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Thaw   /θɔ/   Listen
Thaw

noun
1.
The process whereby heat changes something from a solid to a liquid.  Synonyms: melt, melting, thawing.  "The thawing of a frozen turkey takes several hours"
2.
Warm weather following a freeze; snow and ice melt.  Synonyms: thawing, warming.
3.
A relaxation or slackening of tensions or reserve; becoming less hostile.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Thaw" Quotes from Famous Books



... and poor alike upon; Clogging up the bronchial tubes Of the Urbans and the Roobs; Opening for all your grip With its lavish stores of pip; Scattering along your route Little gifts of Epizoot; Time of slush and time of thaw, Time of hours mild and raw; Blowing cold and blowing hot; Stable as a Hottentot; Coaxing flowers from the close Just to nip them on the nose; Calling birdies from their nests For to freeze their little chests; Springtime in the morning bright, With a blizzard on at night; Chills ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... anxiety grew apace. He was little more talkative than the painted devil chaser on the blackened canvas of his tepee, but he gave David to understand that he would have a hard time getting back with his dogs and sledge from Fond du Lac if the thaw came earlier than he had anticipated. David marvelled at the old warrior's endurance, and especially when they crossed the forty miles of ice on Wollaston Lake between dawn and darkness. At high noon the snow was beginning to soften on the sunny slopes even then, and by the time ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... aid; took Miss Grey's limp form, laid it on a lounge, and some set to work to restore her, while others helped Harry to free himself from snow and thaw himself out. ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller

... of dung.' Now, that was precisely the course of thought with this old censorious Cato: So long as Greek offered, or seemed to offer, nothing but philosophy or poetry, he was clamorous against Greek; but he began to thaw and melt a little upon the charms of Greek—he 'owned the soft impeachment,' when he heard of some Grecian treatises upon beans and turnips; and, finally, he sank under its voluptuous seductions, when he heard of others upon DUNG. There are, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... eighty were gathered at the ruined village. Couriers had been sent to rouse the country, and before evening of the next day (the first of March) the force at Deerfield was increased to two hundred and fifty; but a thaw and a warm rain had set in, and as few of the men had snow-shoes, pursuit was out of the question. Even could the agile savages and their allies have been overtaken, the probable consequence would have been the murdering of the captives to prevent ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... all winter long the citizens had been throwing garbage into their back yards, to be cleaned up in spring. The recent thaw had disclosed heaps of ashes, dog-bones, torn bedding, clotted paint-cans, all half covered by the icy pools which filled the hollows of the yards. The refuse had stained the water to vile colors of waste: thin red, sour yellow, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... bare And black along the turbid brook; When catkined willows blurred and shook Great tawny tangles in the air; In bottomlands, the first thaw makes An oozy bog, beneath the trees, Prophetic of the spring that wakes, Sang the ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein

... talking as if Dal were just another classmate. Tiger's open friendliness had been like a spring breeze to Dal who was desperately lonely in this world of strangers; their friendship had grown rapidly, and gradually others in the class had begun to thaw enough at least to be civil when Dal was around. Dal had sensed that this change of heart was largely because of Tiger and not because of him, yet he had welcomed it as a change from the previous intolerable coldness even though it left him feeling vaguely uneasy. Tiger was well liked by ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse

... reached the Hudson, and found the place where two paths diverged, the one for Albany and the other for Schenectady, they all without farther words took the latter. Indeed, to attempt Albany would have been an act of desperation. The march was horrible. There was a partial thaw, and they waded knee-deep through the half melted snow, and the mingled ice, mud, and water of the gloomy swamps. So painful and so slow was their progress, that it was nine days more before they reached a point two leagues ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... bombarded the German fortifications on the Belgian coast, from Zeebrugge to Ostend, for two hours on November 30, 1915. The weather suddenly changed on the entire western front. Rain, mist, and thaw imposed a check on the operations, which simmered down to artillery bombardments at isolated points. For the next three months the combatants settled down to the exciting monotony of a winter campaign, making themselves as comfortable as possible, strengthening their positions, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... there looking out; and all round him was the eternal drip, drip of the thaw. The wind lulled, and again the minute-bell tolled out clear and inexorable, resolute to recall what was and what ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... frae the clud when it 's shaken, And melts into dew ere it fa's on the bracken, Oh sae pure is the heart I hae won to my keepin'! But warm as the sun-blink that thaw'd it to weepin'! ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... swollen by the spring thaw and rains, had overflowed its banks, and was swirling around willows and poplars. It was not deep, and the water flashed in the moonlight as it rippled over the stones. There was a smell of fresh-cut logs. We looked beyond a sawmill into a gorge of pines that ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... being clear, it was never quite dark. Our horses were kept, or rather starved, underground; and as for our servants, whom we hired here to look after ourselves and horses, we had, every now and then, their fingers and toes to thaw and take care of, lest they should mortify and ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... became more amiable, and the young wife, clinging to vain hopes, also became more cheerful. The thaw had not yet set in and a hard, smooth, glittering covering of snow extended over the landscape. Neither men nor animals were to be seen; only the chimneys of the cottages gave evidence of life in the smoke that ascended from ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... arrived in great abundance, and as much progress is made in getting them up as could be hoped for, considering that there has been a very heavy fall of snow, and that a thaw has followed it, and the extremely limited means of conveyance ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... better that he should find his house chopped a little when the thaw comes," said Elizabeth Eliza, "than that he should find us lying about the house, dead of hunger, upon ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale

... may have lain, or will lie here, is a point not easily determined. Such ice is found in the Greenland seas all the summer long; and I think it cannot be colder there in the summer, than it is here. Be this as it may, we certainly had no thaw; on the contrary, the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer kept generally below the freezing point, although it was the ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... subject (which should only be broached in the wilds of Cornwall, or other equally primitive spots), of course you can speak of a hard frost being "an ice day for a hunting-man, although he is sure to swear at it." If the weather breaks, you may observe, "You thaw so," but not when you have to shout the quibble through the ear-trumpet of a deaf old maid. And this, with the other witticisms recorded above, should carry you (by desire) into ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various

... just finished lunch—I was sitting alone by the window thinking of my uncle's release—outside there was the steam and glitter of an April thaw—when all at once my aunt, Pelageya Petrovna, walked into the room. She was at all times restless and fidgetty, she spoke in a shrill voice and was always waving her arms about; on this occasion she simply pounced ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... A rapid thaw set in, and up through the vanishing whiteness dawned the dark colours of the wintry landscape. For a day or two the soft wet snow lay mixed with water over all the road. After that came mire and dirt. But it was still so far off spring, that nobody cared to be ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... from Amsterdam, and imagined they were on the eve of dictating to all Europe: the churches were ordered to toll their only bell, and the gasconades of the bulletin were uncommonly pompous—but the novelty of the event has now subsided, and the conquest of Holland excites less interest than the thaw. Public spirit is absorbed by private necessities or afflictions; people who cannot procure bread or firing, even though they have money to purchase it, are little gratified by reading that a pair of their Deputies ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... Tilghman, "lissen! You 'cept a word of frien'ship an' warnin' f'um somebody dat's been kicked by more mules 'en whut you ever seen in yore whole life, an' you let dat Frank mule stay right whar he is. You kin have yore choice of de Maud mule or de Maggie mule or Friday or January Thaw; but my edvice to you is, jes' leave dat Frank mule be an' ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... familiarity from strangers, and Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular child. Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted Brandis, a subaltern of the 195th, on sight. Brandis was having tea at the Colonel's, and Wee Willie Winkie entered strong in the possession of a good-conduct badge won for not chasing the hens round the compound. He regarded Brandis with gravity for at least ten minutes, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... jovial and chatty. Sour, starchy individuals, who all the rest of the day go about looking as if they lived on vinegar and Epsom salts, break out into wreathed smiles after dinner, and exhibit a tendency to pat small children on the head and to talk to them—vaguely—about sixpences. Serious men thaw and become mildly cheerful, and snobbish young men of the heavy-mustache type forget to make ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... I went to school in spite of my bare feet. Often the ground would be frozen, and often there would be snow. My feet would crack and bleed freely, but when I reached home Mother would have a tub full of hot water ready to plunge me into and thaw me out. Although this caused my feet and legs to swell, it usually got me into shape for school the ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... an imprisonment, and witnessing some of his party condemned, and some executed, after having long sustained the most elevated and rigid tone, suddenly let his alp of ice dissolve away in the gentlest thaw that ever occurred in political life. Ambitious he was, but not of martyrdom! His party appeared once formidable,[410] and his protection at Court sure. I have read several letters of the Earl of Leicester, in MS., that show he always shielded Cartwright, whenever in danger. Many of the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... The River-Dragon tamed at length submits To let his Sojourners depart, and oft Humbles his stubborn Heart; but still as Ice More harden'd after Thaw, till in his Rage Pursuing whom he late dismissed, the Sea Swallows him with his Host, but them lets pass As on dry Land between two Chrystal Walls, Aw'd by the Rod of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... however, was a task not to be attempted; and the Auld Lichts, at least, rested content when enough light got into their workshops to let them see where their looms stood. Wading through beds of snow they did not much mind; but they wondered what would happen to their houses when the thaw came. ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... they were such good friends, he and the boys, that he was down on all-fours playing horses with them, and did some quite new tricks which they thought extremely amusing; he then invited them to come for a drive the next day. After a thaw, there had been an unusually heavy fall of snow; the town was white and the state of the ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... his body, a terrible relaxing, a thaw, a decay of strength. Without knowing, he had let go his grip, and Gudrun had fallen to her knees. Must he see, must ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... 12.—Away we set, and came safely to Abbotsford amid all the dulness of a great thaw, which has set the rivers a-streaming in full tide. The wind is wintry, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... of the cold spells of last winter the gas-meter in my cellar was frozen. I attempted to thaw it out by pouring hot water over it, but after spending an hour upon the effort I emerged from the contest with the meter with my feet and trousers wet, my hair full of dust and cobwebs and my temper at fever heat. After studying how I should get rid of the ice in the meter, I concluded to ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... and beneficial in operation. No lakes are interposed between the mountain torrents of the upper basis of the Tigris and the Euphrates and their lower courses. Hence, heavy rain, or an unusually rapid thaw in the uplands, gives rise to the sudden irruption of a vast volume of water which not even the rapid Tigris, still less its more sluggish companion, can carry off in time to prevent violent and dangerous overflows. Without an elaborate ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... in its hole, and because spring will find a way, even down in the bargain basement of the Titanic Store, which is far below the level of the mole, Sadie Barnet, who had never seen a wood anemone and never sniffed of thaw or the wet wild smell of violets, felt the blood rise in her veins like sap, and across the aisle behind the white-goods counter Max Meltzer writhed in his woolens, and Sadie Barnet, presiding over a bin of specially priced mill-ends out mid-aisle between the white goods and the muslin underwear, ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... which had long lain dormant rather than dead within me had almost overwhelmed me; and the hardness which had its origin in the bitterness of conscious dependence, and which had gained strength from the pride of self-acquired independence, began to thaw in my heart, and to give way to milder and ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... calf not more than five days old, and had driven it down into the marsh. There he had chased it back and forth over the knolls—not with the idea of capturing it, but merely for the sport of seeing how he could scare it. The elk cow knew that the marsh was bottomless so soon after the thaw, and that it could not as yet hold up so large an animal as herself, so she stood on the solid earth for the longest time, watching! But when Karr kept chasing the calf farther and farther away, she rushed out on the marsh, drove the dog off, took the calf with her, ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... has been occupied with exploring the house, sending for food and supplies, trying to thaw the rooms, moving furniture to make things homelike, and trying to arrive at ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various

... at night, and the meadow grass turns dry and wan. The last lilac crocuses die upon the fields. Icicles, hanging from watercourse or mill-wheel, glitter in the noonday sunlight. The wind blows keenly from the north, and now the snow begins to fall and thaw and freeze, and fall and thaw again. The seasons are confused; wonderful days of flawless purity are intermingled with storm and gloom. At last the time comes when a great snowfall has to be expected. There is hard frost in the early morning, and at nine o'clock the thermometer stands at 2 deg.. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... and leave. Others are sitting in the school-room looking at pictures and talking a very little, but it is rather stiff. The door opens and in walk the Doctor and Agency Clerk. No more stiffness after this. Those would be hard hearts indeed that would not thaw in the presence of these genial countenances. Other white people come. The Captain with his family take supper. He also brings in some of the outsiders who are looking in at the windows, and pays for their suppers. The Issue Clerk is quick to see ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various

... surface. Of course it is too late now to talk about fall preparation. If we want a crop of onions from seed this spring, whatever preparation there is must be done between now and seeding. I should plow or spade up the soil as soon as possible, if there is a thaw out either the last of this or any part ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... I won't; that's as saucy little Presto takes the humour.—At night. I walked in the Park to-day in spite of the weather, as I do always when it does not actually rain. Do you know what it has gone and done? We had a thaw for three days, then a monstrous dirt and snow, and now it freezes, like a pot-lid, upon our snow. I dined with Lady Betty Germaine, the first time since I came for England; and there did I sit, like a booby, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... in this; and flattery (we are told) will warm the most austere of authors—which Staff was not. He said "Oh!" and smiled his slow, wry smile; and Mr. Iff, remarking these symptoms of a thaw with interest and encouragement, ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... Indian. "It looks like thaw, but the Great Spirit sometimes changes his mind, and sends what we ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne

... whispered the voice, and he began crawling along the gutter through the trickling thaw, pressing himself against the wall. They continued along it for some minutes. He seemed to pass through a hundred stages of misery, to pass minute after minute through a hundred degrees of cold, damp, and ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... Northern, North Eastern, and North Western parts of Asia and Europe. It is therefore possible that the Tartars, at different Periods, might have been driven on that Coast, and people the Country. Some Tartars hunting upon the Ice, on a sudden Thaw, might be carried on the Ice to America, from whence they could ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams

... this care it seemed strange the sick girl did not get well; yet such was the case. She wasted like any snow-wreath in thaw; she faded like any flower in drought. Miss Keeldar, on whose thoughts danger or death seldom intruded, had at first entertained no fears at all for her friend; but seeing her change and sink from time to time when she paid her visits, alarm clutched her heart. She went to Mr. Helstone and expressed ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... follow with my eye the effects of the vacuum on the Colonel. I was entirely prevented from shutting the windows of my laboratory, from fear that a too elevated temperature might put an end to the lethargy of the subject, or induce some change in the fluids. If a thaw had come on, all would have been over with my experiment. But the thermometer kept for several days between six and eight degrees below zero, and I was very happy in seeing the lethargic sleep continue, without having to fear ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... mist of dull gray clouds that clung in rings about the street lamps like the damp fog of a typical February thaw, yet it was the last day of October. Such weather was uncanny. It added to the strange feeling of impending calamity which had been hanging over the business world during the summer and had broken at last into the fierce storms ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... during the night. Flocks of snow-birds (the harbingers of cold in autumn, and heat in spring) begin to appear, and soon the whirring wings of the white partridge may be heard among the snow-encompassed willows. The first thaw generally takes place in April; and May is characterised by melting snow, disruption of ice, and the arrival of the ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... welcomed us as Eskimos always do, most cordially. Our two drivers, who followed me with the wood we had brought, made a fire in a small sheet-iron tent stove kept in the shack by the missionaries for their use when traveling, and on it we placed our kettle full of ice for tea, and our sandwiches to thaw, for they were frozen as hard as bullets. One of the old women was half dead with consumption, and constantly spitting, and when we saw her turning our sandwiches on the stove ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... strange figure of a man, they thought, as Dan led him to the fire to thaw himself out. He was scarcely more than five and a half feet in height, with tiny hands and feet almost out of proportion even to his diminutive size. He was an old man, they would have said, though his movements were quick and agile as if he were set up on springs. ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold

... frost. Sudden changes in the barometer are followed by like changes in weather. The slow rise of the mercury predicts fair weather, and a slow fall, the contrary. During the frosty days the drop of the mercury is followed by a thaw ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... what time of day it wuz, pretendin' his watch had stopped, I looked full and cold in his face for several minutes before I sez in icy axents, "I don't know!" Every word fallin' from my lips like ice-suckles from a ruff in a January thaw, and then I turned my back and ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley

... Rinda reminds us of Jupiter's wooing of Danae, who is also a symbol of the earth; and while the shower of gold in the Greek tale is intended to represent the fertilising sunbeams, the footbath in the Northern story typifies the spring thaw which sets in when the sun has overcome the resistance of the frozen earth. Perseus, the child of this union, has many points of resemblance with Vali, for he, too, is an avenger, and slays his mother's enemies just as surely ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... reconcile their convictions with their actions—a conflict which becomes a source of torture to themselves and those about them. The Ice-Floe (1892) was a powerful drama, in which the sudden thaw, destroying what has been, but bringing with it a breath of the spring and the new life to come, admirably symbolized the passing of the old order. But it was not until the following year, which saw the publication of his Youth, that Halbe attracted serious attention outside ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... spiders are seen running about much, fighting with one another and preparing new webs, there will be cold weather within the next nine days, or from that to twelve: when they again hide themselves there will be a thaw. I have no doubt that much of this power of prophesying the weather is due to a perception of certain atmospheric conditions which escape ourselves, but this perception can only have relation to a certain actual and now present condition of the ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... day or two to thaw out and mend bruises, and then ran over to Martigny, crossed the Grand St. Bernard, the St. Gotthard, and the Grimsel passes, spent a week in William Tell's country, prowling about the ruins of old castles and the sites ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... officer's face was sufficient; he pressed his hand in silence, and led him to a place by the side of the baroness. An animated discussion now began concerning the weather, which was completely changed; a strong south wind had risen in the night, so there was now a thaw. The snow was all melted—the torrents were flowing once more, and the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... lofty wilderness the snow lies deep for several months of the year, but as soon as it begins to thaw it disappears rapidly, when, as in Switzerland, Nature's garden immediately blossoms forth in all its glory. It must be confessed, however, that the carpet of Alpine flowers on the Norwegian high-fjelds ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman

... Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly, 10 Drips the soaking rain, By fits looks down the waking sun: Young grass springs on the plain; Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees; Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits, Swollen with sap put forth their shoots; Curled-headed ferns sprout ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... 42 numbers, and take therefore 8 drawn ballots, being equal to 15 in 75. He then placed in R.H. Gillet's hand 42 tickets, which he declared contained the drawn numbers, where any 3 numbers should be upon a ticket. Having explained satisfactorily his intentions, he requested Mr. J. Thaw to act as his commissioner, Mr. Thaw being well known as a gentleman ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... more widely known from the number of persons who were astonished at beholding it. In a certain year, it happened that such a quantity of snow had fallen from heaven, so great was the extent of the thaw when the sun melted it, that the water covered all the ground, and grew to the dimensions of a lake, which, spreading into the village, inundated all the houses, putting even that of Patrick in the greatest danger. But he, being then only ten ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... "To thaw them out," replied Dame Louisa; "they will very likely be wholly or partly frozen, and I have always heard that cold water was the only remedy ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... fifty feet long, to interrogate it, and see what I could make of it, by a cool, confidential proximity and examination. The ice was porous and spongy, as I have seen it on the shores of the Connecticut, when beginning to thaw out under the influence of a spring sun. I could see the little drops of water percolating in a thousand tiny streams through it, and dropping down on every side. Putting my ear to it, I could hear a fine musical trill and ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... annual round, Bids Zephyr breathe the Spring, and thaw the ground; Bleak Winter flies, new verdure clothes the plain, And earth assumes her transient youth again. Dream I, or also to the Spring belong Increase of Genius, and new pow'rs of song? Spring gives them, and, how strange soere it seem, ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton

... charity! She did not take the first announcement of his coming very amiably; but when I told her she was to reign in the nursery, and take care the poor little chief know the sound of a Scots' tongue, she began to thaw; and when he came into the house, pity or loyalty, or both, flamed up hotly, and have quite relieved me; for at first she made a baby of me, and was a perfect dragon of jealousy at poor Ailie's doing anything for me. It was a rich scene when Rachel began ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... least sympathy in my companions; but just as it would begin to feel comfortable once more, some one would run up and tell me, "Tling-yack quark" (Nose frozen), at the same time pressing a warm hand against it to thaw it out. The person who has the frozen nose is almost invariably surprised when informed of the fact. During winter travel people always have each other's noses and cheeks in charge, and one readily acquires the habit of occasionally taking hold of his nose, ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... like. One by one, at first shyly, and then with growing confidence as deserters from the opposition grew more numerous, the old friends returned, to be followed by many new ones. The younger generation being won over, their elders began to thaw and to exchange kindly greetings, and now and then we were invited to see their hut or tent, or to sit down outside for ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... ears at this, soon she and the newcomer had their heads together, and within a few minutes Gray realized that his experiment was a success. The stranger possessed enthusiasm, but it was coupled with common sense, and before her sunshiny smile even Allegheny's sullen distrust slowly began to thaw. She drew Gray aside finally, and said: "It's all right. They're perfect dears, and, now, the best thing you can do ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens

... March 15. I was conscious of my existence again on Sunday, April 1st. I opened my eyes and saw that there was a thaw. That was the first thing of which I was aware—that water was apparently dripping on every side of me. It is a strange sensation to lie on your bed very weak, and very indifferent, and to feel the world turning to moisture all about you.... My ramshackle habitation ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... the standard Of my prerogative in being a creature, A mist hangs o'er mine eyes, the sun's bright splendour Is clouded in an everlasting shadow. Welcome, thou ice that sit'st about my heart, No heat can ever thaw thee. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... of the old man shrank sensitively within him for a moment. Then he said to himself, "He will know of it some day, and I may as well tell him." For the heart that had been frozen for years this youth had had power to thaw. ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... get your long chatty letter, and to hear that you are thawing towards science. I almost wish you had remained frozen rather longer; but do not thaw too quickly and strongly. No one can work long as you used to do. Be idle; but I am a pretty man to preach, for I cannot be idle, much as I wish it, and am never comfortable except when at work. The ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... death. A great many contracted asthmas and other diseases of the lungs, by inhaling steam. Most of the bridges were swept away by the sudden melting of the snows, and large stores of provisions were spoiled by the unexpected appearance and violent character of the thaw. These may be enumerated among the unpleasant consequences. Among the pleasant, we esteem a final and agreeable melioration of the climate, which regained most of its ancient character, and a rapid and distinct elongation of our caudtz, by a sudden ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... brought on by cold south-east winds; if these are accompanied with rain in winter, which, however, rarely happens, it would sometimes turn to sleet or even snow, or else to hard freezing at night. The snow would, however, thaw with the warmth of the sun, and so restore the temperature as before. The bracing quality of the climate mostly consists just in those variations of cool nights and warm days, and the occasional days of comparatively cold, boisterous weather. The latter ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... beauty, he had a passionate craze for music, and played upon the violin and flute with considerable taste and execution. The sound of a favourite melody operated upon the breathing automaton like magic, his frozen faculties experienced a sudden thaw, and the stream of life leaped and gambolled for a while with uncontrollable vivacity. He laughed, danced, sang, and made love in a breath, committing a thousand mad vagaries to make you acquainted with ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... been able to keep so large a fire as usual, on account of the smoke being driven back again by the wind, it froze so hard in the house, that the walls and the floor were covered with ice to the depth of two fingers, even in the cots where these poor people were sleeping. It was necessary to thaw the sherry, when it was served out, as was done every two days, at the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... first fine afternoon to walk over to Brail. It was more than three miles by the road, but she was a famous walker. The lanes were still impassable on account of the thaw; February had set in with unusual mildness: the snow had melted, the little lake at Woodcote was no longer a sheet of blue ice, and Eiderdown and Snowflake were dabbling joyously with their yellow bills in the water and their soft ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... of the most charming appearance. They overtook us on a stretch of heath, reined up as they came alongside, and accompanied us for perhaps a quarter of an hour before they galloped off again across the hillsides to our left. Great was my amazement to find the unconquerable Mr. Sim thaw immediately on the accost of this strange gentleman, who hailed him with a ready familiarity, proceeded at once to discuss with him the trade of droving and the prices of cattle, and did not disdain to take a pinch from the inevitable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... caught his eager, questioning, and almost appealing glance, but he made no advances. "He thinks I am angry because of his keen criticism of my picture. For the sake of my own pride, I must not let him think that I care so much about his opinion;" and Christine resolved to let some of the ice thaw that had formed between them. Moreover, in spite of herself, when she was thrown into his society, he greatly interested her. He seemed to have just what she had not. He could meet her on her own ground in matters of taste, and ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... by the enchaining frost; and icicles, or, as old-fashioned people call them, aglets, of three or four feet long, ornament the overhanging ledges, prone to fall to the beach—far, far below—when a thaw releases them from their present stations. But the air is so very keen that nothing but the briskness of our walk, and the enlivenment of an occasional spell of snow-balling, in which the seniors are tempted to join the juniors, prevent ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various

... above the microscopic vision and punctiform sensibility of those who think themselves practical, that speculative natures seem to be proclaiming another set of interests, another and quite miraculous life, when they attempt to thaw out and vivify the vulgar mechanism; and the sense of estrangement and contradiction often comes over the spiritually minded themselves, making them confess sadly that the kingdom of heaven is not of this world. As common morality itself falls easily into mythical expressions and speaks of a fight ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... saw a crag, a lofty stone As ever tempest beat! Out of its head an Oak had grown, A Broom out of its feet. The time was March, a cheerful noon—15 The thaw wind, with the breath of June, Breathed gently from the warm south-west: When, in a voice sedate with age, This Oak, a giant and a sage, [2] His neighbour ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... as it greased; the girls mostly stayed away—the Babbletown girls, for they had guilty consciences, I suspect; and in February there came a thaw. I stood looking out of the store window one day; the snow had melted in the street, and right over the stones that had been laid across the road for a walk, there was a great puddle of muddy water about two yards wide and ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... of thaw before morning, Jem?"—looking anxiously up into the night, as they rested the bucket on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... all they had experienced but little decent weather thus far; that would come, they hoped, when they managed to get further along in the direction of Dixie, where the warm breezes would thaw them out, and allow of lying on the deck taking ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne

... tea,' said Alma, 'and warm yourself at the fire. You will thaw presently, Mr. Thistlewood. I suppose, like other unregenerate men, you live in rooms? Has that kind of life an ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... its warm touch upon their backs, and there were hard black shadows upon the sand in front of them. The Dervishes loosened their cloaks and proceeded to talk cheerily among themselves. The prisoners also began to thaw, and eagerly ate the doora which was served out for their breakfasts. A short halt had been called, and a cup ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle

... with the sweat of the thaw; they gave out a sour, sickly smell. Grey smears of damp dulled the polished lid of ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... broken, but it was cracking in all directions under this unexampled thaw. The two had clearly indicated a mutual suspicion of each other's industrious habits after dinner.... They had never got quite so far as this before: some quarrel had congealed the surface again. But now, with a desperate disagreement just behind them, and the unusual luxury of a taxi just in ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... ecliptic of thy life; Revolve upon another axis, man; Let love, the sun of life, beam meltingly Upon thy heart and thaw it into happiness. ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith

... palaeontologists produce fossil remains of marsupials or kangaroos. As for the polar conditions, when going round for snipes I constantly saw these in miniature. The planing action of ice was shown in the ditches, where bridges of ice had been formed; these slipping, with a partial thaw, smoothed the grasses and mars of teazles in the higher part of the slope, and then lower down, as the pressure increased, cut away the earth, exposing the roots of grasses, and sometimes the stores of acorns laid up by mice. Frozen ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... With the spring thaw came a freshet. It came suddenly, at the end of the week; every river and stream rising into a full tide of insurrection with the melting snows of Saturday, and Saturday night bridges and mill dams went by the board. Among the rest, one of the railway ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... dory turning over, or a gunboat dropping on to you. Then there was a good deal of very genuine excitement to be got out of placer-mining in British Columbia, especially when there was frost in the ranges, and you had to thaw out your giant-powder. Shallow alluvial workings have a way of caving in when you least expect it of them. After all, however, I think I like the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... languishing behaviour, and the easily deciphered character of a sorrowfull face, that despaire began now to threaten him destruction, she grew content both to pitie him, and let him see shee pitied him. * * * by making her owne beautifull beames to thaw away the ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... the Bactrian camel is the beginning and end of winter, when frost and thaw occur alternately. At such times of the year the snow falls thickly, is partially melted in the daytime, and at night freezes on the surface into a thin cake of ice. Through this crust the feet of the camel break, and the animal cuts ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... on it, would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her: She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jester, and that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me: She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]

... themselves and separated. Harry and his lady strolled off to secluded byways in the forest, so that they might discourse of their loves and digest their dinner. Tom had all the morning been waiting for this happy moment; he had counted on the expansive effect of a full stomach to thaw his Liza's coldness, and he had pictured himself sitting on the grass with his back against the trunk of a spreading chestnut-tree, with his arm round his Liza's waist, and her head resting affectionately on his ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham

... Tweedledee doesn't come and relieve me soon I shall die of frostbite and boredom." The India-rubber Man was moving towards the hatchway. "And if you're going along to the bathroom, for pity's sake see there's some hot water left that I can sit and thaw in." ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... denizen of the north, his accent harsh, skin white, of an angular and bony build, and self-confident and dogmatic in his opinions. The precision and quaintness of his language, as well as his eccentric remarks on common things, stimulated my mind. Our icy islanders thaw rapidly when they have drifted into warmer latitudes: broken loose from its anti-social system, mystic castes, coteries, sets, and sects, they lay aside their purse-proud, tuft-hunting, and toadying ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... into craters? Atmosphere is gas, great in volume, small in matter; where would there be room for it? Solidified by the intense cold? Possibly in the night time. But would not the heat of the long day be great enough to thaw it back again? The same trouble attends the alleged disappearance of the water. Swallowed up in the cavernous cracks, it is said. But why are there cracks? Cooling is not always attended by cracking. Water cools without cracking; cannon balls cool without cracking. Too much stress ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... fashionable intelligence of the popular New York Sunday editions, and one finds a good deal of confirmatory evidence in many incidental aspects of the smart American life of Paris and the Riviera. The evidence in the notorious Thaw trial, after one has discounted its theatrical elements, was still a very convincing demonstration of a rotten and extravagant, because aimless and functionless, class of rich people. But one has to be careful in this matter if one is to do justice to the facts. If a thing is made up ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... crismatory, hally bread, the rest omit ay will, Whilt hally fathers did invent fre awd antiquity, Be new received inte awr kirks with great solemnity. Bay these thaugh lemen been apprest, the clargy all het gean, Far te awr sents theis affer yifts all whilk we sall receive: Awr hally mass, thaw thea bay dere, thea de it but in vain, Far thaw ther frends frea Purgatory te help thea dea believe, Yet af ther hope, gif need rewhayre,[41] it wawd theam all deceive. Sea wawd awr pilgrimage, reliques, trentals, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... set in and it was remembered by New Yorkers as the hardest in many years. Miss Husted declared it was the coldest in her experience, for the plumber's presence was constantly required to thaw out the frozen pipes. Certainly Von Barwig remembered it because he had to wrap blankets around him to keep warm while he was copying music at a few cents a page. He had other uses for the money that coal would cost; besides it was very expensive. So he preferred to write in bed ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... available; we have blood and a beat at the heart, yet it does not circulate freely, and Nature to every man is a double of himself, so that the universe seems also cold in extremities, as though there were too little original life to fill her veins. The poet is not fire on the hearth to thaw this numbness by foreign heat. He rubs and rouses us to activity, drags us to the open air, puts us on a glowing chase, provokes us to race and climb with him till we also are thoroughly alive. No other gift of his is worth much beside this hope of reaching his side. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... SILVER-THAW. The term for ice falling in large flakes from the sails and rigging, consequent on a frost followed ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... "Thunderer" in open opposition affrights a true Titan less than a treacherous Thersites in one's own camp. But, JOHNNIE, we've got to build up this Snow Man somehow, and on some plan! I only hope (entre nous, JOHNNIE) that a thaw won't set in, and melt it out of form and feature ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... broke down. His work had been almost incessant. The cold in the tent had, at night, been extreme; and, having been wetted to the skin one day, when a sudden thaw came on, his clothes had been frozen stiff when, at nightfall, the frost returned with even greater severity than before. In spite of the cloaks and blankets that Karl heaped upon his bed, he shivered all night, and in the ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... it is gone, the snow melts and dissolves into water, and instantly loses its whiteness, occasioned by a mixture of this spirit with a frothy moisture. Therefore at the same time, by the help of these clothes, the cold is kept in, and the external air is shut out, lest it should thaw the concrete body of the snow. The reason why they make use of cloth that has not yet been at the fuller's is this, because that in such cloth the hair and coarse flocks keep it off from pressing too hard upon the snow, and bruising it. So chaff lying lightly upon it does not dissolve ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... in the morning, the weather at last cleared, and the wind fell to a light breeze from the same quarter as before. We had a fine warm day; and, as we now began to expect a thaw, the men were employed in breaking the ice from off the rigging, masts, and sails, in order to prevent its falling on our heads. At noon, being in the latitude of 52 deg. 44', and the longitude of 159 deg., the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... them with verses and commendatory songs, as we do statues with gold, that they may be remembered and admired of all." Ancient men will dote in this kind sometimes as well as the rest; the heat of love will thaw their frozen affections, dissolve the ice of age, and so far enable them, though they be sixty years of age above the girdle, to be scarce thirty beneath. Jovianus Pontanus makes an old fool rhyme, and turn poetaster to please ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... for the morrow and more and more poisoned by hard and bitter thoughts. The days and weeks passed and soon I felt the breath of warmer winds. On the open places the snow began to thaw. In spots the little rivulets of water appeared. Another day I saw a fly or a spider awakened after the hard winter. The spring was coming. I realized that in spring it was impossible to go out from the forest. Every river overflowed its banks; the ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... this year that it froze hard twelve or fourteen hours every day, while from eleven o'clock in 'the morning till nearly four, the sun shone as brightly as possible, and it was too hot about mid-day for walking! Yet in the shade it did not thaw for an instant. This cold weather was all the more sharp because the air was purer and clearer, and the sky continually of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... and at last a thaw set in. The ice and snow began to melt. The brooks and rivulets swiftly carried the ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne

... now came from what, in our northern latitudes, we esteem a colder quarter, it was ever so much warmer here, on account of its passing over the warm pampas of the Plate before reaching us, the effect of which soon became apparent in the melting of the snow on the ground as rapidly as when a thaw takes place at home. Properly speaking, however, the snow rather may be said to have dried up than melted, for it was absorbed by the air, which was dry ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... deprived of a publisher for his "Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confession" by threats of immediate prosecution; the newspapers meanwhile dedicate thousands of columns to the filthy amusements of Harry Thaw. George Moore's "Memoirs of My Dead Life" are bowdlerized, James Lane Allen's "A Summer in Arcady" is barred from libraries, and a book by D. H. Lawrence is forbidden publication altogether; at ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... is outwardly hard, and a trifle bitter, but I fancy sunshine would thaw her. There has not been much happiness in ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro

... which had frozen his features when she seized the revolver in his hand; would it still sit there, too distant and detached to be even scornful? Would she have it to break down; must she, with the fire of her own affection, thaw out an entrance through his icy aloofness? What cost of humiliation would be the price, and would even any price be accepted? She could not know; she could only hope and pray ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead

... dinner ... that Tennyson began to thaw, and to take a more active part in conversation. People who have not known him then, have hardly known him at all. During the day he was often very silent and absorbed in his own thoughts, but in the evening he took an active part in the conversation of ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb



Words linked to "Thaw" :   state change, dethaw, deice, weather, phase change, physical change, atmospheric condition, de-ice, deliquesce, flux, liquify, melting, weather condition, defrost, phase transition, liquefy, conditions, loosening, relaxation, heating, slackening



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