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Duck   Listen
verb
Duck  v. i.  
1.
To go under the surface of water and immediately reappear; to dive; to plunge the head in water or other liquid; to dip. "In Tiber ducking thrice by break of day."
2.
To drop the head or person suddenly; to bow. "The learned pate Ducks to the golden fool."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Duck" Quotes from Famous Books



... far as we could. On the following morning, before dawn, I had been lying wakefully listening for the different sounds of the bells on the animals' necks, and got up to brighten up the camp fire with fresh wood, when the strange sound of the quacking of a wild duck smote upon my ear. The blaze of firelight had evidently attracted the creature, which probably thought it was the flashing of water, as it flew down close to my face, and almost precipitated itself into the flames; but discovering its error, it wheeled ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... thrash him and beat him again. I should want the original pair of seven-leagued boots, not that I might make such fast time, but that I might kick him at a single kick from one county to another, and back, and then over and over past counting. I'd duck him in a river until he gasped for breath, I'd drag him naked through a briar patch, and then I'd tar and feather him, and ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... hard. Nurse Bundle felt it so, but she never complained. When she felt it most, she only said, "It's all just as it should be." And so it was. Boys and ducklings must wander off some time, be mothers and hens never so kind! The world is wide, and duck-ponds are deep. The young ones must go alone, and those who tremble most for their safety cannot follow to take ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... danger has rippled off our backs like water off the feathers of a duck! If we meet no more peril than we have now encountered, we'll get back to ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson

... States in the old days have I done exactly what that American then wished to do in London. Finding myself compelled to spend a night at some crude and unfamiliar Western town, I have made enquiries at the hotel as to the shooting—duck or prairie chicken—in the neighbourhood. Hiring a gun of the local gunsmith and buying a hundred cartridges, one then secured a trap with a driver, who probably brought his own gun and shot also (probably better than oneself), but who certainly knew the ground. The best ground might be three or ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... circumstances by which he might be surrounded. "Chaff" was a very cheap order of wit, and the serenity of his disposition enabled him to shake off its effect as readily as water is scattered from the plumage of the duck. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... the officials clearing the ground, we learnt that two men had been put out leg-before-wicket for a combined score of 19 runs; four men were caught for a combined score or 17 runs; one man was run out for a duck's egg; and the others were all bowled for 3 runs each. There were no extras. We were not told which of the men was the captain, but he made exactly 15 more than the average of his team. What ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... They were not large; their hair was short, but very thick coated; they had dew claws. Both attained great reputation as water-dogs. They were most sagacious in everything, particularly so in all duties connected with duck-shooting. Governor Lloyd exchanged a Mexican ram for the dog at the time of the merino fever, when such rams were selling for many hundred dollars, and took him over to his estate on the eastern shore of Maryland, where his progeny were ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... can do it easily enough with thirty men, as it lies at the foot of the mountain, and there is no escape for the beggars unless they break through you and get into the bush. Be guided by the Fiji boy; and, as the Yankees say, 'no one wants a brass band with him when he's going duck-hunting,' so try and surround the village as quietly as possible. I'll see that none of them get away in their canoes. I'll work up abreast ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke

... a variation of Quoits which is excellent fun. One of the players, chosen by counting out, puts a stone (called in this game the "duck") about as big as his fist, on the top of a smooth rock and stands near it. All the other players have similar "ducks" and try to dislodge the one on the rock by throwing their stones, or ducks at it. As ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... Old World—the pangolins (Manis)—stand alone amongst mammals as regards their dermal covering; having been classed {175} with lizards by early naturalists on account of their clothing of scales, yet their mouth is like that of the hairy ant-eaters of the New World. On the other hand, the duck-billed platypus of Australia (Ornithorhynchus) is the only mammal which has teeth formed of horn, yet its furry coat is normal and ordinary. Again, the Dugong and Manatee are dermally alike, yet extremely different as regards the structure ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... were to the vigorous writer who adorned them." In short the great reason of Robert Burns's success was that he did not possess that education the possession of which proves him to be no prodigy, though the review begins by calling him one, and coupling him with Stephen Duck ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... other species, but hops about during the daytime, and Mr. Belt says (46. 'The Naturalist in Nicaragua,' 1874, p. 321.) that as soon as he saw its happy sense of security, he felt sure that it was uneatable. After several trials he succeeded in tempting a young duck to snatch up a young one, but it was instantly rejected; and the duck "went about jerking its head, as if trying to throw off some ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... fields of bluish-green wheat; its farmhouses with their ploughed fireguards and shelter-belts of young trees; its rare villages, each stretching in one long straggling line of wooden houses along the level earth; its scattered, treeless lakes, from which the duck rose as the train passed! Was it this mere foreignness, this likeness in difference, that made it strike so sharply, with such a pleasant pungency on Elizabeth's senses? Or was it something else—some perception of an opening future, not only for Canada ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... plebe wasn't there. Dick Prescott had counted on this, and had wriggled out by a duck and a plunge forward that carried him beyond momentary risk of Mr. Spurlock's ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock

... again began to pour forth the dark-hued masses of the enemy the youth felt serene self-confidence. He smiled briefly when he saw men dodge and duck at the long screechings of shells that were thrown in giant handfuls over them. He stood, erect and tranquil, watching the attack begin against a part of the line that made a blue curve along the side of an adjacent ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... dear?" said she. "Is that a face to bring in to your little Duchess? I will not be your Duchess any more, monsieur, no more than I will be your 'little duck,' you old monster." ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... coffee and toast and some of that there sauce you're eating. She says when I'm on the continent I got to eat a continental breakfast, because that's the smart thing to do, and not stuff myself like I was on the ranch; but I got that game beat both ways from the jack. I duck out every morning before she's up. I found a place where you can get ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... four miles distant from Reikjavik, is described by most travellers as the chief resort of the eider-duck. I visited the island on the 8th of June, but was disappointed in my expectations. I certainly saw many of these birds on the declivities and in the chasms of the rocks, sitting quietly on their nests, but nothing ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... placed there as if rather by accident than design. Each held carelessly in his left hand, and with its butt resting on the earth, a long gun; completing an appearance, the attainment of which had, in all probability, been sedulously sought,—that of a Canadian duck-hunter. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... snowed or blowed, And when the weather was clear They'd say: 'It's sad your house is bad. But wait till you come next year.' We travelled along from town to town A-tryin' to change our luck— With nothin' to taste but bill-board paste An' the 'property' canvas duck. At last we got to Kankakee, All travel-stained and sore, When the star got mad and shook us bad For a job in a dry-goods store— And then the leading heavy man Informed me with a frown He was going away the very ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... rather drawn back for a more formidable spring, swooping down as the last reef point was loosed with a force that snatched the great sail from the men's hands, and buried the nose of the shallop deep under water. The sail cracked and filled until it was tense as iron, but the honest Holland duck could not give way, and it was the mast that had to go, breaking into three pieces and falling overboard with a splintering crash. Nor was this the worst, for with the mast went the great sail with all ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... comes a boat," cried Grethel, but she was mistaken; it was only a white duck which came swimming towards the children. "Perhaps she will help us across if we ask her," said the child; and she sung, "Little duck, do help poor Hansel and Grethel; there is not a bridge, nor a boat—will you let us sail across on ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... at least I expect so, for they abound in all the forests. We must knock some of them over if we can. I believe they are not bad eating, though I never tried one. Then by the streams we ought to be able to pick up some wild duck, though of course at this time of year the greater portion of them are far north. Still I have great hopes we shall be able to keep ourselves in food with the assistance of what we may be able to buy occasionally. I think the only thing we have got to fear at this ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... Voltigeurs were selected out of the same class, united with a number of English of similar stamp. De Salaberry himself was born in the little cottage manor-house of Beauport, near Quebec, on the 19th of Nov., 1778.[11] Taking to soldiering like a duck to water when very young, he enrolled as volunteer in the 44th. At sixteen, the Duke of Kent, who was then in Canada, and delighted in friendly acts towards the seigneurs, got him a commission in the 60th, with which regiment he ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall

... own distinctive method of choosing players, as in Duck on a Rock. These methods are described with the games ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... sailors. We agreed that salt horse, or fresh horse, either, did not strike our fancy. Anyhow, we ate up the soft bread the first day so we did not have to worry about it afterwards. We counted on getting fish and clams for chowders, and probably some lobsters at Duck Island. ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson

... architect should come forward and assert that he intended to follow nature by making a boat with a hull of the shape or outline of a duck, or other swimming fowl, he would be laughed at, and justly so, because the lines of vessels which are most efficient are not made like those of a duck ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***

... decided influence, as in the period of flowering with plants when transported from one climate to another. In animals it has a more marked effect; for instance, I find in the domestic duck that the bones of the wing weigh less and the bones of the leg more, in proportion to the whole skeleton, than do the same bones in the wild-duck; and I presume that this change may be safely attributed to the domestic ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... it. And it gives me a comfort, after all I may have said, to put good opinions upon paper. If he never should turn up again, my language will be to his credit; whereas if he do come back, with the betting a horse to a duck against it, to his pride he will read this testimonial of yours, faithfully, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... to set them off, boy-fashion, to show their skill. While we ate the excellent biscuits they had thrown us, and while Ellador kept a watchful eye on our movements, Celis ran off to some distance, and set up a sort of "duck-on-a-rock" arrangement, a big yellow nut on top of three balanced sticks; Alima, meanwhile, ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman

... said Drake. "Quick now. Burn the earth." The horse sprang at his spurs. "Dust, you son of a gun! Rattle your hocks! Brindle! Vamoose!" Each shouted word was a lash with his quirt. "Duck!" he called ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... to go down a place lower in this class! She couldn't make Brian really like her, unless she liked him. At first—though I knew better—she stuck it out that Brian was only a kind of decoy duck for ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... approached the scene of this little action for the first time; "what! do I see my friend Jeremiah Desborough-the prince of traitors, and the most vigorous of wrestlers—verily my poor bones ache at the sight of you. How came you to be caught in this trap, my old boy, better have been out duck-shooting with the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... without joy. A cold-blooded murderer, with an appalling record; and a man with a temper like smoking tow, an itching trigger-finger, the eye of a duck-hawk, and cat-like swiftness of movement, he tyrannized the town when the humor was on him; and as yet no counter-bully had come to chase ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... up the St. Lawrence. The white whales floundering in the Bay of Tadoussac, and the wild duck diving as the foaming prow drew near,—there was no life but these in all that watery solitude, twenty miles from shore to shore. The ship was from Honfleur, and was commanded by Samuel de Champlain. He was the AEneas of a destined ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... eyes narrow, "come from far an's goin' somewheres. I'll watch that duck. He looks like he's a record ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... because so many of them were deaf, and when we were lucky enough to overhear the conversation, it seemed to concern their adventures at sea, or the freight carried out by the Sea Duck, the Ocean Rover, or some other Deephaven ship,—the particulars of the voyage and its disasters and successes being as familiar as the wanderings of the children of Israel to an old parson. There were sometimes violent altercations when the captains differed as to the tonnage ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... Sergeant Calder, who was one of the shortest men in the regiment. The breadth of his shoulders and the burr on his tongue got him enlisted in the first instance. As he was stringing the wires to the trench he had to duck several times. "Here is where I shine by being a 'sawed-off,'" he informed me. We were soon in touch with commandant headquarters, and from Major Marshall I learned that our forward trenches were still untouched. As the night closed in the Germans ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... waves lifted us up so high that we could look far over the foaming sea, and again we sank down in a valley, out of which we could only see the nearest waves rolling threateningly towards us. Behind us the little dinghy shot down the swells, gliding on the water like a duck. In the late afternoon we approached the north point of Malekula, and followed the west coast southward, towards the country of the "Big Nambas"—our destination. Contrasting with other islands of the archipelago, Malekula does not seem densely ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... was; a grass ground of many thousand acres, where fifty years ago the Indians had pastured, but where now the farmers laboriously saved their hay when the floods allowed, and in spring launched their punts and went duck-shooting with long guns and wading-boots. For in winter one sheet of water—or of ice, as it might happen—covered the meadows and made the great river one with the many brooks that threaded their way to her. But at this season they ran low between their banks ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... coats are very smooth, and the skin under them sends out little drops of oil like drops of perspiration. This keeps the water and the rain from wetting the ducks through and through. You have heard people say sometimes: "The way water runs off a duck's back." Well, now ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... he observed, as he made a memorandum of its dimensions, "but neither is a canvas-back duck. I think we can make something of it, particularly as the people seem glad to ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs

... and another round went by, with no further damage to Joe and no diminution of strength on the part of Ponta. But in the beginning of the fifth round, Joe, caught in a corner, made as though to duck into a clinch. Just before it was effected, and at the precise moment that Ponta was ready with his own body to receive the snuggling in of Joe's body, Joe drew back slightly and drove with his fists at his opponent's unprotected stomach. Lightning-like blows they ...
— The Game • Jack London

... "Isn't he a duck?" inquired Tuppence ecstatically, as she skipped down the steps. "Oh, Julius, isn't ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... at las', my comrade! Ha—old solemncholy! You thought the bird of passage, he come not back at all! But the birds return! So does Louis! He decoy-duck the whole covey! You generous? No more not generous than the son of a seigneur, mine enemy! You give life? He give life! You give liberty! So does Louis! You help one able help himself? Louis help one not able help himself! Ha! Tres bien! ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... thought he had the idea to tear into Dudley Stackpole with his bare hands, but I had done enough shooting at wild game in my time to know that he was acting like a partridge sometimes does, or a wild duck when it is shot through the heart or in the head; only in such a case a bird flies straight up in the air. Towering is what you call it when done by a partridge. I do not know what you would call it when done by ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... us," she said. "What I call one of the Jolly Fraternity. No, Ohio is still enjoying peace. But—if you follow me—from the States peace will come; there we must fix our hopes. If we can get those millions of brothers and sisters of ours 'across the duck-pond'—as I call it—to see its urgency, peace must come. For brothers and sisters they are, you know; patriotism will come in time to be considered a vice. How can one's soul—if you take my meaning—be ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... there! Come out of that! You need not duck under like two great bull-frogs. Up with you—here's a hand. We're polite folks, marm. Fish out the bundles, Jim. Them's the articles—silver spoons and all. Off to jail with you. You'll have to trip it fast enough, ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child

... behooved him to play "lame duck," just as the mother mallard does in order to deceive the wandering egg hunter, and lead him away ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... civilization and entered as a novice in the community of the Oblat Fathers, where he remained for two years. There was a strong yearning for the free, wild life of the boundless prairies in this man, and Red River, with its herds of roaming buffalo, its myriads of duck, and geese and prairie hens, began to beckon him home again. He followed his impulse and departed; joining the Metis hunters in their great biennial campaigns against the herds, over the rolling prairie. Many a buffalo fell upon the plain with Louis Riel's arrow quivering ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... one of you!" yelled the captain. "See if you can harpoon him with it. I'll git out the duck gun, though land knows it ain't much ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton

... least positive furtherance after its publication. It was openly asserted that the Quarterly Review did not wish to attack it, but was ashamed to say a word in its favor. Thank God! these things pass from me like drops from a duck's back, except as far as they take the bread out of my mouth; and this I can avoid by consenting to publish only for the present times whatever I may write. You will be so kind as to acknowledge the receipt of the L50 in such manner as to make all matters as ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... understand Mr. Darwin's theory of "Natural Selection." The first of these is known under the name of Heredity. It is a matter of common observation that every animal or plant produces offspring after its own kind. Under no conditions would we expect a duck to lay an egg from which could hatch anything but a duck. No Plymouth Rock chicken mated with another of her own kind will ever lay an egg that will produce a Rhode Island Red. We may believe that the dog has descended from some form of wolf, but it is not meant that at any particular ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... stock-raisers brand their sheep. They bestow names of endearment, right before people, upon their wives: names taken, after the Roman fashion (columbella), from the animal kingdom, as: my chick, my duck, my dove, my lamb; or, choosing from the vegetable kingdom, they call them: my cabbage, my fig (this only in Provence), my plum (this only in Alsatia). Never: —My ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac

... Burton, speaking for the Court, says: "The war powers of Congress and the President are only those which are derived from the Constitution", but he adds: "the primary implication of a war power is that it shall be an effective power to wage war successfully", which looks very like an attempt to duck the doctrine of an inherent war power ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... true Chinese style. The first man by had a dried duck over his shoulder, the next a smoked ham, the third a jar of pickled cabbage, none too savoury, while all the attaches and servants were equally weighted down by pieces of outlandish baggage from which nothing ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon

... bigger than a Newfoundland dog, but as fierce as a grizzly. That's the very one that clawed Charley Travers, of the 49th. Ged, he'd have been done for if I hadn't got me Westley Richards to bear on him. 'Duck man I duck!' I cried, for they were so mixed that I couldn't tell one from the other. He put his head down, and I caught the brute right between the eyes. Ye can see the track of the ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... "I thought so when I arrived two days ago. When I came in sight of the place a lot of girls waved from the window and yelled at me. I no sooner got inside than a queer looking duck whom I took to be a nut came rushing up to me and cried: 'Too late for soup!'—This is Campe de Triage de la Ferte Mace, Orne, France, and all these fine people were arrested as spies. Only two or three of them can speak a word of French, ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... is," broke in Dotty; "I always thought Mrs. Pragoff must be queer as soon as I heard she came from Poland, where grandma's cropple-crown hen came from; don't you remember, Prudy? the one that hatched the duck's eggs. But I didn't know she worshipped things. Only I noticed that she didn't buy any black pins when those pitiful little boys ran after us, and said, 'O, lady! please, lady!' I ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May

... holy duck!..." exclaimed the young policeman, and was fairly astonished on to his feet. "Coming here, sir?... Coming ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... veins. A feeling of false shame prevented my retracing my steps, as it might have looked as if I had been afraid. In the same room were his pretended wife, Catina, two Sclavonic-looking assassins, and the decoy-duck. I saw that this was not a laughing matter, so I dissembled to the best of my ability, and made up my mind to leave the place ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... or to be planted upon a pannier, with a pair of geese or turkeys bobbing out their heads from under his canonical coat! as you cannot but remember the man, Sir, that was thus accomplished. Or to find him raving about the yards or keeping his chamber close, because the duck lately miscarried of an egg, or that the never-failing hen has unhappily ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... surrounded by deep canals, and from the wall down to the water grew great burdocks, so high that little children could stand upright under the loftiest of them. It was just as wild there as in the deepest wood. Here sat a Duck upon her nest, for she had to hatch her young ones; but she was almost tired out before the little ones came; and then she so seldom had visitors. The other ducks liked better to swim about in the canals than to run up to sit down under a burdock, and ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... Dec. 4, 5, 1861. One large creek comes in here from the south; and immediately below this about 100 yards another from same quarter. Bronze-wing and crested pigeons here; also some beautiful parrots, black ducks, teal, whistlers, painted widgeons, and wood-duck in small number; also parakeets and quail. Some dry grass here on top of banks up to my waist; further out there is some good tussocky grasses and there has been plenty oats. Secured seeds from the bean tree and the stones of the fruit before alluded to. Fish in water ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay

... Tsar Peter set forth upon his first voyage to western Europe. He travelled by way of Berlin and went to Holland and to England. As a child he had almost been drowned sailing a homemade boat in the duck pond of his father's country home. This passion for water remained with him to the end of his life. In a practical way it showed itself in his wish to give his land-locked domains ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... at Frank, who felt uncomfortable, and made another bow, it being the proper thing to do, as his new acquaintance—he did not mentally call him friend—dropped a piece of biscuit, to be seized by a very fat duck, which had found racing a failure, and succeeded best by coming out of the water, to snap up the fragments which dropped at ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... my advice," interrupted his mother's voice with that muffled effect which is caused by a skirt being slipped over the head, "and I gave it. Wear a white duck sailor suit with blue anchors and carry a red tin pail and a shovel, if you want to look young. Only get into it in a jiffy, Son, because breakfast will be ready in ten minutes. I can tell by the way Annie's crashing the cups. ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber

... more. I've been counting on you, Minnie. You've been here so long. You know," he said to his wife, "when I was a little shaver I thought Minnie had webbed-feet—she was always on the bank, like a duck. You ARE a duck, Minnie," he says to me; "a nice red-headed duck! Now don't be quirky ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... will find no fault with me on that score now. The lake is beautiful enough, but I begin to hate the sight of it, especially when a Yankee insists on my telling him whether we have in all Europe anything better than a duck-pond in comparison. Little Lida is my drop of comfort, since she has ceased to be mortally afraid of 'Brother.' Love ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to de pines, De wild-duck to de sea; We tink it when de church-bell ring, We dream it in de dream; De rice-bird mean it when he sing, De eagle when he scream. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We'll hab de rice an' corn: Oh, nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... a feast?" said Randy. "Just see here, fellows. Fresh, yellow butter, a pail of milk, three pies, two loaves of bread, a cup of cheese, a picked duck, and potatoes and apples! We had a time to get them, though—a mile and a half down the creek, and half ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... that she gave a silent blessing to the little troop of a brown-faced gipsy family, which came out of a dingy tent to look at the passing carriage. A fleet of ducklings in a pool, paddling along under the convoy of the parent duck, next attracted her. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... grape glistens, On sunny knoll and tree, The slim papaya ripens Its yellow fruit for thee. For thee the duck, on glassy stream, The prairie-fowl shall die, My rifle for thy feast shall bring The wild swan from the sky. The forest's leaping panther, Fierce, beautiful, and fleet, Shall yield his spotted hide to be A ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant

... my duck," called Freddie to the little girl, who had given the little creature to Freddie at the farewell party as a ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope

... he was younger than I—a short, stocky, red-headed chap, dressed in dirty white duck trousers and a torn white ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings

... back into the house, threatening to shoot them if they did not desist. They paid no attention to him, but the halliards being twisted they had some difficulty in getting it down. By this time he had reached his second story, where his guns were, and raising the window fired a load from his duck gun just as the miscreant had succeeded in getting hold of the flag, and he fell back on the road seriously, and he thinks, mortally wounded, the whole load having ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... season, when the cloudy sky Upon the parched ground doth rain down send, As duck and mallard in the furrows dry With merry noise the promised showers attend, And spreading broad their wings displayed lie To keep the drops that on their plumes descend, And where the streams swell to a gathered lake, Therein they ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... sons; inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as have been asked twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as life hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a culverin worse than a struck deer or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts in butter, with hearts in their breasts no bigger than pins' heads; and they bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... he was tellin' me there was a cup there. Well, there was, one of those little, two-for-a-cent contraptions, just big enough to stick one end of the egg into. 'I want a big one,' says I. 'We, Madame,' says he, and off he trotted. When he came back he brought me a big EGG, a duck's egg, I guess 'twas. Then I scolded and he jabbered some more and by and by he went and fetched this Monsieur Louis man. He could speak English, thank goodness, and he was real nice, in his French way. He begged my pardon for the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new hand, and the like ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Marty's clean blows, in his quick "duck" and "side-step;" and when her cousin's freckled fist impinged upon the fatuous countenance of Sim Howell, Janice Day uttered an unholy ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... In Hungary, during the sixteenth century, the choicest venison was consumed by plebeians and nobles alike. Herberstein, Rer. Moscov. Comm., 97. In Russia, even the lowest classes not unfrequently partake of roast hare and duck etc. Kohl, Reise in Russland, II, 386. Still, in St. Petersburg, wild-fowl game rose between the time of Peter the Great and Alexander I. 600 per cent. in price. (Storch, Handbuch, I, 368.) In Pittsburg, in 1807, mutton, beef and veal cost from 4 to 6 cents a pound, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... swerving and dipping like a helpless wild duck seeking to shake off the three hawks that were now hovering ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace

... reached it with a loud splash, proved quite cold enough for his taste, though its chill was not sufficient to quell his proud spirit, or slake the heat of his furious temper. He rose to the surface spluttering, and when he had wiped the duck-weed out of his eyes the first thing he saw was the fat barge-woman looking back at him over the stern of the retreating barge and laughing; and he vowed, as he coughed and choked, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... Spring Creek, formed a line, and gave us a brisk little brush; but our men steadily advanced, driving them back, and, crossing the creek, were in their late camp. We skirmished and drove them some three miles beyond the river, and found we were within one mile of Duck River, eleven miles within and beyond their line. Not knowing what forces might come to their aid, the General did not further pursue them; but, on returning, we destroyed their camp, setting fire to all the ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... queer duck," one of the party sprawling around the tents said as the two made their way ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... and dandified. He was unusually smart and brilliant in his costume. His white duck trowsers and white hat, his neckcloth of many colors, his light waistcoat, gold chains, and shirt studs, gave him the air of a prince of the blood at least. How his splendor became his figure! Was any body ever like ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and much stale incense from the fragrant weed exhaled itself from his well-worn corduroys. "I ha' not nivver seed him afore," he remarked after a gruff by no means-ill-natured greeting, signifying the stranger by a duck of the head ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... everywhere, as Spinoza says, or that all things proceed from God, as says St. Paul... the nincompoops, the door shuts or opens, but isn't the movement the same? Does the fowl come from the egg, or the egg from the fowl?... Just hand me some duck... and there, you have ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... not, silly!" said Jim Airth, rubbing his knees vigorously. "When I haul you up cliffs, I wear old Norfolk coats; and when I duck you in the sea, I wear flannels. I considered this the correct attire in which to pay a formal call on Lady Ingleby; and now, before she has had a chance of being duly impressed by it, I have spoilt my knees hopelessly, worshipping ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay

... Fanny and her sweet daughters, when they shall come home; and his lovely acres are made more lovely by a profusion of trees, circles and lines of white pebble walk, pink-beds and tulips; and flourish not long without a deer-park and duck-pond, ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... and said: "This has been frozen," the reply would be: "Bah! tell me next, will you, that I let the moon shine on their gills, so's to make 'em look fresh! So these are hard days for you, eh, my duck?" Mademoiselle wanted her to go to the Halle Centrale one day for her dinner, and she mentioned the fact in the fish-woman's presence. "Oho! yes, yes, to the Halle! I'd like to see you go to the Halle!" And she bestowed a glance ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... granted that Clover would be as disengaged and as much at their service as she had been in the valley; and lo! she sat on the piazza with a knot of girls about her, and a young man in an extremely "fetching" costume of snow-white duck, with a flower in his button-hole, was bending over her chair, and talking in a low voice of something which seemed of interest. He looked provokingly cool and comfortable to the dusty horsemen, and very much at home. Phil, who lounged against the ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... years of age. Nine of those years he had spent chopping trees, driving cattle, poling canoes and assisting in the search for useful minerals among the snow-clad ranges. He wore a wide, gray felt hat, which had lost its shape from frequent wettings, an old shirt of the same color, and blue duck trousers, rent in places; but the light attire revealed a fine muscular symmetry. He had brown hair and brown eyes; and a certain warmth of coloring which showed through the deep bronze of his skin hinted at a sanguine and somewhat impatient temperament. As a matter of ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... for Eidfjord, change into a small branch steamer, and are soon rounding a mighty headland, and, if there is any wind, getting a tossing for a few minutes, the fjord just here being wide and open. The head of a seal may occasionally be seen bobbing up and down, and large flocks of duck are always swimming about at a respectful distance from the steamer. And what a view we have across the expanse of water! The never-ending mountains stretch away one behind the other, to be crowned ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman

... these Helpful Remarks she would Duck, and the Uplifted Mother would put a Nickel in the Can and send ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade

... about the time oats run, he has been met with at considerable distances from water, and has even been detected in pea fields, gorged with the usual accessories to duck, to which in some respects he is so far analogous—that though a foul feeder he is excellent as an edible. He inhabits mud and sand banks, and also conceals himself under tree roots, stones and rocks. You may angle for him with Salmon Roe, a lob-worm or Minnow after a flood ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland

... timer, sits at a table and takes it in. Izzy's eyes and ears have learned to pick details in a bedlam. He can talk softly and listen easily through the height of the cabaret racket. The scene hits Izzy as water hits a duck's back. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... Fitch's model of 1785 had side paddle wheels operated by an endless chain. Fitch's second and third models were practically paddle-wheel models, one having the paddles at the side and the other at the stern. Ormsbee of Connecticut made a model, in 1792, on the plan of a duck's foot. Morey made what may be called the first real stern-wheeler in 1794. Two years later Fitch ran a veritable screw propeller on Collect Pond near New York City. Although General Benjamin Tupper of Massachusetts had been fashioning devices ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... first thought was the true one: you must not fight that cur. After all, it's a farce: you won't fire at him, and he can't hit you—so leave ill alone. Beside, for Scoutbush's sake, her sake, every one's sake, the thing must be hushed up. If the fellow chooses to duck under into the London mire, let him lie there, and ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... to the manager. "I took on that there boy Reeve to do yer a kindness, but it ain't no manner of good. I suppose the boy 'ad parents of some sort, most likely bad, but 'e seems to me kind of machine-made, same as a Leicester boot. I can't make out whether you'd best call 'im a sucklin' duck or a dummercyle. And as for bootmakin'—I only wish 'e knowed ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... a ton, complete in all her fittings. This is much cheaper than in England, which appears unaccountable, considering the rate of wages; but so much more work is done by the workmen for their wages, that labour is as cheap, if not cheaper, there than here. 'Cotton-duck' sails are almost exclusively used by American vessels under 300 tons, which for such vessels, as well as for yachts, is much better and cheaper than canvas. Another circumstance which struck the author at Baltimore—and which is ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various

... Conservatoire: her name was Cecile Fleury. She was short and rather thick-set. She had heavy eyebrows, fine, large eyes, with a soft expression, a short, broad, turned-up nose, inclined to redness, like a duck's beak, thick lips, kind and tender, an energetic chin, heavy and solid, and her forehead was broad, but not high. Her hair was done up in a large bun at the back of her neck. She had strong arms and a pianist's hands, very long, with a ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... what he meant by attempting to seduce a church-warden of the Church of England. I tell you what, he ran some danger; for some of my customers, learning his errand, laid hold on him, and were about to toss him in a blanket, and then duck him in the horse-pond. I, however, interfered, and said, 'that what he came about was between me and him, and that it was no business of theirs.' To tell you the truth, I felt pity for the poor devil, more especially when I considered that they merely sided against him because ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... my beauty! Look how she rides, the darling, like a duck! What a clipper she is, to be sure; so easy to handle! a child could steer her with a ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson

... together under the care of Mr. Allworthy and Mrs. Blifil, and by the time he was fourteen Tom Jones—who, according to universal opinion, was certainly born to be hanged—had been already convicted of three robberies—viz., of robbing an orchard, of stealing a duck out of a farmer's yard, and of picking Master Blifil's ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... dotted with clay-works. This was Ebenezer Chapel; and my father was its deacon. Its one bell had sounded down the ridge and tinkled in my ear from half-past ten to eleven that morning. Its pastor would walk back and eat roast duck and drink three-star brandy under my father's roof after service. Bell and pastor had spoken in vain, as far as I was concerned; but I knew that all they had to say would be rubbed in with my father's ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... place I'm heading for," thought the boy, "and he must be doing that at the request of Ronald Mason. In that case he's sure to meet the man. What a good decoy duck he will make! By Jove, I've only got to shadow him and he will lead me right to the very place where his employer is concealed. Then we'll be enabled to arrest Mason ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous

... city ways just like a duck to water; I like the racket and the noise and never tire of shows; And there's no end of comfort in the mansion of my daughter, And everything is right at hand and money freely flows; And hired help is all about, ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... and grey beards look more like the human countenance than the faces of most other animals. They are very unwieldy in their movements when on shore, but most expert in the water. There is a small kind of duck in the bay, which, from the clearness of the water, can be seen flying with its wings under water in chase of small fry, which it speedily overtakes from ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... among the crowd, as it was dark, asking questions, and found out that they "would like to duck the fellow if they could catch him;" they "did not want any such Revivalist chap as that amongst them," and so forth. They were greatly excited, and wondered which road he was likely to come, for they would go to meet him. Some one asked, "what is he like ?" One answered, "Oh, he is a rum-looking ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... ball," he yelled. "This ain't no dodgin' game. Duck your nut if the ball's goin' to hit you, but stop lookin' for it. Forget it. Another turn now. I'm goin' to umpire. Let's see if you know the difference between a ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey

... near-by swamp where several of the creatures lived. Day after day Dick waded, wandered and watched in that swamp with the rifle, while Ned tramped in another direction carrying the shotgun, making maps of the country, and picking up occasionally a duck or Indian hen for dinner. Sometimes Dick got sight of a bear, but Bruin was shy and kept well out of range. One day, while sitting in some thick woods, hoping that a bear would wander near him, Dick heard a ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... Reptiles, the mass of the brain, relatively to the spinal cord, increases and the cerebral hemispheres begin to predominate over the other parts; while in Birds this predominance is still more marked. The brain of the lowest Mammals, such as the duck-billed Platypus and the Opossums and Kangaroos, exhibits a still more definite advance in the same direction. The cerebral hemispheres have now so much increased in size as, more or less, to hide the representatives of the optic lobes, which remain comparatively small, so that the ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley

... again. Still the woman follows, crying, "Stop him, sir, pray stop him!" Allan, not knowing but that he has just robbed her of her money, follows in chase and runs so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times, but each time he repeats the curve, the duck, the dive, and scours away again. To strike at him on any of these occasions would be to fell and disable him, but the pursuer cannot resolve to do that, and so the grimly ridiculous pursuit continues. At last the fugitive, hard-pressed, takes to a narrow ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... spent with my father in his study, or by the pond, where he still feeds the carps, that have grown into Cyprinidian leviathans. The duck, alas! has departed this life,—the only victim that the Grim King has carried off; so I mourn, but am resigned to that lenient composition of the great tribute to Nature. I am sorry to say the Great Book has advanced but slowly,—by no means ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to look about her, when a man, whom at first sight she took for a stranger, came forward with outstretched hand. But in an instant she saw it was not a stranger,—it was Captain Burke, but not as she had ever seen him before. He was dressed in a complete suit of white duck with gold buttons, and he wore a white cap trimmed with gold,—an attire so different from his high silk hat and the furs that it was no wonder that at first she did not recognize ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... "Dew on a duck's back, my friend," she observed, serenely. "Cousin, if I were fashioned for evil I had been ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... white which the dry season brings. Dirt-trains kept the right of way, however, for the Work always comes first at Panama. Or it might be the famous "yellow car" itself with members of the Commission. Once it came all but empty and there dropped off inconspicuously a man in baggy duck trousers, a black alpaca coat of many wrinkles; and an unassuming straw hat, a white-haired man with blue—almost babyish blue-eyes, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he strolled about with restless ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... these destructive little animals in their rambles among the corn-stalks in the field. In this way, the weasel renders the farmer a good service occasionally, though he never asks to be rewarded with a duck or chicken, always choosing to help himself without asking, whenever he can get a chance. Oh! if you could but see a weasel attack a mouse, as I have done. By just one single bite of the head, which is done in a moment, and which pierces the brain before you can say 'Jack Robinson,' ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... man at the wheel, an' round went the ship like a duck, jist missin' the bit of wreck as she passed. A boat wos lowered, and Mrs. Ellice wos took aboard. Well, she found that the ship wos bound for the Sandwich Islands, and as they didn't mean to touch at any port in passin', Mrs. Ellice had to go on with ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... passing wanderer—a spot where one would gladly have lain down the burden of life and rested for awhile in one of those white cottages that lay a little way back from the high road, shadowed by a screen of tall elms. There was a duck-pond in front of a low red-brick inn which reminded one of Birkett Foster, and made the central feature of the village; a spot of busy life where all else was stillness. There were accommodation roads leading off to distant farms, above which the tree-tops interlaced, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... you've come back dripping, have you? Well, you ain't the first head-strong, high-strung chap that's found out water is wet when the creek blots out the big road, I reckon. I'm no duck myself. When I see water, I'm like the old cat in the corner; I always feel like shaking my foot. Kitty, call Bob and tell him to make a fire in the big room. He's asleep, I reckon, and you'll have to holler. Set a nigger down and he's snoring directly. You look pale," Mrs. Kendrick continued, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... trees, which did not seem burdened with fruit. We heard the crowing of cocks, but saw none. Some roots were baking on a fire in an earthen jar, which would have held six or eight gallons; nor did we doubt its being their own manufacture. As we proceeded up the creek, Mr Forster having shot a duck flying over our heads, which was the first use these people saw made of our fire-arms, my friend begged to have it; and when he landed, told his countrymen in what manner it was killed. The day being far spent, and ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... me, don't remind me! How can I ever make it? No market within a thousand miles of any place in this confounded country! Forced to boil down sheep into tallow and sell them for the price of a wild duck! I have left my Susan, and I have lost her. Oh, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... started a fire. It was a north wind, and I could smell the ducks cooking and the coffee making, and I couldn't hold off any longer. I rowed myself over in our second boat. The senior line officer of the party, a lieutenant, invited me to join them, which I did, and pretty soon I was eating broiled duck and drinking real American coffee, with bacon and eggs, ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... was "Major" Galahad Shaughnessy. I imagine I can see him, in his white duck, brass-buttoned roundabout, with his sabreless belt peeping out beneath, all his boyishness in his sea-blue eyes, leaning lightly against the door-post of the Cafe des Exiles as a child leans against his mother, running his fingers over a basketful ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... natives. The staple meat was buck of all kinds; sheep were wellnigh unknown, oxen were scarce and their meat tough; but no one need grumble at a diet of buck, wild-pig, koran,[51] guinea-fowl, and occasionally wild-duck. As regards other necessities of life, transport difficulties were enormous; every ounce of food besides meat, and including precious liquids, had then to be dragged over nearly 250 miles of indifferent roads; and not only groceries, but furniture, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... (Smiling into the glass.) And what a lot of 'em swarm round me. And yet I don't care for any of them as much as for that Tanya. And she only a lady's-maid! Ah well, she's nicer than any young lady. (Smiles.) She's a duck! (Listening.) Ah, here she comes. (Smiles.) Yes, that's her, clattering with her ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... what he saw. For although she said nothing and forced a smile, he could easily tell by the set of her lips that Deborah thoroughly disapproved. All right, that was her way, he thought. But this was Laura's way, shedding the gloom and the tragic side as a duck will shed water off its back, a duck with bright new plumage fresh from the shops of the Rue de la Paix and taking some pleasure out of life! What an ardent gleaming beauty she was, he thought as he watched this daughter ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole

... I can't reach. If I'm a little late to-night go to sleep like a duck. You think Mr. Jasper's nice, don't you? So does mother. But you mustn't let him give you any more money. ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... to Nan and threw her arms about her neck. "You dear old duck," she cried; "there never was such a dear, lovely, beautiful stepmother on the face of the earth! And now it's all ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... imagine that you did imagine it." Those were the only words he spoke that night. She went, like a lame duck, back through the long corridors; she stumbled over the familiar tiger skins in the dark hall. She could hardly drag one limb after the other. In the gallery she perceived that Nancy's door was half open and that there was a light in the girl's ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... stocky, stout lad of a farmer in his brown duck coat lined with sheep's wool, came up from between the wheels. His cap was awry, his trousers were muddy at the knees where he had knelt in the moist road, and his face was ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson

... turkey's,' she murmured to herself, 'and this is a wild duck's, and this is a pigeon's. Ah, they put pigeons' feathers in the pillows—no wonder I couldn't die! Let me take care to throw it on the floor when I lie down. And here is a moorcock's; and this—I should know it ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... have been recorded from time to time, such as Candlewick Street into Cannon Street, Cannon Row to Channel Row, and Snore Hill to Snow Hill, all of which are easily enough followed. Strype's Court (after the historian's family) to Tripe Court, or Duck Lane into Duke ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... I had seen since leaving the Platte, and, being out for something to eat, I was particularly glad to see them. I watched them settle, and then creeping up through tall wild rice I got a shot and killed one of them. I quickly reloaded. As I was out there alone I was necessarily on my guard. The duck was about twenty-five feet from the bank, and as the water was deep and cold and no one with me I concluded not to go in after it. So I took out the ramrod, screwed the wormer to it, lengthened it out with willow cuttings fastened one to another, and then shoved ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole

... a back-street in Paddington, where Mrs. Smeech, her 'lame duck,' lived—an aged person, connected with the charring interest; but after half an hour spent in hearing her habitually lamentable recital, and dragooning her into temporary comfort, she went on to Stanhope Gate. The great ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... regret the infrequency of his inspirations, for he will know that the day of his strength has set in. And if, for poesy, some grave Virgilian line should pause on his memory, or some tongue of Hebrew fire leap from the ashes of his godly youth, it will be enough. But if cold duck ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... cloudless, and even in the dead of night the vault seemed to retain its splendor. There are curious cloths woven on Persian and on Turkish looms which appear to the casual eye to be merely black, but which held in sunlight show green and blue, purple and bronze, like the shifting colors on a duck's back. Kate, pacing back and forth in the night after hours of concentrated labor,—labor which could be performed only when her father was resting,—noted such mysterious and evasive hues in her Northern sky. Never had she seen heavens so triumphant. True, the ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... slaves working under the same roof, and he doing nothing but eating their vitals. I'll have no big mills where I'm main master. Let him look to it. Here goes," and he jumped off the table. "Before an hour I'll pay this same Trafford a visit and I'll see whether he'll duck me. Come on my prime Doggy," and nodding to the Chartist to follow him, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... cautiously creeping on, I got within shot of one of them. I fired, and down tumbled the monster bird. He was a huge creature, with a large hooked beak and immense claws, who, if he could not have carried off a lamb or a goose, would have had no trouble in flying away with a duck, or a fowl, or a rabbit. I observed where the others went to, and followed them till I reached a tolerably accessible cliff, at the top of which a whole colony seemed to reside; big and little, sires and offspring, were circling round, and making ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston

... an' pretty bad," soliloquized the man. "Gimme a bob over the fare, an' all, so can't be stony. But Lord love a duck, you ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... geese, ducks, swans, cormorants, ibises, bitterns, red-beaks, curlew, snipe, plover and moorhens. Conspicuous among these are the great white swan (Cygnus anatoides), the black-necked swan (Anser nigricollis), the antarctic goose (Anas antarctica) and the "race-horse" or "steamer duck" (Micropterus brachypterus). ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... Harry," he said, several times. "Dinna fash yoursel', man. I'll tell ye in time for ye to duck if I see one coming ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... to duck some ignorant fellow or landsman, frequently played on board ships in the warm latitudes. It is thus managed: A large tub is filled with water, and two stools placed on each side of it. Over the whole is thrown ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... men. An odour of savouries, burnt cheese and vinegar met the nostrils, also the sharp smell of a patchouli-scented handkerchief drawn quickly from a bodice; and a young man protested energetically against a wild duck which had been kept a few days over its time. Lubini, or Lubi, as he was called by his pals, signed to the waiter, and deciding the case in favour of the young man, he pulled a handful of silver out of his pocket and offered to toss ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... on the other. This topographical formation of a central ridge or watershed of forest and swamp was a repetition of the same formation in the Delaware peninsula, which like southern Jersey had originally been a shoal and then an island. The Jersey watershed, with its streams abounding in wood duck and all manner of wild life, must have been in its primeval days as fascinating as some of the streams of the Florida cypress swamps. Toward the ocean, Wading River, the Mullica, the Tuckahoe, Great Egg; and on the Delaware side the Maurice, ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher

... you the Governor shall not withhold his consent—and there are bear and deer—quail, wild duck—your excellency will enjoy that beautiful wild country as I have done." Arguello was enchanted at the prospect of fresh adventure in the company of this fascinating stranger. "But we are once more at our poor abode, senor. I beg you to remember ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... Pup. If I could but see a Trapper's shack or a camp," he confided to Shag, as he clung to the Bull's hump, "I might find something to eat—Ghur-r-r! a piece of the Pork Eating, or a half-picked bone, or a Duck killed by the Fire-stick! Even one of my own kind, a Dog, would I eat, I'm that famished—Great Bull, is that not a shack?" he exclaimed suddenly as a square building loomed ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser

... Father, Father! do you really mean it? Not go to school any more at all! And have lessons every day with that lovely Miss Hart, and my dear Delight? Oh, Father, you're such a duck!" ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells

... and the evening was very pleasant, with a temperature of 60 deg.—a night of a more southern autumn. For our supper we had yampah, the most agreeably flavored of the roots, seasoned by a small fat duck, which had come in the way of Jacob's rifle. Around our fire to-night were many speculations on what to-morrow would bring forth; and in our busy conjectures we fancied that we should find every one of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... by foot, inch by inch, she approached the cradle, and all the while his hellish voice was breathing the vilest of inspirations into her brain. At last she stood by the side of the baby, and bent over it. What a darling! What a dear! What a duck! A sweet, pretty, innocent, prattling duck! How like her mother—how like her handsome brother—how like herself—very, very like herself! How every one loved it—how every one worshipped it—how (and here the grey face beside her chuckled) ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... yet. They'd see it burning, and tread it out. Here, you let me have it. I'll hold it to the last minute, and when I throw, you duck yourself down, ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... the water. When we had no ponies, we often had swimming matches of our own and sometimes made rafts with which we crossed lakes and rivers. It was a common thing to "duck" a young or timid boy or to carry him into deep water to struggle ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... of the province of Manitoba, whilst the Canadian Pacific Railway was in the course of construction, the peace of the territories was again disturbed by risings of half-breeds in the South Saskatchewan district, chiefly at Duck Lake, St. Laurent, and Batoche. Many of these men had migrated from Manitoba to a country where they could follow their occupation of hunting and fishing, and till little patches of ground in that shiftless manner characteristic of the Metis. The total number of half-breeds in ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... them hatless, but trailing a stick that had been the prop of his later convalescence. His blue serge coat, a negligee shirt and duck trousers had been drawn a few days before from the trunks brought by Oscar from the bungalow. He was clean-shaven for the first time since his illness, and the two men looked at him with a new interest. His deepened temples and ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... mingle with thy clamor; Bird, beast, and reptile take part in thy drama; Out-speak they all in turn without a stammer,— Brisk Polyglot! Voices of Killdeer, Plover, Duck, and Dotterel; Notes bubbling, hissing, mellow, sharp, and guttural; Of Cat-Bird, Cat, or Cart-Wheel, thou canst utter all, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... mammals we find the aplacentals, or those which bring forth immature young, which are grouped into two divisions, i.e., (1) the monotremes, or one-vented animals, in which group belong the duck-bills, spiny ant-eaters, etc.; and (2) the marsupials, or pouched animals, in which group ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... was dressed nearly like European sailors. He wore jacket and trousers of white duck, a broad red sash, and a very low-crowned straw hat. His face was brown, with strongly-marked features, and, though forty years of age, he was ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... "my folks have always been purty poor, and I've lived in jay towns all my life; and when I came here I didn't know any more about life in a city than a duck does of mining. I had it all to learn, and they's a whole lot yet that I don't know." She smiled quaintly, then grew sober. "And what's worse, I haven't any one to tell me—except Mr. Congdon, and he's such a josher I don't trust him. He did give me a few points ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... on him and threatens to squeak. Mebbe he has got evidence; mebbe he hasn't. Anyhow, our big duck wants to forget the time he was wearing a mask and bending a six-gun for a living. Also and moreover, he's right anxious to have other folks get a chance to forget. From what I can hear he's clean mashed on some girl at Amarillo, or maybe ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... brother-in-law, told Ivanov that wild-duck were feeding on the other side of the wood. He loaded his gun with slugs. Suddenly a wolf appeared. He fired and smashed both the wolf's hips. The wolf was mad with pain and did not see him. "What can I do for you, dear?" He thought and thought, and then went home and called Peter.... ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov



Words linked to "Duck" :   wood duck, summer duck, cricket, duck-billed dinosaur, redhead, fabric, Aix sponsa, Aix galericulata, ruddy duck, canvasback, Oxyura jamaicensis, sheldrake, black duck, quack-quack, Aythya ferina, eider duck, drake, duck-billed, pochard, avoid, pintail, family Anatidae, Anas platyrhynchos, elude, lesser scaup duck, scaup duck, Anas clypeata, dabbling duck, widgeon, Bucephela clangula, musk duck, canvasback duck, whistler, duck's egg, dunk, sea duck, souse, quibble, Anatidae, sitting duck, fudge, duck soup, dead duck, textile, mallard, fish duck, duck-billed platypus, dip, scaup, duck sauce, lake duck, beg, circumvent, duck hunter, Aythya americana, dipper, anseriform bird, parry, Donald Duck, douse, Anas penelope, skirt, bluebill, ducking, Bucephela albeola, butterball, duck pate, duck hunting, shoveler, dabbler, bufflehead, move, mandarin duck, put off, score, cold duck, diving duck, sidestep, pin-tailed duck, duckling, broadbill, queer duck, plunge, duck down, poultry, dive, shoveller, Aythya valisineria, teal, Cairina moschata, material, Anas rubripes, wild duck, wood widgeon, muscovy duck, goldeneye, plunk, wigeon, Anas acuta



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