Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Piece   /pis/   Listen
Piece

verb
(past & past part. pieced; pres. part. piecing)
1.
To join or unite the pieces of.  Synonym: patch.
2.
Create by putting components or members together.  Synonyms: assemble, put together, set up, tack, tack together.  "He tacked together some verses" , "They set up a committee"
3.
Join during spinning.
4.
Eat intermittently; take small bites of.  Synonyms: nibble, pick.  "She never eats a full meal--she just nibbles"
5.
Repair by adding pieces.  Synonym: patch.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Piece" Quotes from Famous Books



... Wildwood,—but his love for Smith's Grand March persisted and my sister Harriet was often called upon to play it for him while he explained its meaning. The war was passing into the mellow, reminiscent haze of memory and he loved the splendid pictures which this descriptive piece of martial music recalled to mind. So far as we then knew his pursuit of the Sunset ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... passengers, and to carry away the natives of other districts to till their ground. The present expedition was during Lent, and as well as I can now remember, in the year 1524, our little army consisting of 27 cavalry, 23 musqueteers, 72 foot soldiers armed with sword and target, and one field-piece under the direction of a cowardly fellow of a gunner, who pretended to have served in Italy. Besides these, we had 50 Mexican warriors, and the cacique of Cachula with some of his principal people, who were all terribly afraid. On approaching Chiapa, an advanced guard of four of our most ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... Napoleon was dead, a Bourbon reigned in France, and Freycinet was the servant of the monarchy to which he owed the command of the expedition of 1817. The suppression of Napoleon's name and the record of his actions from Peron's text, was a puerile piece of servility. ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott

... stood on the first piece of level ground on the way to the mainland. There was no other building within sight; and with its bleak boulders and rocks of strangest form, in perpetual death-struggle with the mighty force of ocean, resounding night and day with the rush and tramp of the wild sea-horses, as they ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall

... would read to me. My piece of "knitting-work" was still unfinished, and I, sitting near a window looking churchward, knitted, whilst Sophie pushed back from her low, cool brow those bands of softly purplish hair, and read to me something that strangely soothed my militant spirit, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... haunting of me? Bian. Let the diuell, and his dam haunt you: what did you meane by that same Handkerchiefe, you gaue me euen now? I was a fine Foole to take it: I must take out the worke? A likely piece of worke, that you should finde it in your Chamber, and know not who left it there. This is some Minxes token, & I must take out the worke? There, giue it your Hobbey-horse, wheresoeuer you had it, Ile ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... a rope-end, take a piece of twine or string and lay it on the rope an inch or two from the end, pass the twine several times around the rope, keeping the ends of the twine under the first few turns to hold it in place; then make a large loop with the free end of twine; bring it back to ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill

... said Braham to Hogarth yesterday, when he went there to say I should be in town to-day, "depend upon it, sir, that there has been no such music since the days of Sheil, and no such piece since "The Duenna."" "Everybody is delighted with it," he added, to me to-day. "I played it to Stansbury, who is by no means an excitable person, and he was charmed." This was said with great emphasis, but I have forgotten the ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... of this piece with the wife of Bothwelhaugh, who slew the Regent Murray. That his motive was not mere political assassination, but to avenge the ill-treatment and death of his wife, seems to be disproved by Maidment. The ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang

... refused obstinately to give up any more of her stores from off the table, even snatched a piece of cake out of my hand and put it back into its place. I got enraged, banked the table, and threatened to call the police. I wished to be lenient with her, I said. Were I to take all that was lawfully mine, I would clear her whole stand, because it was a big sum of money that I had given to her. ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... glassy eye, Mrs. Pryor saw laid on the pillow a face pale and wasted enough, perhaps more haggard than the other appearance, but less awful; for it was a sick, living girl, not a mere white mould or rigid piece of statuary. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... the vibrations of the air for vowel sounds. Some of these tracings are shown in Fig. 4. I was much struck with this improved form of apparatus, and it occurred to me that there was a remarkable likeness between the manner in which this piece of wood was vibrated by the membrane of the phonautograph and the manner in which the ossiculo [small bones] of the human ear were moved by the tympanic membrane. I determined therefore, to construct ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... conveyed, muzzled and bound, on a mule, for they were exceedingly vigorous and fierce. In order to observe their habits and movements,* we placed them in a great hall, where, by climbing on a very high piece of furniture, we could see them attack great dogs. (* M. Descourtils, who knows the habits of the crocodile better than any other author who has written on that reptile, saw, like Dampier and myself, the Crocodilus acutus often touch his tail with his ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... the 3d light infantry. The excellent state into which he brought this corps, caused it to be sent from Valencia to Madrid, to form part of the military pageant by which Queen Christina's first arrival at the capital of Spain was celebrated. This piece of duty, it was expected, would have procured Zumalacarregui his brigadier's rank; but the only thing he got by it was a fall from his horse, from the effects of which he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... leaped to the pier, the inventor following. Jack leaped to the string-piece last of all. Then Hal veered easily off, turning the boat's nose about ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham

... sure of that, as sure as one is of being alive or of eating a piece of bread. Old Gaspard Hari had been dying for two days and three nights somewhere, in some hole, in one of those deep, untrodden ravines whose whiteness is more sinister than subterranean darkness. He had been dying for two days and three nights and he had just then died, thinking of his comrade. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... judgment for all women, a pigeon-hole in his mind into which he threw them without discrimination. When, therefore, he came across the exception in Sally, he did not recognize her, flung her in with the rest, folded more carefully perhaps, tied even with a little distinguishing piece of ribbon. But into that same receptacle in his mind she went, nevertheless. Yet Traill was not without shrewdness in his wide judgment of the sex. He could read his sister as you read a book in which the pages only need cutting, and the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... as the personal mystery, guardian spirit, or tutelary daimon of the entranced, and is never mentioned by him without first making a sacrifice. A small effigy of this manid[-o] is made, or its outline drawn upon a small piece of birch bark, which is carried suspended by a string around the neck, or if the wearer be a Mid[-e] he carries it in his "medicine bag" or pinjigosn. The future course of life of the faster is governed by his dream; and it sometimes occurs that because of giving an imaginary importance ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... other hand, one of the maddening pests of bird study at the East is here almost unknown,—the mosquito. Until the third week in June I saw but one. That one was in the habit of lying in wait for me when I went to a piece of low, swampy ground overgrown with bushes. Think of the opportunity this combination offers to the Eastern mosquito, and consider my emotions when I found but a solitary individual, and even that one ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... piece of rag from a satchel containing sewing materials, tore off a strip, which, like everything else, was tinged red, and proceeded ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... shoulders like a picture of Marguerite in the opera, while her white gauzy dress was banded around with rows of black velvet, just like the artistic costumes worn in Greek plays. This style on so young a child gave a very stagy and quaint effect. She, like the woman, had a piece of lace on her head, but the one was ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis

... cannot touch the floor. They say sheep never kick or struggle if their feet are raised from the ground. Now he is starting with the shears. See! He is opening the wool by a cut down the right shoulder. How neatly the fleece comes off—almost in one piece, as if it was ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett

... some old-fashioned piece of ornamental needlework, and as she moved her arms her dress gave forth a dry, melancholy rustling, like the sound of leaves in the autumn. There was something mournful and depressing in the sight of her. I moved my chair a little nearer, and ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... between his acquittal at Avignon and his return to Rome. As the impression made by Nina upon the softer and better nature of Albornoz died away, he naturally began to consider his guest—as the profound politicians of that day ever considered men—a piece upon the great Chess-Board, to be moved, advanced, or sacrificed, as best suited the scheme in view. His purpose accomplished, in the recovery of the patrimonial territory, the submission of John di Vico, and the fall and death of the Demagogue Baroncelli, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Upon which piece of oratory and reasoning I form the following query. Whether, in case of an invasion from the Pretender (which is not quite so probable as from the Grand Signior) the Dissenters can, with prudence and safety, offer ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... shall become the mightiest leaders; and afterwards they shall be invoked by men as sacred heroes." In this piece, as in the preceding one where reference is made to the thrice living man, is contained the doctrine, early brought from the East, that souls may repeatedly return from the dead and in new bodies lead new lives. One other fragment, the ninety sixth, added ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... fled for ever. Not the agitation of exercise—not that which arose from the pain and confusion of this unexpected interview, had called to poor Clara's cheek even the momentary semblance of colour. Her complexion was marble-white, like that of the finest piece of statuary. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... had lent them his lyre, and inspired them with his own spirit of harmony. What then would they have said had they witnessed the wonderful effects of my skill?—had they heard me, in the compass of a single piece, describe in glowing notes one of the most sublime operations of nature, and not only make inanimate objects dance, but even speak; and not only speak, but speak ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... the marble mantel-piece on which he leaned. Edward Walters stood a short distance in front of him; his eyes were fixed, and he spoke like one who sees ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... number of years afterwards became a famous plainsman and Rocky Mountain man, was remarkably swift of foot. Near the Glaize River they found three Indians roasting venison by a fire, on a high open piece of ground, clear of brushwood. By taking advantage of the cover yielded by a fallen treetop the three scouts crawled within seventy yards of the camp fire; and Wells and Miller agreed to fire at the two outermost ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... and conflict of feeling, and play of character, and rhythm of part with part, if not with as keen an excitement, at least with as fair a judgment, as if we were criticizing the actors, not the piece. And were all theatres closed, the drama—whether as the free and spontaneous outflow of observation, fancy, and humour, or as the intense reflection of the movement of life in its animation of joy and pain—would remain one of the most natural and captivating ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... August 4, 1785, that Mr. Pinkerton obtained at this time a transcript through him from the manuscript in the Bodleian Library. Pinkerton speaks of this manuscript, in the second volume of his Early Scottish History, p. 266, as "a meagre piece, containing very little as to Ninian's Pikish Mission." The letter alluded to from Mr, Ruding, shows Pinkerton to have turned his mind to the antiquities of Scotland ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... now," said he; but it was not. It was just one of those pieces of glass from the magic mirror that had got into his eye; and poor Kay had got another piece right in his heart. It will soon become like ice. It did not hurt any longer, but there ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... With regard to ordinary farm-stock, the amount of salt which naturally occurs in their food is quite sufficient. In the case, however, of pastures in countries far removed from the sea, the custom of specially supplying stock with salt is common. This is done by placing a piece ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... tiger was an allusion to the dangers awaiting you, but it is not yet too late for you to prove that you are no kid," counselled Chang Tao. "Take this piece of silver so that the enterprise of the day may not have been unfruitful and depart with all speed on a homeward path. He who speaks is going westward, and at the lattice of Shen Yi he will not fail to leave a sufficient excuse ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... with Darco, and they worked all day together, and, on occasion, far into the night, for they were entered on a race against time, and an extended run of the piece which then held the stage at Darco's theatre meant loss. Act by act was put in rehearsal as it left the writers' hands, and the final scenes were written in the theatre itself, and the parts copied in one of the dressing-rooms. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... ago a slave was merely a piece of machinery. Nowadays a rich man invests his money in factories. The rich people of Rome (senators, generals and war-profiteers) invested theirs in land and in slaves. The land they bought or took in the newly-acquired provinces. The slaves they bought in open market wherever ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... Garden and her companions. Jack Raby was on the watch, and appeared at the window as he got under it. So well had the midshipman arranged everything, that not a word was spoken. He let a line down, which he had made by unstranding a piece of rope, and twisting up some bits of the carpet; and, though composed of so many materials, it was sufficiently strong for the purpose; and with it he hauled up the end of the rope and the block through which it was to run. The block he at ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... little piece of good news while I've been running around—forgot to tell you," said Fogg, in a matter-of-fact way. "That fool attendant at the hospital must have misunderstood me, or I ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... of the food. He sat apart on a piece of timber that projected from the rough breastwork and gave himself over to infinite misery of spirit, which was trebled when he took Alice's locket from his bosom, only to discover that the bullet which struck him had almost entirely destroyed the ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... those five pairs of feet to which these animals owe their name of Decapoda, is either entirely wanting, or scarcely indicated; the abdomen and tail are destitute of appendages, and the latter consists of a single piece. The mandibles, as in the Insecta, have no palpi. The maxillipedes, of which the third pair is often still wanting, are not yet brought into the service of the mouth, but appear in the form of biramose natatory feet. Branchiae are wanting, or where their first rudiments may be detected as small ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller

... with an underling too lazy to make an effort to get at what was probably the finest piece of writing ever brought to him, so I unrolled my story, flattening it out so he might ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... things right off!" said the child. "But p'raps it's different when you are old. Well! And s'pose she had a mother, and she was a beautiful lady, and she had a velvet dress, purple, like a piece in Aunt Susan's quilt. It's as soft as a baby, or a new kitten. And s'pose the little girl came out into the gardin, and said, 'Mittie May, come and play with me!' and s'pose I went, and s'pose she took me into the house, and into a room that was all pink, with ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards

... prisoners take care of themselves.' I pleaded hard for Dr. Price; but he would not listen, and the same day had him returned to the inner prison, where he remained ten days. He was then taken out, in consequence of the Doctor's promising a piece of broad cloth, and my sending two pieces ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... tragedy, with excuses for not having made any acknowledgment sooner, it being owing to an "almost insurmountable aversion from letter-writing." This letter I answered in due form and time, and enumerated several of the passages which had most affected me, adding, unfortunately, that no single piece had moved me so forcibly as the "Ancient Mariner," "The Mad Mother," or the "Lines at Tintern Abbey." The Post did not sleep a moment. I received almost instantaneously a long letter of four sweating pages from my Reluctant Letter-Writer, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... other, sweeping the bow over one of them, and then quenching the agitated fork, the other continues to sound; this other can re-excite the former, and several transfers of sound between the two forks can be thus effected. Placing a cent-piece on each prong of one of the forks, we destroy its perfect synchronism with the other, and no such communication of sound from the one to the other ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... this pitying Christ is moved by His pity to bring unasked gifts. No petition, no expectation, not the least trace of faith or hope drew from Him this mighty miracle. It came welling up from His own heart. And therein it is of a piece with all His work. For the divine love of which Christ is the Bearer, the Agent, and the Channel for us men, 'tarries not for men, nor waiteth for the sons of men,' but before we ask, delights to bestow itself, and gives that which no man ever sought, even the miracles of the Incarnation ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... piece of timber as we went overboard And, as a medical man, I considered after that, that I had done my duty. Pretty little boy it was, just six years old: and such a fancy ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... inclination of the head so dignified yet so gentle, that it expressed at once the modesty and joy so natural at having received praise according to her heart's desire. It was the custom that every poet crowned at the Capitol should recite or extemporise some piece of poetry, before the destined laurel was placed on his head. Corinne ordered her lyre to be brought to her—the instrument of her choice—which greatly resembled the harp, but was however more antique ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... through the Church-town like a ball from a musket, and in the morning Lenine's colt was found dead in Bernowhall Cliff, covered with foam, its eyes forced from its head, and its swollen tongue hanging out of its mouth. On Lenine's grave was found the piece of Nancy's dress which was left in the spirit's hand when the smith burnt her from ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... "I'll put a piece of banana up there on the top box," Teddy answered. The pile of boxes, nailed together, was higher than his head, but he had brought out the stepladder so he could ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis

... village where he had obtained the above information, caused it to be but irregularly supplied with intelligence from the army; and it was not till the evening of his first day's march, that the muleteer heard a piece of news which redoubled his eagerness to reach the Carlist headquarters. Zumalacarregui, he was informed, had received, whilst directing the operations of the siege, a severe and dangerous wound. Fearing he might die before he reached him, Paco endeavoured to hire or purchase ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... startled by the hares which leaped across her path. There seemed to be more hares now on the hill than she had seen in all her life before. She could not ask about the hares, however, when she saw the brown tent, or a piece of it, flapping about in the water, a great way off, and ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau

... a raft of un, too; but the ideas he've got on souls, Dannie, is poor an' sort o' damned scarce. So when I sot down there with the bottle, I 'lowed that if I come up an' you give me leave t' sit on the side o' your little bed for a spell, maybe you wouldn't mind recitin' that there little piece you've fell into the habit o' usin' afore you goes t' bed. That wee thing about the Shepherd. You wouldn't mind, would you, just sort o' givin' it a light overhaulin' for me? I'd thank you, Dannie, an you ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... for several minutes, and Finn knew by the various smells which hung about the man that he was accustomed to mixing a good deal with dog-folk. Before turning away, this friendly and admiring man presented Finn with a small piece of meat which he took from a paper-bag in one of his pockets; and, of all the meat that Finn had ever tasted, this piece had the most fascinating smell and the most provocatively exciting and pleasing flavour. He meditated over this piece of meat for quite a long time, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... rest still lived, but none of them for long. The next to disappear was Leicester, who survived the dispersion of the Armada by only a few weeks. So long as he had been an aspirant to the hand of his royal mistress, he existed chiefly to trouble the minds of statesmen—a piece of grit in the machinery; an apparently quite worthless person After he had settled down into the less ambiguous position of a mere personal favourite, with no chance of satisfying swelling ambitions, he became a definite partisan of ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... my last summer at the university I took to gardening. There was a small piece of garden behind the house in which I had lodgings. My landlady suggested getting a cousin of hers, employed by a nurseryman, to supply me with plants, etc. He was a youth of about 16 or 17, tall, dark, not bad favored in looks. I forget how ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... a little piece of raw meat. Rikki tikki liked it immensely, and when it was finished he went out into the verandah and sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the roots. Then ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling

... his young friend had eaten all they needed, there was still a goodly quantity left, which he folded up with as much care in the same piece of paper as though it were a ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... learn that the church was built by the De Veres, in conjunction with the Springs, wealthy clothiers at Lavenham. This is attested by the different quarterings of their respective arms on the building. The porch is an elegant piece of architecture, very highly enriched with the shields, garters, &c. of many of the most noble families in the kingdom, among which are the letters I.O., probably intended for the initials of John, the 14th Earl of Oxford, who married the daughter of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various

... given another little pair of trousers, a size smaller than those required, for a pattern, a piece of blue and white gingham and the shears, and she began. We all watched her furtively, but she went slashing away with as much confidence as if she had served an apprenticeship with a tailor in her youth. ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... of her servants, and most courteously received. After he had washed his hands, the lady assigned him a place by her side, and the varlet and the maid-servant prepared to serve the repast, and first they brought in leek soup, with a good piece of bacon, a dish of pig's chitterlings, and ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... built it. It is a queer piece of architecture, a fragment, that has been thrown off in the revolutions of the wheel mechanical, this tower of mine. It doesn't seem to belong to the parsonage. It isn't a part of the church now, if ever it has been. No one comes to service in it, and the only voiced worshipper ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... without the prospect of some gain. Presently he came to the place where some of the savages had dismounted and gone into the willows to fight their victims on foot, and then something told him that if he got in there he would find the bodies of the men who had robbed him of his furs. How that little piece of woods must have rung to the savages' war-whoops! But all was silent now. He led his horse a short distance into the bushes and dismounted, following the trail of an Indian who had crept up on all fours toward the place where the doomed ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon

... sank the ship. Now it was amid the first thin masses of vapors, those that floated highest and were more like a light fog, than anything else. By means of a window in the bottom of the craft, which window was closed by a thick piece of plate glass, Professor Henderson could look down and ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... ballad—for the original from which we take the tale is cast in ballad form—we are once more in touch with the Celtic Otherworld. It is a thousand pities that this interesting piece breaks off where it does, thus failing to provide us with a fuller account of that most elusive realm. The short glimpse we do get of it, however, reminds us very much of the descriptions of it we possess in Irish lore. We have also once more ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... up to the cliff, and then stooped down, after a timid look in the direction taken by the pirates, and found Ching standing by a piece of the rock which had split away from above, fallen clear, and then its top had leaned back against the rock face, leaving a narrow rift between its base and the cliff, through which we could see the light dimly, some twelve or fourteen yards away, but it was only a faint gleam ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... earth-motions. The phenomena are taken quite out of the realm of superstition. By means of delicate instruments of various kinds, called seismometers, the direction of earth-movements can be traced, and their force gauged, while by means of a simple magnet with a metal piece attached to it, an earthquake can be foretold. These instruments tell us that scarcely a day passes without an earthquake in some portion of the globe. The internal causes of these manifestations are ever active, whatever ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... of the Indians, and agriculture as we know it to-day was an idealistic dream. The plow was an exceedingly crude thing and but little used, the hoe forming the principal implement of industry. After a piece of land had been continuously "cropped" until worn out, it was abandoned, or the cows turned upon it for a while. It is further said that the poor whites, who had formerly been indentured servants, were the most lazy, the most idle, the most shiftless and the most worthless ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... depends largely on the opportunity which an individual has had to make adjustments to his surroundings and on his opportunity to master them through experiment. A factory employee is required to do a piece of work; and he does it, not because he is interested in the process or the object, but because his employer wants ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot

... artificial fire. Perhaps the earliest was that of rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, producing fire by friction. This could be accomplished by persistent friction of two ordinary pieces of dry wood, or by drilling a hole in a dry piece of wood with a pointed stick until heat was developed and a spark produced to ignite pieces of dry bark or grass. Another way was to make a groove in a block of wood and run the end of a stick rapidly back and forth through the groove. An invention called the ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... young, was left in the hands of a brother who was married, in whose house he was treated more like a slave, or rather like a beast, than one so nearly related; and when grown up, he was sent to keep swine. He one day became master of a piece of money, which, instead of laying it out in something for his own use, he chose to bestow in alms on a priest, desiring him to offer up his prayers for his father's soul. He had another brother called Damian, who was archpriest of Ravenna, and afterwards a monk; who, taking ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... ship. A gallant fight was made with the few guns left mounted, but at last the enemy took up a position on the ship's weather quarter, where her strong heel to port forbade the bearing of a single piece. "The gun-boats," continues the historian, "were growing bolder every minute, and night was at hand. Captain Bainbridge, after consulting again with his officers, felt it to be an imperious duty to haul down his flag, to save ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... nails into the cracks in the ship's hull. Swimming was out of the question, even if he knew anything about it. Besides, the water was icy cold. To reach him from the deck with the means at hand was impossible. So I grasped a piece of rope hanging from a rope ladder and, letting myself down the side of the ship, tried every way I could think of to lengthen my body as much as possible, till finally Fritz was barely able to catch hold of my left foot, which reached furthest down, while I held on above with my right ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... in—I sell a specialty line of baby shoes— I spread them on the counter. The old man was curious to see what a 'deaf and dumb man' was selling, I suppose, for up he marched and looked at my line. He picked up a shoe and wrote on a piece of paper: 'How much?' I wrote the price and passed the slip back to him. 'What are your terms?' he wrote back. 'Bill dated November 1st, 5% off, ten days,' I replied on paper. 'Price your line ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson

... is said, the soul on its upward journey must pass the buffeting of many evil spirits. There flashed into Sister Ursula's mind the remembrance of a picture of a man gazing from the leads down the side of a house—a wonderful piece of foreshortening that made one dizzy to see. Where had she seen that picture? Memory, that works indifferently on earth or in vacuo, told her of a book read by stealth in her novitiate, such a book ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... carefully a portion of about 1 gram of it. Place a shallow clay dish in the muffle, and heat it to bright redness; then add about 1.5 gram of borax glass wrapped in a piece of tissue paper; when this has fused, drop the piece of speise into it. Close the muffle until the speise has melted, which should be almost at once. The arsenide of iron will oxidise first, and when this has ceased the surface of the button brightens. ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer

... little hammer he used to crack stones with and the bag he kept to put the cracked bits in. Bobby was very much interested in pebbles and stones. He thought some day he might succeed in finding a valuable piece of mineral. ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley

... rhymed decasyllables, in which pretty literal paraphrases of a large number of passages of Scripture are strung together with a certain amount of pious comment and reflection. This is followed (after a shorter piece on the contest in the human soul between the laws of the spirit and of the flesh) by another poem of about the same length as the Miroir, and of no very different character, entitled Oraison de L'Ame Fidele ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... something of a house to prove that he is an actual settler. That name's a blind. This land jines Smith's, and he's been carrying on the ten-acre lot over the river, rent free; and it comes very handy for him to come in on this piece and get his saw-logs. It's government property; and all you have to do is, to put you up a cabin, and go ahead, and if Smith kicks up a fuss, jist send ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... said that the marquise at table took up a glass as though to drink, and tried to swallow a piece of it; that he prevented this, and she promised to make his fortune if only he would save her; that she wrote several letters to Theria; that during the whole journey she tried all she could to swallow pins, bits of glass, and earth; that she had proposed that he should cut Desgrais' ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... as he uttered this piece of impudence. He seemed to be sunning himself in the presence of so ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... disclose the whole secret of my last voyage, partly in consideration of our former intimacy, and partly to prevent unfavourable conjectures, which he and others, in all probability, would have made in regard to my circumstances. He professed great satisfaction at this piece of news; and I had no cause to believe him insincere, when I considered that he would now look upon himself as acquitted of the debt he owed me, and at the same time flatter himself with the hopes of borrowing more. I carried him home to dinner with me, and my father liked his conversation ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... the last three weeks; mind, I don't say that there's anything in it, and I hate to think harm of any one. There is another thing; he and I ain't good friends. If it hadn't been for that I should have spoken to you before; but I was afraid that it would look like a piece of dirty spite on my part; but I do think now that as head boy you ought to know, and I want your advice whether I ought to say ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... a word, the mighty weapon dipped Its muzzle and aimed at one small point of light One seeming insignificant star. The chief, Mounting the ladder, while we held our breath, Looked through the eye-piece. Then we heard him laugh His thanks to God, and hide it in a jest. "A prominence on Jupiter!"— They laughed, "What do you mean?"—"It's moving," cried the chief, They laughed again, and watched his glimmering face High ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes

... hunks of meat you asks? For obvious reasons. In sech events the victim bolts the piece of beef an' lopes off mebby five miles before ever he succumbs. With this yere augur hole play it's different. The wolf has to lick the arsenic-tallow out with his tongue an' the p'isen has time an' gets in its work. That wolf sort o' withers right thar in his tracks. ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... happy retreat in little more than a large family circle rusticating from choice. The corridors look brown and simple, like the rest of the house, and lack the white statuary of Osborne, and the superb vases, cabinets, and pictures of Buckingham Palace and Windsor. By the chimney-piece in the entrance hall rest the tattered colours once borne through flood and field by two famous regiments, one of them ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... man about town, and the maid of all work! We see not only plays, and then music, and lastly the two together, but original composition also, early engaging his attention. He tells us, "In the year 1812 I think I wrote a mock drama of some kind.... And at one time I wrote a dramatic piece in which Augustus comes on. Again, I wrote a burlesque opera in 1815, composing tunes for ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis

... Theater,' by the Rev. G. Crabbe, we rather think, is the best piece in the collection. It is an exquisite and most masterly imitation, not only of the peculiar style, but of the taste, temper, and manner of description of that most original author. * * * It does not aim, of course, at any shadow of his ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... duration, did not come within hail of myself; whilst his gentle partner, my grandmother, who made no show of extra longevity, lived down into my period, and had the benefit of my acquaintance through half a dozen years. If she turned this piece of good fortune to no great practical account, that (you know) was no fault of mine. Doubtless, I was ready with my advice, freely and gratuitously, if she had condescended to ask for it. Returning ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... present with strenuous service.' 'Go thou thy way.' Never mind the far-off issues; the step before you is clear, and that is all that concerns you. Plod along the path, and leave to-morrow to take care of itself. There is a piece of plain practical wisdom, none the less necessary for us to lay to heart because it is so ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... and tied by the legs, and when all the Madangs were assembled in Tama Usun Tasi's house, the pig was brought in and placed in front of the chiefs. Then one of the head men from a neighbouring village took a lighted piece of wood and singed a few of the bristles of the pig, giving it a poke with his hand at the same time, as if to attract its attention, and calling in a loud voice to the supreme being, "Bali Penyalong." Then, talking at a great rate and hardly stopping ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... engine-room. Redgrave switched on a couple of electric lights, and then pulled a lever attached to one of the side-walls. A part of the flooring about six feet square slid noiselessly away; then he pulled another lever on the opposite side and a similar piece disappeared, leaving a large space covered only by a thick plate of absolutely transparent glass. He switched off the lights again and led her to the edge ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... his mind to attempt to get away from the Apaches at the very first opportunity which he could seize, it struck him that he might help himself by engaging in a piece of deception, justifiable under the circumstances. The bruise which he had received was not severe enough to interfere with his walking, but Lone Wolf might as well believe that it did. If he thought his prisoner was too lame to do much in the way of locomotion, his watchfulness would ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... slaves, mentally and morally to our sensual selves—if we raise the material element above the spiritual within us, we then lose the right of opinion on good or evil, for a man that is passion's slave is the mouth-piece of evil, and an active agent of the enemy of mankind! If we open our volumes of literature, every page bears a reflection of some ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... him down gently at the foot of a large tree. I crossed his hands over his breast, closed his eyelids down, but the smile was still on his face. I wrapt him in his tent, spread my pocket-handkerchief over his face, wrote his name on a piece of paper, and pinned it on his breast, and there we left him: we could not find pick or shovel to dig a grave." There it is!—a history that is multiplying itself by hundreds daily, the substance of what has come to so many homes, and must come to so many more before ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... there came down into that large valley of Guiana a nation from so far off as the sun slept (for such were his own words), with so great a multitude as they could not be numbered nor resisted, and that they wore large coats, and hats of crimson colour, which colour he expressed by shewing a piece of red wood wherewith my tent was supported, and that they were called Orejones and Epuremei; that those had slain and rooted out so many of the ancient people as there were leaves in the wood upon all the trees, ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh

... lives that time, partner," he cried; "we done forgot the bacca when we wus getting up our supplies, an' didn't find it out until we'd come too far to go back. Jim thar," (with a glare at the culprit,) "had a sizeable piece, but he had to go and lose ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... peculiar form. Two strong abutments were built on either side of the river, at a part where the stream was peculiarly contracted. Upon a rock in the centre of the current was built a solid piece of masonry, constructed like the pier of a bridge, and presenting, like a pier, an angle to the current of the stream. The masonry continued solid until the pier rose to a level with the two abutments upon either side, and from thence the building rose in the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... with me? You hardly look at me, and you touch me as if I were a piece of dirt. Supposing I take a brace and we start over, somewhere else? I am tired of knocking round. Come over and ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... that ancient family, the Donnithornes. Mr. Casson, the landlord, had been for some time standing at the door with his hands in his pockets, balancing himself on his heels and toes and looking towards a piece of unenclosed ground, with a maple in the middle of it, which he knew to be the destination of certain grave-looking men and women whom he ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... see her soon. You see, they are now at work upon a fine piece of rascality. She has actually married an old man, supposing him to be wealthy, and Davlin is figuring as her brother. In reality, the old man, their victim, holds only a life interest in the property. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... very careful to expunge all ingramatticisms and payin particuler attention to the punktooation. It was, if I may say it without egitism, a manly effort; but, alars! I never delivered it, as the sekel will show you. I paced up and down the kitchin speakin my piece over so as to be entirely perfeck. My bloomin young daughter, Sarah Ann, bothered me summut by singin, "Why do ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne



Words linked to "Piece" :   andante, firing pin, filet, capriccio, one-piece, riot gun, fowling piece, side arm, cutting, conjoin, disassemble, article, corpus, hunk, chess piece, notturno, tile, scrap, comfit, music, hot spell, serving, building block, create, craton, instance, splice, muzzle loader, escallop, toccata, hiatus, reassemble, smoothbore, gun, piece of ass, introit, repeating firearm, tone poem, symphonic poem, duet, by the piece, snipping, set up, quartette, North Pacific, time, white, confect, program music, .22, unit, incidental music, snip, octet, small-arm, strip, duo, morceau, think piece, trio, musical composition, sextet, canon, confection, chequer, afterpiece, black, fur-piece, creation, largo, corner, helping, segment, work of art, sights, piece of music, sheet music, item, pastoral, fantasia, repair, motet, masking piece, piece of tail, arrangement, allegro, chessman, patch, cold spell, fragment, pick, rig up, eat, jumble, configure, finale, furbish up, stub, piece of cake, divertimento, distance, join, quintet, cold snap, tack, shooting iron, firearm, example, musical passage, handgun, vocal, mix up, movement, pastorale, shotgun, base, potpourri, piece of furniture, rifle, snippet, acicula, self-loader, part, thing, pistol, scattergun, lock, game equipment, fix, South Pacific, sestet, make, scollop, adagio, cutlet, duette, while, put together, nocturne, solo, body part, beam, realisation, quartet, idyll, pastiche, suite, musical arrangement, percentage, share, lump, nibble, vamp, septet, programme music, serenade, set piece, coda, knee piece, bagatelle, vamp up, medley, study, touch on, fish filet, idyl, sextette, piece of cloth, fish fillet, realization, bushel, quintette, passage, nub, compound, South Atlantic, shard, checker, bring together, world, piece of material, octette, twenty-two, septette, case, snap, confuse, intermezzo, scallop, autoloader, two-piece suit, allegretto, fillet, portion, doctor, larghetto, sherd, repeater, spindle, slice, song, man, mend, etude, virtu, North Atlantic, restore



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com