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Pincers   Listen
noun
Pincers  n. pl.  See Pinchers.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pincers" Quotes from Famous Books



... and Pincers, all bone, the implements of an eminent Chiropedist, who flourished his tools before the flood. (Owing to the excessive unevenness of the surface in those times, the diluvians were ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... story written by the articles that they contained when they were found. Thus, when there were discovered in a suite of rooms opening on the Street of Herculaneum, certain levers one of which ended in the foot of a pig, along with hammers, pincers, iron rings, a wagon-spring, the felloe of a wheel, one could say without being too bold that there had been the shop of a wagon-maker or blacksmith. The forge occupied only one apartment, behind which opened a bath-room ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... with his country's dead:—his footsteps reel On the fresh blood—he smiles. 'Ay, now I feel 3860 I am a King in truth!' he said, and took His royal seat, and bade the torturing wheel Be brought, and fire, and pincers, and the hook, And scorpions, that his soul on ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... make a rush for the wretched Snail, who, in his despair, alternately puts out and withdraws his horns. Three of them at a time, then four, then five begin by devouring the edge of his mantle, specked with chalky atoms. This is the favourite morsel. With their mandibles, those stout pincers, they lay hold of it through the froth; they tug at it, tear off a shred and retire to a distance to swallow ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... crawfish by actual measurement fifty centimetres long, but these were not considered remarkable. Many are said to much exceed two feet from the tail to the tip of the claws and horns. They are of an iron-black color, and have formidable pincers with serrated edges and tip-points inwardly converging, which cannot crush like the weapons of a lobster, but which will cut the flesh and make a small ugly wound. At first sight one not familiar with the crawfish ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... her, never leaving it, day or night, sleeping or waking, and defending it with a courage that strikes the beholder with awe. If I try to take the bag from her, she presses it to her breast in despair, hangs on to my pincers, bites them with her poison-fangs. I can hear the daggers grating on the steel. No, she would not allow herself to be robbed of the wallet with impunity, if my fingers were not ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... as flagrant as in the case of the great Admiral who initiated the system which brought all these horrors in logical sequence. The war in Higuey finished with the capture of the unfortunate Cocubano, whom Ovando caused to be hanged at San Domingo instead of allowing him to be torn to pieces with pincers as the Spaniards demanded should be done. Such was the quality of mercy ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... growled old Malachi as the thump-thump of the drum drew nearer. He rose and shifted his stool to a corner, for the way to the back premises lay through the shop. Roger looked forth into the sunny street, blinked, and, picking up a pair of pincers, returned ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... strongly spurr'd by each, His weapon from the pendent sheath he drew: Dragg'd by the hair, her limbs he forc'd to yield To fetters; twisting rough her arms behind. Glad Philomel' to him her throat presents, Death from the glittering sword expecting. Grasp'd In pincers, fierce her tongue he tore away; Griev'd, and indignant, as her father's name She strove to utter: trembling still appear'd The bloody root; trembling the tongue itself Murmur'd as on the gore-stain'd earth it lay: As leaps the serpent's sever'd tail, the tongue, Quivering ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... wash the hands after touching any object, and will, so far as possible, avoid touching objects which he thinks may possibly convey infection. Some use tissue paper to turn the door-knob, some extract coins from the pocket-book with pincers. I have seen a lady in a public conveyance carefully open a piece of paper containing her fare, pour the money into the conductor's hand, carefully fold up the paper so that she should not touch the inside, and afterwards ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.

... half filled it with water and placed it on an oil-stove that stood in the center of the room. He looked questioningly about the four walls, discovered a cleverly contrived tool-box beneath the cupboard shelves sorted out a pair of pincers and bits of iron, laying the latter in a row over the oil blaze. He took down a can of condensed milk, poured a spoonful of the thick stuff into a cup of water and made room for it near the bits of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... from the door of a tent, where the only splendor came from the mysterious inaccessible stars. But her feeling was no longer vague: the cause of her pain—the image of Mrs. Grandcourt by Deronda's side, drawing him farther and farther into the distance, was as definite as pincers on her flesh. In the Psyche-mould of Mirah's frame there rested a fervid quality of emotion, sometimes rashly supposed to require the bulk of a Cleopatra; her impressions had the thoroughness and ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... the action to the word, he closed the fatal pincers, and nipped away the ends of the offending tusks, it is to be hoped without causing him any great pain. But although poor Jacko probably did not suffer much, his rage knew no bounds; and no sooner was the canvas unfolded, than he sprang towards the after-hatchway, and catching the sergeant's ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... of few words. As soon as he was in bed, Dr. Duchesne sent for a barber to shave him, as his bushy whiskers had been ravaged by a bullet that had lodged itself in the salivary gland, carrying with it hair and flesh into the wound. The surgeon took up his pincers to extract the pieces of flesh which had stopped up the opening of the wound. He then had to take some very fine pincers to extract the hairs which had been forced in. When the barber laid his razor very gently near the wound, the unfortunate man ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... the gates opened and a great band of armed men, more than thirty I think, and a knight on horseback among them, who was armed in red, stood before us, and on one side of him was a serving man with a silver dish, on the other, one with a butcher's cleaver, a knife, and pincers. ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris

... Russian positions, which formed projecting angles to the northwest and northeast of Przasnysz so that instead of taking the city directly from the front he would seize it as with a gigantic pair of pincers from both sides and behind. The plan succeeded to the full. The Russian lines were broken on both sides of the city and the German troops, rushing through, met behind it, forcing the Russian defenders hastily to evacuate the place to avoid ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... ordinary day, in spite of his dislike of allowing Cobbett any of those duties that were so properly his own, he would have stayed in bed, but to-day?—no, thank you! On such a day as this he would defy the Devil himself and all his red-hot pincers! So there he was in his long purple gown, with his lovely snow-white beard, and his gold-topped staff, patronising Mrs. Muffit (who superintended the cleaning) and her ancient servitors, seeing that the places for the Band (just under the choir- screen) and for the extra members ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... she prefers to be extinguished. For what? For this thing she calls her country. It is infamous. Yes, vile little cheat! But, do you know Antonio-Pericles? Not yet. I will nourish you, I will imprison you: I will have you tortured by love, by the very devil of love, by the red-hot pincers of love, till you scream a music, and die to melt him with your voice, and kick your country to the gutter, and know your Italy for a birthplace and a cradle of Song, and no more, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... at him, and every one knew that he was wretched. Wretched! aye, indeed he was; for the assurance even of an Undy Scott, the hardened man of the clubs, the thrice elected and twice rejected of Tillietudlem, fell prostrate before the well-known hot pincers of Chaffanbrass, the torturer! ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... Herons live on the Siberian rivers, so it seems they don't consider the climate but the geographical position.... Well, an hour later, in the darkness, a huge ferry-boat of the shape of a barge comes into sight with huge oars that look like the pincers of a crab. The ferry-men are a rowdy set, for the most part exiles banished here by the verdict of society for their vicious life. They use insufferably bad language, shout, and ask for money for vodka.... The ferrying across takes a long, long ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... cipher of which Satan alone has the key. My sight is failing me. I have flies in my head. There is always one of them that hides this name from me. Oh! in mercy, in pity, take away the fly and bring me a pair of pincers. . . . With good pincers I will seek that name even in the last fibers of this ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... snack easily got: also shellfish growing at the bottoms of ships; a bird of the goose kind; an instrument like a pair of pincers, to fix on the noses of vicious horses whilst shoeing; a nick name for spectacles, and also for the gratuity given to grooms by the buyers and ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... content. They stopped at the first shop-window, and gazed at a row of fish bedded in ice—beautiful iridescent mackerel, fat red pompoms, and in the middle, in a nest of seaweed, green-black creatures, with great claws that ended in pincers and eyes that looked like pegs stuck into their heads. David stared, open-mouthed; then he put a hand into ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... play the compassionate Indian, and, knocking out the brains of the captive with my tomahawk, at once spoil the three days' amusement of my kindred tribe, at the very moment when the brands were lighted, the pincers heated, the cauldrons boiling, the knives sharpened, to tear, scorch, seethe, and scarify the ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... fantastic behavior, Harley struggled wearily to his feet. He had been a dead man as surely as though shot with a ray-gun. One twitch of those terrible rock pincers would have broken him in two pieces. It had seemed as though that deadly twitch were surely forthcoming. And then the thing had released him—and had lain down to go to ...
— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst

... like to see a pretty and curious little sight, look to Orchis pyramidalis, and you will see that the sticky glands are congenitally united into a saddle-shaped organ. Remove this under microscope by pincers applied to foot-stalk of pollen-mass, and look quickly at the spontaneous movement of the saddle-shaped organs and see how beautifully adapted ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... conducted, amidst a vast concourse of the populace, to the Greve, the common place of execution, stripped naked, and fastened to the scaffold by iron gyves. One of his hands was then burnt in liquid flaming sulphur; his thighs, legs, and arms, were torn with red hot pincers; boiling oil, melted lead, resin, and sulphur, were poured into the wounds; tight ligatures tied round his limbs to prepare him for dismemberment; young and vigorous horses applied to the draft, and the unhappy criminal pulled, with all ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... heretics refuse to learn and know it. Burn 'em, tear 'em, nip 'em with hot pincers, drown 'em, hang 'em, spit 'em at the bunghole, pelt 'em, paut 'em, bruise 'em, beat 'em, cripple 'em, dismember 'em, cut 'em, gut 'em, bowel 'em, paunch 'em, thrash 'em, slash 'em, gash 'em, chop 'em, slice 'em, slit 'em, carve ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... provide Seats, stores of wood, and water from the rock. He said, whom instant all obey'd. The ox 540 Came from the field, and from the gallant ship The ship-mates of the brave Telemachus; Next, charged with all his implements of art, His mallet, anvil, pincers, came the smith To give the horns their gilding; also came Pallas herself to her own sacred rites. Then Nestor, hoary warrior, furnish'd gold, Which, hammer'd thin, the artist wrapp'd around The victim's horns, that seeing him attired So costly, Pallas might the more be pleased. ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... smoked was clear, for the old lady had already gone through the process of unrolling one of the small cartouche-like cigars. Having re-rolled it between her fingers, she placed it within the gripe of a pair of small golden pincers. ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... "let fate take its course!" The procurator wheeled round in affright; it seemed to him that pincers of iron had clutched his arm. The priest's eye was staring, wild, flaming, and remained riveted on the horrible little group of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... of his head, like the horns of other Animals, were exactly form'd in the manner of Crabs or Lobsters claws, for they were shap'd and jointed much like those represented in the Scheme and the ends of them were furnish'd with a pair of claws or pincers, CC, which this little animal did open and shut at pleasure: It seem'd to make use of those two horns or claws both for feelers and holders; for in its motion it carried these aloft extended before, moving them to and fro, just as a man blindfolded would do ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... Pfalz, 1400-1410; called Rupert KLEMM (Pincers, Smith's-vice); Brother-in-law to Burggraf Friedrich VI. (afterwards Kurfurst Friedrich I.), who marched with him to Italy and often else-whither, Burggraf Johann the elder Brother-in-law being then oftenest in Hungary with Sigismund, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... the least angry; nobody's angry with you; they're all so seriously grieved on your account. He places the strokes carefully down over your back as if he were weighing out food, almost as if he were fondling you. But your lungs gasp at each stroke and your heart beats wildly; it's as if a thousand pincers were tearing all your fibers and nerves apart at once. My very entrails contracted in terror, and seemed ready to escape through my throat every time the lash fell. My lungs still burn when I think of ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... company," said the Wolf. "Such manners I never saw. For no sooner was I inside than the shoemaker flew at me with his last, and two smiths blew bellows and made the sparks fly, and beat and punched me with red-hot pincers, and tore great pieces out of my body, the hunter kept running about trying to find his gun, and it is well for me that he did not, for I should never have come out alive; and all the while a butcher sat up on a beam ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... the butchers in order to inquire who I was before cutting my throat, they might have put me to the torture and forced me to say who I was, and where my mistress was in hiding. I hope if they had, that I should have stood out; but none can say what he will do when he has red-hot pincers taking bits out of his flesh, and his nails, perhaps, being torn out at the roots. So even if I could not have swam a stroke I should ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... advantage; And I'll make vengeance of calamity. Were I not thus reduc'd, thou wouldst not know, That, thus reduc'd, I dare defy thee still. Torture thou may'st, but thou shall ne'er despise me. The blood will follow where the knife is driven, The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear, And sighs and cries by nature grow on pain. But these are foreign to the soul: not mine The groans that issue, or the tears that fall; They disobey me; on the rack I scorn thee, As when my falchion ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young

... time I cut of I one head two others grew in its place. Yet did I conquer that horror, in spite of its branching serpents that darted from every wound! Thinkest thou, then, that I fear thee, thou mimic snake?" And even as he spake he gripped, as with a pair of pincers, the back ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... yet now and then she becomes agitated, and fluctuates amidst the waves of hope, fear, doubt, ardour, conscience, remorse, determination, repentance, and other scourges, which are the bellows, the coals, the forge, the hammer, the pincers, and other instruments which are found in the workshop of the ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... boiled in wort, or grounds of beer; fill within an inch of the cork's reach, and beat it in with a mallet; then, with a small brass wire, bind the neck of the bottle, bring up the ends, and twist them over with a pair of pincers. ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry

... chief priest came forward, and taking from his hands a square linen cloth he bore, bound it across his mouth and tied it behind his neck in a firm knot by means of strings. Then, one of them put into his left hand a fan of eagles' feathers, and the other gave him a pair of wrought-iron pincers. Then they left him to ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... in thinking what would have been had I acted differently," she says. "What I had written in a semi-frenzy of patriotism would have been hot pincers, tearing open wounds which humanity and religion would ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... too eager, and seizing the pincers I took out one of the glowing pieces of steel lying ready, laid it upon the anvil and beat it into shape, forming a rough imitation of the work I had been watching, but with twice as many strokes, taking twice as long, and producing work not half ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn

... an early bestirring of every one. We had to stir to get warm. The air nipped like cold pincers. All the horses were gone; we could not hear a bell. But Lee did not appear worried. I groaned in spirit. More delay! Gloom assailed me. Lee sallied out with his yellow dog Pups. I had forgotten the good quality of Pups, but not my dislike for him. He barked vociferously, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... steady, and boomed it out; so in three days we made the island of Tools, that is altogether uninhabited. We saw there a great number of trees which bore mattocks, pickaxes, crows, weeding-hooks, scythes, sickles, spades, trowels, hatchets, hedging-bills, saws, adzes, bills, axes, shears, pincers, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... conspicuously distinct forms, not connected by intermediate varieties. Fritz Muller has described analogous but more extraordinary cases with the males of certain Brazilian Crustaceans: thus, the male of a Tanais regularly occurs under two distinct forms; one of these has strong and differently shaped pincers, and the other has antennae much more abundantly furnished with smelling-hairs. Although in most of these cases, the two or three forms, both with animals and plants, are not now connected by intermediate gradations, it is possible that they were once thus ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... had a good custom: he did not allow the conscripts to languish at home. Soon as the drawing was complete, the council of revision met, and a few days after came the orders of march. He did not do like those tooth-pullers who first show you their pincers and hooks and gaze for an hour into your mouth, so that you feel half dead before they make up their minds to begin work: he proceeded without ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... in various ways. When they adhere to the shell, the fishermen often pull them off with pincers; but the most common way is to lay the oysters on mats of the seaweed which covers the banks. Thus they die in the open air; and at the end of ten days they are in a forward state of decomposition. They are then plunged ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... suffer too much, I may give it over at once, as a chirurgeon would not do." And so she caused the instruments that are used on such occasions to be brought her, and having dismissed all other attendants save Lusca from the chamber, and locked the door, made Nicostratus lie down on a table, set the pincers in his mouth, and clapped them on one of his teeth, which, while Lusca held him, so that, albeit he roared for pain, he might not move, she wrenched by main force from his jaw, and keeping it close, took from Lusca's hand another and horribly decayed ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... cold at his heart, As cold as his marble slab; And he thought he felt, in every part, The pincers of ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... retaining &c v.; keep, detention, custody; tenacity, firm hold, grasp, gripe, grip, iron grip. fangs, teeth, claws, talons, nail, unguis, hook, tentacle, tenaculum; bond &c (vinculum) 45. clutches, tongs, forceps, pincers, nippers, pliers, vice. paw, hand, finger, wrist, fist, neaf^, neif^. bird in hand; captive &c 754. V. retain, keep; hold fast one's own, hold tight one's own, hold fast one's ground, hold tight one's ground; clinch, clench, clutch, grasp, gripe, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... be less busy than his throat, he would bring out the wonderful six-bladed knife his uncle had given him, and exploring all its wonders, and opening all its blades at the same time, together with the corkscrew, the gimlet, the pincers, and the button-hook, at different angles, would terrify the lives out of his fellow-passengers by twirling the awful bristling weapon in his fingers within a foot or ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... the weather require any change in their position, while the addition of a staff enabled such man likewise to act as a constable. There were also placed, on each side of the platform, along the whole range of it, men provided with pincers, hammers, &c., to repair any damage that might happen to the platform, or whatever was calculated to impede the progress of the procession, and its attendant ceremonies. These men were also supplied with a like livery, with staves of office; and ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... striking at the French right flank toward the gap of Miracourt and the German Crown Prince was striking in the Argonne at the same time that Von Kluck was striking at the French left. The Bavarians and the crown prince failed, while Von Kluck extended himself too far and was nearly caught in the pincers by Manoury's new army striking on his flank. But the vital, the human, the overwhelming factor was that the French infantry after retreat, when they might have been in confusion and poor heart, held with splendid stubbornness and organization under the protection of the accurate ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... her back, I shall be able to bring her to terms at North Villa; if not, I must get speech of her, wherever she happens to be hidden. She's the only thorn in our side now, and we must pull her out with gold pincers immediately. Don't you see ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... about keeping them in order. It will do for 'boss workmen' to take care of everything so constantly, but now I want to break stones with these delicate hammers, to cut nails with these razor-bladed knives, to crack nuts with these slender pincers. By and by, when I am older, I'll use them as they should be used, but I think it's all nonsense to be so careful now." If in later years you should hear him complain that he had nothing to work with, would ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... that gnaws the guns, And shattered shells are but the runs Where warring insects cope; And all the headsman's racks and blades And pincers, tools of tyrants' aids, Are buried ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... more wagons? What was the use of coming with so few? Where was the other doctor, some one or other who ought to have relieved him?" There he was, like a little monkey on wires, dancing up and down in the blazing road, his arms covered with blood, pincers in one hand and bandages in the other and the inside of his shelter with such a green, filthy smell coming out of it that you'd think the roof would burst! I filled seven of my wagons, sent them back and went forward ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... a man, The bonds of nature. 'Twas thy bewitching eye, thy Syrens voice, That throwes me upon millions of disgrace, Ile have thee tortur'd on the Racke, Plucke out those basiliske enchaunting eyes, Teare thee to death with Pincers burning hot, Except thou giue me the departed lives ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... the colonel muttered, as he strode away from the station. "That handsome tiger-cat has laid her claw on it, I am certain. But she won't confess; red-hot pincers would not drag a secret from her, if she meant to keep it. I doubt if she will even betray herself by a blush. Poor Constance! What chance had she against such a Machiavel in petticoats? I am bad at diplomacy, too. If I only had the slightest proof, or if she had any ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... which was sufficient to make the hair stand erect, the blood to freeze, the flesh to melt, the bones to drop from their places—yea, the spirit to faint. What is empaling or sawing men alive, tearing off the flesh piecemeal with iron pincers, or broiling the flesh with candles, collop fashion, or squeezing heads flat in a vice, and all the most shocking devices which ever were upon earth, compared with one of these? Mere pastime! Here were a hundred ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... Bienassis' shop, she had seen Joseph Gamelin, wearing his fine rose-pink coat and had known in an instant what he would be at. All the time she sat at the window to see the regicide torn with red-hot pincers, drenched with molten lead, dragged at the tail of four horses and thrown into the flames, Joseph Gamelin had stood behind her chair and had never once left off complimenting her on her complexion, her ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... Devil came to him, he said, as he was at work at his forge, and tempted him to lead a life of pleasure. He quickly drew his pincers from the fire, and seized his tormentor by the nose, which put him in such pain that he bellowed so lustily as to shake the hills. The people said that it was the bellowing of the Evil One that they ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... through, in unspeakable Awfulness, unspeakable Beauty, on their souls: who therefore are rightly accounted Prophets, God-possessed; or even Gods, as in some periods it has chanced. Sitting in his stall; working on tanned hides, amid pincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine-bristles, and a nameless flood of rubbish, this youth had, nevertheless, a Living Spirit belonging to him; also an antique Inspired Volume, through which, as through a window, it could look ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... of the unfortunate man, who like the jalap plant (Mirabilia jalapa), first opens them at five o'clock, we will turn our own in pity aside. It is a rich man who only exchanges the fever fancies of being pinched with hot pincers for waking pains. ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... gates opened, and Giacomo appeared first on the threshold. He fell on his knees, adoring the holy crucifix with great devotion. He was completely covered with a large mourning cloak, under which his bare breast was prepared to be torn by the red-hot pincers of the executioner, which were lying ready in a chafing-dish fixed to the cart. Having ascended the vehicle, in which the executioner placed him so as more readily to perform this office, Bernardo came out, and was thus addressed on his appearance ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... surgeon should always be procured. If food has stuck in the throat or gullet, the forefinger should be immediately introduced; and if lodged at the entrance of the gullet, the substance may be reached and extracted, possibly, with the forefinger alone, or may be seized with a pair of pincers, if at hand, or a curling tongs, or anything of the kind. This procedure may be facilitated by directing the person to put the tongue well out, in which position it may be retained by the individual himself, or a bystander by grasping it, covered with a handkerchief or towel. Should ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... in the extent of his punishments, viz, upon whole Families for the miscarriage of one in them. For when the King is displeased with any, he does not alwayes command to kill them outright, but first to torment them, which is done by cutting and pulling away their flesh by Pincers, burning them with hot Irons clapped to them to make them confess of their Confederates; and this they do, to rid themselves of their Torments, confessing far more than ever they saw or knew. After their Confession, sometimes he commands to hang their two Hands about their Necks, and ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... right and left, even the fleetest insect cannot get out, and all those that are caught by its movement, are driven to the bottom of the sack; they should be taken out one by one, either with the hand or pincers, and pierced immediately with a pin proportioned to the size of the animal. The coleopters should be pierced on the right wing (clytze), the hymenopters, dipters and lepidopters in the middle of the waist, the orthopters and nevropters ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various

... the second movement is in his case sacrificed by embedding the condyles deeply in their cavities, where they are fastened in such a fashion that they can only move up and down, like the handles of a pair of pincers. This is a restraint which enables the jaw to be safely thrown open as wide as the fiery impulse of its terrible proprietor impels it. Less freedom, in exchange for more power, is a bargain which any one would gladly accept who plays ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... peculiarly privileged were allowed to see the nail. But it was buzzed about the racing quarters that the head of the nail,—an old rusty, straight, and well-pointed nail,—bore on it the mark of a recent hammer. In answer to this it was alleged that the blacksmith in extracting the nail with his pincers, had of course operated on its head, had removed certain particles of rust, and might easily have given it the appearance of having been struck. But in answer to this the farrier, who was a sharp fellow, and quite ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... probable than that Heaven had so regarded him. Rachel did not answer. She had confided her love to no one, not even to Hester; and to speak of it to Lady Newhaven had been like tearing the words out of herself with hot pincers. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... she came from the field, and from the swift gallant ship came the company of great-hearted Telemachus; the smith came holding in his hands his tools, the instruments of his craft, anvil and hammer and well-made pincers, wherewith he wrought the gold; Athene too came to receive her sacrifice. And the old knight Nestor gave gold, and the other fashioned it skilfully, and gilded therewith the horns of the heifer, ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... weeds, and mud from the bottom of ponds and allowing the mud and water to settle in a pail or tub. The larvae may be distinguished from other aquatic creatures by the long insect-like body, three pairs of legs, and the "mask"—a flap with pincers at the end. This mask can be turned under the head and body when not in use, or it can be projected in front of the larva for catching prey. At the rear end are three tubes, which fit together ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... do pray you, Doctor, to carry that packet of yours under the breast of your coat, or in your pocket, or somewhere out of sight, and by no means to produce or open it before the parties. For although scalpels, and tourniquets, and pincers, and the like, are very ingenious implements, and pretty to behold, and are also useful when time and occasion call for them, yet I have known the sight of them take away a man's fighting stomach, and so lose their owner a job, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... breast. When suspicion had strengthened into certainty, enmity became hatred. Then, for two years, Chillingworth tortured his victim as once inquisitors tortured men by tweaking the flesh with red-hot pincers. Soon the face of the physician, once so gentle and just, took on an aspect sinister and malign. Children feared him, men shivered in his presence—they knew not why. Once the magistrate saw the light glimmering in his eyes ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... place and held there by a tack at the heel. This is done by machines; but their working is simple compared with that of the machine which now takes charge of the half-made shoe. This machine puts out sturdy little pincers which seize the edge of the uppers, pull it smoothly and evenly into place, and drive a tack far enough in to keep it from slipping. Now comes the welting. A welt is a narrow strip of leather which is sewed to the lower edge of the upper all the way around the shoe except at the heel. ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... present state of knowledge, we use one metal to manufacture another. We overcome them with iron pincers; cut them with steel files, but I never met with any one who could tell me who made the first file or ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... bright yellow and the three thin streaks of red blood trickling down made a strange picture. The largest wound was just above one ear. A local anaesthetic was injected and the skin round the injury pushed back. With a pair of curved pincers the surgeon broke away bits of bone from the edge of the hole. Then he pushed his little finger deeply into it and fetched out a large bone fragment and a quantity of soft matter, coloured a pale red, which he allowed to flop down on to the floor. The man was motionless except ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... was a scuffle below him in the dark. One of the rats squeaked a little, acknowledging receipt of a crab's pincers closed upon him, or her. Followed the sounds of some scuttering, confusion, and the horrible slide and scrape of horny shells upon stone. Then silence, and the skua knew that, in that wonderful way they have, the crabs, at any rate, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... resources. In case any one should wish to try the experiment for himself, I make him a present of my manner of operation, which may save him time at the outset. The insect intended for a long journey must obviously be handled with certain precautions. There must be no forceps employed, no pincers, which might maim a wing, strain it and weaken the power of flight. While the Bee is in her cell, absorbed in her work, I place a small glass test-tube over it. The Mason, when she flies away, rushes into the tube, which enables me, without touching her, to ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... more, while Chicot watched her going on with her work. Her crooked, knotted fingers, hard as a lobster's claws, seized the tubers, which were lying in a pail, as if they had been a pair of pincers, and she peeled them rapidly, cutting off long strips of skin with an old knife which she held in the other hand, throwing the potatoes into the water as they were done. Three daring fowls jumped one after the other into her lap, seized a bit of peel and then ran away as fast as ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... first projecting beyond the sides of the carapace, the second wider and longer than the first, third short and thick at the end; the terminal part of antennae long, thread-like, and formed of very numerous articulations; the eyes large, and with a short pedicel. Anterior legs long and smooth, the pincers overlapping each other at the end, their inner edge rough, scarcely toothed; from before the base of the inside of the movable claw a thickish line of hairs extends about halfway down the hands, which bulge, and are rounded on ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... never missed a maiden since he could walk, and lay in wait to wrest his tribute of glance and blush from every one that passed, lo! he had changed all that, and Saint Anthony in an old master looks not more resolutely 'the other way' than he, his very thoughts crushing his flesh with invisible pincers. No more softly-scented missives lie upon his desk a-mornings; and, instead of blowing out the candle to dream of Daffodilia, he opens his eyes in the dark to defy—the Dweller on the Threshold, if haply he should ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... whole confidence in the omnipotence of God, and the justice of his cause; and that to show how full a sense he had of Mohammed's kindness, he took the liberty of presenting him with a looking-glass and a pair of pincers." ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... and the ugliness of the garment bores you in the picture, exactly as it would in nature. And the same criticism applies equally well to the faces, the hands, the leather aprons, the loose iron, the hammers, the pincers, the smoked walls. I should not be surprised to learn that Mr. Stanhope Forbes had had a forge built up in his studio, and had copied it all as it stood. A handful of dry facts instead of a passionate impression of life in its envelope of ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... and then examined under the microscope for the purpose of improving its position if necessary, or of removing any foreign particles. A drop of the preserving medium is then placed upon it, and another placed on the cover and allowed to spread out. The cover is then taken by a pair of pincers and inverted over the object, and one edge brought to touch the slide at one part of its margin. The cover is then gently lowered, and the whole space beneath the cover filled and the tissue completely saturated. If air bubbles ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... before Kohlhaas at the bar of the Tribunal and asked whether he acknowledged the handwriting, he answered, "Yes;" but to the question as to whether he had anything to say in his defense, he looked down at the ground and replied, "No." He was therefore condemned to be tortured with red-hot pincers by knacker's men, to be drawn and quartered, and his body to be burned between the wheel and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... toward all men, and they urged the barbarians to love him; and they did all they could to persuade them to love and honor him—first by twisting their thumbs out of joint with a screw; then by nipping their flesh with pincers—red-hot ones, because they are the most comfortable in cold weather; then by skinning them alive a little, and finally by roasting them in public. They always convinced those barbarians. The true religion, properly administered, as the good Mother ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... pieces of wood, cutting off or squeezing their limbs one after another, applying red-hot irons or slow fires, flaying off the skin of the fingers, putting burning coals to their hands, tearing off the flesh with pincers, or thrusting reeds into all parts of their bodies, and turning them about to tear their flesh, till they should say they would forsake their faith: all which, innumerable persons, even children, bore ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... the perception of smoke and the existence of pyrotic activity. Nora Taylor would add some certification to the rumor. One thing simply had to be: There must be no mistake about placing information in Lieutenant Delancey's hands so as to create the other jaw of the pincers that I was going to be ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith

... Italian waysides, the wanderers passed great, black crosses, hung with all the instruments of the sacred agony and passion: there were the crown of thorns, the hammer and nails, the pincers, the spear, the sponge; and perched over the whole, the cock that crowed to St. Peter's remorseful conscience. Thus, while the fertile scene showed the never-failing beneficence of the Creator towards man in his transitory state, these symbols ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... please," returned Hugh Calveley sternly. "What I have to say is to the King, and to the King only; and though you break every bone in my body with your engines, and tear off my flesh with red-hot pincers, you shall not ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... many sorts; but the chief were his hammer, pincers, chisel, tongs, and anvil. It is astonishing what a variety of articles he turned out of his smithy by the help of these rude implements. In the tooling, chasing, and consummate knowledge of the capabilities of iron, he greatly surpassed the modern ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... them at the mouth of the cave. Our tongues were dry and swollen in our mouths, there was the pressure of an iron clutch on our windpipes, fire in our throats, and the pangs of hunger that tore at us like iron pincers. But we could hear that the bandits above were anxious to be gone; they had but very few charges for their guns, and it was apparent that they were afraid of a collision with the peons of the hacienda. Glaring at each other with bloodshot, uncertain eyes, Castro and I imagined ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... Jimmy Rabbit said. He had on a white apron, which he had borrowed from his mother when she was not looking. And in his hand he held a big pair of pincers, which he had borrowed from his father while Mr. Rabbit was away ...
— The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit - Sleepy-TimeTales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... alike as possible; set them upon the table, and the function of each—which is its rate of going—will be performed in the same manner, and you shall be able to distinguish no difference between them; but let me take a pair of pincers, and if my hand is steady enough to do it, let me just lightly crush together the bearings of the balance-wheel, or force to a slightly different angle the teeth of the escapement of one of them, and of course you know the immediate result will be that the ...
— A Critical Examination Of The Position Of Mr. Darwin's Work, "On The Origin Of Species," In Relation To The Complete Theory Of The Causes Of The Phenomena Of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley

... plank. Then he would screw an ordinary two-inch screw into a hardwood plank with his teeth, pull it out with his teeth, and then screw it into the plank again and offer $100 to any man who could pull it out with a large pair of pincers which he proffered for the purpose. When he had performed these stunts in various positions, he would bend his body backward till his head pointed toward the floor, and in that position push a nail through a one-inch board held perpendicularly in a metal frame. I saw no ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... light of day. There is nothing to hinder them. They enjoy full liberty of action in seizing the prey, holding it in position and sacrificing it; they are able to see the victim and to parry its means of defence, to avoid its spears, its pincers. The spot or spots to be attained are within their reach; they drive the dagger ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... Inquisition has sometimes moistened the lips of a heretic stretched upon the rack,—the Buccaneer of the tropics has relented over the contumacious prisoner gasping to death under his lashes and heated pincers; but we know of no instance where an Indian, torturing a prisoner at the stake, the torture once begun, has ever been moved to compassionate, to regard with any feelings but those of exultation and joy, the agonies of ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... the little room that served him for a smithy. It seemed from some peculiarities of shape to have once been an oratory, but it was now begrimed with smoke and dust from the forge which Don Ippolito had set up in it; the embers of a recent fire, the bellows, the pincers, the hammers, and the other implements of the trade, gave it a sinister effect, as if the place of prayer had been invaded by mocking imps, or as if some hapless mortal in contract with the evil powers were here searching, by the help of the adversary, ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... on your flesh, denotes that you will be burdened with exasperating cares. Any dream of pincers, signifies ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... torturer, Suspense, began to tear her heavy heart with his hot pincers, till she cried often and vehemently, "Oh, that I could ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... the name of Christian is contemptuously disregarded. It relates, however, how at the storming of Bethar, when Barcochebas perished in the field, ten of the most learned of the rabbis were taken and put cruelly to death, while Akiba, reserved to expire last, and torn in pieces with hot pincers, continued to attest the great principle of the Jewish doctrine, still exclaiming in his death throes, Jehovah Erhad! ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... times, was the enormous crab that Mr. Darwin observed, to which nature has given the instinct and requisite strength to eat coconuts; it scrambles up trees on the beach and sends the coconuts tumbling; they fracture in their fall and are opened by its powerful pincers. Here, under these clear waves, this crab raced around with matchless agility, while green turtles from the species frequenting the Malabar coast moved sluggishly among ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... small black snake darted from the mouth of the princess, who was seated at the table, and wriggled quickly towards him. But the Arab was watching for something of the sort to happen, and seizing the serpent with some pincers that he held in one hand, he cut off its head ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various

... fingers dost dismail thee," Began my Leader unto one of them, "And makest of them pincers ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri

... retire like a snail, out of sight! On examination, there appears in the middle of a disk, filaments resembling spiders' legs, which moved briskly round a kind of petal. The filaments, or legs, have pincers to seize their prey, when the petals close, so that it cannot escape. Under this flower is the body of an animal, and it is probable he lives on the marine insects thrown by the sea ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various

... my price," said William. "If two minutes' yanking with a pair of pincers at a little bone is worth five dollars, then one day's hard labor in tilling the ground is ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton

... clasp which had worked beautifully in the shop, but which, for some reason, on the journey had caused her both pain and anxiety. Convinced, however, that she could cure it and open the bag the moment she could get to that splendid new pair of pincers in her trunk, which a man had only yesterday told her were the latest, she still felt that she had a soft thing, and dear John must have one like it if she could get him ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... travellers that the Patagonians have tufts of hair on the upper lip and chin. Captain Carver says that among the tribes he visited the people made a regular practice of eradicating their beards with pincers. At Brussels is preserved, along with a variety of ancient and curious suits of armour, that of Montezuma, king of Mexico, of which the visor, or mask for the face, has remarkably large whiskers; an ornament which those Americans could not have imitated unless nature had presented them ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... strange work here when all these strata were being pressed and squeezed together like a ream of wet paper between the rival granite pincers of Dartmoor and Lundy. They must have suffered enough then in a few years to give them a fair right to lie quiet till Doomsday, as they seem likely to do. But it is only old Mother Earth who has fallen asleep hereabouts. Air and sea are just as live as ever. Ay, lovely and calm enough ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... appropriate Latin name is Birgus latro) makes great and dreaded havoc. To assist him in his unlawful object he has developed a pair of front legs, with specially strong and heavy claws, supplemented by a last or tail-end pair armed only with very narrow and slender pincers. He subsists entirely upon a coco-nut diet. Setting to work upon a big fallen nut—with the husk on, coco-nuts measure in the raw state about twelve inches the long way—he tears off all the coarse fibre bit by bit, and gets down at last to the hard shell. ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... once a thought struck Vane, and he jumped up, thrust a pair of pliers, a little screw-wrench and a pair of pincers into his pockets ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... with a smothered cry. There by the great fireplace stood Louis Trudel picking up a red-hot cross with a pair of pincers. Grasping the iron firmly just below the arms of the cross, the tailor held it up again. He looked at it with a wild triumph, yet with a malignancy little in keeping with the object he held—the holy relic he had stolen from the door of the parish ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Christ. Do you know what that meant to the early Christians? It meant that if they were going to be firm in their faith, live up to their profession, and eschew evil, they should be dragged before governors, and hung on what was called the "little horse," and their flesh torn with redhot pincers. It meant that they should be scourged to death, or that they should be roasted alive over slow fires, or that they should be gored in the amphitheatre by a bull, or torn to pieces by a lion, or that they should have their skin taken off, or that their heads should be struck off, or that they should ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould

... was getting up in workmanlike style. It was a dead westerly gale, blown from under a ragged opening of green sky, narrowed on all sides by fat, gray clouds; and the wind bit like pincers as it fretted the spray into lacework on ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling

... Marne as a hinge, the clamp of the Allies closed upon the defeated Germans. From Switzerland to the North Sea the drive went forward, operating as huge pincers cutting like chilled steel through the Hindenburg and the Kriemhild lines. It was the beginning of autocracy's end, the end of Der Tag ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... have to," said Mr. Hardee, but it was clearly to be seen that he did not want to. He went into the barn, and came out wearing a pair of rubber boots, and carrying a pair of pincers— the "wire-cutting ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope

... Frost King (vulg. Jack Frost) has come down upon us with all his might. Banished from the pleasant shores of Boston, he has come with his cold scythe and ice pincers to our undefended little island, and is tyrannizing in every corner and over every part of every person. Nothing is too great for him, nothing too mean. He condescends even to lay hold of the nose (an ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... which elapsed between the rack and the pincers, Olgiati had time to address this memorable speech to the priest who urged him to repent: 'As for the noble action for which I am about to die, it is this which gives my conscience peace; to this I trust for pardon from the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... but those which steal noiselessly through their conduits until they reach the cisterns lying round about the heart; those tears that we weep inwardly with unchanging features;—such I did shed for her often when the imps of the boarding-house Inferno tugged at her soul with their red-hot pincers.] ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... stood before us smiling and open-eyed while he ran long needles into the fleshy part of his arms and legs without flinching, and he allowed one of the gentlemen present to pinch his skin in different parts with strong crenated pincers in a manner which bruised it, and which to most people would have caused intense pain. L. allowed no sign of suffering or discomfort to appear; he did not set his teeth or wince; his pulse was not quickened, and the pupil of his eye ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus

... presto; all the thing's donkey-face came off in a moment, and out popped a long arm with a pair of pincers at the end of it, and caught Tom by the nose. It did not hurt him much; but ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... assemble. Fritz had found two fowling-pieces, some bags of powder and shot, and some balls, in horn flasks. Ernest was loaded with an axe and hammer, a pair of pincers, a large pair of scissors, and an auger showed itself half out of ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... feeling pincers on your flesh, denotes that you will be burdened with exasperating cares. Any dream of pincers, ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... and after a time scales of wax appeared. An adequate supply of wax for the construction of a comb having been elaborated, one of them disengaged itself from the centre of the group, and clearing a space about an inch in diameter, at the top of the hive, applied the pincers of one of its legs to its side, detached a scale of wax, and immediately began to mince it with the tongue. During the operation, this organ was made to assume every variety of shape; sometimes it ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... and "the Ultimate Futility" grins horribly from its mask. Well! It is precisely at these hours, at the hours when the little pincers of the gods especially nip and squeeze, that it is good to turn the pages of Fyodor Dostoievsky. He brings us his "Balm of Gilead" between the hands of strange people, but it is a true "alabaster box of precious ointment," and though the flowers it contains are snatched from the House of the Dead, ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... stables and gone home. But his back door stood open and therefrom there protruded the point of a long, heavy cane fish pole. By the light of a lamp on his table, Dannie could be seen working with pincers and ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... all the same, fiercely stabbing, jerking, as if some virulent little demon were holding ends of the facial nerves in a pair of pincers, and waiting till the sufferer was a little calm for a few moments before giving the nerve a ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... instrument having a motion and use like the thumb and fore-finger. Pincers. Obstetrical forceps embrace ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... opening it behind, and then cutting off one by one the thorns which had sunk deep into the head of Jesus, in order that she might not widen the wounds. The crown was placed by the side of the nails, and then Mary drew out the thorns which had remained in the skin with a species of rounded pincers, and sorrowfully showed them to her friends.16 These thorns were placed with the crown, but still some of them ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... plateful of broth. The thumb is placed in such a manner on your hand that it can face each of the other fingers one after another, or all together, as you please; and by this we are enabled to grasp, as if with a pair of pincers, whatever object, whether large or small. Our hands owe their perfection of usefulness to this happy arrangement, which has been bestowed on no other animal, except the monkey, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... of pincers, gum arabic, "Pittsburgh cord" at 21c. per yard. In Housings, candles, frying pans, tin pails, dippers, tin basins, wash-tubs made their appearance; and in this year for the first time window-blinds were sold, ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson

... been an amusing sight for our friends, had they been able to see us spread out our bistoury, our pincers, and three pairs of scissors, one with gold branches, on the table of this hut. The commissaire praised our philanthropy, the women watched us in awed silence, and the tallow candle melted and ran ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... a pen-knife. In another moment the rope was cut, high out of Darrell's reach, and flung aside. The hearth, being adapted but for logwood fires, furnished not those implements in which, at a moment of need, the owner may find an available weapon—only a slight pair of brass wood-pincers, and a shovel equally frail. Such as they were, however, Jasper quietly removed and hid them behind a heavy old bureau. Steps were now heard mounting the stair that led into the chamber; Losely shrunk back into the recess ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... already doing it. He had the tinman cut slits in the end about an eighth of an inch wide and almost twice as deep. Every other one of these he doubled back inside the tube, and pressed down with pincers, so that there should be nothing sticking out in the way of the moon and stars if they should try to get in. These made a rest for the glass, so that it couldn't slip into the tube. Then he bent the other slits down over the edge of the glass, but not so as ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... of him to make him confesse, hee was commaunded to have a most straunge torment, which was done in this manner following: His nailes upon all his fingers were riven and pulled off with an instrument called in Scottish a turkas, which in England wee call a payre of pincers, and under everie nayle there was thrust in two needles over, even up to the heads; at all which tormentes notwithstanding the Doctor never shronke anie whit, neither woulde he then confesse it the sooner for all the tortures inflicted upon him. Then was hee, with ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts

... Don Diego by telling him that he was a surgeon, and that if he could only obtain a pair of pincers he would soon remedy that evil; but the Spaniard shook his head and assured him that there was a miserable man in the town calling himself a vendor of physic, who had already nearly driven him mad by attempting several times to pull the ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... eternity of pains. Then, reflecting with herself that she was created only for God, and cannot be truly satisfied but by enjoying God, and that, out of Him, all this goodly machine of the world is no better than a direct hell and an abyss of evils. Alas! what worms, what martyrdoms, and what nipping pincers are such pinching thoughts as these. The fire is to her but as smoke in comparison to this vexing remembrance of her own follies, which betrayed her to this disgraceful and unavoidable misfortune. There was a king who, in a humor gave away his ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... match and lit a newspaper. In a moment a ball of fire was floating downward to him, and it was then that the smell of dust and kerosene entered his consciousness as pincers enter the flesh of men in torment. He stood up with hands upstretched to catch the fire—caught it—bore it ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... hand. In this way little pieces were chipped off until the arrowhead was formed. Only the most expert do this successfully.[213] Sometimes the stone to be operated on is heated in the fire, and slowly cooled, which causes it to split in flakes. A flake is then shaped with buck-horn pincers, tied together at the point with a thong.[214] In another report it is the stone with which the operation is performed which is said to be heated.[215] In a pit several hundred flint implements were found stored away in regular layers with alternate layers of sand between. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... of opinion with regard to it on the part of her father and mother, whom she had rarely heard differ. She pictured to herself the image of his Maker being scratched off Alec by the claws of furies; and hot pincers tearing nail after nail from the hand which had once given her a penny. And her astonishment was therefore paralyzing when she ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... before you have examined it. But first, would you be so good as to give me a bit of sopped bread to tie on my hand; it begins to burn and smart pretty badly. Just look, Mistress Miller, there's a Swedish dragoon's bullet in the side of the truck; if you would lend me a chisel or a pair of pincers, I could get it out, and take it home ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... man who calls himself a Christian, coolly and deliberately tie up, thumb screw, torture with pincers, and beat unmercifully a poor slave, for perhaps a trifling neglect of duty? Or can any one be an eye witness to such enormities, without at the same time being deeply ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole

... fanatic named Damiens, who scratched him with a penknife as he was entering his coach at Versailles. The poor crazy wretch, who at most deserved detention in an asylum, was first subjected to a cruel judicial torture, then taken to the Place de Greve, where he was lacerated with red-hot pincers and, after boiling lead had been poured into the wounds, his quivering body was torn to pieces by four horses, and the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... the Christian doctors, crying sacrilege and blasphemy, sprang forward in a transport of fury to fall upon the Jew; and a troop of monks, in motley dresses of black and white, advanced with a standard on which were painted pincers, gridirons, lighted fagots, and the words Justice, Charity, Mercy.* "It is necessary," said they, "to make an example of these impious wretches, and burn them for the glory of God." They began even to prepare the pile, when a Mussulman answered in a ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... of cruelly pointed and twisted instruments. Under this was a row of long, delicate pincers, with coils on the handles to indicate that they might be heated to fiendish precision of temperatures. There were gleaming metal racks with calibrated slide-rods and spring dials to denote just what pull was being exerted on whatever unhappy creature might be stretched taut ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst

... solliciting the Dart, And exercises all his Heavenly Art. All softning Simples, known of Sov'reign Use, He presses out, and pours their noble Juice; These first infus'd, to lenifie the Pain, He tugs with Pincers, but he tugs in vain. Then to the Patron of his Art he pray'd; The Patron of his Art refus'd his Aid. But now the Goddess Mother, mov'd with Grief, And pierc'd with Pity, hastens her Relief. A Branch of Healing Dittany she brought, Which in the Cretan Fields with Care she ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... pear-shaped form, the material partially coolling and hardening, but still retaining a good deal of softness and pliability. While in this condition, it was detached from the pipe, and modelled with pincers or with the hand into the shape required, after which it was polished, and perhaps sometimes cut by means of the turning-lathe. Sand and emery were the chief polishers, and by their help a surface was produced, with which little fault could be found, being smooth, uniform, and brilliant. ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... blacksmith once plied his trade only a few yards west of the ancient brick church. Many blacksmiths worked at Jamestown (there was one among the first group of settlers). In the Jamestown collection are many tools which they left behind, including pliers, pincers, chisels, punches, hammers, and ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter

... usurpers, but he found himself face to face with the formidable beak of the sparrow who, at that moment, guarded the stolen property. What could the slim beak of the swallow do against the redoubtable pincers of the sparrow, armed with a double and sharpened point? Very soon, the poor proprietor, dispossessed and beaten back, retreated with his head covered with blood, and his neck nearly stripped of its feathers. He ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... sensitive to a touch. When a petiole of this species clasps a stick, it draws the base of the internode against it; and then the internode itself bends towards the stick, which is caught between the stem and the petiole as by a pair of pincers. The internode afterwards straightens itself, excepting the part in actual contact with the stick. Young internodes alone are sensitive, and these are sensitive on all sides along their whole length. ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin

... trifle too much for Carroway. Up he jumped with surprising speed, took one stride through the station door, and seizing Cadman by the collar, shook him, wrung his ear with the left hand, which was like a pair of pincers, and then with the other flung him backward as if he were an empty bag. The fellow was too much amazed to strike, or close with him, or even swear, but received the vehement impact without any stay behind him. So that he staggered back, hat downward, and striking one heel on a stone, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... that is the reason why he goes prowling about for empty shells. Often, too, really he's such a pugnacious fellow, he will turn the rightful tenant out, taking forcible possession. Just look at his tail and see how it is provided with a pair of pincers at the end. He is enabled by this means to hold on firmly to any shell, no matter how badly it may fit him, which he ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... his hand with an ax, and threw it and the murderous knife into the fire. His breasts, his arms and his legs were torn with pincers, and boiling oil and melted lead poured into the open wounds. He was then dismembered by four strong horses, which pulled for no less than an entire hour. They dismembered only a corpse. He expired," says L'Estoile, "at the second or third pull." When the executioner had to throw the limbs into ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... a little phial of balsam, with which he rubbed humpback's neck a long time; then he took out of his case a neat iron instrument, which he put betwixt his teeth, and after he had opened his mouth, he thrust down his throat a pair of small pincers, with which he took out a bit of fish and bone, which he shewed to all the people. Immediately humpback sneezed, stretched forth his arms and feet, opened his eyes, and shewed several ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous



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