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Examples

  • Though the tempest top-gallant mast smack smooth should smite,

    Letter 94 2009

  • And with pride, he went down a four-hundred foot cliff, on a pair of top-gallant studding - sail halyards bent together, to dislodge several dollars worth of stranded bullock hides, though all the acclaim he got from his mates was: "What a d-d fool you were to risk your life for half a dozen hides!"

    A CLASSIC OF THE SEA 2010

  • In defence of his island shores, he puts a chaplain on board his ship; nails a flag with a cross on it to his top-gallant mast; and sails to the ends of the earth, sinking, burning and destroying all who dispute the empire of the seas with him.

    Is McCain About to ‘Refine’ His Withdrawal Plan, Too? « Antiwar.com Blog 2008

  • Lord Keeper with the council, and the council with the king [queen], that before the company dismissed (which was, indeed, rather at an early hour than a late one), every man of note in the village was ascending to the top-gallant of some ideal preferment by the ladder of ropes which Caleb had presented to their imagination.

    The Bride of Lammermoor 2008

  • Dugald Stewart has the honours of situation and architecture; Burns is memorialised lower down upon a spur; Lord Nelson, as befits a sailor, gives his name to the top-gallant of the Calton Hill.

    Edinburgh Picturesque Notes 2005

  • A dozen men-of-war are gliding majestically out of port, their long buntings streaming from the top-gallant masts, calling on the skulking Frenchman to come forth from his bights and bays; and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank in the east?

    Lavengro 2004

  • Pipes, who, without taking the least notice of the situation in which he found them, told his master, that he might up with the top-gallant masts of his heart, and out with his rejoicing pendants; for as to Miss Emily, he had clapped her helm aweather, the vessel wore, and now she was upon the other tack, standing right into the harbour of his good-will.

    The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle 2004

  • Delight, — top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven.

    Moby Dick; or the Whale 2002

  • Down royals and top-gallant stunsails, Mr. Starbuck.

    Moby Dick; or the Whale 2002

  • On the 19th, when they were in the Gulf of Lyons, a gale came on from the N.W. It moderated so much on the 20th as to enable them to get their top-gallant masts and yards aloft.

    The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson Southey, Robert, 1774-1843 1993

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