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Damp   /dæmp/   Listen
Damp

verb
(past & past part. damped; pres. part. damping)
1.
Deaden (a sound or noise), especially by wrapping.  Synonyms: dampen, dull, muffle, mute, tone down.
2.
Restrain or discourage.
3.
Make vague or obscure or make (an image) less visible.  Synonyms: dampen, deaden.
4.
Lessen in force or effect.  Synonyms: break, dampen, soften, weaken.  "Break a fall"



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"Damp" Quotes from Famous Books



... confinement told on him far more than all the hardships of his journey. His health ran down, he began to fall ill. Then as bad luck would have it, walking in that damp, unwholesome cedar garden, out of which he might not stray, he contracted the germ of some kind of fever which in autumn was very common in this poisonous climate. Three days later he became delirious, and for a week after that hung between life and death. Well was it for him that ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... occasion," and here Harry's voice fluttered and faltered. No one noticed it, however, except the prisoner; if any neighbor eyes had watched him narrowly—but they were all fixed upon the witness—they would have seen his face whiten, and his brow grow damp. Why should she have laid that stress upon ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... that fine edifice, and proved the power of the soul over the body; for the fair and dainty man, the cavalier, the young blood, died when hope deserted him. Until then the nose of the chevalier was ever delicate and nice; never had a damp black blotch, nor an amber drop fall from it; but now that nose, smeared with tobacco around the nostrils, degraded by the driblets which took advantage of the natural gutter placed between itself and the upper lip,—that nose, which no ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... rock-roofed world till the river rose several inches while its colour turned to a dull yellow, then to a red, showing how heavy the rainfall had been in the back country. We had our rubber ponchos on but we were more or less damp and we began to notice that summer had passed for the air was chilly. The river was perfectly smooth making navigation easy and we were able to pull steadily along with no interruption from rapids. The walls ever increased their height while ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... unseen agent which could be used against an enemy, and which was so destructive and powerful it would render their armies helpless. That secret was asphyxiating gas. His plan was on the field of battle when the wind was favorable to build large fires with tar and damp straw behind which an attack could be prepared. Then sulphur was to be thrown on these burning piles so as to produce gas, which blowing over the enemy would render them helpless. This would not produce a poisonous gas. It would only be an asphyxiating ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... slack wind of November The fog forms and shifts; All the world comes out again When the fog lifts. Loosened from their sapless twigs Leaves drop with every gust; Drifting, rustling, out of sight In the damp or dust. ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various

... stood. Owing to the necessary windings of his course his back was at present towards them. She glanced quickly round; to escape that man there was only one way. Turning to Venn, she said, "Would you allow me to rest a few minutes in your van? The banks are damp ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... nothing to free the mind? Is it nothing to civilize mankind? Is it nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science? Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect. Is it nothing to grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons, the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are chained to floors of stone; to greet them like a ray of light, like the song of a bird, the murmur of a stream, to see ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... deal of entreaty the Dooty allowed me to come into his baloon, to avoid the rain, but the place was very damp, and I had a smart paroxysm of fever during the night. Worn down by sickness, exhausted with hunger and fatigue, half naked, and without any article of value, by which I might procure provisions, clothes, or lodging, I began to reflect seriously on my situation. I was now convinced, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... here, I am very fond of—it has a Stradivarius tone rather than the one we usually associate with the make." Mr. Brown showed the writer his Grancino, a beautiful little instrument about to be sent to the repair shop, since exposure to the damp atmosphere of the sea-shore had opened its seams—and the rare and valuable Simon bow, now his, which had once been the property of Sivori. Mr. Brown has used a wire E ever since he broke six gut strings ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens

... delighting in labour, and continually working both winter and summer at his mural painting, which breaks down the healthiest of men, he became so afflicted by the damp and so swollen with dropsy, that his physicians had to tap him, and in a few days he rendered up his soul to Him who had given it. First, like a good Christian, he partook of the Sacraments of the Church, and made his will. Then, having a particular devotion for the Hermits of ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... not know what they are talking about. Where could they raise such Saint-Michael pears, such Saint-Germains, such Brown-Beurres, as we had until within a few years growing within the walls of our old city-gardens? Is the dark and damp cavern where a ragged beggar hides himself better than a town-mansion which fronts the sunshine and backs on its own cool shadow, with gas and water and all appliances to suit all needs? God made the cavern and man made the house! ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... boys came in sight, but this time there were only two of them, as the youngest had stayed at home. The air was warm and damp, and the snow soft and slushy, and the elder brother's bowstring hung loose, while the bow of the younger caught in a tree and snapped in half. At that moment the dogs began to bark loudly, and the bear rushed out of the ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... REED: I have been storing all of our wood in ordinary apple cold storage plants. Pack it in damp moss or excelsior. Paper line your boxes well, and nail them up, and leave them there until you are ready to use them. I have put wood in in November and taken it out in good shape in August. Pecan wood can be ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... the spoor with emotions of pleasure—the more so that the tracks had been recently made. This was evident. The displaced mud had not yet crusted, but looked damp and fresh. It had been stirred within ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... especially when it is warm and damp, the evening meal in the country is attended with difficulty because of the quantity of insects, especially beetles, which are attracted by the lamp, and they appear to make a specialty of falling into any dish which may be at hand. When camping out the difficulty is intensified, and the ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... might bring. Again the situation had something foreseen and dramatic in it. She saw herself, as the preacher, sitting on her stool beside the poor grate—she realised as a spectator the figures of the women and the old man played on by the firelight—the white, bare, damp-stained walls of the cottage, and in the background the fragile though still comely form of Minta Hurd, who was standing with her back to the dresser, and her head bent forward, listening to the talk ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... troops the most pointed orders not to attempt to fire, but put their whole dependence on the Bayonet—which was most faithfully and Literally Observed—neither the deep Morass, the formidable and double rows of abatis or the high and strong works in front and flank could damp the ardor of the troops—who in the face of a most tremendous and Incessant fire of Musketry and from Artillery loaded with shells and Grape-shot forced their way at the point of the Bayonet thro' every Obstacle, both Columns meeting in the Center of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... The morning was damp and chilly, although there was the promise of a fair day later on; and Matty's stand was placed inside when we entered the shop, and the first thing our eyes rested upon was Matty's shorn head. We all three ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... prepared, and I didn't know but what the cold you used to have might be come back," she said. "But I'm glad if it ain't, if that cough of yours is only one of the measly little hacks people get in the East, where it's so damp." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... had halted. He had not forgotten the appearance of the place, and his heart trembled with fear and joy. After a few minutes he looked around him more calmly. It was then dark, and when he arrived at the rock, the damp vapours from the lake enveloped with a thick veil both the valley and the tomb. The sound of the waterfall put an end to his uncertainties; he remembered that it fell into a gulf close ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... upward into the deeper forest, then turned downwards along a narrow path, carpeted thick with fallen leaves, damp and soft to the foot, for the sun's rays never pierced through the dense foliage overhead. And then we came out upon a fair, green sward with nine stately coco-palms clustered, their branches drooping over the ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke

... of all the maids of Hellas, though they be rich and fair, With the daughter of Polycrates, oh! who shall then compare? Then dry thy tears—no idle fears should damp our joy to-day— And let me see thee smile once more before ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... Mother Demdike was dismissed without the customary dole, one of his millstones broke, and, instead of taking this as a warning, he became more obstinate. She came a second time, and he sent her away with curses. Then all his flour grew damp and musty, and no one would buy it. Still he remained obstinate, and, when she appeared again, he would have laid hands upon her. But she raised her staff, and the blows fell short. 'I have given thee two warnings, Richard,' ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... straightway in every one's mouth; and the bookseller, if he did not follow the advice a pied de la lettre, actually wasted, as the term is, or sold for waste paper, some hundred copies, and buried the rest of the impression in the profoundest depth of a damp cellar, as an article never likely to be called for, so that now hardly a copy can be procured undamaged by damp and mildew. It has been for some time, however, rising,—is rising,—and the more it is read and known, the more it ought to rise ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various

... he vainly tried to get it to market. Some dozen small boys, with hatchets and scythes over their shoulders for the cutting of firewood they were looking for, laughed at me as I ploughed through the mud in my sandals. We had been going for three hours, and when, cold and damp, we got inside a cottage for tea, I found that we had covered only twenty li—so we were told by an old fogey who brushed up the floor with a piece of bamboo. He was dressed in what might have been termed undress, and was most vigorous in ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... inn, and went into the kitchen to speak with the landlady; she had made a hundred hesitations when I told her we wanted three beds. At last she confessed she had three beds, and showed me into a parlour which looked damp and cold, but she assured me in a tone that showed she was unwilling to be questioned further, that all her beds were well aired. I sat a while by the kitchen fire with the landlady, and began to talk to her; but, ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... to rest; he was out of breath and trembling with fright, and he had not the least idea which way to go. Also he was very damp ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... a miserable place, and, in consequence of its damp and hot position, the whole party suffered ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... The buzzards were the most numerous, and were the most persistent soarers. They apparently never flapped except when it was absolutely necessary, while the eagles and hawks usually soared only when they were at leisure. Two methods of soaring were employed. When the weather was cold and damp and the wind strong the buzzards would be seen soaring back and forth along the hills or at the edge of a clump of trees. They were evidently taking advantage of the current of air flowing upward over ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... with me. I took a dip in the river as I came along and made my toilet in a place where Milton's Sabrina might have lived," he said, shaking back his damp hair and settling the knot of scarlet bunchberries stuck ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... with unction, "when two men enjoy destroying the harmless life which the good God has set upon the prairie, they never tire of one another's society. Men who would disdain to black a pair of boots would not hesitate to crawl about in the mud and damp reeds of a swamp at daybreak to slaughter a few innocent ducks. There is a bond amongst sportsmen which is stronger than all the vows made at any altar. Hervey's delight in destroying life is almost inhuman. I trust he never ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... Yudhishthira! He used everywhere, O bull among men, to boast of his equality with thee! That mighty car-warrior, the ruler of the Madras, now lieth, deprived of life. When he accepted the drivership of Karna's car in battle, he sought to damp the energy of Karna for giving victory to the sons of Pandu! Alas, alas, behold the smooth face of Shalya, beautiful as the moon, and adorned with eyes resembling the petals of the lotus, eaten away by crows! There, the tongue of that king, of the complexion of heated ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... awake. He felt as if he had been bound hand and foot so that he could not stir, and had been raised aloft to a dizzy height. He knew that he was far above the earth, for he was very cold and was conscious of mists which drifted across his face and left it damp. Suddenly he discovered that he could open his eyes. Looking down, he saw with supernatural distinctness the entire course of the frozen river-bed. Far to the north he could descry Spurling, plodding desperately on across the thawing ice. A few miles to the west, perhaps ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... of the upland forests the moss is damp and the wood wet, so that it is difficult to make a comfortable camp or to build a fire. But these discomforts are not worthy of consideration in view of the inspiration which one gains by the outlook from some commanding point upon the summit of ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks

... towns, Mount Mark is dry for those who want it dry, but it is wet enough to drown any misguided soul who loves the damp. I loved it,—but, with the raven, nevermore. Connie, there is one thing even more fatal to a minister's son than bottles of beer. That thing is politics. If I had taken my beer straight I might have escaped. But I tried to ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston

... from remote antiquity—witness the Egyptian mummy-cases. Such a ground, becoming brittle with age, is evidently unsafe on canvas, unless exceedingly thin; and even on panel is liable to crack and detach itself, unless it be carefully guarded against damp. The precautions of Van Eyck against this danger, as well as against the warping of his panel, are remarkable instances of his regard ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... may be made and fried early in the day, ready to rewarm on brown paper in a baking pan in a hot oven ten minutes before serving time. Sandwiches will keep perfectly well for several hours if wrapped in a damp towel and closed in a tin bread box. Salad sandwiches are better, however, if made as near serving time ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer

... blown out of the windows, if the house is kept warm and dry the fine wood-finishing will "keep its place" best if put up in winter rather than in summer. For the most carefully seasoned and kiln-dried lumber will absorb moisture so rapidly in the hot, steaming days of June and in the damp dog-day weather that no joiner's skill can prevent cracks from appearing when the dry furnace heat has drawn the moisture from ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... the damp night air was pouring in through the door which Zarmi now held open, although sound of Thames-side activity came stealing to my ears, we were yet within the walls of the Joy-Shop, with a score or more Asiatic ruffians at the woman's ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... and one-half feet tall, gray in color, with extremely long black hair which never touches the ground but which floats along behind the Water Babies when they walk. In general, these creatures look like small humans. However, they are boneless, cold to the touch, and damp. ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs

... way up the first staircase, which was straight and narrow. The carpet, carefully rolled and laid aside on the landing, was threadbare and colourless. The muslin curtains, folded back and pinned together, were darned and yellow with frequent washing and the rust of ancient damp. She opened the door of the first room at the head of the stairs. It had once been the apartment of some servitor; now it contained furniture of the gorgeous days of Louis XIV, with all the colour gone from its tapestry, all the woodwork ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... constructed of wreck-wood, could scarce house the party. The food supplies, other than those the visitors brought with them, were chiefly 'rusty bacon, and worse cheese,' with very bad ale to drink. And on the first afternoon, the house was found to be so damp from recent scrubbing that Mrs Fielding, who "besides discharging excellently well her own, and all the tender offices becoming the female character; who besides being a faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... her. I own to it," Gregory replied with a certain frosty relief. It was like taking off damp, threadbare garments that had chilled one for a long time and facing the winter wind, naked, but invigorated. "I ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... pageantry and of parade devoid of pleasure be! If only in the conscious heart true happiness abide, How oft, alas! has wretchedness but grandeur's cloak to hide? And when upon the outward cheek a transient smile appears, We little reck how lately hath its bloom been damp'd by tears, And how the voice, whose thrillings from a light heart seem'd to rise, Throughout each sleepless watch of night ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... was nearest to the open end of the Tube. He sniffed curiously and seemed to listen. Within seconds the others became aware of a new smell in the laboratory. It seemed to come from the Tube itself, and it was a warm, damp smell that could only be imagined as coming from a jungle in the tropics. There were the rich odors of feverishly growing things; the heavy fragrance of unknown tropic blossoms, and a background of some curious blend of scents and ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... icebergs floated from Snowdon, in Wales, and Ben Lomond, in Scotland, over the submerged islands of Great Britain. At one time the whole surface of the earth, instead of being covered with icy glaciers, was filled with a hot, damp atmosphere, laden with carbonic gas, which no creature could breathe, but in which grew great forests of a strange tropical vegetation. Then came another period, in which all these forests were submerged and buried, and at last turned into coal. ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... Vasari writes of it: "At Volterra he painted in fresco"—(a mistake—it is his usual oil medium)—"in the church of S. Francesco, above the altar of the brotherhood, the Circumcision of our Lord, which is considered marvellously beautiful; although the Child, having suffered from the damp, was repainted by Sodoma much less beautiful than it was before."[49] This unfortunate repainting, which has also evidently included part of the Virgin's face, was more probably due to the monks' dislike of Signorelli's type of child than to ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell

... die to-night, and you saw me not Again till my soul had fled With its vain request, and my features wore The white hue of the dead— Would you place just once, in a last caress, Your hand on my death-damp hair? Would you give me a thought, or a fond regret? Would you kiss me, ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris

... closed, and she hoped that he slept. As she watched him her own eyes slowly filled with tears; for she did not believe he would ever gain sufficient strength to bear removal from that house of sorrow. The air of the ward was hot, damp, and lifeless. Sickening odors rising from the streets of the filthy city drifted in through its open windows. The whole atmosphere of the place was depressing, and suggestive of suffering that ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... timber, and dry. On the banks it was still lower, and in many parts it was evident that the river floods swept over them, though this did not appear to be universally the case. . . . These unfavourable appearances threw a damp upon our hopes, and we feared that our anticipations had ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... to be a space of silence, and again the silence to be broken by a far sound; and there to come again from beyond the far Hills of the Babes a strange and low sound, and did be as of a wind wandering through damp forests. And the sound grew, and came across the Hills of the Babes, and did be breathed forth by Million after Million, so that in a little I to hear the Song of Weeping sung very low and sorrowful by the multitudes. And the Song came onward over ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... tired of ridiculing as lazy, ignorant, effeminate, and morbidly conceited. She was not an ideal companion when they made an expedition into the lovely pastoral Teche country, the Acadia of exiled Acadians and Eden of Louisiana, but her lack of enthusiasm did not damp the ardor of Sir Robert. Miss Noel thought it a beautiful country, but added that it looked "sadly damp, and as if it might be malarious," and insisted on "dear Ethel's" taking ten grains of quinine daily during their stay and wearing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... as a part of the mines, and therefore to be detested along with the noisy engine-house, the pumps, the damp and dirty miners, and all the rest of it—the coming of which had so completely spoiled her ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... led the two girls to her tent, assisting them to remove their damp clothing, putting them in warm flannel night gowns and tucking them in their cots. Harriet insisted that she did not wish to be "babied," but, the guardian was firm. After tucking them in Mrs. Livingston sat down ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge

... five-story house. Amidst all the neighboring houses these trees gave the spot the aspect of a nook in some park, and seemed to increase the dimensions of this little Parisian garden, which was swept like a drawing-room. Between two of the elms hung a swing, the seat of which was green with damp. ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... candle the Major now took, and held it about a yard above my head, so that its full light fell on my upturned face. I was swathed in a blanket, and while addressing the Major had raised myself on my elbow in bed. My long black hair, still damp, fell wildly round ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various

... hissing and panting engine, while Gethryn climbed in and placed her bags and rugs in a window corner. The car smelt damp and musty, and he stepped out with a choking sensation in his chest. A train man came along, closing doors with ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... during the summer months, the traveler is frequently at a loss to distinguish their green-sodded roofs from the natural sod of the hill-sides, so that one is liable at any time to plunge into the midst of a settlement before he is aware of its existence. Something of a damp, earthy look about them, the weedy or grass-covered tops, the logs green and moss-grown, the dripping eaves, the veins of water oozing out of the rocks, give them a peculiarly Northern and chilling effect, and fill the mind with ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... was, to all appearance, carved in stone when the impulse took him; and then—it was as if the swimming instinct had left him—he commenced to crawl across the natural bridge of pond-weed to the bank. Nor can I tell you where he went. Sometimes you may meet his kind in dark, damp corners, wedged between stones, or in the crannies of fallen tree trunks. Sometimes it is the gardener that brings word of him. "A' dug the spade a fut deep and turned he up, the poisonous effet, a' soon stamped on he!" Sometimes it is the housemaid. "Please m'm there's lizards ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... a deserter!" and the truth flashed across my brain, writing that terrible word in letters of fire, as did the hand on the walls of Belshazzar. The next moment, by permission of the guard, who knew me, I passed down into the long damp basement of the barracks, where the offenders were imprisoned. At the farther end, among a number of fellow-culprits, my eager eye soon discovered the object of its search. He was sitting with folded arms, perched on a carpenter's bench, and with the most wo-begone countenance ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... had long since faded. It was kept green by the brown walls, which, like the crags of the mainland valleys, sheltered it from the incessant strife of the Atlantic gales. A few pale flowers that might have grown in a damp cellar shivered against the stones. Scraps of newspapers, soda-water and beer bottles, highly decorated old provision tins, and spent cartridge cases,—the remains of chilly picnics and damp shooting luncheons,—had at first sight ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... only two pupils in attendance, and I did not get a very favorable impression of this high school. Its master quite overcame us with thanks when we gave him a few centimes on leaving. It still rained, and we arrived in St. Nicolaus quite damp. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... over wet, and soon twenty glorious fires were blazing in the forest. The men were allowed to dry their clothes in relays, each relay baring itself and holding its clothes before the fire until the last touch of damp was gone. ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... your wider experience to flood my narrow ones—and to enjoy all the calm bits of your language study and the like. And oh, I am very glad about the Musical Society! Though I dare say you'll have some mauvais quarts d'heure with the strings in damp weather!... ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... music." Grady, not strong enough financially to annex a calliope, altered an old animal cage that resembled the exterior of a calliope. He installed a very large and loud hand organ inside the imitation calliope wagon, with a stovepipe poking out of the top, plenty of damp straw inside, a man to feed and burn it. In a stove inside, the volumes of smoke issuing from the stovepipe, a strong man turning the hand organ, the greatly improved steam calliope was calculated to astonish the public. If the ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... watched over and shone down upon him—it was a star of hope. Why should Trenck despair, when love lived and lived only for him? No, he would not die—he would never be buried under this gravestone. Beyond these thick, damp walls lay the world—the living, active, blooming world. It was only necessary to break these chains, to open the five heavy doors which confined him to his dark prison, and life, liberty, the world, honor, love, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... Pendleton, that Miss Polly was driven by Timothy to an early afternoon committee meeting of the Ladies' Aid Society. When she returned at three o'clock, her cheeks were a bright, pretty pink, and her hair, blown by the damp wind, had fluffed into kinks and curls wherever the loosened pins had ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter

... led to the front hall. In this was the coat-room. First making sure the library and hall were free of servants, Fred tiptoed to the coat-room and, opening the door, switched: on the electric light. The naked man, leaving in his wake a trail of damp ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... that," said Anne determinedly and darkly. "You can punish me in any way you like, Marilla. You can shut me up in a dark, damp dungeon inhabited by snakes and toads and feed me only on bread and water and I shall not complain. But I cannot ask ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... recourse to the rum, which alone, I verily believe, prevented us from freezing bodily. One is locked in the iron embrace of the polar air, until the very life seems to be squeezed out of him. I huddled myself in my poesk, worked my fingers and toes, buried my nose in the damp, frozen fur, and laboured like a Hercules to keep myself awake and alive—but almost in vain. Braisted and I kept watch over each other, or attempted it, for about the only consciousness either of us had was that of the peril of falling asleep. We talked ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... tenacity, and was applied in layers of extraordinary thickness. This was (it is probable) employed only where it was requisite that the face of the building should have a certain color. A cement superior to clay, but not of any very high value, unless as a preventive against damp, was bitumen, which was very generally used in basements and in other structures exposed to the action of water. Mortar, however, or lime cement was far more commonly employed than either of the others, and was of very excellent quality, equal indeed to the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... from right to left over No. 2, then No. 2 over No. 3, and so on until the ends of all the spokes are turned to the inside of the basket. Keep both basket and weaver well dampened while weaving. After the basket is finished press it into shape while still damp. When it is thoroughly dry trim off the ends of the spokes which appear too long on the inside of the basket, leaving them just long enough to be held in place by the curved spoke under which each passes. This makes a beautiful ...
— Construction Work for Rural and Elementary Schools • Virginia McGaw

... method of mixing chalk or stucco; a theory of Sculpture, containing advice as to the instruments to be used for sculpturing the various sorts of stone, for obtaining a successful fusion of bronze, for working with the chisel, for the exact copying of the model in chalk or plaster, for keeping chalk damp; a theory of Painting, on the various techniques of tempera, of oil-painting, of water-colour, of pastel, on the proportions of the human body, on the laws of perspective; a theory of Oratory, with precepts as to the method of producing, of ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... give up the attempt altogether, and rebuke the boy for teasing her with "so many silly questions," she perhaps suspends her work, and, after a moment's perplexing thought, she says the vapor of the water from the rivers and seas and damp ground rises into the air, and there at last congeals into flakes of snow, and these fall through ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... about sister Priscilla, which had grown rather active by the time the coral necklace was clasped, was happily ended by the entrance of that cheerful-looking lady herself, with a face made blowsy by cold and damp. After the first questions and greetings, she turned to Nancy, and surveyed her from head to foot—then wheeled her round, to ascertain that the ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... record the slow months. On summer afternoons, when the sun sank behind a bank of fog that, moving solemnly shoreward, at last encompassed him and blotted out sea and sky, his isolation was complete. The damp gray sea that flowed above and around and about him always seemed to shut out an intangible world beyond, and to be the only real presence. The booming of breakers scarce a dozen rods from his dwelling was but a vague ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... joyous? All the cause must have been in herself. The day was not bright. It was dim—a pale, waning autumn day. The walks through the dun woods were damp; the atmosphere was heavy, the sky overcast; and yet it seemed that in Shirley's heart lived all the light and azure of Italy, as all its fervour laughed ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... owns vast mining properties. He lives in New York and in Newport. Comfortably, and at a distance, he runs and rules his mines. He is good-natured enough, kind-hearted. He means well. He does not see the corpses brought up from the fire-damp. He does not notice the hollow chests of young children with the pores of their skin and the pores of their lungs full of ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... on my mind, I went one damp winter's morning to Dullingham, our nearest railway station, on ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... I replied, as I laid my hand upon his white forehead. I found that his skin was, cold and damp. The fever had nearly burned out the vital energies of his system. "Do ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... darkling stream, And a boy handed round the cream. Tania doth by the casement linger And breathes upon the chilly glass, Dreaming of what not, pretty lass, And traces with a slender finger Upon its damp opacity, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... thicknesses of the forests. But a little experience wonderfully cooled their courage; they found that real, everyday robbers were very unlike the conventional banditti of the stage, and that three months in prison, with bread and water for their fare, and damp straw to lie upon, was very well to read about by their own firesides, but not very agreeable to undergo in ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... silence again followed; each looked at the other and mutually found their eyes full of tears. They dared not speak again; and Marie, drooping her head, saw nothing but the brown, damp earth scattered by the wheels. A melancholy revery occupied her mind; and although she had before her the spectacle of the first court of Europe at the feet of him she loved, everything inspired her with fear, and dark presentiments involuntarily ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... sympathetic companion at his side. But he hid his feelings under a forced gayety, in which Annie joined somewhat, though it gave her a vague shiver of pain. She felt they had been en rapport for a little while, but now a change had come, even as the damp and chill of approaching night were taking the place of ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... bridge came the order for every soul aboard to put on a life-belt, and our friends from Scotland hastened aft to obtain the equipment, scurrying and bustling about the damp ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall

... the chief district officer, Mlondo, was from home, but we took possession of his huts—clean, extensive, and tidily kept—facing the river, and felt as if a residence here would do one good. Delays and subterfuges, however, soon came to damp our spirits. The acting officer was sent for, and asked for the boats; they were all scattered, and could not be collected for a day or two; but, even if they were at hand, no boat ever went up or down the river. The chief was away and would be sent for, as the king ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... longer to get her breath and decide how she should ask for Mr. Blake and what she should say when she was summoned into his awful presence. Her cheeks were glowing with the cold, her eyes bright with excitement, and her hair blown into damp little curls that were far more becoming than any more studied arrangement would have been. Mr. Richard Blake would indeed be difficult to please if he failed ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... tangles. Some had fallen amid the wreckage left by previous gales, which the forest had partly made good, and there was scarcely a rod of the way that was not obstructed by half-rotted trunks. Then there were thick bushes, and an undergrowth of willows where the soil was damp, with thorny brakes and matted fern in between. In places the growth was almost like a wall, and the men, skirting the inlet, were glad to scramble forward among the rough boulders and ragged driftwood at the water's ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... Agent. "Adieu, Mademoiselle," says he in a for-ever tone of voice. Indeed I am sure I have caught from these kind people a very pretty and becoming mournful manner, and there's not another white station for 500 miles where I can show it off. Away we go, still damp from the rain we have come through, but drying nicely with the day, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... Hill. We had continued our march but a short time when we were again stopped by a creek, which baffled all our endeavours to cross it, and seemed to predict that the object of our attainment, though but a very few miles distant, would take us yet a considerable time to reach, which threw a damp on our hopes. We traced the creek until four o'clock, when we halted for the night. The country, on both sides, we thought in general unpromising; but it is certainly very superior to that which we had seen on the former creek. In many places it might be cultivated, provided the inundations ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... fire in the stoves later, especially during the following winter, there was not a sign of damp anywhere—neither in saloon nor small cabins. It was, if anything, rather too dry, for the panels of the walls and roof dried ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... wonderful, soft and still, And a deep-sea twilight hangs all day; The loving labour of fairy hands Has made it heavenly fine to see, And just outside it the cottage stands, The cottage that doesn't belong to me. A cottage, mind, And I'm sure you'd find It was damp and dirty and very confined; Oh, quite an ordinary keeper's cottage That doesn't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various

... one sense regards one contrariety; as sight regards white and black. But the sense of touch grasps several contraries; such as hot or cold, damp or dry, and suchlike. Therefore it is not a single sense but several. Therefore there are more ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... the Royal Americans and provincials on the right and left, under Bouquet and Washington.[664] Thus, guided by the tap of the drum at the head of each column, they moved slowly through the forest, over damp, fallen leaves, crisp with frost, beneath an endless entanglement of bare gray twigs that sighed and moaned in the bleak November wind. It was dusk when they emerged upon the open plain and saw Fort Duquesne before them, with its background of wintry hills beyond ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... had not been lighted in that portion of the house, and it was quite dark. The atmosphere was stifling, as all the windows had been closed at the approach of the storm. I raised them, and the cool, damp air, heavy with the odor of jessamine, floated into the room. Elizabeth, evidently greatly fatigued by the day's exertions, had thrown herself upon a lounge at the foot of the bed. She was in her dressing-gown, and her face was framed in masses of wavy ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... then forwards through a narrow and damp passage, built on either side with rough stones, and so low that she could not have entered it in any other posture. When she had proceeded about two or three yards, the passage opened into a concavity or apartment, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... twenty-one years of age he worked patiently at his loom, which stood in one corner of a cellar, so cold and damp that its walls were constantly wet. But he was hopeful, and even in those dark days dared to fall in love. On attaining his majority, he received a legacy of L30. Then he married the poor girl who had made brighter his hard apprenticeship, and lived ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... mountains; on the right a vast marshy plain bounded by the sea at a distance of seven or eight miles. Nothing can be more monotonous than this strait road twenty-five miles in length, and the same landscape the whole way. The air is extremely damp, aguish and unhealthy. Those who travel late in the evening or early in the morning are recommended not to let down the glasses of the carriage, in order to avoid inhaling the pestilential miasma from the marshes, which even the canal has not ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... creature. It did not. After watching his frog awhile, the Professor was proceeding to take it down, and while in the act of doing so the legs were convulsed! Struck with this occurrence, he replaced the frog, took it down again, put it back, took it down, until he discovered that, as often as the damp frog (still hanging upon its copper hook) touched the iron nail, the contraction of the muscles took place, as if the frog had been touched by a conductor connected with an electrical machine. This experiment was repeated hundreds of times, and varied in as many ways as mortal ingenuity could devise. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... wealthy English and French families who spend the winters here. The mild climate and uniform temperature of our city makes this place a favorite winter resort not only for invalids, but for those who desire to get away from the damp fogs and harsh winds of ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... the long grass, remnants doubtless of some former banquet of the smugglers; and not far off, in the hollow of a tree, serving as a niche, a small plaster figure of the Virgin and child, that had once been painted, but of which the damp had long since strangely confounded the colours, told of a lingering devotional qualm on the part of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... discovered the old man dying from cold and hunger in the fields. Together they had found this cave, and Titee had gathered the straw and brush that scattered itself over the ground and made the bed. A poor old cow turned adrift by an ungrateful master, had crept in and shared the damp dwelling. And thither Titee had trudged twice a day, carrying his luncheon in the morning, and his dinner in the evening, the sole ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... skill of the Winton inhabitants, who ran up a slight wall before it, and deceived the reformists, soi-disants. I could hardly quit this poor dear old building, so much I was interested with its Saxon chiefs, its little queer niches, quaint images, damp cells, mouldering walls, and mildewed pillars. One chest contains the bones entire of Egbert, our first king. Edred, also. I ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... vision away, and Gibbie saw the world again—saw, but did not love it. The sun seemed but to have looked up to mock him and go down again, for he had crossed the crack, and was behind a thick mass of cloud; a cold damp wind, spotted with sparkles of rain, blew fitfully from the east; the low bushes among which he sat, sent forth a chill sighing all about him, as they sifted the wind into sound; the smell of the damp earth was strange to him—he did not know the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... haze about on the horizon, I fancy. See, the stars are fading away. It begins to feel damp. Sea mist ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... the dust they had kicked up had not yet settled, the messenger boy stood open-mouthed, with his cap tilted precariously on the bulge of his head, a damp lock of hair straggling down into his right eyebrow, while he craned his neck to stare ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... was first confronted with the fresh, damp greens, showed the most profound contempt for them. Unquestionably she preferred melons. Mr. Feathercock applauded his own acumen. "She was eating too much; that was the whole trouble," he said ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... is the mother who is called thus to weep the loss of her departed infant. Oh, it is hard for her to give up that loved one whose smile and childish glee were the light and the hope of her heart. As she lays it in the cold, damp earth, and returns to her house of mourning, and there contemplates its empty cradle, and that silent nursery, once gladsome with its mirth, she feels the sinking weight of her desolation. No light, no luxury, no friend, can fill the ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... into an inner chamber, a small room, the window of which never saw the sun, but opened against the close, overhanging rock, which was so near that it might be touched by the hand. The dark, damp wall of the cliff shed a gloomy obscurity in the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... curtains, its coffin-plate of a former Mrs. Johnstone in a black frame on the centre table, its smooth white walls adorned with strange and wonderfully constructed hair and feather wreaths in huge frames, and over all the close, damp odour, made a combination ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... light followed swiftly and dissolved the last mist. In the chill of early morning, when with the approach of the sun a cold, uncomfortable sweat rises heavily from the earth and water, Jeanne had drawn one of the bearskins closely about her. Her head was bare. Her hair, glistening with damp, clung in heavy masses about her face. There was a bewitching childishness about her, a pathetic appeal to him in the forlorn little picture she made—so helpless, and yet so confident in him. Every energy ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood

... turns the face of the listener so pale, and why gleam those eyes with terrible fire? The perspiration courses down his clear but sallow cheek: he throws his dark and clustering curls aside, and passes his hand over his damp brow, as if to ask whether he, too, had lost his senses ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... the lighter for that very responsibility. The greater the task, he argued, the greater the achievement; and the greater the achievement, the greater the triumph. A less sanguine hero might have been daunted by the pictures with which his nervous friends did their best to damp his ardour. Grover, delighted as he was at the success of his friend's application, took care to keep the rocks ahead well above the surface in all his letters and conversations. Railsford laughed him ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... was bathing the whole Alp in glorious light, and having melted the last snow, had brought the first spring flowers to the surface. A merry spring wind was blowing, drying up the damp places in the shadow. High above in the azure heaven the eagle ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri

... the air. Oftentimes foods gain or lose water to such an extent as to affect their weight; for example, one hundred pounds of flour containing 12 per cent of water may be reduced in weight three pounds or more when stored in a dry place, or there may be an increase in weight from being stored in a damp place. In tables of analyses the results, unless otherwise stated, are usually given on the basis of the original material, or the dry substance. Potatoes, for example, contain 2-1/2 per cent of crude protein on the basis of 75 per cent of water; or on a dry matter basis, that is, when the water ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... received a sudden damp from a passionate address of the lower house; in which they justified all their past proceedings that had given disgust to the king; desired to be acquainted with the measures taken by him; prayed him to dismiss ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... she said. "You—you've done me good. But it's not good for you, is it? I've made you quite damp. You don't think you'll catch cold?"—dabbing at ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... Miriam, and Miriam was the sister of Moses and Aaron. What he now wanted from me was medical advice. For some time he had been afflicted with rheumatism in his left leg, which came upon him after exposure to the damp and cold. ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... von Rantzau, Count von Rantzau, Rottenburg the secretary, a tutor and another secretary, the two last 'dumb persons.' The forest is a Pyrford of 25,000 acres, but the house is in the situation of a Dockett, and must be damp in winter till the great January frost sets in, when the Baltic ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... In the damp chill air and crowded closeness of the swaying carriage, she for the first time vividly imagined what was in store for her there at the ball, in those brightly lighted rooms—with music, flowers, dances, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... state, that in many of our back lanes and courts there are families in the veriest wretchedness, with scarcely enough of rags to cover their shivering emaciated bodies; they may be found huddled together around a handful of dying cinders, or endeavouring to fan into flame a small heap of damp smoking sawdust Perhaps when they have not been happy enough to procure even that scanty fuel, they will be found, to the number of five or six—some well, some ill, and all bearing the aspect of pinching hunger—endeavouring to procure warmth by crouching ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... affirmed, he was dying there quite as much as because of his wound. Indeed, the chill chamber in the rock where he was lying was no fit place even for a well man at that time to dwell in; for the season of rains had come, and all the nights were cold and damp, while through the afternoons and in the night-time, during which portions of the day the rain fell in torrents, the whole mountain was shaken by the tremendous peals of thunder which roared ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... one final effort, and came down hard upon the middle of the floor. Rough it was, uncarpeted, cold with the damp chill of early morning. He groped for a match, and dressed rapidly in the dim light, his teeth chattering a diminishing accompaniment until ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... dining-rooms, and kitchens. In many cases the houses in which rooms were located were dilapidated dwellings with the paper torn off, the plaster sagging from the naked lath, windows broken, ceiling low and damp, and the whole room dark, stuffy and unsanitary. In a great number of cases, also, the houses had very poor water facilities and filthy toilet conditions, because of the total absence of sewerage connections. In spite of these conditions, however, rent charges for these quarters were comparatively ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... sent to the State prison, which was down a well in the big courtyard. There were two of these prison-wells, in which the water was reached by a flight of steep steps, and where dark, underground cells opened on to the deep silent pool. They were terribly damp, but here poor Foster-father had to drag out long, miserable days, cut off even from news of the others. Until one day, just when the sentry was eating his mid-day meal, he heard a violent barking, and by swinging ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel



Words linked to "Damp" :   moderate, wet, clamminess, wetness, hold, blunt, deafen, damp course, curb, check, rawness, hold in, contain, mute, dankness, weaken, control



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