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Scattering   /skˈætərɪŋ/   Listen
Scattering

noun
1.
A small number (of something) dispersed haphazardly.  Synonym: sprinkling.  "A sprinkling of grey at his temples"
2.
The physical process in which particles are deflected haphazardly as a result of collisions.
3.
A light shower that falls in some locations and not others nearby.  Synonyms: sprinkle, sprinkling.
4.
Spreading widely or driving off.  Synonym: dispersion.
5.
The act of scattering.  Synonyms: scatter, strewing.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Scattering" Quotes from Famous Books



... lovely looks the gay, the smiling land, She said; while through the scattering cloud appears The blue sky, dissipating all our fears. The clouds, as through the air they quickly pass, Hurry their shadows o'er the glist'ning grass. See, Damon, now, o'er yonder hill they throw Their shade o'er herds and cottages, and lo! They're flown, and ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... the fluid vortex flies, Scattering dun night, and horror through the skies, The swift volution and the enormous train Let sages versed in Nature's lore explain; The horrid apparition still draws nigh, And white with foam ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... captivating, finally, through a wonderfully invented little theme which is drawn like a "red thread" through all the flashing and glittering waves of tone, and which, as it were, prevents them from scattering to all quarters of the heavens. This little theme, strictly speaking only a phrase of two measures, is, in a certain sense, the motto which serves as a superscription for the etude, appearing first one voiced, and immediately afterward four voiced. The slow time (Lento) shows the ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... to embers and a sudden scattering of ashes woke him out of his dreaming. The old Scots land was many thousand miles away. His past was wiped out behind him. He was alone in a very strange place, cut off by a great gulf from youth and ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... and while his mighty Hand Is scattering Plenty over all the Land; With God-like Bounty recompensing all, Some fruitful drops may on the Muses fall; Since honest Pens do his just cause afford Equal Advantage with the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... saved the whiskey stumbled to his feet, and leaning against a pile of lumber stood open-mouthed, waiting for the preacher's rebuke; but Davis hung his head, and began to fumble for a pipe in his sagging coat pocket; with clumsy fingers, scattering the tobacco from his little bag, ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... moults, like all the others I had raised or seen, and were full size in forty-eight days, but travelled a day or two before beginning the pupa stage of their existence. The caterpillars were big fellows; the segments deeply cut; the bodies yellow-green, with a few sparse scattering hairs, and on the edge of each segment, from a triple row of dots arose a tiny, sharp spine. Each side had series of black touches and the head could be drawn inside the thorax. They were the largest in ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... entered, shaking himself like a Newfoundland dog upon the step, and scattering a little shower of drops over his hostess and ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... uncertainty. But it is there and it is spreading rapidly. Each plant produces scores of pears and each pear contains not far from one hundred seeds. When the fruit ripens the seeds are quickly sent broadcast. Perhaps the wind is the chief agent in scattering them, but wild birds, especially the emeu and the turkey, are a good second. Queenslanders fear that this pernicious plant will spread not only over the great interior desert sections, but to the valuable land elsewhere, since it is tenacious of life and thrives on arid land amidst a burning ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... We found the chickens asleep; perhaps they thought night had come to stay. One old rooster was stirring about, pecking at the solid lump of ice in their water-tin. When we flashed the lantern in their eyes, the hens set up a great cackling and flew about clumsily, scattering down-feathers. The mottled, pin-headed guinea-hens, always resentful of captivity, ran screeching out into the tunnel and tried to poke their ugly, painted faces through the snow walls. By five o'clock the chores were done just when ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... in the shadow one of those fairy fountains in which, as the water falls from basin to basin, it combines the beauty of rain with that of the cascade, and as if scattering the contents of a jewel box, flings to the wind its diamonds and its pearls as though to divert the statues around. Long rows of windows ranged away, separated by panoplies, in relievo, and by busts on small pedestals. On the pinnacles, trophies and morions with ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... good his contention by nipping the heart of the champion when opposite the bank, who plunged forward on his face and threw the cavalcade into confusion. Then Sam stood up, and regardless of the scattering shots, fired with both revolvers, killing the foremost man of the troop and slaughtering three horses, which instantly changed the charge into a rout. He then retired to Hades and barricaded the door. Mike was nowhere ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... When Laddie opened the doors on the east side, and she could see the big, red, yellow, and green apples thick as leaves on the trees in the orchard, the lane, the woods pasture, and the meadow with scattering trees, two running springs, and the meeting of the creeks, she said it was the loveliest sight she ever saw—I mean beheld. Laddie liked that, so he told her about the beautiful town, and the lake, and the Wabash River, that our creek emptied into, and how people came from other states and ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... bent bow are the principal features. It is Bel who dares the venture and goes forth on a matchless war chariot, armed with the sword, and the bow, and his great weapon, the thunderbolt, sending the lightning before him and scattering arrows around. Tiamat, the Dragon of the Sea, came out to meet him, stretching her immense body along, bearing death and destruction, and attended by her followers. The god rushed on the monster with such violence that he threw her ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... first in the dining-room that morning, but her mother soon came in, scattering advice as she came and all through the meal Billie tried hard to listen dutifully to all the "must nots" and "don't dos." But all the time her eyes were on the clock and her mind was saying over and ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler

... save. It could not last long, though. Dan's arm weakened about the limp form of the girl. He closed his eyes and ground his teeth and brought new force to the encircling arm. He glared down at the mass of soft hair scattering over his breast; he thought of that beautiful life and quite impersonally asked himself if all this beauty must die. Where would all the beauty of the world be then? This question ran deliriously through his mind. Eh! where would it all be? If they died ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... pirate captain far behind, and at length dashed through the Bab-Azoun gate of Algiers, despite the frantic efforts of the guard to check or turn it. Right onward it sped through the street Bab-Azoun, scattering Turks, Moors, Jews, negroes, and all the rest of them like chaff; passed the Dey's palace, straight along the street Bab el-Oued; out at the water-gate, with similar contempt of the guards; down into the hollow caused by the brook beyond; up the slope on the other side, ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... with—the country, the cool winds that sometimes came when one thought it was almost Summer, the perfect blend of Madame's tea, the quaint Chinese pot, and the bad manners of the canary, who seemed to take a fiendish delight in scattering the seed that was given ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... accumulation of strength to the cause of Philip. They could lead two thousand warriors into the field, and these warriors were renowned for ferocity and courage. Dwelling so near the English settlements, they could at any time emerge from their fastnesses, scattering dismay ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... heard of any other kind of furniture in that country. Walnut bed-steads, marble-top bureaus, turned washstands—they passed them all by to fall upon the tables with shrill demand. I made out their case to suit the facts, as I swept down through that region, scattering extension tables right and left. It was the excitement, I reasoned, the inrush of population from everywhere; probably everybody kept boarders, more every day; had to extend their tables to seat them. I saw a great opportunity ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... long, uncle," he said. He followed a path which led from the door in an easterly direction to the village. It was over a mile away, and consisted only of a few scattering houses, a blacksmith's shop, and ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger

... broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, Hunted to death in its galleries blind; 220 And swift little troops of silent sparks, Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer. But the wind without was eager and sharp, 225 Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings The icy ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... had had a share in Messalina's fall would be only too glad to poison every reminiscence of her life; and the deadly implacable hatred of the worst woman who ever lived would find peculiar gratification in scattering every conceivable hue of disgrace over the acts of a rival whose young children it was her dearest object to supplant. That Seneca did not deign to chronicle even of an enemy what Agrippina was not ashamed to write,—that he spared one whom ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... upward climb brought its reward at length, and Donald's eye caught sight of a clearing, and unmistakable signs of near-by civilization, if a scattering mountain settlement of primitive dwellers in that feudal country which lies half in West Virginia, half in Kentucky, may be ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... narrow avenue, scattering pedestrians to either side like the bow of a boat spreading foam. The men wore loose white pantaloons and a short open vest; the women wore ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance

... tar-barrels sent up their ruddy blaze, while hundreds of wild, but happy faces, flitted around and through them,—now dancing merrily in chorus; now plunging madly into the midst of the fire, and scattering the red embers on every side. Pipers were there too, mounted upon cars or turf-kishes; even the very roof-tops rang out their merry notes; the ensigns of the little fishing-craft waved in the breeze, and seemed to feel the general joy around them; while over the door ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... your solicitude, where young talent is concerned, you quite realize how much you give, how much you can be made use of. The man admires you, of course, and has, of course, talent of a sort. Yet, when I see you together, I confess that I receive sometimes the impression of a scattering ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... goat-men were scattering through the country-side. Some were busied gathering honey in the hollow trunks of oaks, others carving reeds into the shape of flutes, or butting one against the other, crashing their horned brows together. Meantime the bodies of the nymphs, sweet wrecks of love, lay motionless, strewing ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... if intoxicated with delight, the people dance along the streets, sporting merrily with each other's persons and mutually scattering the yellow-tinted fluid. On every side, the music of the drum and the buzz of frolic crowds fill all the air. The very atmosphere is of a yellow hue, with ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... championship: and Roy, determined to see all, lay flat on his front—danger of discovery forgotten—grabbing the edge of the cliff, that curved inward, exulting in the triumph of the deliverer and the scattering of the foe. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... of scampering newsboys rushed down the steps, scattering in all directions, yelling, their white papers fluttering. Hard after them Myles Crawford appeared on the steps, his hat aureoling his scarlet face, talking with J. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... the path of Parivaha[109]— The wind that bears along the triple Ganges[110] And causes Ursa's seven stars to roll In their appointed orbits, scattering Their several rays with equal distribution. 'Tis the same path that once was sanctified By the divine impression of the foot Of Vishnu, when, to conquer haughty Bali, He spanned the ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... the Netherlands, when Louis marched into Brittany against his weakest foe. There was no fighting, but Francis found it wise to accept a truce. Odet d'Aydie, who had ridden in hot haste to Brittany, scattering from his saddle dire accusations of fratricide against Louis—this same Odet became silenced and took service with the king.[31] When reconcilations were effected, most kind to the returning ally or servant did Louis always ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... periphrasis the more technical word. Constant circumlocution produces an affected and heavy style; occasionally, skilful periphrasis conduces both to beauty and to simplicity. Etymologically, diffuseness is a scattering, both of words and thought; redundancy is an overflow. Prolixity goes into endless petty details, without selection or perspective. Pleonasm is the expression of an idea already plainly implied; tautology is the restatement ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... Imagine a continuous clay vacant lot in one of our Middle Western cities on the rainiest day you can recall; and further imagine, on this limitless lot, a network of narrow-gauge tracks and wagon roads, a scattering of contractors' shanties, and you will have some idea of the daily life and surroundings of one of oar American engineer regiments, which is running a railroad behind the British front. Yet one has only to see these men and talk with them to be convinced of the truth that human happiness ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... there was a line of battle three hundred miles in length. On one side the white man went armed to the field or the prayer-meeting, shooting an Indian on sight as he would a panther; on the other, a foe whose wife did the chores and hoed the scattering crops while he made war and extermination his joy by night and his prayer and life-long purpose ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... an antechamber, to look at a half-finished bust, the features of which seemed to be struggling out of the stone; and, as it were, scattering and dissolving its hard substance by the glow of feeling and intelligence. As the skilful workman gave stroke after stroke of the chisel with apparent carelessness, but sure effect, it was impossible not to think that the outer marble was merely an extraneous environment; ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Ashamed of her sister the night; Oh, then they steal home, The blinded, the pitiful ones With their gew-gaws still in their hands, Reeling with odorous breath And thick, coarse words on their tongues. They get them to bed, somehow, And sleep the forgiving, Comes thru the scattering tumult And closes their eyes. The stars sink down ashamed And the dawn awakes, Like a youth who steals from a brothel, ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale

... take out his knife and, selecting a soft, straight-grained piece of pine kindling, would whittle and look into the fire while he unwound the skein that threaded through the years from Azariah Meeker, or Ahab Todd, down to the few and scattering remnants that still ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... went swiftly toward the patio, taking stock of the two figures there. Then he shrugged, went to the table for a cigar and returned smiling to inform Virginia of life on the desert and in the valleys beyond the mountains, of scattering attempts at reclamation and irrigation, of how one made towns of sun-dried mud, of where the adobe soil itself was found, drifted over with sand in the ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... a cry like that of a wounded beast, took the mirror and flung it against the stove, the pieces scattering with a crash about the floor. His blood boiled, his eyes burned with a ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... and delight which such scenes are calculated to inspire, and which constitute a sort of oasis in the memory of those who have experienced them. Here nature and art have gone hand in hand, assisting each other, and scattering roses; here every thing that falls from the bosom of the former is rich and luxuriant, and every thing that proceeds from the latter is novel, extraordinary, in a word, it is oriental; and faults, which in more civilised communities would be considered inconsistent ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... in the brief intervals when the clouds give us a respite. If shaken to bring down the fruit, they will discharge a shower upon the head of him who stands beneath. The rain is warm, coming from some southern region; but the willow attests that it is an autumnal spell of weather, by scattering down no infrequent multitude of yellow leaves, which rest upon the sloping roof of the house, and strew the gravel-path and the grass. The other trees do not yet shed their leaves, though in some of them a lighter tint of verdure, tending towards yellow, is perceptible. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... conjurors come, and the ladies, in the number that was ordered, and when all are assembled and everything is ready, they begin to dance and play and sing in honour of the spirit. And they take flesh-broth and drink and lign-aloes, and a great number of lights, and go about hither and thither, scattering the broth and the drink and the meat also. And when they have done this for a while, again shall one of the conjurors fall flat and wallow there foaming at the mouth, and then the others will ask if he have yet pardoned the sick man? And sometimes he shall answer yea! and sometimes he shall answer ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... suffered to preach, but many resorted to them in private houses, until, being finally driven out by fines and imprisonments, they took refuge in Catholic Maryland. The Virginia clergy were not, as a body, very much of a force in education or literature. Many of them, by reason of the scattering and dispersed condition of their parishes, lived as domestic chaplains with the wealthier planters, and partook of their illiteracy and their passion for gaming and hunting. Few of them inherited the zeal of Alexander Whitaker, the "Apostle of Virginia," who came over in ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... of shops she paused before a milliner's window, and said to herself: "Why shouldn't I earn my living by trimming hats?" She met work-girls streaming out under a doorway, and scattering to catch trams and omnibuses; and she looked with newly-wakened interest at their tired independent faces. "Why shouldn't I earn my living as well as they do?" she thought. A little farther on she passed a Sister of Charity with softly trotting feet, a calm anonymous glance, and hands ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... responsibility—headed it himself—was the first man to sweep through their guns. Can't you see it, Raina; our gallant splendid Bulgarians with their swords and eyes flashing, thundering down like an avalanche and scattering the wretched Servian dandies like chaff. And you—you kept Sergius waiting a year before you would be betrothed to him. Oh, if you have a drop of Bulgarian blood in your veins, you will worship him ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw

... flesh. Gathering his men well together, and approaching very close to the foe without being discovered, he gave the order to charge. His men needed no second command. They fell upon the feasting savages like a thunderbolt, scattering them right and left without mercy. Eight of the warriors were killed in the short conflict which ensued. The remainder were allowed to escape. With some difficulty they next succeeded in recovering all their horses, except the six which had been killed. With their horses, and three children ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... cooking a late supper, or early breakfast of coffee and bacon. Below the former home of the Spanish comandante, which General Wheeler had made his head-quarters, lay the camp of the Rough Riders, and through it Cuban officers were riding their half-starved ponies, and scattering the ashes of the camp-fires. Below them was the beach and the roaring surf, in which a thousand or so naked men were assisting and impeding the progress shoreward of their comrades, in pontoons and shore boats, which were being hurled ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... However, although by itself of small significance, the musical element in verse makes all the difference between poetry and prose. Through its own vague expressiveness it fortifies the emotional meaning of the poetic language, and, at the same time, sublimates it by scattering it in the medium. And finally it imparts an intimacy, a personal flavor, which also allies poetry with music; for the substance of rhythm is the movement of our own inner processes; the rhythm of thoughts and sounds is a rhythm in our own listening and attending, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... vanished completely. Nothing was in sight except the long white sweep of snow, with here and there a black patch of bushes and scrub. He was about to return to his camp when, from one of the patches of scrub burst a scattering of tawny shapes. Singly, and in groups of two or three, crowding each other in their mad haste, they fled into the open and ranging themselves in a semicircle, waited expectantly. Presently another wolf emerged from the thicket, dragging ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... the nymphs, he rushed forward instantly, breaking their garlands, and scattering them in all directions; and then went on without further hindrance to the little wood where he had seen Bellissima. She was seated by the brook looking pale and weary when he reached her, and he would have thrown himself down at her feet, but she drew herself away from him with as ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... a pretty picture as she stood there in her furs, scattering crumbs to the birds, and the little feathered creatures proved the best sort of actors, for they were not self-conscious, and did not stop to peer at the camera, the clicking of which they did ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope

... The other bomb-ketches, being posted along shore, did considerable execution upon the intrench-ments, not only by throwing shells in the usual way, but also by using ball-mortars, filled with great quantities of balls, which may be thrown to a great distance, and, by scattering as they fly, do abundance of mischief. While the ketches fired without ceasing, the grenadiers and guards were rowed regularly ashore in the flat-bottomed boats, and, landing without opposition, instantly formed on a small open portion of the beach, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... Satan kept his promise well; but the boy's hair had stood on end as the story neared its close, and he heard how, when the probation was ended, the devil came for his victim down the wide-mouthed chimney, scattering bricks and fire-brands over the floor, as he carried the trembling soul out in the ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... scampered over the yard, and swarmed into the building. Lawyer Ed ran about, scattering pink "bull's-eyes" all over the floor and yard, calling, "Chukie, Chukie!" with the whole school at his heels like a flock of noisy chickens. And when he had the place in an uproar, he shouted good-bye and rushed away in ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... human brotherhood outlasted that event. The disciples, instead of scattering, organized. They associated themselves on a principle of communism, each throwing into the common stock whatever property he possessed, and all his gains. The widows and orphans of the community ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... I said, "this is an unworthy proposal. Would you chase your more than middle-aged father over the open country? Never. How could he look the village in the face if he were to be seen scattering little bits of paper from a linen bag? He would fall in their estimation and would drag you all with him in his fall. John," I said, "you would not have your father fall, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various

... becoming immensely philosophical; Mrs Sudberry was looking on in amiable gratification; George had prevailed on a small white hen to allow him to scratch her head; Fred was taking a rapid portrait of the smallest cock; Lucy had drawn the largest concourse towards herself by scattering her crumbs on the ground; Jacky had only caught two chickens by their beaks and one hen by its tail, and was partially strangling another; and the nine McAllister dogs were ranged in a semicircle round ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... irrigating canals and ditches, carrying the life-giving waters over thousands of broad acres; some already green with grass and alfalfa, while others were dotted with scores of men and horses opening the brown earth in long, straight lines of furrows, or scattering broadcast the ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... happier after she had seen Dr. Mallison. There was very little that could be done for her husband. He had sown his wild oats, and that light scattering of the seeds of folly had been pleasant enough, no doubt, in the time of sowing; and this was the unanticipated result—a bitter harvest of care and pain which had ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... awry at her olive throat. Besides her hands are unkempt. With English... and everything... there is so little time. She reads without bias— Doubting clamorously— Psychology, plays, science, philosophies— Those giant flowers that have bloomed and withered, scattering their seed... —And out of this young forcing soil what growth ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... for myself, untenanted. I was almost at its end, where the pines and bushes were scattering and the field of daisies, now in full bloom, began, when I heard a slight sound at my left. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw her. She was standing beneath a gnarled, moss-draped old pine by the bluff edge, looking out over ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... try to understand each other," he said, after a pause— "though it will be difficult. You speak of 'eternal realities.' To me there are none, save the constant scattering and re-uniting of atoms. These, so far as we know of the extraordinary (and to me quite unintelligent) plan of the Universe, are for ever shifting and changing into various forms and clusters of forms, such ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... advent maketh, Soothes the longing heart that acheth, And the serpent's head He breaketh, Scattering the ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... of 1851 will long be remembered in the foot hills. The snow lay deep on the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river, and every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a tumultuous watercourse that descended the hillsides, tearing down giant trees and scattering its drift and debris along the plain. Red Dog had been twice under water, and Roaring Camp had been forewarned. "Water put the gold into them gulches," said Stumpy. "It's been here once and will not be here again!" ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... soil, climate, productions, and important communications. If our legislature dispose of it with the wisdom we have a right to expect, they may make it the means of tempting all our Indians on the east side of the Mississippi to remove to the west, and of condensing instead of scattering our population. I find our opposition is very willing to pluck feathers from Monroe, although not fond of sticking them into Livingston's coat. The truth is, both have a just portion of merit; and were it necessary or proper, it would be shown that each ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... nowise necessary." And yet we eat our bread, day by day, without a doubt or a fear. We sow the grain and we reap the wheat, but for all the work is done in faith, and the whole process is steeped in mystery. In that scattering of the golden seed, what confidence is expressed in elements that we cannot see, in beneficent agencies that we cannot control, in results that are beyond our power, and that in their growth and development are full of wonder exceeding our wisdom. Give up faith; say that we will act only ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... go ahead," shouted Murray, trying to pick up the scattered change and scattering it the more. At last he understood. "Go ahead. We'll take the next boat. Can't you see the lady has ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve

... stood with my children grew suddenly and uncannily dark. I could hear Struthers calling thinly from the kitchen door to Whinnie, who apparently was making a belated effort to get my chicken-run gate open and my fowls under cover. I could hear a scattering drive of big rain-drops on the roof, solemn and soft, like the fall of plump frogs. But by the time Whinnie was in through the kitchen door this had changed. It had changed into a passionate and pulsing beat of rain, whipped and lashed by the wind that shook the timbers about us. The air, however, ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... afterwards—it had been sucking its father's old shoe—and Norman just saved its life by the skin of his teeth. If the child had died, there'd have been a riot probably. As it is, there's talk that we're scattering poisoned sweetmeats to spread the disease. He's done a plucky thing, though. . . ." He paused. Dicky looked up inquiringly, and Fielding continued. "There's a fellow called Mustapha Kali, a hanger-on of the Mudir of the province. He spread a report that this business was only a scare got ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... instrument. The superior beauty of scattered intervals can be strikingly demonstrated in this way. If you strike four or five adjacent notes on the piano at once, you produce an intolerable cacophony. But these same notes can be so arranged by scattering them that they make an exquisite chord in suspension. Everything depends on the arrangement and the wideness of the intervals. Chopin's fancy was inexhaustible in the discovery of new kinds of scattered chords, combined ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... was Ralph West conducted to his humble boarding place. And hearty were the "good nights" that accompanied the scattering of ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... high, Mountains and bolts encountered in the sky; Till one stupendous ruin whelmed the crew, Their vast limbs weltering wide in brimstone blue. But now at length the pygmy legions yield, And, winged with terror, fly the fatal field. They raise a weak and melancholy wail, All in distraction scattering o'er the vale. Prone on their routed rear the cranes descend; Their bills bite furious, and their talons rend: With unrelenting ire they urge the chace, Sworn to exterminate the hated race. 'Twas thus the Pygmy Name, once great in war, For spoils of conquered ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... before, but I never saw anything so awful as that. It was just like they had been struck by lightning for suddenness. There was that devil scattering death among them and the poor fellows crumpling up like rabbits. I tell you every time I think of it the thing makes ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... be daring and on a large scale. He said: 'Open the yard gate and let the fowls come out into the open, then sail in and drive them in a mass through the back door into the basement.' It was a great idea, but there was one fatal flaw in it. It didn't allow for the hens scattering. We opened the gate, and out they all came like an audience coming out of a theater. Then we closed in on them to bring off the big drive. For about three seconds it looked as if we might do it. Then Bob, the hired man's dog, an animal ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... upon, Hal shook hands all round, and the eleven men left the room at once, going down stairs and through the lobby, scattering in every direction on the streets. Mrs. Swajka and the pseudo-Mrs. Zamboni followed a minute later—and, as they anticipated, found the lobby swept clear ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... river, is seen a part of the walls and the towers of the monastery. On the near side of the road is a hilly elevation covered with trampled grass. It is between five and six in the morning. The sun is out. The mist over the meadow is scattering slowly. ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... Miserere mei Deus: and there was great silence kept of all men. Baatu himselfe sate vpon a seate long and broad like vnto a bed, guilt all ouer, with three stairs to ascend thereunto, and one of his ladies sate beside him. The men there assembled, sate downe scattering, some on the right hand of the saide Lady, and some on the left. Those places on the one side which the women filled not vp (for there were only the wiues of Baatu) were supplied by the men. Also, at the very entrance of the tent stoode a bench furnished with cosmos, and with ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... it up and set it on the table again. And again a melody came forth, and this time it was different; not plaintive and thoughtful, but jocund and glad; a little shout and ring of merriment, like the feet of dancers scattering the drops of dew in a bright morning; or like the chime of a thousand little silver bells rung for laughter. A sort of intoxication came into my heart. When Preston would have wound up the box again, I stopped him. I was full of ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... another projecting abutment, when down dropped another bomb, probably thrown at a venture from some scattering member of the squad that had just passed. From his shelter Stanley was horrified to see both Blaine and Erwin, who were near the fire, thrown violently down as the bomb burst appallingly near where they were crouched. They; did not ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry

... and it is plain from the first that the two strongest candidates are Lord Rosebery and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. There are scattering votes for Mr. Morley and Mr. Asquith, each of them getting the vote of one or more small Counties. But after the first ballot, which is always more or less preliminary, it is apparent that neither of those gentlemen can hope to be chosen, ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... mesa, the pack came bellowing, scattering the wet leaves among the oaks as they took the short cut to the returning master. Into the avenue they swept; the leader leaped for the top of the gate, poised there an instant, and fell over into Don Mike's arms. The others followed, overwhelming ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... are covered with a burr or "sticky" bristles, which enables them to attach themselves to the wool of sheep and other animals, and thus be carried about and finally dropped in some spot far away from the parent plant, and thus the scattering of the species be accomplished. Some plants show the most wonderful plans and arrangements for this scattering of the seed in new homes where there is a better opportunity for growth and development, the arrangements for this purpose displaying ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... To take the shoe off their foot, and to hit out right and left with it, bawling their life out, tearing their clothes, scattering and casting them in every part; or to run naked through the town, and all ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory

... on the rock, the God, with furious look, From side to side his burning thunder shook: Now here, now there, the scattering lightnings broke, And the wide vallies flamed, and glowed with sulphurous smoke: Contagious terror roll'd from plain to plain; Cold Anio trembled in his watery reign; And dazzled by the withering flames, o'eraw'd, The chief shrunk ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... "They are scattering over the sand-hills," one of the Arabs said just as he had finished, and in a short time a dropping fire was opened ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... the perpetual caution and suspicion of Sheffield, was eager to denounce one who he was sure was a conspirator; but he was hemmed in among horses and men, so that he could not make his way out or see what was passing, till suddenly there was a scattering to the right and left, and a simultaneous shriek ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... this monotony of dust-colored dead levels and scattering bunches of trees and mud villages. You soon realize that India is not beautiful; still there is an enchantment about it that is beguiling, and which does not pall. You cannot tell just what it is that makes the spell, perhaps, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... but reinforcements arrived who charged the enemy before they could establish themselves in position. In every case the assaults failed completely. Large numbers were mown down by our artillery. Men were seen falling and others scattering and running back to their own lines. Many who reached the gas cloud could not make their way through it, and in all probability a great number of the wounded perished ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... out buzzing, their curious accompaniment to their work. Or were they scolding because flowers were not sweeter? Yellow butterflies made a dazzle in the air, that was transparent to-day. The white birches were scattering their last year's garments, and she gathered quite a roll. Ah, what a wonderful thing it was to live and breathe this fragrant air! It exhilarated her with joy as drinking wine might another. The mighty spirit of nature ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... upon which float a couple of swans and innumerable water-lilies, the long parklike avenue of trees are vocal with wild doves, and the robin is heard in the adjoining thickets. At my approach the sweet song ceases abruptly, and the startled bird flies out, scattering the pale petals of the wild roses upon my path. I follow a stream of people on foot, as they move down the left-hand avenue in the garden of the Neue Schloss, which adjoins Wagner's ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis

... scattering through the camp, and the mullah came out to glare at them and tug his beard and wonder ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... indeed abroad that night. They rattled our cabin, they shrieked in our eaves, they puffed down our chimney, scattering the ashes and leaving in the room a balloon of smoke as though a shell had burst. When we opened the door and stepped out, after our good-nights had been said, it caught at our hats and garments as though it had been lying in wait ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... rooting animal were thrusting its snout beneath, with a desire to force her position, and then, uttering the name of "Judith" she awoke. As the startled girl arose to a sitting attitude she perceived that some dark object sprang from her, scattering the leaves and snapping the fallen twigs in its haste. Opening her eyes, and recovering from the first confusion and astonishment of her situation, Hetty perceived a cub, of the common American brown bear, balancing itself on ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... cheer was followed by another puff of grey smoke, and the crack of shot through the sheltered trees, the effect being that the advancing party of the enemy was turned into a running crowd of fugitives scattering and running for their lives, leaving the boats' crews to embark quite unmolested, this last example of the white man's power proving a quite sufficient ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... all craning over. Down below, the bohunks were scattering like frightened sheep, while those further out gaped. The dust-cloud struck the bottom and spread, and out of it emerged a running figure, limping a little but covering the ground with surprising speed. Tag ends of clothing hung to him, and from ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... were happy almost at once. Like all clever adolescents, she had a mind like a rag-bag full of scraps of silks and satins and calicoes and old bits of ribbon which was constantly bursting and scattering a trail of allusions that were irrelevant to the occasion of their appearance, and so when he came to her side she began talking about George Borrow. Didn't he love "Lavengro," him being a traveller? And had he ever seen a prize-fight? Oh, Yaverland ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... determined, as soon as we reached the public streets, to call to my aid the light—feeble as it was—of the dimly-burning lamps, which, at the time I speak of, were placed at a considerable distance from each other along the principal streets of London, scattering no light, and looking like oil lamps in the last stage of a lingering consumption. These afforded me little help. The weakest effort of illumination imaginable strayed across the coach window as we passed a burner, about as serviceable as the long interval of darkness that ensued, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... a fine scene—the swaying victoria, the impetuous, daft horses plunging through the line of scattering vehicles, the driver stupidly holding his broken reins, and the ivory-white face of Amy Ffolliott, as she clings desperately with each slender hand. Fear has come and gone: it has left her expression pensive and just a little pleading, ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... few geologists will take exceptions to these views. Thus we have very satisfactory reasons for connecting these Paleolithic people with the close of the Glacial Age—a conclusion to which the scattering discoveries mentioned in the preceding pages also points. But as regards Dr. Abbott's discoveries, they are on such a scale, and vouched for by so many eminent observers, that we need no longer hesitate to accept ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... reached the border of the deserted camp; and inclining to the left, he galloped down the line, scattering the wolves as he went. He sat leaning to one side, his gaze searching the ground. When nearly opposite to our ambush, he descried the object of his search, and sliding his feet out of the stirrup, guided his horse so as to shave closely past it. Then, without reining in, ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... the present hatchery on the Clackamas River actually receives the quinnat salmon in any numbers. It is asserted, in fact, that the eggs of the silver salmon and dog salmon, with scattering quinnat, are hatched there. We have no exact information as to the truth of these reports, but the matter should be taken into ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... the way. With the darkness came a breeze, cool and refreshing; the sky filled with sharp points of light, and the bush woke with a new life. The crackle of their boots on the stiff grass as they walked sent live things scattering to left and right, and once a night-adder hissed malevolently at the Frenchman's heel. They talked little as they went, but Mills noticed that now and again his companion appeared to check a laugh. He experienced a feeling of ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... I saved it once before, For when your people banish'd Tostig hence, And Edward would have sent a host against you, Then I, who loved my brother, bad the king Who doted on him, sanction your decree Of Tostig's banishment, and choice of Morcar, To help the realm from scattering. ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... the boy out of the street, then he went in, and striking a match, burnt the paper, scattering the charred fragments ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... the full frenzy of madness upon us—enraged giants. What actually happened I cannot recount. I recall scattering the little figures; seizing them; flinging them headlong. A bullet, tiny now, stung the calf of my leg. Little chairs and tables under my feet were crashing. Alan was lunging back and forth; stamping; flinging ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings

... be sure that dashed me. I felt as a trapped fox with the dogs closing in. The future loomed up clear before me, Aileen hand in hand with Volney scattering flowers on my grave in sentimental mood. The futility of my ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... the heavy firing ceased, although there were scattering shots during the night. Two of our men were wounded in this second attack, and were brought into the rifle pit. Bill Tyler was killed instantly, and they buried him, Silas Dunlap, and the Castleton baby, in the dark alongside ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... fire on the hearth, its embers Scattering wide at a stronger gust. Above, the old weathercock groans, but remembers Creaking, to turn, in ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell

... assistance a 9-pounder gun, a 24-pounder howitzer, and four 5-1/2-inch mortars. As the 9-pounder was fired, a round shot from one of the enemy's 18-pounders struck the mud wall immediately in front of it, scattering great clods of earth, which knocked over Bourchier and another officer; the round shot then hit Brigadier Russell, just grazing the back of his neck, actually cutting his watch-chain in two, and causing partial paralysis of the ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... was well-nigh spent; and the flashes of lightning, and loud peals of thunder, came at longer intervals. Faint streaks of light in the horizon, also told of scattering clouds, and approaching dawn. Closing the open pane as well as he could, so that he could carry his lamp without danger of its being extinguished, Wilkins, with Jeff and Arthur, proceeded to examine the "amount ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... a roar, scattering the fan-tails, as he launched on his way to exchange jibes with Maudie, languid, secure, and insolent on the top ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... money, they said, "He is a man of business." When they saw him scattering his money about, they said, "He is an ambitious man." When he was seen to decline honors, they said, "He is an adventurer." When they saw him repulse society, they said, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... more than these, The Poet sees! He can behold Aquarius[30] old Walking the fenceless fields of air And, from each ample fold Of the clouds about him rolled, Scattering everywhere The showery rain, As the farmer scatters ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various

... time the boys were stealing his grapes, the first Delawares, not yet ripe enough, and then scattering the bunches they could not eat along the road. Father wrapped himself in a waterproof and at dark sat down under one of the vines to wait. Strange to say, he went to sleep, and stranger still one of the boys did come, ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs

... fishing and hunting. The nest was in a great evergreen, in a gloomy swamp,—a villainous place of bogs and treacherous footing, with here and there a little island of large trees. On one of these islands a small colony of herons were nesting. During the day they trailed far afield, scattering widely, each pair to its own particular fishing grounds; but when the shadows grew long, and night prowlers stirred abroad, the herons came trailing back again, making curious, wavy, graceful lines athwart the sunset glow, to croak and be sociable ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... more such, sheaves we may gather from our Norman harvest, but we must haste and bind them, for the winds of time are scattering fast. Pont Audemer is being modernised, and many an interesting old building is doomed to destruction; whilst cotton-mills and steam-engines, and little white villas amongst the trees, black coats and parisian bonnets, all tend to blot out the ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... was to fling another blanket upon the embers, thereby extinguishing them altogether, but his wife anticipated him by scattering the contents of the water pail with such judgment over the young conflagration that it was extinguished utterly. Darkness reigned again, but the vapor, increased by the dousing of the liquid, ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... a year or two a little crest of corn is seen waving upon the rocky casque. The irregular meadows run in and out like inlets of lake among these harvested rocks, sweet with perpetual streamlets that seem always to have chosen the steepest places to come down for the sake of the leaps, scattering their handfuls of crystal this way and that, as the wind takes them with all the grace, but with none of the formalism, of fountains; dividing into fanciful change of dash and spring, yet with the seal of their granite channels upon them, as the lightest ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... They arose, scrambling and scattering, and to her surprise she saw there were a dozen of them. As she looked in their glowering faces and noted the heavy, two-foot, hacking cane-knives in their hands, she became suddenly aware of the rashness of her act. If only she had ...
— Adventure • Jack London



Words linked to "Scattering" :   activity, strewing, small indefinite amount, extinction, small indefinite quantity, diaspora, shower, action, spread, natural action, dissipation, scatter, spreading, natural process, dispersion, rain shower



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