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Puncture   /pˈəŋktʃər/  /pˈəŋkʃər/   Listen
Puncture

noun
1.
Loss of air pressure in a tire when a hole is made by some sharp object.
2.
A small hole made by a sharp object.
3.
The act of puncturing or perforating.



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"Puncture" Quotes from Famous Books



... which he had brought down to Tapton, was a source of immense enjoyment to him; and he was never tired of contemplating the minute wonders which it revealed. One evening, when some friends were visiting him, he induced them each to puncture their skin so as to draw blood, in order that he might examine the globules through the microscope. One of the gentlemen present was a teetotaller, and Mr. Stephenson pronounced his blood to be the most lively of the whole. He had a theory of his own about the movement of the globules ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... the schooners at Carlouva's that evenin', I got Mike to let out more professional secrets along the same line. There was others who joined in. They bragged of chipped gears that was shipped through with the bad cogs covered with grease, of flawy drivin' shafts, of cheesy armor-plate that you could puncture with a tack-hammer. ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... surface of a leaf and, covering it with silk, drew it together so that nothing could be seen of the work inside. They began spinning some on the forty-second, some on the forty-third day, when about three inches in length and plump to bursting. I think at a puncture in the skin they would have spurted like a fountain. They began spinning at night and were from sight before I went to them the following morning. So I hunted a box and packed ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... mosquito has bitten a person and withdrawn the stylets, a small area about the puncture whitens, then soon becomes pink and begins to swell, then to itch and burn. Some people suffer much more from the bites of mosquitoes than do others. For some such bites mean little or no inconvenience, indeed may pass wholly unnoticed, to others a single bite ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane

... of our spirits to the circumstances. And where a man's will bends and says, 'Not mine but Thine be done,' there is calm. Submission is like the lotion that is applied to mosquito bites—it takes away the irritation, though the puncture be left. Submission is peace, both as resignation and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... closely round by the thin flexible edge of the valve that the fluid was apparently excluded; so that the experiments tried in this manner are doubtful and not worth giving. The best plan would have been to puncture the bladders, but I did not think of this till too late, excepting in a few cases. In all such trials, however, it cannot be ascertained positively that the bladder, though translucent, does not contain some minute animal in the last stage of decay. Therefore most of my experiments were made by ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... I wet on both sides and thumb-tack over an oil canvas the size of the picture to be painted. It dries tight as a drum, and the canvas backing protects it from puncture or other injury. ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith

... in front of a billboard. Sprinting for it, he knocked down an old woman and a child carrying a bottle of milk, and fought his way like a demon into the mass of spectators. Already in the inner line stood Violet Seymour with one sleeve and two gold fillings gone, a corset steel puncture and a sprained wrist, but happy. She was looking at what there was to see. A man was painting upon the fence: "Eat Bricklets —They Fill ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... ours an unsuspecting public at the rate of a thousand a day! This will never do. The swindle is awful. Barnum is a saint to us. I am bowed with a sense of guilt, ashamed to look an honest man in the face. But Nemesis is on our track; somebody will puncture our tent yet, and it will collapse like a torn balloon. I know I shall have to catch it; ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... dumb rascals, and settle down into a respectable matron, a comfort to the gray hairs she was now bringing with sorrow to the grave. Then Ginevra became absolutely silent; he had taught her that any reply was but a new start for his objurgation, a knife wherewith to puncture a fresh gall-bladder of abuse. He stormed at her for her sullenness, but she persisted in her silence, sorely distressed to find how dead her heart seemed growing under his treatment of her: what would at one time have made her utterly miserable, now passed over her as one of the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... life and literary career. He went to the capital of Colorado the most indefatigable merry-maker that ever turned night into day, a past-master in the art of mimicry, the most inveterate practical joker that ever violated the proprieties of friendship, time, and occasion to raise a laugh or puncture a fraud. As his friend of those days, E.D. Cowen, has written, "as a farceur and entertainer no professional could ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... nuisance," he said, and jabbed at his scalp with his pencil as though he meant to puncture his skull. "Wait until you've been here a few weeks and you'll have another name ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... nursery maid petting me, and all three examining my chest, where I told them I felt the puncture, and pronouncing that there was no sign visible that any such thing ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... crop. The important thing is to keep the dead canes well pruned out, as the cane borer is one of the worst insect pests. When they appear they can be stopped by cutting off the shoot several inches below the puncture as soon as it begins to droop, and burning the part cut off. Again, Mr. Powell says, "Currants require rich soil. A clay or heavy loam is better than a heavy dry soil. They should be planted in the fall. The average from ten thousand bushes should be about ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall

... sympathy unmanned him, but you could see that he suffered. This notably happened in my remembrance from a review in a journal which he greatly esteemed; and once when in a notice of my own I had put one little thorny point among the flowers, he confessed a puncture from it. He praised the criticism hardily, but I knew that he winced under my recognition of the didactic quality which he had not quite guarded himself against in the poetry otherwise praised. He liked your liking, and he openly rejoiced in it; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... hundred and fifty feet high, rising with a faceted, perpendicular face chased with soft, snowy traceries and ornamented with stalactites. Splits and rents broke into the margin, and from each streamed the evanescent, azure vapour. Each puncture and tiny grotto was filled with it, and a sloping cap of shimmering snow spread over the summit. The profile-view was an exact replica of a battleship, grounded astern. The bold contour of the bow was perfect, and the massive flank had been torn and shattered by shell-fire in a desperate ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... perhaps the centre of interest was the theatre. Here all the worst cases were brought—men with ghastly injuries from which the most hardened might well turn away in horror; men almost dead from loss of blood, or, worst of all, with a tiny puncture in the wall of the abdomen which looks so innocent, but which, in this war at least, means, apart from a difficult and dangerous operation, a terrible death. With all these we had to deal as rapidly and ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar

... chiefly in the inner bark of vascular and especially exogenous trees, and is preserved in the interior with the greatest care: its escape externally results either from disease, as in the case of plum and cherry-trees, from the puncture of insects, cracks in the bark, or by artificial incisions. The death of the tree soon follows the loss of this important juice, and thousands of trees of the genus acacia are annually sacrificed in different parts of Africa to procure the gum-arabic of commerce. ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various

... at my own audacity in presuming to question the words of this distinguished and excellent gentleman. Indeed, it was particularly surprising, because (if I knew myself) I precisely agreed with him. But there is a certain waywardness in my composition, which loves to puncture an inflated conventionality, even when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... looked to see if it did not hurt Emilia. But it now seemed as if the slumbering girl enjoyed the caressing contact of the smooth fingers, and turned her head, almost imperceptibly, to meet them. This was more than Hope could bear. It was as if that slight motion were a puncture to relieve her overburdened heart; a thousand thoughts swept over her,—of their father, of her sister's childhood, of her years of absent expectation; she thought how young the girl was, how fascinating, how passionate, how tempted; all ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... fire! The livid steel, which man's desire Had forged and welded, burned white and cold. Every blade which man could mould, Which could cut, or slash, or cleave, or rip, Or pierce, or thrust, or carve, or strip, Or gash, or chop, or puncture, or tear, Or slice, or hack, they all were there. Nerveless and shaking, round and round, I stared at the walls and at the ground, Till the room spun like a whipping top, And a stern voice in my ear said, "Stop! ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell

... anything is going to knock my head off or puncture vital sections of me. But in case the ludicrous should happen, I want you to know that a cleaner man goes before the last Court Marshal than would have stood trial there before ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... bullets smacked through the copper coil to puncture neat, round holes. As he fervently hoped, jets of live steam rushed through these vents with terrible force and bathed the head of the stairs with a scalding, blinding vapor. Howling like mad beasts, the agonized Jarmuthian hoplites ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... will also be confirmed. We have seen, that the blood passes from the arteries into the veins, not from the veins into the arteries; we have seen, farther, that almost the whole of the blood may be withdrawn from a puncture made in one of the cutaneous veins of the arm if a bandage properly applied be used; we have seen, still farther, that the blood flows so freely and rapidly that not only is the whole quantity which ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... pieces of wood. Some women possess glass beads secured in trade from the Christianized natives. Often two or three white or black beads are used for ear ornaments, though it is not a very common practice to puncture the ears for this purpose as in Bataan, where leaves and flowers are often worn stuck in a hole through the lobe of the ear. What appears to be a necklace and really answers the purpose of such is a string of dried berries, called "a-mu-yong'," which are said to be efficacious for ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed

... of the microscopic mandibles. Those two delicate spikes are incapable of chewing anything, but they may very well serve to pierce the epidermis with an aperture smaller than that made by the finest needle; and it is through this puncture that the Leucopsis sucks the juices of his prey. They are instruments made to perforate the bag of fat which slowly, without suffering any internal injury, is emptied through an opening repeated here and there. The Anthrax' cupping-glass is here replaced by piercers of exceeding sharpness ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... which remains with devilish pertinacity and mischief-working power in the infant Native Christian Church of India. It is this same extreme evil which the social reformers of India are trying to puncture. But all that they dare to struggle and hope for is the right of members of subdivisions of any caste to intermarry. A generation ago, there were 1886 divisions in the Brahman caste alone, no two of which could ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... along the face of a steep, richly-wooded valley. The road zigzags extraordinarily in and out of the innumerable lateral ravines, each with its water course, dense jungle, and legion of leeches; the bite of these blood-suckers gives no pain, but is followed by considerable effusion of blood. They puncture through thick worsted stockings, and even trousers, and, when full, roll in the form of a little soft ball into the bottom of the shoe, where their presence is ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... Philosopher Possidonius; but finding him in his sick Bed, he bewailed the Misfortune that he should not hear a Discourse from him: But you may, answered Possidonius; and immediately entered into the Point of Stoical Philosophy, which says Pain is not an Evil. During the Discourse, upon every Puncture he felt from his Distemper, he smiled and cried out, Pain, Pain, be as impertinent and troublesome as you please, I shall never own that thou ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... is not, nor is the ear lasserated or disvigored for this purpose as among many nations. the men never mark their skins by birning, cuting, nor puncturing and introducing a colouring matter as many nations do. there women sometimes puncture a small circle on their forehead nose or cheeks and thus introduce a black matter usually soot and grease which leaves an indelible stane. tho this even is by no means common. their arms offensive and defensive consist in the bow and arrows sheild, some lances, and a weapon ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... pumpi. Pump pumpilo. Pumice-stone pumiko. Pumpkin kukurbo. Punch (drink) puncxo. Punch and Judy pulcxinelo. Punctilious precizema. Punctual gxustatempa, akurata. Punctuality akurateco. Punctuate interpunkcii. Punctuation interpunkcio. Puncture trapiki. Pungent pika, morda. Punish puni. Punishment puno—ado. Puny malgranda, malfortika. Pupil (scholar) lernanto. Pupil (of eye) pupilo. Puppet pupo, marioneto. Puppy hundido. Purchase acxeti. Pure (clean) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... opinion, as in those of the several specialists consulted, was due, not to the blow on the head, but to the presence, slightly below and to the right of the first cervical curve of the spine, of a minute puncture—undoubtedly caused by a hypodermic syringe. Then, unconsciously, poor Denby furnished the last link in the chain; for undoubtedly, by means of this operation, Fu-Manchu had designed to efface from Eltham's mind his plans of ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... The accidents of life—of mine especially—often drive one to acts of cruelty for which I am the first to blush. But have no fear for your son: it's a mere prick, a little puncture in the arm which I gave him while we were questioning him. In an hour, at the most, you won't know that it happened. Once more, all my apologies. But I had to make sure of your silence." He bowed again, thanked M. de Velines for his kind hospitality, took his cane, lit a cigarette, offered ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... many others, appeared to dispute the scene with us, to break the magic of the moonlight, and to puncture the vast silence of the desert with their cooings and gurglings and chatterings in German, English, Arabic, and every other language known since the Tower of Babel. Arab guides lit up the Sphinx with flaring magnesium, an impertinence that should have ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... of the poisoning Pope Alexander VI. (Borgia), that he caused a somewhat similar key to be used in opening a cabinet; but the Pope's key was poisoned in the handle, and provided with a small sharp pin, which gave a slight puncture sufficient to allow the poison to pass below the skin. When the Holy Father wished to rid himself of an objectionable friend, he would request him to unlock his cabinet; as the lock turned rather stiffly, a little pressure was ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... administering. In bad cases, the paunch should be at once punctured. The best instruments are the trocar and canula, but in the absence of these a pocket knife and goose quill may be made to answer. The puncture is made on the left side, at a point midway between the last rib and hook point, and but a few inches from the backbone. The thrusting instrument should point downward and slightly inward going into the paunch. With much promptness the canula or the quill should be pushed down into the ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw

... dull-red beam of light carried no more than twenty or thirty feet. The street in a few moments was clear of pedestrians; remained littered with glass from the broken bottles. A taxi came suddenly around the corner, and the driver, with an almost immediate tire puncture, saw the monster. He hauled up to the curb, left his cab ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... driver of the grey car a man rose and, steadying himself by holding onto the windshield, poured out the contents of an automatic, presumably hoping to puncture the tires of the quarry. A bullet bored a neat hole through the windshield between the heads of Liane Delorme and Jules. The woman slipped down upon the floor and Jules crouched over the wheel. Lanyard fingered ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... used it on their arrow points in the chase, animals killed by it being quite wholesome. I also told her that curari may, except in very large doses, be swallowed with impunity, but if introduced into a puncture of the skin, so as to mix with the blood, the effect is instantly fatal, and leaves no trace of poison behind it. She asked me how to obtain a solution of the drug, and I explained in detail; then, seeing ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... suffering, both physical and moral, came from the bite Camille had given him in the neck. At certain moments, he imagined that this scar covered the whole of his body. If he came to forget the past, he all at once fancied he felt a burning puncture, that recalled the murder both ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... metal railing. We surged against it. I caught a dizzying glimpse of the abyss. Then it receded as we bounced the other way. And then we fell to the grid. His helmet bashed against mine, striking as though butting with the side of his head to puncture my visor-panel. His gloved fingers were trying to rip at ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... appear to be much damage done back here," observed Tom. "No leaks. Guess they didn't puncture us." ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... cook up in the stock market." To this they made no answer beyond delicately polite insinuations about being tired of paying for that which was theirs of right. I did not argue; it is never necessary to puncture the pretenses of men of affairs with a view to saving them from falling into the error of forgetting that whatever "right" may mean on Sunday, on week days it means that which a man ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... comes to pick up chips of praise, fragrant, sugary, and sappy—always are to them! Well, life would be nothing without paper-credit and other fictions; so let them pass current. Don't steal their chips; don't puncture their swimming-bladders; don't come down on their pasteboard boxes; don't break the ends of their brittle and unstable reputations, you fellows who all feel sure that your names will be household words a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... he came by the secret, or under what circumstances, he will very probably have forgotten. It is unsafe to rely upon the most religious or sacramental obligation to secrecy, unless, together with the secret, you could transfer also a magic ring that should, by a growing pressure or puncture, sting a man into timely ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... slaughter another guttapercha ox," Branch said, gloomily. "He's a veteran of the Ten Years' War. That means STEW again! STEW! One puncture-proof, rubber ox and a bushel of ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... well, maybe. Things might be worse. I might have a broken arm, or something; laid up for weeks—slow starvation and all that. What's a mere puncture? Nothing! Now that the spear's out, it'll ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... of my bosom. I removed the saddle so that she could lie down and roll, if she felt that way disposed. I took the coat I had used for a pad, and carried it a short distance into the swamp and threw it into a puddle of water. I deliberated whether I should puncture the end of my finger with my jack-knife and stain my coat with the blood, but concluded that such a proceeding was unnecessary. I knew that you would be mystified by the coat as you knew quite well that I had not worn it when I left home in the morning. Then I bade farewell to poor ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... Nor was there any mark on the opposite part of the thigh to denote its place, as when a ball forces itself straight through a limb, and lodges, perhaps, close to the skin on the other side. Nothing was visible but a small, ragged puncture, bluish about the edges, as if the rough point of a tenpenny nail had been forced into the flesh, and withdrawn. It seemed almost impossible, that through so small an aperture, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... almost imperceptible wound under his chin. This wound, so far as I have yet been able to examine it without a glass, was made with a somewhat blunt instrument, able, apparently, to little more than puncture the skin and draw a drop or so of blood. Of course, on such a theory, death must have resulted from poisoning. The essential point is: Where is the instrument ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... surface of the little black egg-sphere (not merely of the jelly surrounding it) when it is shed by the female frog into perfectly pure water free from sperms or anything of the sort. The slight artificial puncture acts as does the natural puncture by the swimming sperm-filament, and is sufficient! The egg proceeds to develop quite regularly. There is no fusion of the nucleus of the egg-cell with any matter from the outside; ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... of my privilege, have imprinted the figure of a roebuck upon my thigh, which was done in this manner: An Indian having burnt some straw, diluted the ashes with water, and with this mixture drew the figure upon my skin; he then retraced it, by pricking the lines with needles, so as at every puncture just to draw the blood, and the blood mixing with the ashes of the straw, forms a figure which can never be effaced." See Travels through Louisiana, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... the strange things I had witnessed, a tree came into my cell, with an instrument resembling a lancet in his hand. He stripped one of my arms, and made a puncture in the median vein. When he had taken from me as much blood as he deemed sufficient, he bound up the wound with great dexterity. He then examined my blood with much attention, and departed silently, ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg

... circumstances and which would pass quite unheeded if the attention were otherwise engaged, and not all the power in the world—unless one was fully prepared—could save the life of the person in whose skin the puncture had ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... up to the high tone of the post. When told of Mr. Willett's further mishap, Case sobered for a moment in manner, and said Mr. Willett was unwise taking so many chances, and Mr. Willett would be in big luck if he got away from Almy without further puncture. Somebody else had been shot at last night. He and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... the doctor was about to inflict a vicarious puncture on himself. Skenedonk, with respect for civilized surgery, waited. I did not wait. The operator bared me to the elbow and showed a piece of plaster already sticking on my arm. The conviction of being outraged ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... incapable attitude against the doorway, humping its rackety mud-guard and leering at them with its darkened lantern eye, drove them away—so it seemed to Mr. Hoopdriver—to the spacious swallow of the Golden Dragon. The young lady was riding very slowly, but the other man in brown had a bad puncture and was wheeling his machine. Mr. Hoopdriver noted his flaxen moustache, his aquiline nose, his rather bent shoulders, with ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... to make the best of the place I'm in, but for a man of puncture, as the feller said, like I used to think I was, I sure did miscombobble it when I married that educated squaw. No woman I ever was married to in my life ever had sense enough to track a man like that woman's follered me. She sure is a ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... Pallas in the citadel of Troy. Opening her chambers' sacred doors, of all Her treasured mantles there, let her select The widest, most magnificently wrought, 110 And which she values most; that let her spread On Athenaean Pallas' lap divine.[7] Twelve heifers of the year yet never touch'd With puncture of the goad, let her alike Devote to her, if she will pity Troy, 115 Our wives and little ones, and will avert The son of Tydeus from these sacred towers, That dreadful Chief, terror of all our host, Bravest, in ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... nearly had serious consequences. I had been reading about volcanoes, so was filled with ambition to construct one. I unearthed a large powder-horn, belonging to my father, which must have contained nearly a pound of gunpowder. This I poured into a tin, which I punctured at the side. Into the puncture I inserted a fuse of rolled brown paper which had been soaked in a solution of saltpeter. The tin was placed on the floor in the middle of the tool-house; around it we banked damp clay in the form of a truncated cone, leaving a hollow for the crater. The latter we filled with dry sand and fragments ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... all, little more than an experiment, and need not be regarded as a step necessarily fatal." And in order to save Mr. Hawthorne, and stem the tide of corruption, he is willing to point out his error. Nevertheless, he is somewhat at a loss to know where to puncture the heart of the offence, for "there is a provoking concealment of the author's motive," he confesses, "from the beginning to the end of the story. We wonder what he would be at: whether he is making fun of all religion, or ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... as a friend I ask you don't do a ballet on them crackers. Run over the mutt. What care we for life. Gee, the canine is right there as the artful dodger. Ah! what? Bing! What was that? A puncture! My! For goodness sake, how long will we be bogged down. Oh, we can wait that long, can't we, dears? Pipe the yokel. Shall I hand him a game of chatter? No? Oh, ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... Bertie tightened it. Then, when THEY weren't looking, I'd dab the business end of a darning-needle, so, just plump into their tires; and of course, as soon as they went off, they were back again in a minute to get a puncture mended! I ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... which the crime had been committed by striking between the ribs had penetrated to the heart with an unerring precision, making a terrible wound eight times the size within, as compared with the exterior puncture. And yet the weapon had been withdrawn, ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... broke an arm of one of the deputy's men. He then fled to the mountains; but he could not hide himself from the vengeance of Landenberg. The peasant's aged father was arrested by order of the bailiff, and his eyes put out in punishment for his son's offense. "That puncture," says an old chronicler, "went so deep into many a heart that numbers resolved to die rather than ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden

... the peculiar excrescence which is often found on the Briar, as caused by the puncture of an insect, and which is known as the canker, or "robin redbreast's cushion," is frequently worn round the neck as a protective amulet against whooping cough. This was called in the old Pharmacopeias "Bedeguar," and was ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... said Toinette, in a motherly tone, "else you'll tear it yourself, you know." She broke off the thorn as she spoke, and gently drew it out. The elf anxiously examined the stuff. A tiny puncture only was visible and ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... the pious prayer which temper that severity of sentence—"Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man! God make incision in thee! Thou art raw." And raw he is like to remain for all his learning, and for all incisions that can be made in the horny hide of a self-conceit to be pierced by the puncture of no man's pen. It was bad enough while theorists of this breed confined themselves to the suggestion of a possible partnership with Fletcher, a possible interpolation by Jonson; but in the descent from these to ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... the ride to the utmost. Just before noon they got a puncture, and voted not to attend to it until after lunch, which they ate near a road-side spring, under a great oak tree. And then the Fates were kind to them. For, as they were laboriously jacking up the car to take off the tire, a lone chauffeur, in a big car, came along and kindly ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope

... there. Thus, doubly she shows the devotion of a sweetheart, fearing at once his death, and desiring that honour may be his. And Cliges sword in hand attacks the other three, who face him bravely and puncture and split his shield. But they are unable to lay hands upon him, or to pierce the meshes of his hauberk. And whatever Cliges reaches cannot stand against his blow, but must needs be split and torn apart; for ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... up a one-inch-wide strip of newspaper into an old-fashioned paper lighter, which is merely rolling the strip spirally into a round stick; this is the mast. Cut a paper sail, not too large, puncture holes in it and slide the sail on the mast; add a small paper pennant on the extreme top; then insert the base of the mast into a common wooden spool and glue the spool tight to the bottom of the boat at the ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard

... of disease germs into the system, usually by puncture of the skin or hypodermic injection; many diseases so introduced assume a mild form, and render the subject not liable to the severe form. Inoculation for smallpox, the virus being taken from actual smallpox pustules, was practised ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... "I thank her. She has made me feel that nine parts in ten of my heart have always been sound as a bell, and the tenth bled from a mere puncture: a lancet-prick that will heal ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... pungent song of a mosquito impinged upon the stillness, something settled on his neck and there followed a swift sting like the puncture of a hypodermic needle. Instantly he slapped the place with his hand, and retreated behind his smoke-smudge. There he threw himself once more on the pack that served him for seat and ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... bodkin Harrison Gray Otis thought to puncture the Southern panic. But the slaveholders had correcter notions of the nature and tendency of the Abolition enterprise than had the Boston mayor. They had a strange, an obstinate presentiment of disaster ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... an hour, though in fact it was but the ten minutes agreed on with Bohannan, off behind them toward the coast a sudden staccato popping of revolvers began to puncture the night. Up and down the Legionaries' trench ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... nor was the asp seen within the monument; only something like the trail of it was said to have been noticed on the sand by the sea, on the part towards which the building faced and where the windows were. Some relate that two faint puncture-marks were found on Cleopatra's arm, and to this account Caesar seems to have given credit; for in his triumph there was carried a figure of Cleopatra, with an asp clinging to her. Such are the various accounts. But Caesar, though much disappointed ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... missed," said Cecil quickly. "The fact is we got into a road that did not go there at all, and then Miss Gertrude had a puncture, and then a second, and by the time we got back to the right road we knew it was too late ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh

... of the nose of a mouse, a small puncture was made with a surgeon's needle, bedewed with the oil of tobacco. The little animal, from the insertion of this small quantity of the poison, fell into a violent agitation, and was dead ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey

... the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. All I can say is that on the Treasury Bench he betrays no outward sign of this regrettable debility when dealing with critics of the Treasury. It is not easy to puncture the aes triplex of Mr. BOTTOMLEY, but two words from Mr. CHAMBERLAIN did ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various

... radiate animals, several Ophiurae and Ophiocomae and other Asteriadae, with two kinds of Echinus, are also plentiful under blocks of coral (Astraea and Maeandrina) in the pools; one of the last, remarkable for its very long, slender, black spines, has the power of giving an exceedingly painful puncture, if carelessly handled—for a few minutes the sensation is similar to that caused by the sting of a wasp; of the others, a fine Ophiura is remarkable for its great size and grass-green colour, and an Ophiocoma for the prodigious length of ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... continues to flow from the wounds they make long afterwards, so that the creatures attacked soon grow weak and die. They attack men, too,—as Martin knew to his cost; and they usually fix upon the toes and other extremities. So gentle are they in their operations, that sleepers frequently do not feel the puncture, which they make, it is supposed, with the sharp hooked nail of their thumb; and the unconscious victim knows nothing of the enemy who has been draining his blood until he awakens, faint ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne

... where the Eurasian had gone, and he followed that hunch. A silent, giant-gray thing in the black silence of the corridor, grim, intent and seeming irresistible, he swept along it; and every second he knew that a raygun might spit from where it had been waiting in ambush to puncture his suit and kill him. For whether or not Ku Sui was aware that he was being tracked by his old, bitter ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... these diligent delvers after hidden treasure from their work, for Bill had not gone in the ordinary way. At night he was in the full enjoyment of health and a game of poker; in the morning they found him just outside the domicile of Jack Borlan, with a small puncture near the heart to tell how it was done. Such was ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... A crackling twig was a thunderous crash, a bird's sleepy stir was the sound of pursuit and disaster. A hundred times he heard the cautious approach of Richard Hartley's motor-car without the wall, and he fell into a panic of fear lest that machine prove unruly, break down, puncture a tire, or burst into a series of ear-splitting explosions. But at last—it seemed to him that he had waited untold hours and that the dawn must be nigh—there came an unmistakable rustling from overhead and the sound ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... red gall, occasioned by the puncture of the Coccus ilicis on the leaves of the Quercus coccifera, or Kermes oak; an article of commerce from ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... musquitoes here were still a serious annoyance to us, but less numerous than before. They were in some degree replaced by a small sandfly, whose bite is succeeded by a copious flow of blood, and considerable swelling, but is attended with incomparably less irritation, than the puncture ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... eye-witness, that death had been wilfully caused by Cranley, employing a poison which it would be shown he had in his possession—a poison which was not swallowed by the victim, but introduced by means of a puncture into the system. The dead man's body had then been removed to a place where his decease would be accounted for as the result of cold and exhaustion. A witness would be put in the box who, by an extraordinary circumstance, had been enabled to see the crime committed by the prisoner, and the body ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... up with the truck. At the end of the first half mile, the horrible roadbed began to take toll of the elderly tires. There were two punctures, in rapid succession. Then came a blowout. And, at the bottom of the mountain a third puncture varied the monotony of the ride. Thus, the truck reached the Place well ahead of the ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... should be given. Calomel, aloes, and digitalis are recommended when the effusion period approaches in order to increase the elimination of fluid, and lessen its entrance into the body cavity. If the amount of effusion is large, puncture of the thoracic cavity with a trocar and cannula may be practised. This operation should be performed carefully, and all possible precautions used against infection of the wound. During the later period of the disease iodide of potassium, iron and ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... woman, following a fall at her fourth month of pregnancy, who at term gave birth to a male child that was idiotic. Beatty relates a curious accident to a fetus in utero. The woman was in her first confinement and was delivered of a small but healthy and strong boy. There was a small puncture in the abdominal parietes, through which the whole of the intestines protruded and were constricted. The opening was so small that he had to enlarge it with a bistoury to replace the bowel, which was dark and ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... as she looked out of the window, she gave a faint scream. Her husband was returning. He had a puncture. She retained her presence of mind, however, long enough to step to the telephone. Just as she had finished delivering ...
— Best Short Stories • Various

... 'It's a puncture,' said Anthea, stooping down, and standing up again with a thorn which she had got ready ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... ornaments, if such it may be called, is the pelele, or upper-lip ring of the women. The middle of the upper lip of the girls is pierced close to the septum of the nose, and a small pin inserted to prevent the puncture closing up. After it has healed, the pin is taken out and a larger one is pressed into its place, and so on successively for weeks, and months, and years. The process of increasing the size of the lip goes on till its capacity ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... happy be firm. Here is a nut," said he, catching one down from an upper bough, "to exemplify: a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has outlived all the storms of autumn. Not a puncture, not a weak spot anywhere. This nut," he continued, with playful solemnity, "while so many of his brethren have fallen and been trodden under foot, is still in possession of all the happiness that a hazel nut can be supposed capable of." Then returning to his former earnest tone—"My ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... Art, ever bent on progression, Has taken the model in hand, And brought in the line of succession A figure more pleasingly planned; Her eyes with the gladdest of glances, Her lips and her hair and her cheek Can puncture like so many lances ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various

... own composition, after which he will draw with a sharp-pointed bone or nail, upon a small piece of birch bark, the outline of the animal desired by the applicant. The place of the heart of the animal is indicated by a puncture upon which a small quantity of vermilion is carefully rubbed, this color being very efficacious toward effecting the capture of the animal and the ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... see," said William, stooping down to examine the place on which Joe's hands were convulsively pressed. With some difficulty he pulled them away, and tearing down the stocking, actually saw a small bleeding puncture ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... use of the motor-car. She finds it an agreeable and speedy means of conveyance from her country seat to her town house, and also a very practical way of getting to see her friends at week-ends. She has been heard to complain, however, that a substitute for the pneumatic tyre less liable to puncture than it is would be ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... thou art known. In the height of my power, I said to defamation, Who will hear thee? and to artifice, What canst thou perform? But, my son, despise not thou the malice of the weakest, remember that venom supplies the want of strength, and that the lion may perish by the puncture ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... down a hero, and he feels the puncture of a pin; throw him into battle, and he is almost insensible to vital gashes. So in war. Impelled alternately by hope and fear, stimulated by revenge, depressed by shame, or elevated by victory, the people become invincible. No privation can shake their fortitude; ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... money I was saving so's we could get married. Cost me twenty-one dollars, and it's got puncture-proof tires and a real coaster brake. Just watch ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... either only incidentally alluded to, or are wholly passed over; such, for instance, as alterations in the period of flowering, in the duration of the several organs, and so forth.[9] Pathological changes, lesions caused by insect puncture or other causes, also find no place in this book, unless the changes are of such a character as to admit of definite comparison with normal conformation. Usually such changes are entirely heteromorphous, and, as it were, foreign ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... satire has disappeared because the game is no longer considered worth the candle. To puncture the tire of pretence is amusing enough; but it is useless to stick tacks under the steam road-roller: the road-roller advances remorselessly and smooths down your mischievous little tacks and you too, indifferently. The huge interests of politics, trade, progress, override your passionate ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... hope at best, and he knew it. Moreover, an accident was as apt to happen to him as to De Morbihan: given an unsound tire or a puncture, or let him be delayed two seconds by some traffic hindrance, and nothing short of ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... with this manna in the above-mentioned state, but could never find in any part of the bark a fissure or break whence such a substance could flow. Wherever it appeared, moreover, the red-eyed cicadae were in abundance. I was inclined to think that the puncture produced by these suctorial insects into the tender shoots for juice, would in all probability give an exit for such a substance; but by wounding the tender branches with a sharp-pointed knife, I could never obtain a saccharine fluid ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... Aladdin sent out a great puff of white smoke; this turned into a blue wraith, drifted down the aisle, between the seats, gathering momentum as it went, and finally, with the rapidity of a mint julep mounting a sucked straw (that isn't split) and spun long and fine, it was drawn through a puncture of the isinglass in the stove door and went up the chimney in company with other smoke, and out into the storm. Aladdin, full of anticipation and glee, smoked away with great spirit. Presently, for the car was empty ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris

... affair were I to enter into the detail of all the ramifications. Here it is that all engineers, past, present, and future, are baffled, defeated and outdone! Choose any place you please upon your body, and run the finest needle you can find into it what will issue from the puncture? ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... to be seen when Wilbur gently unwrapped the torn sleeve of a blouse that had been used as a bandage. Just under the armpit was the mark of the bullet—a small puncture already closed, half hidden under a clot or two of blood. The coolie lay quite unconscious, his eyes wide open, drawing a faint, quick ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... these highways of free millions— A country in all senses the most dear To foreigner or native, save some silly ones, Who "kick against the pricks" just at this juncture, And for their pains get only a fresh puncture.[ki] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... himself an expert surgeon. While Cashel supported the patient on the knee of another man, and the rest of the party kept off the crowd by mingled persuasion and violence, he produced a lancet and summarily reduced the swelling by lancing it. He then dressed the puncture neatly with appliances for that purpose which he carried about him, and shouted in Mellish's ear to rouse him. But the trainer only groaned, and let his head drop inert on his breast. More shouting was ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... it!" he shouted one day. "If one wishes to make a puncture in the affairs of this world one must assert himself; one must smite the table top with one's fist every morning before breakfast. One must assume such an atmosphere that the whole community will be cognizant of one's presence, to-day, to-morrow, and all the time. One ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)

... prepared to sew up the wound, admonishing the patient to submit to the operation with becoming fortitude. His gayety was at an end; he could no longer summon up even a forced smile; and, at the first puncture of the needle, flinched so piteously, that the captain was obliged to pause, and to order him a powerful dose of alcohol. This somewhat rallied up his spirit and warmed his heart; all the time of the operation, however, he kept his eyes riveted on the wound, with his ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... took a bottle of beef extract, which in Russia is popular with all classes in preparing their cabbage soup, and refilling the syringe, plunged the needle through the cork, afterwards placing a spot of melted resin upon the puncture. ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... father had much to occupy him. But the little man—who, to do him justice, cared no more (in his own phrase) for imminent danger or death, than he did for the puncture of a flea's proboscis—did not so easily renounce the secret object of his ambition, which was to acquire the notice of the large and lofty Sir Geoffrey Peveril, who, being at least three inches taller than his son, was in so far possessed of that superior excellence, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... number of species of Euphorbia, varying exceedingly in their general appearance, but all of them having a milky juice which contains active properties. Many of them can scarcely be distinguished from cactuses so far as relates to external appearances, but the milky exudation following a puncture determines their true character. E. grandidens is a tall-growing, branching species, and attains a height of 30 feet. The natives of India use the juice of E. antiquorum, when diluted, as a purgative. The juice of E. heptagona ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders

... than is believed even in the country itself. In the course of several years, notwithstanding we slept so often in the open air, in climates where vampire-bats,* (* Verspertilio spectrum.) and other analogous species are so common, we were never wounded. Besides, the puncture is no-way dangerous, and in general causes so little pain, that it often does not awaken the person till after ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... picked up the Italian stiletto to puncture his cigar, looked at it carefully to make sure that it really had no edge, and then drew it ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... The edge is cut into sharp teeth or points . . . they dip the teeth into a mixture of a kind of lamp-black . . . The teeth, thus prepared, are placed upon the skin, and the handle to which they are fastened being struck by quick smart blows, they pierce it, and at the same time carry into the puncture the black composition, which leaves ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... was to show why the Lutherans "do not accept the Confutation," and to puncture the papal boast that the Augustana had been refuted with the Holy Scriptures. In its Preface we read: "Afterwards a certain decree was published [by the Emperor], in which the adversaries boast that they have refuted our Confession from the Scriptures. ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... flank, and a good purse is always worth L1 to a bullock in London. If the purse should get much swelled after castration, warm fomentations should be applied two or three times a-day, or even a poultice if the case be very bad. If there is an accumulation of pus, it may be necessary to puncture the purse, and the ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie

... even bother running to the field to report to Mr. Leonard. At that I hoped to breeze along fast enough to fetch me back in time to have a little turn with the boys; but I counted without considering that I was dealing with an old car; and sure enough one of the back tires had to take on a puncture." ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson

... possession. (A glove was the Borgia's favorite medium.) It was painted with hlangkuna and replaced. When worn, an intense irritation was produced and a cutaneous eruption which, if scratched even very lightly, resulted in a puncture of the skin sufficient to allow the inimical elements of the poison to obtain access to ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... look and manner as he calmly adjusted his glasses and read the letter of Judge Fine brought the blood to my face. It seemed to puncture my balloon, so to speak, and I was falling toward the earth and so swiftly my head swam. He laid the letter on his desk and, without looking up and as coolly as if he were asking for the change ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... miserable death we had witnessed, twas a light delicate little fellow, about fourteen years old, of the name of Duncan; he was the smallest boy of his age I ever saw, and had been badly hurt in repelling the attack of the pirate. His wound was a lacerated puncture in the left shoulder from a boarding pike, but it appeared to be healing kindly, and for some days we thought he was doing well. However, about five o'clock in the afternoon on which we made Jamaica, the surgeon accosted Mr Douglas as we were ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... protest against the cruelty of the project. "Nonsense!" she said to herself; "most girls flirt for sport, and it is a pity if I cannot with such a purpose in view. He will soon get over a little puncture in his heart after I have sailed away to my bright future beyond the sea, and perhaps Susie will comfort him;" and she smiled at the thought. Dennis saw the smile and was entranced by its loveliness. How little ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... women from one to ten or more small holes have been made. In most of these holes I noticed bits of palmetto wood, about a fifth of an inch in length and in diameter the size of a large pin. Seemingly they were not placed there to remain only while the puncture was healing. ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley

... Dick, I don't wish it to be touched. I know my own machine. If it were a common puncture I could mend it myself, but I don't want the whole thing ruined by an ignorant person. I shall take it in to Southminster on ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley



Words linked to "Puncture" :   split up, depreciate, scarify, centesis, create, depressurize, deprecate, vilipend, mishap, misadventure, pinprick, come apart, separate, activity, decompress, fall apart, lumbar puncture, spinal puncture, pierce, make, pricking, depressurise, break, venipuncture, perforation, pinhole, prick, mischance, hole



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