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Trimming   /trˈɪmɪŋ/   Listen
Trimming

noun
1.
The act of adding decoration.
2.
A decoration or adornment on a garment.  Synonyms: passementerie, trim.  "The trim on a shirt"
3.
Cutting down to the desired size or shape.  Synonyms: clipping, trim.



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"Trimming" Quotes from Famous Books



... come to love it every acre, every foot, because they have known it from childhood; and I have seen old men, very old, pottering about the orchards and meadows during the hours of voluntary work, and trimming them up here and there, simply because they could not keep away from the place, or keep their hands off the trees and bushes. Sometimes in the long, tender afternoons, we see far up on some pasture slope, groups of girls scattered ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... place of carpet, and the walls were hung with tavern-paper presenting the profiles of Louis XVI. and members of his family, traced among the branches of a weeping willow with other sentimentalities invented by royalism during the Terror,—in spite of his ruins, the chevalier, trimming his beard before a shabby old toilet-table, draped with trumpery lace, exhaled an essence of the eighteenth century. All the libertine graces of his youth reappeared; he seemed to have the wealth of three hundred thousand francs of debt, while his vis-a-vis waited before ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... of the woodcutters was followed immediately by three others, who lost no time in getting down to work. One of them went to help the leader, while the other two devoted themselves to trimming and cutting up the branches of the big birch which they had felled the night before. The Boy wondered where the rest of the pond-people were, and would have liked to consult Jabe about it; but he remembered the keenness of the beaver's ears, and held his tongue securely. It seemed to him probably ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... the collar is to rest. The connection of the laterals with the mains, the laying of the larger sizes of tiles so as to form a close joint, the wedging of these larger tiles firmly into their places, and the trimming which is necessary in going around sharp curves, and in putting in the shorter pieces which are needed to fill out the exact length of the drain, demand more skill and judgment than are often found in the common ditcher. Still, any clever workman, who has a careful habit, may easily be taught all ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring

... of my son's prudence, I was willing enough to entrust him with this commission; and the next morning I perceived his sisters mighty busy in fitting out Moses for the fair; trimming his hair, brushing his buckles, and cocking his hat with pins. The business of the toilet being over, we had at last the satisfaction of seeing him mounted upon the colt, with a deal box before him to bring home groceries in. He ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... the cook," she said as she came near him and went to trimming the rose bush again. "She understands. Her little boy is going to bring you something to ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop

... bow, and, opening a knife which hung at his waist, went forthwith towards the nearest bush. He cut himself a stout ash staff and fell to trimming it deftly. ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... on the parapets. On either side of this same molo stretches a miniature beach of sand and pebble, covered with nets, which the fishermen are always mending, and where the big boats lade or unlade, trimming for the sardine fishery, or driving in to shore with a whirr of oars and a jabber of discordant voices. As the land-wind freshens, you may watch them set off one by one, like pigeons taking flight, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... No matter how sweet and pretty she is, you at once decide that you never could afford to dress her. But that taffeta cost, perhaps, only a dollar a yard. The satin, possibly a dollar and a half. They require almost no trimming, because the material is so handsome and the effect must be as simple as possible. Such a gown never need be lined with silk unless you wish to do it. Many a girl gets up such a gown for fifty or sixty dollars. And then think of the service that there is in it. ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell

... this execution took place the fleet abode two months, resting the crews, wooding, watering, and trimming the ships, and bringing the fleet into a more compact compass; destroying the Mary, a Portuguese prize, and arranging the whole of the crews in three ships, so that they might the more easily keep together. On August the 17th they ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... explanation which you have given with regard to the necessity of trimming lamps, applies also to candles, which ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... might, at need, have explained this free-and-easy demeanor. The old maid wore a merino gown of a dark plum color, of which the cut and trimming dated from the year of the Restoration; a little worked collar, worth perhaps three francs; and a common straw hat with blue satin ribbons edged with straw plait, such as the old-clothes buyers wear at market. On ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... the week of March 29 to April 4, 1920, the committee organized and financed the third national coffee week, which was observed by retailers throughout the country. The feature of this week was a window-trimming contest for which prizes of $2,000 were distributed among several hundred grocers. The contest resulted in displays of coffee in nearly 10,000 grocery windows, and greatly increased the sale and consumption of ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... bolder and bolder. In fact, so daring were their crimes that the home governments, stirred at last by these outrageous barbarities, seriously undertook the suppression of the freebooters, lopping and trimming the main trunk until its members were scattered hither and thither, and it was thought that the organization was exterminated. But, so far from being exterminated, the individual members were merely scattered north, south, east, and west, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... the ribbon a bit, then held the trimming of roses close to her face in front of the mirror. Then she began to ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse

... said Bob, enthusiastically. "And you haven't seen half of it yet. There's fortune-telling, and Punch and Judy, and the hat-trimming contest, and I don't ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... the clay-bank toiled zealously at the important task of mixing and tempering it, while another came and went with pailfuls that were used up as fast as he could bring them. The stones were laid with their smooth faces inward, and there was not a minute wasted in trimming anything for the sake of appearances. Sile could hardly believe that so much could have been done is so short a time, and he was again astonished when the men returned from breakfast. The wall grew at a tremendous rate. He went from that work to the place ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard

... with the fury of despair. Then the noise ceased suddenly, and the second engineer appeared, emerging out of the stokehold streaked with grime and soaking wet like a chimney-sweep coming out of a well. As soon as his head was clear of the fiddle he began to scold Jukes for not trimming properly the stokehold ventilators; and in answer Jukes made with his hands deprecatory soothing signs meaning: "No wind—can't be helped—you can see for yourself." But the other wouldn't hear reason. His teeth flashed angrily in his dirty face. He didn't mind, he said, the trouble of ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, and then you will float ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... need of such precaution, for the young man seemed wholly bent on getting up the trees, most of which she had selected and marked during recent rambles. She helped now vigorously, pulling on the young saplings as they loosened the roots, then trimming them into shape. More than once, however, she detected glances, and his thoughts were more flattering than she imagined. "What vigor she has in that supple, rounded form! Her very touch ought to put life into these trees; I know it ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... flat hat, plaited of straw. It had no trimming save a pretty bow and strings of brown ribbon, but Anne thought it was a ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis

... Phil at dinner-time; but in the afternoon, a little before his usual home-coming hour, he came seeking me, with a very relieved and happy face; and found me trimming a grape-vine in our back garden, near the palings that separated our ground from Mr. Faringfield's. On the Faringfield side of the fence, at this place, grew ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... as the great Tartarin, Prince Gregory had, over and above that, donned a queer but magnificent military cap, all covered with gold lace and a trimming of oak-leaves in silver cord, which gave His Highness the aspect of a Mexican general or a railway station-master on the ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... would not be callees if they did not: I have known a Gitana gain twenty ounces of gold, by means of the hokkano baro, in a few hours, whilst the silly Gypsy, her husband, would be toiling with his shears for a fortnight, trimming the horses of the Busne, and yet not be a dollar richer at ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... sensible in the highest degree of kindness, and eager for endearing attention, uttering a low plaintive cry when its sympathies are excited. It is particularly cleanly in its habits when domesticated, and spends much of its time in trimming its fur, and carefully divesting its ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... affectionately up to the little sitting room window, where her geraniums stood, and even thought kindly of Miss Webster herself, to whom it was not quite so easy to feel genial. She entered the shop. The apprentice sate there at work, busily trimming a fine rice straw bonnet for the lodger within. She looked up joyously at Emilie's approach. She thought how often that kind German face had been to her like a sunbeam on a dull path; how often her musical ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... center, and with this as a beginning he carved from each side of the hole blocks of the hard-packed snow, each block about two feet long and a foot and a half wide and ten inches thick. These he placed on edge around the circle, fitting their ends close together by trimming them as he found ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... raised a step or two from the wall. In one was placed a walnut-tree reading-desk, and a huge stuffed arm-chair, covered with Spanish leather. A little cabinet stood beside, with some of its shuttles and drawers open, displaying hawks-bells, dog-whistles, instruments for trimming falcons' feathers, bridle-bits of various constructions, and other trifles connected ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... in the pilot's favor, who proved to be a tiger of a fellow, keeping us hard at work, pulling and hauling the braces, and trimming the ship, to catch the least cat's-paw ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... notable example of this political indifference in an election which had taken place since their settlement at Cedar Creek. On the day of polling he and his retainer Andy went down to the 'Corner,' the latter with very enlarged anticipations of fun, and perchance a 'row.' His master noticed him trimming a sapling into a splendid 'shillelagh,' with a slender handle and heavy head as ever did execution in a faction fight upon Emerald soil. The very word election had excited his bump of combativeness. But, alas! the little stumpy street was dull and empty as usual; not even the ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... sheets of thick white paper, about the size of commercial note, so that when opened they will be heart-shaped. Dip them in melted butter and set aside. After trimming all the fat from lamb or mutton chops, season them with pepper and salt. Put three table-spoonfuls of butter in the frying pan, and when melted, lay in the chops, and cook slowly for fifteen minutes. Add one teaspoonful of finely-chopped parsley, one ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa

... efforts to make the awkward new boy feel at home.... I feel doubly grateful to you and Mr. Irving for the light you shed from the lamp of art on life now that I begin to understand the labor and weariness the process of trimming the ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... and cold, coquet, be on the fence, straddle, bold with the hare but run with the hounds; nager entre deux eaux[Fr]; wait to see how the cat jumps, wait to see how the wind blows. Adj. changeful &c. 149; irresolute &c. 605; ductile, slippery as an eel, trimming, ambidextrous, timeserving[obs3]; coquetting &c. v. revocatory[obs3], reactionary. Phr. "a change came o'er the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... which she tried to hide the loss. No deterioration of her complexion, no wrinkling of her skin, could have been so dreadful to look at as the rouge that lay thick on her cheeks, and the white enamel plastered on her forehead. The delicate lace, and the bright trimming on her dressing-gown, the ribbons in her cap, and the rings on her bony fingers, all intended to draw the eye away from the change that had passed over her, directed the eye to it, on the contrary; ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... hearts, and straining their energies to follow this phantom of fashion; the masses were kept poor because of it, and the youth and hope of the world was betrayed by it. In country villages poor farmers' wives were trimming their bonnets over to be "stylish"; and servant-girls in the cities were wearing imitation sealskins, and shop-clerks and sempstresses selling themselves into brothels for the sake of ribbons and ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... In his men cases he uses sometimes one gland, sometimes two; sometimes the whole gland, just as it came from the young goat, sometimes a part of the gland only, but he leans to the opinion that the gland of the three-weeks-old goat gives best results if used entire, without trimming. Sometimes he lays the gland upon the outside of the human testis, connecting part with part; sometimes he opens the testis by incision and lays the goat-gland within the cleft. Very often there are adhesions ...
— The Goat-gland Transplantation • Sydney B. Flower

... eve at home," murmured the young lad after he had said his prayers and tumbled into his narrow berth on the great ship. "I suppose they're trimming the Christmas tree now and hanging up the stockings. I wish ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... he went to the city and came home with twenty-five dollars' worth of ostrich plumes for Nettie. He said he was bound that Nettie'd have a real hat once in her life, that he's tired of watching her making her own hats, even piecing out the shapes with bits of cardboard and trimming and retrimming. She got in the way of it the first ten years they were married, when Andy was having such poor luck and now, poor thing, I guess she can't get out of it, because the day after Andy brought the plumes Nettie ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... reputation, or at least the most part, goe naked, sauing an apron of a span long, and as much in breadth before them, and a lace two fingers broad before them, girded about with a string and no more: and thus they thinke them as well as we with all our trimming. Of the fruits and trees that be here I cannot now speake, for I should make another letter as long as this. For hitherto I haue not seene a tree here whose like I haue seene in Europe, the vine excepted, which neuerthelesse here is to no purpose, so that all the wines ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... might on the corners of the wall. The square contained a bowling-green of exquisitely-kept turf, that looked as if cut out of green velvet, and was edged on its four sides by a raised broad-paved walk, with a trimming of flower-beds, where the earliest blossoms were showing themselves. In the centre of each side another paved path intersected the green lawn, and the meeting of these two diameters was at a circular stone basin, presided over by another merman, blowing ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that the hem is quite level all round; nothing is more untidy than a skirt that dips down at the back or sides—dropping at the back is a little trick a cotton skirt cultivates when it comes home from the laundry. A plain shirt without "frills or furbelows"—if any trimming at all, tucks are the neatest—a collar, tie, and waistband, go to make an outfit as comfortable and suitable as ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers

... chamber, and undertook the task of keeping the consecrated lamp alight. There was an accuracy and a certainty about Hilda's movements, as regarded all matters that lay deep enough to have their roots in right or wrong, which made it as possible and safe to rely upon the timely and careful trimming of this lamp (if she were in life, and able to creep up the steps), as upon the rising of to-morrow's sun, with lustre-undiminished ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... her lee bow, was breasted up to her course in a way that showed she would come out to windward of the island again without any difficulty. This whole evolution was made with the greatest facility, not a sheet being touched, the sails trimming themselves, the rudder alone controlling the admirable machine. The object appeared to be a reconnoissance. When, however, the Scud had made the circuit of the entire island, and had again got her weatherly position in the channel by which she ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... laughed Johnson. Presently, he saw her quietly closet herself in the cupboard, only to emerge a few minutes later dressed for the night. Over her white cambric gown with its coarse lace trimming showing at the throat, she wore a red woollen blanket robe held in at the waist by a heavy, twisted, red cord which, to the man who got a glimpse of her as she crossed the room, made her prettier, even, than she had seemed at ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... above group we have a white double-breasted waistcoat, high chemisette of lace, and collar of English embroidery; cap of silk stuff, forming a calotte, trimmed with lace of Alencon point; and ribbon for the wrist. At the top of the first trimming is fastened a slight silk fringe under several bunches of silk or velvet ribbon. For indoors, and for dress parties, the lace lappets are replaced by ribbon like the bunches. A little ribbon ornament is used round the gloves, fastened by a gold ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... may be produced by frequent transplanting, thorough trimming of the roots, and repeated heading-in. The fruit on such dwarfs must be well thinned out when young, or it will be smaller than is natural. The effect of heading in is to cause the sap to mature an abundance of fruit-buds. This will ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... between the guns, chiefly those abreast of the fore-hatchway, there have been groups assembled to scrape and polish themselves ever since breakfast-time, and even before it. Some are washing themselves; others cutting, and combing, and trimming their hair; for, now-a-days, there are none of those huge long tails, or club ties, which descended along the back of the sailors who fought with Benbow and Rodney. The dandyism of Jack has now taken another turn, and the knowing thing at present is to have a parcel ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... isn't strong of you, dear Mrs. Thorpe. You mustn't—you mustn't. [AGNES brings the tray with the cut flowers to the nearer table; calmly and methodically she resumes trimming the stalks.] ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero

... turned the next corner she met Maudie Ducker. Maudie Ducker had on a new plaid dress with velvet trimming, and Maudie ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... reckon. But my lunacy took the form of light-headedness with a strange, almost persistent, sense of exaltation. I kept my strength so much better than they that almost unconsciously they left most of the trimming and steering in my hands. And I sat and steered as a god, in a world blank of all but miserable happenings. I looked on Santa, and she was the woman I loved but should never enjoy. I looked on Farrell: and he was here, brought ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... in houses are the trimming of lamps and the care of the books. The condition of many libraries in large country houses is most lamentable. In such neglect are they that it would take months, and in some cases years, working day and night, to restore them to a healthy condition. For, poor things! they are really ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys

... determination prevails. Mr Cobden himself, and some of his colleagues, are not unaware of the fact, and have, in the factious and political sense, latterly trimmed their course accordingly. But, notwithstanding, confidence they have recovered not—never will, because apostacy or trimming cannot inspire confidence; they are endured—to be used, and to be laid aside, "steeped in Lethe" and forgotten, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... manure. This protects the roots and ensures a vigorous growth the coming season. Allow no weeds or even grass to encroach on the young hedge until it is strong and established. For the first year no trimming will be necessary beyond cutting back an occasional branch or top that is growing stronger than the others; and this should be done in early October. During the second season the plants should grow much more strongly; and now the shears are needed in summer. Some branches ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... trimming his boat. E'en that frail skiff from all danger might tear me, And to the dwellings of friends it might bear me. Scarcely his earnings can keep life afloat. Richly with treasures his lap I'd heap over,— Oh! what a draught should ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... habitually under the Old Procuratie, beside a basket of small puppies in that snuffling and quivering state which appears to be the favorite condition of very young dogs, and occupies himself in conversation with an adjacent dealer in grapes and peaches, or sometimes fastidiously engages in trimming the hair upon the closely shaven bodies of the dogs; for in Venice it is the ambition of every dog to look as much like the Lion of St. Mark as the nature of the case will permit. My vagabond at times ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... garden was like playing at "hide-and-seek." There were the tall hollyhocks beginning to flower and dazzle the eye with their pink, white, and yellow; there were the syringas and Guelder roses, all large and disorderly for want of trimming; there were leafy walls of scarlet beans and late peas; there was a row of bushy filberts in one direction, and in another a huge apple-tree making a barren circle under its low-spreading boughs. But what signified a barren patch or two? The garden was so large. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... Turkes. Their armour is a coate of plate, with a skull, on their heads. Some of their coates are couered with veluet or cloth of gold: their desire is to be sumptuous in the field, and especially the nobles and gentlemen: as I haue heard their trimming is very costly, and partly I haue seene it, or else I would scarcely haue beleeued it: but the Duke himselfe is richly attired aboue all measure: his pauilion is couered either with cloth of gold or siluer, and so set with stones that it is wonderfull to see it. I haue seene the Kings ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt

... and beseeching him with honeyed endearments, to be a good boy and obey his father. But the little figure seemed to have turned to stone in her arms. In less than the five minutes Mr. Allan was back in the room, trimming a long switch cut from one of the trees in the garden ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... me; as I started forth this morning I saw a gardener upon the upper terrace trimming about some bushes of wonderful grace and beauty, and as I stepped among them I saw an ancient sundial; 'tis the first I've yet seen, and I made bold to ask him to plant some rare rose near it, that its leaves and blossoms might enfold ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... crop, and the total sales from that crop amounted to $750, but about half of this had been expended for trimming and spraying the trees, a spraying outfit, barrels, picking, packing, freight and cold storage. A good bunch ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... sordid, brutal, sickening! Dull callousness to smug contrition quickening Under the spur of an ignoble terror, A hope scarce less ignoble—in expression, At least. Yes, calm judicial self-possession Is difficult, most easy trimming error; But compromise with claims conflicting here, Is scarce the course of equity ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various

... the wide space of those Long Island fields and the row of frame cottages. There was the little house, rather more spick and span than when we had known it, freshly painted in its brown and white, the privet hedge very handsomely shaven, and its present occupant busily engaged in trimming some tufts of grass along the pavement. We did not linger, and that cheerful-looking man little knew how many ghosts he was living among. All of us, we suppose, dwell amid ghosts we are not aware of, and this gentleman would be startled if he ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... I dare say, for which of you ever heard of trimming cows with their own horns and ears? How should you like to see a cow with her ears—poor thing!—cut to the shape of a leaf with notched edges, and horns trained in some queer shape, twisted into curls, or divided into four, with two ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... prevent him from accomplishing what he deemed his duty, in secretly denouncing his plans, It is also true that he, at the same time, gave the Prince private information concerning the government, and sent him intercepted letters from his enemies, thus easing his conscience on both sides, and trimming his sails to every wind which might blow. The Duke now, however, reminded his Highness of the contumely with which he had been treated at Brussels, of the insolent threats with which the citizens had pursued his servants and secretaries even to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... with her most wondering expression. Her hair still as she had plaited it for the night; one plait had touched him on the nose and awoke him before she spoke. She stood bending over him, in her long white nightgown with its dainty lace trimming, and with bare feet. She would never have come in like that if something terrible had not happened. Why did she not speak? only look and look—or was she ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... the books are prepared for trimming by "jogging up" in bunches of the proper thickness, for the cutting machine. If the work is large or the paper highly sized and slippery, a light coating of glue is applied to the centre of the back, to keep ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... illumination, dawn; the lantern rays fade in the growing brightness, and the lanterns that shone so brightly are becoming smoky and dim. To many men this is no more than a waning of the lanterns, and they call for new ones, or a trimming of the old. They blame the day for putting out these flares. And some go apart, out of the glare of life, into corners of obscurity, where the radiation of the lantern may still be faintly traced. But, indeed, with the new light there ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... shagbark on the contrary makes slow recovery and many years are required for a cut-back shagbark hickory to regain normal equilibrium between top and root. The pignut and mockernut apparently stand midway between the bitternut and the shagbark in respect to the trimming of the top. My experience with shagbark includes the top working of trees ranging from a few inches in diameter up to fifteen or twenty inches in diameter, and the cutting back has included all stages from actual felling of the tree to cutting off half of the top or less than half of the top. The ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various

... an odd-looking fellow, tall and thin, with a lean face from which a pair of pale and near-sighted eyes peered forth from behind rubber-rimmed spectacles. His hair was almost black and was always in need of trimming, and his garments—he seldom wore trousers, coat and vest that matched—always seemed about to fall off him. Clint's first glimpse of Penny came one afternoon. The door of Number 13 was open as Clint returned to his room after football practice and lugubrious sounds ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour

... have to be pruned—perhaps the ivy around the fountain will need trimming—maybe the narcissi will need thinning out when they're through blossoming—I'm stupid about narcissi. I've been living so long where there weren't any—" Her thoughts had raced longingly toward the back yard of her childhood while Margot had ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... time finished trimming the aspen sticks; and by the fading light of day and the red light of the fire they set to work to mend the broken leg. Between them they knew something of surgery: she by recollecting all that she had seen in her father's ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... sight met her eye. It was the axe and the coil of rope which had fallen from the wagon during its descent, and now lay within easy reach. Passing the rope several times around his body so as to form a sling she cut a stout bush, and trimming it, made a stake which she firmly fastened into a crevice, and with, an exertion of strength, such as her loving and resolute heart could have alone inspired her to put forth, she extricated him from his position, and laying the ends of the rope over ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... depth. There is a danger when teaching becomes mainly practical of its losing sight of the fundamental laws amid the multitude of details, and attaching itself to trifles. There is a superstition in philosophy as well as in religion. Epictetus gives directions for the trimming of the beard in a tone as serious as if he were speaking of the summum bonum. And stoicism from the very first, by its absurd paradox that all faults are equal, obviously fell into this very snare, which, the moment it was popularized, could not fail ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... Davenant had pronounced the words, "Set my mind at rest, Granville," as she felt it must then be embarrassing to him to speak, and to herself to hear. Her retreat, had not, however, been effected with considerable loss, she had been compelled to leave a large piece of the crape-trimming of her gown under the foot ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... a noble enthusiasm, inspired his monks to their task. He even provided lamps of ingenious construction, that seem to have been self-trimming, to aid them in their work. He himself set an example of literary diligence, astonishing in one ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... that, however, the sky cleared a little, and Bill got sight of part of the constellation of the Great Bear. Although the pole-star was not visible, he guessed pretty nearly its position, and thus ascertained that the breeze came from the south-west. Trimming the lug-sail accordingly, the tars turned the prow of the little craft to the northward, and steered for ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne

... extra work that occupies me so much, we must do without; you shall be content with clean white linen, and Isabel's frocks and things must go with less trimming—she is pretty enough without them, you know—then I can take in sewing, and earn enough to pay for what the poor little thing will eat. Perhaps she knows how to sew a little; at any rate, she and Isabel will be handy about the house, and give me more time. There, now, isn't my plan a good ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... authorities prefer spruce for ordinary usage, but in rough water and in shooting rapids a harder wood is best. The weak part of a paddle is where the blade joins the handle, and this part should not be too slender. If you use spruce paddles keep them smooth by trimming away all roughness and keep them well shellacked, else they may become water-soaked. Paddles range in price from one dollar and fifty ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... day, a full day's pay being from 50 to 60 cents.[23] In other cases a day's work brought in but 25 cents, and seventeen overalls of blue denim gave a return of 75 cents. Two and a half cents each is paid for the making of boys' gingham waists, with trimming on neck and sleeves, including the button-holes; and the women who made these sat sixteen hours at the sewing-machine, with a ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell

... house and out of it she was capable of everything. How beautiful her skill was as a dressmaker, the exquisite lines in her own black or gray or white dresses testified to every one who ever saw her. She never wore any other colors, nor was anything like "trimming" ever seen about her; there were only the fine, free outlines, and a white handkerchief folded carefully ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... up dead, from the graveled drive of a gentleman's place, where he had been trimming the high trees that shaded it. An unsound limb—a heedless movement—and Peter went straight down, thirty feet, and out of life. Out of life, where he had a trim, comfortable young wife—one happy little child, ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... I told him that his secret was safe with me, and I asked him if he had heard that you were laid by the heels. He answered that he knew it, and that he would be answerable that no harm befell you, though in truth it seemed to me that he had his hands full in trimming his own sails, without acting as pilot to another. However, there I left him, and there I shall find him again if so be as he has done ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... deceased warriors of the church. He considered himself as fulfilling a sacred duty, while renewing to the eyes of posterity the decaying emblems of the zeal and sufferings of their forefathers, and thereby trimming, as it were, the beacon-light, which was to warn future generations to defend their religion ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Wells, of the City Hall squad, entered, pausing abruptly at sight of Anderson. Giving the latter no time for words, Mr. Burns issued his instructions. On the instant he was the trained newspaper man again, cheating the clock dial and trimming minutes: his ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... daughter's room only by a wooden partition. Still, it was bliss to be alone with her for a few moments, as long as she appeared to be asleep. She did not see me, and I could gaze on her at will. So pale was she that she seemed as white as her muslin dressing-gown, or as her satin slippers with their trimming of swan's down. Her delicate, transparent hand was to my eyes like some unknown jewel. Never before had I realized what a woman was; beauty for me had hitherto meant youth and health, together with a sort of manly hardihood. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... Virginia, dropping in her excitement her last year's bonnet, which she was trimming ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... into the woods, he came up and told me to stop my cart, and that he would teach me how to trifle away my time, and break gates. He then went to a large gum-tree, and with his axe cut three large switches, and, after trimming them up neatly with his pocketknife, he ordered me to take off my clothes. I made him no answer, but stood with my clothes on. He repeated his order. I still made him no answer, nor did I move to strip myself. Upon this he rushed at me with the ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... manners, unable to conceive one peculiar to itself,—this "what-'ll-Mrs.-Grundy-say" devotion to conformity in small things and great, which pervades the American body-social from the matter of church-going to the trimming of women's petticoats,—this dread of singularity, which has eaten up all individuality amongst them, and makes their population like so many moral and mental lithographs, and their houses like ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... day. She was clipping and trimming the late roses in the bright autumnal afternoon, when Lady Laura Armstrong's close carriage drove up to the gate, with my lady inside it, in deep mourning. The visit was unexpected, and startled Clarissa a little, with a sensation that was not all pleasure. She could scarcely be otherwise than ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... Bourrienne, collect a few more thrones, and then we'll get to work on a new map of Europe. Russia never did look well or graceful on the existing maps. It makes the continent look lop-sided, and Germany and Austria need trimming down a bit. I propose to shove Russia over into Asia, annex Germany and Austria to France, drop Turkey into the Bosporus, and tow England farther north and hitch her on to the north pole. Wire the Italians ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs

... out the young shoots, for if they grow too close to each other they are liable to mildew. Tea Roses can he pruned during the same season with good results, though they do not require so severe a trimming down as the Hybrid Perpetuals. With the teas the important part is the cutting back and removing of all old and weak wood, dead twigs and unhealthy limbs. Spraying should be done just after the winter pruning, just before growth begins in the early spring. A careful spray at ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various

... was plainly on the other side, and he saw it. But then the same weakness in his character carried him, as it would have done his great-uncle Gaston in the same case, to keep measures with the Chevalier. His double-trimming character prevailed on him to talk with the Duke of Ormond, but it carried him no farther. I question not but he did, on this occasion, what you must have observed many men to do: we not only endeavour ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke

... the housework, before and after school, making beds, trimming lamps, and washing dishes. The heaviest work was done by a strong Irish girl, my mother always attending to the cooking herself. She was, however, a better caterer than the circumstances required or permitted. She liked to make nice things for the table, and, having been accustomed ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... giving of undue prominence to one fact brings others inexorably on the head of the student to avenge his neglect of them, so it happened with Tom in his practical study of the science of rowing that by thinking of his hands he forgot his seat, and the necessity of trimming properly. Whereupon the old tub began to rock fearfully, and the next moment, he missed the water altogether with his right scull, and subsided backwards, not without struggles, into the bottom of the boat; while the half stroke which he had pulled with his left hand sent ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... spreads far abroad, and is unfathomably deep. It fits like a circus tent, and a woman's head is hidden away in it like the man's who prompts the singers from his tin shed in the stage of an opera. There is no particle of trimming about this monstrous capote, as they call it—it is just a plain, ugly dead-blue mass of sail, and a woman can't go within eight points of the wind with one of them on; she has to go before the wind or not at all. The general style of the capote is the same in all ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... chamber, indolently trimming his nails. A tall swash-buckler, with a red nose and a black patch over his eye, was with him, also seated and conversing with familiar earnestness, as the ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... alcoves, far withdrawn, He turned with measured steps and slow, Trimming his lantern as he went; And there, among the shadows, bent Above one ponderous folio, With whose miraculous text were blent Seraphic faces: Angels, crowned With rings of melting amethyst; Mute, patient Martyrs, cruelly bound To blazing fagots; here and there, Some bold, serene Evangelist, ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... forest you know, Yet who can describe all the wonders below? On a soft bed of sponge in the deep sea I lie, And watch the huge shark and the grampus glide by; Or amidst groves of coral I play at bo-peep, Or I float where the porpoise and flying-fish leap. I have seen the thin nautilus trimming her sail, And the Geyser-like waterspout made by the whale; To this lord of the ocean there clung a whole bevy Of parasite barnacles waiting his 'levee.' I have seen the small soldier-crab coated in red, With the shell of a whelk for a home overhead; And ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.

... 'whose girl' that was before night. Everything was fair in love and war; and Bat considered he had run down a case of both. According to his lights, he had; but his lights were smutty and in need of trimming. ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... their several instruments for the disquisition of arts. Now there are certain scioli or smatterers that are busy in the skirts and outsides of learning, and have scarce anything of solid literature to commend them. They may have some edging or trimming of a scholar, a welt or so; ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... with visiting, myself," said Mrs. Torney, who was becoming something of a philosopher as she went into old age. "But you can't get that through a young one's skull!" she added, trimming the dangling pastry from a pie with masterly strokes of her knife. "Either you have such a good time that your own home is spoiled for you, for dear knows how long, or else you set around wondering why on earth you ever come. And then you've got to have the folks back to visit you, and ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... he had scarcely seen her, much less spoken with her, since his arrival from Londinium, he followed the man to the door of her apartments. Here he passed a second slave, a tall fellow with a shock of black, unkempt hair, who was trimming a lamp near by. This one turned his head to watch him as he entered, with fierce wolf eyes into which leaped sudden jealous distrust. But a slave was a slave to Marius; and so heedless was he of the man's ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... entered the room, Harriet began to admire the lace trimming of Anne's dress, asking many questions about it, to all of which Anne replied with great good nature. As soon as the lace had been sufficiently discussed, Harriet turned round to Elizabeth, exclaiming, 'Why, Lizzie, why in the world have you ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... wanted trimming again. He took up the snuffers—but paused suddenly on the very point of using them, and looked attentively at the candle—then back, over his shoulder, at the curtained bed—then again at the candle. It had been lighted, for ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens

... of trimming the combs of capons, adds (V, 302) an interesting account of an experiment which he says he had made "une espece de greffe animale": after trimming the comb of a growing cockerel his budding spurs were cut out and grafted on the roots of the ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... the trimming of branches and knots and "rossing" of bark, to lessen the friction in sliding along ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... western mountaineer, with bearskin shirt, fringed leggings, and the long, deadly rifle, carried one back to the days of Boone and the "dark and bloody ground." The dirty gray and tarnished silver of the muddy-complexioned Carolinian; the dingy butternut of the lank, muscular Georgian, with its green trimming and full skirts; and the Alabamians from the coast, nearly all in blue of a cleaner hue and neater cut; while the Louisiana troops were, as a general thing, better equipped and more regularly uniformed than any others ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... planters to come down, and then went ashore. He soon after sent on board a hogshead of rum, and ordered all the men prisoners to be close shaved against the next morning, and the women to have their best head-dresses put on, which occasioned no little hurry on board; for, between the trimming of beards, and putting on of caps, all hands ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... fidgety person that has rustle in it, rustles. It chafes against the walls of silence as a caged bear chafes, with feverish restlessness, against the walls of his cell; and as if the annoyance of one sense were not sufficient, she seems to have adopted a bob-and-sinker style of trimming, for hat and dress, and hair and cloak, and every thing that goes to make up her externals. Little pendants are everywhere—little tassels, and little balls, and little tufts—at the end of little cords; and these are all the time bobbing up and down, and trembling, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... was a pink gingham, and when it was nicely finished, aunt Jane gave Rebecca a delightful surprise. She showed her how to make a pretty trimming of narrow white linen tape, by folding it in pointed shapes and sewing it down very ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... temperament, or allow ourselves to drift wherever the mind bears us. Just as the skilled sailor can tack up against the wind, and use ingenuity to compel a contrary breeze to bring him to the haven of his desire, so we must be wise in trimming our sails to the force of circumstance; while there is an eager delight in making adverse conditions help us to ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... purchasers—as, for instance, the grant held by this Capitain Jean-Baptiste Grandissime—could be bought back now for half what he had got for it. Certainly, as to that, the Capitain might well have that quietude of mind which enabled him to find occupation in perfecting the edge of his penknife and trimming his nails ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... to the coverside and cut a good staff of ground oak, straight, without new, and six feet in length, and came back trimming away the tender stems from it, while the stranger waited for him, leaning upon his staff, and whistling as he gazed round about. Robin observed him furtively as he trimmed his staff, measuring him from top to toe from out the corner of his eye, and thought that he had never seen a ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... Townshend, we conclude, Will be very ill that day; if one could pity the poor toad, one should: there is jealousy of your brother,—fear of your brother,—fear of Mr. Pitt,—influence of his own brother,— connexions entered into both with Lord Bute and Mr. Grenville, and a trimming plan concerted with Lord George Sackville and Charles Yorke, all tearing him or impelling him a thousand ways, with the addition of his own vanity and irresolution, and the contempt of every body else. I dined with him yesterday at Mr. Mackinsy's, where his whole ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... also used for caulking. They gather it in the forest, especially during the dries, collect it in hollow bamboos, and prepare it by heating in the neptune, or brass pan. The odour is pleasant, but fragments of falling fire endanger the hut, and trimming must be repeated every ten minutes. The sexes are not separated; as throughout intertropical Africa, the men are fond of idling at their clubs; and the women, who must fetch water and cook, clean the hut, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... Smalley. "Everybody's clothes are too young for 'em nowadays. The only difference between the dresses we make for girls of sixteen and the dresses we make for their grandmothers of sixty is that the sixty-year-old ones want 'em shorter and lower, and they run more to rose-bud trimming." ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... the family was more helpful than little Harold, who, after school time, worked side by side with his father, trimming the ready made review slips which publishers send out with books, and seeing that the paste pot never got empty or the paste too thick. Harold, as his father often proudly observed, was a born book reviewer. From infancy it was observed that the outside of a book always interested him more than ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... temper. Indeed there was nothing native about her but the skin; and the type abounds, and is everywhere respected nearer home. It did us good to see her scour the grounds, examining the plants and chickens; watering, feeding, trimming them; taking angry, purpose-like possession. When she neared the house our sympathy abated; when she came to the broken chest I wished I were elsewhere. We had scarce a word in common; but her whole lean body spoke for her with indignant eloquence. "My ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to be happy in the state in which God has placed her," said Mrs. Lyman, trimming ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May

... writing of the Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Intended as a fierce heart-cry against human injustice—man's inhumanity to man—as such it will live and find readers; but, more than any other of Mark Twain's pretentious works, it needs editing—trimming by a fond ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... very simple disguise, just altering my complexion and sticking on a moustache with spirit gum, hair by hair, and trimming it down military fashion. Everything ran smoothly, and I seemed to make a fairly favourable impression upon Lala Huang, the Chinaman's daughter, who evidently interviews prospective customers before they ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... it cease, nor yield to any trumpet-blast, but rolled on in spreading waves down every street and alley; it reached the ships in the port, and rang through the halls of the rich and the hovels of the poor; it even found a dull echo in the light-house at the point of Pharos, where the watchman was trimming the lamp for the night; and in an incredibly short time all Alexandria knew that Caesar had dealt a death-blow to the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the policy group looked not one whit better. Dr. Pilar had been worriedly rubbing at his face, so that his normally neat beard had begun to take on the appearance of a ruptured mohair sofa; Dr. Petrelli, the lean, waspish chemist, was nervously trimming his fingernails with his teeth: and the M.D., Dr. Smathers, had a hangdog expression on his pudgy face and had begun drumming his fingers in a staccato tattoo ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett

... an elevation and Fig. 7b a plan of the tool for performing the seventh operation. P P are the punches for trimming the outside and Q Q those for trimming the inside of the ends of the links. The links adjacent to the one to be operated on are brought together into the position shown in dotted lines, the bed-die having an aperture in it to admit of this, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various

... Delaware and Sullivan. They are described in New York State Museum Bulletin 61 by Harold T. Dickinson. There is a great variety in color and physical properties of stone from these quarries. It is used as building stone and for trimming, and some of it is especially valuable for large platforms. A large proportion of the output is in the form ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis

... paper—coming back at last as straight as out of a fairy-tale and with you as an attendant fairy." Milly hereupon replied appreciatively that such a description of herself made her feel as if pink paper were her dress and lavender its trimming; but Aunt Maud was not to be deterred by a weak joke from keeping it up. Her interlocutress could feel besides that she kept it up in perfect sincerity. She was somehow at this hour a very happy woman, and a part ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... righteous black satin trimmed with bugles and fringe, and a small flat bonnet whose strings indifferently supported her chins. She fixed her sharp small eyes immediately on Madeleine's beautiful house gown of nile green camel's hair, made with her usual sweeping lines and without trimming of any sort. ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton

... when they opened the doors they found Cleopatra stark dead, laid upon a bed of gold, attired and arrayed in her royal robes, and one of her two women, who was called Iris, dead at her feet, and the other woman (called Charmion) half dead, and trembling, trimming the diadem which Cleopatra ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... physical reality; while Peony expanded in breadth rather than height, and rolled along on his short and sturdy legs as substantial as an elephant, though not quite so big. Then the mother resumed her work. What it was I forget; but she was either trimming a silken bonnet for Violet, or darning a pair of stockings for little Peony's short legs. Again, however, and again, and yet other agains, she could not help turning her head to the window to see how the children got on with ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... RAINBOW. A footman: from the variety of colours in the liveries and trimming of gentlemen of ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... time now. Bud, you and Tim and Dough-head give them guys a singe, their hair's getting too long. The rest of you boys just content yourselves doing a fancy decoration on the canvas all around 'em. I'll deevote my entire attenshun to trimming them lugshuriant whiskers, Mister Harris is a-sporting. All ready now,—one, two, three, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... her grimy decks. There was a thin, eddying coil of bluish smoke hurrying from the galley chimney under the high-arching foot of the fore-course and out over the port cat-head; and the watch, having no sail-trimming to attend to, were squatted upon their hams on the fore deck, playing cards. The hooker needed no looking after in such weather as this, and the only individual, beside ourselves, abaft the mainmast ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... up to him through the dull afterglow was a slightly built youth in the uniform of the regular cavalry, yellow trimming on collar, yellow welts about the seams of the jacket, yellow stripes on the breeches; and, as the youth drew bridle, saluted, and turned to ride forward beside him, he caught sight of a lieutenant's shoulder straps ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers

... ship of 229,450 cubic feet capacity and was driven by twin Chenu engines of 210 horse-power each. She carried a crew of six, and was equipped with wireless and machine guns. The car could be moved fore and aft for trimming purposes, either by power or by hand. This was, however, ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale

... Clerical Character" in "Political Essays" (Works, III, 276): "This same shuffling divine is the same Dr. Paley, who afterwards employed the whole of his life, and his moderate second-hand abilities, in tampering with religion, morality, and politics,—in trimming between his convenience and his conscience,—in crawling between heaven and earth, and trying to cajole both. His celebrated and popular work on Moral Philosophy, is celebrated and popular for no other reason, than ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... eagerly accepted his offer. The mixed grey cloth English clothes were passed by in scorn, but the bright trimming of a cloak was much admired by the young ladies, though they would have liked James to have been dressed in red, like his two pages and kinsfolk, Willy and Mungo Graham. Still, even in the despised grey suit they thought he made a brave show as he rode away from the ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... dress necessitated by the exigencies of war gave the crowd a very striking appearance. In single suits I saw sleeves of one color, the waist of another, the skirt of another; scarlet jackets and gray skirts; black waists and blue skirts; black skirts and gray waists; the trimming chiefly gold braid and buttons, to give a military air. The gray and gold uniforms of the officers, glittering between, made up a carnival of color. Every moment we saw strange meetings and partings of people from all over the South. Conditions of time, space, locality, and ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... bank it. You can get four per cent. on deposits. Even at the salary I've been earning, I've figured out that in ten years I'd have an income of about $50 a month just from the interest alone. Well, I might invest some of the principal in a little business—say, trimming hats or a ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... her without a sound, only shuddering once and again, and holding her with a convulsive grip. The other women moved around, and busied themselves with little offices, like the making of tea and the trimming of lamps, and talked among each other in a quiet way with the odd little upward inflections with which women simulate cheerfulness and hope, telling tales of children who had been lost and had been found again all safe and unscathed, ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner

... front porch endeavoring to readjust the bows upon the old straw bonnet. She had taken them off, and sponged both ribbon and straw, and she was now trying her best to make the bows hold up their heads with the spirit and grace which distinguish a milliner's trimming. She looked up from time to time to enjoy the reflection of the trees in the lake surrounding the house. For her grass was being flooded to-day, and that was always a pretty sight. "It looks almost as pretty as Watkins' pond out on the Goodham turnpike," she reflected, as the ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... fall and winter of 1895 was spent in cleaning up, trimming the trees, transplanting shrubs and vines, including border beds of hydrangeas which were planted around the walls of the house and out-buildings. When spring came and the garden had been plowed, rolled and planted, the grounds ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... the garden. She had swept every inch of the deep adobe house, had fixed over the arrangement of Indian baskets on the mantel, had filled all the lamps with coal-oil. She was very careful with the lamps, trimming the wicks to smokeless perfection, for oil was scarce and precious in Lost Valley, as were all outside products, since they must come in at long intervals and in small quantities. And as she worked she sang, wild, wordless melodies in a natural ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... of hundred pounds, maybe," said Alex. "The green head, this way, might make fifty of that, I don't know. We'll have to make two trips down to the bivouac, that's one thing sure. Maybe we can lighten the heads by trimming out to-night." ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough

... this time got together in a corner of the garden, and were lovingly occupied in trimming the same pot ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... The flowers were like new acquaintances; she approached them in a familiar spirit, and made herself at home among them. The garden walks were damp, and Edna called to the maid to bring out her rubber sandals. And there she stayed, and stooped, digging around the plants, trimming, picking dead, dry leaves. The children's little dog came out, interfering, getting in her way. She scolded him, laughed at him, played with him. The garden smelled so good and looked so pretty in the ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... could scarce set one foot before the other crawled painfully along the road. Many of these were slain by the Turks, but not the less did the rest brave the dangers of the journey. And in the camp there was a great furbishing of arms and armour, and trimming of the plumes of helmets, for it was counted an unseemly thing that any man should enter such a place as the Holy City ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... gold branches, on the table of this hut. The commissaire praised our philanthropy, the women watched us in awed silence, and the tallow candle melted and ran down the iron candle-stick in spite of the efforts of the garde, who kept trimming the wick with his fingers. We attended to the old woman first. The cut had been given conscientiously; the bare arm showed the bone, and a triangle of flesh about four inches long hung over it like ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... the freshest end of this breadth, and should go down; this other had a darn that might be cut across, and a straight piecing made, for which the slope of the skirt would allow,—she should do it so; that hem might be taken off altogether and a new one turned; this was a very nice trimming, and plenty of it, and the wrong side was brighter than the right; she knew a way of joining worsted braid that never showed,—you might have a dozen pieces in the binding of a skirt and not be noticed. This little blue frock had no trimming; they would finish that at ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... joined to the oppressiveness of the air, occasioned, was choking the baron. After a short pause he said resolutely to De Chemerant, "Faith, sir, one must accommodate oneself to one's situation. I must ask permission to take off my coat. This trimming of gold and silver weighs ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue



Words linked to "Trimming" :   cutting off, cutting, decoration, braiding, braid, miniver, gold braid, trim, adornment, ricrac, pruning, rickrack, passementerie, cut



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