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Drop off   /drɑp ɔf/   Listen
Drop off

verb
1.
Fall or diminish.
2.
Change from a waking to a sleeping state.  Synonyms: dope off, doze off, drift off, drowse off, fall asleep, flake out, nod off.
3.
Leave or unload.  Synonyms: discharge, drop, put down, set down, unload.  "Drop off the passengers at the hotel"
4.
Retreat.  Synonyms: fall back, fall behind, lose, recede.
5.
Get worse.  Synonyms: drop away, fall away, slip.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Drop off" Quotes from Famous Books



... down? It is as certain as anything based on experience can be, that in a few weeks, or even days, it would be possible for the employers to reduce the wages of the women-weavers; that rather than lose their work, women would consent to the reduction; that as they accepted lower wages, men would drop off to other industries, and would cease to compete for the same work; and that in a comparatively short time power-loom weaving would be left, like its sister, cotton-spinning, to women workers exclusively, ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... Tolto," he said, taking over the controls himself again, "before our tail's going to drop off. Got ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl

... to do so, and finally sat down again on the pavement. Seeing this, Royston got down, and lifting him up, helped him into the cab with some considerable difficulty. The deceased fell back into the cab, and seemed to drop off to sleep; so, after closing the door, Royston turned to remount his driving-seat, when he found the gentleman in the light coat whom he had seen holding up the deceased, close to his elbow. Royston said, 'Oh, you've come back,' and the other ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... at about the time of the "grand climacteric," the ninth septennial period, the sixty-third year. More and more freely she gives it, as the years go on, to her grey-haired children, until, if they last long enough, every faculty is benumbed, and they drop off quietly into sleep ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Maria (sunset); for it is their merciful custom never finally to turn the crucifix away from a man at that pass, as one refusing to be shriven, and consequently a sinner abandoned of the Saviour, until then. People began to drop off. The officers shrugged their shoulders and looked doubtful. The dragoons, who came riding up below our window, every now and then, to order an unlucky hackney- coach or cart away, as soon as it had comfortably established itself, and was covered with exulting people (but never before), ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... driving, I would almost drop off to sleep and my old mistress would shout, "Milton aren't you sleepy?". "No ma'am", I would reply, "Why, yes you are; I'll slap your jaws". My young mistress would then take the reins and tell me ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... vessels on cruize. These pirates take with them their wives and children, and stay out the whole summer. Their method is to join in fleets of 20 or 30 of these pirate vessels together, and then they form what they call a sea cordon,[NOTE 2] that is, they drop off till there is an interval of 5 or 6 miles between ship and ship, so that they cover something like an hundred miles of sea, and no merchant ship can escape them. For when any one corsair sights a vessel a signal is made by fire or smoke, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... dangling at his neck, but the cork was out, so were the leeches, and they, of course, had fixed themselves to the first body with which they had come in contact. This was Paddy's neck. They had just now begun to drop off, and streamlets of blood were running down from him in every direction. Poor Paddy was indeed a most pitiable object, with his hair all lank and wet hanging down his face, for he had lost his hat, ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... noiselessly as the beat of a bat's wing, two feet of ladder had shot up above the eaves, and even now an ardent lover was hasting aloft, dreaming of lispings and kissings to come. I mustn't frighten him too soon or too much or he'd drop off, but as soon as he was fairly on the slope he should sip the sweetness of lips of steel. So I crept back, got a pistol, and stood to ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... means to effect gradual death, but as mercury leaves traces discernible at an autopsy, it was decided that the body must be cremated promptly. Hence the cremation letter. It was hoped that Rice might drop off at any moment, owing to his weakened condition, and in anticipation of death Patrick discontinued his visits to the apartment in order to establish a satisfactory alibi. Jones also frequently absented himself from the apartment in the ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... when no enemy is near, the ripe fruits at last drop off of themselves, and scatter their seeds elastically in every direction. This they do simply in order to disseminate their kind in new and unoccupied spots, where the seedlings will root and find an opening in life for themselves. Observe, indeed, that the very word 'disseminate' implies a general ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... started his sheep again and commenced to count. He got up to one hundred and twenty, and was feeling as if he would drop off at any moment, when, just as his one hundred and twenty-first sheep was about to take that fence, the baby began ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... aware of me in a hurried, half-scared way, and apologise for putting me to all that trouble, and thank me. "I'll be all right d'reckly. Best take the horses up to the hut and have some breakfast; you'll find it by the fire. I'll foller you, d'reckly. The wife'll be waitin' an'——" He would drop off, and be going again ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson

... good night's rest rather appealed to me. So, after mixing myself a stiff peg, I undressed and got into bed, soothing my harassed mind with another chapter or two of H.G. Wells before attempting to go to sleep. So successful was this prescription that when I did drop off it was into a deep, dreamless slumber which was only broken by the appearance of Gertie 'Uggins with a cup of tea at ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... in with, 'Bravo, Johnny, bravo!' At last, after they have screamed themselves black in the face, and swung their arms and legs until they are ready to drop off, both combatants coolly walk off; and a couple of fresh hands rush in, assisted by the splendid Roman chorus, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... from the wounds, and five months later they were not entirely healed. It is bad policy to remove leeches forcibly in spite of the temptation to do so. The application of salt or tobacco juice makes them drop off, and the wounds are less severe, but few persons have the patience to wait after discovering a leech. The animal is not easily killed. The Dayaks always remove it with the sword edge and immediately cut ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... should drop off suddenly, you will find my will in the hands of Signor Antonio Nicolini, via Roma, Ventimiglia. He's a nice little Italian lawyer whom I've made my man of business lately. He has all my affairs in charge. It will be the greatest favour and kindness you can do me, if you will ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... with the early artists lead them into mediaevalism or Romanism, they will of course come to nothing. But I believe there is no danger of this, at least for the strongest among them. There may be some weak ones, whom the Tractarian heresies may touch; but if so, they will drop off like decayed branches from a strong stem. I hope ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... MacQueen is moving in that direction. He is evidently figuring to slip out over the hills during the night. I've arranged for us to be met at Barker's Tank by a couple of the boys, with horses. We'll drop off the train quietly when it slows up to water, so that none of his spies can get word of our movements to him. By hard riding we'd ought to reach Powderhorn in time ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... safely, would slip back from the sandy bank, and take an involuntary immersion. Some clung to the rear of the wagons, but in the middle of the stream the mules would become fractious, or the wagon would get jammed against a stone, and the unfortunate passengers were compelled to drop off and wade ashore, greeted by roars of derisive laughter. On such occasions soldiers give full play to their humor. They accept the hardships with good nature, and make the best of any ridiculous incident that may ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... particular in the matter of cleanliness. It suits him just as well to be dirty as to be clean. It is no exaggeration to say that numbers of Boers do not wash themselves from one week's end to another; and they wear their clothes until they drop off. It is always a matter for speculation what the womenfolks do. It is certain that they do not exert themselves too much, if at all, in their own homes. They generally do all the cooking and eating in one room, and in the other end of the ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann

... pursuing the many interesting historical remembrances which the portraits called up. Most of the company, upon this warning of the advanced hour, began to drop off; some to rest, and some upon the summons of the military duty which awaited them in their turn. In this way, Maximilian and Paulina were gradually left alone, and now at length found a time which had not before offered for communicating freely ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... all,' Jane said, 'in case father's hair began to come off suddenly. If he hadn't anything to put on it, it might all drop off before Eliza had time to get round to the chemist's for another bottle. It would be dreadful to have a bald father, and it ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... says is that sometimes it gets bad enough so that some of these nuts are caused to drop off. They seem ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... neck. My upper man resembles that of a dog-stealer, my lower man that of a bishop. My buttons are turning my hair grey. When I had more than one change of raiment these appendages remained in their places, now they drop off as though I were a moulting fowl. I have to pin myself together elaborately, and whenever I want to get anything out of my pocket I have cautiously to unpin myself, with the dread of falling to pieces before my eyes. ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... common lore among hackers (and in the electronics industry at large; this term is possibly techspeak by now) that the chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's time since first use (that is, until the relatively distant time at which enough mechanical wear in I/O devices and thermal-cycling stress in components has accumulated for the machine to start going senile). Up to half of all chip and wire failures ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... net was being prepared, those children of the forest had merely stood by and looked on with curiosity. When Blondin and his men rowed out from the shore, letting the net drop off the stern of our boat as they went, they indulged in a few guesses and undertoned remarks. When the boat gradually swept round and turned shoreward again, having left a long line of floats in its wake, they perceived that a large sheet of water had been enclosed, ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... at from any other standpoint it was rather raw of me," admitted Dicky. "But let's forget it. She'll probably drop off the train at Forest Hills or Kew Gardens, she looks like the product of those suburbs, and I'll never see ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... had freshened considerably since sunset, began to blow with greater force, veering, or "backing" as sailors say, more and more round to the north; so that, although our yards were braced up to the full and the vessel was sailing almost close-hauled, we had to drop off a point or two within the next half-hour ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... from material which is inside them, and lie through rain and freezing cold for months. A year from egg laying they come out like this, and begin the process all over again. They don't eat, they don't see distinctly, they live but a few days, and fly only at night; then they drop off easy, but the process ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... he's mighty deceivin'. Most of his men folks died when they was about his age. Suthin' the matter with the fam'ly that causes 'em to drop off along about then." ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read

... tree, I might not be able to ascend it again, and might become a prey to wild beasts or rattlesnakes, as I felt that I could not stand for a moment, much less walk a yard. Having fastened my rifle to a branch, I secured one of my arms round another, that I might not drop off, and at last fell into a deep sleep. Next morning I awoke, feeling much better, though very hungry. As I lay without moving, I observed a racoon playing about a branch close to me. "Although there may be ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston

... before she closed her eyes, spending the hours in fancy where still less she would have slept. But when she did drop off she dreamed that he and she were alone upon a star, where all the trees were white, the water, grass, birds, everything, white, and they were walking arm in arm, among white flowers. And just as she had stooped to pick one—it was no ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... desperately, "I don't mind a sleepless night. I'm used to 'em. But usually I can drop off at five, for a little while. And that's been going on—well, I don't know how long. It's driving me crazy. Blanche, you fool, stop that hand wringing! I tell you there's no such thing as ghosts. Now you"—she turned ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... the case, I will send these men to you"; whereupon the officers, highly delighted at the prospect of coming to see me, and its consequence a present, n'yanzigged until I thought their hands would drop off. Then her majesty to my thorough annoyance, and before I had finished half I had to say, rose from her seat, and, showing her broad stern to the company, walked straight away. The officers then drew near me, and begged I would sleep there another ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... throwing himself down on the sward, "we must hand it to you Go-Aheads. You've got us 'way out on the limb, and if you shake the tree very hard we'll drop off." ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... the extremities are most severely attacked. The fingers, after being drawn in like claws, begin to fester. They do not drop off, but seem rather to be absorbed, the nails following the stumps down; and I actually saw finger-nails on a hand that had no fingers. The nails were on the knuckles; the fingers had ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... last one to drop off. Yet he had barely more than lost himself in slumberland when there came a blast so close at hand that, to the boys, it seemed as though they must have been blown ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... last he did not feel them at all. He thought this very nice, and he told one of the big boys. "Why, your feet are frozen!" said the big boy, and he dragged off my boy's skates, and the little one ran all the long mile home, crazed with terror, and not knowing what moment his feet might drop off there in the road. His mother plunged them in a bowl of ice-cold water, and then rubbed them with flannel, and so thawed them out; but that could not save him from the pain of their coming to: it was intense, and there must have been ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... tell you, madam, you're abused. Stick to you? Ay, like a leech, to suck your best blood; she'll drop off when she's full. Madam, you shan't pawn a bodkin, nor part with a brass counter, in composition for me. I defy 'em all. Let 'em prove their aspersions: I know my own innocence, ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... there is a Holy Thorn which is still believed to blossom exactly at twelve o'clock on Twelfth Night. "The blossoms are thought to open at midnight, and drop off about an hour afterwards. A piece of thorn gathered at this hour brings luck, if kept for the rest of the year." As recently as 1908 about forty people went to see the thorn blossom at this time (see E. M. Leather, "The Folk-Lore ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... bitterly resent having my sleep curtailed in the slightest degree, held no brief against circumstances. In fact, I rather revelled in the promise of nocturnal distraction. Fearing, however, that I might drop off to sleep at three or four o'clock and thereby run the risk of over sleeping, I dashed off to the head of the stairs and ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... anxious to save wages. What you want is a partner to keep your books, a young man with energy who will look after your interests—and his own. You're just wearing yourself to skin and bone; soon you'll go into a decline, and drop off the hooks." ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... Rains, the Grass and Woods are full of them. These Leaches seize upon the Legs of Travellers; who going barefoot according to the custom of that Land, have them hanging upon their Legs in multitudes, which suck their blood till their bellies are full, and then drop off. They come in such quantities, that the people cannot pull them off so fast as they crawl on. The blood runs pouring down their Legs all the way they go, and 'tis no little smart neither, so that they would willingly be without them if they could, especially those that have sores on their Legs; ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... sing, and perhaps you'll drop off; then the day will seem shorter," said Rose, taking up a fan ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... no feet left," said poor Frau von Walden. "I am only conscious of two red-hot balls attached somehow to my ankles. I daresay they will drop off soon." ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth

... Eden their high place, But listened to the voice Of knowledge without power, Are nigh the hour, 80 Of Death! Not slow, not single, not by sword, nor sorrow, Nor years, nor heart-break, nor Time's sapping motion, Shall they drop off. Behold their last to-morrow! Earth shall be Ocean! And no breath, Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave! Angels shall tire their wings, but find no spot: Not even a rock from out the liquid grave Shall lift its point to save, 90 Or show the place where ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... to enterprises simply because Negroes are the projectors, but we soon begin to cast about for reasons for our patronage, and if we find none to outweigh self-interest we soon drop off. But if we find good reason for our support, we soon lose the idea of race pride, in the greater idea that our merchant ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... defences undermined and fallen. He could have wept with vexation at the scurvy tricks sleep played him. Then he would drop off and dream of her again; combing her hair in the firelight; leading him by the hand through forests; paddling him down rivers; but ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... the poems in "Lustra" have offended admirers of the verse of the "Personae" period. When a poet alters or develops, many of his admirers are sure to drop off. Any poet, if he is to survive as a writer beyond his twenty-fifth year, must alter; he must seek new literary influences; he will have different emotions to express. This is disconcerting to that public which likes a poet to spin his whole work out of the feelings ...
— Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot

... to the stove, and would have liked to drop off to sleep. The tension of the talk at supper had made me very tired. I was accepted by these men for exactly what I professed to be. Stumm might suspect me of being a rascal, but it was a Dutch rascal. But all the same I was skating ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... every day his mind had been constantly on this business of escape. Even during the reading, to which he fled to protect his reason, it was the motive of every chapter, and he would drop off in the middle of a page into a reverie, and grow inwardly excited over some wild plan that mapped itself out completely in ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... clogged and stopped up with earthy and other matter; they cease to do their work any longer; the hot sun dries them up more and more, and by the time the frost comes they are as good as dead. That finishes them, and they drop off from the branch that needs them no more. Do ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... and amongst us, he is handsome certainly, but oh, is it possible he is—he is stupid?" When she lighted the lamp and looked at him, did Psyche find Cupid out; and is that the meaning of the old allegory? The wings of love drop off at this discovery. The fancy can no more soar and disport in skyey regions, the beloved object ceases at once to be celestial, and remains plodding on ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... "Do not let yourself drop off for a moment, old fellow," I said; "as long as any prowling animal sees you moving about around the fire he'll not venture to make an attack; but should you slumber for a moment, it is impossible to say ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston

... bark shrivels and falls off. Belts miles in extent are thus killed and left standing with the branches on, peeled and rigid, appearing gray in the distance, like misty clouds. Later the branches drop off, leaving a forest of bleached spars. At length the roots decay, and the forlorn trunks are blown down during some storm, and piled one upon another encumbering the ground until they are consumed by the next fire, and leave it ready ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... weeks. But at last, one evening, it was apparent that some change was at hand: the army stirred and shook itself as a great animal moves and stretches, not knowing if it will awake or drop off to sleep again. ...
— "A Soldier Of The Empire" - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page

... which Phaenomena I imagine to be no other then this, That the Parts of the Glass being by the excessive heat of the fire kept off and separated one from another, and thereby put into a kind of sluggish fluid consistence, are suffered to drop off with that heat or agitation remaining in them, into cold Water; by which means the outsides of the drop are presently cool'd and crusted, and are thereby made of a loose texture, because the parts of it have not time to settle themselves leisurely together, and so to lie very ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... for you, Mrs. Horton," she said, "and the nurse thought if you would mind coming in to see her she would drop off to sleep." ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt

... in a sardonic way. "I'm not a bit afraid of that—not a bit in the world. You can't afford it. These high-toned friends you've been making might drop off a little if they heard ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... I saw Little Ramsey drop off the limb of a tree astride of a horse that was tied beneath, then lean over, and with one stroke of ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... Naples, called Tophana, who used a tasteless liquid, named after her Aqua Tophana, killed with it 600 people before she was discovered to be a murderess. The complete secrecy in which these foreigners shrouded their operations—people seeming to drop off around them as if by the silent operation of natural causes—was what made their machinations so frightful. Poisoning, however, is a cowardly as well as a cruel crime, which has never taken strong root in English habits; and, as we have observed, the poisoners on this ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various

... hurry for him to get married? Marriage is not that sort of thing, it's not like ripe raspberries that drop off if not picked ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy

... his best to relieve the negro, giving him the few simple remedies at hand, in the hope that he would drop off to sleep. Sure enough, in the course of half an hour Sam did fall asleep, and when he awoke, an hour later, was well; and, fully appreciating Jim's kind attentions, said to him, leaning on his enormous elbow ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... Adeline,—I haven't been able to write before. There's been a lot of fighting all round here and we're frightfully busy getting in wounded. And when you've done you're too tired to sit up and write letters. You simply roll into bed and drop off to sleep. Sometimes we're out with ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... ants lay up their winter provisions. These living honey-combs do not do anything; they are too heavy for that. They only hang by their feet to the ceiling of one of the under-ground rooms. If one of them happens to drop off, one of the other ants picks him up and drags him back again. It is no light task, either, for one of these little fellows to carry a great bag of honey, fifty times his own weight, up a perpendicular ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... and lighter in color until it is cream colored and little thicker than milk. It has a most offensive odor and may contain clumps of curd. Later it contains mucus and gas bubbles. It sticks to the hair of the tail and buttocks, causing the hair to drop off and the skin to become irritated. There may be pain on passing dung and also abdominal or colicky pain. The calf stands about with the back arched and belly contracted. There may be tympanites. Great weakness ensues in severe cases, and without ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... among the male lambs some with small horns." The horns, which thus occasionally reappear in other polled breeds, either "grow to the full size, or are curiously attached to the skin alone and hang loosely down, or drop off."[66] The Galloways and Suffolk cattle have been hornless for the last 100 or 150 years, but a horned calf, with the horn often ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... up with us last night—she's very good, is Mrs. Wallop—but first thing this morning Bunny came along to fetch her to his wife, and she'd hardly got out o' sight when poor Tom stretched hisself like a bairn that's waked up and is going to drop off to sleep again, an' with one great sigh was dead. Miss Wort comes most mornings: ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... dungeon of a body. I am wrong to call it a dungeon, for it lies open to God's fair world, and the loveliness of the earth comes into me through eyes and ears just as well as into you. Still it is a pleasant thought that it will drop off me some day. But for prayer—I think all will pray there more than here—in their hearts ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... on deck, and when Peter's watch was over, wet and weary he was glad to go below; but when he lay down in his narrow berth, the fearful blows which struck again and again on the bows of the ship prevented him from sleeping. When he did at last drop off he was quickly aroused by another blow, heavier than the former, which made him fancy that the brig must have struck a rock; but on she again went, battling her way across ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston

... they learnt that we were merely going to a house beyond, and intended to return peaceably, consented to accompany us. The crowd, which might rather be called a mob, thought proper not to offer us any violence in the presence of the soldiers, and after following us a little distance, began to drop off, until all had disappeared. One of the soldiers, however, soon after remarked, that he observed a man following us, whom he had seen in the crowd, and proposed that instead of both of them going before us, one should walk behind, to guard against any design he might have. This was done; ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... slept for three nights, the doctor left powders which I was to give him for Saturday night. Still he could not sleep. He thought that, if I read aloud to him in a monotonous tone of voice, he could perhaps drop off. I got a high-school copy of "From Milton to Tennyson," and read every sing-songy poem I could find—"The Ancient Mariner" twice, hardly pronouncing the words as I droned along. Then he began to ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... I'm too thirsty. Did drop off once for two or three minutes, and dreamed of rivers, waterfalls, springs, and wells that ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis

... a larger proportion of the bin, conditions deteriorate for the worms. Eventually the worms suffer and their number and activity begins to drop off. Differences in bedding, temperature, moisture, and the composition of your kitchen's garbage will control how long it takes but eventually you must separate the worms from their castings and put them into fresh bedding. If you're using vermicomposting ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... incidents of this section of the Union are quite attractive, and, while general history has cognizance of the leading events, there is much in the local keeping of old men who are ready to drop off. There is more in the aboriginal history and languages that invites attention, while the modern history—the exploration and settlement of the country, and the leading incidents which are turning a wilderness into abodes of civilization—is replete with matter ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... increase, we shall hope to extend the circle of our inquiries, and we solicit those communications and assistances which the extent and utility of our plan require and deserve. Notices will be given of all who drop off by death and marriage, and of those whose value may be unexpectedly increased by a legacy, or a sister or brother's decease. Particular attention will be paid to rich widows.—The first part of this truly useful work is nearly ready for the press; and we flatter ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various

... at the rate of thirty years' rent as purchase money. They are paying now a rent and a half yearly, but hope is in the distance and cheers them on. So if they have a millstone about their necks, as my Moville friend insinuated, it will drop off some day and leave them free for ever. Some of them have ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... right on that point of rocks where you can see the whole valley," said the driver in answer to many questions, "right where the heavy grade is and the thick chaparral. We was busy climbing; and he had us before we could wink. Made us drop off the dust and 'bout face. He was a big, tall feller; and had a sawed-off Winchester. Once, when we stopped, he dropped a bullet right behind us. He must have watched us ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... end even to the merriest meetings; and when they had kept it up until the night had got among the small hours, they began to drop off. And here, amid the adieus of departing guests, we will take our leave of the young couple; for it is far pleasanter to bid farewell to those whose friendship we have cherished when hope is strong and bright, than when care or ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... found that numbers of the extremely minute and just-hatched shells crawled on the feet, and clung to them so firmly that when taken out of the water they could not be jarred off, though at a somewhat more advanced age they would voluntarily drop off. These just hatched molluscs, though aquatic in their nature, survived on the duck's feet, in damp air, from twelve to twenty hours; and in this length of time a duck or heron might fly at least six or seven hundred miles, and would be sure to alight on a pool or rivulet, ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... ever so hard. Now and then she would rouse a little, and catch the sound of voices, or be aware that Clover or Elsie stood at the door, crying softly; or that Aunt Izzie, in creaking slippers, was going about the room on tiptoe. Then all these things would slip away again, and she would drop off into a dark place, where there was nothing but pain, and sleep, which made her forget pain, and so seemed the best thing in ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge

... over here and drive Jerry away," cried Ruth, hearing them. "I've been sitting in this apple tree holding up my feet until they're ready to drop off." ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... drop off, old man?" grinned Tom. "Don't worry. We X-rayed 'em and no struts have been filed nor ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton

... would do what the sultans do, and clear the estate by chopping off all his younger brothers' heads at once; and so the case is, more or less, with them all. I tell you they are all Turks in their hearts. Pooh! sir, they know the world." And here, haply, a great man coming up, Tom Eaves's hat would drop off his head, and he would rush forward with a bow and a grin, which showed that he knew the world too—in the Tomeavesian way, that is. And having laid out every shilling of his fortune on an annuity, Tom could ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... precedent or parallel? Had not Sir Joshua Reynolds a studio full of young artists who "finished off" his pictures? Were not the very faces themselves painted with such rapidity and want of proper method as to drop off, on occasion, entirely from the canvas, as in case of the boy's head, in being carried through the street? Hunt is of our own age, and would scorn the suggestion of having a hand or a foot painted for him, as if it were a matter of small importance what individual expression a hand or a foot ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... and drop off; but societies are immortal: their resentments are sometimes delivered down from hand to hand; and when once they have begun with a man, there is no knowing when they ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... said Joe, turning an ashen face to Shefford. "We'll drop off the earth now. Hang on to the girl, so if we go you can go together.... And, pard, if you've ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... hinted, my attempts in the sleep line proved a failure, for whenever I did drop off I was pursued by bad dreams, which resulted from lying down so soon after supper. I heard the cries of desperate men in their mortal agony. I saw a rain-swollen river; its waters were red with blood. I beheld a vision of one ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... events in the family did not stop there. After birth, death stepped in for its due. Isidro's relatives began to drop off in rapid sequence—each demise demanding three days of meditation in retirement—till at last the Maestro, who had had the excellent idea of keeping upon paper a record of these unfortunate occurrences, was looking with stupor upon a list showing that Isidro had lost, within three weeks, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... folks is scared, and some more thinks it is all nonsense and laughs. But there's something we haven't got the hang of.' It makes me think o' them little black polliwogs that turns into frogs in the fresh-water puddles in the ma'sh. There's a time before their tails drop off and their legs have sprouted out, when they don't get any use o' their legs, and I dare say they're in their way consider'ble; but after they get to be frogs they find out what they're for without no kind of ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... the soft winds of summer,] [Sidenote B: beautiful are the flowers wet with dew-drops.] [Sidenote C: But harvest approaches soon,] [Sidenote D: and drives the dust about.] [Sidenote E: The leaves drop off the trees,] [Sidenote F: the grass becomes gray, and all ripens and rots.] [Sidenote G: Winter winds round again,] [Sidenote H: and then Sir Gawayne thinks of ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous

... I will suit up, so our skins won't show at night, and have our Scuba equipment on. Harris could come by and take the runabout in tow with us in it. We would drop off near the creek entrance and push the runabout into the channel where it would be hidden. Then we would swim into the cove and recover the object. With two of us, it would be a cinch to find the ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... depth and strength of his potations. The skipper cut away a section of the leg of his heavy woollen trousers, prodded and pried at the injured limb with his strong fingers until the fracture was found, put a couple of strong splints in place, and bandaged them so that they were not likely to drop off, to say the least. He then made a sling of a blanket and sent his drunken patient swaying and twirling aloft in it to the top of the cliff. The other injured persons went ashore in the same way, one by one, like bales of sail-cloth. ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... She's a restless adventurous person, and she's always running away from the other gods. For you see the Soul has need of human love, and, of course, gods that are nothing but gods can't appreciate that. Now when she gets to earth her wings drop off. And when she tries to get back to the gods, she can't until she finds another love as great as hers. For two souls that love become more than human; and when their earthly course is run (as Doctor Watts says), it gives them wings again, and back ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker

... I have a natural antipathy to the internal arrangements of Mother Earth. I might almost say a delicacy about gazing on such exposure. Anyhow, we shall all get underground soon enough; and I usually drop off when our party prepares to explore dark, horrible, smelly underground places that have no possible claim (I hold) for the normal being ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... tawny coat changed, as the cold weather came on, to a thick and woolly fur, which was very comfortable during the damp, cold weather. But, when the summer came again, the thick, woolly fur began to drop off and he resumed his summer ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin

... thrust in air, and two thousand Jewish throats uttered the oath: "If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither and drop off from this ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... have his life shortened from 40 to 60 per cent. For instance if he is twenty years old and does not drink beer he may reasonably expect to live until he is 61. If he is a beer-drinker he will probably not live to be over 35. If he is 30 years old when he begins to drink beer he will probably drop off somewhere between 40 and 45 instead of living to 64 as he should. There is no sentiment, prejudice or assertion about these figures. They are simply cold-blooded business facts, derived from experience, and the companies invest their money on them just the same as a man pays so many dollars for ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... reflect, "we all do fade." Whatever our circumstances or connections, the inevitable dominion of death extends over all. The leaves may occupy a higher or a lower station on the tree, they may be suspended on the loftiest or the lowliest branches—but they all drop off; and we may be rich or poor, learned or illiterate, young or old, the house of the grave is "appointed for all living." Providence in mercy permits the union of families long to remain unbroken; and, at length, in mercy too—whatever the suggestions of despondency—dissolves ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... of a regiment of the American regulars, and he spoke of the want of discipline among the volunteers as hopeless. But even he instanced it chiefly by their want of cleanliness. "They wear their shirts till they drop off their backs," said he; "and what can you expect from such men as that?" I liked that sergeant for his zeal and intelligence, and also for his courtesy when he found that I was an Englishman; for previous to his so finding he had begun to ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... Madam. But I'll tell you all I know. I left you for several reasons. I knew my main errand with you was done. My post is out beyond, up the Missouri. I was on my way there when I got orders to take you with me, as you know. I concluded to drop off and send a telegraphic report to Washington, and to ask consent to go on out to my post. I saw your note to Dunwody. You had then chosen a new jailer. I thought, since he was better known in this country than myself, your reputation would be safer in his hands than mine. But as ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... bed I will have the windows closed," said the nurse, "and of course she must be well wrapped up in blankets. She may drop off to sleep again in my arms; anyhow, the change of position and the slight movement will be most refreshing to her. Will you make the bed and put on clean sheets while I am walking about with ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade

... finish me, but striking almost blindly he twice missed me altogether, and the third time, by a sudden twist, I took a blow on my shoulder that would otherwise have pierced my throat. When he raised his dagger again something flashed. I saw his hand with the dagger he held in it drop off, and then the man himself fell on me, and I was like to be stifled with his weight, when my preserver ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... you every day and longed to hear how you were getting on, and whether you lived through that dreadful weather. Annie went with the children to Williamstown about the middle of June; I nearly killed myself with getting them ready to go and could see the flesh drop off my bones. George and I went to Newport on what Mrs. Bronson called our "bridal trip," and stayed eleven days. Mr. and Mrs. McCurdy were kindness personified. We came home and preached on the first Sunday in ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I ham so glad you just ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... I suppose the pie is all gone. So, if you feel you have to go, too.... Good-bye, Pete. Maybe you know, Cochise, it's sometimes a sign of bad luck to look back or drop off your horse." ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... reader of The Death-Wake would perhaps have expected the leprosies and lunacies to drop off, and the genius, purged of its accidents, to move into a pure transparency. The abnormal, the monstrous, the boyish elements should have been burned away in the fire of the genius of poetry. But the Muses did not so will ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... my small brain grew dizzy as I tried to imagine a place so remote as their destination. It was, I finally decided, at the uttermost ends of the earth, and it seemed quite possible that the brave adventurers who reached it might then drop off into space. Fifty years later I was talking to a California girl who complained lightly of the monotony of a climate where the sun shone and the flowers bloomed all the year around. "But I had a delightful ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... a good view of the neighborhod, and readily scent approaching danger. Nor does he drop off immediately in a sound sleep, like a turtle-fed alderman; but rather, like a suspicious, blood- thirsty land pirate, as he is, he first snatches hastily "forty winks," then starts up nervously, for several times, scanning all around with his ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... interview with Doctor Cuyler, Brian was looking done up, and I persuaded him to lie down and rest. No one else could have slept, after so heavy a blow of disappointment, without a drug, but Brian is a law unto himself. He said if I would sit by him and read, he'd feel at peace, and would drop off into a doze. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and I hadn't glanced yet at the newspaper we had bought in the morning. I took it up, to please Brian with the rustling of the pages, not expecting to concentrate upon a line but instantly my eyes were ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... until we had caught up with Jack Frost, there would be nothing but ice excepting in small places in a river where the water runs too swiftly to freeze. We would just have to drop into one of these to rest a little, because we had flown so far that our wings ached as if they would drop off. Then just as we would think we were safe for a little while, there would come the bang of a terrible gun. Then we would have to fly again as long as we could, and finally come back to the same place because there was no other place where we could go. Then we would have to do it ...
— The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack • Thornton W. Burgess

... if she had never been seen. And then, to let you into another secret, Aurora was by no means a very entertaining companion: nobody can be, with their heads full of themselves: and she had often the mortification, even in that scene of her triumph, a ball-room, of feeing her admirers drop off, to amuse themselves with other people; less handsome perhaps, but more interesting ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty

... "but if yer the man I take yer for, we'll soon 'ave the pot a-boiling. Many's the weary night I've spent in bed thinkin' about you w'en I might 'ave bin snorin'. That reminds me. Did y'ever notice yer can niver tell exactly w'en yer drop off? I've tried all I know, but ye're awake one minit, an' chasin' a butterfly wi' a cow's 'ead the next. But that ain't wot I'm a-talkin' about. Paasch 'e's blue mouldy, an' couldn't catch a snail unless yer give 'im a start; an' if yer went ter Packard's, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... turned occasionally to look back upon them with a rallying gesture. This gesture was repeated by Said to the little boys, whose legs were very weary with the distance they had walked. They would increase their speed for a few rods, and then gradually drop off again. Jack contrived to linger more and more ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... newspaper saturated with oil, will do for the time being; if a wheel has to be taken off, a fence-rail makes an excellent jack; if a chain is to be riveted, an axe or even a stone makes a good dolly-bar and your wrench an excellent riveting hammer; if screws, or nuts, or bolts drop off, —and they do,—and you have no extra, a glance at the machine is sure to disclose duplicates that can be removed temporarily ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... even have to guess more than once. He's a nice lookin' boy, ain't he? Sort of fine cut and tight built, and clean and decent looking. I'd been thinkin' of that, too; thinkin' he didn't look like the others I've seen drop off so sudden it left me gasping. Nor like them who went over so screamin' mad it left my palms wet and clammy from hangin' on to myself while they were going. He looked different, settin' here and staring into the fire, and hell burning inside him, and saying nothing. I sort of got to figurin' ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... of gravity is stronger, would not all the water drop off, leaving your finger dry? If the pull of adhesion is the stronger, would not all the water stay on your ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... toes began to drop off one by one and range themselves like the rungs of a ladder; but when the toes of one foot had gone to their places the ladder was tall enough. So Nix Naught Nothing climbed up it, reached the nest, and got the seven eggs. Now, as he was coming down with the last, he was ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel

... this country, they had all been inoculated against it. This is done by cutting a slit in the tail of an ox, and binding in a piece of the diseased lung of an animal which has died of the sickness. The result is that the ox sickens, takes the disease in a mild form, which causes its tail to drop off, as a rule about a foot from the root, and becomes proof against future attacks. It seems cruel to rob the animal of his tail, especially in a country where there are so many flies, but it is better to sacrifice ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... sharp pain stabbed his groin, as though he had been stuck by a penknife; each time he bent his ankle in the recover the mal de raquette twisted his calves, and stretched his ankle tendons until he felt that his very feet were insecurely attached and would drop off. During the evening he sat quiet, but after he had fallen asleep from the mere exhaustion of the day's toil, he doubled up, straightened out, groaned aloud, and spoke rapidly in the strained voice of one who suffers. Often he would strip his legs by the fire, ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White

... to me, because of mine iniquity; for I have tempted the living God, and my hand is ready to drop off. ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... Norton bluntly, "is the only man I can think of who has pasture to rent. Drop Off Valley, just up in the ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... the hill. He whirled round. The enemy was behind them also. There was no retreat. "Yourn's no good!" yelled Jones, fiercely, for Cumnor was getting out his little, foolish revolver. "Oh, what a trick to play on a man! Drop off yer horse, kid; drop, and do like me. Shootin's no good here, even if I was loaded. They shot, and look at them now. God bless them ice-cream freezers of yourn, kid! Did y'u ever see a crazy man? If you 'ain't, make it up as y'u ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... broke and the beads were scattered all over the floor, the green kerchief slipped off, and Lyubka was transformed into a red cloud flitting by and flashing black eyes, and it seemed as though in another second Merik's arms and legs would drop off. ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... present; they put a silver watch in his pocket, and dressed him in a jacket with gilt buttons. He had a bouquet of flowers to take home every day to that marvelous sister of whom he spoke so often; and there were times when the whole committee, seeing him drop off to sleep as he often did through frail and weary nature, sat silently watching lest he might be wakened before his rest was over. But no persuasion could take him off the floor of Congress. In that solemn old Hall of Representatives, ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... whatever. There is, however, this deviation from the tragic model, that there are frequently, in the same comedy, several choruses which sometimes are present together, singing in response, or at other times come on alternately and drop off, without the least general reference to each other. The most remarkable peculiarity, however, of the comic chorus is the Parabasis, an address to the spectators by the chorus, in the name, and as the representative of the poet, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... insects and fruits just as my relations do, but I like best to eat acorns. You know, if I left the acorns on the trees and just got enough to eat at one time, after a while I would have a hard time finding any. They would drop off and roll away and get lost among the leaves and grasses. What would you do ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... there is taste in the selection of flowers as well as everything else, and were I a girl of sixteen I should wear some rosebuds in my bosom, but at five-and-twenty I think it would be more apropos to wear a full-blown rose, quite ripe, and ready to drop off the stalk for want of being pulled—heigh-ho!" "But pray, my lady," said I, "how do you like the concert?" "Alas!" said she, languishingly, while she laid her hand upon my shoulder, "what are these bodiless sounds and vibration to me? and yet what an exquisite sweetness in the songs of the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... certain lines. The biological tree behaves like another tree, branches die and drop off (species become extinct), others mature and remain, while some central shoot pushes upward. Many of the huge reptilian and mammalian branches perished in ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... what I'll do for the future. Every button you have may drop off, and I won't so much as put a thread to 'em. And I should like to know what you'll do then? Oh, you must get somebody else to sew 'em, must you? That's a pretty threat for a husband to hold out to a wife! And to such ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold

... very mischievous; he even played a cruel trick on Nox while he was asleep. As he sat near to him he kept lightly pricking the dog's lips with a fine needle. The dog would half wake up, shake his head, rub his lips with his paws, and then drop off to sleep again. ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin

... taken up and the wire grew taut—so taut it would have twanged like a fiddle-string if it had been struck. Jennings did not give Smaltz the sign to stop even when the cross-arm cracked. Without a word of protest Bruce watched the stout four-by-five splinter and drop off. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... the Geraniums, as having only five antherae, though several of those he thus describes have to our certain knowledge ten, the five lowermost of which shedding their pollen first, often drop off, and leave the filaments apparently barren: but in this species (with us at least) there never are more than five, but betwixt each stamen, there is a broad pointed barren filament or squamula, scarcely to be ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. I - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... half of the day was far from enjoyable. The morning was magnificent, but the light too dazzling, the sun too fierce. As soon as I got out I felt as if I should drop off the horse. My large handkerchief kept the sun from my neck, but the fierce heat caused soul and sense, brain and eye, to reel. I never saw or felt the like of it. I was at a height of 12,000 feet, where, of course, the air was highly rarefied, and the snow was so pure and dazzling that I was ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... ov yur Bible oaths," snarled Betsey, "but I knaw you'd kipt to what yer promised. Ef you ded'n, I'd make yer flesh drop off yer boans bit by bit; I'd make yer joints twist wrong way 'bout; I'd make 'ee suffer pains wuss'n the fires ov the bottomless pit; ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... even as the illustration of that fame. They conspire together like so many little Frankensteins. The world is treated with a very small proportion of very small jockeys; they never increase beyond a certain number, which proves they are not born in the regular way: as the old ones drop off, the young ones just fill their places, and not one to spare. Whoever heard of a "mob of jockeys," a glut of "light-weights," or even ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various

... the subject enrollment for the above percentages. Otherwise the enrollments taken are for the beginning of each semester and inclusive of all the pupils. These percentages rise from 11.5 in the first semester to 15.3 in the sixth semester. Then the percentages drop off, doubtless due to the increasing effect by this time of the non-failing graduates on the total enrollment. The graduates alone are next ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien

... people scared; after that, dull policy-business till next fire. Town like this don't have fires often enough—a fellow strikes so many dull weeks in a row that he gets discouraged. But you bet you, this is the business! People don't wait for examples to die. No, sir, they drop off right along—there ain't any dull spots in the undertaker line. I just started in with two or three little old coffins and a hired hearse, and now look at the thing! I've worked up a business here ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... and drop spoonfuls of mixture on paper, same distance apart. Bake very slowly in very moderate oven. Remove and let cool; then take paper out with the macaroons, turn over and place hot cloths on wrong; side, when cakes will drop off. ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum

... the epithelial cells in the deeper layers, apparently being taken into some of the superficial cells by imbibition. Some of the swollen surface cells open spontaneously and discharge their contents, others drop off. The process causes a roughening of the surface of the cornea and produces a faint haziness. There is another form of haziness that develops on sudden rise in tension and completely disappears on subsidence of the tension. This is due, as has been shown by V. Fleischl (Sitzungsberichle d. Weiner ...
— Glaucoma - A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago - Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 • Various

... observed, that this operation always took place on the left hand of the females; but this child was an exception, for it was the little finger on the right hand on which the ligature was applied: this bandage was continued until the finger was ready to drop off, when its parents carried it to the surgeon, who, at their request, separated it with ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... isn't it better, even as you put it," protested the minister, "dat Mis Buggone's business should drop off an' yours too, dan dat you should drop off youselves? Howsumever, I see de force ob what you both say, and we mus' try ter hit upon a golden mean. I reckon dar's a way by which you can both keep your business and yet keep youselves ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... nearly come to that, McCrae. I saw a lawyer—one of the best in the business. He says the odds are against us. They will appeal and appeal—carry it up to the highest court. Meanwhile our land will be dry likely. We're out on a limb. If we hang on they shoot, and if we drop off ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... must watch against heart backsliding. When soldiers drop off from knee-drill; when they are not found in the ranks in bad weather; when they no longer remain to the prayer meetings; when they come only now and then to the week-night services; and when they cease to testify as frequently, heartily, ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter

... there seem to be no facilities for ameliorating this unpleasant condition here. I am told that in six months or a year the new-comer becomes acclimated; I do not regard that as encouraging. So I am heading for New Orleans. But we drop off at Los Angeles to admit of my being with you long enough to write the memoir of dear Mrs. Gray—a duty to which I shall apply myself with melancholy pleasure. I think we shall arrive Thursday morning. I hope you are all well, and that Miss Eva has not yet been carried off by any pirate ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... process is to be repeated, until a sufficient number of stitches are formed as are necessary, according to the width of the net desired. As the mesh is filled, some of the loops must be suffered to drop off; and when the row is completed, it must be drawn out, and a row of loops will be found suspended from the foundation by their respective knots, and moving freely onwards. The work is then to be turned over, which will cause the ends of the rows to be reversed; and in netting a second ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous

... showed 10:17 when the wheels began to grind from the setting of the air brakes. He was in the last sleeper, Dick in the day coach near the front. They had agreed that Dick was to drop off as soon as the train slowed down enough to make it safe, whereas Curly would go on and play Sam's part ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... Their journey through town was not long; through Fifty-eighth to Lexington; down Lexington in the car tracks to Thirty-ninth, and East again. In Thirty-ninth street the car slowed down and Evan held himself in readiness to drop off. ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... nights and heavy sleep-burdened days. Night was too strange—in barns, beneath hay-ricks, in little oppressive rooms, in stable-lofts—for him to sleep easily at first; and between his tramps, or in the dinner-hour, when he managed to get work, he would drop off in the hot sunshine down into depths of that kind of rest that is like the sea itself—glimmering gulfs, lit by glimpses of consciousness of the grass beneath his cheek, the bubble of bird-song in the copses, stretching down into profound ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... meekly nod and say: "Yes, sir, boss." Do you have to do that? Oh, no, you could drop off the team if you didn't like the conditions, but you don't want to drop off and you comply with the conditions. You surprise yourself by your self-control. You are in on that game, and you're in to win. It is the event of the season. It will be the thrill of a lifetime to win. So you ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith

... hunger. Being out of the path, I could only hope to attract attention from passers-by by shouting as I heard the sound of their horses' footsteps. This I could do as long as I retained my senses, but I might, I feared, drop off into a state of stupor, and those who might have released me might be close at hand without my ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston

... confidential, and showed the cloven foot, if possible, more undisguisedly than he had hitherto done. He spoke of the impossibility of allowing four hundred a year to be carried off from him, and suggested to Daly that his sister would soon drop off,—that there would then be a nice thing left, and that he, Daly, should have the agency, and if he pleased, the use of Dunmore House. As for himself, he had no idea of mewing himself up in such a hole as that; but, before he went, he'd take care to drive that villain, Moylan, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... examine it well we shall find it is very curious, and all the men in the world could not make one like it. Goose feathers are the most useful; the small ones make stuffing for pillows and beds, and the large ones make pens to write with. Birds change their feathers often; they drop off and they get new ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... git in," said Brevoort. "It's gittin' dark—and we got one chanct. When she slows down, we go into the baggage-car there and tell the boss we're lookin' for our war-bag, which we didn't have. Jest about the time she stops, we drop off. The ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... paused, out of breath, and Miss Ellen shook a bright drop off the lace that lay in her lap, as she said in a tone of ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... wondering where we should go next with the delicious idle wonder of those who drop off the train at a moment's notice if a fellow passenger vouchsafes an alluring description of a certain village, or if the approach from the car window attracts. Only those who have bound themselves down on a European tour to an itinerary can understand the freedom and delight ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... of the above-described species, cultivated in pots and carefully observed, was there any permanent bending of the petioles without the stimulus of contact. In winter, the blades of the leaves of C. vitalba drop off; but the petioles (as was observed by Mohl) remain attached to the branches, sometimes during two seasons; and, being convoluted, they curiously resemble true tendrils, such as those possessed by the allied genus Naravelia. The petioles which ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin

... said it depressed them for days after, and that while there they sat in mortal terror of hearing Don Roberto burst out of his den with the yell of a maniac. And as for dear Mrs. Yorba and Magdalena, they never had had much to say, but now they had nothing. They would not drop off altogether, for the old don was bound to follow his brother-in-law in course of time, and then his widow would once more be a useful member of society. Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Geary, and Mrs. Cartright were more faithful ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... at about nine thirty, and tossed and turned, unable to drop off because I was not actually tired. I was also wondering when they'd come around with their brain-washing crew, or maybe someone who'd ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... of flame is extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die, as the exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any force; and as fruits when they are green are plucked by force from the trees, but when ripe and mellow drop off, so violence takes away their lives from youths, maturity from old men—a state which to me indeed is so delightful that the nearer I approach to death, I seem, as it were, to be getting sight of land, and at length, after a long voyage, to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... and if he once settled himself on the bed would quickly drop off to sleep. He sat down on a chair and began to smoke a cigarette. She watched him with increasing irritation: When she was ready he got up. It happened by an unusual chance that there was no one in the bungalow. Brevald was working on the ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... the hands of grown men and women by irritating fluids and substances, such as wet sugar in the case of bakers and confectioners, and various color-stains in dye works. They seldom last for more than a few months, and usually narrow at their base and drop off, when the particular irritation that caused them ceases. On this account it is seldom worth while to try to remove them by burning with acids or cutting them off; and it is best not to pick at, or irritate, or scratch them ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson



Words linked to "Drop off" :   regress, air-drop, gain, lapse, decrease, decline, worsen, diminish, lessen, backslide, zonk out, retrogress, fall, retrograde, wharf, drop-off, wake up, deliver



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