pull-comb. form

1552 in W. Page Inventories Church Goods York, Durham & Northumberland (1897) 53 One litle puyll bell.

1845 Mineral Point (Wisconsin Territory) Democrat 25 Apr. Articles of household furniture, such as a hand-bell, or a pull-bell, to which the virtuous woman has frequent occasions to lay her hand.

1919 R. Macaulay Three Days 52 How a pull-bell clangs when it rings!

2001 St. Petersburg (Florida) Times (Nexis) 21 Mar. 1 b Light fixtures above the seats are old-fashioned glass... There is a pull-bell to ding.

1883 G. H. Boughton in Harper's Mag. Jan. 172/2 It is a treat to see a powerful young Dutchwoman handle a rope on a pull-boat.

1895 N.Y. Times 24 Nov. 28/2 A system in common use in the cypress swamps of the South is what is known among lumbermen as a ‘pull boat’... The one-inch cable is pulled out into the swamp, and the logs are hauled in by the winding of the drum.

1933 M. K. Rawlings South Moon 63 The drum on the pull-boat chattered, the gears ground and creaked.

2005 M. Saikku This Delta, This Land vi. 185 Southern float logging was largely replaced in the 1890s by the pull boat method: a stationary engine, mounted on a barge, skidded the logs over the soft surface of the bottomlands.

a1903 J. Turner in Eng. Dial. Dict. (1903) 642/2 [W. Yks.] Pull-bone,..it is often pulled by two young persons until it snaps in two.

1905 ‘O. Henry’ in Chicago Sunday Tribune 5 Nov. vi. 7/4 In her mind she could hear the girls shrieking over a pull bone.

c1970 in Dict. Amer. Regional Eng. 4 371/1 Pull bone.

1860 Sci. Amer. 16 June 396/3 George Leach, of New York City, for an improvement in pull cocks.

a1877 E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech. II. 1818/2 Pull-cock, a faucet whose spigot or movable member is vertical while the passage is closed, and is pulled over to a horizontal position to discharge. It rotates 90° in a vertical plane, while the ordinary spigot moves in a horizontal plane.

1865 Sci. Amer. 29 Apr. 281/3 The arrangement of pulleys..on the arm..of the segment in combination with the pull-cords.

1963 Listener 28 Feb. 399/1 It should be..fitted with either a pull-cord switch or one outside the door.

1994 Ontario Out of Doors Sept. 58/2 It's a full-bodied decoy with a moveable head, operated by a pull cord.

1596 T. Nashe Haue with you to Saffron-Walden sig. R4 Braggardous affronts, white liuerd tronts, where doth the vranie or furie ring, pulcrow implements. Danters scar-crow Presse.

1969 Washington Post 16 Oct. (Potomac Mag. section) 7/2 Some dates represent the last day of shelf life, called the ‘pull’ date, and other dates represent the packaging date.

1995 Los Angeles Times (Nexis) 1 Jan. c1/3 Good news? There was some,..largely devoted to the bashing of narrow-minded stereotypes long past their pull date.

2004 Nation's Restaurant News 23 Aug. 116 Saunders had stopped serving pickles earlier this month after learning that their..pull date had been extended by six to nine months.

1890 Cent. Dict. (at cited word) Pull-devil, a device for catching fish, made of several hooks fastened back to back, to be dragged or jerked through the water.

1905 Athenæum 18 Nov. 383/2 Like the hook-stroke and the pull-drive, it is well illustrated here.

1977 World of Cricket Monthly June 40/3 Harvey broke through with an audacious pull-drive and a daredevil sweep.

2000 Times 17 Nov. 40/4 He said after skying an attempted pull-drive that he was proud of the way that he had ‘hung in there’ once England had got past their first target of 300.

1911 Gaz. & Bull. (Williamsport, Pa.) 12 Dec. 6/1 It will remove from the field of discussion a consideration of the ‘push and pull’ factor, since distance can be more surely made.]

1938 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 43 948 The discussion of the ‘causes of the rural exodus’ can only advance on the basis of an investigation of those ‘pull factors’ which have thus far been neglected in the literature.

1984 Monthly Labor Rev. (Nexis) Nov. Much of women's recent occupational mobility may be attributed to pull factors.

1995 Scotsman (Nexis) 10 Aug. 13 Only a small minority said they had become freelances from a positive wish to do so... The ‘push factor’ in the growth of self-employment..was greater than the ‘pull-factor’.

2004 Independent 7 Jan. (Property section) 12/5 Although the schools have always been a strong pull factor, buyers who commute to London have tended to draw the line at Wadhurst.

1927 Washington Post 23 Apr. 13/4 Myer has been advised to change from a swinger to a pull hitter in an effort to put more power in his stroke.

1972 N.Y. Times 4 June v. 2/7 He is primarily a pull hitter to left and some teams stack defensive alignments against him.

2005 Sporting News 22 Apr. 67/2 White is still a pull hitter but is making more use of the whole field.

1869 Sci. Amer. 23 Jan. 62/2 Pull iron for horse cars.—Allen S. Jimmerson, New York city, N.Y.

1875 E. H. Knight Amer. Mech. Dict. III. 1821/1 Pull-iron, the piece at the hind end of the tongue of a street-car by which it is attached to the car.

1890 Cent. Dict. Pull-Iron, in a railroad-car, an eye-bolt or lug to which a chain may be attached when the car is to be moved by horses.

1984 Railway Age Comprehensive Railroad Dict. Pull Iron, a roping staple.

1838 Penny Cycl. XII. 300/1 X is a piece called the pull-piece, by pulling a string at the end of which the lifting-piece is raised, and the clock is made to repeat the hour last struck at any required time.

1875 E. H. Knight Amer. Mech. Dict. III. 1821/1 Pull-piece (Horology), the wire or string..by pulling which the clock is made to strike.

1986 F. E. Davis et al. Desktop Publishing iii. 46 You can break up a page of text attractively by dropping in a..quote from the main body of text that you set apart somehow—either in a box, within rules, or surrounded by white space—to catch the readers' attention... These free-floating phrases, which are called callouts or pull quotes, can highlight important material.

1997 Church Times 28 Feb. 16/2 ‘What is happening in Jewish life is close to becoming its death throes’ was the pull-quote, and I had to read it twice before I was sure it meant anything at all.

2002 Washington Post 30 July c4 A pull quote is a humble thing but sometimes it rises to the level of art, becoming a poem, or even a tiny short story, like this little gem from Elle: ‘Over seven weeks, we were falling in love, leaving bad jobs and marriages, closing deals and having multiple orgasms.’

1965 Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald-Jrnl. 19 Apr. 7/2 (advt.) Your choice of pull start or impulse start.

2005 Innisfail (Austral.) Advocate 19 Feb. 15 The Stiga Garden Compact..has an excellent turning circle and electric start with standby pull start.

1983 A. Clark Jrnl. 15 Aug. (1990) 36 Yesterday afternoon I broke the lanyard..on the twenty-seventh..attempt to get it pull-started.

1995 Canad. Geographic Sept. 32/3 ‘He's just ahead of us,’ Poole would say, switching off his receiver and pull-starting his snowmobile.

2003 Org. Gardening Sept. 44/2 An ingenious type of coil spring is used to reduce both the force and the speed required to pull-start the engine.

1880 Manufacturer & Builder Feb. 42/2 The pull-stroke of 3,000 years ago is the best for such thin, narrow blades.

1897 K. S. Ranjitsinhji Jubilee Bk. Cricket iii. 132 He..applies a marvellous pull-stroke to good-length balls just outside the off-stump.

1969 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. li. 10 Pull stroke,..a stroke whereby the kayakist leans far forward, thrusts the paddle into the water and with extreme exertion pulls the kayak forward.

1994 Harrowsmith Aug. 56/3 The scuffle (or oscillating stirrup) hoe, with its U-shaped blade rocking back and forth a few degrees so that it cuts on both the push and pull strokes.

2006 Sunday Mail (Australia) (Nexis) 5 Mar. He was criticised for over aggressive pull strokes after a first-over mishap in a Test against South Africa.

1888 D. Salomons Managem. Accumulators (ed. 3) ii. ii. 97 The Browett pull switch is fixed near the cornice, and by pulling a cord, the light is put on; also turned off by a similar action.

1961 P. de Vomécourt Army of Amateurs xx. 236 Under the heap was a pound of plastic explosive, attached to it a ‘pull switch’... We tugged at the pull switch.

1971 D. Bagley Freedom Trap vi. 130 The light switch in the bathroom was operated..by a ceiling pull-switch from which a strong cord hung to a convenient hand level.

1993 Collins Compl. DIY Man. (new ed.) vii. 325/2 Use a 20amp ceiling-mounted pull-switch with a mechanical on/off indicator.

1812 W. Stevenson Gen. View Agric. Dorset v. 152 Mr. Crane's servant..says they have thrashed 15 sacks of wheat from ears, and pull-tails (which remain after the best straw is drawn for reed-thatching) in a day.

1891 T. Hardy Tess of the D'Urbervilles III. xliii. 60 She..reclined on a heap of pull-tails—the refuse after the straight straw had been drawn—thrown up at the further side of the barn.

1794 A. Young Gen. View Agric. Suffolk 49 The buyer heckles it [sc. hemp],..he makes it into two or three sorts: long strike, short strike, and pull tow.

a1825 R. Forby Vocab. E. Anglia (1830) Pull-tow, pull-tow-knots, the coarse and knotty parts of the tow, which are carefully pulled out and thrown aside, before it is fit to be spun into yarn.

1823 E. Moor Suffolk Words (at cited word) Pulternots, offal, or refuse, of hemp or tow not worth spinning.

a1825 R. Forby Vocab. E. Anglia (1830) Pull-tow, pull-tow-knots, the coarse and knotty parts of the tow, which are carefully pulled out and thrown aside, before it is fit to be spun into yarn.