Free The Describer's Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms & Literary Quotations by David Grambs Page A

moment later he saw that what he had taken for downlands was but the ridged and furrowed surface of a blue-grey valley mist—a mist which would not appear a mist at all when they descended into the hatldramit.
    C. S. LEWIS, Out of the Silent Planet
     
    stony
pebbled, pebbly, gravelly
    covered with another material or substance
overlaid
    covered with a glossy surface
enameled
    covered with a crust
encrusted

Size, Position, Relation, and Proportion
     
    In one case the entire residence unit consists of juxtaposed rectangular rooms enclosing a roughly trapezoid court.
    DAVID L. CLARKE, Spatial Archeology
     
     
Their dark branches grow to an extraordinary extent laterally; are endlessly angled, twisted, raked, interlocked, and reach quite as much downward as upwards.
    JOHN FOWLES, The Tree
     
     
Beneath the strongest of the lantern beams they saw that the ladder or iron staircase Scott had found leading from the next to last platform to the plating of the double bottom of the vessel had been twisted around sideways offering a not too difficult climbing angle, except that the last five steps had been sheared off, leaving a gap about level with their heads. A man could take hold of the bottom and swing himself up. Above, at the top, the light showed the gleaming silver cylinder of the propeller shaft, the entrance to the tunnel and the reversed walkway of solid piping that followed it to the stern of the ship.
    PAUL GALLICO, The Poseidon Adventure
     
    large, big
huge, vast, great, massive, extensive, bulky, sizable,
considerable, ample, substantial, hefty, jumbo
    very large
giant, gigantic, mountainous, colossal, mammoth,
behemoth, brobdingnagian, gargantuan, stupendous,
amplitudinous, monstrous, gross, extensive, far-ranging,
far-reaching, enormous, titanic, humongous, immense,
megatherian
    large in capacity
capacious, voluminous, roomy, spacious, comprehensive
    small, little
inconsiderable
    very small
petite, diminutive, wee, puny, teeny, teeny-weeny,
minuscule, infinitesimal, minute
    wide
broad, thick, latitudinous, spread, outspread
    very wide
expansive, panoramic
    narrow
thin, slender, slim, constricted, spindly
    high, tall
elevated, lofty, altitudinous
    very high
towering, soaring
     
     
These abandoned channels are best preserved on the slip-off side of a bend—usually as a nest of crescentic loops. Artificial levees form a regular pattern and roughly parallel the course of the river. Drainage or irrigation canals are generally at right angles to the river, although lateral canals may parallel it. WILLIAM C. PUTNAM,
    Map Interpretation with Military Applications
     
     
    The exteriors of most Puuc-style buildings are devoid of sculptural decoration below the medial molding, the intricate mosaics being concentrated in the upper half of the facades. The Palace of the Masks, however, stands on a low platform, the face of which is decorated with a single row of mask panels; above this is a carved molding, surmounted by the lower half of the facade, which is in turn composed of three rows of mask panels running across the front of the building. Above an elaborate medial molding there are again three rows of mask panels, the topmost being surmounted by a terminal molding.
    SYLVANUS MORLEY AND GEORGE BRAINERD,
The Ancient Maya
     
     
    When I’m naked I lie down on the examining table, on the sheet of chilly crackling disposable paper. I pull the second sheet, the cloth one, up over my body. At neck level there’s another sheet, suspended from the ceiling. It intersects me so that the doctor will never see my face. He deals with a torso only.
    MARGARET ATWOOD, The Handmaid’s Tale
     
     
    The act of pious charity performed, Cedric again motioned them to follow him, gliding over the stone floor with a noiseless tread; and, after ascending a few steps, opened with great caution the door of a small oratory, which adjoined to the chapel. It was about eight feet square, hollowed, like the chapel itself, out of