Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Sheepskin   /ʃˈipskˌɪn/   Listen
Sheepskin

noun
1.
Tanned skin of a sheep with the fleece left on; used for clothing.  Synonym: fleece.
2.
Skin of a sheep or goat prepared for writing on.  Synonyms: lambskin, parchment.
3.
A document certifying the successful completion of a course of study.  Synonym: diploma.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Sheepskin" Quotes from Famous Books



... was too brittle to be folded or sewed, and therefore could not be bound into book form; it had to be rolled on rollers, and even then was liable to crack. It was far too perishable for bookmaking. Hence the old scribes turned to vellum, or sheepskin. But later, when the printing press came along, vellum became very unpopular indeed, because the grease in the skin spread the ink or else would not absorb it, and the harsh surface destroyed the type. Even had these difficulties not arisen, vellum ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... much-prized possession, for no other like it had ever been known in the village. The floor was covered with oilcloth, and a sheepskin rug lay upon the hearthstone, while white starched curtains draped the window. The getting of the waxcloth had been a wonderful event, and dozens of women had come from all over the village to stand in gaping admiration of its beauty. This was always ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... finished his breakfast and a morning watch, was just then taking a little nap on the port ward-room transom with his clothes and sea-boots still on. The active messenger shook him up too. The two officers made the deck together, one buttoning his blouse over a heavy sweater, the other a sheepskin coat over ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly

... Large rugs of sheepskin, in white, crimson, or black, form comfortable and effective hearth-rugs for a drawing-room or dining-room. In the winter these may be removed and an ordinary woollen rug laid down as long as ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... replied Helgi, "leave early in the morning, though now I would fain stay longer. So you will soon forget the man in the sheepskin coat who so ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston

... at this moment came around a corner of the house. His face was tanned to the color of mahogany and around his eyes were the tiny wrinkles that come to men accustomed to peer into the wide spaces. He had on a pair of sheepskin trousers with the fleece still adhering, and his long legs had the slight crook that spoke of a life spent almost entirely in the saddle. A buckskin shirt, a handkerchief knotted loosely around his neck and ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... from the court—a yell which told its own tale of the success of a ruse. The sheep had been driven into the court through the mist and darkness—a great flock; but with them fully a hundred tulwar and knife armed Dwats in their winter sheepskin-coats, who had crept in with the quiet sheep on all-fours, the placid animals having doubtless been accustomed to the manoeuvre, thought out and practised for weeks past, with a ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... the first place in Khorassan proper, and among the motley gathering of charmdars, camel-drivers, pilgrims, travellers, villagers and hangers-on about the serai, are many Khorassanis wearing huge sheepskin busbies, similar to the head-gear of the Roumanians and Tabreez Turks of Ovahjik and the Perso-Turkish border. Most of these busbies are black or brown, but some affect a mixture of black and white, a piebald affair that looks very striking ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... faith, and I went with him to the town, where we bought six sacks of good flour and the two barrels of spirits. We got a few other things—cooking pots and horns, and a lot of coarse blankets, and a thick sheepskin coat for each man. They are all in the car. I see that you have got the hut pretty nearly roofed in, so, in a day or two, ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty

... and we were comfortably seated around a fire in the company of four shepherds, dressed in "touloups" or long sheepskin overcoats. ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... servant that some of the great Marquess's books had lain for years on an upper shelf in the vestry off the chapel; and here one day, with Bruno's aid, the little boy dislodged from a corner behind the missals and altar-books certain sheepskin volumes clasped in blackened silver. The comeliest of these, which bore on their title-page a dolphin curled about an anchor, were printed in unknown characters; but on opening the smaller volumes Odo felt the same joyous catching of the breath as when he had stepped out on the garden-terrace ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... bare save for a sheepskin beside the bed. Tommy always stood on the sheepskin while he was dressing because it was warm to the feet, though risky, as your toes sometimes caught in knots in it. There was a deal table in the middle of the floor with some dirty crockery on it and a kettle that would ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... twenty-five-a habit that, on a farm, is fraught with difficulties. The community knew and respected him. He was a man of standing. When he drove into town on a bright winter morning, in his big sheepskin coat and his shaggy cap and his great boots, and entered the First National Bank, even Shumway, the cashier, would look up from his ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... that on a day Mine host's signboard flew away Nobody knew whither, till An astrologer's old quill To a sheepskin gave the story— Said he saw you in your glory Underneath a new-old Sign Sipping beverage divine, And pledging with contented smack The Mermaid in the Zodiac! Souls of poets dead and gone What Elysium have ye known— Happy field or mossy cavern— Choicer than ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... began to take off her boots. The little cell seemed to her charming. The narrow little room, some seven feet by nine, was as clean as glass. There was nothing in it but the bench on which she was sitting, the book-shelf above it, and a lectern in the corner. A sheepskin coat and a cassock hung on nails by the door. Above the lectern was the little lamp and an icon of Christ in His crown of thorns. The room smelt strangely of perspiration and of earth. It all pleased her—even that smell. Her wet feet, especially ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy

... absolutely royal pretensions that visited my settlement; so I lined my piazza with mats, put a body-guard under arms behind me, decorated the front with fancy flags, and opposite the stool where I took my seat, caused a pure white sheepskin of finest wool to be spread for the accommodation of the noble savage. Advancing to the steps of my dwelling, I stood uncovered as the Fullah approached and tendered me a silver-mounted gazelle-horn snuff-box—the credential by which Ahmah-de-Bellah had agreed to certify the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... white mare, unharnessed save for a clanging bell, led the way; and all the mules followed her slavishly, the nose of one touching the tail of the other, as is the mule's besotted fashion. They were gay little animals, with silver buttons on their harness, and yellow sheepskin linings to their saddles. They carried a great variety of all sorts of things; and at the freighting rates quoted to us must have made money for their owners. Their drivers were a picturesque quartette in sombreros, wide sashes, and flowing garments. They sat their animals with a graceful careless ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... brown calf has lasted fairly well, but loses its flexibility, and becomes stiff and brittle when exposed to light and air. Some of the white tawed skins of the 15th and 16th century, other than white pigskin, and probably deerskin, have lasted very well. Some 15th and 16th century sheepskin bindings have remained soft and flexible, but the surface is soft, and usually much damaged by friction. Vellum seems to have lasted fairly well, but is easily influenced by atmospheric changes, and is much affected by light. Early specimens of red morocco from the 16th to the end of the 18th ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell

... indeed been brought by the emancipation of the serfs, but there was little outward sign of it. The muzhik remained, to all appearance, what he was before: in fact, as our train drew into St. Petersburg, the peasants, with their sheepskin caftans, cropped hair, and stupid faces, brought back the old impressions so vividly that I seemed not to have been absent a week. The old atmosphere of repression was evident everywhere. I had begun my experience ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... inscriptions, they made great use of wood as a writing material, partly on account of the labour and expense of cutting in stone. In the British Museum many wooden coffins may be seen with their insides covered with religious texts, which were written with ink as on paper. Sheepskin, or goatskin, was used as a writing material, but its use was never general; ancient Egyptian documents written on skin or, as we should say, on parchment, are very few. At a very early period the Egyptians learned how to make a sort of paper, which is now universally known by the name ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... In a well-known illustrated weekly a recent frontispiece, supposedly drawn "from material supplied," depicts a band of beaming Tommies, with weird water-bottles, haversacks, mess-tins, and whatnots dangling from their sheepskin coats, throwing caps and cheers high into the air as they greet the cliffs of England. As the subject of an Academy picture, or an illustration for "The Hero's Homecoming, or How a Bigamist Made Good," the sketch would be excellent. But, except for the beaming ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... laughed, and thought it a good joke. 'You see you're to make a noise in the world, Rupert!' said one. 'Here's parchment for the poet,' said another. 'Rupert's last work in sheepskin covers,' said a third. 'Give us a classical tune, Rupert,' said a fourth, and so on. But Rupert seemed too mortified to speak; he changed color, bit his lips, and finally burst into a passionate fit of crying and left the room. Then those who had joked him felt ashamed, and everybody began ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... when she died, and I have never been able to fill her place completely, since. I think Eliab learned his letters, and perhaps to read a little, from me. He was almost always in my mother's room, being brought in and set down upon a sheepskin on one side the fireplace in the morning by his mammy. My mother had great sympathy with his misfortune, the more, I suppose, because of her own very similar affliction. She used to teach him to sew and knit, and finally, despite the law, began to encourage him to read. The neighbors, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... were displaying a very original activity. A number of naked laborers were holding a man by the legs and plunging him head first in the water to his neck, to his breast, and at last to his waist. Near them stood an overseer with a cane; he wore a stained tunic and a wig made of sheepskin. ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... double castle for cold nights. The permanent larder was represented by cakes of chocolate and tins of Bologna sausage. All this, except what I carried about my person, was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag; and by good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, rather for convenience of carriage than from any thought that I should want it on my journey. For more immediate needs I took a leg of cold mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais, an empty bottle to carry ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... about thirty—men, women, and a few children—were coming slowly down Horsemonger Street. They were attired in rough short tunics, warm sheepskin cloaks, heavy boots which had seen hard service, and felt hats or woollen hoods. Each man carried a long staff, and all looked as though they were ending a wearisome journey. Their faces had a foreign aspect, and most ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... very poor soldiers, in sheepskin doublets and leathern hose, were kneeling together before a sort of rough screen, on which were hung images painted in the manner of Greek eikons. These men had long and silky beards, and their smooth brown hair hung out over their shoulders in well-combed waves, and some of them had beautiful faces. ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... with three pieces of copper, a just introduction to his house and household deities. A sacrifice of fruits was offered by the pontiffs in the presence of ten witnesses; the contracting parties were seated on the same sheepskin; they tasted a salt-cake of far or rice; and this confarreation, which denoted the ancient food of Italy, served as an emblem of their mystic ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... faggots, comes jingling by. The carts so-called, rather by courtesy than right, consist of three rough planks and two high ricketty wheels. The broken-kneed horses sway to and fro beneath their unwieldy load, and the drivers, clad in their heavy sheepskin jackets, crouch sleepily beneath the clumsy, hide-bound framework, placed so as to shelter them from the chill Tramontana blasts. A solitary cart is rare, for the neighbourhood of Rome is not the safest of places, and those small piles of stone, with the wooden cross ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... rode the novice, swathed to the eyes in a sheepskin greatcoat, and a fur cap sheltering her ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... and attire of a guerilla were not likely to please the fastidious taste of a town-bred dame, he hastened to discard them. His rough bushy beard and mustaches were carefully trimmed and adjusted by the most expert barber of the neighbourhood; his sheepskin jacket, heavy boots, and jingling double-roweled spurs thrown aside, and in their place he assumed the national garb, so well adapted to show off a handsome person, and which, although now almost disused ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... platform cleared. The hotel runners marched off in triumph with their victims, and express drivers and cab men drove off with their fares, and only a scattering few were left behind. At one end of the platform stood two men in sheepskin coats and caps. The stranger slowly moved toward them. As he drew near, the men glanced at first carelessly, then more earnestly at him. For a few moments he stood gazing down the street, then said, as if to ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor

... sheepskin pelisses, with knitted scarves round their necks, their eyes swollen from drinking, are shouting wildly to one another to show their courage; others, crowded near the door, are quietly and mournfully waiting their turn, between their weeping wives and mothers (I had chanced upon the day of the ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... the rats getting in. In stretching a skin to dry, wood is so scarce in many parts of the Pampas, that the rib bones are carefully preserved to supply its place, and used as pegs to fix it in the ground. When a new-born infant is to be cradled, a square sheepskin is laced to a small rude frame of wood, and suspended like a scale to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various

... of his bristling moustache was beaded with a globule of snow. With his knitted bonnet, his sheepskin coat, his fur mittens and goloshes, he resembled a ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... hat, deeply laced, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, and a light-colored coat, with milk-white locks tied in a military fashion, kneeling on the ground before me, and dragging his watch along the carpet to induce me to follow it. The benevolent old soldier and the infant wrapped in his sheepskin would have afforded an odd group to uninterested spectators. This must have happened about my third year, for Sir George MacDougal and my grandfather both died shortly after ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... lay; And o'er his chilly limbs his woolen coat He passed, and tied his sandals on his feet, And threw a white cloak round him, and he took In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword; And on his head he set his sheepskin cap, Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul; And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd His herald to his side and went abroad. The sun by this had risen, and cleared the fog From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands. And from their tents ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... French-speaking nobles in West-European costume; the burly, bearded merchant in black cloth cap and long, shiny, double-breasted coat; the priest with his uncut hair and flowing robes; the peasant with his full, fair beard and unsavoury, greasy sheepskin. Meeting everywhere those well-marked types, he naturally assumes that Russian society is composed of exclusive castes; and this first impression will be fully confirmed by a glance at the Code. On examining that monumental work, he finds that an entire volume—and by ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... have been used for the last twenty-five years by the French 'douaniers', who watch the mountain-passes of the Pyrenean frontier. The bags are made of sheepskin, with the wool inside. When not in use they are folded up and buckled with five buckles into the shape of a somewhat bulky knapsack (p. 152), which the recent occupant may shoulder and ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... spring and ahead of time his class was graduated without him, for the war with Spain was on. In the spring an irate and long-tried father was upbraiding another only son for persistent failures at college. "Gov Prime will get the sack, not the sheepskin," prophesied his fellows. And then somehow, somewhere the father heard it was a married woman with whom his boy was so deeply in love, and there were bitter, bitter words on both sides—so bitter that when at last he flung ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... didn't you stir 'em up a little and bring 'em to see they needed your services?" was Frye's next query. "You will never succeed as a lawyer unless you make business. Did you bring your sheepskin ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... to get some mosquito dope to rub on myself, they ain't got no mosquito dope; but for four dollars you can buy a lovely leather pillow with 'Mother' on it. What do I want with a leather pillow with 'Mother' on it when mosquitoes are biting; or a picture of an Indian on one side of a sheepskin; or bead bags; or moccasins that they say are made by the Indians? What I want is mosquito dope and bread; something practical. When you got a bite on your elbow you don't care a durn about a card showing a picture of Artist ...
— Maw's Vacation - The Story of a Human Being in the Yellowstone • Emerson Hough

... workable at his discretion. They are not allowed to transmit anything to a child unless the latter, "living from their pot," can, after their death, continue their service. "Not to be killed," says Stendhal, "and to have a good sheepskin coat in winter, was, for many people in the tenth century, the height of felicity"; let us add, for a woman, that of not being violated by a whole band. When we clearly represent to ourselves the condition of humanity in those ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... acquainted with his Christian life, and with the significance which he attached to charity, I expected his sympathy, and spoke so that he understood this; I talked to my sister, but directed my remarks more at him. He sat immovable in his dark tanned sheepskin jacket,—which he wore, like all peasants, both out of doors and in the house,—and as though he did not hear us, but were thinking of his own affairs. His small eyes did not twinkle, and seemed to be turned inwards. Having ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... over the heavens, but Bulba always went to bed early. He lay down on a rug and covered himself with a sheepskin pelisse, for the night air was quite sharp and he liked to lie warm when he was at home. He was soon snoring, and the whole household speedily followed his example. All snored and groaned as they lay in different corners. The watchman went to sleep ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... like the glow of a conflagration, a Flemish boor with a pipe and dislocated-looking arm—resembling a turkey-cock in ruffles, rather than a human being,—such are the ordinary subjects. Beside them hang a few engravings: portraits of Khosrev-Mirza in his sheepskin bonnet, and of truculent generals with cocked hats and crooked noses. Bundles of coarse prints, on large paper broadsides, are suspended on either side the door. Here we have the Princess Miliktris Kirbitierna;[25] ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... saying, "It is even so; I am Captain Barlow. And this,"—he tapped the loose baggy trousers of the Afghan hillman, and the sheepskin coat with the wool inside—"was not in the way of deceit but for protection ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... him as "the Tishbite,"—one of the inhabitants of Gilead, at the east of the Jordan. He evidently was a man accustomed to a wild and solitary life. His stature was large, and his features were fierce and stern. His long hair flowed upon his brawny shoulders, and he was clothed with a mantle of sheepskin or hair-cloth, and carried in his hand a rugged staff. He was probably unlearned, being rude and rough in both manners and speech. His first appearance was marked and extraordinary. He suddenly and unannounced stood before Ahab, and abruptly delivered his awful ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... death, and so prevent The rebels' treason and their punishment. He would not have them damn'd, and therefore he Himself deposed his own majesty. Wolves did pursue him, and to fly the ill He wanders—royal saint!—in sheepskin still. Poor, obscure shelter, if that shelter be Obscure, which harbours so much majesty. Hence, profane eyes! the mystery's so deep, Like Esdras books, the vulgar must not see't. Thou flying roll, written with tears ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... sheepskin blistered, And Howell the worse for wear, And the worm-drilled Jesuits' Horace, And the ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... was upwards of seventy years old. He was a powerful and muscular man, with black piercing eyes, overhung by thick shaggy eyebrows, which, as well as his long beard, were of an iron grey. His dress consisted of a woollen shirt and trousers, a fur cap, and a sheepskin with the wool turned inside. To the leathern belt round his waist were suspended two or three horse-shoes, a metal fork and spoon, a long-bladed knife, a small hatchet, and a sort of wallet, in which he carried pipe, tobacco, flint, steel, nails, money, and a variety of other things useful or necessary ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... single, and might leave her money to whom she pleased, the distant relations were always warm in manner, and prodigal in their offers of service. The next day she repaired to one of these kinsfolk,—a person in a large way of business,—and returned home with two great books in white sheepskin. And when Losely looked in to dine, she said, in the suavest tones a tender mother can address to an amiable truant, "Jasper, you have great abilities; at the gaming-table abilities are evidently useless: your forte is calculation; you were always ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... rose on England of olden time, its faint red light stirred every sleeper from the sack of straw, which formed the only bed of the age. Springing from this rustling couch, where he had lain naked, and throwing off the coarse coverlets, usually of sheepskin, the subject of King Alfred donned the day's dress. Gentlemen wore linen or woollen tunics, which reached to the knee; and, over these, long fur-lined cloaks, fastened with a brooch of ivory or gold. Strips of cloth or leather, bandaged crosswise ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... a feeling which was almost that of getting back to their own rooms. Then they came to great steppes covered with long thick grass, and flooded in places with little lakes of broken ice; great horned cattle stood knee-deep in this grass, and at the villages and way-stations were people wearing sheepskin jackets and waistcoats covered with silver buttons. In one place there was a wedding procession waiting for the train to pass, with the friends of the bride and groom in their best clothes, the women ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis

... basket and a message. The message was from his father, that he was to bring the sheep back early on Monday, and the basket was from his mother with food and a clean shirt for the Sabbath. We slept on a sheepskin and wakened to hear the patter of rain. After seeing his sheep and counting them, Archie said we must keep the Sabbath, and when we had settled in a dry corner of the hillside he heard me my questions. I could not go further than Who is the Redeemer of God's elect? but he could go to the end. Then ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar

... the King's son had got off safe. When he heard their answer, he cried aloud, "Woe is me!" and sank like a stone. It was a cold night, and, after some hours, young Godfrey became benumbed, lost his hold, and likewise sank; but the butcher, in his sheepskin coat, held on till daylight, when he was picked up by some fishermen, and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... those days—took kindly notice of the girl reader, and very soon, probably on the recommendation of Mark Pattison, who was a Curator, made me free of the lower floors, where was the "Spanish room," with its shelves of seventeenth and eighteenth century volumes in sheepskin or vellum, with their turned-in edges and leathern strings. Here I might wander at will, absolutely alone, save for the visit of an occasional librarian from the upper floor, seeking a book. To get to the Spanish ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the gurglet half full of water and the sheepskin mantle of the black man were lowered into the little vessel. The boat moved away in the direction of Prinkipo, the mother isle of the group; and as the night deepened, it passed ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... the gap left in the fence, and at once alighted from my horse. The chief greeted me after his fashion by alternately touching first my hand and then his own forehead, as if he were conveying the virtue of the touch like a spark of electricity. Presently I found myself seated upon a sheepskin, which was spread for me under the sacred shade of Arabian canvas. The tent was of a long, narrow, oblong form, and contained a quantity of men, women, and children so closely huddled together, that there was scarcely one of ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... well-known barrister, who belonged to the "Third Estate," used to say, "I passed the night on a Bonapartist straw mattress, wrapped in a burnouse of the Mountain, my feet in a Democratic and Socialist sheepskin, and my head in a Legitimist cotton nightcap." The Representatives, although prisoners in the barracks, could stroll about freely. They were allowed to go down into the courtyard. M. Cordier (of Calvados) came upstairs ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... no breeches to wear, He bought a sheepskin for to make him a pair, With the skinny side out, and the woolly side in, 'They're warm in the winter,' said ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... added caps of sea-otter, mittens of dog-skin, lined with the fur of the Arctic hare, knitted devil's caps, woollen sashes of great length for winding around the body, and, after long search, leather Russian boots lined with sheepskin and reaching half-way up the thigh. When rigged out in this costume, my diameter was about equal to half my height, and I found locomotion rather cumbrous; while Braisted, whose stature is some seven inches shorter, waddled along like ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... unpleasing to the eye and so uncouth, that it would make the most beautiful women appear homely. In the first place I will speak of their head dress, of which there are three different kinds, two of which are as bizarre as can be imagined. The first sort is a cap of sheepskin, the fleece of which is as white as snow, and the cap is of conical shape, the base being exceeding large in proportion to its height, and resembles much the sugar loaves made in Egypt. The second is a ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... the orthodoxy of the minister, the regularity of the doctor, and the morals of the lawyer. They read the Tribune with spectacles, and have files of The Liberator and Wendell Phillips' orations, bound in sheepskin. Heaven forbid that we should think of any of the number as a married woman, without a fervent aspiration of pity for the weaker vessel who officiates as her spouse. As to rearing children, that is not to be thought ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... of sheepskin and made of it a pair of very poor moccasins. He ground an old castaway putty knife into a scalping knife; the notch in it for breaking glass was an annoying defect until he remembered that some Indians decorate their weapons with a notch for each enemy it has killed, and this, therefore, ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... they had a new subject to discuss. The sheepskin-covered chair which sat by the pump day and night the year round, ready for the judge, had been empty for two weeks. The old man had pneumonia, and was on his deathbed. Every morning the doctor brought a full account of his latest symptoms, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... gang that was employed in filling the boats, where I remained for the rest of the time. As we were obliged to carry the hides on our heads from fear of their getting wet, we each had a piece of sheepskin sewed into the inside of our hats, with the wool next our heads, and thus were able to bear the weight, day after day, which might otherwise have worn off our hair, and borne hard upon our skulls. Upon the whole ours was the best berth, for ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... behind us. The old furniture was dusty, but all the dust in the world couldn't hide its beauty. The dining-room was hung with cobwebs, but when the candles were lighted we saw the Sheffield on the old sideboard, the Chinese porcelains, the Heppelwhite chairs, the painted sheepskin screen— ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... masses of colour, light, movement. Brilliantly picturesque people. Children like Asiatic angels. Magnificently scowling ruffians in sheepskin coats. In fact, a movie staged for my benefit. I was afraid they would ring down the curtain before I had had enough. It had no meaning. When I got back to my diggings I tried to put down what I had just seen, and I swear there's ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck

... life there was not the heyday of youthful frolicking we sometimes associate with college life in our day and land. Not until he was thirty could he hang up his sheepskin as a physician. Yet the students had their fun and their sports, and Finsen was seldom missing where these went on. He was not an athlete because already at twenty-three the crippling disease with which he battled twenty ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... this universal passion for prayer. The nobleman, in his gilded carriage with liveried servants, stops and pays the tribute of an uncovered head to some saintly image by the bridge or the roadside; the peasant, in his shaggy sheepskin capote, doffs his greasy cap, and, while devoutly crossing himself, utters a prayer; the soldier, grim and warlike, marches up in his rattling armor, grounds his musket, and forgets for the time his mission of blood; the tradesman, with his leather apron and labor-worn hands, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... this season of the year get themselves up a la pifferari, or piper, to prey on the romantic susceptibilities and pockets of the strangers in Rome, and, with a pair of long-haired goat-skin breeches, a sheepskin coat, brown rags, and sandals, or cioccie, with a shocking bad conical black or brown hat, in which are stuck peacock's or cock's feathers, they are ready equipped to attack the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... ignorant of misfortune myself, and had learned to succour the miserable, and that's not your trade, Mr. Sheepskin," said the trooper. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... floating cloth is attached,—which reminds one of the headdress so common in Italy. Underneath this sort of veil are suspended a variety of various colored pebbles, coins and pieces of metal. The ears are covered by flaps made of cloth or fur. A furred sheepskin covers the back, poor women contenting themselves with a simple plain skin of the animal, while wealthy ladies wear veritable cloaks, lined with red cloth and adorned ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... the principal streets are thronged with ladies shopping in sleighs; and hither and thither sleds shoot by, laden with parcels of painted toys, instruments of mock music and septuagenarian dread, from a penny trumpet to a sheepskin drum. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... Senior, Hicks, a Senior!" Butch would explain wrathfully. "You are popularly supposed to be dignified, and here you persist in acting like a comedian in a vaudeville show! I suppose you intend to appear on the stage, and, when handed your sheepskin, respond by twanging your banjo and roaring ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... on twelve cups and then another twelve, drank some tea, and went away. Nikolay began shivering; his face looked drawn, and, as the women expressed it, shrank up like a fist; his fingers turned blue. He wrapped himself up in a quilt and in a sheepskin, but got colder and colder. Towards the evening he began to be in great distress; asked to be laid on the ground, asked the tailor not to smoke; then he subsided under the sheepskin and towards morning ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... other adjacent tribes. The operator, an old woman, takes up the instrument, a knife or razor-blade fixed into a wooden handle, and with three sweeps cuts off the labia and the head of the clitoris. The parts are then sewn up with a packneedle and a thread of sheepskin; and in Dar-For a tin tube is inserted for the passage of urine. Before marriage the bridegroom trains himself for a month on beef, honey and milk; and, if he can open his bride with the natural ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... chest which served as a bed, and near the chest a white wooden box with two shelves. On these two shelves lay linen, caps, handkerchiefs, women's dresses, and men's jackets, all smelling somewhat of fish. In one corner hung the nets, together with tarred capes, boots, oilskin hats, and enormous sheepskin gloves. Strings of onions encircled a picture of the Virgin, and some twenty dried herrings with shining bellies were strung by their gills on a thread under an ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various

... layers of wood-smoke, the dusty gray blue of the tamarisks, the domes of ruined tombs, and all the smell of the white Northern plains, as the mail-train ran on to the mile-long Sutlej Bridge. William, wrapped in a poshteen—silk-embroidered sheepskin jacket trimmed with rough astrakhan—looked out with moist eyes and nostrils that dilated joyously. The South of pagodas and palm-trees, the over-populated Hindu South, was done with. Here was the land she knew and loved, and before her lay the good life she understood, among folk of her ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling

... trouble much. They went about their business almost as usual and enjoyed the many entertainments arranged by "society people" for any object, however remotely connected with the war—"Sheepskin Waistcoat Funds," "Comfort for Horses Fund," "Knitted Socks Fund," and others. It was all so much work and gave people opportunity to have a busy time, flavored with the knowledge that it was ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor

... exact centre of its respective panel. There were a few cases of china and a few polished tables. A crimson Brussels carpet, chosen by Lady Grosville for its "cheerfulness," covered the floor, and there was a large white sheepskin rug before the fireplace. A few hyacinths in pots, and the bright fire supplied the only gay and ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... unmercifully, and they would soon recover. The cowboys themselves tipped back their big hats from their foreheads, which showed curiously white in contrast to their bronzed faces, and beat the dust from their trousers. A few of them wore sheepskin chaps. ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster

... and much besides. He wears his hair in a pigtail. The women wear short, big-sleeved jackets, shortish, full-plaited skirts, tight trousers a yard too long, the superfluous length forming folds above the ankle, a sheepskin with the fur outside hangs over the back, and on gala occasions a sort of drapery is worn over the usual dress. Felt or straw shoes and many heavy ornaments are worn by both sexes. Great ears of brocade, lined and edged with fur and ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)

... though," was the careless reply. "I got tired of waiting the Secretary's caprices, when there was real work to be done; so one day I went to the War Department and demanded either my sheepskin, or a positive refusal. I got only more promises; so I told the Sec. I needed no charity from the government, but would present it with a company! Then, to be as good as my word, I sold some cotton and some stock, equipped this ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... peasants had few wants. Their carts were put together without nails. Their bridles and traces were made of bark. They had no tools but hatchets. A sheepskin coat and round felt cap kept a man warm in cold weather. His shoes were made of bark, and his home ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... sin now!" she retorted, turning her back to the steps and propping up her right leg as she vigorously beat the sheepskin coat. ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... ever be otherwise. As to the Flemings, the political alliances which commercial necessities constantly entailed between the two countries gave rise among them to a proverb that they bought the fox-skin from the English for a groat and sold them back the tail for a guelder;[3] but it was the sheepskin which they bought, and they were not destined to go on buying it for ever. The great cloth-making cities of the Netherlands were finally ruined by the growth of the English cloth manufacture, which absorbed the English wool. However, in spite of the growing prosperity of ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... our time over the form in which living thought presents itself. The first printed books,—the incunabula,—were inclosed in boards of solid oak, with brazen clasps and corners; the boards by and by were replaced by pasteboard covered with calf or sheepskin; then cloth came in and took the place of leather; then the pasteboard was covered with paper instead of cloth; and at this day the quarterly, the monthly, the weekly periodical in its flimsy unsupported dress of paper, and the daily journal, naked as it came from the womb ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... frost. Hardly anyone was astir; a few good souls wending home from vespers, a tired post-boy who blew a shrill blast from his tasseled horn as he pulled up his sledge before a hostelry, and little August hugging his jug of beer to his ragged sheepskin coat, were all who were abroad, for the snow fell heavily and the good folks of Hall go early to their beds. He could not run, or he would have spilled the beer; he was half frozen and a little frightened, but he kept up his courage by saying over and over again to himself, "I shall soon be at home ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... a sheepskin to lie on, and a very good bed it made. I slept soundly for a long time; then I waked up and found that, instead of rain pattering against the roof, and darkness everywhere, it was quite light. The rain was over, and the moon was shining beautifully. I ran to the door and looked out. ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... volleys without being in the least exposed themselves. Had we not been able to surprise the enemy before the day dawned, I doubt whether, any of us could have reached the first entrenchment. As it was, the regiment holding it fled in such a hurry that a sheepskin coat and from sixty to a hundred rounds of ammunition were left behind on the spot where each man ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... with the Portland Lumber Company, selling lumber in the Middle West before the war," he explained. "Uncle Sam gave me my sheepskin at Letter-man General Hospital last week, with half disability on my ten thousand dollars' worth of government insurance. Whittling my wing was a mere trifle, but my broken leg was a long time mending, and now it's shorter than it really ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne

... boat, which was lying in the shallow water some distance from the shore. At Dudino, also, the priests living there held a thanksgiving service for our happy arrival thither. Two of them said mass, while the clerk, clad in a sheepskin caftan reaching to his feet, zealously and devoutly swung an immense censer. The odour from it was at first not particularly pleasant, but it soon became so strong and disagreeable that I, who had my place in front ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... most difficult three thousand versts; I am sitting in a decent hotel and can write. I have rigged myself out all in new things and, as far as possible, smart ones, for you cannot imagine how sick I was of my big muddy boots, of my sheepskin smelling of tar, of my overcoat covered with bits of hay, of dust and crumbs in my pockets, and of my extremely dirty linen. I looked such a ragamuffin on the journey that even the tramps eyed me askance; and then, as ill luck would have it, the cold winds and ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... red skull-cap, round at top; but, when married, they usually surround this with a white turban. Their pantaloons are of blue, and fit close from the knee to the ankle, and below they wear the opunka—a species of sandal, made of sheepskin, and bound with thongs, which, as may be seen from their elastic step and upright carriage, are well fitted to their country; round their waist is a red sash, and in front a leather belt, in which is placed a yataghan and a smaller knife, and exhibiting usually the handsome pommels ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... happiness was not only greater than the parson's, but of longer duration: for as soon as the first tumults of Adams's rapture were over he cast his eyes towards the fire, where Aeschylus lay expiring; and immediately rescued the poor remains, to wit, the sheepskin covering, of his dear friend, which was the work of his own hands, and had been his inseparable companion for upwards of ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... posted near where he leapt out, and hewed at his head with a sword, and that was his death-wound. As he fell, another man cut at his right leg below the knee and slashed it nearly off. Thorleif the monk from Thver, the brewer, had got out before, and was in the yard; he took a sheepskin and put it under Hall when Einar and the others went away; then he rolled all together, Hall and the sheepskin, along to the church when they were not looking. Hall was lightly clad, and the cold struck deep into his wounds. The monk was barefoot, and his ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... that I ordered Sergeant Drill not to let a drumstick touch a sheepskin while we quartered in the dwelling of this hospitable old colonel! Does the fellow despise my commands? or does he think the roll of a drum, echoing through the crooked passages of St. Ruth, a melody that is fit to disturb the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... board sides and a muslin back and a careful defense of this binding is made, claiming that the muslin is "much more durable than the thin tender leather usually put upon books of this class." This statement was unquestionably true. The leather referred to was of sheepskin and of very little strength, but it took very many years to convince the public of the untruth of the saying, ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail

... which excess of diuretic plants has been taken, it may be well to replace the salts by 1 to 2 pints of olive oil, adding 1 ounce of laudanum and 2 drams of gum camphor; also to apply fomentations or a fresh sheepskin over the loins. Buttermilk or vinegar, one-half pint, or sulphuric acid, 60 drops in a pint of water, may also be used frequently as injections. In cases caused by sprained or fractured loins, inflamed kidneys, stone or gravel, the treatment will ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... upright on the thigh, or carried across the saddle-bows; short daggers were stuck in each belt, and a longer one hung by the side; a large powder-horn was suspended under the arm. Saddles en pique, with sheepskin housings, and leathern pouches attached on both sides, supplying the place of knapsack and haversack, completed the equipment. The “cabbanu,” a cloak of coarse brown cloth, hung negligently from the shoulders, and underneath appeared the tight-fitting ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... burning that it constrained her to awake, albeit she slept fast. Feeling herself on the roast and moving somewhat, it seemed as if all her scorched skin cracked and clove asunder for the motion, as we see happen with a scorched sheepskin, if any stretch it, and to boot her head irked her so sore that it seemed it would burst, which was no wonder. And the platform of the tower was so burning hot that she could find no restingplace there either for her feet or for otherwhat; wherefore, without standing fast, she still removed ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio



Words linked to "Sheepskin" :   leather, certification, animal skin, credential, credentials, Higher National Diploma, sheepskin coat, Golden Fleece, HND, certificate, vellum



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com