Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'



Bull   Listen
noun
Bull  n.  
1.
A seal. See Bulla.
2.
A letter, edict, or respect, of the pope, written in Gothic characters on rough parchment, sealed with a bulla, and dated "a die Incarnationis," i. e., "from the day of the Incarnation." See Apostolical brief, under Brief. "A fresh bull of Leo's had declared how inflexible the court of Rome was in the point of abuses."
3.
A grotesque blunder in language; an apparent congruity, but real incongruity, of ideas, contained in a form of expression; so called, perhaps, from the apparent incongruity between the dictatorial nature of the pope's bulls and his professions of humility. "And whereas the papist boasts himself to be a Roman Catholic, it is a mere contradiction, one of the pope's bulls, as if he should say universal particular; a Catholic schimatic."
The Golden Bull, an edict or imperial constitution made by the emperor Charles IV. (1356), containing what became the fundamental law of the German empire; so called from its golden seal.
Synonyms: See Blunder.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Bull" Quotes from Famous Books



... of size stupendous, 'Twas this mighty bull of Suomi, Whom they led forth from Carelia Till they reached the fields of Pohja. By his horns, a hundred led him, And a thousand dragged his muzzle, 40 And they led the ox still further, Till to ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... her cousin. There was no Guy behind the pump, and she made straight for the tool-house. Lifting the latch, and standing just inside the door, the light from her bull's-eye fell on the old familiar objects. There was the grindstone, there the iron-bound box, ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery

... so great a distrust of his right to the crown in that in his second year he obtained a bull from pope Innocent to qualify the privilege of sanctuaries, in which was this remarkable clause, "That if any took sancturie for case of treason, the king might appoint him keepers to look to him in sanctuarie." Lord Bacon, ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... haven't any doubt that Bridget would in a very short time become a highly successful produce-broker with bull tendencies. The chicken market would be buoyant, and the quotations on the Stock Exchange of, say, B., S., and P.-U.-C.—otherwise, Beef, Succotash, and Picked-Up-Codfish—would rise to the highest point in years. Why, my dear, by Christmas-time cook would have our surplus in her own ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs

... then the breezy passage across the Rio Grande bridge, spanning the meandering waters which never bore vessels of any sort to the far-off sea, and finally the negotiation of the narrow street in Piedras Negras, past the plaza and the bull-ring, and countless little wine-shops, and the market, with its attractively displayed fruits and vegetables ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... before midnight," answered Jonson, "but your honour must go back to school and learn lessons before then. Suppose Bess were to address you thus: 'Well you parish bull prig, are you for lushing jackey, or pattering in the hum box?' [Note: Well, you parson thief, are you for drinking gin, or talking in the pulpit?] I'll be bound you would not know how ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the same original stock! Instincts, habits, intelligence, size, speed, form, and colour, have always varied, so as to produce the very races which the wants or fancies or passions of men may have led them to desire. Whether they wanted a bull-dog to torture another animal, a greyhound to catch a hare, or a bloodhound to hunt down their oppressed fellow-creatures, the required variations ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... bounding rabbit,—but many others leave me guessing, which is almost better. When a very big stick snaps, I always feel sure a deer is stealing away, though Jonathan assures me that a chewink can break twigs and "kick up a row generally," so that you'd swear it was nothing smaller than a wild bull. ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... that it can be made up again. I have borne quite enough, and will bear no more. Old Brookes came down to my studio with that cad Berkins, and forced his way in, and then forbade me the house because my dog bit Berkins's thigh. I couldn't help it. What did he attack me for? He didn't suppose a bull-dog would be still while his master was being knocked ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... Everything on the beach becomes a picture; the casting the seine, the ploughing the deep for seaweed. This, when they do it with horses, is prettiest of all; but when you see the oxen in the surf, you lose all faith in the story of Europa, as the gay waves tumble in on their lazy sides. The bull would be a fine object on the shore, but not, not in the water. Nothing short of a dolphin will do! Late to-night, from the highest Paradise rocks, seeing —— wandering, and the horsemen careering ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... Combinders. Dey was on de next plantation. Dey was mean. Many a time you could hear de bull whip, clear over to our place, PLOP, PLOP. An' if dey died, dey jest wrapped 'em in cloth an' dig a trench, an' plow right over 'em. An' when de war was over, dey wouldn't turn dey slaves loose. An de Federals marched in an' marched 'em off. An' ol' Mis' Combinder she holler out an she ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... having presented to him for the prelacy any persons but those of the purest morals of the French Empire; and that all his objections should be attended to, in case of promotions; his scruples removed, or his refusal submitted to. When Cardinal Fesch demanded His Holiness's Bull for the curate Miollis, the Cardinal Secretary of State, Gonsalvi, showed no less than twenty acts of apostasy and blasphemy, which made him unworthy of such a dignity. To this was replied that, having obtained an indulgence in toto for what was past, he was a proper subject; above all, as ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... he had just put on, and darted at Hugh, who had by this time recovered his coolness, and was besides, notwithstanding his unusual exertions, the more agile of the two. The other was heavier and more powerful. Hugh sprang aside, as he would have done from the rush of a bull, and again with a quick blow felled his antagonist. Beginning rather to enjoy punishing him, he now went in for it; and, before the other would yield, he had rendered his next day's labour somewhat doubtful. He withdrew, with no more injury to himself than ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... reverence! And I have brought her with me, just as she is; though if your reverence make more of her than to fill the six-foot hole and say a prayer over her, I'll give the mule that brought her here for food for the bull's horns. She neither hears nor speaks, but whether from weakness or sheer ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... the way he's bein' treated. They ain't goin' to git away wit' stickin' a bull in front of his door like he was ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... the labyrinth pierce— Which nerves the weak, and curbs the fierce, And wings with wit the dull;— That love which o'er the furrowed land Bowed—tame beneath young Jason's hand— The fiery-snorting bull! Yes, Styx itself, that ninefold flows, Has love, the fearless, ventured o'er, And back to daylight borne the bride, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... aplomb and nonchalance, its grotesque irreverence, its shy shrewd common-sense, its tough fibres, and portentous indifference to "distinction"; tumbles us over in the mud—for all our "aloofness"—and roars over us, like a romping bull-calf! ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... moment Blunt began to lose his head. No doubt he had not thought of such a serious fight as this when he had given his challenge, and there was a savage bull-dog tenacity about Myles that could not but have had a somewhat demoralizing ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... be done. Uniformed authority was in charge of events; it could not fail to find Joan. She had a vision of the police at work, stopping straggling families of tramps on distant by-roads, looking into the contents of their dreadful bundles, flashing the official bull's eye lantern into the mysterious interior of gypsy caravans, and making ragged men and slatternly women give an account of their wanderings. No limits to which they would not go; how could they fail? She wished their success seemed as inevitable to her mother ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... as to make one believe he could not live. Life was always war with him, or some semblance of a struggle. Of his many wild doings I recall well the time when—fired by my tales of hunting—he went out to attack the young bull in the paddock with a bow and arrow. It made small difference to the bull that the arrow was too blunt to enter his hide. With a bellow that frightened the idle negroes at the slave quarters, he started for Master Nick. I, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Canada, dear Canada, we shall not discombobulate Ourselves concerning JONATHAN. 'Tis true he tried to rob you late (That is if Tariff-diddling may be qualified as robbery), But BULL has learned the wisdom of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various

... them received no special names, but many exercised wide authority, and several were accredited by the people with an influence not less than that of the greater deities themselves. Such Were the regent of the stars—Tishtrya, the bull with golden horns, Sirius, the sparkling one; Mao, the moon-god; the wind, Vato; the atmosphere, Vayu, the strongest of the strong, the warrior with golden armour, who gathers the storm and hurls it against the demon; Atar, fire under its principal forms, divine fire, sacred fire, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... face was shrunken, the cheeks sagging in folds of woe; cruelty and wickedness were wiped from it; the evil in the eyes had been washed out by tears. Eyes streaming, bull throat and barrel chest racked by his sobbing, he watched the passing of his ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... leave Allee's cart outside the fence," said Peace, climbing the high rails with astonishing agility and dropping nimbly down on the other side. "Do you see the Skinflint's bull anywhere?" ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown

... the imperial rule Is aided by the British rod; While in the West the rebel school Receives full many a friendly nod. Can no new Mithra ever be To slay this Bull of tyranny? ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... themselves. Their natures were essentially low; and this low nature betrayed itself in their very faces, forms, and manners. They were short and thickset, with bull necks, bullet heads, shocks of thick black hair, low foreheads, large mouths, dark complexions, and sullen expressions. They were very much alike in person and in character. The only difference being that ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... were collected in the market-place, where a brisk trade in cattle, sheep, and dairy produce was being transacted. Suddenly there appeared in their midst a farmer holding the end of a rope, the noose of which was attached, not to a bull, calf or horse, but to the neck of a girl of nineteen. At this strange sight loud shouts were raised on all sides, and a stampede was made to the spot where the man ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman

... a rough but good-natured man on the whole, had two or three little peculiarities. In the first place, he piqued himself on a sort of John Bull independence; was a bit of a Radical (a strange anomaly in an admiral)—which was owing, perhaps, to two or three young lords having been put over his head in the earlier part of his career; and he made it a point with his nephew (of whose affection he was jealous) to break with ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... been some months since the young man had first entertained the suspicion that he could administer that thrashing to Mr. Pat whenever he felt inclined. Only it happened that he and Mr. Pat had become pretty good friends now, and it was the proof-reader's boast that he had never once made a bull in "Mr. Queed's copy" since the ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... parts of Spain bull-fights are given as late as December, but cold weather has a softening effect on the poor bulls and makes them less ferocious, so unless the season proves unusually warm that favorite entertainment has to be abandoned for a ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann

... the state and appearance of this region when the aboriginal colonists of the Celtic tribes were first driven or drawn towards it, and became joint tenants with the wolf, the boar, the wild bull, the red deer, and the leigh, a gigantic species of deer which has been long extinct; while the inaccessible crags were occupied by the falcon, the raven, and the eagle. The inner parts were too secluded, and of too little value, to participate much of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... that his column shall move on Bowling Green while another moves from Cairo or Paducah on Columbus or Camp Beauregard, it will be a repetition of the same strategic error which produced the disaster of Bull Run. To operate on exterior lines against an enemy occupying a central position will fail, as it always has failed, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. It is condemned by every military authority I have ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... the notable and evident emotion of the bowels of the earth, bear like witness to the same feelings, especially at those times when the rays of the planets form harmonious configurations on the earth," and again "The earth is not an animal like a dog, ready at every nod; but more like a bull or an elephant, slow to become angry, and so much the more furious when incensed." He seems to have believed the earth to be actually a living animal, as witness the following: "If anyone who has climbed the peaks of the highest mountains, throw a stone down their very ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant

... appears only in three, which are the best. In one she represents Andromeda fastened to the rock, and Perseus (the Duke) delivers her after overcoming the dragon. In the second, the 'Judgment of Paris,' she appears as Aphrodite, to whom Paris (the Duke) gives the apple. The third is 'Europa and the Bull,' Europa being personified by Esperance. The Duke does not wish to look ridiculous in a bull's hide, so takes liberties with the legend and transforms the bull into a centaur. I have said 'Amen' to everything. Finally to complete the fete, which will no doubt be well attended and very profitable, ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... that way is stale, and common. A townsman born in Taurus, gives the bull, Or the bull's-head: in Aries, the ram, A poor device! No, I will have his name Form'd in some mystic character; whose radii, Striking the senses of the passers by, Shall, by a virtual influence, breed affections, That may ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... "It was a bull. But he wasn't on a little bit. Went right by an' kept a-paddin' the hoof outa sight. Then I came back an' gave you the whistle. What made you take so ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... bear's-ears. Numerous names have been suggested by their fancied resemblance to the feet, hoofs, and tails of animals and birds; as, for instance, colt's-foot, crow-foot, bird's-foot trefoil, horse-shoe vetch, bull-foot, and the vervain, nicknamed frog's-foot. Then there is the larkspur, also termed lark's-claw, and lark's-heel, the lamb's-toe being so called from its downy heads of flowers, and the horse-hoof from the shape of the leaf. Among various similar names ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... could fall on no other than the Prince of Orange. But Granvella, with his usual presence of mind, broke through the snare. "The man who receives this office," he declared in the state council, "will, I hope, see that he divides Brabant with the king!" The long delay of the papal bull, which was kept back by a misunderstanding between the Romish and Spanish courts, gave the disaffected an opportunity to combine for a common object. In perfect secrecy the states of Brabant despatched an extraordinary messenger ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... the tournaments held in the great street called "Chepe;" of the pageants on the river; the bull-baiting, bear-baiting, and morris-dancing, and the plays at the theatres. She had an entranced audience of two until Morgan and Jeffreys ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... 'Sleepest thou O Aiolid king? Come, take this charmer of steeds, and show it to thy father[7] the tamer of horses, with the sacrifice of a white bull.' ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar

... the handkerchief was withdrawn from his eyes, and he found himself in the presence of about a dozen men, all of whose faces were blackened. On a large stone in the centre of the vault was placed the bull's-eye lantern which his companion had recently lighted, and which, by pouring its light fully on himself, prevented him from clearly seeing the movements of his captors. What was to come next? He was not long left ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson

... of education, however, are always more effective than physical, if designed and applied with sufficient wisdom. The bull-roarer, of which something has been already said, furnishes the ceremonies with a background of awe. It fills the woods, that surround the secret spot where the rites are held, with the rise and fall of its weird music, suggestive of a mighty rushing wind, of spirits in the air. Not until ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... grotesque," I remember her saying to me once, "that we English should hold up our hands in horror at the thought of bull-fights, while so many of us take pleasure in the hateful business ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... climbing up to temporary safety afforded by the topsides of a craft on her beam ends; and aft, in the alleyway, was the German professor, unlashed, but safe and secure in his narrow confines, one leg through a cabin window, and both hands gripping the rail, while he bellowed like a bull, not for himself, however—but for his ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... African evidence, not, as yet, discussed, to my knowledge, by any writer on the History of Religion. As late as Man, for July, 1906, No. 66, Mr. Parkinson published interesting Yoruba legends about Oleron, the maker and father of men, and Oro, the Master of the Bull Roarer. ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... took me into his house. A military surgeon dressed my wounds, but I owed my life to the nursing and care and unceasing attention of a young lady who was staying with the farmer's daughter. She had been doing her duty as a nurse as near to the field as she could go ever since the first Bull Run. She saved my life, and I gave it to her—what there was of it. She was a beautiful woman, indeed I never saw a more beautiful—and she has a strange likeness to—but that you shall see for yourself when you see her. She is getting a little rest now, for she has been up all night attending ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... made no reference to the Pope's bull, Dr. Dale observed, that if a war had been, of purpose, undertaken at the instance of the Pope, all this negotiation had been in vain, and her Majesty would be obliged to withdraw her commissioners, not doubting that they would receive safe-conduct ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... a Samnite colony voyages over the straits from Italy and joins them. Here for three centuries these sparse communities lived along these heights in fear of the sea pirates, and warred confusedly from their mainhold on Mount Taurus, or the Bull, so called because the two summits of the mountain from a distance resemble a bull's horns; and they left no ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... say we don't tell anybody," Melville burst out. "I've some pride and I draw the line at having every Tom, Dick, and Harry shouting 'I told you so!' at me. What do you say, Paul, that we keep this thing to ourselves? If we have made a bull of it and got ourselves into a hole, let's get out of it somehow without the whole world ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... instincts were questioned or thwarted, and become insensible, for a time, even to physical danger. Ignorance, folly and self-conceit not seldom make a man seem fearless who is a poltroon at heart. Braddock's death was a better one than he deserved; he raged about the field like a dazed bull; fly he could not; he was incapable of adopting any intelligent measures to save his troops; on the contrary he kept reiterating conventional orders in a manner that showed his wits were gone. The bullet that dropped him did him good service; but his honor was so little sensitive ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... rebellion and violence, and blindly obey their call, considering their cause analogous to that of the Jews of old, who were enjoined to spoil the Egyptians and then to pass over and conquer their land of promise. No papal bull of indulgence ever freed people's consciences more than the Boer people now feel in regard to the warfare in ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... was singularly suited to the great, bull voice of its composer, born to the red and become Captain Stransky in the red business of war. It was he who led the thunder of its verses not far from where Peterkin led the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... disuse. Why is there not simultaneous variation in teeth and jaws, if disuse is the governing factor? Are we to suppose that the size of the human teeth is maintained by use at the same time that the jaws are being diminished by disuse? Mr. Spencer acknowledges that the crowding of bull-dogs' and lap-dogs' teeth is caused by the artificial selection of shortened jaws. If a similar change is really occurring in man, could it not be similarly explained by some factor, such as sexual selection, which might affect the outward appearance ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball

... this way, it seems," Tammas continued. "Young bull gets 'isseif loose, somegate and marches oot into yard, o'erturns milkpail, and prods owd pigs i' ribs. And as he stands lookin' about un, thinking' what he shall be up to next, oor Bob sees un ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... in the inspectors' case. He came to Canandaigua to hold the Circuit Court, for the purpose of convicting Miss Anthony. He had unquestionably prepared his opinion beforehand. The job had to be done, so he took the bull by the horns and directed the jury to find a verdict of guilty. In the case of the inspectors he refused to defendants' counsel the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... last received this copy of a report made sixteen years ago by a club in Lucerne, Switzerland, in which mention is made of a prize given to one Carleton Roberts, an American, for twelve piercings of the bull's-eye in as many shots, in an archery-contest which ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... unaffected and child-like as they were gentle in manner, and that they compared with our own prize-fighting, sturdy-begging, always-suspecting Romany roughs and rufianas as a delicate greyhound might compare with a very shrewd old bull-dog, trained by an unusually ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... August 5th Set out early wind from N E. Great appearance of Wind & rain, (I have remarked that I have not heard much thunder in this Countrey) a verry large Snake was Killed to day called the Bull Snake, his Colour Some thing like a rattle Snake Something lighter- the bends of the river to day is washing away the banks, haveing nothing to oppose the turbelance of the river when Confined by large hard Sand Points, forceing this Current against the bends- the Soil of the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... absence, his brother Ferdinand was to be elected King of the Romans. John of Saxony, the only Protestant among the Electors, opposed the election. He appealed to the fact that the nomination was a direct violation of a decision of imperial law, the Golden Bull, which declared that the proposal for such an election, during the lifetime of the Emperor, must first be unanimously resolved on by the Electors. The Emperor had a Papal brief in his hands which empowered him to exclude John, as a heretic, from electing, but ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... But mark with what a front of fear Orion lowers. Ah! well I know How Hadria glooms, how falsely clear The west-winds blow. Let foemen's wives and children feel The gathering south-wind's angry roar, The black wave's crash, the thunder-peal, The quivering shore. So to the bull Europa gave Her beauteous form, and when she saw The monstrous deep, the yawning grave, Grew pale with awe. That morn of meadow-flowers she thought, Weaving a crown the nymphs to please: That gloomy ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... grasped his opponent's throat. The captain had only to squeeze, as every rough-and-tumble fighter knew, and endure his pain until Hence would have to give in. But Mayhall was not built to endure. He roared like a bull as soon as the teeth met in his flesh, his fingers relaxed, and to the disgusted surprise of everybody he began to roar with great ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.

... the American soft-shell turtles with special reference to Amyda Agassizii. Bull. Mus. ...
— Description of a New Softshell Turtle From the Southeastern United States • Robert G. Webb

... a whole generation of camels. We don't risk our necks any more to put things right—not we; we get in behind the skirts of law, and yap, yap, yap, about law like a rat terrier, when we should be bull dogs getting our teeth in the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... the bull retires with his consort, and remains for weeks together, claiming to be the monarch of the swamp; and should he hear the approach of a distant rival, he will crash with his antlers against the tree stems, making sudden mad rushes through the bushes, the sound of his blows ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... over the town of Pau on this day; a thunderbolt fell, and defaced the royal arms over the castle-gateway; and a fine bull, which was called the King, from its stately appearance, the chief of a herd called the royal herd, terrified by the noise and clamour, precipitated itself over the walls into the ditch of the castle, and was killed. The people, hurrying to ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... Irish friend of mine says this is because the Kelts are idealists, and enthusiasts, with age-old heroisms to emulate and keep bright before the world; but that the low-class Englishman is dull and without ideals, fighting bull-doggishly while he has a leader, but losing his head and going to pieces when his leader falls—not so with the Kelt. Sir Wm. Butler said "the Kelt is the spear-head of the British lance." Love ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... a distant course, Filled full of far-fetched wares his frail ship's hold: At home, the strong bull stood unyoked; the horse Endured no bridle ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... abundance of bread-stuffs, which leaves holders untortured by hunger and enables them to hold back for high prices; and partly because buyers are too weak to bear the market, while sellers are amply prepared to bull it. Under these circumstances, if the American metropolitan newspapers were published here in Constantinople, their next commercial report would read ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... minute the hot color flooded the girl's face. But she seized the bull by the horns. "I am cross," she said, "frightfully cross!" And she looked so engagingly pretty as she said it that Bruce thought he had never ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... voting, and if women have mastered this, they are doing very well. Furthermore, the English suffragettes have completely outgeneralled the professional politicians. They discovered that no cause can get recognition in politics unless it is brought to the attention, and that John Bull in particular will not begin to pay attention 'until, you stand on your head to talk to him.' They regretted to do this, but in doing it they secured the attention and interest of all England. They then followed a relentless ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... Christmas Eve, of all times, again a fugitive, he knew that he would merit the unsparing condemnation that Mary and Humpy would visit upon him. It was possible, it was even quite likely, that the short, stocky gentleman he had seen on the New Haven local was not a "bull"—not really a detective who had observed the little transaction in the subway; but the very uncertainty annoyed The Hopper. In his happy and profitable year at Happy Hill Farm he had learned to prize his personal comfort, and he was humiliated to find that he had been ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson

... twelfth century before our era, is not perhaps, strictly speaking, a zodiac, but it is almost certainly an arrangement of constellations according to the forms assigned them in Babylonian uranography. [PLATE XXI.] The Ram, the Bull, the Scorpion, the Serpent, the Dog, the Arrow, the Eagle or Vulture may all be detected on the stone in question, as may similar forms variously arranged on ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... made love to him, he gave her no encouragement. He was not richer than White, not so good-looking, and certainly not so clever, but more respected and more influential; for the solid and trustworthy parts of his character, backed by a bull-dog courage and an utter imperturbability, got the better in the long run of the other's ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... with Luzon (the old name of the Philippines), saw that the nation was weak, and might easily be conquered. Accordingly, they sent rich presents to the king of the country, begging him to grant them a piece of land as big as a bull's hide, for building houses to live in. The king, not suspecting guile, conceded their request, whereupon the Fulanghis cut the hide into strips and joined them together, making many hundreds of ten-foot measures in length; and then, having surrounded with ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... representation of the Gates of Calais, with the meagre sentinel and still more skinny cook bending under the weight of a dish crowned with an enormous sirloin of beef, no doubt intended to regale some newly-arrived John Bull, whilst a fat monk scans it with a longing eye. Next the bust of Eustache de St. Pierre awakes the attention, and the surrender of Calais and his devoted patriotism rises in one's memory. Another souvenir also must not be forgotten, namely, the print of the foot of Louis the ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... when she appeared again—"To save the furniture, of which we have none too much, I'll just step inside," she said. When her father started toward her, she started around the dining table, talking as fast as she could, he lunging after her like a furious bull. "She asked me to come back and teach the school—to keep her from putting off her wedding—because she is afraid to— If I can break my contract there—may I come back and help ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... defending her with his sword in the well-contested fields of the Peninsula. Notwithstanding, however, the unamiability with which he reproaches his companions in arms, there was much fun and feasting, and sauntering in the Prado, and bull-fighting and theatre-going, whilst the British were at Madrid. But it was too pleasant to last long. The best a soldier can expect in war-time, is an alternation of good quarters and severe hardship. The "quart-d'heure de Rabelais" was at hand, when all the dancing, drinking, masking, and other ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... have quarreled over family matters and that Tom was keeping out of sight on purpose to worry her. I reminded him that Tom had come up here to help Mr. Mackenzie out and told him a few things about Tom that ought to have changed his opinion. But I don't think he believed me. He's a bull-headed kind of fellow that would never admit himself in the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... outside of them. The Spaniards have absolute control over everything within the fortified places; that is, in all cities, towns, seaports, and along the lines of the railroad; the insurgents are in possession of all the rest. They are not in fixed possession, but they have control much as a mad bull may be said to have control of a ten-acre lot when he goes on the rampage. Some farmer may hold a legal right to the ten-acre lot, through title deeds or in the shape of a mortgage, and the bull may occupy but one part of it at a time, but he ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis

... A private letter to Bull, the bookseller, brought word this morning that much slaughter has been made by the military among the mob. Never, I am sure, can any set of wretches less deserve quarter or pity ; yet it is impossible not to shudder at hearing of their destruction. Nothing less, however, would do; they were ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... morrow they went to the Church of St. Mary, and there the Bishop Don Hieronymo sate awaiting them, and he blest them all four at the altar. Who can tell the great nobleness which the Cid displayed at that wedding, the feasts and the bull-fights, and the throwing at the target, and the throwing canes, and how many joculars were there, and all the sports which are proper at such weddings? As soon as they came out of Church they took horse and rode ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... quietly lying on his back. He gazed straight up into the gray sky and knew that he was hungry. As he rolled over on his elbow he was startled by a loud snort, and saw a bull caribou regarding him with alert curiosity. The animal was not mere than fifty feet away, and instantly into the man's mind leaped the vision and the savor of a caribou steak sizzling and frying over ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London

... tough air roots that hang down from the epiphytes growing on the branches, where they often look like a natural bunch of moss growing on them. The various prickly bushes are much chosen, especially the bull's-horn thorn, which I have already described. Many birds hang their nests from the extremities of the branches, and a safer place could hardly be chosen, as with the sharp thorns and the stinging ants that inhabit them no ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... attractive than any other. It was from one of these young men (his name was Manuel) she first heard of Sebastiano—the gay, the wonderful, the renowned Sebastiano. He had asked her, this Manuel, if she was going to the Plaza de Toros to see the bull-fight the following week, and when she said she did not know—that she had never seen a bull-fight—he found a great deal to say. He described the wonders of the great bull ring, where twelve thousand people could be accommodated, ...
— The Pretty Sister Of Jose - 1889 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Wasn't that puttin' it over on him! For two hours, there, we went long on Belcher's potatoes at twenty, until his supply ran out too. Then he switched to sugar and butter. Quotations went off as fast as when the bottom drops out of a bull market. All we had to do to hammer down the prices of anything in the food line, whether we had it or not, was to stick out a cut-rate sign—Belcher was sure to go it one better; and when Vee got it far enough ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... Cruel god of a horde of nomadic invaders settling in a land of farmers, he had his images, ranging in elaboration from an uncut mazzebah or asherah, to a golden bull. He was plural by place and tribe and function. What did the prophetic movement do with his sacred powers? It identified his taboos with ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... bull-terrier, loving and wise, With his little screw-tail and his wonderful eyes, With his white little breast and his white little paws Which, alas! he mistakes very often for claws; With his sad little gait as he comes from ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... which the King, Queen, and Prince were seated; but the chair was on the edge of the platform, and as Bulbo sat down, it toppled over, and he with it, rolling over and over, and bellowing like a bull. Giglio roared still louder at this disaster, but it was with laughter; so did all the Court when Prince Bulbo got up; for though when he entered the room he appeared not very ridiculous, as he stood up from his fall for a moment he looked so exceedingly plain and foolish, that nobody could ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray

... incidentally called on me. A neglected bullet graze on the neck had turned septic. An ugly temperature had sent him to hospital. The authorities, as soon as the fever had abated and left him on the high road to recovery, had sent him home. A khaki bandage around his bull-throat alone betokened anything amiss. He would be back, he said, as soon as the Medical Board at the War Office ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... in it to be capable of feeling sensation in other men's lives, though they have ceased to be capable of having sensations in their own, or of feeling sensations if they had them. It was when the herds of her people were buried in routine and peace that Rome had bull-fights. New York, with its hordes of drudges, ledger-slaves, machinists, and clerks, has the New York World. It lasts longer than a bull-fight and it can be had every morning before a man starts off to be a machine and every evening when he gets back from being ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... head, Phil; you've struck the bull's eye," replied the other, with a laugh, as he began to head in toward the crooked tree mentioned, and which doubtless he took for his landmark when in search of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... Angelo, may be seen a little facade with the Triumph of Camillus and an ancient sacrifice. In the road that leads to the Imagine di Ponte, there is a most beautiful facade with the story of Perillus, showing him being placed in the bronze bull that he had made; wherein great effort may be seen in those who are thrusting him into that bull, and terror in those who are waiting to behold a death so unexampled, besides which there is the seated figure of Phalaris (so I believe), ordaining with an imperious air of great beauty the ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari

... jewels. A peacock in the middle blazes with jewels. Six smaller cases, reputed to be of gold, are enclosed within the large one, and under the last is the tooth of Buddha. As it is as large as that of a great bull, one trembles to think how monstrous must have been the ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous

... of the Carolinian arose the Phoenix and Simms was its editor through its somewhat brief existence. Selby relates that Simms offended General Hartwell and was summoned to trial at the General's headquarters on the corner of Bull and Gervais Streets. The result of the trial was an invitation for the defendant to a sumptuous luncheon and a ride home in the General's carriage accompanied by a basket of champagne and other good things. ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... nominate four pro-proctors to assist them. Their chief duty, in which they are known to undergraduates, is to preserve order, and keep the town free from improper characters. When they go out in the evening, they are usually attended by two servants, called by the gownsmen bull-dogs.... The marshal, a chief officer, is usually in attendance on one of the proctors.... It is also the proctor's duty to take care that the cap and gown are worn in the University."—The Collegian's ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... worshipped there the crocodile; There they of Nineveh the bull with wings; The Persian there with swart, sun-lifted smile Felt in his soul the ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... shirt and trousers, like most of his comrades, he showed a powerful man, a shock of reddish hair falling over his eyes, a bull-like neck rising above his open shirt in such fashion that the size of his shoulder ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... in view of the above facts, that this little creature is weatherwise? The hitting of the mark twice might be mere good luck; but three bull's-eyes in succession is not a mere coincidence; it is a proof of skill. The muskrat is not found in the Old World, which is a little singular, as other rats so abound there, and as those slow-going English streams especially, with their grassy banks, are so well suited ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... exasperating—there was something profane in such familiar handling of life and death. Art has no business with real graveclothes when she wants tragic drapery—has she? It was too much altogether like a bull fight. There's a caricature at the shop windows of the effect produced, the pit protecting itself with multitudinous umbrellas from the tears of the boxes. This play is by Alexandre Dumas fils—and is worthy by its talent of ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... gentleman of Lowther's standing, but immorality, in Mrs Devitt's eyes, was a horse of quite another colour; anything of this nature acted upon Mrs Devitt's susceptibilities much in the same way as seeing red afreets an angry bull. ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... winter trail might afford them. He told them he was a white man who was not accustomed to bend to the will of the northern Indian. They might break him, but he would not bend. He reminded them they were Sioux, children of the great Sitting Bull. He reminded them that death in battle was the glory of the Indian. That no real Sioux ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... of the inductive apparatus already described (1187, &c.) had a hemispherical cup of shell-lac introduced, which being in the interval between the inner bull and the lower hemisphere, nearly occupied the space there; consequently when the apparatus was charged, the lac was the dielectric or insulating medium through which the induction took place in that part. When this apparatus was first charged with electricity (1198.) up to a certain intensity, ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... diversion is going to church on Sunday morning and betting on where the veteran soprano in the choir is going to hang on to the key or skid on the high turns. You laugh at me because I can't eat down-town unless I am encouraged by a bull fiddle, and because I gulp at free concert tickets like a young robin swallowing worms. But if most of your life had been spent listening to Mrs. Sim Estabrook jumping for middle C about as successfully as a dog jumps for a squirrel in a hickory ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch

... he has taken an agency for fire-extinguishers, or had made a deal to take some in payment for advertising space in his paper, and wants to sell them to Skinner. I understand there is some cock-and-bull story he has got up about these fire-extinguishers being out-of-date, or useless, or something of that kind, and that he means to make a big stir about the council having been bribed to force them on Skinner. I suppose Jones will get something out of ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler

... bull seal towards a cow with a calf. The cow went for him bald-headed, with open mouth, bellowing and most disturbed. The bull defended himself as best he might but absolutely refused to take the offensive. The calf imitated his mother as ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... "Sur les antheres steriles des Groseilliers", "Bull. de l'acad. des sciences de Cracovie", June, 1908.) has recently shown that species of Ribes cultivated under unnatural conditions frequently produce a mixed (i.e. partly useless) or completely sterile pollen, precisely as happens with hybrids. There are, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... and eggs; and even with mares and sheep the offspring adds to the general working value. Still, it seems to be true that even for purposes of draught, the males are of less value than the females, unless reduced to the non-sexual condition of geldings and oxen. The stallion, bull or ram is too katabolic, too much of a consuming, distributing, destroying force to be very valuable in the daily routine of agriculture or commerce. While the female is generally smaller and less powerful than ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes

... rogues he employs;[3152] he has no illusions about men or things, about other people or about himself; if he slays, it is with a full consciousness of what he is doing, of his party, of the situation, of the revolution, while the crude expressions which, in the tones of his bull's voice, he flings out as he passes along, are but a vivid statement of the precise truth "We are the rabble! We spring from the gutters!" With the normal principles of mankind, "we should soon get back into them. We can only rule through fear!"[3153] "The Parisians are so many ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... lady's house there was a pasture, and in this pasture there was a bull,—a fine, handsome animal. Jean ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle

... absence of accommodation to circumstances, that want of plasticity, that failure of grasping at every hair's-breadth of enjoyment, which is declared by foreigners to form the prodigious deficiency of John Bull. If I could have taken refuge, for that night at least, in the saddest cell of the old convent, or in the deepest dungeon of the new prison, I should have gone to either with indulgence. I longed to lay down my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... former is, "Place the tightly closed hands on both sides of the head, with the fingers forward;" the latter is, "Curve the two forefingers, place them on the sides of the head and move them several times." The short stubby horns of the bull appear to be indicated, and the cow's ears are seen moving, not being covered by the bull's shock mane. Tribes in which the hair of the women is differently arranged from that of men often denote their females by corresponding gesture. In many cases the sex of animals is indicated by the addition ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... white-garmented figures which so often show, in Egyptian frescoes, the full bust and the head in profile. This hall opened into another, the vault of which was somewhat higher and supported by two pillars only. Various scenes—the mystic bark, the bull Apis bearing the mummy towards the regions of the West, the judgment of the soul and the weighing of the deeds of the dead in the supreme scales, the offerings to the funeral divinities—adorned the pillars and the hall. They were ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... the path, which were to be covered with the pahos of the Flute children, then taken up and moved on to the next like symbol. The old priest led the procession, the three children behind him, then the flute players, followed by the priests bearing emblems, and the priest with the bull roarer at the end of the line. Each fraternity preserved its own formation. Having reached the village plaza they marched to the Kisa and deposited their pahos and ceremonial offerings, then dispersed. The ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett

... of the centre is decidedly stronger than ours; in the country districts I hope it is the other way, yet the fact cannot be overlooked. It is incredible what cock-and-bull stories the democrats tell the peasants about me; in fact, one from the Schoenhausen district, three miles from us, confided to me yesterday that, when my name is mentioned among them, a regular shudder goes through them from head to foot, as though they should get a couple of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... hours at the most, even allowing for Chinese sloth and indifference as to time, the guns would be in position, and then the outer wall would be demolished, and possibly a disordered retirement would be the result. So the little Japanese colonel took the bull by the horns. Setting all the coolies he could muster from among the converts, he quickly formed a second line of defence by loopholing and sandbagging all the chess-board squares that flank the northern wall. When night came the advanced positions were quietly abandoned, and as soon as ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... actual practice of herd leadership in species of ruminant animals, the largest and most spectacular bull elk or bison is not always the leader. Frequently it has been observed that a wise old cow is the actual leader and director of the herd, and that "what she says, goes." This was particularly remarked to me by James McNaney during the course of our "last buffalo hunt" in Montana, in ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... Clayton, the beast stopped and lifted its head, not the meek, patient face he expected to see, but a head that was wrinkled and vicious-the head of a bull. Only the sudden remembrance of a dead mountain custom saved him from utter amazement. He had heard that when beasts of burden were scarce, cows, and especially bulls, were worked in ploughs and ridden by the mountaineers, ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.

... him steadily. "Isn't it strange," she went on, "how the bull-dog police of this town persecute us—and they should be sympathetic. They had to leave their own island because of tyranny. Yet as soon as they step on this soil they feel themselves self-constituted tyrants. Something of the sort happened with ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... kind. What they say about the black he-goat, her pretended favourite, may be applied to all. The horse neighs for her, breaking everything and putting her in danger. The awful king of the prairie, the black bull, bellows with grief, should she pass him by at a distance. And, behold, yon bird despondingly turns away from his hen, and with whirring wings hastes to convince the woman ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... very pretty Irish girl here, with a touch of the brogue on her tongue; she has much talent and some genius. With a little expense and some trouble we might make her an object for John Bull's admiration in the juvenile tragedy. I have sounded the fair lady on the subject of a London engagement. She proposes to append a very long family, to which I have given a decided negative. If she accepts the offered terms I shall sign, seal and ship herself and clan off from Cork direct. ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... to join her husband, a French officer in Cochin China. I was leaving the ship at Colombo, but induced the French lady to accompany me on shore, the children being bribed with the promise of a ride in a "hackery" or trotting-bull carriage. None of the party had ever left France before. As we approached the landing-stage, which was, as usual, black with baggage-coolies waiting for a job, the French children began howling at the top ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... at his mother, said, "Good woman! who is it you call son?" "Why you," answered his mother very mildly; "are not you Abou Hassan my son? It is strange that you have forgotten yourself so soon." "I your son! old bull!" replied Abou Hassan; "you are a liar, and know not what you say! I am not Abou Hassan, I tell you, but ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... posterity, under the protection of the most admirable verse. Many a time I have blushed for them, as I read of the mutilation of Uranus, the fetters of Prometheus, the revolt of the giants, the torments of hell; enamored Zeus taking the shape of bull or swan; women turning into birds and bears; Pegasuses, Chimaeras, Gorgons, Cyclopes, and the rest of it; monstrous medley! fit only to charm the imaginations of children for whom Mormo and Lamia have still their terrors. However, poets, I suppose, will be poets. But ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... table cloth. The large empty spaces are traversed by red lines, principally to the south-west, marking "country which has been lately walked over." The red lines end abruptly on the far side of a curve in the course of the river Nepean, where swamps and hills are shown. The map-maker "saw a bull" near a hill which was called Mount Hunter, and marked ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott



Words linked to "Bull" :   obscenity, rot, bungle, go up, John Bull, climb, bull's eye, house, edict, bull bay, fiat, placental, bull session, bunkum, midpoint, planetary house, adult male, target, flub, Bull Moose Party, kine, boner, buncombe, affect, rescript, bloomer, cows, crap, Bull Run, bull nettle, mortal, fuzz, centre, pratfall, job, rise, blunder, sign of the zodiac, bull tongue, cock-and-bull story, cattle, dirty word, investment, pit bull terrier, papal bull, fake, speculate, shit, decree, bull mastiff, bruiser, somebody, bullshit, someone, take the bull by the horns, star sign, boo-boo, Taurus, oxen, blooper, investing, push, order, sign, star divination, bunk, Sitting Bull, Taurus the Bull, person



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org