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noun
Itch  n.  
1.
(Med.) An eruption of small, isolated, acuminated vesicles, produced by the entrance of a parasitic mite (the Sarcoptes scabei), and attended with itching. It is transmissible by contact.
2.
Any itching eruption.
3.
A sensation in the skin occasioned (or resembling that occasioned) by the itch eruption; called also scabies, psora, etc.
4.
A constant irritating desire. "An itch of being thought a divine king."
Baker's itch. See under Baker.
Barber's itch, sycosis.
Bricklayer's itch, an eczema of the hands attended with much itching, occurring among bricklayers.
Grocer's itch, an itching eruption, being a variety of eczema, produced by the sugar mite (Tyrogluphus sacchari).
Itch insect (Zool.), a small parasitic mite (Sarcoptes scabei) which burrows and breeds beneath the human skin, thus causing the disease known as the itch.
Itch mite. (Zool.) Same as Itch insect, above. Also, other similar mites affecting the lower animals, as the horse and ox.
Sugar baker's itch, a variety of eczema, due to the action of sugar upon the skin.
Washerwoman's itch, eczema of the hands and arms, occurring among washerwomen.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Itch" Quotes from Famous Books



... one cowboy now left out of the five but recently employed by Stilwell had laid his pistol on the table and told Morgan that he was the man who went with it, both of them at his service when the hour of reckoning should arrive. Now Stilwell himself was beginning to show the pistol itch ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... confess that all his wisdom of life lies in his theoric; in practice he is still an infant; striving presumptuously in boyhood to live an angel, now that he comes to die he is hardly a man. And Solomon himself is no more than man; the truth-compelling ring extorts the confession that an itch of vanity still tickles and teazes him; the Queen of Sheba, seeker for wisdom and patroness of culture, after all likes wisdom best when its exponents are young men tall and proper, and prefers to the solution of the riddles of life by elderly monarchs one small kiss from a fool. Lilith ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... five years old that is always scratching and biting himself as if he had mange or lice. He seems to itch more on his shoulders and front legs than any other place. We have washed him with a carbolic wash, also with a tea made from tobacco, but so far have been unable to stop it. He often bites his legs below the knees until he takes off all the hair ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... Ali Baba should be satisfied with the oblivion-mantle of knighthood and relapse into dingy respectability in the Avilion of Brompton or Bath; but since he has taken to wearing stars the accompanying itch for blood ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... and pulled away a quantity of charred hair. His forehead began to itch, and, rubbing his finger across it, he realized that his eyebrows were gone. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... had subsided to an over-all smarting itch. He'd have to bear with that until his work was finished and he could enjoy a hot bath. He got another bottle out of the first-aid kit—a flat pint, labeled "Old Overholt," containing a locally-manufactured specific for inward and ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper

... favourite playground for whales, of which we often saw schools of as many as fifty disporting themselves for hours together. We had no means of disturbing their peaceful sport, although the sight of all these monsters, each worth a small fortune, was well calculated to make our fingers itch. It was the whaling demon ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... so bad, but they make up for thet in prayin'—and prayin' too much, I reckon, when a man's a d——d hippercrit, is 'bout as bad as swearin'. But, I tell you, the decent folks up North haint ablisheners. They look on 'em jest as we do on mad dogs, the itch, ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore

... Thanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, That rubbing the poor itch of your ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... with a certain rough eloquence, a certain itch to command, lay at the foundation of his life. His inducements were pay, booty, showy uniforms and splendid horses. The soldier's life was filled with adventure, he conquered wealth, he conquered women, and he ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... loosening finger, Loth to dissever; Thrill of the comrade heart to its fellow Through droughts that sicken and blasts that bellow From purple furrow to harvest yellow, Now and forever. How our feet itch to keep time to their measure! How our hearts lift to the lilt of their song! Let the world go, for a day's royal pleasure! Not every summer ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

... slaves, whose whims and tastes they could not satisfy without our aid; and they knew these men would very soon desert them unless they received occasionally alluring presents to make them contented. But finessing is a kind of itch with all Orientals, as gambling is with those who are addicted to it; and they would tell any lie rather than gain their object easily by the simple truth, on the old principle that "stolen things are sweetest." Had Bombay only opened his heart, the matter would have been settled at ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... vitriolique flavour, chalybeate and cataplastic, was renowned for removing stains from household linen. Taken in minute doses, under medical advice, it gave relief to patients afflicted with the wolfe, NOLI ME TANGERE, crudities, Bablyonian itch, globular pemphlegema, fantastical visions, koliks, asthma and affections of the heart. It also "fortifies the stomach, comforts the bowels, reduces the gallstone to sand, the sand to mud, the mud to water—water ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... to wield a weapon," he rejoined, "and he will itch to use it." I think we were both a little sententious because of the approach of the train. "Your argument is, I suppose, that the country ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... forward, in defeat and in darkness. All creatures wish to live, and to perpetuate their species, of course; but those two wishes alone evidently do not carry any race far. In addition to these, a race, to be great, needs some hunger, some itch, to spur it up the hard path we lately have learned to call evolution. The love of toil in the ants, and of craft in cats, are examples (imaginary or not). What other such lust ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day

... of course, Bruno was unable to comprehend just what was being said, thanks to his complete ignorance of the language employed; but he felt morally certain that ugly threats were passing through those thin lips, and even so soon his hands began to itch and his blood to glow, both urging ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... sup-pose," said Marcel, who had an itch of punning, above all in the morning, when ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... broad Scots folk, without a hair of nonsense to the pair of them. And the fact was that she made a goddess and an only child of the effete and tearful lady; and even as she waited at table her hands would sometimes itch for ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... have of spoiling not only your own, but the sport of others, by running your head into unnecessary danger; and since this youth, who got out of the scrape so handsomely, has beat you at your own game, it may cure you of that cursed itch for tongue-trifling, upon which you so much pride yourself. 'Twould have done, and it did very well at the county sessions, in getting men out of the wood; but as you have commenced a new business entirely, it's but well to leave off the old, particularly ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... disgust with which the Spanish roadside bill-of-fare inspired the more civilized French stomach. They were forced to make a part of the journey in wagons with the common soldiery and camp-retainers, and Aurore in this manner took the itch, to her mother's great mortification. Arrived at Nohant, however, the care of Deschartres, joined to a self-imposed regime of green lemons, which the little girl devoured, skins, seeds, and all, soon healed the ignominious eruption. Here the whole family passed some months of happy repose, too ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... her uncle, slowly. "It's mostly talk. They feel the itch for hard work and hard play, that's all. You take lively, full-muscled animals, and they are always bucking and quarreling—trying to see which one is the best. Take two young, fat steers they'll lock horns at the drop of a hat. It's animal spirits, Nan. They feel ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... hotel, three sides of a square, towered up behind them; the steward in the opening sprawled his feet apart and set his hands to his stout sides, and jeered at me. "Ha! ha! Here is the lame leper from the Cour des Miracles!" he cried. "Have a care or he will give you the itch!" ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... disease in the body where he liveth were as strange a thing to doubt as whether there be knavery in horse-coursers. For if among sheep, the rot; amongst dogs, the mange; amongst horses, the glanders; amongst men and women, the Northern itch and the French ache, be diseases, an hypocrite cannot but be the like in all States and societies that breed him. If he be a clergy hypocrite, then all manner of vice is for the most part so proper to him as he will ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... ideal condition," said Mr. Gordon with enthusiasm. "My feet itch to be off on the webs myself. After breakfast we will try them out. Now remember the rules I have been telling you, and see how well you can all learn to shuffle over ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson

... he intended to do posterity a favour. He never wanted to help anyone but himself. But, in the first year of his disastrous governorship, he got the itch of tobacco speculation. He knew there was ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... vigorous massage by their stout-armed slaves. Massage is a natural alleviator and comfort-giver. The first thing a baby does when he bumps his precious head is to rub the injured spot with his little fist. Relief seems to come with friction. If one's temples hurt, the hands seem to itch and tingle to get to rubbing and smoothing out the aches there. And the reason for it is that friction makes active the nerves and blood vessels and exercises the tired or fretting muscles. Massage is exercise. If we were to cease using our arms the muscles would shrink and soon become incapable ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... learned he's plannin' to slip us, if I wasn't sure that he's going to get it, worse than I could ever give it to him, from that girl herself? Well, I would. He makes me shiver, that man; makes me crawl and itch to take his head in one hand and his throat in the other and exert a little strength in opposite directions. Give our entry time! The game is running dead against him at present, I'll admit, but he's husbanding his chips. He ain't drawing wild and squandering his chances. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... creatures covered with loathsome sores, living heaven knows how. They were called by the common name of lepers, and probably the leprosy strictly so called was awfully common. But the children must have swarmed with vermin; and the itch, and the scurvy, and the ringworm, with other hideous eruptions, must have played fearful havoc with the weak ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... diseases. The following are some of the more common diseases caught by touching the germs: Ringworm, mange, barber's itch, sore eyes, boils, carbuncles, lockjaw, small pox, ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... methinks, I do itch to go thro' stich The needle-beard to amend, Which, without any wrong, I may call too long, For man can see ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews

... that the police know more than they'll tell at present," answered Triffitt, importantly. "That's what I shall do, anyhow—I've got carte blanche on our rag, and I'll make the public ear itch and twitch by breakfast-time tomorrow morning! And after that, my boy, you and I'll put our heads together, as you suggest, and see if we can't do a bit of detective work of our own. See you tomorrow at the usual ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher

... like those. And they're all-woman's legs, too. Never mistake them in the world. The arc of the front line of that upper leg! And the balanced adequate fullness at the back! And the way the opposing curves slender in to the knee that IS a knee! Makes my fingers itch. Wish I had some clay ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... have accused themselves. Why are they again before the public? Had they hopes of skulking into obscurity among the motley multitude of certificates which throng the folio of the book? or have they like one of the moral personages in Hudibras, "catch'd the itch on purpose to be scratch'd?" It now requires an eye less keen than that of a ministering spirit to pierce the cob web veil which ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector

... be in the store, who, on hearing our tale, packed him off to his regiment. I gathered from the expression of the officer's face, and the dread legible upon the culprit's, that it might be some considerable time before his itch for breaking the eighth commandment could ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... ever seen a man in a religious meeting trying to keep the tears back? You noticed that his forehead seemed to itch, and he put up his hand; you may know what it means—he wants to conceal the fact that the tears are there. He thinks it is a weakness. It is no weakness to get drunk and abuse your family, but it is weakness to shed tears. So this disciple ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody

... gates that allowed the passer-by a glimpse of greenery and flowers, but prevented encroachments upon family privacy. Every now and then a curving balustrade, a gable, a window, or an old doorway of surpassing charm made his fingers itch for pencil and paper. He reflected, without bitterness, that the doors of every one of these fine old houses had on a time opened almost automatically to a Champneys. Some of these folk were kith and kin, as his mother had remembered and they, perhaps, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... household things, and everything, in a way that I cannot describe. But I dare not confess to you all my misdeeds, because speaking of them makes my mouth water, and the thing with which God curses me makes me itch dreadfully. If this folly bites and pricks me, and slays my virtue, will God, who has placed this great love in my body, condemn me ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... Farm, wants nothing but a plum and a gold chain to qualify him for the government of the City. My kinsman's stable-boy was a gibing companion that would always have his jest. He would often put cow-itch in the maids' beds, pull stools from under folks, and lay a coal upon their shoes when they were asleep. He was at last turned off for some notable piece of roguery, and when I came away, was loitering among the ale-houses. Bless me, thought I, what a prodigious wit would this ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... theories. But he lived onto propound his extraordinary theory of "potentiality"—that medicines gained strength by being diluted—and his even more extraordinary theory that all chronic diseases are caused either by the itch, syphilis, or fig-wart disease, or are ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... FIRST CONSTABLE.—Januka, my fingers itch to strike the first blow at this royal victim here. We must kill him with all the honors, you know. I long to begin binding the flowers round his head. [Pretends to strike ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... guineas, and let my old governess see what good luck I had at play. However, it was her advice that I should not venture again, and I took her counsel, for I never went there any more; for I knew as well as she, if the itch of play came in, I might soon lose that, and all the rest ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... winding, unpaved roads and dark, weatherbeaten houses stirred an elusive tag-end of memory in him. He had seen a place like this on Earth, but he couldn't remember anything about it. The recollection was as tantalizing as an itch; but ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... hilt, and was all pulse and granite. Then he began to talk in his quiet way about hunting and fishing; about stalking in the Highlands and tiger-hunting in India; and wound up with some wonderful stuff about moose-hunting, the sport of Canada. This made me itch like sin, just to get my fingers on a trigger, with a full moose-yard in view. I can feel it now—the bound in the blood as I caught at Malbrouck's arm and said: 'By George, I must kill moose; that's sport for Vikings, and I was meant to be a Viking—or a gladiator.' ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... tidied the carriage violently, carefully hiding the book Pamela had been reading and putting the cushion on the rack. Finally, tucking the travelling-rug firmly round her mistress, she remarked pleasantly, "A h'eight hours' journey without an 'itch!" ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... Indies, which flourishes luxuriantly on poor sandy soils, in fact where scarcely anything else will grow. The seeds or berries contain nearly 60 per cent. of a fragrant, fixed oil, which is used for burning as well as for medicinal purposes, being considered a cure for the itch. As commonly prepared it has a dark green color. It is perfectly fluid at common temperatures, but begins to gelatinise ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... "I'm itching for a row like they say drovers in Monty's country itch for mile-stones! Let Fred warble. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... it soon. You made a bad mistake when you didn't bump me off at the start. All your friends that helped bushwhack me will itch to get that five hundred, Sebastian. As to hiding—well, I was a ranger once. Offer a reward, and everybody is on the jump to earn it. The way these hills are being combed this week by anxious man-hunters you'd ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... to the ground to hear the farther. But all was still as the desert only can be, and the great battle which was expected had certainly not yet begun. But expectation of a fight excites men, and if at a distance they itch to be in it, this feeling even actuating men who fail to show any particular heroism when the ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... symptom was boredom. This energetic organism chafed under the bed-clothes and the black-currant tea and the hushed eucalyptic calm of the chamber. He fervently desired to be up and active and stressful. His mother and aunt cogitated in vain to hit on some method of allaying the itch for work. And then one day—it was the day before Christmas—his mother ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... in its joys, its sorrows and its small thrills. But never now did he read more than one paper in a single day; the lesson of those two months had sunk in. No temptation, howsoever strong—the desire to know how the divorce trial of the H. K. Peabodys turned out, the itch of yearning to learn whether the body of the man found drowned in Exeter Pond was identified—proved potent enough to pull him away from his rule. That the news he read was anywhere from ten weeks to four months old when it ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... are generating some sort of a ray here which acts as a carrier for the visible light rays. I don't know what sort of a ray it is, but when I get a good look at their generators, I may be able to tell. Are you beginning to itch and burn?" ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... reproduce the nine other paragraphs, it would be a very curious, instructive, and tedious specimen of literature; and, who knows? I might corrupt some immaculate soul, inspire some actor or actress, singer or songstress, with an itch for public self-laudation, a foible from which they are all at present so free. Witness the Era, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... do—for your wives' sakes. I want to make this clear, for I tell you frankly I think it's the biggest fool's game I've ever taken a hand in. I'm proud of my name, if my wife isn't. If any one got calling me Monsieur le Duc of anything, I guess my fingers 'd itch to knock him down. If our wives, however, won't be happy till they hear themselves called Madame la Duchesse, I suppose we've got to take a back seat. Mr. de Valentin here says that he's the rightful King of France. I know nothing about history, but no doubt he's right. He says, too, that in ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... I should think, with some remorse for her indiscretion, but more satisfaction at the importance which it had undoubtedly given her in my eyes. The opinion may smack of vanity, though, in reality, the very springs of conversation reside in that same human, universal itch to thrill the auditor. The peculiarity of Miss Melhuish was that she must be thrilling at all costs. And thrilling she had ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... of Satan, whose brazen instruments (one of whom gave his first born the name of Morse) instigated by the Gent in Black, not content with inflicting us with the Irish Potato Rot, has recently brought over the Scotch Itch, if, perhaps, by plagues Job was never called upon to suffer (for there were no Courts of Equity and Chancery in those early days) the American inventor might be tempted to curse God and die. But, Ah! you have such a sweet wife, and Job's was ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... like this, must be not only uncomfortable in the last degree, but very destructive to European constitutions. Also, that the people with whom they were placed were affected with that disagreeable and contagious disorder the itch; and that their provisions were too scanty, except in the article of bread, the proportion of which was large, but of ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... here," said the kitchen-cat, "the ducks are slain, the pigeons necks wrung, and a whole deer hangs on the wall. My teeth itch just with looking on! ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen

... at his lineman. Back somewhere in Nebraska this cowboy from Texas had attached himself to Neale. They worked together; they had become friends. Larry Red King made no bones of the fact that Texas had grown too hot for him. He had been born with an itch to shoot. To Neale it seemed that King made too much of a service Neale had rendered—the mere matter of a helping hand. Still, there had ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... A pill the doctor gives you if you are suffering with corns or barber's itch or any disease at all. If none are in stock, he gives you a No. 6 and No. 3, or a No. 5 and No. 4, ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... she said. "I shall just have it pointed white and do the doa—I'm not su' how I shall do the doa. Whetha I shall do the doa gold or a vehy, vehy 'itch blue." ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... come in, a-smiling, grave, With secrets that they itch to tell: I know what sort of times they'll have, And if they'll have a boy or gell. And if a lad is ill to bind, Or some young maid is hard to lead, I know when you should speak 'em kind, And when it's ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit

... exceptions. Sometimes wild hairs and skin disease affect the eyes. Eye strain should be removed by wearing well-fitting glasses and then these other conditions will disappear. If constant headache is experienced or the eyes itch or become tired easily, there is possibly ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... Rash, Tetter (Herps), Scald head, Milk scald, Plant poisoning, Hives, Mosquito bites, Small burns or scratches, Barbers' Itch, Parasitic diseases, Scaly or scabby eruptions of the skin, Itching piles, Acne, Psoriasis, Pimples, Blackheads, Cracked hands and lips, etc. A perfect ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... Being in love is a condition that may have its moments of sublime exaltation, but it is for the most part an experience far down the scale below divine experience; it is often love only in so far as it shares the name with better things; it is greed, it is admiration, it is desire, it is the itch for excitement, it is the instinct for competition, it is lust, it is curiosity, it is adventure, it is jealousy, it is hate. On a hundred scores 'lovers' meet and part. Thereby some few find true love and the spirit of God ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... they reached the interior of Mrs. Ch'in's apartments. As soon as they got in, a very faint puff of sweet fragrance was wafted into their nostrils. Pao-y readily felt his eyes itch and his bones grow weak. "What a fine smell!" he exclaimed several ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... store stood on Main Street on the site of the present Clark Gymnasium. Some of the hardships of the early settlers to which history may only allude are suggested by a sign which hung in front of the drug store of Dr. Pomeroy, as he was called. This sign depicted a hand pointing to these words: "Itch cured for 2 cts. 4 cts. 6 cts. Unguentum. ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... hemlock, or ta'en down The juice of poppy and of mandrakes. Sleep, Voluptuous Caesar, and security Seize on 'thy stupid powers, and leave them dead To public cares; awake but to thy lusts, The strength of which makes thy libidinous soul Itch to leave Rome! and I have thrust it on; With blaming of the city business, The multitude of suits, the confluence Of suitors; then their importunacies, The manifold distractions he must suffer, Besides ill-rumours, envies, and reproaches, All which a quiet and retired life, Larded with ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... though it may, perhaps, be true, that at all times more have been willing than have been able to write, yet there is no reason for believing, that the dogmatical legions of the present race were ever equalled in number by any former period: for so widely is spread the itch of literary praise, that almost every man is an author, either in act or in purpose: has either bestowed his favours on the publick, or withholds them, that they may be more seasonably offered, or made ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... more than we are aware of, even in the most opposite extremes of the world."—G.F.— This gentleman guards against any more particular deductions from such resemblance as he has now noticed, by adverting to the havoc made in history by the modern itch for tracing pedigrees, alluding especially to the affinity imagined betwixt the Egyptians and Chinese. On such subjects, it is certain, human ingenuity has been fruitful of extravagancies, and there is much less risk of absurdity if we abide by merely general inferences; but, on the other ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... biting, hide himself in the water for fear of rain, go cross, fall into dumps, look demure, skin the fox, say the ape's paternoster, return to his sheep, turn the sows into the hay, beat the dog before the lion, put the cart before the horse, scratch where he did not itch, shoe the grasshopper, tickle himself to make himself laugh, know flies in milk, scrape paper, blur parchment, then run away, pull at the kid's leather, reckon without his host, beat the bushes without catching the birds, and thought that bladders were lanterns. He always looked a gift-horse ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... the young man said, "It makes my fingers fairly itch for my palette and brushes—though it's not at all ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... traveller's star, sir—created with a roving spirit. And the Lord help 'em, I say, for they're so made as to be powerless to help themselves seemingly. Rove they must and will, if they are to taste any contentment—an itch in their feet from the cradle nought but foreign lands'll serve to pacify. The sight of the ocean now, seems fairly tormenting to 'em till they can satisfy themselves of what's on the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... reasons. If the call of the soil is in your veins, if your fingers (and your brain) in the springtime itch to have a part in earth's ever-wonderful renascence, if your lips part at the thought of the white, firm, toothsome flesh of a ripened-on-the-tree red apple— then you must have a ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... good thing for John, don't you think,' said Rose briskly, covering a parish library book the while in a way which made Catherine's fingers itch to take it from her, 'and for us? It's some use having ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... men, he has been dead now many months. His words, which have proved true, were the first to turn my mind definitely to war-thoughts. Besides, the man whose trade is writing has always, when events are stirring, the itch to go, look ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie

... but, their lot and circumstances being the same, it was decidedly a mistake to make the others feel their inferiority, and, as I think, a mark of ill breeding to boot. His few words were sneers, and he had a contemptuous way of looking at a man that made one itch to thrash him. At length he was thrashed, and very smartly, by a man in our dormitory, and after that he was utterly ignored, by general consent. ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... Graham—prig; What was thy delighted musing? Now accepting, now refusing, Till on the Admiralty pitch'd, Still would that thought his speech prolong; To gain the place for which he long had itch'd, He call'd on Bobby still through all the song; But ever as his sweetest theme he chose, A sovereign's golden chink was heard at every close, And Pollock grimly smiled, and shook his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various

... sugars are often full of a certain crab-like animalcule or minute bug, often visible without a microscope, in water where the sugar is dissolved. It is believed that this pleasing insect sometimes gets into the skin, and produces a kind of itch. I do not believe there is much danger of adulteration in good loaf or crushed white sugar, or good ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... is the unbroken pastime of a life. These are enviable natures; people shut in the house by sickness often bitterly envy them; but the commoner man cannot continue to exist upon such altitudes: his feet itch for physical adventure; his blood boils for physical dangers, pleasures, and triumphs; his fancy, the looker after new things, cannot continue to look for them in books and crucibles, but must seek them on the breathing stage of life. Pinches, buffets, the glow of hope, the shock ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "He has, indeed, of late, been somewhat more retentive than formerly as to his faculty of disposing of kingdoms, the thing not having succeeded well with him in some instances, but he lays the same claim still, continues the same inclinations, and though velvet-headed hath the more itch to be pushing. And, however, in order to any occasion he keeps himself in breath, always by cursing one prince or other upon every ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury

... land of supreme elegance and fashion, superior even to France, the conditions were the same, and how little water found favor even with aristocratic ladies we may gather from the contemporary books on the toilet, which abound with recipes against itch and similar diseases. It should be added that Burckhardt (Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien, eighth edition, volume ii, p. 92) considers that in spite of skin diseases the Italians of the Renaissance were the first nation in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... our visit there were in the infirmary 7 men laid up: 1 with itch, 1 with diarrhoea, 1 with neuralgia, 1 with an abscess in the neck, 1 with articular rheumatism, and 1 with gastritis. A prisoner who had been trepanned by the doctors on account of damage done to his skull before his capture, was gradually recovering the power of ...
— Turkish Prisoners in Egypt - A Report By The Delegates Of The International Committee - Of The Red Cross • Various

... one so frequently heard,—a little laugh when there is no feeling of merriment and no occasion for it.) Motor activity discharges tension and is pleasurable and these tics furnish a momentary pleasure; they relieve a feeling that some of the victims compare to an itch and the habit thus is based on a seeking of relief, even though that relief is obtained in a way that distresses the more settled purposes ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... the soul grows cold again, it also forgets this grace received, and waxeth carnal, begins again to itch after the world, loseth the life and savour of heavenly things, grieves the Spirit of God, woefully backslides, casteth off closet duties quite, or else retains only the formality of them, is a reproach to religion, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... His hands itch to kill, and that is why he does it," answered the old man; "but he oughtn't to kill a grass snake, that's true. . . . Dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills everything he comes across, and Kiruha did not interfere. He ought to have taken ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... authors he mastered before his twelfth year. Two attacks of the plague, agues, tertian and quotidian, malignant ulcers, hernia, haemorrhoids, varicose veins, palpitation of the heart, gout, indigestion, the itch, and foulness of skin. Relief in the second attack of plague came from a sweat so copious that it soaked the bed and ran in streams down to the floor; and, in a case of continuous fever, from voiding a hundred and twenty ounces of urine. As a boy ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... beads and brass rings, and other baubles, and coloured silk thread, enough to make the hearts of all the Dogrib squaws to dance with joy? Were there not axes, and tomahawks, and scalping-knives enough to make the fingers of the braves to itch for war? Were there not hooks and lines enough to capture all the fish in Great Bear Lake, and "nests" of copper kettles enough to boil them all at one tremendous culinary operation? And was there not gunpowder enough to blow the fort and all its contents ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... of Peers withholds Its legislative hand. And noble statesmen do not itch To interfere with matters which They do not understand, As bright will shine Great Britain's rays, As ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert

... with rubbing did penetrate, and were sunk, or stuck pretty deep into my skin. After I had thus rubb'd it for a pretty while, I felt very little or no pain, in so much that I doubted, whether it were the true Couhage; but whil'st I was considering; I found the Down begin to make my hand itch, and in some places to smart again, much like the stinging of a Flea or Gnat, and this continued a pretty while, so that by degrees I found my skin to be swell'd with little red pustules, and to look as if it had been itchie. But suffering ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... destined moreover to place my friends in anxiety and trouble by means of a prank in which I indulged. Among us young people who had been at Leipzig, there had been maintained ever afterwards a certain itch for imposing on and in some way mystifying one another. With this wanton love of mischief I wrote to a friend in Frankfort (he was the one who had amplified my poem on the cake-baker Hendel, applied it to /Medon/, and caused its general circulation) a letter dated from Versailles, in ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... a little itch of fear for the ore-mad people, "legal forms are being put to fearful strains, are they not, with all this heedless ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... Kamalgata is the seed of the lotus; gai ka matha is buttermilk; nagar sowasan, 'the happiness of the town,' is turmeric, because married women whose husbands are alive put turmeric on their foreheads every day; khaj, dad and sehua are itch, ringworm and some kind of rash, perhaps measles; and the verse ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... by the same Argument, Circumcision of the Flesh may be defended; for that moderates the Itch of Coition, and brings Pain. If all hated Fish as bad as I do, I would scarce put a ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... minutes that crawled by before there came any sound from behind. The Jupiter-light, flooding down on him from the glittering blue sky above, was hot and growing hotter, and of course he began to itch. Had he had the freedom of his limbs, he would not have itched, he knew; it happened only when he had to keep absolutely still; he cursed the phenomenon to himself. Minute after minute, and no sound ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... is,—the thing's a Fact. I find no other reason But that some scribbling itch attacked Him in ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... everything? I won't pretend I'm sorry you're rich; I'm delighted. I delight in everything that's yours—whether it be money or virtue. Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet. It seems to me, however, that I've sufficiently proved the limits of my itch for it: I never in my life tried to earn a penny, and I ought to be less subject to suspicion than most of the people one sees grubbing and grabbing. I suppose it's their business to suspect—that of your family; it's proper on the whole they should. They'll ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... bale is heckst boote is next. Ill plaieng w'th short dag (taunting replie). He that neuer clymb neuer fell. The loth stake standeth long. Itch and ease can no man please. To much of one thing is good for nothing. Ever spare and euer bare. A catt may looke on a Kyng. He had need be a wyly mowse should breed in the cattes ear. Many a man speaketh ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence

... for an Indian Image: Did Inigo Impey itch for an Indian Image? If Inigo Impey itched for an Indian Image, Where's the Indian Image Inigo Impey ...
— Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation • Anonymous

... started. We slung wallets over our shoulders, took staves in our hands, and set forth. For seven whole days we trudged on, and all the while the weather favoured us, and was even downright wonderful! There was neither sultry heat nor rain; the flies did not bite, the dust did not make us itch. And every day my Yakoff acquired a better aspect. I must tell you that Yakoff had not been in the habit of seeing that one in the open air, but had felt him behind him, close to his back, or his shadow had seemed to be gliding alongside, which troubled my son greatly. But on this occasion ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... or unless we have a beggar like you to jaw to us. They say that Englishmen talk about their tubs, when they run dry on all other subjects of conversation, but the Sakai cannot talk about washing, for they never bathe by any chance, it makes that filthy skin disease they are covered with itch so awfully. It had rained a bit that night, when they were hiding away in the jungle, and I could hear their nails going on their dirty hides whenever I woke, and Juggins told me afterwards that they kept him ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... Touch — N. itching, pruritis [Med.] &c v.; titillation, formication^, aura; stereognosis^. V. itch, tingle, creep, thrill, sting; prick, prickle; tickle, titillate. Adj. itching &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... and especially the itch, are also very common, and almost as prevalent as in Hindustan. The leprosy, in which the joints drop off, is as common as in Bengal; but in Nepal it cannot be attributed to the lowness of the country, ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... says, "of the decadence of contemporary literature is found, to my thinking, in the vice which has been very graphically called effectism, or the itch of awaking at all cost in the reader vivid and violent emotions, which shall do credit to the invention and originality of the writer. This vice has its roots in human nature itself, and more particularly in that of the artist; he has always some thing ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... they began a waltz. They held themselves very upright; and with an air of grave dignity which was quite impressive, glided slowly about, making their steps with the utmost precision, bearing themselves with sufficient decorum for a court ball. After a while the men began to itch for a turn, and two of them, taking hold of one another in the most approved fashion, waltzed round the circle with ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham

... a common malady, as well as numerous other diseases of the skin. All of which doubtless arises from the filthy habits of the people. Doby itch is very common. It is a very bad skin disease, and hard to cure when it gets a firm hold, and will have fatal results in a few years in that warm climate. One doctor said that it would require three or four years' careful treatment to cure an acute ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman

... regular, and removing all morbid taints of the blood and faults of the secretory organs by the persistent use of Dr. Pierce's Golden Medical Discovery. The successful treatment of scabies, or common itch, generally requires only local applications, for the object to be obtained is simply the destruction of the little insects which cause the eruption. Happily, we possess an unfailing specific for this purpose. Numerous agents have been employed with success, but Sulphur enjoys the greatest ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... series of caricatures which followed the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. Here the satirist has seated the emperor (a lean, ragged, forlorn, miserable, diseased object) on a huge article of bedroom furniture, labelled, "Imperial Throne." He is in a forlorn condition, suffering from itch, with large excrescences growing on his toes. He is all alone in his island prison (Elba), and tempted by a fiend, who tenders him a pistol—"If you have one spark of courage left," it says, "take this." "Perhaps I may," replies Napoleon, "if you'll take the flint out." By his side we find ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... away quietly, and Rawling shivered at this cool fury. The rattles made his spine itch, and suddenly his valley seemed like a place of demons. The lanterns circling on the lawn seemed like frail glow-worms, incredibly useless, and he leaned on the window-pane listening with ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... mending the matter—that's curing the itch by scratching the skin off. I could not give your tall fellows less than a crown a-piece, and I could buy off the bloodiest Mohawk in the kingdom, if he's a Whig, for half that sum. But, thank Heaven, the ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Avenue and Seventeenth Street, stopped for a traffic light. Malone felt an itch in the back of his mind, as if his prescience were trying to warn him of something; he'd felt it for a little while, he realized, but only now could ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... view to influencing votes during the impending general election cannot now be known with certainty. Probably enough this may have been one of his motives, which were doubtless of a mixed nature. That he was sincere in his advocacy of Reform must in all fairness be conceded, though his itch for notoriety must always be considered in reviewing and estimating his actions. This tendency of his mind would readily lead him to select journalism as his vocation in life, more especially as he found that his opinions were regarded as having some value. As compared with his life in Britain, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... space when the host had donned his shirt and provided his guest with a chair by the door the conversation ran laggingly between these two newly met sons of a taciturn race, yet beneath their almost morose paucity of words lay an itch of curiosity. They were gauging, measuring, estimating each other ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... whose face appeared at the hole. "You can cut the pies like I told you—in fours. If that girl stays with me another month I'll make something out of her; but, Lord, why should I think she'll stay? They never do. Mexicans must be born with an itch for travel." ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... To discompose the gravity of the bench, and provoke naughty interrogatories in more naughty law Latin; while the good judge, tickled with the proceeding, simpers under a grey beard, and fidges off and on his cushion as if he had swallowed cantharides, or sate upon cow-itch. ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... point into my eyes, had not the Duke of Buckingham guided his hand aright." It is he, too, who tells the story of the mulberry mark upon the neck of a certain lady of high condition, which "every year, in mulberry season, did swell, grow big, and itch." And Gaffarel mentions the case of a girl born with the figure of a fish on one of her limbs, of which the wonder was, that, when the girl did eat fish, this mark put her to sensible pain. But there is no end to cases of this kind, and I could ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... iniquity, for whom neither rack, thumb-screw, nor stake was sufficient reward. Me he denounced to the people as a runaway criminal, describing me in such terms as made my blood boil within me, and my hands itch to take him by the neck and crush the life out of his ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher

... the New World. Moreover, Ramon Pane, in the account he wrote for Columbus of the Indian religion, gives as Indian words, the Mande toto, "frog," and the Malinke kobo, "bug." What is more important, he imputes to the Indians, a knowledge of the terrible West African itch, or craworaw, which he calls by the supposed Indian name caracaracol. The critic faces a dilemma. Either Ramon Pane lied, or he told the truth. Either he fabricated stories of Indians, which he drew from books or manuscript relations ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... expedient. I am not particularly proud of it. I would elide it altogether, were it possible, but as you will presently see, that is not possible if I am to make myself intelligible. And I find that the more I write of myself the more I am affected by the same poor itch for self-exposure which has made Pepys and Casanova and Rousseau famous, ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... an expensive talking machine, the slurring notes of a jazz orchestra greeted their ears as plainly as though it were coming from a neighboring room instead of a broadcasting station many miles away. Amy confessed that it made her feet itch. She loved to dance. ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose

... Slipping it over the fingers of his hand he held it up, and after examining its jewels, he shook it until it tinkled, and enjoyed it as a child enjoys a toy. When he had played with it a few moments he lifted his eyes to the Jew and studied him. "Thy desire is buried well under thy itch for gain," he said. "Yet do I now remember the eye of the money-changer when he spoke of the ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock



Words linked to "Itch" :   skin sensation, prickle, rub, haptic sensation, pruritus, cutaneous sensation, Cupid's itch, titillate, Cuban itch, hurt, scabies, spoil, tickle, itching, smart, itchy, scratch, desire, ache, swimmer's itch



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