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Reel   /ril/   Listen
Reel

noun
1.
A roll of photographic film holding a series of frames to be projected by a movie projector.
2.
Music composed for dancing a reel.
3.
Winder consisting of a revolving spool with a handle; attached to a fishing rod.
4.
A winder around which thread or tape or film or other flexible materials can be wound.  Synonyms: bobbin, spool.
5.
A lively dance of Scottish Highlanders; marked by circular moves and gliding steps.  Synonym: Scottish reel.
6.
An American country dance which starts with the couples facing each other in two lines.  Synonym: Virginia reel.



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"Reel" Quotes from Famous Books



... for a living?" Scotty asked. "Wish we had Chahda along. He could reel off the straight dope from his Worrold Alm-in-ack." Their Indian friend, Chahda, was at home in Bombay and they hadn't heard from him in some time. His ability to quote from The World Almanac, which he had memorized, had caused the boys considerable ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin

... flash, the nervy youth flung the table against the downcast wretch's companions, making them reel. ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish

... Vee gets enthusiastic over anything it ain't any flash in the pan. It's apt to be done, and done right. She tells me what to do right off the reel. And you should have seen me blowin' that five hundred like a drunken sailor. I charters a five-piece orchestra, gives a rush order to a decorator, and engages a swell caterer, warnin' Tessie by wire what ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... do," remarked Russ, as he saw that there was no more film left in the camera. "Now, Mr. Pertell, you'll have to get some story written around these scenes. Add more to them, and you'll have a good reel." ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope

... of valor, I assure you—a very Goliath in his way. He used to go starring it in the provinces, itinerating as a tuppenny lecturer on Tom Paine. He has occasionally appeared in our Lecture-Hall. He, too, as well as other conjurers, has thrown dust in our eyes and has made the platform reel beneath the superincumbent weight of his balderdash and blasphemy. The house he lives in is a sort of "Voltaire Villa." The man and his "squaw" occupy it, united by a bond unblessed by priest or ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... too, had fallen into the power of their deadly foes, it had seemed to him as though a bitterness greater than that of death had fallen upon him, and the rebound of feeling when Gaston had declared himself had been so great, that the whole place swam before his eyes, and the floor seemed to reel beneath ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... natives? and may we not account for the ten thousand frantic freaks of these people by the peculiar influence of French air and sun? The philosophers are from night to morning drunk, the politicians are drunk, the literary men reel and stagger from one absurdity to another, and how shall we understand their vagaries? Let us suppose, charitably, that Madame Sand had inhaled a more than ordinary quantity of this laughing gas when she wrote for us this precious manuscript of Spiridion. That great ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... with ANY soap," answered Rebecca; "but it must be true or they would never dare to print it, so don't let's bother. Oh! won't it be the greatest fun, Emma Jane? At some of the houses—where they can't possibly know me—I shan't be frightened, and I shall reel off the whole rigmarole, invalid, babe, and all. Perhaps I shall say even the last sentence, if I can remember it: 'We sound every chord in ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... stood, like a pallid automaton, when the instant came for him to change his position, and he saw me. The cry that rose to his lips but did not escape them, the reel which his figure gave before it stiffened into marble, testified to the shock he had received, and also to the sense of unreality with which my appearance in this wise must have impressed him. His look, his attitude were those of a man gazing upon a spectre, and as I met his glance with mine, ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... the flageolet to his lips and blew. In a moment or two harlequin and columbine appeared on the screen, and began to caper nimbly, naturally, with the airiest graces. The tune was a jigging reel, and soon began to inspire the performer above. Her small dancers in a twinkling turned into a gambolling elephant, then to a pair of swallows. A moment after they were flower and butterfly, then a jigging donkey, then harlequin and columbine again. With each fantastic change the tune quickened and ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... in reel and rout The Death-fires danc'd at night; The water, like a witch's oils, Burnt green and ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge

... arranged that we should leave from Jack's house in Park Lane, and as we wanted to reach Southampton early, our start was to be at nine o'clock. "In France," Jack had said to me, "we could reel off the distance almost as quickly as the train; but in our blessed land, with its twenty miles an hour speed limit, its narrow winding roads, chiefly used in country places as children's playgrounds, and its police ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... to herself that really, for a plain country-girl, Miss Crowe did this kind of thing very well. Her next glimpse of the couple showed them whirling round the room to the crashing thrum of the piano. At eleven o'clock she beheld them linked by their finger-tips in the dazzling mazes of the reel. At half-past eleven she discerned them charging shoulder to shoulder in the serried columns of the Lancers. At midnight she tapped her young ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... trousers with suspenders dangling, his boots were clutched in the other. The sight of us stopped his flight short. He gazed, the boots fell from his hand; and at his profane explosion, Medicine Bow set up a united, unearthly noise and began to play Virginia reel with him. The other occupants of the beds had already sprung out of them, clothed chiefly with their pistols, and ready for war. "What is it?" they demanded. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... untameable mountaineers across the border. A man whose terribly hard life had turned him into a man of bone and muscle, rivalling the most active Montenegrin in strength and endurance. And what a fund of anecdote and adventure he could reel off! Without doubt he was one of the most interesting and fascinating men we have ever met; a perfect rifle, gun, and revolver shot, fine ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... no more,' they who paid no heed to the word of the Lord shall one day seek far and wearily for a prophet, and seek in vain. The word rendered 'wander,' which is used in the other description of people seeking for water in a literal drought (iv. 8), means 'reel,' and gives the picture of men faint and dizzy with thirst, yet staggering on in vain quest for a spring. They seek everywhere, from the Dead Sea on the east to the Mediterranean on the west, and then up to the north, and so round again to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... comet. Her impish eyes expressed an alarm that was more than half simulated, and the task of manoeuvring her into position beside the mounting block, was comparable only to an endeavour to extract a kitten from under a bed with the lure of a reel of cotton. An apple took the place of the reel of cotton, and its consumption afforded Christian just time enough to settle herself in her saddle. Since the days of Harry the Residue Christian had ridden many and various horses, and she had a reputation for making the ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... Skinner wrote little Scottish poetry, but what he wrote was rarely good. His prose works extended over three volumes when they were collected by his son, the Bishop of Aberdeen, but we have no concern with them. His poetical pieces, by which his name will never die in Scotland, are the "Reel of Tullochgorum" and the "Ewie with the Crooked Horn," charming Scottish songs,—one the perfection of the lively, the other of the pathetic. It is quite enough to say of "Tullochgorum" (by which the old man is now always designated), what was said of it by Robert Burns, as "the first ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... student Graves made her none the less desirable. Ben dipped his oars with dexterous aptitude and shot under the shadow of the trees. An instant later, his boat was beside those of the other squatters, and he was standing with his hand upon the north reel. Out into the lake the net was carried by Satisfied Longman and Jake Brewer. Ben could see the tall, thin form of Ezra through the shadows, guiding the ropes as they slipped through his fingers. Here was a boy aspiring to the love of Tessibel Skinner. Ben heard the swish ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... was in fun when he called you Cherrytoe, darling. She was a woman who danced better than I hope you ever will. Now, who is ready for Virginia reel?" ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... droning sound Of waves that filled the watery round, She heard a distant shout and din— The levees of the upper land Had crumbled like a wall of sand, And the wild floods were pouring in! She saw the straining dyke give way— The quaking trestle reel and sway. Yet hold together, bravely, still! She saw the rushing waters drown The piers, while ever sucking down ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... let him reel on unharmed; and thereupon it occurred to me that I could have no better guide, passing as he would exactly where I wished to be—that is to say, under Lorna's window. Therefore I followed him, without any special caution; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... did not have time to finish his comparison; a blow from the whip cut him in the face and made him reel in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... like 'em to be 'ad in London for love or money; and they shall 'ave 'em boiled light for their tea this very evenin'. And you look sharp, John,—drat the man, 'ow long 'e is—for I tell yon, these is reel gentlefolk, and them pore too, which makes it all the 'arder; and they've got to be treated the same in every respect as if they was paying a 'ole suvverin, bless their ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... raised and changed. When I last saw it, it seemed to be partly an old-clothesman's shop and partly a brazier's.' Balls were held in the beautiful rooms of George Square, in spite of the 'New Town piece of presumption,' that is, an attempt to force the fashionable dancers of the reel into the George ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... reel, Drusilla decided that they should be leaving, as supper would be ready at the home. One of the ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper

... fidelity and devotion. Both crossed the river on horseback, and the army uttered shouts of admiration as they saw that the chiefs were the first to set the example of intrepidity. They braved enough dangers to make the strongest brain reel. The current forced their horses to swim diagonally across, which doubled the length of the passage; and as they swam, blocks of ice struck against their flanks and sides, making ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... wel, so is True. Father came at last. He tuked me in a motor home. I have a knew mother. She is very nice. We saw sum reel wite gates, but they was loked. We mene to find sum more. Me and Nobbles runned away and hid under the sete. We did not go back no more. Plese come and see me in this house, and giv Master Mort'mer ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre

... Already his brain began to reel; there was a loud humming in his ears; his eyes ached and felt as though they would burst out of their sockets; and he found his strength ebbing away like water. Should he at once prosecute his search further? That seemed physically ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... border, the whole surrounded by a ring of violet leaves—she looked about for something to tie it up with. Sarah, applied to, was busy ironing, and had no string in the kitchen, so Pin ran to get a reel of cotton. But while she was away Laura had an idea. Bidding Leppie hold the flowers tight in both his sticky little hands, she climbed in at her bedroom window, or rather, by lying on the sill with her legs waving in ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... not fam'd for a reel or a jig, Tom Sheridan there surpasses Tom Bigg.— For lam'd in one thigh, he is obliged to go zig- Zag, like a crab—for no dancer is Bigg. Those who think him a coxcomb, or call him a prig, How little they know of the mind of my ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... One day the log-reel was missing. Summon Annatoo. She came; but knew nothing about it. Jarl spent a whole morning in contriving a substitute; and a few days after, pop, we came upon the lost: article ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... impressions as rapid and as fleeting as a reel of moving-pictures, leaving in Rafael's mind a maze of names, buildings, paintings and cities, served to give greater breadth to his thinking, as well as added stimulus to his imagination. Wider still became the gulf that separated ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Mr. Sercombe's English ears—began his invitation to the dance, and in a few moments the floor was, in a tumult of reels. The girls, unacquainted with their own country's dances, preferred looking on, and after watching reel and strathspey for some time, altogether declined attempting either. But by and by it was the turn of the clanspeople to look on while the lady of the house and her sons danced a quadrille or two with their visitors; after which the chief and his brother pairing with the two elder girls, ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... hard work," Joe went on, "but I don't mind. I like it. And I'm not so foolish as to think that I'm going to go in, right off the reel, and become the star pitcher of the team. I guess I'll have to sit back, and warm the bench for quite a considerable time before I'm called on to pull the game out ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... that he reported himself to General Gregory?' His voice was hoarse, and I saw him reel as though some one ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... and a sinner, still bears his love in his heart and you have not been able to root yours up and cast it out. He has done his worst, and in doing it—remember his letter—in doing it, I say, has poisoned his own young life already. In that Babel called Paris he does but reel from one pleasure to another. But how long can that last? Do you not see, as I see, that the day must come when, sickened and loathing all this folly he will deem himself the most wretched soul on earth, and look about him for the firm shore as a sailor ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the kitchen wall, where the canvas was stretched and painted, much too large to be got through any of the doors, and the jest of all our neighbours. One compared it to Robinson Crusoe's long-boat, too large to be removed; another thought it more resembled a reel in a bottle; some wondered how it could be got out, but still more were amazed how it ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... reel and rod And cure his taste for dainty dishes By favour of whatever god Decides the destiny of fishes; And that were vengeance passing sweet— Your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various

... nearly shook his hand off; better still to see how Dan gratefully remembered all he owed Nat, and tried to pay the debt in his rough way; and best of all to hear the two travellers compare notes and reel off yarns to ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... catch the gale Round veered the flapping sail, Death! was the helmsman's hail, Death without quarter! Mid-ships with iron keel Struck we her ribs of steel; Down her black hulk did reel Through the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... he left the doctor's office to reel and stagger drunkenly through the slush and the sleet, and the icy blasts, which bit ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... great galleries blasted out of the rock, with corridors leading to openings from which one has marvelous views.[31] Eismeer looks directly upon the huge sea of snow and ice, with immense masses of dazzling white so close as to make one reel with awe and astonishment. In fact, this view is really oppressive in its wild magnificence, so near and so grand is it. The Jungfraujoch is different. One is out in the open, so to speak; one walks over that vast plateau of snow over 11,000 feet high in ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various

... light of these objections, gladly took the proffered cup into his gauntleted hands, and "drank the red wine through the helmet barred," as though he had been one of the famous knights of Branksome Tower. It was soon apparent that the man in brass was intoxicated. He became obstreperous; he began to reel and stumble, accoutred as he was, to the hazard of his own bones and to the great dismay of bystanders. It was felt that his fall might entail disaster upon many. Attempts were made to remove him, when he assumed a pugilistic attitude, and resolutely declined to quit the hall. Nor was ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... the Horn was a south-easterly one, which brought the wind nicely over the starboard quarter, and the breeze was of just the right strength to enable us to show the whole of our starboard flight of studding-sails to it, and to handsomely reel off our eleven knots per hour by the log. Under these circumstances we were not long in running the island out of sight; and with its disappearance below the horizon I hoped that my troubles— except, of course, ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... all the evil that is around us, and conscious in some measure of the weakness of our own hearts, let us do as a man would do who stands upon the narrow ledge of a cliff, and look sheer down into the depth below, and feels his head begin to reel and turn giddy; let us lay hold of the Guide's hand, and if we cleave by Him, He will hold up our goings that our footsteps slip not. Nothing else will. No length of obedient service is any guarantee against treachery and rebellion. As John Bunyan saw, there was a backdoor to hell from the gate ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... most sad To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? Who but the Being unblest, alien from good, Sabbathless Satan! he who his unglad Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings, That round and round incalculably reel— For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel— In that red realm from which are no returnings; Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye He, and his ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... took possession of the dancing-hall, where, surrounded by the elders, a quick succession of Money Musk, Opera Reel, Chorus Jig, etc., interspersed sparingly with cotillons, evidenced the relish with which young spirits and light hearts enjoy the exercises of ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... Scotch reel you are dancing, you Highland fairy?" asked her father. "Mrs. Bretton, there will be a green ring growing up in the middle of your kitchen shortly. I would not answer for her being quite cannie: she ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... him that the mountaineer's talk answered precisely, and soon the colonel found himself an intermediary between buried coal and open millions, and such a quick unlooked-for chance of exchange made Arch Hawn's brain reel. Only a few days before the colonel started for the mountains, Babe Honeycutt had broken the truce by shooting Shade Hawn, but as Shade was going to get well, Arch's oily tongue had licked the wound to the pride of every Honeycutt except Shade, and he calculated that ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... nothing of the notorious profligacy of his character; nothing of the reckless extravagance with which he has wasted an ample fortune; nothing of the disgusting intemperance which has sometimes caused him to reel in our streets;—but I aver that he has not been faithful to our interests,—has not exhibited either probity or ability in the important office ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... reader feels himself called on to worship and in duty bound to scoff. All's well, though, when the homage is latent in the irony. Thackeray, inviting us to laugh and frown over the follies of Mayfair, enables us to reel with him in a secret orgy of veneration ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... arrangements, it is because Bearne now offers him less money than before." The amount of dissimulation, politely so-called, practised by the grandees of that age, to say nothing of their infinite capacity for pecuniary absorption, makes the brain reel and enlarges one's ideas of the human faculties as exerted in certain directions. It is doubtful whether plain Hans Miller or Hans Baker could have ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Then, instead of pushing away for some port, so amazed and bewildered were we that we continued sitting in our places gazing upon the ship, as though she had been an object of the tenderest affection. Our eyes could not leave her, till, at the end of many hours, she gave a slight reel, then down she sank. No words can tell our feelings. We looked at each other—we looked at the place where she had so lately been afloat—and we did not cease to look, till the terrible conviction of our abandoned and perilous situation roused us to exertion, if deliverance ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... a going on much as usual at our grand old Manshun House under our trewly liberal LORD MARE, but I ain't had nothink werry new to tell about, till a few nites ago, when we had what I can truthfully call a reel staggerer, and no mistake. It seems as it's allers the custon, when a Embassadore, who has made hisself werry poplar, is gitting jest a leetle tired of us, and begins to si for Ome sweet Ome, for the principalest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 18, 1893 • Various

... one hand she mechanically took from the frame a bobbin wound with gold thread, in order to make the open-work centre of one of the large lilies. After having loosened the end from the point of the reel, she fastened it with a double stitch of silk to the edge of the vellum which was to give a thickness to the embroidery. Then, continuing her work, she said again, without finishing her thought, which seemed lost in the vagueness of its desire, "Oh! ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... used in the manufacture of clothing, so a smaller stripping device is employed by the woman (Plate XX). On this she cleans the outer layers of the hemp stalk, from which a stronger and coarser thread can be obtained. The fiber is tied in a continuous thread and is wound onto a reel. The warp threads are measured on sharpened sticks driven into a hemp or banana stalk, and are then transferred to a rectangular frame (Plate XXI). The operator, with the final pattern in mind, overties or wraps with waxed ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... pledge of Rebecca forfeited. At this instant a knight, urging his horse to speed, appeared on the plain advancing towards the lists. A hundred voices exclaimed, "A champion! A champion!" and amidst a ringing cheer the knight rode into the tilt-yard, although his horse appeared to reel ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... his courage, but both had been strained too severely at first. Montacute struck the spurs into him with a savage blow over the head; the madness was its own punishment; the poor brute rose blindly to the jump, and missed the bank with a reel and a crash; Sir Eyre was hurled out into the brook, and the hope of the Heavies lay there with his breast and forelegs resting on the ground, his hindquarters in the water, and his neck broken. Pas de Charge would never again see the starting flag waved, or hear the music of the hounds, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... became an Episcopalian and ministered to a congregation at Longside, near Peterhead, for 65 years. He wrote The Ecclesiastical History of Scotland from the Episcopalian point of view, and several songs of which The Reel of Tullochgorum and The Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn are the best known, and he also rendered some of the Psalms into Latin. He kept up ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... laid down until it is finished. The plots and counter-plots make the brain reel. The book should be read, and will repay the most exacting lovers of ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... cotton and card and spin it on a spinnin' wheel into thread, fine enough to be sewed with a needle. We woun' de thread on a broche, make like and 'bout de size of a ice pick. De thread was den woun' on a reel 'bout de size of a forewheel of a wagon, and de reel would turn 48 times and den 'cluck'. Dat was for dem to be able ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... a moment of despair I should reel for a breathing space away from the fight, with no heart for battle-cries, and with only a desire to pray, I could do it in no better manner than to lift my arms above the river and cry out into the big spaces: "You who somehow understand—behold this river! It expresses ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... "Why not?" Brinsley's reel was whirring. "And now if you don't mind, Fox, you might be ready with the net. If this fish is as big as he pulls, he ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... saving crew, whose mortar was being loaded. A stove-in lifeboat mutely attested the failure of other efforts. The men worked busily, ramming home the powder sack, placing the projectile with the light line attached, attending that the reel ran freely. Their chief watched the seas and winds through his glasses. When the preparations were finished, he adjusted the mortar, and pulled the string. Carroll had seen this done in practice. Now, with the recollection of that experience in mind, she was astonished at the feeble ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... to me, may think off me wen I'm far a whey. Halass! sir, the wicktim of that crewel blewbeard, Lord Melbun, who got affeard of my rising poplarity in the Palass, and as sent me to see for my peeping, though, heaven nose, I was acktyated by the pewrest motiffs in what I did. The reel fax of the case is, I'm a young man of an ighly cultiwated mind and a very ink-wisitive disposition, wich naturally led me to the use of the pen. I ad also bean in the abit of reading "Jak Sheppard," and I may add, that I O all my eleygant tastes to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... causing all the pleasing sensations that might be experienced on the removal of a tail by the roots. Brown rushes wildly to the window, opening the casement; and, upon looking into the pitch-dark night, he receives a blow from without, that causes him to stagger and reel backwards, falling to the floor, with a noise that makes Mrs. Brown rise in a fright, obtain a light, and severely reprimand her lord as a drunken fool—capable ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... in great Waters: These see the Works of the Lord, and his Wonders in the Deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy Wind, which lifteth up the Waters thereof. They mount up to the Heaven, they go down again to the Depths, their Soul is melted because of Trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken Man, and are at their Wits End. Then they cry unto the Lord in their Trouble, and he bringeth them out of their Distresses. He maketh the Storm a Calm, so that the Waves thereof ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... her, his eyes beaming with tenderness, his heart a prey to violent anguish. As she reached the door, he saw her reel and cling to ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... there 'Rural Beauty' done it," Mr. Morton broke in peevishly. "Wish't I'd never let them film people camp up there on my paster lot and take them picters on my farm. Sallie was jest carried away with it. She acted in that five-reel film, 'A Rural Beauty.' And I must say she looked as purty ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... alas! my Nannine was an unusually dull-witted girl, and she would never be able to do a thing she had not rehearsed. My next impulse was to pick up the creature and carry it off myself; but I was playing a dying girl, and the people had just seen me, after only three steps, reel helplessly into a chair; and this cat might easily weigh twelve pounds or more; and then at last my plan was formed. I had been clinging all the time to the bureau for support, now I slipped to my knees and with a prayer in my heart that this fierce old Thomas might not ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... reclosed on the haft, Jarring concussion and earth shaking din, Horse 'counter'd horse, and I reel'd, but he laugh'd, Down went his man, cloven clean to ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... perversity of man, that I grew more and more home-sick, thinking never so much in my life before of my quiet hearthstone and cheerful ingle; and though Thomas Clod insisted greatly on my staying to their head-meeting dinner, and taking a reel with the lassies in the barn; and Tammie Dobbie, the bit body, had got so much into the spirit of the thing, that little persuasion would have made him stay all night and reel till the dawing—yet ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... that we can't break. We've done business in the West where it's more of a fair game. Out there the people we skin are trying to skin us, even the farmers and the remittance men that the magazines send out to write up Goldfields. But there's little sport in New York city for rod, reel or gun. They hunt here with either one of two things—a slungshot or a letter of introduction. The town has been stocked so full of carp that the game fish are all gone. If you spread a net here, do you catch legitimate suckers in it, such as the Lord intended to be caught—fresh ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry

... a small reel with the steam-engine of the factory in which he is occupied, and putting it in motion, at the rate of 150 feet per minute, found that the spider would thus continue to afford an unbroken thread during from three to five minutes. The specimen of this silk, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various

... be done. He, Luck Lindsay, could do it; in his heart he knew that he could. In his heart he felt that all of these months—yes, and years—of picture-making had been but a preparation for this great picture of the range. All these one-reel pioneer pictures had been merely the feeble efforts of an apprentice learning to handle the tools of his craft, the mental gropings of his mind while waiting for this, his big idea. His work with the Indians was the ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... have "bostoned" with the best At a ball in Bukharest, I've reversed with Congo pigmies, dark and hairy; I have one-stepped in Sing-Sing And performed the Highland Fling, I have razzled in the reel at Inveraray. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various

... fly on a floating chip at fifty yards," the physicist said proudly. Johnny handed him the rod and reel. "O.K., Doc, light up your rag and then let's see you drop it ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael

... the dairy, While I go a-hoeing and mowing each morn; Gaily run the reel and the little spinning wheel, While I am singing ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)

... anything else, regularly putting down upon the customary slate the course steered by the ship, as well as the presumed average rate of progression every hour. It had been thus with the Pequod. The wooden reel and angular log attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the railing of the after bulwarks. Rains and spray had damped it; sun and wind had warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... loggan[obs3], rocking-stone, vibroscope[obs3]. V. oscillate; vibrate, librate[obs3]; alternate, undulate, wave; rock, swing; pulsate, beat; wag, waggle; nod, bob, courtesy, curtsy; tick; play; wamble[obs3], wabble[obs3]; dangle, swag. fluctuate, dance, curvet, reel, quake; quiver, quaver; shake, flicker; wriggle; roll, toss, pitch; flounder, stagger, totter; move up and down, bob up and down &c. Adv.; pass and repass, ebb and flow, come and go; vacillate &c. 605; teeter [U.S.]. brandish, shake, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... interest. The theodolite having been put together, Mr. Franklin opened another box and took out a wooden tripod, such as are used to support such instruments. He also took out a fine steel ribbon, or measuring tape, neatly wound up on a reel. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... of answer, With a laughing glance of steel, How your face swept like a banner, Blushing down the village reel! ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... men opened, and Pat Brady, followed by nearly a dozen other men, sprang into the centre. Pat first performed a jig for which he was celebrated. It was followed by a regular sailor's hornpipe. When this was finished, the band struck up a Scotch reel. At the same time the blue lights were ignited, and four men in kilts and plaids sprang into the circle and commenced a Highland fling, shrieking and leaping, and clapping their hands in a way that made the ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... hula ohe had some resemblance to one of the figures of the Virginia reel. The dancers, ranged in two parallel rows, moved forward with an accompaniment of gestures until the head of each row had reached the limit in that direction, and then, turning outward to right and left, ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... contretemps. Only when some English lady—Lady Hamilton, as I said, perhaps—called for a set of "American dances," an odd thing happened. Everybody then danced contra-dances. The black band, nothing loath, conferred as to what "American dances" were, and started off with "Virginia Reel," which they followed with "Money Musk," which, in its turn in those days, should have been followed by "The Old Thirteen." But just as Dick, the leader, tapped for his fiddles to begin, and bent forward, about to say, in true negro state, ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... the southwest, "Ichabod Crane," the big-boned Kansan—who had got the better of us all that afternoon in argument—swinging his arms, and with his head thrown back, was trying to herd the people into an old-fashioned reel. Grabbing the little daughter of the regiment together with the French constabulary officer—they loved each other like two cats—he shouted, "Salamander, there! Why don't you salamander?" Entering into the ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... reel. Empty it of water before winding up, and never allow it to lie baking in the sun. This latter is a very common fault and is the cause of much good hose ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue

... was, slave or prince, captive or free, who taught him what eternity looks like; for that surely is is what the Sphinx sees, the circle with no join, the world—not this one—not Egypt—without end. We all say for ever and ever, but our brains reel when we think for one minute on eternity. Do you think his brain snapped when he put the last stroke? Do you think he was buried with decency with ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... and Henry Snell, Girard, Ill.—This machine may be used simply for stirring up and turning the hay, or for turning the hay and gathering it into windrows. The shaft of a reel revolves in bearings attached to the side bars of the frame near their rear ends. To the bars of the reel are attached spring teeth, which, as the machine is drawn forward, take hold of the hay, carry it up and over the reel, and drop it to the ground in the rear of the machine. A carrier ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various

... approval as he watched the rod point follow it downstream towards a foam-licked rock. It swung to and fro a moment, then slid on again towards the still black stretch behind the stone, tightened there suddenly, and ran, tense and straight, upstream again, while the reel clacked and rattled. ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... in the singing as each lad stepped gallantly to the side of the girl of his choice and went through the steps of the Virginia Reel. ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... the Father, to the Son, And to the Holy Spirit," rang aloud Throughout all Paradise, that with the song My spirit reel'd, so passing sweet the strain: And what I saw was equal ecstasy; One universal smile it seem'd of all things, Joy past compare, gladness unutterable, Imperishable life of peace and love, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... exchanged polite introductions. "You-all tuk me clar off my feet, Mr. Brewster. Yes, Ah did think some of goin' in a reel good fam'ly to wuk, but nawthin' come up fer me, so Ah'm visitin' the neighbors. Do you-all want ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... if not the music, of 'Deutschland, Deutschland, ueber Alles,'" Morris declared. "It also means, Abe, that the school-boys who used to was geography sharks and could bound Germany right off the reel, Abe, would now got to learn them boundaries all over again and then take half an hour or so to tell what they've learned. You see, Abe, the Danzig area, for instance, consists of a V made a W by the ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass

... River of Damascus. How Life is dim, unreal, vain, like scenes that round the drunkard reel; How Being meaneth not to be; to see and hear, smell, ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... locomotives, the current for which was taken at 220 volts from a pair of No. 00 copper trolley wires suspended from the roof of the tunnel. The collector was a small four-wheeled buggy riding on the wires and connected to the locomotive by several hundred feet of cable wound on a reel for use beyond the end of the trolley wire. Two 8-1/2-ton, Davenport, steam locomotives were also used in 32d Street, toward the end of the work, after the headings had been holed through and the tunnels would quickly clear themselves of gas and smoke. The steam shovels were supplemented by two ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace and Francis Mason

... by. "Yes'm," he replied. "I'm a-gittin' out de hose to lay de dus' yonnah." He stretched an arm along the cross-bar of the reel, relaxing himself, apparently, for conversation. "Y'all done change consid'able, Miss Airil," he continued, with the directness of one ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... he only dreamed of that awful passage. It was quite fearful enough to cross when the footway was all down, and he could see the blue gleam of the river far underneath through the cracks between the boards. It made his brain reel; and he felt that he took his life in his hand whenever he entered the bridge, even when he had grown old enough to be making an excursion with some of his playmates to the farm of an uncle of theirs who lived two miles up the river. The farmer ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... not truth! My fevered eyes are weak To look into this glowing maze of fire With vision. All the ramparts of the world Reel round me. I have scoffed God all my days, Believing pain—your province of the world— Proof of His non-existence. And you come Crying His glory, testifying His faith, Exhorting me to seek Him.... I am lost Where ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke

... reel of pink cotton of the same size, or two pieces of white and two of pink netting-silk; three silk pink and white tassels; two yards and a half of silk bag-cord; half-a-yard of pink sarsnet; three meshes cornucopia gauge of No. 1, No. ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown

... over, and, in spite of the fresh and open weather, most anglers will feel that the time has come to close the fly-book, to wind up the reel, and to consign the rod to its winter quarters. Salmon-fishing ceases to be very enjoyable when the snaw broo, or melted snow from the hilltops, begins to mix with the brown waters of Tweed or Tay; when the fallen leaves hamper the hook; ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... fly in the face of good fortune; but mind this—it is easier to begin that reel than it will be to end it. One thing I do not like—thou wert angry with Boris, now thou wilt take ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... of my arrival in Manhattan I walked through scenes of delirious madness. The town seemed to reel in a sullen drunkenness. Throngs filled the dark streets. The Gay White Way was no longer either white or gay. The marvellous electrical display of upper Broadway had disappeared—not even a street light was to be seen. And ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... the tears swam in his eyes, making the whole radiant vision reel and run together in a blaze of passionate ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... Make the Eagle scream. Get into an argument with it about something—anything. Tell Lazette that as a town it's forty miles behind Dry Bottom. That will stir up public spirit and boom our subscription list. You see, Potter, civic pride is a big asset to a newspaper. We'll start a row right off the reel. Furthermore, we're going to have some telegraph news. I'll make ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... happy lot in future generations. Always, whether sleeping or waking, I shall know that in Spring the sun rides over the silver streets of Kensington, and that in the Gardens the shorn sheep find very green pasture. Always the plaited threads of traffic will wind about the reel of London; always as you go up Regent Street from Pall Mall and look back, Westminster will rise with you like a dim sun over the horizon of Whitehall. That dive down Fleet Street and up to the black and white ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... because the smaller ship can run close ashore to explore. To keep up the spirits of the men, there is much merrymaking. Becalmed off Cape Breton, Sir Humphrey visits the big ship Delight, where the trumpets and the drums and the pipes and the cornets reel off wild sailor jigs. "There was," says the old record, "little watching for danger." Wednesday, August 26, the sounding line forewarned the reefs of Sable Island. Breakers were sighted. The Delight signaled that her captain wanted to shift southwest to deeper water, but Gilbert ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... dozen bars of glowing steel had been drawn simultaneously from the charcoal, and thrice as many massive hammers were forging them into the rude shapes of weapons on the anvils, which, notwithstanding their vast weight, appeared to leap and reel, under the blows that were rained upon them faster than ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... song they sing is an invitation to Aphrodite and the Loves to join in their dance and revel; while the other (I should have said that they have two songs) contains instructions to the dancers: 'Forward, lads: foot it lightly: reel it bravely' (i.e. dance actively). It is the same with the chain dance, which is performed by men and girls together, dancing alternately, so as to suggest the alternating beads of a necklace. A youth leads off the dance: his active steps are such as will ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... lower, and he looked at the ground, suffering as he had never suffered and yet indescribably happy in speaking with her, and in seeing the interest she felt in him. But his brain was beginning to reel. He did not know what he might ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford

... in," Paul continued; "lots of happenings make a fellow sit up and take notice, when he tries to picture them so plainly that the other can read it right off the reel. I had a tough nut ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren



Words linked to "Reel" :   square dance, wind, photographic film, fishing rod, twine, rig, longways dance, longways, fishing rig, roll, fishing gear, tackle, wrap, fishing pole, square dancing, filature, highland fling, fishing tackle, go around, walk, winder, rotate, whirligig, spin, film, dance music, shuttle, eightsome, revolve



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