, curved shape, quadric, crenel, section, slew, perversion, elbow, spiral, segment, line roulette, twist, flex, wave, bow, helix, camber, cut, straight line, curvy, river, campana, crotchet, bell shape, graphical record, line, route, waviness, normal curve, scallop, circumvolute, blind bend, closed curve, yaw, characteristic curve, contour, graph, straightness, undulation, change surface, curve ball, peel off, wind, catenary, hook, crenation, simple closed curve, intrados, sinuousness, deform, kink



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