Parks

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park

(pärk)

1. An area of land set aside for public use, as:

a. A piece of land with few or no buildings within or adjoining a town, maintained for recreational and ornamental purposes.

b. A landscaped city square.

c. A large tract of rural land kept in its natural state and usually reserved for the enjoyment and recreation of visitors.

2. A broad, fairly level valley between mountain ranges: the high parks of the Rocky Mountains.

3. A tract of land attached to a country house, especially when including extensive gardens, woods, pastures, or a game preserve.

4. Sports A stadium or an enclosed playing field: a baseball park.

a. An area where military vehicles or artillery are stored and serviced.

b. The materiel kept in such an area.

6. An area in or near a town designed and usually zoned for a certain purpose: a commercial park.

7. A position in an automatic transmission that disengages the gears and sets the brake so the vehicle cannot move: put the car in park and turned off the engine.

v. parked, park·ing, parks

v.tr.

1. To put or leave (a vehicle) for a time in a certain location.

2. Aerospace To place (a spacecraft or satellite) in a usually temporary orbit.

3. Informal To place or leave temporarily: parked the baby with neighbors; parking cash in a local bank account.

4. To assemble (artillery or other equipment) in a military park.

v.intr.

1. To park a motor vehicle: pulled over and parked next to the curb.

2. Slang To engage in kissing and caressing in a vehicle stopped in a secluded spot.

[Middle English, game preserve, enclosed tract of land, from Old French parc, from Vulgar Latin *parricus, fence, from *parra, perhaps, "wooden bar, espalier"; akin to Spanish parra, grapevine grown in an espalier, and French barre, bar; see barre.]

park′er n.

Parks

(pärks), Rosa 1913-2005.

American civil rights leader. Her refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 resulted in a citywide bus boycott that helped launch the national civil rights movement.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Noun

Parks - United States civil rights leader who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery (Alabama) and so triggered the national Civil Rights movement (born in 1913)

Rosa Parks

References in classic literature ?

They were taken by surprise so far as the diplomatic situation was concerned, and their equipment for building either navigables or aeroplanes was contemptible in comparison with the huge German parks. Still they set to work at once to prove to the world that the spirit that had created the Monitor and the Southern submarines of 1864 was not dead.

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I turned north- wards, marvelling, towards the iron gates of Hyde Park. I had half a mind to break into the Natural History Museum and find my way up to the summits of the towers, in order to see across the park.

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The statues are all large; the palace is grand; the park covers a fair-sized county; the avenues are interminable.

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"I don't even remember telling you that I came into the Park in the mornings," Geraldine replied.

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'But why can't she read it in the park or the garden?--why should she go into the fields and lanes?

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Not less than mine became her desire that I should have my way - but, ah, the iron seats in that park of horrible repute, and that bare room at the top of many flights of stairs!

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"We are going for a walk in the park," answered Anne.

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The park as beautiful now, in its wintry garb, as it could be in its summer glory: the majestic sweep, the undulating swell and fall, displayed to full advantage in that robe of dazzling purity, stainless and printless - save one long, winding track left by the trooping deer - the stately timber-trees with their heavy-laden branches gleaming white against the dull, grey sky; the deep, encircling woods; the broad expanse of water sleeping in frozen quiet; and the weeping ash and willow drooping their snow-clad boughs above it - all presented a picture, striking indeed, and pleasing to an unencumbered mind, but by no means encouraging to me.

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Two minutes later, as Rouletabille was bending over the footprints discovered in the park, under the window of the vestibule, a man, evidently a servant at the chateau, came towards us rapidly and called out to Monsieur Darzac then coming out of the pavilion:

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"It's a few yards down the road," said the red-haired man, removing his cigar; "I shall be passing it myself in a minute, but I'm going on to Pendragon Park to try and see the fun."

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They come back, accompanied by Count Fosco and his wife, who propose to settle somewhere in the neighbourhood of London, and who have engaged to stay at Blackwater Park for the summer months before deciding on a place of residence.

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After some minutes spent in this way, Miss Bertram, observing the iron gate, expressed a wish of passing through it into the park, that their views and their plans might be more comprehensive.