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Propel   /prəpˈɛl/   Listen
Propel

verb
(past & past part. propelled; pres. part. propelling)
1.
Cause to move forward with force.  Synonym: impel.
2.
Give an incentive for action.  Synonyms: actuate, incite, motivate, move, prompt.



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"Propel" Quotes from Famous Books



... first jest I attempt to utter strangulate me outright, before it escapes from my lips. But really, with respect to abandoning my master, thank the blessed virgin, that is a crime of which no one can accuse me. A man cannot help feeling shy at engaging in broils and combats, if his star doth not propel him thereto,—and that in verity is pretty nearly my case; but if any one is tempted to question my fidelity, this miserable carcass of mine can bear witness to the contrary, by displaying the honorable bruises I have reaped in the service of my master.—Alack! ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... the hammock, one foot used to propel herself gently back and forth. The newly-acquired striped dress was such a tight fit for her rubicund form, that it cracked ominously every time the wearer took a deep breath. But the short-coming of the two fronts over her ample bosom was camouflaged with ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... not in a mood for that, and as he saw Burne's long legs propel his ridiculous bicycle out of sight beyond Alexander Hall, he knew he was going to have a bad week. Not that he doubted the war—Germany stood for everything repugnant to him; for materialism and the direction of tremendous licentious force; it was ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... figure loomed in the shadowy corner where the pulpit stood. A simple hymn was dictated and sung in strong nasal tones. The old man who led the singing prided himself upon the volume of sound which he could at any instant propel through his nose. Strangers were sometimes a little disconcerted by this feat, for it seemed as if some wholly new description of trumpet had been suddenly invented. This man of the trumpet voice was wont to close his eyes and turn his face towards the ceiling. ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... had made famous by the name of acorn-eaters; or whether the reason of it was because they might easily, and in all places where they fought, have plenty of oak for that purpose; or, finally, whether the oaken wreath, being sacred to Jupiter, the guardian of the city, might, therefore, be thought a propel ornament for one who preserved a citizen. And the oak, in truth, is the tree which bears the most and the prettiest fruit of any that grow wild, and is the strongest of all that are under cultivation; ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... motor machines which man has invented, but from which the human machine is almost completely free. We can illustrate the defect best by comparing the movements of the heel with those of the crank-pin of an engine. One serves as the lever by which the gastrocnemius helps to propel the body; the other serves the same purpose in the propulsion of a motor cycle. On referring to Fig. 7, A, the reader will see that the piston-rod and the crank-pin are in a straight line; in such a position the engine is powerless to move the crank-pin until the flywheel ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... it at all," said Berry. "If it's nice and warm, I shall have a Bath chair, which you and Jonah will propel at a convenient pace. Nobby will sit at my feet as a hostage against your careless negotiation of gradients." He drew a key from his pocket and pitched it on to a table. "I fancy," he added, "I heard them put the case on the landing: and as I propose, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... imparted to us for a wise purpose, and are therefore beneficial in their use. It is only in their neglect, misuse or abuse that they become hurtful. A French author has pertinently put it thus: "The passions act as winds to propel our vessel, our reason is the pilot that steers her; without the winds she would not move, without the pilot she would ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... the engine-room were the two motors, one designed to send the projectile through the atmosphere, the other intended to propel it through the space filled with what ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood

... quarter of a century prior to this demonstration Mr. Evans had time and again asserted that vessels could be thus navigated. He did not contend with John Fitch, but on the contrary tried to aid him and advised him to use other means than oars to propel his boat. But Fitch was wedded to his own methods. In 1805 Mr. Evans published a book on the steam engine, mainly devoted to his form thereof. In this book he gives directions how to propel boats by means of his engine ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... turn at yawning, but all took the interruption good-naturedly, save Ned Rector. By this time he had grown very much excited. No sooner would he pounce upon the spot where Stacy appeared to be, than the fat boy by a few swift rolls would propel himself well beyond the reach of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... sails. The hull is too broad for speed, but this adds to the security of the vessel in a gale. With a fair wind, it rarely makes more than eight knots an hour, and in a calm, the sailors (if not too lazy) propel it forward with six long oars. The hull is painted in a fanciful style, generally blue, red, green and white, with bright red masts. The bulwarks are low, and the deck of such a convexity that it is quite impossible to walk it in a heavy sea. Such ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... engine drivers and stokers seemed glad to talk with a youngster who took an interest in their business. Especially interested was I in a rotary engine on "Barker's centrifugal principle,'' with which the inventor had prom- ised to propel locomotives at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, but which had been degraded to grinding bark in a tannery. I felt its disgrace keenly, as a piece of gross injustice; but having obtained a small brass model, fitted to it a tin boiler and placed it on a little stern-wheel boat, I speedily discovered ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... allowed that the heart in contracting sometimes propels and sometimes does not propel, or at most propels but very little, a mere nothing, or an imaginary something: all this, indeed, has already been refuted, and is, besides, contrary both to sense and reason. For if it be a necessary effect of the dilatation of the heart that its ventricles become ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... suppose are fond of still-fishing—that is to fish from the bank or from an anchored boat, and not move around very much. And some like to troll, I suppose—that is to use an artificial bait and let the line drag in the water quite a distance back of the row boat as you propel it through the water. And others, perhaps, like to cast—that is, to throw the bait away out into the water and then bring it in again by winding up the line on the reel. And some, I suppose, like to use other methods of catching ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold

... knew what to do. Corporal Pederson produced hardened steel spikes with ring tops. Private Trudeau had a sledge. Driving the first spike would be the hardest, because the action of swinging the hammer would propel the Planeteer like a rocket exhaust. In space, the law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction had to ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage

... flock of locusts. Despite his utmost efforts, Leo could not do more than keep up in rear of the hunters, for the sharp shuttle-like kayaks shot like arrows over the smooth sea, while his clumsier boat required greater force to propel it. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... of grace and beauty. As he still nervously retained the two hands he had grasped, this would have been a difficult feat, even had he not endeavored at the same moment, by a backward furtive kick, to propel the hat out of the window, at which she laughingly broke from his grasp and ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte

... a foot expedition under charge of Standish, and considered as a possible seat for their colony. The crowded state of the boats and the head wind rendered the sails useless, and oars proved inefficient to propel so large a boat as the pinnace, while the sea, rapidly rising with the rising wind, broke so dangerously over the quarter that English refused to proceed, and it was hastily resolved to run into what is now called East Harbor, land the passengers, and ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... sloops and shallops...." A second common mode of transportation, according to Philip A. Bruce, was "not to draw the cask over the ground by means of horses or oxen, like an enormous clod crusher, the custom of a later period, but to propel it by the application of a steady force from behind." In 1724 Hugh Jones wrote, "The tobacco is rolled, drawn by horses, or carted to convenient Rolling Houses, whence it is conveyed on board the ships in flats or sloops." Thus it appears that by 1700 the Tidewater planters had adopted ...
— Tobacco in Colonial Virginia - "The Sovereign Remedy" • Melvin Herndon

... receding particles of globular matter. This finer matter which collects in the centre of each vortex is the first matter of Descartes—it constitutes the sun or star. The spherical particles are the second matter of Descartes, and their tendency to propel one another from the centre in straight lines towards the circumference of each vortex is what gives rise to the phenomenon of light radiating from the central star. This second matter is atmosphere or firmament, which envelops and revolves around the central accumulation ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... he said, in agitation. She came to life, mechanically, and let him propel her along. The wind was away from them, but the fire growing. They ran madly until they had to stop and fall exhausted to the ground. When he could breathe again without torturing his lungs, Nelson looked back and saw the smoke from the fire in the distance ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page

... said, as she pushed her hand through my arm and began to propel me away from the sight and hearing of people on the piazza, "I hope you didn't make a fool of yourself ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... leafy flooring of the raft, the dog began to howl, making him take it up again in his arms. To add to his troubles, also, he had dropped his sculling pole during a lurch of his floating platform, so he had nothing now wherewith to propel it either towards the island or back to the shore, the raft wickedly oscillating midway in the water between the two, like Mahomet's coffin 'twixt ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson

... observed in an exhausted vessel are limited to the character and capacity of the apparatus which is made use of. I think that in a bulb a molecule, or atom, does not precisely move in a straight line because it meets no obstacle, but because the velocity imparted to it is sufficient to propel it in a sensibly straight line. The mean free path is one thing, but the velocity—the energy associated with the moving body—is another, and under ordinary circumstances I believe that it is a mere question of potential or speed. A disruptive discharge coil, when the potential ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla

... an eminence by an extrinsic force, applied and continued by the revolution of impinging vanes, in form and number resembling the vanes of a windmill. But, in all the experiments made with models at the Adelaide Gallery, it was found that the operation of these fans not only did not propel the machine, but actually impeded its flight. The only propelling force it ever exhibited, was the mere impetus acquired from the descent of the inclined plane; and this impetus carried the machine farther when the vanes were at rest, than when they ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... observations, and found themselves about five hundred miles W.N.W. of Mizen Head. As it was no use depending on being picked up they made all sail in that direction, and so rapidly did the strong west wind propel them that on taking observations the next day they found themselves nearly one hundred and fifty miles nearer land. It was fortunate that they made such headway, for they had only one day's provisions ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer

... petroleum sector (through large-scale state enterprises) and extensively subsidizes agriculture, fishing, and areas with sparse resources. Norway also maintains an extensive welfare system that helps propel public sector expenditures to slightly more than 50% of the GDP and results in one of the highest average tax burdens in the world (54%). A small country with a high dependence on international trade, Norway is basically an exporter of raw materials and semiprocessed goods, with an abundance ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... singular enthusiasm; the exaltation of the moment possessed me, and unannounced, as yet unquestioned, I rose to my full height upon a narrow rostrum in the platform, and turning from side to side spoke with an elation that seemed to propel my ringing words over the great assembly with the power and shock of ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... of the turbine or steam-jet—used to propel a fly-wheel filled with liquid as described—has for its object the supply of the electric light in country houses. In this case the fly-wheel is fitted, on its lower side, to act as the armature of a dynamo, and the magnets are placed horizontally ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... tubes Clasp with young lips the nutrient globes or cubes; And urged by appetencies new select, Imbibe, retain, digest, secrete, eject. In branching cones the living web expands, Lymphatic ducts, and convoluted glands; 260 Aortal tubes propel the nascent blood, And lengthening veins absorb the refluent flood; Leaves, lungs, and gills, the vital ether breathe On earth's green surface, or the waves beneath. So Life's first powers arrest the winds and floods, To bones convert ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... to know how to swim. The human body in the water weighs little more than a pound; so that one finger placed upon a piece of board, an oar or a paddle, will easily keep the head above water, and the feet and the other hand can be used to propel the body toward the shore. It is all important for the person in the water to breathe and keep a cool ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... interest his companion, thus diverting her thoughts and preventing her from dwelling too much upon the horrors of their present situation. He therefore set manfully to work and, shaping a course by the run of the sea, proceeded to propel the raft to windward, resting his hand upon its after end and striking out with his legs, in long, steady strokes that could be maintained for a considerable period without ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... combination of free market activity and government intervention. The government controls key areas, such as the vital petroleum sector (through large-scale state enterprises), and extensively subsidizes agriculture, fishing, and areas with sparse resources. The extensive welfare system helps propel public sector expenditures to more than 50% of GDP. A major shipping nation, with a high dependence on international trade, Norway is basically an exporter of raw materials and semiprocessed goods. The country is richly endowed with natural resources - petroleum, ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... in disease, the cavities of the ventricles are probably also generally enlarged, and therefore they propel more blood at each contraction than in normal persons and thus increase the ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... save a distant sail fleeing across the silver sheen to the sea. He remembered what the man had said about bathing and yielding to an irresistible impulse was soon swimming out across the water. It was like a new lease of life to feel the water brimming to his neck again, and to propel himself with strong, graceful strokes through the element where he would. A bird shot up into the air with a wild sweet note, and he felt like answering to its melody. He whistled softly in imitation of its ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... problem of how they were to escape from their present predicament became a most important one. The first suggestion was that they construct a small and easily managed raft from a portion of the material contained in the Venture. They foresaw that it would be impossible for them to propel even this against the swift current and reach the river, where they might procure relief from some passing boat. Still, even to drift with the current, or at the best to work their way diagonally ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe

... impulse sufficient to carry it away from the car to any considerable distance, you will be unable to get back again, unless we can catch you with a boathook or a fishline. Out there in empty space you will have nothing to kick against, and you will be unable to propel yourself in the direction of the car, and its attraction is so feeble that we should probably arrive at Mars before it had drawn you ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss

... that what must pass away sooner or later is not disengaged all at once even from the highest order of minds. Nature, which by one law of development evolves ideas, moralities, modes of inward life, and represses them in turn, has in this way provided that the earlier growth should propel its fibres into the later, and so transmit the whole of its forces in an unbroken continuity of life. Then comes the spectacle of the reserve of the elder generation exquisitely refined by the antagonism of the new. That current of new life ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... the ordinary means employed to propel light machinery by the foot are fatiguing in the extreme and although the best of these is the rock shaft with foot pieces, employed almost universally in modern sewing machines, this requires the operator to sit bolt upright, a position very trying to the back, and ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... experimented with at Brooklyn to propel her by the reaction of a powerful blower or fan. This was driven first by a ten-horse, and next by a forty-horse stationary engine, and afterwards by a forty-horse oscillator. Each failed to move her from her slip, and the conception proved ...
— History of Steam on the Erie Canal • Anonymous



Words linked to "Propel" :   rocket, do, make, catapult, propulsion, propellent, hit, propulsive, pole, throw, propellor, cause, impress, displace, carry, propellant, kick, send off, motivate, prompt, drive, move, launch, project, flip, strike, affect, propeller, loft, impel, punt



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