As we drew close to the next floor, I could see a green glow coming from under the crenellated slit where the escalator steps disappeared....
NICHOLSON BAKER,
The Mezzanine
having teeth along the edge
saw-toothed, dentate
having small teeth along the edge
serrate, denticulate, dentellated
having a notch near the edge
rabbeted
having cuts on the surface
scratched, scarred, scored
Surfaces and Textures
The ceiling of the companion-way which had paralleled the angle of descent now presented the only means of ascent, a slippery and precipitous slope of painted steel with lighting panels inset and flush, an unmanageable surface offering no grip or handhold of any kind.
PAUL GALLICO,
The Poseidon Adventure
The turbid water, swollen by the heavy rain, was rushing rapidly on below; and all other sounds were lost in the noise of its splashing and eddying against the green and slimy piles.
CHARLES DICKENS,
Oliver Twist
The mud lay thick upon the stones, and a black mist hung over the streets; the rain fell sluggishly down, and everything felt cold and clammy to the touch.
CHARLES DICKENS,
Oliver Twist
It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and a flying wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
Dr.jekyll and Mr. Hyde
flat or without varying elevation
plane, level, planate, tabular, tabulate
made flat, flattened
applanate, planiform, complanate
bent or twisted out of its plane
warped, buckled
smooth and free of roughness
even, uniform, glabrous, levigate
smooth and shiny
lustrous, glossy, polished, burnished, buffed, glazed,
varnished, shellacked, lacquered, gleaming, glistening, glassy,
suave
like glass
glassy, glazed, glazy, vitreous, vitriform, hyaline
not shiny
lusterless, dull, matte
having an uneven surface
irregular, bumpy, humpy, hummocky, lumpy
rough
coarse, prickly, scabrous, abrasive, scratchy, choppy, ragged,
jagged, sandpapery, raspy
rough with prominent irregularities
scraggly, scraggy
having wrinkles
wrinkled, corrugated, rugose, crinkly, crinkled, crispate
Pseudo-Arabic minarets, dentils, and spindled galleries silhouette the outlines of furniture designed on the circle and its parts—the arc and chord. The wooden frame was covered in chamois leather within
repoussé
metal mounts or veneered in pewter and brass with insect-like motifs and Middle Eastern calligraphy.
ALASTAIR DUNCAN, Art
Nouveau Furniture
Both saw Violet-le-Duc’s influence in the house’s whiplash contours.
ALASTAIR DUNCAN, Art
Nouveau Furniture
I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn, for that was the usual way; but I had the demon’s own time with my armor, and this delayed me a little. It is troublesome to get into, and there is so much detail. First you wrap a layer or two of blanket around your body, for a sort of cushion and to keep off the cold iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt of chain mail—these are made of small steel links woven together, and they form a fabric so flexible that if you toss your shirt onto the floor, it slumps into a pile like a peck of wet fishnet....
MARK TWAIN,
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
My horse was not above medium size, but he was alert, slender-limbed, muscled with watch springs, and just a grey-hound to go. He was a beauty, glossy as silk, and naked as he was when he was born, except for bridle and ranger saddle.
MARK TWAIN,
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
having a grain-like consistency
grainy, granular, gritty, coarse-grained, rough-grained,
granulated, branny
having a sand-like consistency
sandy, sabulous, tophaceous, arenaceous, arenarious
having a pushed-up surface
raised, embossed, relief, in relief
having rounded protuberances
knobbed
having small rounded protuberances
pimpled
having hard ornamental protuberances
studded
having raised (relief) patterns made by hammering the other side
repoussé
having a cut-into surface
incised, engraved, tooled
having small pits or indentations
pitted, pocked, pockmarked
having hammered indentations
chased
sharp
acute, cutting, keen-edged, keen, knife-edged, knife-like,
razor-edged, razor-like, cultrate
having or coming to a point
pointed, acute, acuminate, mucronate, acuate
having sharp projections
thorny, prickly, barbed, spiny, echinated
not sharp
dull, blunt, obtund, obtuse
cut along the edge
nicked, notched, hacked
I could not go abroad in snow—it would settle on me and expose me. Rain, too, would make me a watery outline, a glistening surface of a man—a bubble. And fog—I should be like a fainter bubble in a fog, a surface, a greasy glimmer of humanity.
H . G . WELLS,
The Invisible Man
I’ve heard the long sigh go up, from around me, the sigh like air coming out of an air mattress, I’ve seen Aunt Lydia place her hand over the mike, to stifle the other sounds coming from behind her, I’ve leaned forward to touch the rope in front of me, in time with the others, both hands on it, the rope hairy, sticky with tar in the hot sun, then placed my hand on my heart to show my unity with the Salvagers and my consent, and my complicity in the death of this woman.
MARGARET AT WOOD,
The Handmaid’s Tale
He sits me down, and sits himself down beside me. He puts an arm around my shoulders. The fabric is raspy against my skin, so unaccustomed lately to being touched.
MARGARET ATWOOD,
The Handmaid
‘
s Tale
He lets the book fall closed. It makes an exhausted sound, like a padded door shutting, by itself, at a distance: a puff of air. The sound suggests the softness of the thin oniony pages, how they would feel under the fingers. Soft and dry, like
papier poudre,
pink and powdery, from the time before, you’d get it in booklets for taking the shine off your nose, in those stores that sold candles and soap in the shapes of things: seashells, mushrooms. Like cigarette paper. Like petals.
MARGARET AT WOOD,
The Handmaid’s Tale
having a sliced opening or openings
slit, cut, slashed, incised, gashed, scissored
having scratches
scratched, scored, abraded, scuffed, scraped, scarred
solid
substantial, dense, concrete, material, palpable, intact
hard
firm, unyielding, inflexible, rock-hard, stone-like, flinty,
adamantine, indurate, steely
hardened
toughened, indurated
marble-like
marmoreal
granite-like
granitic
cement-like
cementitious
diamond-like
adamantine
stiff
rigid, starchy, inelastic, inflexible, inextensible
tight
taut
tough
fibrous, leathery, sinewy, ropy, stringy, gristly, chewy,
coriaceous
brittle
crisp
soft
yielding, pliant
limp
flaccid, slack, loose, baggy, droopy, loppy
lacking solidity
flimsy, unsubstantial
She had a vision of her mad wet face against the sky, as she rocked on the slippery stone. She tried to catch at her habit to help her, but the stuff was slimy with wet and dirt. Then Sister Ruth seemed to fall into the sky with a scream, as she went over the railings.
RUMER GODDEN,
Black Narcissus
A grainy, porous overlay might account for the waffling or graham-cracker appearance of much of the surface in the photos.
RICHARD S. LEWIS.
Appointment on the Moon
The buttress merged with roof and floor in flowing and perfectly proportioned curves. And on its face was superimposed a small, delicately sculptured column, so oddly weathered that it seemed almost a decorative afterthought. The surface of this column was rounded and smooth, as if it had been sandpapered by a patient carpenter, and its fine-drawn strata stood out sharp and clear, like the grain on unstained, highly polished wood.
ERNEST BRAUN,
Grand Canyon of the Living Colorado
But after a foot or two of this ladder-like progression they are faced either with the battering fall of white water at their left or with a smooth black stretch of rock wall in front, hit every few seconds by heavy splashes of spray. For a few feet at the bottom of this wall grows a close slimy fur of water-weed, and among its infinitesimal tendrils the elvers twine themselves and begin, very slowly, to squirm their way upwards, forming a vertical, close-packed queue perhaps two feet wide.
GAVIN MAXWELL,
Ring of Bright Water
breakable
fragile, frangible, frail, crackable, crushable
crumbleable
easily crumbled, friable, pulverizable
easily cuttable or splittable
scissile
rubbery, elastic
blubbery, resilient, springy
yielding
claylike, doughy, pudding-like, pulpy, porridge-like,
pultaceous
flexible
bendable, pliable, pliant, malleable, elastic, resilient,
moldable, fictile
moldable
supple, malleable, fictile
stretchable
tensile, ductile, extensible
limp
loose, flaccid, floppy
mealy
floury, farinaceous
flaky
scaly, squamate, shivery
without moisture
dry, arid, desiccated, parched, sere
offering poor or no traction
slippery, slick, lubricated, glossy
oily, greasy, fat-like
slick, oleaginous, unguinous, sebaceous
soapy
saponaceous
... and the fields would be deep in that rank, hairy or slick, juicy, sticky grass which the cattle gorge on and never gets flesh over their ribs for that grass is in that black soil and no matter how far the roots could ever go, if the roots were God knows how deep, there would never be anything but that black, grease-clotted soil and no stone down there to put calcium into that grass....
ROBERT PENN WARREN,
All the King’s Men
This was the road, and when the surface of the earth became too deeply pitted and potholed with traffic the cars and trucks would deviate and choose another course.
NEVIL SHUTE,
A Town Like Alice
This was prudent, for in point of fact the dwarf, knowing his disposition, was lying in wait at a little distance from the sash armed with a large piece of wood, which, being rough and jagged and studded in many parts with broken nails, might possibly have hurt him.