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Oar   Listen
noun
Oar  n.  
1.
An implement for impelling a boat, being a slender piece of timber, usually ash or spruce, with a grip or handle at one end and a broad blade at the other. The part which rests in the rowlock is called the loom. Note: An oar is a kind of long paddle, which swings about a kind of fulcrum, called a rowlock, fixed to the side of the boat.
2.
An oarsman; a rower; as, he is a good oar.
3.
(Zool.) An oarlike swimming organ of various invertebrates.
Oar cock (Zool.), the water rail. (Prov. Eng.)
Spoon oar, an oar having the blade so curved as to afford a better hold upon the water in rowing.
To boat the oars, to cease rowing, and lay the oars in the boat.
To feather the oars. See under Feather., v. t.
To lie on the oars, to cease pulling, raising the oars out of water, but not boating them; to cease from work of any kind; to be idle; to rest.
To muffle the oars, to put something round that part which rests in the rowlock, to prevent noise in rowing.
To put in one's oar, to give aid or advice; commonly used of a person who obtrudes aid or counsel not invited.
To ship the oars, to place them in the rowlocks.
To toss the oars, To peak the oars, to lift them from the rowlocks and hold them perpendicularly, the handle resting on the bottom of the boat.
To trail oars, to allow them to trail in the water alongside of the boat.
To unship the oars, to take them out of the rowlocks.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Oar" Quotes from Famous Books



... sticking out fantastically all over them. It shelved so deeply, that, while the hemlock-tassels were swinging on the trees around its border, all would be still at its springy bottom, save that perhaps a single fern would wave slowly backward and forward like a sabre with a twist as of a feathered oar,—and this when not a breath could be felt, and every other stem and blade were motionless. There was an old story of one having perished here in the winter of '86, and his body having been found ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Orders to get his Boat ready. As we were walking towards it, You must know, says Sir ROGER, I never make use of any body to row me, that has not either lost a Leg or an Arm. I would rather bate him a few Strokes of his Oar, than not employ an honest Man that has been wounded in the Queen's Service. If I was a Lord or a Bishop, and kept a Barge, I would not put a Fellow in my Livery that had not ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... stood at the side of the "Gaspee" warning off the assailants, he presented a good mark; and Joseph Bucklin, who pulled an oar in the leading boat, turned to a comrade and said, "Ephe, lend me your gun, and I can kill that fellow." The gun was accordingly handed him, and he fired. Dudingston fell to the deck. Just as the shot was fired, the leader of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... from Oxford to London. But it was not one of the frequented parts of the river, being a quiet reach among solitary meadows. She remembered that there was a shabby little house standing by itself on the bank where boats could be hired, for they had put in there once to replace an oar, having lost one down a weir in the neighborhood. The weir had not been on the main stream, but they had come upon it in exploring a backwater. It could ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... actually borrowed it for me; and but yesterday my French bookseller sent me three-and-twenty other volumes of those M'emoires Historiques,(583) which I had ordered him to get for me, and which will keep my eyes to the oar for some time, whenever I have leisure to sail through such an ocean; and yet I shall embark with pleasure, late as it is for me to undertake such a hugeous voyage: but a crew of old gossips are no improper company, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... the fire by their bucket handles, from the tripod or other means of getting over the fire. Sometimes the bough of a tree high out of the reach of the flames will do. Sometimes a stick or oar thrust into the bank or in a crevice of the wall behind the fire is more convenient than a tripod. Again, you can do without any hanging at all, making a little fireplace of bricks or stones and standing the saucepans ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... lashed galley-slave must have felt when, during a lower-deck mutiny, he broke from his oar and sprang at the throat of the cruel overseer, the embodiment and source of the agony, starvation, toil, brutality, and hopeless woe that had thrust him below the level of the beasts (fortunate beasts) ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... entertaining Mrs. Curtis's friend, Philip Holt. It won't be much fun to have a strange man following us about everywhere, even if he should turn out to be nicer than we think he is." Phil was the stroke oar. She was talking over her shoulder to Madge, who was paying more attention to her friend's conversation than to ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers

... the earth the leader of a gang of bullies who were bent on doing him bodily injury. On another occasion a number of angry natives crowded in upon himself and a companion as they were building a boat. After standing their interference for some time, the builders seized, one a broken oar and the other a stout stake, and after a sharp fray, in which the arm of the carpenter was broken in two places, the intruders were driven ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... handled too iz gads well His paddle and iz oor; [Footnote: Oar.] A war Aclways bawld an fearless— A, when upon tha Goor. [Footnote: The Gore. Dangerous sands so called, at the mouth of the River Parret, in ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings

... a gondola is of the sort that gives a splendid muscular development. Men who pull oars have round shoulders, but the gondolier does not pull an oar, he pushes it, and as a result has a flat back and brawny chest. Enrico had these, and as he had no nerves to speak of, the passing years had taken small toll. Enrico was sixty. Once he ran alongside another gondola and introduced me to the gondolier, who was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... fourpenny-piece, by a working man. I think that would grace the diminitive tea-table of the Emperor of the Lilliputians. And a pair of boat-sculls, made of white ash, and only the size of writing-pens, which I dare say, the oars of the King of Blefuscan's barge resembled; these, with a magnificent oar, thirty-six feet long, are intended as presents for His Royal ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous

... out upon the lake; His oars a softened click-clack make; On all that water bright and blue, His boat is the only one in view; So, when he hears another oar Click-clack along the farthest shore, "Heigh-ho," he cries, "out for a row! Echo is out! heigh-ho—heigh-ho!" "Heigh-ho, heigh-ho!" Sounds from the ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... which account many persons preferred the pleasanter excursion with the steamboat along the coast, from whence could be seen the traffic on the high-road without enduring the annoyance of dust and heat. Boats skimmed past; brisk sailors, by the help of vigorous strokes of the oar, strove to compete with the steam-packet, the dark smoke from which, like some demon, partly rested upon the vessel, partly floated away in ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... horses to be procured, and I must return by the lake; but the wind was unfavourable, and the rain fell in torrents. However, it was hardly morning, and I might reasonably hope to arrive by night. I hired men to row and took an oar myself, for I had always experienced relief from mental torment in bodily exercise. But the overflowing misery I now felt, and the excess of agitation that I endured rendered me incapable of any exertion. I threw down the oar, and leaning my head upon ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... your oar into another man's rollocks," said Mat, dexterously knocking Zack's spoon out of his hand just as it touched Mr. Blyth's tumbler. "You stick to your grog; I'll stick to my grog; and he'll stick to Squaw's Mixture." With those words, Mat leant his bare ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... sacrifice to Zeus and all the gods, and store well my ships when I have launched them on the salt sea—then shalt thou see, if thou wilt and hast any care therefor, my ships sailing at break of day over Hellespont, the fishes' home, and my men right eager at the oar; and if the great Shaker of the Earth grant me good journey, on the third day should I reach deep-soiled Phthia. There are my great possessions that I left when I came hither to my hurt; and yet more gold and ruddy bronze shall I bring from hence, and fair-girdled women and grey iron, all at least ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... employed entirely on the horse. Nor can it be employed on the foreign fulcrum, the ground, through the medium of your reins; as much as you pull up, so much you pull down. If a man in a boat uses an oar, he can accelerate or impede the motion of the boat, because his strength is employed through the medium of the oar on the water, which is a foreign fulcrum. But if he takes hold of the chain at the head of the boat, his whole strength will not accelerate or impede the motion of the boat, ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood

... the green slopes which led down to the valley, and shorter still of the beach below. He jumped into a boat with a scant apology to Jack Harris, the owner, who with a delighted smile of recognition, and a polite tug at his cap, took the oar ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... becoming louder and louder as the boat rushed on. The seas came rushing up astern more furiously it seemed than ever, catching them now on the port quarter; should the wind fail them, or a rope give way, they must be lost. They all knew that, and each man grasped his oar ready to throw it out and give way as a chance for life. The breakers became more and more distinct, leaping high above the tumbling ocean; but ahead was a blacker patch, though even that was streaked with foam. There must, however, be depth for the boats to pass ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... and others, who were sent to the galleys, seemed to exceed all. Chained to the oar, they were exposed to the open air night and day, at all seasons, and in all weathers; and when through weakness of body they fainted under the oar, instead of a cordial to revive them, or viands to refresh them, they received only the lashes of a scourge, or the blows of a cane ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... live: I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs: he trod the water, Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To th' shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bowed, As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... Athene, answered him: 'Yea now, I will plainly tell thee all. I avow me to be Mentes, son of wise Anchialus, and I bear rule among the Taphians, lovers of the oar. And now am I come to shore, as thou seest, with ship and crew, sailing over the wine-dark sea, unto men of strange speech, even to Temesa, {*} in quest of copper, and my cargo is shining iron. And there my ship is lying toward the ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... pigs to th' rosary kneel'd, and sheep were taught To bleat Te Deum and Magnificat; How fly-flap, of church-censure houses rid Of insects, which at curse of fryar died. How ferrying cowls religious pilgrims bore O'er waves, without the help of sail or oar; How zealous crab the sacred image bore, And swam a catholic to the distant shore. With shams like these the giddy rout mislead, Their folly and their ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Haute-Combe, the burying-place of the Sardinian kings, who lie prostrate there before the hills, like pilgrims come at last to their journey's end. The silence of the landscape was broken by the even rhythm of the strokes of the oar; it seemed to find a voice for the place, in monotonous cadences like the chanting of monks. The Marquis was surprised to find visitors to this usually lonely part of the lake; and as he mused, he watched the people seated in the boat, and recognized ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... machinery needs the open field for its proper testing, and cannot operate satisfactorily in Machinery Hall. Without a sight of our harvest-fields and threshing-floors foreigners would carry away an incomplete impression of our industrial methods, the farm being our great factory. The oar, the rifle and the racer are as impatient of walls as the plough and its new-fangled allies. They demand elbow-room for the display of their powers, and the Commission was fain to let their votaries tempt it to pass the confines of its territory. The lusty undergraduates of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... well in my studies, and I expect to be stroke oar of the college boat club. Besides this, I have been elected catcher of the college baseball club. I am thought to excel in athletic sports, and really enjoy my college life very much. Please send me the check by return of mail. Affectionately ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger

... that dwell by the waves, And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves, Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar, And track to his covert ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... upon the gaudy stern The butt end of a steering oar, And everywhere that I could turn Men ...
— The Green Helmet and Other Poems • William Butler Yeats

... curving of the rays of light caused by their entering the earth's atmosphere, which is a denser medium than the very light ether of the outer sky. The effect of refraction is seen when an oar is thrust into the water and looks as if it were bent. Refraction always causes a celestial object to appear higher than it really is. This refraction is greatest at the horizon and diminishes ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper

... and warm as Zorzi pushed off from the steps before his master's house and guided his skiff through the canal, scarcely moving the single oar, as the rising tide took his boat silently along. It was not until he had passed the last of the glass-houses on his right, and was already in the lagoon that separates Murano from Venice, that he began to row, gently at first, ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... pulling the stroke oar, and doing rather more work than any one else, the others agreed to row on as long as he would row. They soon reached the entrance to the Highlands, and landed at the foot of the great hill called St. Anthony's Nose. They were ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... LIBERTY, with bending sails Helm'd his bold course to fair HIBERNIA'S vales;— Firm as he steps, along the shouting lands, Lo! Truth and Virtue range their radiant bands; 375 Sad Superstition wails her empire torn, Art plies his oar, and Commerce ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... Sunday with Owen, and Owen asked Julian and Lillyston to meet him. They liked each other very much, and Julian rapidly began to regard Montagu as a real friend. In order to see as much of each other as possible, they all agreed to take a four-oar on the Saturday morning, and row to Elnham; at Elnham they dined, and spent two pleasant hours in visiting the beautiful cathedral, so that they did not get back to Camford ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... stop me," he mourned. "The whole plot is a hoodoo. There I was fired back twice onto Cod Lead! Here he is, landin' the same time as I do! And when he stops that check it throws it into law—and I've got the laborin'-oar." ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... statue, and the rider and his horse will fall into the sea; this being done, the sea will swell and rise to the foot of the dome. When it has come so high, thou wilt perceive a boat, with one man holding an oar in each hand; this man is also of metal, but different from that thou hast thrown down; step on board, but without mentioning the name of God, and let him conduct thee. He will in ten days' time bring thee into another sea, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... was bound that afternoon on a cruise of a few miles along the coast and indeed was lifting anchor as he was hauled up the side. He had, therefore, but a hasty view of his surroundings before he was chained to his bench, facing the great oar. He saw only a long chamber, crossed by row upon row of white, desperate faces. Down the middle, by the ends of the benches, ran a gangway, along which three overseers paced leisurably, each with a tall, flexible wand in his hand. The stench in the place was overpowering, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... was waving his arms like a maniac, screaming out the name of Carlisle, the crack stroke of Burrton. And then, without a second's warning, the big stroke, the hero of the Burrton crew, whose name was on a thousand tongues, suddenly bent forward and collapsed over his oar. The oar itself crashed into the line and the Burrton boat lurched over ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... spanker-boom-end, with a single line rove and bowline, into which the men got and were hoisted one by one on deck. After they were all up, I sent one of the boat's crew up, and then went alongside and hooked on the boat, which was quickly run up. There was no other mishap than the breaking of an oar in coming alongside. We had on board about three hundred invalid soldiers and sailors from the ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights

... quarantine this fellow, in the long run, Bluewater! I do believe if I were to take him to Lambeth Palace, or even to St. James's, he'd thrust his oar into the archbishop's benedictions, or ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... and a wooden pipe in his mouth. Affectionate and jolly, he was a fascinating companion for a voyage down the sparkling stream of life; only his boat was very small. There was room in it for a girl-partner at the oar, but no accommodation for passengers. He was allowed to drift away from the threshold of the Belgravian mansion while Winnie averted her tearful eyes. He was not a lodger. The lodger was Mr Verloc, indolent, and keeping late hours, sleepily jocular of a morning from under his bed-clothes, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... The stroke oar is the seat of honor. It may be offered to a guest. Ladies should wear short dresses, free from encumbering draperies, heavy shoes, and a hat with a broad brim. Heavy gloves, if they intend rowing, should ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... person affirmed to me, that being in the Hungarian mines he had the good fortune to see a mineral that was there digg'd up, wherein pieces of Gold of the length, and also almost of the bigness of a humane Finger, grew in the Oar, as if they had been parts and Branches ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... "Gloucester" frigate, but he preferred his own yacht (the "Catherine "), in which he had more room, and in consequence of his resolution he saved himself from the risk of drowning. On May 5th the frigate struck upon the sand called "The Lemon and Oar," about sixteen leagues from the mouth of the Humber. This was caused by the carelessness of the pilot, to whom Pepys imputed "an obstinate over-weening in opposition to the contrary opinions of Sir I. Berry, his master, mates, Col. Legg, the Duke himself, and several others, concurring ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... and it was gone. Night fell with the hushed shadowy stillness that belongs to Venice alone; and in the place of the riot and luxuriance of colour there was the tremulous darkness of the young night, with the beat of an oar on the water, the scent of unclosing carnation-buds, the white gleam of moonlight, and the odour of lilies-of-the-valley blossoming in the dark ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... Taking an oar in each hand, I at once proceeded to retrace my steps, and, for the first stage, aimed at getting behind a tree which stood only about three yards distant. I soon reached this spot, and on slipping behind the trunk, and taking a hasty glance backward, I was ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... brother," said Mooka, her black eyes dancing; and in a wink crabs and sledges were forgotten. The old punt was off in a shake, the tattered sail up, skipper Noel lounging in the stern, like an old salt, with the steering oar, while the crew, forgetting her nipped finger, ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long

... company's critiques on the sailing match. At this moment Cowes contains half the world; and every villa, and assembly-room, and tavern, and pot-house, from the superb club-house, with its metamorphosed lords, to the Sun tap, with its boisterous barge-men, are as happy as mortals can be. Just before oar departure for Newport, we will to the harbour, and take a farewell peep of the "finish" of Cowes' Regatta. Though unwelcome night has prematurely interrupted the enjoyments of the multitude, it engenders a social pleasure to behold the numerous lights, forming almost ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various

... oar," said I, "and perhaps a little grain better; for I haven't been down all the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia rivers in 'em for nothing, let alone Lake Michigan, George, Madawaska, and Rossignol, and I don't know how many others. Step ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... in the stern of the boat, another splintered the end of an oar, and then the rifleman's nerves must have got the better of him. The succeeding shots fell wide, and I whooped like a madman as I drove the boat on to the green tongue of land. Springing out hastily I made a dash across the white strip of sand, and ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... discussed the contents of our hamper with great goût, the boatman occasionally pulling an oar as the wind was scant. But we had sufficiently receded from the shore to command a view of the basin in which Marseilles stands, and the amphitheatre of hills surrounding it, studded with the country-houses of the citizens; small cottages, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... Royalists. Harry did not lose countenance, but went on hammering at his boat as if he cared not at all, till observing that one of the soldiers was looking hard at Edmund, he called out, "I say, Ned, what's the use of loitering there, listening to what's no concern of yours? Fetch the oar out of yon shed. I never lit on such a ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge

... myself in one of the canoes, so filled with men any movement was almost impossible, yet of this I did not complain for my Uncle Chevet was next to me, and Cassion took place at the steering oar in the stern. To be separated from him was all I asked, although the very sound of his harsh voice rasping out orders, as we swung out from the bank rendered me almost frantic. My husband! God! and I was actually married to that despicable creature! I think I hardly realized before ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish

... galleys of Greece that conquered the Trojan shore, And Solomon lauded the barks of Tyre that brought great wealth to his door, 'Twas little they knew, those ancient men, what would come of the sail and the oar. ...
— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke

... it seems to me the present company is preparing to leave Peter's bark, in the hope perhaps of being able to walk upon the waves. I humbly declare that my faith is not sufficient, and I should sink at once. I intend to remain in the bark, at the most plying a small oar, according to my light, for, as this gentleman says, I am very timid. It is therefore necessary for us to part, and it only remains for me to beg you to pardon my coming. I feel the need of a stroll to aid my digestion. ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... often displaying only cabbage and other kitchen plants; and here and there the gardens cannot be seen at all, for the great elder trees that spread themselves out by the bank, and hang far out over the streaming waters, which are deeper here and there than an oar can fathom. Opposite the old nunnery is the deepest place, which is called the "bell-deep," and there dwells the old water spirit, the "Au-mann." This spirit sleeps through the day while the sun shines ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... already, they have a staff about five feet long, sometimes pointed, like a serjeant's halberd, sometimes only tapering to a point at one end, and having the other end broad, and shaped somewhat like the blade of an oar. They have also another weapon, about a foot shorter than these, pointed at one end, and at the other shaped like an axe. The points of their long lances are barbed, and they handle them with such strength and agility, that we can match them with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... shore, sailor, pull for the shore! Heed not the rolling waves, but bend to the oar; Safe in the life-boat, sailor, cling to self no more; Leave the poor old stranded wreck and ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... voice that hails them from the nearer shore: 'Lads, have ye any meat?' And they answer it with a half surly and wholly disappointed monosyllabic 'No!' It is an emblem for us all; weary and wet, tugging at the oar in the dark, and often seeming to fail. What then? If the last cast has brought nothing, try another. Out with the nets once more! Never mind the darkness, and the cold, and the wetting spray, and the weariness. You cannot expect to be as comfortable in a fishing-boat ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... large, through dawn's dim cloud, Like an invading host The Barks of France are bearing down, One crowd of sails, while high Above the misty morning's frown Their streamers light the sky. Up!—greet for once the Tricolor, For once the lilied flag! Forth with gay barge and gilded oar, While fast the volley'd salvoes roar From batteried line, and echoing shore, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... cutlasses, so that she might destroy it when found, and with stinkpots at her mastheads and boarding-nets hung round her. Of course he was to escape in the end, but so narrowly that all possible sail had to be crowded on to his little ship, and the whole crew set to work the big oar at the stern, while every soul on board shivered and shook as men should when ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon

... love of good, whate'er Wanted of just proportion, here fulfils. Here plies afresh the oar, that loiter'd ill. But that thou mayst yet clearlier understand, Give ear unto my words, and thou shalt cull Some fruit may please ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... first sticking them together with 'tar(1)' (the Tape ARchiver) and then compressing the result (see {compress}). The latter action is dubbed 'feathering' partly for euphony and (if only for contrived effect) by analogy to what you do with an airplane propeller to decrease wind resistance, or with an oar to reduce water resistance; smaller files, after all, slip ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... craft, the vessel propelled by pole, paddle or oar must have preceded the use of sails. The former required more strength and the latter more skill. But no matter what science and art may do to make sailing more secure and comfortable, the boy, particularly if he be country bred, ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort

... it expresses;" and such suggestions, passing from the artist's innermost thought into the mind that receives them, open on and on into the Infinite of Ideas, as a moonlit wave struck by a passing oar impels wave upon wave along one track ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... is in danger of being looked upon as a time-serving thing. Neither Paul nor James, however, had felt the tonic, bracing effect of good anti-slavery principles, or they would not have written, the one such a letter to a slave-holder, and the other such a back-oar argument against "faith alone." However, I am disposed to think well of Paul and James, notwithstanding these the great errors of their lives. Indeed I can almost forgive them, when I am reading other things which they said and did. You ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... boat and in a rage commanded the boatman to pursue the insolent servant of the usurer. But he of the sheepskin wig threw down the cane, took an oar himself, and his men helped him so well that ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... right and I told the gang to hit her on the nob with an oar when she came-up. We dragged her in, however, and wrapped her up in a bunch of coats and set her on the front stoop of ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... beginning of August, they gather again in close clusters. At this period I have seen them at Nahant in large shoals, covering a space of fifty feet or more, and packed so closely in one unbroken mass that an oar could not be thrust between them without injuring many. So deep was the phalanx that I could not ascertain how far it extended below the surface of the water, and those in the uppermost layer were partially forced out of the water by the pressure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... howled and snarled viciously at us. Donovan cut at them with his oar right and left; while Raed, Kit, and Wade levelled their muskets at the horde of rushing, breathless savages, who seemed not to have seen us at all till that moment, so intent had they been after the negro. Discovering us, ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... as if she was seeking some one. She often went to galleries, and other resorts of artists, but in vain, for she never met him, though at times the distance between them was less than between Evangeline and her lover, when she heard the dip of his oar in her dream. Though she knew that if she met him she would probably give not one encouraging glance, yet the instinct of her heart ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... did not complain, setting a good example in this respect to Mr. Tarbill, who did nothing but find fault, until Captain Spark ordered him to take an oar and with one of the sailors aid in propelling the boat, for the wind ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster

... oar makes the most powerful, though not the most convenient rudder. In the lakes of North Italy, where the winds are steady, the heavy boats have a bar upon which the tiller of the rudder rests: this bar is full of small notches; and the bottom of the tiller, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... hand on the oar because I think you have a sort of financial genius and I'd like to share a thing which must come that close to your inner life," she explained, and under the pleasurable spell of her appreciation Tollman found himself expanding with responsive ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... and comparative innocence. Awake I was, and walking in the weather-gangway, in a sailor's trot. Mr. Marble, he I do believe was fairly snoozing on the hen-coops, being, like the sails, as one might say, barely "asleep." At that moment I heard a noise, one familiar to seamen; that of an oar falling in a boat. So completely was my mind bent on other and distant scenes, that at first I felt no surprise, as if we were in a harbor surrounded by craft of various sizes, coming and going at all hours. But a second ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... and the sun were kind to us; we entered in a rowing-boat the little pearl-grey Gothic chapel which Nature has constructed underneath a hill, and as we gazed into the blue-green waters, through which from the rocks below a fountain of most brilliant blue was rising, every time an oar was dipped the waters painted it a silvery white. The population of Bi[vs]evo consists of about 150 people, who mostly live around the little church of Saint Sylvester, two hundred feet above the sea. They occupy ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... it in that way. He knew, of course, that the slaves who rowed the racing galleys were the offscouring of mankind, desperate men, drawn from all nations. It was as much as two men could do to handle one oar, and all must pull in unison as a huge machine. The Venetian dromond was to other merchant-ships as the dromedary to other camels. To make the speed required the rowers must put forth their whole strength, hour after hour, ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... generally employed with the launch in carrying ship-stores. When I thought that, the very next day, perhaps, this boat would be plying between the store ship and our frigate, I was at no loss to account for Frank's attempts to get rid of his oar, and felt heartily grieved ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... of time," said he. "Tain't quite high tide yet. You'll have time to get ashore before she moves. Hullo, Wade! Whar's that oar?" ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... Bre'er 'Liab, de boss man at der registerin' he ax me fer my las' name, an' I tell him I hadn't got none, jes so. Den Sheriff Gleason, he put in his oar, jes ez he allus does, an' he say my name wuz Desmit, atter ole Mahs'r. Dat made me mad, an' I 'spute him, an' sez I, 'I won't hev no sech name'. Den de boss man, he shet up Marse Gleason purty smart like, and he sed I'd a right ter enny name I chose ter carry, kase nobody hadn't enny ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... one in feeling and action with Captain Cephas. The latter hastily opened the draughts of the kitchen stove, and put on some wood, and by the time this was done Captain Eli had the kettle filled and on the stove. Then they clapped on their caps and their pea-jackets, each took an oar from a corner in the back hall, and together they ran down ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... last meal, a sight that caused her to forget her doubts and jump into the boat very quickly. Then Rames gave it a push and sprang in after her, so that they found themselves floating on the water. Now, standing in the bow, the boy took an oar and paddled round the island, but still there were ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... he hastened to reply; "I'm doing a loaf this afternoon. I thought I heard my oar crack this morning, so came for some ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... pieces, had it not been for the timely interference of my new-found friend, Wild Bill, who knocked the man down. As soon as he recovered himself, he demanded of Wild Bill what business it was of his that he should "put in his oar." "It's my business to protect that boy, or anybody else, from being unmercifully abused, kicked and cuffed, and I'll whip any man who tries it on," said Wild Bill; "and if you ever again lay a hand on that boy—little Billy there—I'll give you such a pounding that ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... the forest-girt Umbagog. Having had the best success, when up on the lake the last time, on the western margin, he pulled away in that direction, and, after rowing a couple of miles up the lake, he laid down his oar, unrolled his elm-bark cable, and let down his stone anchor, at a station a furlong or so from ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... sleep at night upon a straw mat spread upon the earthen floor, and we much doubt if they are ever washed. Sometimes the father is seen carrying the baby, but this is very rare; the women take the laboring oar almost always here, as among our Indian tribes, the people of the East, and the South Sea Islanders. This is a characteristic applicable not alone to the national capital, but observable again and again all over the republic. Though so very poor, and doubtless often ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... faint near sounds, the dropping of water-drops from the oar-blades, the slight drumming of the lanterns behind him, as they rubbed against one another, the occasional rustling of Gudrun's full skirt, an alien land noise. His mind was almost submerged, he was almost transfused, lapsed out for ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... days that ever dawned upon the lonely struggles and solitary agonies of ships since the Norse rovers first steered to the westward against the run of Atlantic waves. It was a very good race. At the finish there was not an oar's length between the first and second boat, with Death coming in a good third on the top of the very next smooth swell, for all one knew to the contrary. The scuppers of the brig gurgled softly all together when the water rising against her sides subsided sleepily with a low wash, as ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... and father is straining every nerve, growing prematurely old and gray, abridged of almost every form of recreation or pleasure,—all that he may keep them in a state of careless ease and festivity. It may be very fine, very generous, very knightly, in the man who thus toils at the oar that his princesses may enjoy their painted voyages; but what is ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... give him a degree, and there is no telling how long he might have remained there, faculty willing, had it not been for the interfering "mustard girl." He could throw a hammer farther and run the hundred faster than any youth in the freshman class, and he could handle an oar with the best of them, but as he had spent nearly eight years in acquiring this proficiency to the exclusion of anything else it is not surprising that he excelled in these pursuits, nor is it surprising that ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... over the middle seat it chanced that he struck his foot against one of the oars which lay along the boat's bottom; and the rattling of this oar put a ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward

... shadows of foliage and rocks. Harriet drove her boat in without the least hesitancy. She saw by glancing above her head that there were no heavy limbs of trees hanging over the little waterway. A sounding with the oar developed the fact that there was only about three feet ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge

... Triton. Malcolm sung an Erse song, the chorus of which was 'Hatyin foam foam eri', with words of his own[486]. The tune resembled 'Owr the muir amang the heather'. The boatmen and Mr. M'Queen chorused, and all went well. At length Malcolm himself took an oar, and rowed vigorously. We sailed along the coast of Scalpa, a rugged island, about four miles in length. Dr. Johnson proposed that he and I should buy it, and found a good school, and an episcopal church, (Malcolm[487] ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... of the oar brought the skiff to the sand, where it ran aground. Just as Conseil was about to jump ashore, I held ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... the boat with Dwining and Ramorny, and, waiting for no other attendance, Eviot pushed off the vessel, which descended the Tay rapidly by the assistance of sail and oar and of ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... good or evil; and, indeed, individuals have on their side considerable power to work mischief, though not often to work good. I begin to think that a man not invested with a considerable amount of political power can do but little good by slaving at the oar of independent political action. Now, on the contrary, what a vast effect a writer can produce, when he possesses the requisite knowledge and endowments! In his cabinet, his thoughts collected, his ideas well arranged, he may hope to imprint indelible ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... two unshapen oar beams that lay in the boat and bored large holes in the gunwales, and rowed withal so mightily that every beam creaked, but whereas the craft was good, and the men somewhat of the brisker sort, ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... among them a remarkable development. The navigation of the peoples of the Mediterranean had, as may readily be conceived from the nature of the waters traversed by them, for a comparatively long period adhered to the oar; the war-vessels of the Phoenicians, Hellenes, and Romans were at all times oared galleys, in which the sail was applied only as an occasional aid to the oar; the trading vessels alone were in the epoch of developed ancient civilization "sailers" properly so called.(14) On the other hand the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... or roll slowly along like tiny drops of oil on an inclined surface; others develop minute outgrowths of their substance, like fine hairs, which beat the water as oars do. Some of them have one strong oar, like the gondolier (but in front of the boat); others have two or more oars; while some have their little flanks bristling with fine lashes, like the ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... out strongly by now, and the boatman tugged to get out of it into the quieter water at the side, and as he pulled an oar snapped. The Prior half started up as the man burst out into an exclamation, and began to paddle furiously with the other oar, but the boat revolved helplessly, and he was forced to change it ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... Troja nova or Trinovantum. fourmeth] appeareth. geraflour] gillyflower. are] oar. small] slender. kellis] hoods, head-dresses. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... chowder all broth. You had to take the bad along with the good if you lived at Lovell's Harbor. And while you were sandwiching in work and fun what an education you got! Why, it was better than a dozen schools. Not only did you learn to swim like a spaniel, pull a strong oar, hoist a sail, and gain an understanding of winds and tides, but also you came to handle tools with an ease no manual training school could teach you. You made a wooden pin do if you had no nail; and a bit of rope serve if the whittled pin were lacking. Instead of hurrying to a ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... party must, apparently, have been lost. That English was, if on board—Bradford shows in the "Memorial" that he was—as Master of the shallop, properly her helmsman in so critical a time, goes without saying, especially as the "rudder was broken" and an oar substituted; that the ship's "mates," Clarke and Coppin, were not in charge (although on board) fully appears by Bradford's account; and as it must have taken all of the other (four) seamen on board to pull the shallop, bereft of her sail, in the heavy breakers into which she had been ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... never understand, Dominic detected something suspicious. Perhaps it was by virtue of some sixth sense that men born for unlawful occupations may be gifted with. "There is a smell of treachery about this," he remarked suddenly, turning at his oar. (He and I were pulling alone in a little boat to reconnoitre.) I couldn't detect any smell and I regard to this day our escape on that occasion as, properly speaking, miraculous. Surely some supernatural power must have struck ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... obstructions. A mile below the city, where the water becomes shoal, President Lincoln, accompanied by Admiral Porter, Captain Adams of the navy, Captain Penrose of the army, and Lieutenant Clemmens of the Signal Corps, put off from the tug in a launch manned by twelve sailors, whose long, steady oar-strokes quickly carried the party to the landing-place,—a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... she has given him leg muscles of iron to climb the slope; along the coast she has left these weak and flabby, but given him instead vigorous development of chest and arm to handle his paddle or oar. In the river valley she attaches him to the fertile soil, circumscribes his ideas and ambitions by a dull round of calm, exacting duties, narrows his outlook to the cramped horizon of his farm. Up on the wind-swept plateaus, in the boundless stretch of the grasslands and the waterless ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... temperature; and as no outrageous winds swell their seas into storms, navigation among them is safe and easy. Their small barks called catamorans have only a large bough of a tree set up in the middle, serving as mast and sail; the master steers only with an oar, and the passengers sit on poles fastened to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... the boat very long, when she felt it moving off—she was frightened and did not know what to do. Growler rushed into the water, and continued to bark very loud. As Eva saw the boat getting away out into the river, she jumped out and with an oar commenced to swim for the shore. Growler took hold of her dress, and was taking her ashore, when an old slave named Sam, rushed into the water and taking her from the faithful dog, bore her in safety to the land. She lay sick ...
— The Girl's Cabinet of Instructive and Moral Stories • Uncle Philip

... under it. The boatman with the rat-like face twists the long broken-backed oar, churning the yellow water, and we creep forward steadily. On the bridge the village is assembled. Foreign devils are a rarity. The gold-brown faces are not unfriendly, merely curious. They peer in rows over the rail with grunts of nasal interest. Tentatively, ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens

... these circumstances I determined on returning to the little harbour from which we had started in the morning, but the wind being directly against us, we made very little head. "We shall never get to the Nob," said Mr. Witch, who had the steer oar, to me; "it blows too hard, Sir." "What are we to do, then?" said I. "Why, Sir," he replied, "we must either beach or run out to sea," "We will beach, then," I said; "it is better to try that than ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... Such boats are represented upon the bas-reliefs as capable of holding from three to five armed men. On these the Assyrian foot-soldiers would embark, taking with them a single boatman to each boat, who propelled the vessel much as a Venetian gondolier propels his gondola, i.e., with a single long oar or paddle, which he pushed from him standing at the stern. They would then in these boats attack the vessels of the enemy, which are always represented as smaller than theirs, run them down or board them, kill their crews or force them into the water, or perhaps ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... motor-boat, began to pull the dory in by its painter. Having brought it alongside, he transshipped himself awkwardly, then began to drive the dory in to the dock. Eleanor remarked the fact that he stood up to the task, propelling the boat by means of a single oar, thrusting it into the water until it struck bottom and then putting his weight upon it. The water was evidently quite shallow; even where the motor-boat lay moored, the oar disappeared no more than half ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... word which means "fond of diving"—is one of the most voracious of water-insects, but let us first examine his form. You see it is well adapted for the kind of life the beetle leads; look at that long oar-shaped pair of feet, what a broad fringe of hairs besets them, how admirably fitted they are for swimming; the wing-covers are smooth and glossy, without any furrows; by this I know the specimen to be a male, for the wing-covers ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton

... was a boy, but I paid him off. Sarah takes the helm from this night forth. You wouldn't believe it, but she can swig upon a rope too: and as for pulling an oar—" He went on to tell me that she had been rowing a pair of paddles when his eye first lit on her: and I gathered that the courtship had been conducted on these waters under the gaze of Saltash, the male in one boat pursuing, ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... clear tones which had a strange constraint in them, "'Charlie Munro saved my life. I shall love him for ever and ever. We were out in a boat, we two, on the Hudson—moonlight—I was rowing. Dropt my oar into the water. Leaned out after it and upset the boat. Charlie caught me and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... hate. Fighting in the Italian wars,—for from boyhood he was wedded to the sword,—he had been taken prisoner by them near Siena, where he had signalized himself by a fiery and determined bravery. With brutal insult, they chained him to the oar as a galley slave. After he had long endured this ignominy the Turks captured the vessel and carried her to Constantinople. It was but a change of tyrants but, soon after, while she was on a cruise, Gourgues still at ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... fourscore Italians and Spaniards, were sent forth in a galiot to take a Greek carmosel, which came into Arabia to steal negroes, and went out of Tripolis unto that place which was two hundred and forty leagues thence; but we were chained three and three to an oar, and we rowed naked above the girdle, and the boatswain of the galley walked abaft the mast, and his mate afore the mast, and each of them a whip in their hands, and when their devilish choler rose they would strike the Christians for no cause, and ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt

... practise their tub in the following manner: They select eight of the most serviceable freshmen and put these into a boat, and to each one of them they give an oar; and having told them to look at the backs of the men before them they make them bend forward as far as they can and at the same moment, and having put the end of the oar into the water pull it back again in to them about the bottom of the ribs; and if any of them does not do ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler

... swift ship, called Ellida, which was rowed by fifteen men on each side, and each oar required the strength of two men to pull it; but Frithiof was so strong that he would row ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... drop further away, and then the Sea Monster loomed up suddenly right over us, and Jerry had to fend the boat off with an oar. We had never guessed how big the thing really was,—not big at all for an island, but very large for a bare, off-shore rock. I should say that it was just about the bigness of an ordinary house, and very black and beetling, with not a spear of grass or ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price

... flat-bottomed concern with pointed stem and stern, is generally gaily painted and named appropriately "Water Bubble," "Fairy," or something equally ingenious. It looks easy when you see a lass gracefully paddling herself along with a double oar; it is anything but as easy as it looks. This class of canoe is a very unstable craft. I have tried to navigate one, and spent the whole time in the water—simply could not keep inside the tub. This I much ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... then, by the link of size, those even vaster paintings—in gouache—of Vermayen in Vienna: old land-fights with crossbow, spear, and arquebus, old sea-fights with inter-grappling galleys. He thought of galley-slaves chained to their oar—the sweat, the blood that had stained history. "So I returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter." And then he ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... and planks, and they'd have held up a house easy. I run alongside the fust one, cut the anchor-cable with my jack-knife, and next minute I was navigatin' that float down channel, steerin' it with my oar ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... pointed silently to a steep crag on the shingly beach. The chief stood upon it. He waved his bonnet, and then the long-pent feelings of the clan found vent in one long, pitiful Gallic lament, O hon a rie! O hon a rie! For a few moments the boats lay at rest, no man was able to lift an oar. Suddenly Tallisker's clear, powerful voice touched the right chord. To the grand, plaintive melody of St. Mary's he ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... picked up by a schooner and taken into that port. The officer in charge of the boat reported that in the early morning he had sighted a schooner standing toward them, and had hoisted a black silk handkerchief belonging to one of the crew on an oar as a signal of distress, but the people in the schooner, evidently thinking them pirates who had come out of some one of the inlets of the coast, turned tail and scudded away from them. A second schooner, coming ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.

... the current. With her hand clasped in his, her head resting softly upon his shoulder, while his arm fondly encircled her slender waist, they glided down the rapid River of the Mountains. No sail was raised to catch the breeze; no oar was used to impel them through the water; yet, ere the maiden had time to breathe, the light canoe was gliding, rapid as thought, down the mid-waves of the current. Then ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... white ships are coming out of the east, and the waves glide away at their wake in widening glassy hues. How they speed! How they speed, without oar or sail! ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse

... conscientious assiduity, regarding laziness as a sin against the great purposes of their being. If this assumption be true, as we suspect it is, Montezuma Moggs has much to answer for; though it is a common occurrence, this falling back into imbecility, if there be any one at hand willing to ply the oar, as too often shown in the fact that the children of the industrious are willing to let their parents work, while the energetic wife has a drag upon her in the shape of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... the bedlamite old woman,' said the Counsellor; 'will she not let things take their course, prout de lege, but must always be putting in her oar in her own way? Then I fear from the direction they took they are going upon the Ellangowan estate. That rascal Glossin has shown us what ruffians he has at his disposal; I wish honest ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... slipped off his shoes while still at his oar, working off first one shoe and then the other with his foot. It was so late in the evening that not a single man in the crew was in the regulation bathing-suit, all were more or less dressed. Eric's chum, a chap nicknamed the "Eel" because of his curious way of swimming, with ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... and to following without regularity the impulse of the moment. When the weather was calm, I frequently went immediately after I rose from dinner, and alone got into the boat. The receiver had taught me to row with one oar; I rowed out into the middle of the lake. The moment I withdrew from the bank, I felt a secret joy which almost made me leap, and of which it is impossible for me to tell or even comprehend the cause, if it were not a secret ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... it had been suspended having caught in the cordage of the topmast, so that it was securely moored. Another boat, a small one, was seen, bottom upward, about an eighth of a mile to leeward. Two seamen, each pushing an oar before him, swam out to the nearest boat, and having got on board of her, and freed her from her entanglements, they rowed out to the capsized boat, and towed it to the schooner. When this boat had been righted and bailed out, it was found to be in ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... But just as her boat would near the other, a chance current or a puff of wind would take the canoe just out of her reach. Paddling now with one oar she came very near the unsteady little craft, so near that Gladys suddenly decided ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells

... a trammelled torrent, Is changed her life's free flowing tide; Knows that her hand no oar is holding, With which her drifting bark ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris

... travelers have come suddenly upon alligators crawling amid prairies or woods, in the most unexpected manner. The alligator as a rule is very wary, but at times sleeps quite soundly. I saw one struck twice with an oar before ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various

... faces as they held their breath and pushed with every ounce of strength at their command. Then, when they reached the edge of the raft, they bore down so as to lift the blade from the water, ran back to the other side, dipped the oar again ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis



Words linked to "Oar" :   implement, scull, boat paddle, vane, sweep oar, blade, sweep, paddle



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