Eke

Pity the hag-ridd'n quiv'rer who contracts / To ſuperſtition's gloom religion's joy, / And humbles adoration into dread. / Who ekeing his inch'd meaſure from within, / Peeps through his narrow ſoul's dim loop-hole wink, / And inſolently by his own ſcale takes / The altitude of heaven.

All ekes [or helps] as the geni-wren said, when she piss'd in the sea. / Many littles make a mickle, the whole ocean is made up of drops.

[T]he author [William Belsham] ekes out his volume with a great many extraneous details, which relate to a ſubſequent period; […] The whole work is ſingularly confuſed and deſultory: and, indeed, the plan which the author adopts, is altogether incompatible with that unity and coherence which is eſſential to hiſtory.

It must be acknowledged, that Mr. [William] Gifford's versification is sometimes unharmonious, and even harsh; that, like almost every other translator, he too often has recourse to eking words in order to complete his measure, and that his rhymes are frequently imperfect and faulty.

A majority of the properties are so small as not to afford a subsistence to the proprietors, of whom, according to some computations, as many as three millions are obliged to eke out their means of support either by working for hire, or by taking additional land, generally on metayer tenure.

If however the distention from the wind cometh suddenly, then these things cannot help, since that will turn into dropsy. If one applieth the warming leechdoms to that, then one eketh or augmenteth the disease.

[I]t is indeed Claudius himself who is writing this book, and no mere secretary of his, and not one of those official annalists, either, to whom public men are in the habit of communicating their recollections, in the hope that elegant writing will eke out meagreness of subject-matter and flattery soften vices.

But before too long, the rations that Parivash was ekeing out to feed them fell short and the tension that sprang from so many families piled in together overflowed.

It [New England] is also a place of history, a place that defines what it means to be American. Here grew the men and women who founded this country. […] sailors, whalers, and lobstermen eking a hard-won living from the ocean.

British tycoon Richard Branson stole the show here Wednesday, announcing that he and his family would be on Virgin Galactic's first trip into space, as Airbus and Boeing eked out more plane orders.

Very nearly as a cure for the man's innocence Tengan fired his cannons on him, and as the pilot, doomed and honorable, eked his plane a few metres into the air, both he and it were consumed by a frightful orb of fire.

The ſoote [i.e., sweet] ſeaſon, that bud and blome forth brings, / With grene hath clad the hill, and eke the vale: […]

'Tis false: for Arthur wore in Hall / Round Table like a Farthingal, / On which, with Shirt pull'd out behind, / And eke before his good Knights dined.

John Gilpin was a citizen / Of credit and renown, / A train-band Captain eke was he / Of famous London town.

A vinegary face has Mrs Miff, and a mortified bonnet, and eke a thirsty soul for sixpences and shillings.