21 uses
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Definition
in line with the floor, horizon, or another flat base
- To be short, then, a whale is A SPOUTING FISH WITH A HORIZONTAL TAIL.Chapters 31-33 — Queen Mab; Cetology; The Specksnyder (29% in)
- Whereas, among spouting fish the tail, though it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a horizontal position.Chapters 31-33 — Queen Mab; Cetology; The Specksnyder (30% in)
- * Hence, all the smaller, spouting, and horizontal tailed fish must be included in this ground-plan of Cetology.Chapters 31-33 — Queen Mab; Cetology; The Specksnyder (31% in)
- Strictly speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out from the jaw in a line a little depressed from the horizontal.Chapters 31-33 — Queen Mab; Cetology; The Specksnyder (64% in)
- But the creatures set down above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by the terms of my definition of what a whale is—i.e. a spouting fish, with a horizontal tail.Chapters 31-33 — Queen Mab; Cetology; The Specksnyder (74% in)
- ...scientific account of his experiments in this crow's-nest, with a small compass he kept there for the purpose of counteracting the errors resulting from what is called the "local attraction" of all binnacle magnets; an error ascribable to the horizontal vicinity of the iron in the ship's planks, and in the Glacier's case, perhaps, to there having been so many broken-down blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though the Captain is very discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his...Chapters 34-36 — The Cabin-Table; The Mast-Head; The Qarter-Deck—Ahab and all (51% in)
- This chart divides the ocean into districts of five degrees of latitude by five degrees of longitude; perpendicularly through each of which districts are twelve columns for the twelve months; and horizontally through each of which districts are three lines; one to show the number of days that have been spent in each month in every district, and the two others to show the number of days in which whales, sperm or right, have been seen.Chapters 43-45 — Hark!; The Chart; The Affidavit (15% in)
- Those tiger yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like five trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength, which periodically started the boat along the water like a horizontal burst boiler out of a Mississippi steamer.Chapters 46-48 — Surmises; The Mat-Maker; The First Lowering (57% in)
- ...an extra coat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make it better withstand the pointed pressure of his ivory limb; and also the anxiety he evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, or clumsy cleat, as it is sometimes called, the horizontal piece in the boat's bow for bracing the knee against in darting or stabbing at the whale; when it was observed how often he stood up in that boat with his solitary knee fixed in the semi-circular depression in the cleat, and with the...Chapters 49-51 — The Hyena; Ahab's Boat and Crew - Fedallah; The Spirit-Spout (40% in)
- The strange, upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air beneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic influences were struggling in her—one to mount direct to heaven, the other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal.Chapters 49-51 — The Hyena; Ahab's Boat and Crew - Fedallah; The Spirit-Spout (67% in)
- 'The White Whale—the White Whale!' was the cry from captain, mates, and harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumours, were all anxious to capture so famous and precious a fish; while the dogged crew eyed askance, and with curses, the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass, that lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like a living opal in the blue morning sea.Chapters 52-54 — The Albatross; The Gam; The Town-Ho's Story (88% in)
- At the middle of the forehead horizontally subdivide this upper quoin, and then you have two almost equal parts, which before were naturally divided by an internal wall of a thick tendinous substance.Chapters 76-78 — The Battering-Ram; The Great Heidelburgh Tun; Cistern and Buckets (31% in)
- In profile, you plainly perceive that horizontal, semi-crescentic depression in the forehead's middle, which, in man, is Lavater's mark of genius.Chapters 79-81 — The Prairie; The Nut; The Pequod Meets the Virgin (11% in)
- By great exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal flight, with added fleetness.Chapters 82-84 — The Honour and Glory of Whaling; Jonah Historically Regarded; Pitchpoling (78% in)
- Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it is for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along, horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, and a little to one side; this curious canal is very much like a gas-pipe laid down in a city on one side of a street.Chapters 85-87 — The Fountain; The Tail; The Grand Armada (12% in)
- The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are long and horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and running crosswise between the outside layers.Chapters 85-87 — The Fountain; The Tail; The Grand Armada (25% in)
- First: Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan's tail acts in a different manner from the tails of all other sea creatures.Chapters 85-87 — The Fountain; The Tail; The Grand Armada (31% in)
- Then going through some small strange motions with it—whether indispensable to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to augment the awe of the crew, is uncertain—he called for linen thread; and moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, and horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of the compass-cards.Chapters 124-126 — The Needle; The Log and Line; The Life-Buoy (30% in)
- All sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line, reserved for swaying him to the main royal-mast head; and in a few moments they were hoisting him thither, when, while but two thirds of the way aloft, and while peering ahead through the horizontal vacancy between the main-top-sail and top-gallant-sail, he raised a gull-like cry in the air.Chapters 133-135 — The Chase—First Day; The Chase—Second Day; The Chase—Third Day (3% in)
- But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly round and round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in his vengeful wake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly assault.Chapters 133-135 — The Chase—First Day; The Chase—Second Day; The Chase—Third Day (19% in)
- For so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale's aspect, and so planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made, that he seemed horizontally swooping upon them.Chapters 133-135 — The Chase—First Day; The Chase—Second Day; The Chase—Third Day (21% in)
There are no more uses of "horizontal" in Moby Dick.
Typical Usage
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