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For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand.
2018, Neil Tweedie, “Is the world running out of sand? The truth behind stolen beaches and dredged islands”, in The Guardian:
“We are addicted to sand but don’t know it because we don’t buy it as individuals,” says Aurora Torres, […]
2018, Neil Tweedie, “Is the world running out of sand? The truth behind stolen beaches and dredged islands”, in The Guardian:
China’s hunger for sand is insatiable, its biggest dredging site at Lake Poyang produces 989,000 tonnes per day.
(countable) A specific grade, type, or composition of sand.
One sand was that used in cement testing with white well rounded smooth grains, passing through a 20-mesh sieve and retained on a 30-mesh sieve. The other was ordinary brown building sand, passing 40-mesh and retained on 60-mesh.
(countable, often in the plural) A beach or other mass of sand.
The Canadian tar sands are a promising source of oil.
From east and south the danger was to be expected. Not from the uninhabited northern desert, not from the desolate sands of the unknown west, would it come.
1884, Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:
You may say what you want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand.
1968, Charles Portis, True Grit:
He said, “I admire your sand but I believe you will find I am not liable for such claims. Let me say too that your valuation of the horse is high by about two hundred dollars.”
Sleep in your eyes, sleep crust, sand, eye gunk—whatever you call it, we all get it—that crusty stuff in the corners of your eyes when you wake up in the morning. "The medical term is 'rheum,' though you rarely hear it used," […]
Cf. Sandman, a mythical character in European folklore who puts people to sleep and encourages and inspires beautiful dreams by sprinkling magical sand onto their eyes.
An excuse for tears.
Cf. “Sand in My Eyes”, in TV Tropes, 2023 March 1 (last accessed): “Alternative Title(s): Something In My Eye”
1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter IX, in Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, page 141:
Sudden stopping, which could be effected easily by sanding the rails and reversing the driving-gear, was dangerous, because the train might telescope and overwhelm the engine.
1958, Boris Pasternak, chapter 4, in Max Hayward, Manya Harari, transl., Doctor Zhivago, New York: Pantheon, page 96:
The golden domes of churches and the freshly sanded paths in the town gardens were a glaring yellow.
1 When an adjective is applied predicatively to something definite, the corresponding "indefinite" form is used. 2 The "indefinite" superlatives may not be used attributively.
In some dialects, especially in central Eastern Norway, feminine gender is used instead. Also using the definite singular form sanda. Compare with above quotations.