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Duck   Listen
noun
Duck  n.  
1.
(Zool.) Any bird of the subfamily Anatinae, family Anatidae. Note: The genera and species are numerous. They are divided into river ducks and sea ducks. Among the former are the common domestic duck (Anas boschas); the wood duck (Aix sponsa); the beautiful mandarin duck of China (Dendronessa galeriliculata); the Muscovy duck, originally of South America (Cairina moschata). Among the sea ducks are the eider, canvasback, scoter, etc.
2.
A sudden inclination of the bead or dropping of the person, resembling the motion of a duck in water. "Here be, without duck or nod, Other trippings to be trod."
Bombay duck (Zool.), a fish. See Bummalo.
Buffel duck, Spirit duck. See Buffel duck.
Duck ant (Zool.), a species of white ant in Jamaica which builds large nests in trees.
Duck barnacle. (Zool.) See Goose barnacle.
Duck hawk. (Zool.)
(a)
In the United States: The peregrine falcon.
(b)
In England: The marsh harrier or moor buzzard.
Duck mole (Zool.), a small aquatic mammal of Australia, having webbed feet and a bill resembling that of a duck (Ornithorhynchus anatinus). It belongs the subclass Monotremata and is remarkable for laying eggs like a bird or reptile; called also duckbill, platypus, mallangong, mullingong, tambreet, and water mole.
To make ducks and drakes, to throw a flat stone obliquely, so as to make it rebound repeatedly from the surface of the water, raising a succession of jets; hence:
To play at ducks and drakes, with property, to throw it away heedlessly or squander it foolishly and unprofitably.
Lame duck. See under Lame.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Duck" Quotes from Famous Books



... mittens at the same time. One pair is made of wool. The other pair is made of reindeer skin. Their hats or caps are also made of reindeer skin. They are lined with eider down. Perhaps you do not know what eider down is. It is the soft, fine feathers of a bird called the eider duck. A great many of these ducks are found in Lapland. Their down ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw

... hurdle, behold, the village choir right there on the job to see the train come in. The arrival of the train—notice the train—is what you might call the main event of the day. As soon as the village yokels saw my trunks being unloaded they all did the grand duck for the theatre to strike the house manager, thinking it was a show. I hadn't tipped my mitt to the folks, so they were not at the tank to give me the parental embrace, but after giving the necessary instructions to the baggage man I climbed into the ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... that counseled a neglected wife to show an interest in another man. Charity was tempted to use Jim Dyckman as a decoy for her own wild duck; but Dyckman had sailed away in his new yacht, on a ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... He was small, thin, a little crooked, with long hands resembling the claws of a crab. His faded hair, scanty and slight, like the down on a young duck, allowed his scalp to be plainly seen. The brown, crimpled skin of his neck showed the big veins which sank under his jaws and reappeared at his temples. He was regarded in the district as a miser and a hard man ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... habit—it's a sin. Now, how are you? A trifle queer in the legs, eh? Things in the room look a bit hazy? That's all right. Effect of an active boy lying in bed. The air will set you straight. My! but you are a dandy in that suit! Fits you like a duck's bill in the ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond

... the little city stands will this same wood-cutter's name and history stand also. He had camped where it stood now, when nothing was there save the wild duck in the reeds, the antelopes upon the hills, and all manner of furred and feathered things; and it all was his. He had seen the yellow flashes of gold in the stream called Pipi, and he had not gathered it, for his life was simple, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... and, the thing not to mince, He has done naught but copy it ill ever since; His Indians, with proper respect be it said, Are just Natty Bumppo, daubed over with red, And his very Long Toms are the same useful Nat, Rigged up in duck pants and a sou'wester hat (Though once in a Coffin, a good chance was found To have slipped the old fellow away underground). 1040 All his other men-figures are clothes upon sticks, The derniere chemise of a man in a fix (As a captain besieged, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... of which were seen in 1767 and 1768. The Californian sea-elephant and the sea-dog of the West Indies have shared a like fate. Not a trace of these animals has been found for a long time. The extinction of the Labrador duck and the great auk have often been deplored. Both of these birds may be regarded as practically extinct. The last skeleton of the great auk was sold for $600, the last skin for $650, and the last egg brought the fabulous ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... of the 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 ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... looking at the loaded baskets on the coolies' heads; and he insisted on getting out. "I am dying to buy an enormous number of desirable things very cheap. But not combs or shirt-buttons, thank you, nor any ribbons or lace—is that good lace, Miss Livingstone? Nor even a live duck—really I am difficult. We might inquire the price ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... after him. But when he saw Spot duck into the woods he turned back sadly towards the house. For all he knew, old Spot might run a mile further before ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... would happen. The ducks dived under the water and disported themselves for a time, then came ashore and putting on the little white garments, they became beautiful maidens, and disappeared. But there was one little duck, that remained on the lake and swam about in the most distracted manner, uttering piteous cries. The Prince came from behind the bush and the little duck begged him to give back her garment. He had no sooner done so than before him stood ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... (Puttees). The style of leggings is the same as United States Army puttee legging. Made of best waterproof army duck. Price 55 cents. ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... they kept at it, and in half an hour was within hailin'-distance. Then the third officer of the steamer stood up and sung aout, 'Schooner ahoy!' 'Ay, ay!' says a man in the schooner's fore-riggin', and the men see naow that she was ridin' like a duck and as dry as a sojer. 'Are ye in distress?' sung aout the officer. 'Yas,' came from the man in the riggin'. 'Flounderin'?' shouted the officer ag'in. 'No,' sung out old man Muggridge, for it was him: 'next thing to it. We're aout o' beans. Kin ye ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... 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 fact, ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... gradually she yielded—not that I ever did anything that pleased her. She scolded me and found fault with me incessantly. Everything I did she considered clumsy; God had given me two left hands; my coat fitted so badly, it made me look like a scarecrow; my walk was a cross between that of a duck and cock. What she disliked especially was my politeness toward the customers. As I had nothing to do until the opening of the copying bureau, where I should have direct dealings with the public, I considered it a good ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... purpose of reconnoitring the back-offices. I steered pretty cautiously past what memory, that great dealer in hyperbole, had hitherto generally contrived to picture as a huge lake—now, to my astonishment, dwindled into a duck-pond—but not without danger from its slippery margin. It still reposed under the shadow of the old cherry-tree, once the harbinger of delight, as the returning season gave intimation of another bountiful supply of fruit. Its gnarled stump, now stunted and decaying, had scarcely one token of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... Poultry.—Cut the bird in half straight down the middle of the breast-bone, using a large sharp knife for the purpose. Lay each half on the table and take out the breast-bone from either side. If the bird is a large fowl, duck, or partridge, each breast will make three fillets, and leave a good piece with the wing, but average birds only make two breast fillets. Chop off the pinions within an inch of the meat, then cut the wing in two neatly; drumsticks ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen

... evening we saw several boobies flying so near to us, that we caught one of them by hand. This bird is as large as a good duck; like the noddy, it has received its name from seamen, for suffering itself to be caught on the masts and yards of ships. They are the most presumptive proofs of being in the neighbourhood of land of any sea-fowl we are acquainted with. I directed the bird to be killed for supper, and the ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh

... to interest the traveller: the banks are low and destitute of trees, the adjacent country is flat, and only in the distance is seen a range of tall blue sierras. The water is turbid and muddy, and in colour closely resembling the contents of a duck-pool; the average width of the stream is from 150 to 200 yards. But it is impossible to move along this river without remembering that it has borne the Roman, the Vandal, and the Arab, and has been the witness of deeds which have resounded through the world, and been ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... "will you or your friends drive a turkey, a duck, a hen, or a gander in our Gymkana race? My daughter, Dorothy, has, I believe, reserved an old gray goose as her especial steed; but you can make any other choice of racer that you may desire. The only point of the game is to get the nose of your steed ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane

... have each their 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

... thoughtfully when he had read it, then be glanced from the young man to his companion with a comprehensive smile and hurried away. There was chilled grapefruit in goblets with cracked ice, followed by bouillon, oysters, and a delectable young duck with toast. But it was only when the man brought a small green bottle and held it for Jimmie to approve the label that his guest began ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... burden that ascended that hill of difficulty. There was the itinerant marketer, with his overladen cart, and his white horse, very much winded. He was a Yorkshire man, and he cried with a loud voice his appetizing wares: "Cabbage, taters, onions, wild duck, wild goose!" Well do I remember the refrain. Probably there were few domestic fowls in the market then; moreover, even our drinking water was peddled about the streets and sold to ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... shall now direct the reader's attention. The one is a pleasant-countenanced, good-humoured Krouman, who had been christened 'Pompey the Great'; most probably on account of his large proportions. He wears a pair of duck trousers; the rest of his body is naked, and presents a sleek, glossy skin, covering muscles which an anatomist or a sculptor would have viewed with admiration. The other is a youth of eighteen, or thereabouts, with an intelligent, handsome countenance, ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... already been surveying the Major from the casement of the ornamental kitchen, and were astonished to find their daughter in the little passage in the embrace of a great tall man in a blue frock-coat and white duck trousers. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... forward between my house and hers for all sorts of things, and, as they slopped until the road ran tiny rivulets, I had to change shoes and stockings twice. I was not conscious till afterward how funny it all was. I must have been a good deal like an excited duck, and Amelie like a hen with a duckling. When she was not twitching my sash straight, she was running about after me with dry shoes and stockings, and a chair, for fear "madame was getting too tired"; and when she was not doing that she was clapping my big garden hat ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich

... duck had a hard time of it from the beginning—that is, from the beginning of her life on the farm. She had been a free wild bird up to that time, swimming in the bay, playing hide-and-seek with her brothers and sisters and cousins among the marsh reeds ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... learn your lessons by rote and do not use your thinking powers, education is very little good,—the obedience will have done you good, but, as far as mental growth is concerned, you will not gain much, for that sort of education drops off, like water off a duck's back, when you leave school. They say "a fool and his money are soon parted," but that is nothing to the speed with which a fool and ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... Baptiste left his soup, and got a prisoner, who could speak Creole, to send for his captain, who came on the next morning and made arrangements to relieve his condition from the ship's stores. The following day he whipped one of the jailer's boys in a fair fight; and on the next he killed a duck, and on the fourth he cut a white prisoner. Transgressing the rules of the jail in rejecting his soup-violating the laws of South Carolina making it a heinous offence for a negro to strike or insult a white person—committing murder on a duck—endeavoring to get up a fandango among the yard niggers, ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it; there were a duck and a dodo, a lory and an eaglet, and other curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... spoken strongly while there was yet time. They did not realize, it is difficult for those in the same house to realize, where things were tending. Henrietta's temper became less violent; there are fewer occasions for losing a temper when one is grown up, but she took to nagging like a duck ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor

... been forced to fish him out of the stream by his coattails. He considered always that he saved the old man's life. Nor had he meant to dab at him with the oar, thereby encouraging the unfortunate old chap to duck and misinterpret his obvious intention to ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... it had droned and boomed round the cabin two or three times, the pan of milk, showing white in the gloaming, caught its eyes, and, taking good aim, it alighted with a slanting, glinting plash in the middle of the pan like a duck alighting in a lake. Baby Watch, having never before seen anything like that beetle, started back, gazing in dumb astonishment and fear at the black sprawling monster trying to swim. Recovering somewhat ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... grinders in his ugly mouth, and to have preserved him mercifully for fifty years—for that is about the rascal's age. If that fellow's dagger breaks he can kill his victim with those teeth, as a fox does a duck, or smash ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... fox, the cry of the panther, the voice of the coon, or the call and clang of wild geese and ducks, or the war-cry of savage tribes, is this true; but not true in the same sense of domesticated or semi-domesticated animals and fowls. How different the voice of the common duck or goose from that of the wild species, or of the tame dove from that of the turtle of the fields and groves! Where could the English house sparrow have acquired that unmusical voice but amid the sounds of hoofs and wheels, and the discords ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... as it is called, bordered by a strip of meadow, or separated from the river by a low peninsula covered with coarse grass, wool-grass, etc., wherein they had waded back and forth and eaten the pads. We detected the remains of one in such a spot. At one place, where we landed to pick up a summer duck, which my companion had shot, Joe peeled a canoe-birch for bark for his hunting-horn. He then asked if we were not going to get the other duck, for his sharp eyes had seen another fall in the bushes a little farther along, and my companion obtained it. I now began ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... shepherd, in a voice sufficiently jeering at the moment when the chest turned over, giving a pretty little plunge like a duck. ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... his gun, then over into Goarly's field, and so round the back of the wood till he saw a small red brick house standing perhaps four hundred yards from the covert, just on the elbow of a lane. It was a miserable-looking place with a pigsty and a dung heap and a small horse-pond or duck-puddle all close around it. The stack of chimneys seemed to threaten to fall, and as he approached from behind he could see that the two windows opening that way were stuffed with rags. There was a little ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... Jimmie, duck or you'll lay yourself out. I gad, the world's full of traps set for big fellows. Now sit down there and fall to. Don't feel very ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... Joe," who lived at Bass Cove, where he shot wild ducks, took some to town for sale, and attracted the attention of a portly gentleman fond of shooting. This gentleman went duck shooting with Joe, and their adventures were more amusing to the boy ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... shopping, Claude bought some white shoes and duck trousers. He felt more interest than usual in his summer clothes. They met at the hotel for lunch, both very hungry and both satisfied with their morning's work. Seated in the dining room, with Enid opposite him, Claude ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... Francais to introduce the Para rubber tree, a large plantation of which I frequently visited near Libreville, and found to be doing well. This would be an excellent tree to plant in among coffee, for it is very clean and tidy, and seems as if it would take to West Africa like a duck to water, but it is not a quick cropper, and I am informed must be left at least three or four years before it is tapped at all, so, as the gardening books would say, it should be ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... low, serious tone of voice. None of them, strangely enough, wore a uniform, although they were all loyal Union soldiers belonging to the division of troops commanded by General O. M. Mitchell, then encamped on the banks of Duck River, only a couple of miles away. For the country was now engaged in the life-and-death struggle of the Civil War, when Northerner fought against Southerner—sometimes brother against brother—and no one could predict ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

... Jimmy. But picking the car up is. There is a very dangerous time when the driver is a sitting duck. From the moment he opens the car door he is in danger. Sitting in the chance of getting caught, he must start the car, move it out of the parking space into traffic, and get under way and ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... tell you any 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 ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... active botanist planted peach stones, and the party made their first capture of an "Indian." He and some more were paddling from island to island on logs—their only means of navigation—and a regular "duck hunt" ensued before one was caught, and taken on board the cutter by ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... to assist her in making ready for the big feast. For ten days these women cooked and pounded beef and cherries, and got ready the choicest dishes known to the Indians. Of buffalo, beaver, deer, antelope, moose, bear, quail, grouse, duck of all kinds, geese and plover meats there was an abundance. Fish of all kinds, and every kind of wild fruit were cooked, and when all was in readiness, the heralds went through the different villages, crying out: "Ho-po, ho-po" (now all, now all), "Dead Shot and his wife, ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin

... and Catholic Majesty the most humble and most devoted and most obsequious vassal and slave Pietro Gianone." What ruthless judgments posterity passes on once enormous reputations! In Gianone's admirable introduction we hear of "il celebre Arthur Duck, il quale oltro a' con confini della sua Inghilterra volle in altri a piu lontani Paesi andav rintracciando l'uso a l'autorita delle romane leggi ne' nuovi domini de' Principi cristiani; e di quelle di ciascheduna Nazione volle ancora ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... His white silk shirt hung loose on his thin, fine shoulders. His broad rider's belt, studded with blue enameled rings, encircled a waist almost as slender as Jude's own. His white duck trousers were turned up to display new riding boots, and his spurs, a graduation gift, were of silver and chimed at his ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... out almost imperceptibly. Blackness grew under the furze caverns, and the last glimpse of the estuary faded away in a steely glimmer; a brown ghost of an owl slid low over the spiked ramparts, and wings—the wings of fighting wild-duck coming up from the sea to feed—"spoke" like swords through the star-spangled blue-black ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... copse 'gan peep A narrow inlet, still and deep, Affording scarce such breadth of brim As served the wild duck's brood to swim. Lost for a space, through thickets veering, 240 But broader when again appearing, Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face Could on the dark-blue mirror trace; And farther as the Hunter strayed, Still broader ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... had an engagement with Josef Papin and Gabriel Cerre and some other young men to go duck-shooting on the Maramec, a good day's tramp, and we did not expect to be back until nearly time for Madame Chouteau's dance. I think the matrons and the maidens expected to spend the day in going to church and in making visits, which seemed to me a dull ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... the 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

... women coming and going, efficient, cool-eyed, low of voice. There were medicine-closets with orderly rows of labeled bottles, linen-rooms with great stacks of sheets and towels, long vistas of shining floors and lines of beds. There were brisk internes with duck clothes and brass buttons, who eyed her with friendly, patronizing glances. There were bandages and dressings, and great white screens behind which were played little or big dramas, baths or deaths, as the case might be. And over all brooded the mysterious ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... caged animal made the narrow circuit of the opening, stopping a moment mechanically before the sick man, and again, without looking at him, continuing her monotonous round. The heat had become excessive, but she held her shawl with both hands drawn tightly over her shoulders. Suddenly a wood-duck darted out of the covert blindly into the opening, struck against the blasted trunk, fell half stunned near her feet, and then, recovering, fluttered away. She had scarcely completed another circuit before the irruption was followed by a whirring ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... flowers—the prairie rose, fragrant, tender, elusive, and fragile as the English primrose; the blood-red tiger-lily; the brown windflower with its corn-tassel; the heavy wax cups of the sedgy water-lily, growing where wild duck flackered unafraid. Game was superabundant. Prairie chickens nestled along the single-file trail. Deer bounded from the poplar thickets and shy coyotes barked all night in the offing. Night in June on the northern prairie is but the ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut

... would have filled any townsman with amazement. Black he wore once a year, on sacrament Sunday, and, if possible, at a funeral; top-coat or water-proof never. His jacket and waistcoat were rough homespun of Glen Urtach wool, which threw off the wet like a duck's back, and below he was clad in shepherd's tartan trousers, which disappeared into unpolished riding-boots. His shirt was gray flannel, and he was uncertain about a collar, but certain as to a tie,—which he never had, his beard doing instead,—and his hat was soft felt of four colours and seven ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various

... they lived in the open air all the year round. There were the ferrets in a cage. Not far off, in a proximity which must have profoundly interested the ferrets, there was an enclosure of white rabbits. There was a wild duck which had been picked up injured in the leg one cold winter, and had become tame and followed them about now from place to place. There were a peacock and a peahen, a sty full of tiny, squeaking black piglets, hives of bees, all manner ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... regard the Politician as a fabulous monster. But tell me, Pam, how long is this to continue? Are you so enamoured of the simple life that you can go on indefinitely living in Miss Bathgate's parlour and eating stewed steak and duck's eggs?" ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... equipped for such an expedition as I could possibly wish, save in one particular. I had a smart, light-draught vessel, capable of "going anywhere where a duck can swim," as we say at sea; we were well armed, had plenty of ammunition, mustered a crew of twenty-six prime seamen, the pick of the Barracouta's crew—men who would go anywhere, and face anything—we ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... the shore a way?" suggested Bob. "There might be a duck or two in that reedy cove below here." And Jeremy, glad to quit the place, led off ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... duck," replied the outlaw, pouring the last of the egg-nog into his goblet, drinking it at a draught and chuckling as he set ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... birds makes the moral character of the row, for all his deaconlike demeanor and garb, somewhat questionable. He could never sally forth without insult. The golden robins, especially, would chase him as far as I could follow with my eye, making him duck clumsily to avoid their importunate bills. I do not believe, however, that he robbed any nests hereabouts, for the refuse of the gas-works, which, in our free-and-easy community, is allowed to poison the river, supplied him with dead alewives in abundance. I used to watch him making his periodical ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell

... flying to the boundary for three. The rest of the over was uneventful, Chatty having evidently made up her mind to be careful. Winnie Sutcliffe now took up the bowling at the other end, but her first ball, being a wide, served to increase the confidence that Honor had felt in breaking her duck. The next ball, though straight on middle stump, was a half-volley; Honor stepped out to it with a feeling of exultation, and a moment later it was soaring over the bowler's head ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... everybody 'ud want him, a duck! with all their hearts they would; and you know you promised your ma to take him out every blessed day," ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... of his wife and children. In this fit of sickness, his thoughts were quite altered about his wife; I say his thoughts, so far as could be judged by his words and carriages to her. For now she was his good wife, his godly wife, his honest wife, his duck and dear, and all. Now he told her that she had the best of it; she having a good life to stand by her, while his debaucheries and ungodly life did always stare him in the face. Now he told her the counsel that she often gave him was good; though he was so ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... enduring; but the weight, the hand, and the seat of the rider, added to the late regular exercise of a long journey, had subdued his stubbornness for the present. He was accompanied by the honest bonnet maker, who being, as the reader is aware, a little round man, and what is vulgarly called duck legged, had planted himself like a red pincushion (for he was wrapped in a scarlet cloak, over which he had slung a hawking pouch), on the top of a great saddle, which he might be said rather to be perched upon than to bestride. The saddle and the man were girthed on the ridge ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... gate, Patricia called a halt. "Duck," she ordered, dropping on the grass. From half-way up the path, came Sarah's voice: "Oh, ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott

... house and left him to his long silence, the black wings of night were lifted, the storm was past, and a rose-red dawn veiled in silver bedecked the sky. The hills were tender with pearl and azure. The earth smelled sweet and freshly washed. A flock of wild duck rose from the dam and went streaking across the horizon like in a Japanese etching. All the land was full of dew and dreams. It was almost impossible to despair in such an hour. Christine felt the wings of hope beating in her breast, and an ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... us in no capon's flesh, for that is often dear, Nor bring us in no duck's flesh, for they slobber in the mere; But bring ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... sailors were greatly exhilarated when we reached Dusky Bay, New Zealand. Landing a shooting party at Duck Cove, we found a native with his club and some women behind him, who would not move. His fears, however, were all dissipated by Captain Cook going up to embrace him. After a stay here we opened Queen Charlotte's Sound and found the Adventure ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... voices 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... stay till I come back, Mary.—I see, my man, when you take a bribe, you are scrupulous enough to do your work for it; for which, I hope, somebody may duck you with one hand, and rub you dry with the other. Kindness and honesty, for kindness and honesty's sake, is the true coin; but many a one, like you, is content to be a passable Birmingham halfpenny. [Exeunt JOB ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman

... furniture frames are of white mahogany in special designs, elaborately carved, and the upholstery is in white and gold tapestry. A superb mantel of Mexican onyx with gold decoration adorns the south wall, and before the hearth is a large rug composed entirely of skins of the eider-down duck, brought from the Arctic regions. Pictures and bric-a-brac everywhere suggest the tribute of loving friends. One of the two alcoves is a retiring-room and the other a lavatory in which the plumbing is all heavily ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy

... for three-quarters of the way, and the sea was as calm as any duck-pond. But that was all altered when we passed Cape Finisterre. I have done a lot of knocking about on the ocean one way and another, but I never saw the Bay of Biscay ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... his quick eye detected the successful marksman in a group of laughing young fellows a few rods away. "'T was thou, wast it? Revenge, revenge, my comrades!" and the three lads sent a well-directed volley of return shots that made their assailants duck and dodge for safety. Then followed a frequent carnival scene. The shots and counter-shots drew many lookers-on, and soon the watchers changed to actors. The crowd quickly separated into two parties, the air seemed full of the flying missiles, and, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... rested. Blessed Paul began making a duck- house; she let him be; the duck-house fell down, and she had to set her hand to it. He was then to make a drinking-place for the pigs; she let him be again - he made a stair by which the pigs will probably escape this evening, and she ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... with a slight duck of the head of careless acknowledgment. Then he glanced with slumbering anger at the stove. "Smoke, we'll have to dig up a new stove. That fire-box is burned plumb into the oven so ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... upon us from some other sphere, he could hardly have been a greater surprise and puzzle to the average reader or critic. Into a literature that was timid, imitative, conventional, he fell like leviathan into a duck-pond, and the commotion and consternation he created there have not yet subsided. All the reigning poets in this country except Emerson denied him, and many of our minor poets still keep up a hostile sissing ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... faithful! Not minding about the child at all; for he knew the rights of the story. He's dearly fond o' Johnny, you know—just as if 'twere his own—isn't he, my duck? Do Mr. Miller love you or ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... rain to-day," said Almira Jane as Master Sunshine slipped off gayly to school next morning. "Your geese are sure to be good weather-prophets, and I notice that they are dressing their feathers and diving comfortably in the little duck-pond." ...
— Master Sunshine • Mrs. C. F. Fraser

... You're too much in luck to come out with a duck," answered Montagu. "You see I've already become the Homer of your triumphs, and ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... plan, I find, is to treat it as a game and take a hand in it. Last week he wanted to be a lion. I could see that was going to be awkward, he roaring for raw meat and thinking to prowl about the house at night. Well, I didn't nag him—that's no good. I just got a gun and shot him. He's a duck now, and I'm trying to keep him one: sits for an hour beside his bath on three china eggs I've bought him. Wish some of the sane ones ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... [*Douay: porphyrion. St. Thomas' description tallies with the coot or moorhen: though of course he is mistaken about the feet differing from one another.] has this peculiarity apart from other birds, that it has a webbed foot for swimming, and a cloven foot for walking: for it swims like a duck in the water, and walks like a partridge on land: it drinks only when it bites, since it dips all its food in water: it is a figure of a man who will not take advice, and does nothing but what is soaked in the water of his own will. The heron [*Vulg.: herodionem], commonly called ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... and with hardly a ripple on the surface. We passed high mountains and lofty cliffs, crossed the mouths of large rivers, left groves of spruce and fir and larches on both sides of us, and saw endless birds, among them the Canada goose, eider duck, surf scoters, and many commoner sea-fowl. As it was both impossible and dangerous to proceed after dark, when no longer able to run we would go ashore and gather specimens of the abundant and beautiful sub-arctic flora, and occasionally capture a bird or a dish of trout ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... leg failed them, now the other, now both at once. And all the time they kept up a cackle of annoyance; they looked about them with foolish eyes of amazement and indignation; they wondered, doubtless, what the world was coming to, when an honest duck's piece of water was suddenly stolen from him, and he was subjected to insult on the ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... for horse and hound, in the chase of the red fox, have furnished the theme for many a writer; and recently Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Harrison have been more or less celebrated in the newspapers, Mr. Harrison as a gunner, and Mr. Cleveland for his angling, as well as his duck shooting proclivities. ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... he broke out as I entered, turning to his daughter-in-law, and employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep, but generally represented by a dash—. 'There you are, at your idle tricks again! The rest of them do earn their bread—you live on my charity! Put your trash away, and find something to do. You shall pay me for the plague of having ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... bees always directed to it by the shape of the block, without any loss of time in searching for it—in case of robbing the hive, the hive can be entirely closed with them. A board was formerly used to cover the frames, but is now generally abandoned, apiarists preferring duck, enameled cloth, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... in a yachting suit, and another man in white duck. They are aft, and both appear to be holding pistols. There are two women, one middle-aged, I should say, and the other barely more than a girl. ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham

... draw it without breaking the intestines, wipe it with a wet towel and lay it in a baking pan; wipe a dozen small sour apples with a wet cloth, cut out the cores without breaking the apples, and arrange them around the duck; put the pan into a hot oven and quickly brown the duck, then moderate the heat of the oven and continue the cooking for about twenty minutes, or until the apples are tender but not broken, baste both duck and apples every five minutes ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various

... our wheat-fields, for, as formerly shown, no variety is quite uniform in character. The same thing, as I am assured by nurserymen, would take place in our flower-gardens, if the seed of the different varieties were not separately saved. When the eggs of the wild and tame duck are hatched together, the young wild ducks almost invariably perish, from being of smaller size and not getting their fair ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... an imposing figure. Short and stout, with a square face sunburned into a preternatural redness, clad in a loose duck "jumper" and trousers streaked and splashed with red soil, his aspect under any circumstances would have been quaint, and was now even ridiculous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a heavy carpetbag he was carrying, it became obvious, from ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... so 'tis alibe," said the negro owner of the craft which Bodine had hired for their excursion. "Young Marse Houghton sail dat boat, an' he beats any duck dat ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... small adventure which was very surprising to me on this journey; passing this plain country, we came to an open piece of ground where a neighbouring gentleman had at a great expense laid out a proper piece of land for a decoy, or duck-coy, as some call it. The works were but newly done, the planting young, the ponds very large and well made; but the proper places for shelter of the fowl not covered, the trees not being grown, and men were still at work improving and enlarging and planting on the ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe

... set in a frame ornamented with bronze fretwork and bronze corner rings. Beside it hung a huge, grimy oil painting representative of some flowers and fruit, half a water melon, a boar's head, and the pendent form of a dead wild duck. Attached to the ceiling there was a chandelier in a holland covering—the covering so dusty as closely to resemble a huge cocoon enclosing a caterpillar. Lastly, in one corner of the room lay a pile of articles which had evidently been adjudged unworthy ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... been partaken of by the Nuncio and his neighbour; and I found that they were all fish; but fish so treated, that they could hardly know what to think of themselves. You may remember, however, that an Archbishop of Paris was sufficiently complaisant to declare a particular duck, of which one of Louis the Sixteenth's aunts was fond, to be fish, and, of course, fit to be ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... that was told me by the other sex. They said to my face that I was a beauty; at Mr. Jones's, they said I was a fright. They said I sang like a Patti; at Brown's, I screeched like an owl. They said I danced like Terpsichore; at Smith's, they declared I wabbled round like any other lame duck. They said my taste in dress was the pink of perfection; at the Duzenbury's, I was scandalously deficient in every thing of the sort. It's a way the young men of that day had with all the girls; and they go the same vile way now. Pray don't have any thing ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various

... and it was no strange thing for us to find that while we were out in the rain with the live stock, she had made some new dish, which we would scent as soon as we put our heads in at the door. One night it was a thrush pie, the next a roast fowl, or some wild duck soup; and once in a while she would give us a grand feast, and bring out some of all the good things ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin

... staggered under the crushing fire which struck her hull. But for every broadside she got she poured two into the masts and rigging of her opponent. More than once, as the two ships swung together, with yards almost locked, we had to duck for our lives to escape the falling spars of the Dutchman. I can remember once and again, as the Vryheid lurched towards us, seeing her deck covered with dead and wounded men; and every broadside she put into us left its tale of destruction ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... Levi, sees other fields "white to harvest," and struggles up through a New England academy- and college-education, to find a seat in the lecture-rooms of Andover, and to hope for a pulpit hereafter. But Joseph, the pet and pride of the household,—what becomes of him? Unlucky little duck! why could he not go "peeping" at the heels of the maternal parent with his brother and sister biddies? Why must he be born with webbed toes, and run at once to the wash-tub, there to make nautical experiments ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... brought forth murmurs of wonder, and in the midst of them the door was pushed slowly inward and The Sidney Duck, wearing the deuce of spades which the Sheriff had pinned to his jacket when he banished him from their presence for cheating at cards, stood on the threshold, looking uncertainly about him. At once all ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... after our visit at Westover, we found quite a wind on the river and the houseboat fretfully bumping the pilings. We hastened aboard, ran down stream before a stiff wind, and skurried back into our harbour in Herring Creek, where Gadabout settled to her moorings as contented as a duck in the marshes. ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... "Well, I've broken my duck, anyhow, and that's more than any of you others can say!" Wally laughed. "Time enough for you to grin when you've caught something yourselves—even if it's only an old boot! It's a real old stager and no mistake. I wonder how ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... flotsam on the surface of a continually rolling sea. The little groves of timber, scattered here and there, sheltered from the summer sun the wild cattle of the plains. The shorter grasses hid the coveys of the prairie hens, and on the marsh-grown bayou banks the wild duck led her brood. A great land, a rich, a fruitful one, was this that ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... took to be a walking R.E. dump, but secondly discovered to be a common ordinary domestic British steam-roller with 'LINCOLN URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL' in dirty white lettering upon its fuel box, a mountain of duck-boards stacked on the cab roof, railway sleepers, riveting stakes and odds and ends of lumber tied on all over it. As I rode up an elderly head, grimy and perspiring, was thrust between a couple of duck-boards and nodded pleasantly to me. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various

... pounds. At the end of three say 3,500 pounds at the outside. The gain to be called 'His Excellency,' and this money. Yet his poor 'Excellency' has to slave more than any individual; to pull ropes, to mend this; make a cover to that (just finished a capital cover to the duck Gun). I often say, 'drop the excellency, ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle

... brain, and she was perfectly overwhelmed and very miserable. For Suhinie hates hurry and sudden shocks of any sort, and the babies of maturer years discovered this immediately; and Suhinie, waddling forlornly after the babies, looked like a highly respectable duck in charge of a flock ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... representations of the subject, than can by any possibility be discovered in the one by W. F. Witherington, R.A. If our remarks were made with an affectionate eye to the young ladies of the satin-album-loving school, we should assuredly style this "a duck of a picture"—one after their own hearts—treated in mild and undisturbed tones of yellow, blue, and pink—and what yellows! what blues! and what pinks! Some kind, superintending genius of landscape-painting evidently prepared the scene for W.F. Witherington, R.A. It displays ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various

... join the lady, victorious, but with a bump on his brow, found the door locked, tore up the curtains, made a rope ladder, got halfway down when the ladder broke, and he went headfirst into the moat, sixty feet below. Could swim like a duck, paddled round the castle till he came to a little door guarded by two stout fellows, knocked their heads together till they cracked like a couple of nuts, then, by a trifling exertion of his prodigious strength, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... he exhibits so marked a difference from the rest of creation—not even in the prehensile faculty resident in his hand—as in the objection to raw food, meat, and vegetables. He approximates to his inferior contemporaries only in the matter of fruit, salads, and oysters, not to mention wild-duck. He entertains no sympathy with the cannibal, who judges the flavour of his enemy improved by temporary commitment to a subterranean larder; yet, to be sure, he keeps his grouse and his venison till it approaches ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... wretchedness, he had enjoyed a disease composed of little spots, bed, honey in a spoon, and many Tangerine oranges. It was then that the world had flowered. To "Auntie" June he owed that flowering, for no sooner was he a little lame duck than she came rushing down from London, bringing with her the books which had nurtured her own Berserker spirit, born in the noted year of 1869. Aged, and of many colours, they were stored with the most formidable happenings. Of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... invention to utilize every resource possible was a novel scheme for chicken-raising. One morning the children came in greatly excited over finding a wild duck's nest in the nearby "slough." Mrs. Henderson told them to be very careful not to frighten the bird, but to go back and search every foot of the grassy edges and try to discover other nests. They succeeded in finding three. That ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson

... mallard," says J.G. Millais (Natural History of British Ducks, p. 6), "appears to be carried on by both sexes, though generally three or four drakes are seen showing themselves off to attract the attention of a single duck. Swimming round her, in a coy and semi-self-conscious manner, they now and again all stop quite still, nod, bow, and throw their necks out in token of their admiration and their desire of a favorable response. But the most interesting display is when all the drakes simultaneously ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... shoulder, upon which she charged with an appalling roar, and in the twinkling of an eye she was in the midst of us, At this moment Stofolus's rifle exploded in his hand, and Kleinboy, whom I had ordered to stand ready by me, danced about like a duck in a ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... ever General Officer addressed as 'dear' before? "'My Love,' i' faith! 'My Duck,' Gadzooks! 'My darling popsy-wop!' "Spirit of great Lord Wolseley, ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... I stumbled upon a very young sheep. The youngster lay low, like a wounded duck. Several times I walked within a few feet of him, coming closer each time until at length he sprang up and fled in terror. He took refuge by climbing an almost perpendicular cliff wall. Camera in hand, I followed as best ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... his triumph, could not avoid rising in the wagon, shouting and waving his hat defiantly at his baffled pursuers. The daring act came near costing his life, for it was instantly followed by the discharge of several guns, and the singing of the bullets about his ears caused him to duck back into his seat as suddenly as he had risen ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis



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