span-long

It resembled a span-long plesiosaurus, afflicted with elephantiasis, and a forked, lolling, tongue extruded from a head that swayed ominously right and left.

My Tropic Isle 2003

Great was the surprise of Mariana, great the scorn of Barbara, when the napkin being loosened gave to view a perplexed multitude of span-long puppets.

Chapter III. Book I 1917

The frying-pan was invented by Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died without baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp who had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump and devoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva.

INTERNET WIRETAP: The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce (1993 Edition) 1911

It resembled a span-long plesiosaurus, afflicted with elephantiasis, and a forked, lolling, tongue extruded from a head that swayed ominously right and left.

My Tropic Isle 1887

This is the Original Sin, inherited, innate, unacquired; for this are "babes span-long" to suffer, as the famous or infamous preacher declared.

Adventures Among Books Andrew Lang 1878

Watch these living specks as they glide through their forests of algæ, all 'without hurry and care,' as if their 'span-long lives' really could endure for the thousand years that the old catch pines for.

The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live In John Lubbock 1873

"But we that have but span-long lives" must ever bear in mind our limited time for acquisition.

Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects Everyman's Library Herbert Spencer 1861

To propagate the yucca the stalk is cut, particularly under the thick part, into span-long pieces, which are stuck obliquely into the earth.

Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests Johann Jakob von Tschudi 1853

Whose fires of torment burned for span-long babes?

Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851

Whose fires of torment burned for span-long babes?

The Poet at the Breakfast-Table Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851