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Tether   /tˈɛðər/   Listen
Tether

verb
(past & past part. tethered; pres. part. tethering)
1.
Tie with a tether.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tether" Quotes from Famous Books



... he was not altogether brought to a stop,—by a circumstance as unexpected as it was fortunate. That was the tightening of the line attached to the handle of the harpoon. He had slidden to the end of his tether,—the other end of which was fast to the drogue drifting about in the sea, as already said, on the opposite ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking round and round at the length of her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward; but there was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily smoking and studying the colour of the sky, as we call the void of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... frighted, sir, I did na ken what to do; but in despair I just held out the muzzle o' the fusee to fend her off, and I believe that saved my life, for she gripped it atween her teeth, dang me o'er the braid o' my back, and off she set, trailing me through the bushes like a tether-stick; for some way or other I never let go the grip I had o' the stock. I was that stupefied I hae nae recollection what happened after this, till I found mysel' sticking in the middle o' a brier-bush, wi' my breeks rived the way you see, and poor old 'Meg' smashed in ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... was forced to pause and hold by the olive trees as he slowly performed his task. The perspiration came in profusion from his pores, and he found himself to be so weak that he must in future regard the brook as being beyond the tether of his daily exercise. Eighteen months ago he had been a strong walker, and the snow-bound paths of Swiss mountains had been a joy to him. He paused as he was slowly dragging himself on, and looked up at the wretched, desolate, comfortless abode which he called ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... Than mine! What should your chamber do? 160 —With all its rarities that ache In silence while day lasts, but wake At night-time and their life renew, Suspended just to pleasure you Who brought against their will together These objects, and, while day lasts, weave Around them such a magic tether That dumb they look: your harp, believe, With all the sensitive tight strings Which dare not speak, now to itself 170 Breathes slumberously, as if some elf Went in and out the chords, his wings Make murmur wheresoe'er ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... timegigi. Territory teritorio. Terror teruro. Terrorise terurigi. Test provi. Testament testamento. Testator testamentanto. Testify atesti. Testimonial atesto, rekomendo. Testy kolerema. Tetanus tetano. Tether ligilo. Text teksto. Textile teksa. Textual lauxteksta. Texture teksajxo. Thaler talero. Than ol. Thank danki. Thankfully danke. Thankfulness dankeco. Thankless sendanka. Thanks ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... a beef roast, we'd put it in a sealed container of clear plastic," Gimp laughed. "Set it turning, outside the bubb, on a swiveled tether wire. It would rotate for hours like on a spit—almost no friction. Rig some mirrors to concentrate the sun's heat. Space Force ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... with great eclat, and the performance was really good, really clever or better. Forster's 'Kitely' was very emphatic and earnest, and grew into great interest, quite up to the poet's allotted tether, which is none of the longest. He pitched the character's key note too gravely, I thought; beginning with certainty, rather than mere suspicion, of evil. Dickens' 'Bobadil' was capital—with perhaps a little too much of the consciousness ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... like. She's got a still tongue in her head." Peter senior gasped out his words with the desperate air of a man at the end of his tether. "Only go now—go, and let my head rest. You and I can discuss all these things later. That'll be ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... Her motor-car (hired), her references (forged), the case of jewels which she deposited this morning (duds!)—all represent a considerable outlay. It's a nerve-racking line of operation, too. Any hour of the day may bring such a visitor as yourself, for example. In short, I am at the end of my tether." ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... my sister's first mistress was an old Ursuline nun, who was very fond of her, and who made her learn by heart the psalms which are chanted in church. After a year or two the worthy old lady had reached the end of her tether, and was conscientious enough to come and tell my mother so. She said, "I have nothing more to teach her; she knows all that I know better than I do myself." The Catholic faith revived in these remote districts, with all its respectable gravity and, fortunately for it, disencumbered ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... Ammunition, too, was very short, amounting to but one hundred and fifty rounds of rifle cartridges and some fifty shot-gun cartridges. How to get on we did not know; indeed it seemed to us that we had about reached the end of our tether. Even if we had been inclined to abandon the object of our search, which, shadow as it was, was by no means the case, it was ridiculous to think of forcing our way back some seven hundred miles to the coast in our present ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... felt confident enough. The bull was tethered, and it only remained for me to get out beyond the length of his tether, and take ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... the loss of the beasts were sore to you as now. But the second thing is the chase from Utterbol. As to the lions, if ye build up a big fire, and keep somewhat aloof from the stream and its bushes, and tether you horses anigh the fire, ye will have no harm ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... fleeting, But your heart is beating in time with mine, And Cupid's rhyme rings louder—clearer, As I draw you nearer, my love divine! In the twilight dim we have found love's tether, And are linked together, no more to part; While the white stars swing in a maze of glory, To hear the story ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

... the reply, "merely tether her to the galleon as you would a horse and when we are ready to load, haul her to a level with the deck and then with a full cargo of treasure—hurray for ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... comrade, when we tramped God's land together, And we sang the old, old Earth-Song, for our youth was very sweet; When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether, Along the road to Anywhere, the wide ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... said. "I mostly lets them run the length of their tether, but sometimes I has to pull them up, and then I does it with a jerk. They don't dast aggravate me, because I've got considerable hard cash, and they're afraid I won't leave it all to them. Neither I will. ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... which follows on my connection with Blackwood's Magazine. I had just finished writing "The End of the Tether" and was casting about for some subject which could be developed in a shorter form than the tales in the volume of "Youth" when the instance of a steamship full of returning coolies from Singapore to some port in northern China occurred to my recollection. ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... the whole orchard, and probably he thinks he is himself. But by the time he is fairly under full headway, his rope tightens up with a jerk, and away he goes heels over head. The only difference is, that Halicarnassus knows the length of his tether, and always fetches up in time to escape an overturn; but other people do not know it, and they imagine he is going pell-mell into infidelity. Now I was determined to have none of this trash in a steamboat. One has no desire to encounter superfluous risks in a country where life ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... made an end of these verses, he strained his brother Amjad in his arms, till they twain were one body, and the treasurer, drawing his sword, was about to strike them, when behold, his steed took fright at the wind of his upraised hand, and breaking its tether, fled into the desert. Now the horse had cost a thousand gold pieces and on its back was a splendid saddle worth much money; so the treasurer threw down his sword, and ran after his beast.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... sniffed at the affected joviality of my salutations; last, and most plain, when I called for a suisse(such as was being served to all the other diners), I was bluntly told there were no more. It was obvious I was near the end of my tether; one plank divided me from want, and now I felt it tremble. I passed a sleepless night, and the first thing in the morning took my way to Myner's studio. It was a step I had long meditated and long refrained from; for I was scarce intimate with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the river-bank and tried to chafe them against a rock, but only succeeded in bruising my flesh. The sun came out and shone down upon me till my thirst grew agonising. It seemed to me that at last I had run to the end of my tether. Then a thought occurred to me; wriggling toward the fire, I found that it still smouldered. By pushing and scraping with my bound hands and feet, I managed to get some leaves and twigs together, which soon sprang into a blaze. I waited until it had died down ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... fever had rendered unable longer to walk, and six men who were as yet well enough to handle the canoe. By the time the remainder of the party came to the next navigable river eleven more fever-stricken men had nearly reached the end of their tether. Here they ran across a poor devil who had for four months been lost in the forest and was dying of slow starvation. He had eaten nothing but Brazil-nuts and the grubs of insects. He could no longer walk, but could sit erect and totter feebly for a few feet. Another ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... that's all," she faltered at last. "Do—do you really understand? Do you think I've been a shameless creature to venture into this? Can you realize what it is to be at the very end of one's tether?" ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... Is it me stay here all night? No, your honor: I tether the boat at siven o'hlyock, and lave Brimstone Billy—God forgimme!—to take care ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw

... at once, with true business instinct, his man had reached the end of his tether. He struck while the iron was hot and clinched the bargain. "Well,—as there's a lady in the case"—he said, gallantly,—"and to serve a young man of undoubted talent, who'll do honor to the profession, I don't mind closing with you. I'll take ten thousand, money down, to back out ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen

... battered, and the black Japan worn off in most parts of it. As we have said before, Mr Vanslyperken walked his quarter-deck. He was in a brown study, yet looked blue. Six strides brought him to the taffrail of the vessel, six more to the bows, such was the length of his tether—and he turned and ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... said something about time and patience, and observed, "that one experiment was not conclusive against a whole nation." Any thing like a general argument Mr. Hardcastle could not comprehend. He knew every blade of grass within the reach of his tether, but could not reach an inch beyond. Any thing like an appeal to benevolent feelings was lost upon him; for he was so frank in his selfishness, that he did not even pretend to be generous. By sundry self-complacent motions he showed whilst his adversary spoke, that he disdained to listen almost ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... have with them a wicker basket containing an ample lunch prepared by the generous hands of Bridget. They would stop at some spot on a mountain pass; tether the pony, sit on a plaid shawl thrown over a boulder, and feast their eyes on green mountain-shoulders reared against the pale blue sky; or gaze across ravines not unworthy of Switzerland. Or they would put up pony and cart at some village inn, explore old battlemented ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... with a perfect confidence on the part of his master of finding him, again, at the expiration of a few hours. The old man strongly remonstrated against this arrangement, and more than once hinted that the knife was much more certain than the tether, but the petitions of Obed, aided perhaps by the secret reluctance of the trapper to destroy the beast, were the means of saving its life. When Asinus was thus secured, and as his master believed secreted, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... engaged his attention. On the death of Mr W. H. Smith in 1891 he became first lord of the treasury and leader of the House of Commons, and in that capacity introduced in 1892 a Local Government Bill for Ireland. The Conservative government was then at the end of its tether, and the project fell through. For the next three years Mr Balfour led the opposition with great skill and address. On the return of the Unionists to power in 1895 he resumed the leadership of the House, but not at first with the success expected of him, his management of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... movement of the rein he urged Badshah Pasand to renewed effort. But the devoted animal was nearing the end of his tether, and his rider knew it. Thick spume flakes blew backward from his lips, and the sawing motion of his ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... from Three Rivers we came to a horse tethered among the trees by the road-side; of course, on hearing and seeing the automobile and while we were yet some distance away, it broke its tether and was off on a run up the road, which meant that unless some one intervened it would fly on ahead for miles. Happily, in this instance some men caught the animal after it had gone a mile or two, we, meanwhile, ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... jerk with which the poor devil is brought up, when he has reached the length of his tether, often turns him quite over on the surface of the water. Then commence the loud cheers, taunts, and other sounds of rage and triumph, so long suppressed. A steady pull is insufficient to carry away the line; but it sometimes happens that the violent ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... to read them in. For to snuggle close beneath the slates is as dear to the boy as the bard, if somewhat diverse their reasons for seclusion. Your garret is the true kingdom of the poet, neighbouring the stars; side-windows tether him to earth, but a skylight looks to the heavens. (That is why so many poets live in garrets, no doubt.) But it is the secrecy of a garret for him and his books that a boy loves; there he is lord of his imagination; there, when the impertinent world is hidden from his view, he rides with great Turpin ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... no notion that the girl had not seen him. Before she got out, when she put her hand to tether the boat, she felt his hand gently taking the rope from her and fell back with ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall

... hill hang on to the tail of your horse as you walk behind him. Horses are easily driven in file by securing the halter of each horse to the tail of the one before him. To swim horses across a river, to sleep by their side when there is danger, to tether them, and to water them from wells, are all described ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... the noose round his neck, was not so easily subdued; but kept dragging and pulling Rustem, as if by a tether, and it was a considerable time before the animal could be reduced to subjection. At last, Rustem thanked Heaven that he had obtained the very horse ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... dog-collar set with bells Swings from a hook by clasp and tether, With rude embroidery that spells "Diana" worked upon the leather. A flute too, when the woodsman died, The men who dug his grave forgot here; The dog, his only friend, they shot here And laid her by her ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... "we came up, six sanguine men and one despondent mule, which showed its wisdom by breaking its tether and deserting. I gather that these expeditions are generally rough on cattle. Then we lost our way, and, provisions growing scanty, divided the party, three returning and three holding on, Geoffrey and I, unfortunately, among the latter. We got lost worse than ever on the return journey, ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... had been particularly struck by the great success of the Rochdale experiment—an experiment begun and carried out, as Mr. Holyoake has set forth at length, by weavers, who, being nearly at the end of their tether, and worn out with distress, had associated themselves into a company under the name of the 'Equitable Pioneers of Rochdale.' He looked thoroughly into the history of this experiment, and having convinced himself that the 'beautiful and generous' idea might ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... down a hillside of shale, caught at a greasewood bush and waited. The sound of a rifle shot had drifted across the ridge to him. Friend or foe, it made no difference to him now. He had reached the end of his tether, must get to water soon or give up ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... soon relieved of their saddles, and each man leading his own steed by the long tether-rope which had been carefully coiled round its neck, took it to a neighbouring pool to drink, and then proceeded in search of the best pasture. Our animals having been attended to, our next thought was of ourselves; and every one took his bundle ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... may be possible to find one or two references to Saint Bonaventure or to Wattenbach which are incorrect. But he is exceedingly careful in rendering the sense of his informants, and neither strains the tether nor outsteps his guide. The original words in very many cases would add definiteness and a touch of surprise to ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... assistance," I said to myself: Here also we have a Symbol well-nigh superannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters and rags of superannuated worn-out symbols (in this Ragfair of a World) dropping off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether you; nay, if you shake them not aside, threatening to accumulate, and ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... shalt furnish food for me. Come, let us speed our way Where the troops of spectres play. To charnel-houses, churchyards drear, Where Death sits with a horrible leer, A lasting grin, on a throne of bones, And skim along the blue tombstones. Come, let us speed away, Lay our snares, and spread our tether! I will smooth the way for thee, Thou shalt furnish food for me; And the grass shall wave O'er many a grave, Where youth ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... canao was declined, on account of the length of the ceremony and of the distance we had yet to go, still they were resolved upon the death of the pig. He, however, at the same time had made up his mind to escape, and by a mighty effort broke his tether, and got off; but in vain, for after a short but exciting chase he was caught and then, an incision having been made in his belly, a sharpened stick was inserted and stirred about until his insides were thoroughly mixed, when he died. We left them cleaning and ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... has somewhere said that it is a happy thing to have been born near some noble mountain or attractive river or lake, which should be a landmark through all the journey of life, and to which we could tether our memory. I have always been thankful that the place of my nativity was the beautiful village of Aurora, on the shores of the Cayuga Lake in Western New York. My great-grandfather, General Benjamin Ledyard, was one of its first settlers, and came there in 1794. He was a ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... answered this doughty partizan, 'I wasna bred at sae short a tether, I was brought up to hack and manger. I was bred a horse-couper, sir; and if I might live to see you at Whitson-tryst, or at Stagshawbank, or the winter fair at Hawick, and ye wanted a spanker that would lead ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... the snowfall in the river, A moment white—then melts for ever; Or like the borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place; Or like the rainbow's lovely form, Evanishing amid the storm. Nae man can tether time or tide; The hour approaches, Tam maun ride; That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane, That dreary hour he mounts his beast in; And sic a night he taks the road in As never poor ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... ceaseless applications, more than he could positively spare. So every now and then she relinquished in discouragement her aspirations, and lived on, from day to day, as other girls did, getting what pleasure she could; hampered continually, however, with the old, inevitable tether, ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... heavily from side to side, with now the stern and now the bow pointing to the sky; at one moment leaping with its gunwale above the level of the smack's bulwarks; at the next moment eight or ten feet down in the trough of the waves; never at rest for an instant, always tugging madly at its tether, and often surging against the vessel's side, from actual contact with which it was protected by strong rope fenders. But indeed the boat's great strength of build seemed ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... and chemical concepts are applied to the phenomena of the nervous system, they work very well till we come to mental phenomena. When we try to correlate physical energy with thought or consciousness, we are at the end of our tether. Here is a gulf we cannot span. The theory of the machine breaks down. Some other force than material force is demanded here, namely, psychical,—a force or principle quite beyond the sphere of ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... the moon in my blood that night, right enough." Then, turning her eyes on my face, she added: "That's what a girl will 'ave, you know, once in a while, and like as not it'll du for her. Only thirty-five now, I am, an' pretty nigh the end o' my tether. What can you expect?—I'm a gay woman. Did for me right enough. Her father's ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... we called "bossing," and in her mother's absence she deemed that she had a right to rule supreme. She knew better than to make any attempt to assert authority over the Story Girl, and Felix and I were allowed some length of tether; but Cecily, Dan, and Peter were expected to submit dutifully to her decrees. In the main they did; but on this particular morning Dan was plainly inclined to rebel. He had had time to grow sore over the things that Felicity had said to him when ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... she said, smiling back at him. "We will break our journey here. You can tether 'Modestina' to that stump. I must do a rough sketch of this, and put in notes for colouring, while you sit beside me and smoke, and talk. When it's complete, I'll present it to you as a memento of to-day. Will ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... that the slaves must be liberated, or the Union would be exterminated. Lincoln reached a final conclusion and called the cabinet together on July 21, the day preceding the close of that session of Congress.[38] Since he was at the end of his tether, he determined to take a more definite and decisive step. Accordingly, he prepared several orders which, gave authority to commanders in the field to subsist their troops in hostile territory and to employ Negroes as paid laborers, and further provided for the colonization of Negroes ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... coming nigh And could not well forbear to cry, Your donkey you must tether. My dainty maiden, Marian, Tether you here your donkey, Jan, ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France

... such a bad plan—for the man." He waited for her to speak; but she had gone the length of her tether in this ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... Norman face; Her large sweet eyes, clear lakes of love. Mary I knew. In former time Ailing and pale, she thought that bliss Was only for a better clime, And, heavenly overmuch, scorn'd this. I, rash with theories of the right, Which stretch'd the tether of my Creed, But did not break it, held delight Half discipline. We disagreed. She told the Dean I wanted grace. Now she was kindest of the three, And soft wild roses deck'd her face. And, what, ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore

... indebted for it to Maryland and Virginia. The powers of those states, whether few or many, prodigies or nullities, have nothing to do with the question. As well thrust in the powers of the Grand Lama to join issue upon, or twist papal bulls into constitutional tether, with which to curb congressional action. The Constitution of the United States gives power to Congress, and takes it away, and it alone. Maryland and Virginia adopted the Constitution before they ceded to the united States the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... will go, Mark. I need not ask Boldero, for he told me that he should look in again at ten o'clock this evening, for he thought that another night's play would probably bring Cotter to the end of his tether." ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... heard the window open and a voice summon the dogs. A loud bellow was the response, which caused Reynard to take himself off in a hurry. A moment more, and the mother turkey would have shared the fate of the geese. There she lay at the end of her tether, with extended wings, bitten and rumpled. The young ones roosted in a row on the fence near by, and had taken flight on ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... go free, or tether him to a pine; in either case he will not wander far," said the girl. "I fear my fellows have gone off to lay in provisions. We have taken a day or two more on the way than we had counted on, so that to-night's feast makes an end of our store. But still there is enough for two. I ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... mind necessary for work. The idea of the pilgrimage was to get away from the endless and nameless circumstances of everyday existence, which by degrees build a wall about the mind so that it travels in a constantly narrowing circle. This tether of the faculties tends to make them accept present knowledge, and present things, as all that can be attained to. This is all— there is nothing more—is the iterated preaching of house-life. Remain; ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... at arm's length, stood a great deal in the way of irregular hours from me, seeing as I would read myself to sleep, and let the light burn all night, although very fussy about the gas-bills. But she had reached the end of her tether, and you could grate a lemon on her most anywhere, she was that covered ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... his horse with the quickness of thought. He had enough presence of mind to tether both his own and Bradby's mount, and then he cautiously parted the bushes. For the moment he could see nothing but a great wall of golden blossoms, and then out of the depths came Bradby's furious voice. He was cursing ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... shall reach The 'Sixthly' in my solemn tether, And show that what is true of each, Is also true ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... like a question, like a petition, catching her breath. The adieu to Venice was her assurance of liberty, but Venice hidden rolled on her the sense of the return and plucked shrewdly at her tether of bondage. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... bettering the plight of convicts. But the diabolical spirit of the prisons sneers at them, and sits undisturbed. Let air and sunshine come to outer courts and clean-swept cells; the star-chambers and the secret dungeons remain. Let the outraged creatures out, to stray to the extent of their honor-tether; they are slaves and prisoners still. There were compassionate reformers in Ancient Egypt, who tried to make the lot of the captive Israelites easier; but the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and God Himself must intervene before he would let the people ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... there and revile me. No family has ever been happier than ours. In four years there has not been a quarrel until to-day. I can assure you that my heart will ache when the time comes to leave you, but I really had got to the end of my tether. I have long felt as if I could not go ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... casual patrons dropped all business to attend the big doings. A long line of buckboards and cattle ponies surrounded the place. Newcomers gallopped in every few moments. Most of them did not stop to tether their mounts, but simply dropped the reins over the heads of the horses and then went with rattling spurs and slouching steps into the saloon. Every man was greeted by a shout, for one or two of those within usually knew him, and when they raised a cry the others joined in for the sake of good fellowship. ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... horror-stricken at this sudden vision of their fabled god, whose fierce features of wood had become flesh; they only turned to fly. He waved his thin hand and they came to a standstill, like animals which have reached the end of their tether and are checked by the chains that bind them. There they stood in all sorts of postures, immovable and looking extremely ridiculous in their paint and feathers, with dread unutterable ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... woman. "You're only matched by the women, who be worse. Did I not tell you, Humphrey Dexter, my Lady Cantire would be no friend to my sweet mistress? 'Twas in vain the silly child tried to wheedle her over. Wheedle the Tether Stake! My lady bade her be civil to the Captain, if she would please her step-dame. And when the maiden put down her little foot at that, she was clapped within walls like a rogue, and fed on bread and water. Little harm ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... of the sweet heaven that sing together; All the years of the green earth that bare man free; Rays and lightnings of the fierce or tender weather, Heights and lowlands, wastes and headlands of the sea, Dawns and sunsets, hours that hold the world in tether, Be our witnesses and seals of things to be. Lo the mother, the Republic universal, Hands that hold time fast, hands feeding men with might, Lips that sing the song of the earth, that make rehearsal Of all seasons, and the sway of day ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Gilnockie," rejoined Margaret, "has come to seek a guid word for Christie's Will, who now lies in Jedburgh jail for stealing a tether, and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... completed his equipment. Beside him, fed among the graves a pony, the companion of his journey, whose extreme whiteness, as well as its projecting bones and hollow eyes, indicated its antiquity. It was harnessed in the most simple manner, with a pair of branks, a hair tether, or halter, and a sunk, or cushion of straw, instead of bridle and saddle. A canvass pouch hung around the neck of the animal, for the purpose, probably, of containing the rider's tools, and any thing else he might ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... in the habit of treating his friend thus almost every day since starting on their tour, he was quite prepared for it; smiled knowingly, ordered the vaquero to tether the mules and accompany him into the forest, and then, taking his bearings with a small pocket-compass, and critically inspecting the sun, and a huge pinchbeck watch which was the faithful companion of his wanderings, he shouldered his gun and went off, leaving the enthusiastic ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne

... Atlanta! But half was spoken; The slave's chains and the master's Alike are broken; The one curse of the races Held both in tether; They are rising—all are rising— The black ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... the chimla?" "That house with the farm-steadings and stacks beside it?" I replied. "Yes." "Then I'd be obleeged if ye wald just stap in as ye'r gaing east the gate, and tell our folk that the stirk has gat fra her tether, an' 'ill brak on the wat clover. Tell them to sen' for her that minute." I undertook the commission; and, passing the endangered stirk, that seemed luxuriating, undisturbed by any presentiment of impending peril, amid ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... the principal eating-room. The provost took possession of one, leaving the other to the soldiers, who went in turn to tether their horses under a shed in the back yard; then he pointed to a stool for the prisoner, and seated himself opposite to him, rapping the table with his ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... bridle of the mare, and tied the end of a light tether rope that he had round her neck to it. I saw her follow him slowly, and turn down a rocky track that seemed to lead straight over ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... door in Edwardes Square, which he refused to enter. I think he was afraid of seeing Viola. I thought at the time that this was because he was aware of her attitude; that he knew she was at the end of her tether, and that he wanted to be righteously fair, to give her time to think about leaving him, if she wanted to leave him; that he was behaving now as he had behaved at Bruges when he stood back and let me have my innings, and gave her her chance to ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... I have caught you fast for ever in a tangle of sweet rhymes. And in your young maiden morn, You may scorn, But you must be Bound and sociate to me; With this thread from out the tomb my dead hand shall tether thee! ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson

... audacious attempt, and in adopting a humbler, a less adventurous, and a more circumspect method. Metaphysic (viewed in its ideal character) aims at nothing but what it can fully overtake. It is quite a mistake to imagine that this science proposes to carry a man beyond the length of his tether. The psychologist, indeed, launches the mind into imaginary spheres; but metaphysic binds it down to the fact, and there sternly bids it to abide. That is the profession of the metaphysican, considered in his beau-ideal. That, too, is the practice (making ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... teachers. They never can tell when 'tis coming. After some holiday, belike, it catches 'em sudden. The new lot of children be no worse than the last, but they get treated worse because the teacher's come to end of tether. You take my advice and ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... canst spend, (Counsel concurring with the end), As well as spare; still conning o'er this theme, To shun the first and last extreme; Ordaining that thy small stock find no breach, Or to exceed thy tether's reach; But to live round, and close, and wisely true To thine own self, and known to few. Thus let thy rural sanctuary be Elysium to thy wife and thee; There to disport your selves with golden measure; ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... libertine, and pettily cruel man. Together with him came two of his ladies: Henrietta the eldest girl in years in the establishment of Anna Markovna, experienced, who had seen everything and had grown accustomed to everything, like an old horse on the tether of a threshing machine, the possessor of a thick bass, but still a handsome woman; and Big Manka, or Manka the Crocodile. Henrietta since still the preceding night had not parted from the actor, who had taken her from the house to ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... To tether a cow, tie her by one hind leg, making the rope fast above the fetlock joint, and protecting the limb with a piece of an old bootleg or similar thing. The knot must be one that will not slip; regular fetters of iron bound with leather ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... one may test for himself by descending in a diving-bell. With regard to the mode of working, it is noteworthy that, instead of moving gradually outward after reaching the bottom, the diver usually gropes at once to the full length of his tether in the required direction, and then works slowly back to the starting-point. He considers this the safer method, partly because it leaves him at the finish directly at the place ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... older man, "because you have not yet reached the end of your tether. Unhappy as you are, you are not unhappy enough. Of the two, you love yourself the more—your pride and ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... invitingly at my own end and even advanced a step or two towards her. She then broke into a long disdainful pace and began to circle round me at the extreme limit of her tether. I stood admiring her free action for some moments—not always turning with her, which was tiring—until I found that she was gradually winding herself up on me! Her frantic astonishment when she suddenly found herself thus brought up against me was one of the most remarkable ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... tether, Free to mortgage or to sell; Wild as wind and light as feather, Bid the sons of ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... poor bullied, baited, nervous Muggins had reached his limit and come to the end of his tether—or thought he had. Bumped, banged, bucketed, thrown, sore from head to foot, raw-kneed, laughed at, lashed by the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major's cruel tongue, blind and sick with dust and pain and rage, he had at last turned his horse inward from his place in the ride to the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... though, perhaps, a remote one, that a morganatic marriage might produce a civil war. And, besides, such a marriage, concluded in defiance of all outward ceremony, is a concession made to women and priests—two classes of persons to whom one should be most careful to give as little tether as possible. It is further to be remarked that every man in a country can marry the woman of his choice, except one poor individual, namely, the prince. His hand belongs to his country, and can be given in marriage only for reasons of State, that is, for the good ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer

... the collie curled up in a miserable heap on the stony ground, the shortness of his tether making even this effort at repose anything but comfortable. And ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... her. His bared head revealed a shock of exquisitely slicked-back red hair. His face was pleasantly ugly—nondescript, yet unmistakably the face of a gentleman and a sportsman. His brown suit was well cut, but perilously near the end of its tether. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... dawn of history millions have perished as forest creatures only; so powerful that there are still remnant races on the globe which have never yet snapped the primitive tether and will become extinct as mere forest creatures to the last; so powerful that those highest races which have been longest out in the open—as our own Aryan race—have never ceased to be reached ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen

... brass, and clasped his golden greaves, his brows yet bare and his sword buckled to his side; he runs down from the fortress height glittering in gold, and exultantly anticipates the foe. Thus when a horse snaps his tether, and, free at last, rushes from the stalls and gains the open plain, he either darts towards the pastures of the herded mares, or bathing, as is his wont, in the familiar river waters, dashes out and neighs with ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... bent. Failing, shortcoming, defect, fault, foible, infirmity. Famous, renowned, celebrated, noted, distinguished, eminent, illustrious. Fashion, mode, style, vogue, rage, fad. Fast, rapid, swift, quick, fleet, speedy, hasty, celeritous, expeditious, instantaneous. Fasten, tie, hitch, moor, tether. Fate, destiny, lot, doom. Fawn, truckle, cringe, crouch. Feign, pretend, dissemble, simulate, counterfeit, affect, assume. Fiendish, devilish, diabolical, demoniacal, demonic, satanic. Fertile, fecund, fruitful, prolific. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... very proud man, Sir Everard Kingsland, and you own a fine fortune and a haughty, handsome wife, and G. W. Parmalee's no more than the mud under your feet. Very well—we'll see! 'Every dog has his day,' and 'the longest lane has its turning,' and you're near about the end of your tether, and George Parmalee has you and your fine lady under his thumb—under his thumb—and he'll crush you, sir—yes, by Heaven, he'll crush you, and strike you back blow ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... back to the beach I saw the Plymouth Battalion as it marched in from the front line. They were quite different excepting only in the fact that they also had done marvels of fighting and endurance. They were done: they had come to the end of their tether. Not only physical exhaustion but moral exhaustion. They could not raise a smile in the whole battalion. The faces of Officers and men had a crushed, utterly finished expression: some of the younger Officers especially had that true funeral set about their lips which spreads the contagion ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... whispered Pargeter. "I should think he's near the end of his tether, eh? Funny how money goes from hand to hand! I don't suppose Florac knows that it's my ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... I heard a cry of distress, and saw that the big one, whose name is Mahmoud, was frightening Eblis, the small one. Eblis ran away, but Mahmoud having got the rope in his hands, pulled it with a jerk each time Eblis got to the length of his tether, and beat him with the slack of it. I went as near to them as I dared, hoping to rescue the little creature, and he tried to come to me, but was always jerked back, the face of Mahmoud showing evil triumph each time. At last Mahmoud snatched up a stout Malacca cane, and dragging Eblis near him, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... me bring her, and the duck with the golden neck, and the salmon with the silver sides, to his cottage; if I shall catch them, I know not. But carry you the roe to the back of the cottage, and tether her so ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... house, the white fleeces gambolling among the shrubbery, have enchanted M. de La Perriere, who, with his innocent eyes, his straggling white beard and the constant nodding of his head, is not himself unlike a goat escaped from its tether. ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... days ago, and says he sees no reason [why] I may not recover my former degree of health. I should like to live to do a little more work, and often I feel sure I shall, and then again I feel that my tether is run out. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... years from their tether, centuries pass like a breath, Only some lives are immortal, challenging darkness and death. Hewn from the stuff of the martyrs, write on the stardust his name, Glowing, untarnished, transcendent, high on the records ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... worth contemporary record. We are reminded, however, that they survived, by an act of equestrian audacity. Mr. Risely, looking down Allan Vale, saw a naked girl dashing off at full speed, on a valuable horse, which she bridled by the tether—the first of her race ever known to gallop. Horsemen pursued her for ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... Bairn is excellent; the Fisherman's Children, after Collins, by C. Rolls, is exquisitely delicate; and the Gleaner, by Finden, after Holmes, has a lovely set of features, which art and fashion may court in vain. But we have outrun our tether, and must ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various

... done, he removed the halter from the ass's neck and proceeded to tether himself to the same tree where the donkey had been tied. Brother Anthony looked on at these queer doings in great amazement, which was not lessened when Brother Timothy broke out into a merry peal of laughter and cried: "Drive the ass before you with your staff to the convent, and, when you ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman

... while tormented Sang as loud the sevenfold storm that roared erewhile Round the towers of Thebes till wrath might rest contented: Sang the flight from smooth soft-sanded banks of Nile, When like mateless doves that fly from snare or tether Came the suppliants landwards trembling as they trod, And the prayer took wing from all their tongues together— King of kings, most holy of holies, blessed God. But what mouth may chant again, what heart may know it, All the rapture that all hearts ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... replied, "the vein is worked out. I have written ghost stories for years now, serious and comic, and I am to-day at the end of my tether—compelled to move ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... after speaking of his recent contributions to the "London Magazine,"—"In the next number I shall figure as a theologian, and have attacked my late brethren, the Unitarians. What Jack-Pudding tricks I shall play next I know not; I am almost at the end of my tether." Talfourd, of course, does not publish the article, or even give its title, which is, "Unitarian Protests." Those who would see how well or how ill Elia figures ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... look up through the open doorway to where the limitless horizon lies beyond Rome's seven hills, I see stretched out before me the long vista of years throughout which my heart will be for ever weaving with threads of longing and of sorrow the tether which binds ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... and in this way the true business of criticism is advanced.' But I have a second safeguard, more to be trusted: that here in Cambridge, with all her traditions of austere scholarship, anyone who indulges in loose distinct talk will be quickly recalled to his tether. Though at the time Athene be not kind enough to descend from heaven and pluck him backward by the hair, yet the very genius loci will walk home with him from the lecture room, whispering monitions, cruel ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... you, meaning to marry you. I do not doubt that, in a way, he loved you, but he wanted your money too, for Rosmore has squandered his possessions for years past, and must be near the end of his tether. Martin declares that it is ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner

... right enough." Then, turning her eyes on my face, she added: "That's what a girl will 'ave, you know, once in a while, and like as not it'll du for her. Only thirty-five now, I am, an' pretty nigh the end o' my tether. What can you expect?—I'm a gay woman. Did for me right enough. Her father's ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... forest, through which a good military road runs. This is the part of the road I should like to show you. Such a night as this promises to be! It will be beautiful. About 11 I reach a hut made of reeds on the very brink of the river, tether the horse, give him a feed, which I carry with me from Papakura, light a fire (taking matches) inside the hut, and try to smoke away mosquitos, lie down in your plaid, Joan—do you remember giving it to me?—and get what sleep I can. To-morrow I work my way home again, the fourth service ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in instinct as a usual thing, but I should advise confidence in this one. A woman with a tremendous will like that of Mrs. Ransom should be allowed a slack tether. The day will arrive when she will come to you herself. This I have said before; I can say nothing ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... man from Iowa, who expected to make it of service in California. The animal was tethered near the camp, and was generally quiet. But to-night he was wakeful, and managed about midnight to slip his tether, and wandered off. Peabody did not observe his escape. His vigilance was somewhat relaxed, and with his head down he gave way to mournful reflection. Suddenly the donkey, who was now but a few rods distant, uplifted his voice in a roar which the night stillness made louder than usual. It ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger

... claims had been driving for a 'gutter.' One of them had got to the end of its tether before ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... full tether; but there are things to say which he knew nothing about. Richard was changed, for all his wild mood of that night; nor was Jehane slow to perceive it. Perhaps, indeed, she was too quick, with her wit oversharpened by her uneasy conscience. But that night she ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... of my tether, and was thinking of warning the hands that the mills may have to shut down at the end ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin



Words linked to "Tether" :   constraint, restraint, attach



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