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Launch   /lɔntʃ/   Listen
Launch

noun
1.
A motorboat with an open deck or a half deck.
2.
The act of propelling with force.  Synonym: launching.



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"Launch" Quotes from Famous Books



... "hop" is given during the summer, and where, on one occasion, "H.M.S. Pinafore" was sung with great effect on the deck of the "Vira," anchored a few rods from the dock; the dock was, for the time being, transformed into a dress-circle. Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., made his entree in a steam launch, and all the effects were highly realistic. The only hitch in the otherwise immensely successful representation was the impossibility of securing a moon ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... were but indifferently versed in the practical part of astronomy, without which, and those instruments which have been invented almost exclusively by the moderns, for measuring the paths, distances, and relative positions of the heavenly bodies, it is impossible to launch out with any tolerable success or safety on the trackless ocean. They were ignorant also of that wonderful property of the magnet or loadstone, which, pointing invariably towards the north, enables the modern mariner to know his precise course, at all times of the day ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... down admiringly on the smart gig and the pretty girl in a Tam o' Shanter in its stern sheets. But here a new idea struck the consul. A cable's length ahead lay a yacht, owned by an American friend, and at her stern a steam launch swung to its painter. Without intimating his intention to his passengers he steered for it. "Bow!—way enough," he called out as the boat glided under the yacht's counter, and, grasping the companion-ladder ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... it's all the same to you folks, I'll proceed with the auction here," went on Mr. Wood. "You can all see the boat from here. It is, as you see, a regular family launch and will carry twelve persons comfortably. With a canopy fitted to it a person could cruise all about the lake and stay out over night, for you could sleep on the seat cushions. It is twenty-one feet in length and has a five-and-a-half-foot beam, the design being what is known as a compromise ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton

... He was addicted to drinking, and now and then, when bitten by the adder, would talk strangely. He would commence narrating some wonderful hurricane he had experienced on the Spanish Main, and would launch out upon the number of times he had headed boarding parties, and once, in a state of great intoxication at the village tavern, he rambled off into a story about his having made an old man walk the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... manifestation. But this is not sufficient. We must also learn to calculate how those particular effects, when produced, will stand related to the world of already existing effects among which we propose to launch them, how they will modify these and be modified by these in turn; and this calculation of effects is as necessary as the knowledge ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... tenderness which was the very flower of respect. He was like a sceptical voyager strolling on the beach while he waited for the tide, looking seaward yet not putting to sea. It was in all this she had found her occasion. She would launch his boat for him; she would be his providence; it would be a good thing to love him. And she had loved him, she had so anxiously and yet so ardently given herself—a good deal for what she found in him, but a good deal also for what she brought him and what might ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... hardy. And they generally have a noble reliance on the power of the tongue. Being incapable of any fear of Miss Schley, Mrs. Wolfstein, ever on the look-out for means of improving her already satisfactory position in the London world, saw one in the vestal virgin and resolved to launch her in England. She was delighted with the result. Miss Schley had already added several very desirable people to the Wolfstein visiting-list. In return "Henry" had "put her on to" one or two very good things ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... salvation, his very life. They could not believe in such treachery, and the king took it for some manoeuvre of seamanship, and seeing a fishing-boat drawn up on the beach on some nets, he called to his two companions, "Launch that boat!" ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... glories, in th' etherial plain, The Sun first rises o'er the purpled main, Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames. Fair Nymphs, and well-drest Youths around her shone. 5 But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone. On her white breast a sparkling Cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore. Her lively ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... old, and you should have a man in full vigour. I doubt whether the psychical atmosphere of Oxford would suit me, and still more, whether I should suit it after a life spent in the absolute freedom of London. And last, but by no means least, for a man with five children to launch into the world, the change would involve a most serious loss of income. No doubt there are great attractions on the other side; and, if I had been ten years younger, I should have been sorely tempted to go to Oxford, if the University would have ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... over water lies with the British, because their control of the deep parts of the North Sea enables them to establish a temporary aeronautical base of mother ships sufficiently close to the German fleet to enable the British to launch a torpedo-plane attack from it on the German fleets in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, while the Germans could not possibly establish an aeronautical base sufficiently close to the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... was lost in these everglades, which extend across the entire peninsula. Finally, by good luck, we stumbled on a short "haulover" to the sea, and determined at once to take advantage of it, and to run our boat across and launch her in the Atlantic. A short half-mile over the sand-dunes, and we were clear of the swamps and marshes of Indian River, and were reveling in the Atlantic, free, at least for a time, from mosquitos, which had punctured and bled us for ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... Birotteau's creditors [Cesar Birotteau]; uncle of Claudine Chaffaroux who became Mme. du Bruel. Rich and a bachelor, he showered much affection upon his niece; she had helped him to launch into business. He died in the second half of the reign of Louis Philippe, leaving an income of forty thousand francs to the former danseuse. [A Prince of Bohemia.] In 1840 he did some work on an unfinished house in the suburbs of the Madeleine, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... we have got out of Bavaria. The waiter at the restaurant wants us to pay him ninety kreuzers for our coffee, which is only six kreuzers a cup in Munich. Remembering that it takes one hundred kreuzers to make a gulden in Austria, I launch out a Bavarian gulden, and expect ten kreuzers in change. I have heard that sixty Bavarian kreuzers are equal to one hundred Austrian; but this waiter explains to me that my gulden is only good for ninety kreuzers. I, in my turn, explain to the waiter that it is better than the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... In the acquisition of a new thought or the leaving off of an old one we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji

... him from running the launch so that I shall get all the swash? It would make me lose a quarter minute or more, ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill

... were away," Dill began at last in the tone that braces one instinctively for the worst, "I met accidentally a man of whom I had heard, but whom I had not seen. In the course of our casual conversation he discovered that I was about to launch myself and my capital into the cattle-business, whereupon he himself made me an offer which I felt should not be lightly ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... as always in the tropics, and is accompanied by pelting rain. In a few moments all the roads are under water. The rain pours down, not in drops but in long streams of water, and we are wet through long before we reach the pier where the launch is waiting. ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... of England That guard our native seas! Whose flag has braved a thousand years The battle and the breeze! Your glorious standard launch again To match another foe; And sweep through the deep, While the stormy winds do blow! While the battle rages loud and long, And the ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... course this had him beaten. He helped me launch the boat and ran to collect stuffing for her seams, while I sat in her and baled, baled, baled. . . . It was pretty eerie to sit there alone—for the dog had gone with Farrell—fighting the water, and feel her settling, if for five minutes I gave up the struggle, ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... 1915, the writer, in company with Major Rankin, saw the Germans launch their first gas attack near St. Julien upon the section of the line held by the French colonial troops ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... young Mariner, Down to the haven, Call your companion, Launch your vessel And crowd your canvas, And, ere it vanishes Over the margin, After it, follow it, ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... deep," Peter said as Jael and Jesus climbed up the side of the ship, and when they were safely landed he shouted, "Launch out!" and the boat ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... tinned meats and preserves slung in a coat. At peril of his life he had crept up and stolen them from the common pile that was stacked up at the very door of the shanty where the women and children slept. As he came running he grabbed for Brom Bones' bridle and tried to launch himself across the colt's back. In his leap a can of meat fell and a sharp corner of it struck and cut deep into Brom Bones' hock. The colt squealed and ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... twice every year at the Government House—a many-windowed, arcaded palace upon a hill laid out in roads and gardens. And lately he had been taking about a duke in his Master-Attendant's steam-launch to visit the harbor improvements. Before that he had "most obligingly" gone out in person to pick out a good berth for the ducal yacht. Afterwards he had an invitation to lunch on board. The duchess herself lunched with them. A big woman with a red ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... came from the men. Who could fail to believe in a leader so cool and resourceful? He ran out into the darkness to discover the cause of the shooting. A number of sailors and firemen were striving to launch a boat. There was a struggle going on. He could not distinguish friend from foe in the melee, but he ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... losses to the French vanguard. In vain did Soult's corps struggle up towards the intrenchments; his men were mown down by grapeshot and musketry: in vain did Napoleon, who hurried up in the afternoon, launch the fusiliers of the Guard and a division of Lannes' corps. The Muscovites held firm, and the day closed ominously for the French. It was Eylau over ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... eyes turned in that quarter about as much as he used them to take notice of the way he was going. Every unusually loud snarl made him think the cat was about to launch herself toward them in an attack; so that the boy was kept worked up to fever heat ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton

... and as her railroads are not many and are poorly served, it was figured that it would be six weeks before the Russian army would be ready to fight anybody. Germany, on the other hand, with her wonderful system of government-owned railroads, and the machine-like organization of her army, could launch her forces across the frontier at two days' notice. As soon as the Germans began to hear that the Russians were mobilizing their troops against Austria, Germany set in motion the rapid machinery for gathering her own army. ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet

... Whibley bought a table, and encouraged it to launch out into more active conversation. To please Whibley, I assisted at some of the earlier seances, but during my presence it invariably maintained a reticence bordering on positive dulness. I gathered ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... precious good care to prevent their knowing anything. I can't understand parents; they must have been young themselves once. Yet they seem to have forgotten all about it. They keep us hoodwinked and infantile, and then launch us headlong into life, with all its problems to meet, and all momentous decisions made for us, past hope of undoing." Hadria rose restlessly in her excitement. "Surely no creature was ever dealt with so insanely as the well-brought-up girl! Surely no well-wisher ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... we parted. On landing at Rothesay I was almost immediately approached by a sailor from the 'Diana,' who, spying my name on my luggage, quickly possessed himself of it and told me the motor launch was in waiting to take me over to the yacht. I was on my way across the sparkling bay before the 'Columba' started out again from the pier, and Francesca, standing on the steamer's deck, waved to me a smiling farewell ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... the Ten, with four men in plain brown coats and leathern belts, sat in the stern of the eight-oared launch that swept swiftly past the skiff towards the vessels at anchor. Pasquale rested on his oar a moment and turned to look, with an air of interest that would have disarmed any suspicions the officer might have entertained. But he had none, and did not bestow a second ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... twelve miles, and their cavalry entered Nesle about the same time. The occupation of Noyon on the Oise was of special importance, as the nearest point to Paris held by the Germans. The famous Noyon elbow or salient, from which it was expected the Germans would launch an attack on the French capital, now ceased to be a source of anxiety and apprehension to the French fighting ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... there," Mr. Hastings observed. "I think that she wants to sail you over to Misery Island. We get some unearthly meal there at ten o'clock and come back by moonlight. It is a sort of torture which we always inflict upon our guests. My wife and I will follow in the launch." ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of God could launch its thunderbolts, the Fiend accordingly seated himself on his throne, and ordered his powers to be brought together. The Tartarean trumpet, with its hoarse voice, called up the dwellers in everlasting darkness. The huge black caverns trembled to their depths, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... sand, and Henderson covered her face with her hat. Then he ran to the nearest booth and talked imperatively. Presently he was back bringing a hot drink that was stimulating. Shortly the motor ran close to the beach and stopped. Henderson's servant brought a row-boat ashore and took them to the launch. It was filled with cushions and wraps. Henderson made a couch and soon, warmly covered, Edith sped out over the ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... then came a steam-launch. It contained Lady VIOLET, the other characters, lunch, and (played ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various

... Roehampton gave constant dinners, and after they had tried two or three, he expressed his wish to his wife that she should hold a small reception after these dinners. He was a man of great tact, and he wished to launch his wife quietly and safely on the social ocean. "There is nothing like practising before Christmas, my love," he would say; "you will get your hand in, and be able to hold regular receptions in the spring." ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... hours after the receipt of this communication two large ships' boats, loaded with provisions for the sailors on the Spanish prizes, left the State of Texas in tow of the steam-launch of the troop-ship Panther. Before dark that night, Mr. Cobb and Dr. Egan, of Miss Barton's staff, who were in charge of the relief-boats, had visited every captured Spanish vessel in the harbor. Two or three of them, including the great liners Miguel Jover and Argonauta, ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... find another dart like that, never to be recalled, to launch in the right direction, and fix quivering in the eye of the target?—God alone ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... like to know," said Frank, "is why her commander, instead of trying to escape at once, didn't launch a torpedo or two. He might have ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake

... little boats of driftwood and launching them on voyages across the cove, with the feather of a sea-gull for a sail. If the voice of ages tell me true, this is as wise an occupation as to build ships of five hundred tons and launch them forth upon the main, bound to "Far Cathay." Yet how would the merchant ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a marron, obediently wandered away, and immediately the empty chair beside Harriet was taken by a newcomer, Richard Carter himself, the owner of all this smiling estate, who had come up from the little launch at the landing, had changed hastily into white flannels, Harriet saw at a glance, and had unexpectedly joined them for tea. His usual programme was to go off immediately for golf, and to make his first appearance in the family at dinner-time, but ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... him to accept the offer made him without a moment's delay. Lazica, the ancient Colchis and the modern Mingrelia and Imeritia, bordered upon the Black Sea, which the Persian dominions did not as yet touch. Once in possesion of this tract, Chosroes conceived that he might launch a fleet upon the Euxine, command its commerce, threaten or ravage its shores, and even sail against Constantinople and besiege the Roman emperor in his capital. The Persian king therefore acceded to the request of the envoys, and, pretending to be called into Iberia by a ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... a hamlet of the inhabitants, fisher-folk and wreckers; their huts stood close about the head of the beach. All slept; the doors were closed, and there was no smoke, and the anxious watchers on board ship seemed to contemplate a village of the dead. It was thought possible to launch a boat and tow the Regent from her place of danger; and with this view a signal of distress was made and a gun fired with a red-hot poker from the galley. Its detonation awoke the sleepers. Door after door was opened, and in the grey light of the ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... enabled now to accuse her? You will find her always the same just, tolerant, wise Mother, leading her children upward as fast as they are able to journey. Her work is universal, and she is impervious to the shafts of envy, malice, and hatred which her enemies launch at her. She has resources of which you as yet know nothing. In the end she will triumph. You are offered an opportunity to contribute toward that triumph and to share in it. His Eminence knows that you will not permit Satan to make you reject that ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... the wheel to the chauffeur, and led his mystified but unenquiring father down the steps on the west side of the pier. A man in a blue suit with a peaked cap and a white cover on the cap was standing at the foot of the steps, just above the water and above a motor-launch containing two other men in blue jerseys with the name "Northwind" on their breasts and on their foreheads. A blue ensign was flying at the ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... investigation by various engineers. As examples of the latter may be mentioned the extended series of investigations in the French vessel Pelican, and the series made by Mr. Isherwood on a steam launch about 1874. These experiments, however, such as they were, did little to bring out general facts and to reduce the subject to a practical analysis. Since the date of Mr. Marshall's paper, the literature on this subject has grown rapidly, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... him. It was a warm and lovely morning, and Stafford's first thoughts flew to a bath. He got into flannels, and found his way to the lake, and as he expected, there was an elaborate and picturesque bathing-shed beside the Swiss-looking boat-house, in which were an electric launch and boats of all descriptions. There also was a boatman in attendance, with huge towels ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... a stream is little good, because there is no steadiness of wind, but ordinary boats will float along in the current splendidly. It is interesting to launch one and follow its adventures from the bank. Sometimes it will be caught in a weed; sometimes an eddy will sweep it into a back water; sometimes, in shooting the rapids, it will be overturned. But a long stick can always put things right. Or one of you will go ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... captive He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes stale the morning. Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt. Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships, And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants. If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went— As you must needs, for you all cried 'Go, go'— If you'll confess he brought home worthy prize— As you must needs, for you ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]

... to launch a joke—a quotation from newspapers. He desired to say, "All quiet on the Rappahannock," but the guns refused to permit even a comment upon their uproar. He never successfully concluded the sentence. But at last the guns stopped, and among the men in the rifle ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... ceases to be a boy and becomes a youth, (1) we find that it is just then that the rest of the world proceed to emancipate their children from the private tutor and the schoolmaster, and, without substituting any further ruler, are content to launch ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon

... ('Correspondence of L. Hunt', vol. i. p. 88). The friendship began in political sympathy; but two years later (see Byron's letter to Moore, June 1, 1818) it had, on one side at least, cooled. In June, 1822, Hunt came to Pisa to launch The Liberal, with the aid of Shelley and Byron. 'The Liberal: Verse and Prose from the South', started in 1822, lived through four numbers, and died in July, 1823. During that time Byron expressed to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... of prophetic thought in Chief Inspector Heat's head. But it was immediately followed by the reflection that a higher official, even when "fired out" (this was the precise image), has still the time as he flies through the door to launch a nasty kick at the shin-bones of a subordinate. Without softening very much the basilisk nature of his ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... in September, 1882, and which attained a speed of seven miles an hour for six consecutive hours. Since then a dozen electric boats of various sizes have been fitted up and worked successfully by means of storage batteries and motors of my design. The most important of these were the launch Volta and another similar craft, which is used by the Italian government for torpedo work in the harbor of Spezia. On the measured mile trial trips the Italian launch gave an average speed of 8.43 miles an hour with and against the tide. The hull ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... I brought with me a young physician, Doctor Grafton Burke, as a medical missionary, and a half-breed Alaskan youth, Arthur, who had been at school in California, as attendant and interpreter. A thirty-two-foot gasoline launch designed for the Yukon and its tributaries was also brought and was launched at the head of Yukon navigation at Whitehouse. The voyages of the Pelican on almost all the navigable waters of interior Alaska do not belong to a narrative concerned solely with winter travel, but her maiden voyage ended ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... even wondered what sort of reception he would get; for it was known that Julius Tesman was unreasonably bitter about the Tropical Belt Coal fiasco. But Davidson set us right. It was nothing of the kind. Heyst went to stay in Schomberg's hotel, going ashore in the hotel launch. Not that Schomberg would think of sending his launch alongside a mere trader like the Sissie. But she had been meeting a coastal mail-packet, and had been signalled to. Schomberg himself ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... launch some angry retort, but Cumberly forced him into the chesterfield, and crossing to a bureau, poured out a stiff peg of brandy from a decanter which stood there. Leroux sank upon the chesterfield, rubbing his fingers up and down his palms with a curious nervous movement and glancing at the ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... knew by experience, and he intended to profit by the phenomenon to launch the jangada, after having built it in comfort on the river bank. In fact, between the mean and the higher level the height of the Amazon could vary as much as forty feet, and between the mean and the lower level ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... Aye! launch your red lightnings, blaspheme in your wrath, Shock earth, wave, and heaven with the blasts of your ire;— But she seizes your death-bolts, yet hot from their path, And hurls back your lightnings, and mocks at the fire Of ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... Earth People came by, near to the shore, in a little steam launch. There were men and women and several children in it. They crowded into the side of the boat towards the shore to stare curiously at Helma and Eric. They could not see the others, of course. Helma with her free, bright hair ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot

... and begirt with giant solenoids at intervals. Each of the solenoids would be excited by a powerful current, one after the other, so as to urge the projectile with accelerating speed along the tube, and launch it ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... amusing to hear Monsieur —- launch out in praise of the attachment and gratitude of his Indian beauty; he would have altered his tone had he seen her behaviour in his absence. On one occasion I could not help telling one of the gentlemen my opinion ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... (the immediate margin of the bay being a swampy brush); when an alarm was given, that the natives had speared one of the people. Previous to crossing, we had seen them in great numbers on the side opposite to us, probably to the amount of seventy of all ages; but on seeing us launch our boat, they got into canoes and went two or three miles farther up the lake, still keeping on the south side. On the north side we did not see any natives, and although on both sides of the lake we were prepared for them, had they shown themselves in numbers on the beach, yet all were not on ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... list of living tailors. The demise of a respectable member of this class does not ordinarily create a profound sensation. He dies, and his equals debate who is to be his successor: while the rest of them who have come in contact with him, very probably hear nothing of his great launch and final adieu till the winding up of cash-accounts; on which occasions we may augur that he is not often blessed by one or other of the two great parties who subdivide this universe. In the case of Mr. Melchisedec ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... "danger!" A strong, unsuspected current has carried the tiller out of his weak hands, and the Santa Maria is scraping on a sandy bottom. Instantly the Admiral is on deck, and the disobedient helmsman is roused from his sleep. At once Columbus sees that their only possible salvation is to launch the ship's boat and lay out an anchor well astern; he orders the helmsman and another sailor—for they are all rushing on deck now—to do so. But the minute they touch water the frightened, contemptible creatures row quickly ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley

... so long as he is not mistaken. To guard him from errors he might learn, I furnish his mind with truths only. Reason and judgment enter slowly; prejudices crowd in; and he must be preserved from these last. Yet if you consider science in itself, you launch upon an unfathomable and boundless sea, full of unavoidable dangers. When I see a man carried away by his love for knowledge, hastening from one alluring science to another, without knowing where to stop, I think I see a child gathering shells upon the seashore. ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... as Quennebert had anticipated. Madame Quennebert, furious at the deceit which had been practised on her, refused to listen to her husband's justification, and Trumeau, not letting the grass grow under his feet, hastened the next day to launch an accusation of bigamy against the notary; for the paper which had been found in the nuptial camber was nothing less than an attested copy of a contract of marriage concluded between Quennebert and Josephine-Charlotte Boullenois. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... drunken men, citizens of the United States, and lovers, her friends were on shore, and she was alone. For this she was grateful, for her thoughts were of a melancholy and tender nature and she had no wish for any companion save one. In consequence, when a steam-launch, approaching at full speed with the rattle of a quick-firing gun, broke upon her meditations, she ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis

... himself. As a rule, however, the personal equation should be considered. Every man is interested in himself and his work, and the interviewer often may start him talking by beginning on work. The essential thing is to get some topic that will launch him into easy, natural conversation. Then, with his man started, the interviewer may well keep silent. Only a cub reporter will interrupt the natural flow of conversation for the sake merely of giving his own views. If the man runs too far afield, the reporter may guide the conversation ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... night after leaving the presidio, Kit sat on the coaming of a small steam launch that lurched across the long undulations rolling in from the Caribbean. It had been blowing fresh, and although the wind had dropped the swell ran high. When the launch swung up, a vague, hazy smear rather suggested than indicated land astern; the ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... it. We'd fly just as often as they could recover our ships and send us back up here for another launch. And that would go on until the economy on both sides broke down so far they couldn't make any more missiles for us to chase, or boosters to send us up after them. No thanks. I don't want to fly that badly. ...
— Pushbutton War • Joseph P. Martino

... next proceeding was to launch the two boats. This was done easily and without difficulty. The blankets and guns were placed within, and then motioned for the dog to follow; but Terror did not seem disposed to leave his present quarters. Perhaps the idea worked its way into his shaggy head that it ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... to make it other than what it is—to change its genius arbitrarily—were as fatuous as trying to transform a wolf into a watchdog by a chemical process or surgical operation. But while the radical "reformer"—the man who would ignore the lessons of history and launch boldly out upon the tempestuous sea of experimentalism—is one dangerous extreme, we must remember that it is not the only one. In avoiding Scylla we must not forget Charybdis. If we are to look ever to the past, to make no experiments, to become the bondslaves ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... Nicollet was accompanied and assisted by Mr. (then Lieutenant) Fremont. The reports made of these explorations afford information which, if extensively known among the people, would tend to direct a larger emigration into the upper part of the territory. They often launch off into exclamations as to the beautiful surface of the country; while their account of native fruits and the bracing climate and fertile soil picture to the imagination all the elements ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... interceptors, still heading for the ridge the warriors had just left behind. Only for a second or two, however. A yell of fierce rejoicing went up from the crowd on the bluff as the easternmost of Blake's black specks was seen suddenly to check, then to launch out again, no longer to the north, but straight to his right, followed almost immediately by every one of the seven. Then, too, swerved the would-be slayers, in long, graceful circles, away from the wrath to come. And, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... launch yourself with as strong and decided initiative as possible. Reinforce the right motive with every favorable circumstance; put yourself in a condition that will make the right act easy and the wrong one difficult. ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall

... That Caesar being merciful is weak. I who can succour, I can strike; I'll launch The legions over sea, and I myself Will lead them, and the eagles will unloose Through Britain—I who sit on the world's throne Will have no threatening from Briton, Gaul, People or tribe inland or ocean-washed. The terror of this purple ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips

... from active life. A tiara in the safe is worth two in the Titian bush. We'll use them for collateral an' go to doin' business. When we've paid the debts in full we'll redeem the goods an' return them to your overjoyed wife. We'll launch our ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller

... self-preservation within us that I doubt not a would-be suicide, caught in the act of hanging himself, would struggle madly for his life were someone else to forcibly adjust the noose about his neck. At all events, I found myself unwilling, at the last moment, to have someone else launch me into eternity and, as I wished to gain time to think what I should do to escape, ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... tourist, recovering from his trance, walks upon the rim and descends the trail to the water's edge to join a launch-party around the lake. Here he finds a new and different experience which is quite as sensational as that of his original discovery. Seen close by from the lake's surface these tinted lava cliffs are carved as grotesquely as a Japanese ivory. Precipices rise at times two thousand feet, sheer ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... heard; For his heart was in his work, and the heart Giveth grace unto every Art. A quiet smile played round his lips, As the eddies and dimples of the tide Play round the bows of ships, That steadily at anchor ride. And with a voice that was full of glee, He answered, "Erelong we will launch A vessel as goodly, and strong, and stanch, As ever weathered a wintry sea!" And first with nicest skill and art, Perfect and finished in every part, A little model the Master wrought, Which should be to the larger ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow

... boat now," Duncan said to the Consul. "And there's the launch over the side, and Captain Dettmar dropping into it. If I don't miss my guess, he's coming to report ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London

... the marshes towards Woolwich, and also a commanding prospect of Greenwich Hospital. The various vessels and boats passing and repassing at all times, give variety to the scene before you; and when a launch takes place, the whole neighbourhood represents something of the nature of a carnival; the river is covered with boats filled with company, and every part of the shore near the spot from which the magnificent piece of mechanism is to burst upon its native element, is equally occupied; ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... Strafford lay complete: but how to get it from the stocks; in what method to launch it? The step was questionable. Before going to Italy he had sent me the Manuscript; still loyal and friendly; and willing to hear the worst that could be said of his poetic enterprise. I had to afflict him again, the good brave soul, with the deliberate report that I could not ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... down the dale looking for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. When she came to the opening by the lake she saw the large, white Villa gleaming in the sunlight; a launch was patting off from the landing-place with men and women on board, and the could almost fancy that she heard the sound of laughter. The contrast of the prosperity typified by the great white place and the poverty of Heron Hall smote her sharply. She was ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... to have a man that knew all about the oases and the wells, the situation of which was known only to the desert-born tribes, and who could teach the helpless slaves from Goshen the secrets of camp life. So Moses pressed Hobab to change his position, to break with his past, and to launch himself into an altogether new ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... Mr. Gough, as he enters into the narrative, 'launch your bark upon the Niagara river. It is bright and smooth and still; there is a ripple at the bow; the silvery wake you leave behind you adds to your enjoyment. Down the stream you glide; you have your oars, and you think you are prepared for every emergency—and thus you go on your pleasure ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold

... episode in the history of a world dealing mainly in war; not as a strictly personal experience designed by a malignant fate to deprive youth of its illusions, embitter and deidealize it, fill it with a cold and acrid contempt for militarism and governments, convert it to pacificism, and launch it on a confused but strident groping after Truth. It was incredible to him that any one who had read history could be guilty of such jejunity, and he attributed it to their bruised but itching egos. After all, it had been a ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... launch their spears; then hand to hand they meet; The trembling soil resounds beneath their feet; Their bucklers clash; thick blows descend from high, And flakes of fire from their hard helmets fly. DRYDEN, AEneid, ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke

... here is internal proof that you didn't write what Thackeray used to call the 'Hurticle,' or that you have changed your mind on that score. But you haven't. But I know better, Lord bless you: and am sure I could (with a pair of Scissors) launch old Richardson again: we shouldn't go off the stocks easy (pardon nautical metaphors), but stick by the way, amid the jeers of Reviewers who had never read the original: but we should float at last. Only I don't want to spend a lot of money to be hooted at, without having time to wait ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... still struggling to establish a modern market economy and achieve strong economic growth. In contrast to its trading partners in Central Europe - which were able to overcome the initial production declines that accompanied the launch of market reforms within three to five years - Russia saw its economy contract for five years, as the executive and legislature dithered over the implementation of many of the basic foundations of a market economy. Russia achieved ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... all that. The Archbishop tried to see the King. The King would not see him. The Archbishop tried to escape from England. The sailors on the coast would launch no boat to take him away. Then, he again resolved to do his worst in opposition to the King, and began openly to set ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... the first few strokes, then with growing interest watched the tremendous reach, the powerful knee-drive, the swing, the easy catch, and the perfect recover. The dory was cutting the water like a gasoline launch, and between strokes there was the least possible diminishing of ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... food supplies, strengthened the Teutonic purpose. Perhaps Germany, with her characteristic lack of finesse, imagined that her own open efforts would lend emphasis to Mr. Wilson's pacific exertions. At any rate, on December 12th, just as Mr. Wilson was preparing to launch his own campaign for mediation, Germany herself approached her enemies with a proposal for a peace conference. A few days afterward Page, as the representative of Germany, called at the Foreign Office to deliver the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... the acting skipper of the little steamer, which was hardly more than a steam-launch. Mr. Button the engineer, who was to remain in the employ of the new owner, was wiping the water off the machinery. He was called, and informed of the arrangement with Pearl. To the astonishment of both, he refused to move ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic

... gratefully received; though it was not half so large a one as a generous world reported it to be. The tide having turned continued to rise, and floated the family comfortably into a snug harbour where the older members could rest secure from storms, and whence the younger ones could launch their boats for the ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott



Words linked to "Launch" :   actuation, commence, start, propulsion, rocket firing, set out, start out, motorboat, blast off, get down, smooth, propel, smoothen, impel, get, move, open, displace, set about, float, powerboat, abolish, open up, begin



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