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Jamb   Listen
noun
Jamb  n.  
1.
(Arch) The vertical side of any opening, as a door or fireplace; hence, less properly, any narrow vertical surface of wall, as the of a chimney-breast or of a pier, as distinguished from its face.
2.
(Mining) Any thick mass of rock which prevents miners from following the lode or vein.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Jamb" Quotes from Famous Books



... call in the leading men of the village or neighborhood to witness the occurrence. And he would take his servant out to the door of the home, and standing him up against the door-jamb would pierce the lobe of his ear through with an awl. I suppose like a shoemaker's awl. Then the man became not his slave, but his bond-slave, forever. It was a personal surrender of himself to his master; it was voluntary; it was for love's sake; it was ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon

... nail standing in the wood; why, he had fetched tools specially from the kitchen; and he was convinced that that step that had broken beneath her weight had been as sound as the others. It was inexplicable. If these things could happen, anything could happen. There was not a beam nor a jamb in the place that might not fall without warning, not a plank that might not crash inwards, not a nail that might not become a dagger. The whole place was full of life even now; as he sat there in the dark he heard its crowds of noises ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... of its thickness was cut away to fit over the door: a similar cut out was made over the window. Two flat pieces of spruce were prepared for door jambs and two shorter ones for window jambs. Auger holes were put through, so as to allow an oak pin to be driven through the jamb into each log, and the doorway ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... of concrete knocked off the jamb of the door here! Must have been some tall mace-work where you're standing, Beta! If we could know the complete story of this expedition, its probable failure to reach New York, its entrapment here, the siege and the inevitable tragedy of its end—starvation, sorties, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... spell of silence in the tea-house. Now and again the echo of a sob shook Ned from head to foot. Alick leaned his forehead against the window jamb, and stared sullenly at the leaping waves below. As he gazed, a strange resolve came into the boy's mind, born of the deepening despair ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell

... Holy Church, my son," I muttered solemnly, leaning heavily against the jamb of the door, uplifting my hand in benediction. "May the presence of the Mother and Child guard thee ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... wondering, listening, interested, as they went out into the hall to see the little dark hole which might with ingenuity be converted into a bath-room, and while he leaned back against the door-jamb, hands in his pockets, he studied the face ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... he was rather stout and short, but as to this she was not sure. She raced up the stairs and turned on the landing to her room. The door of No. 4 was still ajar—but what was much more important, so was her door. There was no doubt about it, between the edge of the door and the jamb there was a good two inches of space, and she distinctly remembered not only closing it, but also pushing it to make sure that it was fast. What should she do? To her annoyance she felt a cold little feeling inside her and ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... brought me to a corner which I believed to be the one opposite my own house. I turned back a dozen paces, put down the barrow and crossed the pavement—with the compass in my hand, lest I should not be able to find the barrow again. I came against the jamb of a street door, I groped across to the door itself, I found the keyhole of the familiar Yale pattern, I inserted my key and turned it; and the door of the museum entrance opened. I had brought my ship ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... Jimmie Dale moved forward, keeping close up against one wall. The man passed on into the room—and now Jimmie Dale could distinguish every word that was being spoken; and, crouched up, in the dark corridor, in the angle of the wall and the door jamb itself, could see plainly enough into the room beyond. Jimmie Dale's ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... comes, the other end of the box is pushed out of the window and the sash closed down on it to keep it from falling out. A couple of cleats or nails in the window jamb help ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall

... we shall see. One thing I don't know, though—whether you climbed out of a window to break open the trap-door, or whether you got up through the trap-door itself and pulled the bolt with a string through the jamb, so as to bolt ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... came out with the message, "We Can Fallow!" There was encouragement to be derived from it, of course, but it was hope deferred. Then, sitting in the doorway of the shack, leaning against the jamb for support, my pencil held in tender fingers not yet healed, I wrote to Halbert Donovan, setting forth the possibilities of the Strip, and the West, under a ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... line, with chalk, or with a lead pencil, upon the hearth, from one jamb to the other,—even with the front of the jambs. The dotted line A B, figure 3, ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... in a circular room, in which were a thousand pillars, and every pillar was of marble, and on every pillar save one, which stood in the centre of the room, was a little white cat with black eyes. Ranged round the wall, from one door-jamb to the other, were three rows of precious jewels. The first was a row of brooches of gold and silver, with their pins fixed in the wall and their heads outwards; the second a row of torques of gold and silver; and the third ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... Sars were good, as were the next three, at the beginning of the second journey. Then came a confused blur of superimposed ground-patterns, and at the last five results blank as the brain of a flapper. A jamb in the upper changing-box had led to five exposures on ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... twittering near by; my eye, through the open door, commanding green meads, two or three forest trees casting their boughs against the sky, a forest-clad mountain-side beyond, and close in by the door-jamb a nick of the blue Pacific. It is March in England, bleak March, and I lie here with the great sliding doors wide open in an undershirt and p'jama trousers, and melt in the closure of mosquito bars, and burn to be out in the breeze. A few torn clouds—not white, the sun ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... three feet long, the full depth of the baskets, two were short wedge shaped pieces. Before the soldiers in front had time even to turn round, the two long pieces were placed upright in the grooves down which the portcullis would fall, while the two wedge shaped pieces were thrust into the jamb of the gate so as to prevent it from closing. Then the four men drew long swords hidden beneath their garments and ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... did they not come? Was it possible that they had not heard him? He applied his mouth to the joint between the door and its jamb, and again shouted, "Talbot! Talbot! Talbot!" until his voice cracked with the strain he put upon it. Still no answer, no sound save the wail of the wind, the wash of the water, and the creaking of the ship's timbers. "Good God! were they really gone? Was he, after all, actually ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... the doorway. It was too low for him, and he had to bend his knees oddly. He stood there as in a frame, one shoulder leaning against the jamb, his head and other shoulder ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... foldin' himself up in it, he went and laid down without ondressin'. The lawyer took a stretch for it on the bench, with his gig cushions for a pillar, and I makes up the fire, sits down on the chair, puts my legs up on the jamb, draws my hat over my eyes, and ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... the guineas into her hand, gripped my weapon, slipped out of the pines and across the road, circled the horse, and made to peep round the jamb of the open door into the guest-room of the ale-house. As I did so, the man yelled, "God damn, I'm on fire!" and the woman shrieked back, "Burn, you foul ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... Roule. If he could gain that passage unseen by the mob! He would gain it. With a swift movement, his mind made up, he took a step forward. He tightened his grasp of the girl's waist, and, seizing with his left hand the end of the bar which the assailants had torn from its setting in the window jamb, he turned to lower himself. One long step would land him ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... got up and went over to the bathroom. He steadied himself against the door jamb and kicked the wadded sweater out of sight beneath the dresser. He went into the bathroom and turned on the water. He ran his hands over his face and thought about shaving, but he couldn't face the ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick

... his companion's rifle, and steadying it against the jamb of the door, fired, dropping one of the foremost of the pursuers. Quickly reloading again, he fired and missed. The third shot struck another horse, and then taking up his own gun he began to fire rapidly, ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... back; he raised his eyes. There were the birds high above, still circling about, and Joanna was at the threshold of the cabin, leaning against the jamb, her arms crossed, her head hanging. The poor woman ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

... windows as almost to look like a casematad fortress. Dismounting, he threw his horse's bridle over the hitching-post at the gate, and passed through a neat garden, now blooming with roses and sweet peas, to the open door of the house. He knocked with his riding-whip on the door jamb, to which summons a young lady, dressed in a neat calico gown and swinging in her hand a broad-leafed sunhat, replied. Seeing a stranger, she dropped a graceful "courtesy,"—which is one of the lost ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... His face, when he awkwardly commenced to speak, made it unnecessary to put the story into words. Samson told how his mother had turned pallid, and stretched out her arm gropingly for support against the door-jamb. Then the man had found his ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... large curtains let down to the floor, and a nice warm carpet upon it. Taking off her bonnet, and only that, she sat down on a low cushion by the corner of the fire-place, and leaning her head against the jamb, fell asleep almost immediately. Mrs. Dunscombe set about arranging ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... lounged to the cabin door and looked after "Slim" Naudain as he went to the river. Then he stepped outside, stooping to avoid striking his head. He leaned his broad shoulder against the door jamb and watched "Slim" bail the leaky boat and untie it from the willows. While he filled and lighted his pipe, Bruce's eyes followed his partner as he seated himself upon the rotten thwart and shoved into the river with home-made oars that were little more ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... A rawhide thong tied it fast to a staple in the door jamb. With the bell shrilling its summons inside, the man paused long enough to study the knotting of the thong before he untied it and stepped inside. He went to the telephone slowly, thoughtfully, his cigarette held between two fingers, his forehead drawn down so that his ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... I said. "I know exactly what it will do, by instinct. Going uphill it will jamb the wheel so effectively that we shall have to carry the machine bodily. The air at the top of the hill will do it good, and it will suddenly come right again. Going downhill it will start reflecting what a nuisance it has been. ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... that the light shone down the corridor. Thus guided by its rays he passed out slipperless, till he reached the door of St. Cleeve's room, where he applied the dangling spider's thread in such a manner that it stretched across like a tight-rope from jamb to jamb, barring, in its fragile way, entrance and egress. The operation completed he retired again, and, extinguishing his light, went through his bedroom window out upon the flat roof of the portico to ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy

... he said. "There'll be the deuce of a Row, and it's good for a half collumn on the first page of the evening papers. Result, a jamb that night at the performence, and a new lease of life for the Play. Egleston comes on, bruized and battered, and perhaps with a limp. The Labor Unions take up the matter—it's a knock out. I'd charge a thousand dollars for that idea if I were ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the older man. "She has gone through the run. Guess we'll get one by-and-by long enough to jamb. Now, if you'd run out those wing-frames I was stuck on, she'd have took them ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... that door," he said, drawing his heavy flint-lock pistol and going through the motions of one aiming quickly and firing. Indeed, so vigorously in earnest was he with the pantomime, that he actually did fire, unintentionally of course,—the ball burying itself in the door-jamb. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... signifying what formation the men are to take after they have dismounted, is given, followed by the words, "Close order!" Upon this the rear rank of the leading line jambs up to the front rank, which halts at the word. All the rear rows break into a trot and jamb up to ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... sprit[obs3], outrigger; ratlings[obs3]. staff, stick, crutch, alpenstock, baton, staddle[obs3]; bourdon[obs3], cowlstaff[obs3], lathi[obs3], mahlstick[obs3]. post, pillar, shaft, thill[obs3], column, pilaster; pediment, pedicle; pedestal; plinth, shank, leg, socle[obs3], zocle[obs3]; buttress, jamb, mullion, abutment; baluster, banister, stanchion; balustrade; headstone; upright; door post, jamb, door jamb. frame, framework; scaffold, skeleton, beam, rafter, girder, lintel, joist, travis[obs3], trave[obs3], corner stone, summer, transom; rung, round, step, sill; angle rafter, hip rafter; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Number 9 stood ajar, a black interval an inch or so in width showing between its edge and the jamb. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... another sound and Gray looked up to see Allie standing in the doorway to her bedroom; with one hand she clutched the jamb, the other was pressed to her bosom; she was staring at him as at an apparition. The girl was quite colorless, there was a look almost of fright in her eyes, and when he came toward her she swayed weakly. Her hands, when he took them, were icy; ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... his ear thoughtfully, looked hard at Butsey and paid. Laloo followed them to the door, leaned against the jamb ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... and crouched closer to the chimney jamb. The storm roared without, and the rain fell with a steady pouring sound, as the superstitious hunters filled their pipes and gathered closer about ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... bald-headed man who went about clad in blue overalls and a blue cotton shirt. Coming to the back door of his house, that was within a stone's throw of the station, Henry Shepard stood with his hand on the door-jamb and watched the woman and the boy. Above the scolding voice of the woman his own voice arose. "Look out, Hugh," he called. "Be on the jump, lad! Perk yourself up. She'll be biting you if you don't go mighty ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... beginning of a nice little jamb here," said Switzer. "They are running right enough now. But when did you return?" he continued, dropping into a confidential tone and turning his back upon the others. "Do you know I have not seen you ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... at ease in the door, smoking, one forearm resting on the jamb, his wide shoulders nearly filling ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... the recess, he thrust his head between the bar and jamb, so far out as to give him a view of the ground below. This was solid rock, the crest of a steep slope, from which the wall rose as above a buttress. But there was a ledge, some ten or twelve feet under the sill, narrow, but wide ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... Holliwell and, waiting, began inevitably to regain her strength. One evening as Wen Ho was spreading the table, Prosper looked up from his writing to see a tall, gaunt girl clinging to the door-jamb. She was dressed in the heavy clothes, which hung loose upon her long bones, her throat was drawn up to support the sharpened and hollowed face in which her eyes had grown very large and wistful. Her hair was braided ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... door began creaking and straining as though great force was being exerted on it from the outside, and before the astonished couple could exchange glances of amazement and incredulity, with a mighty crash it tumbled in upon them, bringing one door-jamb with it, and fell with ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... tears, fired a voice at me through his sobs, and said: "I'm yelping, mister, because I'm only a little 'un, and can't see me mates come home from the war." Then I laughed, and tossing him up on my shoulder let him jamb his dirty fist on the only silk hat I possess, whilst he looked at his "mates" march home; for they were his mates—he was a child of London, and some day—who ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... with his elbow on the table, his chair partly turned toward the door, just within the threshold and a little to one side, where the flockmaster would see him the moment he stepped into the light. The traveler's pack lay on the floor at the door jamb; the smoke from his pipe drifted out to tell of his presence in the honest announcement of a man who ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... that Jacques lifted her in his arms as if she were a baby, and carried her into the room. He had not seemed to notice till that moment that the child was carrying her violin-case, though to be sure it was plain enough to see, but as he lifted her, it struck against the door-jamb, and he glanced down and saw it. When Abby came in (for this was to be her good-by to them, as she was to leave that afternoon for her sister's home), De Arthenay had the case in his hand, and was speaking in low, ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards

... he was darkly prepared to find something wrong, and he felt belittled when the mixture exploded sweet and strong, and the car didn't even brush the door-jamb, gouged and splintery with many bruisings by fenders, as he backed out of the garage. He was confused. He shouted "Morning!" to Sam Doppelbrau with more cordiality than he ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... Crimmins stationed himself outside O'Leary's where he could get an uninterrupted view of two streets. He stood hunched up against the jamb of O'Leary's door in the attitude of a corner loafer, with three parts of his body touching the wood—hip, shoulder, and cheek. For some time no one appeared in sight either useful or inimical to his plans, until Mr. James Finnegan, who ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith

... go!" he cried to his aunt, as the cab resumed its course with a sudden, breath-taking drop. "No; don't catch hold of me—I'm only a broken reed. Yes; try the door-jamb—much more satisfactory. But look out for your fingers—never get your fingers caught." Then, as they arrived at the street level: "Wait a second; don't hurry. Be sure of your footing; don't stumble and break your neck at the last minute—one poor last little chance, after so ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... wistful black eyes, who were sitting on the stone step, shyly crowded themselves together against the door-jamb to make passage-way for Richard and Mr. Taggett. Then the two pairs of eyes veered round inquiringly, and followed the strangers up the broken staircase and saw one of them knock at the door ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... stepped clear of the door-jamb, moved under the single gas-jet, drew out his crucifix, ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... finished it up quickly, keeping the door wide while he worked. At other times, he kept it tight shut. Often when old Grandpa was asleep by the stove, Johnnie would tiptoe to that door, lean against the jamb of it, and listen. And he told Cis that he ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... speechless, took his hand a moment, and then he went out. She leaned her head against the window-jamb, lifted the shade, and watched his form retreating through the drizzly night until he disappeared from view, and then she turned out the lights. But instead of returning to her mother and Agatha in the basement, she threw herself ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... left him. Such was his utter panic that he might well have bitten his veins and howled. With a lunatic scream, he sprang to his feet and rushed inside the house as if forsooth its grass thatch could protect his head from such huge projectiles. He collided with the door-jamb, and, ere Jerry could follow him, whirled around in a part circle into the centre of the floor just in time to receive the next shell squarely upon ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... move, and at first he did not look up when the steps arrived at the threshold of the room where he sat. When he lifted his eyes at last he saw Bittridge lounging in the door-way, with one shoulder supported against the door-jamb, his hands in his pockets and his hat pushed well back on his forehead. In an instant all Kenton's humility and soft repining were gone. "Well, what is it?" ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the window revealed that the road was clear. Inez began tugging at the door. It resisted her efforts, but she renewed the battle with all the fury of her youthful strength. Finally the flimsy lock gave a bit beneath her efforts; a narrow slit appeared between the door and jamb in which she forced her hands and thus secured a great purchase. Then, one foot against the wall, she tugged and pried and pulled until, with a sudden crack, the bar ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... looked with friendly smile at his domestic, who stood squeezing herself between the edge of the door and the jamb—her habit when embarrassed. Mrs. Hopper had served him for three years; he knew all her weaknesses, but thought more of her virtues, chief of which were honest intention and a moderate aptitude for plain cooking. A glance about this room would ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... shows the correct method of fitting butt hinges on high-class work. One wing of the hinge is let into the door, and the other wing is let into the carcase or door jamb, thus distributing a proportion of the weight to the carcase end instead of allowing the whole of the weight to be carried by the screws as would be the case in a, Fig. 237. The method of sinking each portion of the hinge into the door ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham

... and went along the halls of the splendid palace until she came to the royal suite, which filled all the front of the second floor. In a little waiting room sat Ozma's maid, Jellia Jamb, who ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... cringed and I set my Solar for a narrow beam and ran it around the door jamb. There was a great crunching and banging from the junk piled against it, and then the door swung free. I threw it open. Before they could protest, I had pushed the ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison

... plunder, the brigands fled in terror from the saintly apparition. And when my friend re-entered his home and crossed the bloodstained floor of the dining-room to go to his bedroom, the cardboard Virgin, with a trade advertisement on the back, was still peeping round the door-jamb to which she was nailed, with the words "Please to shut the door" printed ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... no weapons to assume, no preparations to make. Gathering up the gaoler's gold I started toward the door, opened it, and going out would have closed it softly behind me but that a booted leg thrust across the jamb prevented me. "I am going with you," said Diccon in a guarded voice. "If you try to prevent me, I will rouse the house." His head was thrown back in the old way; the old daredevil look was upon his face. "I don't know why you are going," ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... jury rose to retire again. The stranger unobtrusively gained the attention of the clerk and from him begged a sheet of paper. On this he wrote rapidly, then folded it, and moved to the outer door, against the jamb of which he took his position. After another and shorter ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... hut in which you live and carry out the destiny that was decreed for you. Spiked to the jamb of your bamboo doorway is a basket made of green withes, plaited. From time to time, as vanity or ennui or love or jealousy or ambition may move you, you creep forth with your snickersnee and take up the silent trail. ...
— Options • O. Henry

... was made of heavy bolted planks and was set on hinges in a jamb of other planks and boards that closed the reservoir end of the tunnel water-course. A similar barrier and big door was at the Pocut ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker

... lights, until I again recollected that darkness and coolness were convertible terms within the tropics. Advancing through this room you entered, by a pair of folding doors, on a very handsome dining room, situated in what I believe is called a back jamb, a sort of outrigger to the house, fitted all round with movable blinds, or jealousies, and open like a lantern to all the winds of heaven except the west, in which direction the main body of the house warded off the sickening beams of the setting sun. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... where the trees stood upon the hill tops, she watched him with an interest that was not tinged with the vague suspicion of an hour ago. She saw that as he stood lounging in the doorway, his hands upon his hips, one shoulder against the rude door jamb, he had to stoop his head a little, and knew that he was a taller, bigger man than she ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... shut the door in our faces, with the words, "I will see if my lady is at home;" but John was prepared for him. He put his foot between the door and the jamb, and his two hands against the door, driving it to the wall with the man behind it. There he held him till we were all in, then closed the door, and said to him, in a tone I had never heard ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... was his duty to buy cigars in consideration of the use of the hitching-rack. Wood appeared in the office door as they came up the steps, and put his head beyond the jamb, looking this way and that, like a man considering a sortie with ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... through which he had descended before. With his boots tied together by their laces, and suspended from his neck, on either side, he went down the rope noiselessly. He found the iron door partially opened, as he reached the end of the corridor. A block of wood held it back from the jamb. ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for I must know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the jamb that part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the inside. I fear it was no dream, and must ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... Curly," said Dan Anderson, who stood with hands in pockets and pipe in mouth, leaning against the door-jamb in front of his "law office." "You have enunciated a great principle of law in that statement. They have got to prove damages. Moreover, you have got a counter-claim. It's laceratin' to ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... and, finding it locked, as he had expected, put one foot upon the knob and, catching hold of the top jamb, raised himself up and looked down through the open space that answered for ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... silently cast down. Then I rose to the occasion beautifully. I took the wee little man and placed him in the greenroom doorway, leaning with his back against the door-jamb. When he saw Mr. Daly in the distance, he simply was to turn his bright red patch toward us—we would ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... reenter the hall. At this moment a second Highlander burst through the gate, in spite of the sentinel placed there by the general, and fired at the commandant with an aim that was near proving fatal, for the ball passed under his arm, piercing a very thick door entirely through, and lodging in the jamb. Had we lost the worthy man by such an accident, his death would have spoiled the whole relish of our present enjoyment. He complained, and received an apology for the soldier's behavior from his officer. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... servitor took a lamp and went to the door. He drew the bolts softly, prepared to make a cautious emergence, with a recollection of his warm reception before. He was to have a great surprise, for there stood Simon Mac-Taggart leaning against the jamb—a figure ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... herself, went out on the little kitchen porch, bathed in fresh, cool well-water, and, with a coarse towel which hung from a nail on the door-jamb, she rubbed her face, arms, and neck till they ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... devil full in his eyes, and hot scorn mounted to his own so swiftly that Carlsen's hand fell away from the door jamb toward his hip. ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... goin'," she went on as she tugged open the door, which the damp weather had caused to swell and stick to the door-jamb. ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... reply, and a sudden loud bump over our heads as of some article of domestic utility pettishly flung aside, then the cautious steps of someone descending the twist, and then my aunt appeared in the doorway with her hand upon the jamb. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... grass with a great whirring of wings, and, alighting on the lower branches of the pines and poplars, allowed a near approach, as if curious to see me. Farther on, a broad-shouldered wildcat showed himself, coming out of a grove, and crossing the river on a flood-jamb of logs, halting for a moment to look back. The bird-like tamias frisked about my feet everywhere among the pine-needles and seedy grass-tufts; cranes waded the shallows of the river-bends, the kingfisher rattled from perch to perch, and the blessed ouzel sang amid the spray ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... paused; and then advanced cautiously. The light streamed out from the open door of the front room, and there was always the possibility that—no, a glance from where he stood close against the wall at the edge of the door jamb, showed him ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... few, which he had revolved in his head, there had always been a place for Hilda. He did not see just what he was to do, just what he was to become, without her. He stood there for a long time, leaning against the door-jamb with his hands in his pockets, and the sharper gusts of rain whirled around the end of the little building and beat on him. And then—well, it was Charlie Bannon; and Max knew that he was glad it ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster

... simultaneously to the door. It sprang back from its rusty fastenings, and they were but in time to seize the bar which passed through a staple in its middle, and pull it inward until it pressed hard against the jamb on the right. There was no other way to secure it, and for three hours Alexander and Mrs. Mitchell dragged at it alternately, while the other attended to the windows. By this time Alexander had ceased to wonder if he should see another morning, or much to care: ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... eye, for the morning sun struck it, and when he woke early it glowed invitingly before him. It represented a little river twining about a coppice. There was no figure in the piece, which was bounded on one side by a great armoire, and on the other by the jamb of the chimney; but from extreme corner projected the plume of a helmet and the tip of a lance. There was someone there; someone riding towards the trees. It grew upon Philip that that little wood was a happy place, most happy and desirable. He fancied himself the knight, ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... to the door and stood motionless by the jamb, waiting, ethereally white in the moonshine. Suddenly upon the gallery pillars flashed yellow light. She should have gone back to bed, but a thrill of unknown fear held her. By and by the yellow light went out with that quickness ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... doors open, and dashed out, but a furious blow fell before he was quite clear of the doorway. With such force was it delivered that the blunt metal cut into the edge of the door like a sword; the jamb was smashed, and even Monckton, who received but one-fourth of the blow, fell upon his hands and knees into the hall and was stunned for a moment, but fearing worse, staggered out of the hall door, which, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... was startled, Mrs. Carlingford seemed ready to drop with fright. The little woman—she was a very small, shrinking creature, with a pallid face and large nervous eyes—put out a hand against the jamb of ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... with his lips and disappeared. A moment later his curly black poll came stealing round the door-jamb, half-way down, like the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... as valuable quarries of a highly ornamental stone, admirably suited for the interior decorations of the architect. But they are unluckily what the quarrier would term rubbly,—traversed by an infinity of cracks and fissures; and it is rare indeed to find a continuous mass out of which a chimney-jamb or lintel could be fashioned. The serpentine was wrought here considerably more than a century and a half ago, and exported to France for the magnificent Palace of Versailles; which, though regarded by the French nation, says Voltaire, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... miner stopped, placed a broad hand on either door-jamb, and putting his great head in at the open door, asked how the ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller

... indicated a tall, thin house with four bell-pushes and four narrow brass-plates on its door-jamb. The deceitful edifice looked at a distance just like its neighbours, but, as the array on the door-jamb showed, it had ceased to be what it seemed, the home of a respectable Victorian family in easy circumstances, and had become a Georgian warren for people who could reconcile themselves ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... he pleaded, peering round the jamb of the door again. "If the alarm found its way upstairs I must have been walking in my sleep. While you were dreaming of suffragettes I may ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... Only safety matches are allowed here, and they are put in a receptacle at the side of each door. I had but to open the kitchen door, feel along the jamb, find this receptacle, and pull the box out. I'm well used to ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... head as if to see around the jamb of the door leading into the smaller room and, lowering his voice, whispered: "Is ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... I was strolling down a certain fashionable street when a loud explosion occurred in a near-by shop and a cloud of acrid grey smoke came rolling out. Being by nature as inquisitive as a chipmunk I was on the point of shoving my head round the door-jamb to see what was up when caution prompted me to turn round. Yes, there they were, of course, a tall, thin youth winding away at a cine-camera like an Italian at a barrel-organ, and beside him a heavy-weight Israelite, dancing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various

... the call a door opened beyond the chimney-jamb, and immediately the gentle twig-tapping sounds resolved themselves into the clickings of a pair of telegraph relays and the chatter of a typewriter. A good-looking young fellow, with his coat off, entered the library, carefully closing the ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... warms at the chimney-jamb! And hob-nailed boots on the hearth below, And the house cat curls in a slumber calm, And the eight-day clock ticks loud and slow; When the harsh broom-handle jabs the ceil 'Neath the kitchen-loft, and the drowsy brain Sniffs the breath of the morning meal— O then is the time for ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... Satan swep' an' garnisheed him an' tuk possession of him." He seized the heavy teacup in front of him and hurled it at his unsuspecting spouse; she gasped, paling slightly, and dodged. The missile, striking the brick chimney-jamb behind her, crashed and fell shivering into fragments on the hearth. The saucer followed. Then, Tobe's spirits rising, plate after plate hurtled across the table; the air fairly bristled with flying crockery. Mrs. Cullum, after the ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... by inserting both a foot and a corner of the newly purchased hand-bag between the door and the jamb. He had dared too greatly to be thus dismissed. "Pardon me," he countered, unabashed, "but I wish to speak with ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... a glance at the Secretary. He was beating a tattoo on the pad before him and looking calmly at her—as impersonal as though she were a door-jamb; and she understood; however much he might be inclined to aid her, this was not the time for him even to appear interested. On another occasion, a deux, he would display sufficient ardour and admiration. At present ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... desperate impulse was to rush out and fight hand to hand. But remembering the dexterity of Indians in single combat, he halted just in time to escape a flight of missiles, placed himself behind the jamb of the doorway, and fired his rifle. At that short distance Sweeny would hardly have missed; and the nearest Apache, leaning forward with outspread arms, fell dead. Then the revolver came into play, and another warrior dropped his bow, his shoulder shattered. Glover and the muleteers, steadied ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... knees before the trunk, and was getting on with her task. Pelle came up and stood leaning against the door-jamb, looking at them. "That's right! Just give him a coating of paint that will last till he gets home again!" he said, laughing. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... door. By that time he made a grab at me, caught me by the collar of my shirt and vest,—then four more constables, he had brought with him, sprung on me,—they dragged me to the street door—there was a jamb—I hung on by the doorway. The head constable shackled my left hand. I had on a new silk cravat twice around my neck; he hung on to this, twisting it till my toungue lolled out of my mouth, but he could not start me through ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... a brownstone house, in a dirty neighborhood just west of Seventh Avenue, and of where now stands the York Hotel. Three weeks ago I revisited it and found it unchanged. At the time of my first visit, on the jamb of the front door was pasted a piece of paper on which was written in the handwriting of De la Boissiere: "Chancellerie ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... head, he looked toward the window, and saw nothing there. Very quietly he rose to his feet, tiptoed to the window and looked out. At first he could see no one; then he saw the outer edge of a figure, pressed close to the wall of the house, standing upright beside the door-jamb. He crept back from the panes, so that he should not obscure the little light he had. Moving over to the right, he halted mid-way ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... falter. She looked straight at each man, at Bowles and Buckner, both impassive, at Calvin Blount, now beginning to flush under his fighting choler; yes, and at last at him, John Eddring, pale and serious, but steady as the door-jamb against which ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... ventured. Martie, at the open doorway, gave no sign of hearing. Her splendid bronze head was resting against the jamb, she was looking down the shabby little littered backyard to the river. And suddenly it seemed to Sally that restless, lovely Martie did not really belong to Monroe, that this mysterious sister of hers never had belonged to Monroe, ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... these, for if the tail-block be fastened too low on the wreck, the ropes will dip in the water, and perhaps foul the rocks. If the whip does not run free in the block it will jamb and the work will be stopped; and, if the signals are not attended to, the coastguardsmen may begin to act too soon, or, on the other hand, ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... was swaying and bending with feeling that was now convulsive and now restrained. Sometimes she moaned audibly or whispered "Amen." Across the richly-spread table Susannah saw the preacher kneeling in a full flickering glare of the pine fire, one hand upon the brick jamb, the other covering his eyes, as if to hide from himself all things that were seen and temporal in order that he might speak face to face ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... a dark and lonely corner, with a pixie ring before it, she came to a narrow door, very brown and solid, looking like a trunk of wood at a little distance. This she opened, without a key, by stooping down and pressing it, where the threshold met the jamb; and then she ran in very nimbly, but I was forced to be bent in two, and even so without comfort. The passage was close and difficult, and as dark as any black pitch; but it was not long (be it as it might), and in that there was some comfort. We came out soon at the other end, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... but brilliancy of hue, might, from its evanescent liveliness, be almost called its butterfly, yet whose chirrup under the stern is ominous to mariners as to the peasant the death-tick sounding from behind the chimney jamb—should have its special haunt at the Encantadas, contributes, in the seaman's mind, not a little to their ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... Query. I am sorry to say that I failed to make a note of the number of the circles; but, as far as I can remember, there are six windows in each aisle, so in all there would be twenty-four, each window having two carved upon it, one on the right jamb without, and the other on ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various

... gate was not opened in response, but a small side door, deep-sunken in the thickness of the wall. On either jamb of the door was affixed in the metal letters ordained by the municipality the number eight. Number Eight Ruelle St. Jacob had once been known to ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... outrigger; ratlings^. staff, stick, crutch, alpenstock, baton, staddle^; bourdon^, cowlstaff^, lathi^, mahlstick^. post, pillar, shaft, thill^, column, pilaster; pediment, pedicle; pedestal; plinth, shank, leg, socle^, zocle^; buttress, jamb, mullion, abutment; baluster, banister, stanchion; balustrade; headstone; upright; door post, jamb, door jamb. frame, framework; scaffold, skeleton, beam, rafter, girder, lintel, joist, travis^, trave^, corner stone, summer, transom; rung, round, step, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... man, as long as she could see him, and long after, with her left hand lifted to the jamb of the door, higher than her head. Then from the distance where he passed from sight over the brow of the hill, another figure of a man appeared, and slowly made its way down to the cabin. As she knew while he ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells

... soil came out from under the snow rich and malmy to the plow, and Mosher started heavy with his peddler's pack and returned light. It was no trick now for Sara to tie her sons to an iron ring in the door jamb and, her strong legs straining and her sweat willing, undertake household chores of water lugging, furniture heaving, marketing with baskets that strained her arms from the sockets as she carted them from the open square to their house on the outskirts, her massive ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... the butt of the gun downwards. The lead was false. He hurtled jarringly into the door jamb, the gun thumping against the floor. The wind was knocked from him; the nausea of his wound swept him again with a surge of dizziness. But the painful scuffle of unseen feet ahead pulled him up once more; like a punch-drunk fighter he staggered out from the cubby to the ladder ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall

... that's what. From the ground up, see?" He turned at the first stair and leaned forward and down, one hand on the door-jamb. "Well, believe me he don't use me as no ground-dirt. An' when I'm takin' the screen off the big roll—see?—he comes up to me an' says I'm handlin' it rough an' it's a delicate piece of mechanism. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... folding doors. Let this in turn be divided into twelve parts, and let five and a half of these form the width of the bottom of the aperture. At the top, this width should be diminished, if the aperture is sixteen feet in height, by one third the width of the door-jamb; if the aperture is from sixteen to twenty-five feet, let the upper part of it be diminished by one quarter of the jamb; if from twenty-five to thirty feet, let the top be diminished by one eighth ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... now, and leaning for support against the jamb, kept her piercing eyes on his face, though his would not meet their gaze; while Morton rolled great frightened orbs from one to the other, as from within came unconscious Molly's gleeful babble, and the baby's sweet ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... question he knocked his pipe against the jamb to clean it out, and then quickly turned his head, for an inner door opened and Denas peeped out and then came forward and put her arm around ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... closed by a heavy grating, and the grating, which, to all appearance, rarely swung on its rusty hinges, was clamped to its stone jamb by a thick lock, which, red with rust, seemed like an enormous brick. The keyhole could be seen, and the robust latch, deeply sunk in the iron staple. The door was plainly double-locked. It was one of those prison locks which old Paris was so fond ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... against the door-jamb and looked down the long road which wound up from the valley and lost itself now and again in the land waves. Miles away she could see a little cloud of dust travelling behind the microscopic stage, which moved toward her almost as imperceptibly as the minute-hand of a clock. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... and partly from the presence of a thick cushion in the seat of the armchair, I conjecture to be yours—between the writing desk and the N.W. bookcase, with the N.E. window at my back and my legs protruding beyond the jamb of the mantelpiece into the sacred [Greek: temeuos], which is guarded by a low marble fence, and over which the fire which I worship has sway. Both by day and by night the situation is perfect for distribution ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... Ozma, in the private rooms of the palace," replied Jellia Jamb. "But she has ordered me to make you welcome and to ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... fault—and a bad drawing minder means work for me. Your niece, Sarah, is a very good drawing minder, Mrs. Northover. Then you'll get ballooning, when the thread flies round above the flier, and that means too little strain on the jamb and the bobbin has got to be tempered. And often it's too hot, or else too cold, for hemp and flax must have their proper temperature. But to-day my machine is as good and kind as a nice child, that only asks to be fed ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... memory, which now seemed to have the faculty of simultaneously reproducing them all. Northwick remembered his purple face, with its prominent eyes, and the swing of his large stomach, and just how it struck against the jamb as he whirled a second time out of the door. The other directors, some of them, stood round buttoned up in their overcoats, with their hats on, and a sort of stunned aspect; some held their hats in their hands, and looked down into them with a decorous absence of ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... the door for several days, Mr. Lincoln was reminded of a story, and by New Year's he was recognized as the champion story-teller of the Capitol. His favorite seat was at the left of the open fireplace, tilted back in his chair, with his long legs reaching over to the chimney jamb. He never told a story twice, but appeared to have an endless repertoire of them always ready, like the successive charges in a magazine gun, and always pertinently adapted to some passing event. It ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... bare feet I made no noise, and slowly made my way forward to see if there was a light in Captain Riggs's room. Before I had gone far I heard a murmur of voices, and then saw a sliver of light from the jamb of a door. There was a conversation going on in the captain's room, but I could not distinguish the voices. I went on to the forward end of the superstructure and discovered a port-hole in the captain's cabin partly open, and by going up three steps of the ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... young women had spent several days in the making and putting up of some very unusual and attractive window curtains and portieres; painting the stones that framed the fireplace, the crude window-casings and door jamb; and in draping certain corner recesses which were to achieve dignity as clothes closets. They were scrubbing the floor when Percival passed on ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... the speaker's companion was concerned, my injunction was supererogatory. Even as I spoke, with a scream of agony the latter emerged from the car. Holding him fast by the wrist, Berry had almost broken his arm across the jamb of ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... jamb of the door, his hands in his pockets, with a very cross look on his handsome face. But Victoria, devoted little sister though she was, was not to be put down by any cross looks when she knew she was ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth

... concluded that he would see my uncle before he returned. I slipped off my shoes, and put one in each side pocket of my sack. Fearing that my bat might be removed during my absence, I thrust it up the chimney, at the fireplace, resting one end on a jamb, where I could easily ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... eating his bread and cheese, leaning his shoulder against the window jamb; for he rested standing like a cab-horse, one of his legs raised and propped against the other, on the toe of ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac

... he suffered—aggravated, perhaps, by the excitement through which he had just passed, or by the cold of the weather—seized him with unusual violence. He leant, pale and almost fainting, against the door-jamb, unable at the moment to do so much as raise the latch. The golden dreams in which he had lost himself by the way, the visions of power and fame, vanished as he had so many times seen the after-glow vanish from the snow-peaks; leaving only cold images of death and desolation. Presently, ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... briskly, meaning to ring the bell and give orders to have the meal served at once. But, as he stepped across the low sill somebody rose in the room's cool shadow and confronted him, and he fell back catching at the jamb for support and staring. ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... "I declare!" which came to a stop as Mrs. Berry rapped on the door-jamb; then all reference to their business was dropped as they welcomed her in and made the usual polite inquiries regarding herself and little Susan. Mrs. Berry seated herself in the proffered chair without any reference to what the nature of her own errand might have been. When ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... to put away the machine. He bounded out like a four-year-old and came right in then, regardless of the fact that it was getting dark and he might run into the door-jamb putting away ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... in the lingo of the habitant. Whether he will yet stretch his linguistic acquirements to the learning of Iroquois I shall not say. It is at least possible. The two are inseparable. The last time I went to see them, no one answered my knock on the door-jamb. I raised the curtain that serves for a door, and looked in. Mrs. Ben Wah was asleep upon the bed. Perched upon her shoulder was the parrot, no longer constrained by the bars of a cage, with his head tucked snugly in her neck, asleep too. So I left them, and so ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... moment Trevors lifted his frowning eyes from the table, turning in his chair to confront Lee, who stood lounging in leisurely manner against the door-jamb. ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory

... house superintendent, she could have viewed nothing more than roofs and sky and chimneys where already roofs and sky and chimneys filled the eye (unless you consider that by screwing around and flattening one ear and the side of your jaw against the window jamb you could almost get a glimpse of distant green prominently mentioned in the agent's ad ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber



Words linked to "Jamb" :   window frame, upright



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