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Pigeon   Listen
noun
Pigeon  n.  
1.
(Zool.) Any bird of the order Columbae, of which numerous species occur in nearly all parts of the world. Note: The common domestic pigeon, or dove, was derived from the Old World rock pigeon or rock dove (Columba livia), common in cities. It has given rise to numerous very remarkable varieties, such as the carrier, fantail, nun, pouter, tumbler, etc. The common wild pigeon of the Eastern United States is the Mourning dove (Zenaida macroura, called also Carolina dove). Before the 19th century, the most common pigeon was the passenger pigeon, but that species is now extinct. See Passenger pigeon, and Carolina dove under Dove. See, also, Fruit pigeon, Ground pigeon, Queen pigeon, Stock pigeon, under Fruit, Ground, etc.
2.
An unsuspected victim of sharpers; a gull. (Slang)
Blue pigeon (Zool.), an Australian passerine bird (Graucalus melanops); called also black-faced crow.
Green pigeon (Zool.), any one of numerous species of Old World pigeons belonging to the family Treronidae.
Imperial pigeon (Zool.), any one of the large Asiatic fruit pigeons of the genus Carpophada.
Pigeon berry (Bot.), the purplish black fruit of the pokeweed; also, the plant itself. See Pokeweed.
Pigeon English, an extraordinary and grotesque dialect, employed in the commercial cities of China, as the medium of communication between foreign merchants and the Chinese. Its base is English, with a mixture of Portuguese and Hindustani.
Pigeon grass (Bot.), a kind of foxtail grass (Setaria glauca), of some value as fodder. The seeds are eagerly eaten by pigeons and other birds.
Pigeon hawk. (Zool.)
(a)
A small American falcon (Falco columbarius). The adult male is dark slate-blue above, streaked with black on the back; beneath, whitish or buff, streaked with brown. The tail is banded.
(b)
The American sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter velox or Accipiter fuscus).
Pigeon hole.
(a)
A hole for pigeons to enter a pigeon house.
(b)
See Pigeonhole.
(c)
pl. An old English game, in which balls were rolled through little arches.
Pigeon house, a dovecote.
Pigeon pea (Bot.), the seed of Cajanus Indicus; a kind of pulse used for food in the East and West Indies; also, the plant itself.
Pigeon plum (Bot.), the edible drupes of two West African species of Chrysobalanus (Chrysobalanus ellipticus and Chrysobalanus luteus).
Pigeon tremex. (Zool.) See under Tremex.
Pigeon wood (Bot.), a name in the West Indies for the wood of several very different kinds of trees, species of Dipholis, Diospyros, and Coccoloba.
Pigeon woodpecker (Zool.), the flicker.
Prairie pigeon. (Zool.)
(a)
The upland plover.
(b)
The golden plover. (Local, U.S.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pigeon" Quotes from Famous Books



... began to go over the case. Having decided to test all possible theories, she for the moment pigeon-holed the idea of a mistake, and began to seek for other explanations. For a space she vacantly watched the workmen tearing down the speakers' stand. But presently her eyes began to glow, and she sprang up and excitedly paced the ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... toward these sweet young girls for their tender sympathy. I almost wished I were a carrier pigeon, that I might devote myself hereafter to their service by bearing loving messages from ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson

... "There is a little pigeon bird. I want a teeny piece of the breast, for a sort of keepsake, just one bite, and you can have the rest ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... instantly obliged to stand upright. Being therefore confined to less fatiguing employments, I busied myself about the dove —house, and was so pleased with it that I sometimes passed several hours there without feeling a moment's weariness. The pigeon is very timid and difficult to tame, yet I inspired mine with so much confidence that they followed me everywhere, letting me catch them at pleasure, nor could I appear in the garden without having two or three on my arms or head in an instant, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... cases illustrates the variations of animals under domestication, the particular specimens selected being chiefly the familiar pigeon, in its various forms, and the jungle-fowl with ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams

... entertained scraggily or copiously by German, French, Portuguese, English, fever-eyed commissioners, who took them on the tour du proprietaire, among the white wooden government buildings, the palm-covered huts of the natives, and shewed them the Mission Chapels and the new Custom Houses and the pigeon-like fowls and the little dirty naked nigger children, and the exiguity of their stock of glass and china, and the yearning of their souls for the fleshpots of the respective Egypts to which they belonged. You must imagine this. If anything relevant to the story of ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... always felt with him as if she were standing on an edge, looking down into something decidedly deep. To-day the impression of the perpendicular shaft was there, but it was rather an abyss of confusion and disorder than the large bright space in which she had figured everything as ranged and pigeon-holed, presenting the appearance of the labelled shelves and drawers at a chemist's. He discussed without an invitation to discuss, he appealed without a right to appeal. He was nothing but a suitor tolerated after ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James

... every living animal belongs to him who kills it. At Choiseul, in Champagne, not only are all the hares and partridges of the barony exterminated, but the ponds are exhausted of fish; the court of the chateau even is entered, to fire on the pigeon-house and destroy the pigeons, and then the pigeons and fish, of which they have too many, are offered to the proprietor for sale—It is "the patriots" of the village with "smugglers and bad characters" belonging to the neighborhood ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... again, to startle—as he had been startled himself—a blackbird or thrush suddenly awakened from its roost, or hear the loud flapping of a wood-pigeon beating through the ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn

... that the Boy Scout must learn to do. He could low like a bull. He could gurgle like a wood-pigeon. He could imitate the cry of the turnip in order to deceive rabbits. He could smile and whistle simultaneously in accordance with Rule 8 (and only those who have tried this know how difficult it is). He could spoor, fell ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse

... Turf in a year. The marvellous journalists who frequent betting resorts printed hundreds of paragraphs every week explaining the wretched boy's extravagances—how he lost ten thousand pounds in one evening at cards; how he lost five thousand on one pigeon-shooting match; how he kept fifty racehorses in training; how he made little presents of jewelry to all and sundry of his friends; how he gaily lost fifteen thousand on a single race, though he might have saved himself had he chosen; how he never would wear the ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... could bring her glories back! You gentle sirs who sift the dust And burrow in the mould and must Of Babylon for bric-a-brac; Who catalogue and pigeon-hole The faded splendours of her soul And put her greatness under glass— If you could bring her past ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... when the old man was gone, "she and Clym Yeobright would make a very pretty pigeon-pair—hey? If they wouldn't I'll be dazed! Both of one mind about niceties for certain, and learned in print, and always thinking about high doctrine—there couldn't be a better couple if they were made o' purpose. Clym's family is as good as hers. His father was a ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... white marble chapel steps (all steps are marble in this Carrara country) and the enamel blue sea through the ilex-branches beyond. But the good Sisters abominate these pigeons, who, it appears, are messy little creatures, and they complain that, were it not that the Reverend Director likes a pigeon in his pot on a holiday, they could not stand the bother of perpetually sweeping the chapel steps and the kitchen threshold all along of ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... Here lies Johnie Pigeon: What was his religion Whae'er desires to ken In some other warl' [world] Maun follow the carl [Must, old fellow] For here Johnie ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... name and sell it for as much money as a dinner for a hungry man. Norah used to fight shy of the famous "lark-pudding" until it was whispered to her that what was not good beef steaks in the dish was nothing more than pigeon or possibly even sparrow! after which she enjoyed it, and afterwards pilgrimaged to the kitchen to see the great blue bowls, as big as a wash-hand basin, in which the puddings have been made since Dr. Johnson's time, and the great copper ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... Tom Platt, as from a locker by the stern he produced a battered deep-sea lead hollowed at one end, smeared the hollow from a saucer full of mutton tallow, and went forward. "I'll learn you how to fly the Blue Pigeon. Shooo!" ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling

... outward symbols of the honoured profession, which lives by killing other people—"you talk of the siege of Leith, and I have seen the place—a pretty kind of a hamlet it is, with a plain wall, or rampart, and a pigeon-house or so of a tower at every angle. Uds daggers and scabbards, if a leaguer of our days had been twenty-four hours, not to say so many months, before it, without carrying the place and all its cocklofts, one after another, by pure storm, they would have deserved ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... shaped my own life. I learned very little at school, and openly hated it, but I read a great deal at home and got plenty of ideas. I lived, however, mainly out of doors whenever I could get out. I spent all my pocket money on tools, rabbits, pigeons and many other animals. I became an ardent pigeon-catcher, not to say thief, though I ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... was not made in words. Reaching into a pigeon-hole of her desk she took from it a folded letter minus its envelope ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft

... day, he found a woman aboard reading a copy of The Ladies' Home Journal his joy knew no bounds; he turned in the most inimitable "copy" to the Tonic, describing the woman's feelings as she read the different departments in the magazine. Of course, Bok, as editor of the Tonic, promptly pigeon-holed the reporter's "copy"; then relented, and, in a fine spirit of large-mindedness, "printed" Kipling's peans of rapture over Bok's subscriber. The preparation of the paper was a daily joy: it kept the different members busy, and each evening the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... direction Kondrat pointed, but said nothing. The wood-pigeon was over a hundred paces from us, and one can't kill it at forty paces; there is such strength in its feathers. A few more remarks were made by the conversational Kondrat; but the forest hush had its influence even on him; he became silent. Only rarely exchanging a word or two, ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... survive a steady diet of emotion so tender that it bubbled over at the flutter of a pigeon's wing. ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... convinced me that it was not only folly, but a positive sin, to leave this sum lying in the bank at a pitiful rate of interest, and otherwise unemployed, whilst every one else in the kingdom was having a pluck at the public pigeon. Somehow or other, we were unlucky in our first attempts. Speculators are like wasps; for when they have once got hold of a ripening and peach-like project, they keep it rigidly for their own swarm, and repel the approach of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... prisoners on board this boat alleged that they were very poor, and that their loading consisted only of cotton; though the circumstances under which they were surprized, seemed to insinuate that they were more opulent than they pretended; for they were found at dinner on a pigeon-pye, served up in silver dishes. The officer who commanded the barge, having opened several of the jars in the prize, to satisfy his curiosity, found nothing as he thought but cotton, which inclined him to believe the account given ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... of the cloud, our house—not new to me, but quite familiar, in its earliest remembrance. On the ground-floor is Peggotty's kitchen, opening into a back yard; with a pigeon-house on a pole, in the centre, without any pigeons in it; a great dog-kennel in a corner, without any dog; and a quantity of fowls that look terribly tall to me, walking about, in a menacing and ferocious manner. There is one cock who gets ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... winter. Many herbs are very palatable, as, for instance, the makvasari (of the Crucifercae), which is also kept for winter use after having been properly dried. In the autumn the Indians sometimes eat potatoes, which, when cultivated at all, are planted between the corn, but grow no larger than pigeon eggs. The people eat three kinds of fungi, and they have an extensive knowledge of the poisonous ones. Salt and chile are ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... stranger. "Are your senses playing bo-peep with the ghost of some pigeon-livered coast captain, eh? Come, take another pull at the keg, to clear your head-lights, and tell us ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various

... reader that it is a rather desultory scrap-book of the type the War has made common; fair also to add that some of the chapters least connected with the War are exceedingly interesting, as that about the elaborate sport of pigeon-netting at Cava dei Terreni. What I like least about our ready author is his fatuous little jokes, such as "Noli remained a sovereign republic for centuries ... had her own bishopric (hence the phrase 'Noli episcopari')"; or, "Briand came to Rome the other day with much brio." ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various

... rest in a marble summer-house, where he found a golden bed, all spread with silken shawls. Now while he slept, the Fairy Princess Shâhpasand, who was taking the air, fairy-fashion, in the shape of a pigeon, happened to fly over the garden, and catching sight of the beautiful, splendid, handsome young Prince, she sank to earth in sheer astonishment at beholding such a lovely sight, and, resuming her natural shape—as fairies always do when they touch the ground—she stooped over ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... way to the first floor, to a large, bare-walled room, very simply furnished with desks, pigeon-holes and tables covered with papers ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... me very selfish, my poor friend, to speak to you in this way of the solitude of an old cooing pigeon when you are shedding such bitter tears. Pardon me! I am so used to being spoiled by you that I cry 'Help! Help!' when I have ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... said that I should set a passage distinguished by obvious and pleasing imagery, however faint; for the child thinks much in images, words are very live to him, phrases that imply a picture eloquent beyond their value. Rummaging in the dusty pigeon-holes of memory, I came once upon a graphic version of the famous Psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd": and from the places employed in its illustration, which are all in the immediate neighbourhood of a house then occupied by my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... good, but the scenery was occasionally somewhat deficient. The house, which is highly decorated—perhaps too much so for the ladies' dresses—looked well by night, though if it had been full the effect would have been still better. The box-tiers are not divided into pigeon-holes, as they are with us, and everybody can therefore see equally well. The Presidential box seemed commodious and handsome, and had the Chilian coat of arms in front of it, making it look very much like ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... at Mackinaw in 1736, the Sioux then occupied the southern and northern extremities of that lake. It is possible, however, that the northern bands of the Ojibwa may have penetrated the region adjacent to the Pigeon River and passed west to near their present location, thus avoiding their enemies who occupied the lake shore ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... displayed herself in full force. It seemed as if she had inherited all the commercial faculties of her father, and having no other outlet for this mercantile genius, was fain to expend her gifts upon the petty details of a woman's life. Never had Clarissa seen such a writing-table, with so many pigeon-holes for the classification of documents, and such ranges of drawers with Brahma locks. Miss Granger might have carried on a small banking business with less paraphernalia than she employed in the conduct of her housekeeping ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... of a carrier-pigeon!" said Throppy. "I know a fellow at home who makes a specialty of raising 'em. The bird that owned this foot was taking a message to somebody. Perhaps he was shot; or he may have become tired, lost his way, and fallen into the water, and the hake ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... the white man's tongue. Nor was it tinged with the "pigeon" method of the Indian. It smacked of the gold city which knows little enough of refinement amongst even ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... brought her to the Nuns' Chapel, her orisons had been concluded, for she had turned her back upon the altar, and sat gazing sorrowfully down at her lap, where lay in pathetic pose a white rabbit and a snowy pigeon,—both dead, quite stark and cold,—laid out in state upon the spotless linen apron, around which a fluted ruffle ran crisp and smooth. One tiny waxen hand held a broken lily, and the other was vainly pressed upon the lids of the rabbit's eyes, trying to close lovingly the pink orbs that ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... cloud stretched along the west, temporarily excluding the sun. The shadows rushed afar into the void, and a solemn, Sabbath twilight reigned around. I was now startled by a fluttering in my gondola. It was my carrier-pigeon. I had forgotten him entirely. I attached a string to his neck, with a label, announcing my hight, then nearly four miles, and the state ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... rotted and his share had hatched, so that my interest in the young pigeons had died out and they were all his now. I was sure it was a quibble and that he was cheating me. It made me mad and I sneaked up to the pigeon loft and put a tiny pin prick in all the eggs in the nests. This was invisible but it caused the eggs to rot as he said mine had, and I felt that this was only justice. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... will ask the reader to accompany me on a brief tour round the island. Starting from the house, past the pigeon-tower, we pass under some large walnut trees so thickly planted as to make the part very shady, even on a bright day, and on dull days quite gloomy. We take the middle path, which is about four feet wide, and flanked on each side by braken ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... chiefly Post Office sorters, who through Mr. G. H. Stuart, of the Postmen's Federation, and Mr. A. Jones, of the Fawcett Association, had kindly volunteered their services. Here also were a dozen sets of pigeon-holes, each set having twelve compartments, and each compartment being labelled with the name of a candidate. As soon as the count began, the sorters started sorting the ballot papers according to the names marked 1, ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... life. In this Finnish legend we have one of the thousand phases of the story of the "Giant who had no Heart in his Body," but whose heart was concealed, for safe keeping, in a duck's egg, or in a pigeon, carefully disposed in some belfry at the world's end a million miles away, or encased in a wellnigh infinite series of Chinese boxes. [168] Since, in spite of all these precautions, the poor giant's heart invariably came to grief, we need not wonder ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... of the room stood a large writing table, with a case of pigeon-holes at the back, a table which would not have disgraced a Prime Minister's study. A pair of wax candles, in tall silver candlesticks, lighted this table, which was littered with papers, in a wild confusion that ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... The Professor stood near while she sorted out some letters and placed them in pigeon-holes. He was clad in the latest fashion as laid down by the London Tailors who, at the first sound of the Boom, had hastened on the wings of the wind to the Magic City. His frock coat radiated newness, ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris

... increased to multitudes and demanded classification. They were grouped in genera, species, and varieties, according to the degree of similarity subsisting between them. Thus confusion was avoided, each object being found in the pigeon-hole appropriated to it and to its fellows of similar morphological or physiological character. The general fact soon became evident that none but the simplest forms of life lie lowest down; that, as we climb higher among the superimposed ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... comes they take no heed whatever, but then make for shelter. Blackbirds often make a good deal of noise; but the soft turtle-doves coo gently, let the lightning be as savage as it will. Nothing has the least fear. Man alone, more senseless than a pigeon, put a god in vapour; and to this day, though the printing press has set a foot on every threshold, numbers bow the knee when they hear the roar the timid dove does not heed. So trustful are the doves, the squirrels, the birds of the branches, and the creatures of the field. ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... the mud all day, as harmless as a pigeon; I hunt no man, yet every time a man sees me, he throws stones at me, and pokes me with sharp sticks, and jeers at me. Men are a worthless lot. Let the ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant

... to repress the tear, Each as his sceptre down he flings, To Dian's fane at Taurica, Where now a captive priestess, she alway Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands 130 Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry Amid their barbarous twitter! In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter! Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain That we and Waring meet again ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... varies exceedingly; they are much smaller than the domestic fowl, but heavier and larger than the heath partridge; yet there are some which are as small as a wood-pigeon, and even less. Their plumage is dark, and harmonizes admirably with the trunks of the trees and moss amongst which they dwell. Even in the daylight, and at a distance of only twenty paces, it is impossible to distinguish ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... my friends alone I cared not what pigeon she plucked. And the very fact that she knew I was in Pittsburgh, was enough to make her shy of anyone ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... so many lakes, being often studded with wooded islands, and surrounded by shores of forests. This soil is a deep black sand. Grass is their natural production, although corn, oats and potatoes flourish upon them. Never can I forget the first time I entered White Pigeon Prairie. Sleeping beneath the shadows of sunset, as it was, the effect upon me was like that which is felt on first beholding the ocean,—overpowering awe. All that the poet has said about these gardens of the desert ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... cared only for types, for categories. Her large observation had made her acquainted with a great number, and her mind was a complete collection of "heads." She flattered herself that she knew at a glance where to pigeon-hole a new-comer, and if she made any mistakes her deportment never betrayed them. I think that, as regards individuals, she had neither likes nor dislikes; but she was capable of expressing esteem or contempt for a species. She had her own ways, I suppose, of manifesting her approval, but ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James

... men he'll have to look out for," Hutchinson put in, with an experienced air. "There's them that'll want to borrow money, and them that'll want to drink and play cards and bet high. A green American lad'll be a fine pigeon for them to pluck. You may as well tell him, Ann; you know you came here ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... of open country that I am unable to identify, and for some reason or other determined to spend the night out of doors. There was a copse a hundred yards away from the road, and in the copse a couple of small shelters built, probably, for wood-pigeon shooting. The Major and Gertie took possession of one, and Frank of the other, after they had supped in ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... enumerate its particulars, without attempting to decide on the question so often canvassed, whether our neighbours do not exceed us in versatility and capacity of stomach. Our young Falstaff then (for it was he of whom I speak), ate of soup, bouilli, fricandeau, pigeon, boeuf piquee, salad, mutton cutlets, spinach stewed richly, cold asparagus, with oil and vinegar, a roti, cold pike and cresses, sweetmeat tart, larded sweetbreads, haricots blancs au jus, a pasty of eggs and rich gravy, cheese, baked pears, two custards, two apples, biscuits and sweet ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... sailed parallel with a French sloop-of-war, and it was sublime to watch the two ships rising and falling in those long deep swells of the ocean. All the time we were followed by the usual large flocks of Cape-pigeons and albatrosses of every color. The former resembled the common barn-pigeon exactly, but are in fact gulls of beautiful and varied colors, mostly dove-color. We caught many with fishing-lines baited with pork. We also took in the same way many albatrosses. The white ones are very large, and their down is equal to that of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... eight or ten miles radius, while the Eaters of Flesh skirmished round its edge. And the centre of that circle was the village, and round the village the crops were ripening, and in the crops sat men on what they call machans—platforms like pigeon-perches, made of sticks at the top of four poles—to scare away birds and other stealers. Then the deer were coaxed no more. The Eaters of Flesh were close behind them, and forced them ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... after they arrived in the country there was a pigeon-pie for dinner: seven persons who had eaten it felt indisposed after the meal, and the three who had not taken it were perfectly well. Those on whom the poisonous substance had chiefly acted were the lieutenant, the councillor, and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... brighten up. At one time he sat quietly musing, then gave expression to his joy in an Irish ditty. His handsome suit of clothes, donned at Hagerstown, was now in tatters, which made his appearance the more ludicrous as he "cut the pigeon-wing" around the seething cauldron. He had particularly enjoined upon us, when starting out, to procure, at all hazards, some okra, which we failed to get, and, in naming aloud the various items, as each appeared on the surface ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... gave to several of my friends, but not one of them came up. I began to reflect, that Poictou not being by far so warm as Louisiana, these seeds would have difficulty to shoot; I therefore thought it was necessary to supply by art the defect of nature; I procured horse, cow, sheep, and pigeon's dung in equal quantity, all which I put in a vessel of proportionable size, and poured on them water, almost boiling, in order to dissolve their salts: this water I drew off, and steeped the grains in a sufficient quantity thereof for forty-eight hours; after which I sowed them in a box ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... chamber, with her slaves around her—like the cubiculum which adjoined it, the room was small, but much larger than the usual apartments appropriated to sleep, which were so diminutive, that few who have not seen the bed-chambers, even in the gayest mansions, can form any notion of the petty pigeon-holes in which the citizens of Pompeii evidently thought it desirable to pass the night. But, in fact, 'bed' with the ancients was not that grave, serious, and important part of domestic mysteries which it is with us. The couch itself ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... (as Partridge, Pheasant, Chicken, Pigeon) that it be full of juyce; baste it as soon as it is through hot, and time to baste, with Butter. When it is very moist all over, sprinkle flower upon it every where, that by turning about the fire, it may become a ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby

... Mother and Father Pigeon lived with their two young pigeons in their home, built high on a post in the king's barnyard. Every bright morning they would fly away through the beautiful sunshine wherever they pleased, but, when evening came, they were sure to come ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay

... et meurt. Dans la ville de Sterne, Rien qu'en voyant le peuple il a le mal de mer Il n'aime ni le Parc, gai comme une citerne, Ni le tir au pigeon, ni ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... very forlorn one. It was nearly always quite silent, it was very small and smoky out of doors, and very dark and dismal within. Sometimes it was a hopeless world, because the candy burnt; and if there had not been her Bible and hymn-book, and a lame pigeon that lit on the window-sill to be fed every morning, Miss Polly would have found her ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various

... once stored up wheat and barley in their nest during the winter, and when the summer came, the grain shrivelled and became less; so the male pigeon said to his wife, "Thou hast eaten of this grain." Replied she, "No, by Allah, I have never touched it!" But he believed not her words and beat her with his wings and pecked her with his bill, till he killed her. When the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... small boy alone and lost on the great grassy plain. For there is a little useful plant in that place, with small leaves like clover leaves and a pretty yellow flower, which bears a wholesome sweet root, about as big as a pigeon's egg and of a pearly white colour. It is so well known to the settlers' children in that desert country that they are always wandering off to the plain to look for it, just as the children in a town are always running off with their halfpence to the sweet-stuff shop. This pretty ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.

... saucepan butter size of a pigeon's egg; add 1 pint of soup stock. When very hot add 3 onions, sliced thin, then a full 1/2 teacup of flour, stirring constantly that it may not burn. Add 1 pint boiling water, pepper and salt, and let boil one minute, then placing ...
— The Cookery Blue Book • Society for Christian Work of the First Unitarian Church, San

... hot plate and flabbily dropping it again. And then they ask him why he blushes, and why he stammers, and why he always speaks in an almost inaudible tone, as if they thought he did it on purpose. Then one of them, sticking out his chest and strutting about the room like a pouter-pigeon, suggests quite seriously that that is the style he should adopt. The old man slaps him on the back and says: "Be bold, my boy. Don't be afraid of any one." The mother says, "Never do anything that you need be ashamed of, Algernon, and then you never need be ashamed of anything you ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... term of "warren" included the young coneys, or half-ruined prodigals of that day, with the younger brothers, who had accomplished their ruin; these naturally herded together, as the pigeon and the black-leg of the present day. The coney-catchers were those who raised a trade on their necessities. To be "conie-catched" was to be cheated. The warren forms a combination altogether, to attract some novice, who in esse or in posse has his present means ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... missing this morning; suspect Ham of stealing it—A pigeon fluttered down on deck with a green leaf fast in its gullet and half choked; pulled leaf out; pigeon must have been somewhere else and got it; will keep to the eastward and ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... out of Benham's world for a space of years. There may have been other letters, but if so they were lost in the heaving troubles of a revolution-strained post-office. Perhaps to this day they linger sere and yellow in some forgotten pigeon-hole in ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... virtuous poverty, hungering for any chance sight of him which his outgoings or incomings might give. The chances were better with the outgoings than with the incomings, for these were apt to be so hurried, in the final result of his constitutional delays, as to have the rapidity of the homing pigeon's flight, and to afford hardly a glimpse to the quickest eye. It cannot harm him, or any one now, to own that Harte was nearly always late for those luncheons and dinners which he was always going out to, and it needed the anxieties and energies of both ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... whom Sofia had quite overlooked after one glance had classified and pigeon-holed him. A single glance had been enough. They do some things better in England; a man cast for any particular role in life, for example, is apt to conform himself, mentally, physically, and even as to his outer habiliments, so nicely to the mould that he is ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... grave; Nor any bold, presumptuous cur shall dare To lift his leg against his sacred dust. Where'er I have my rhymes, thence vermin fly, All, saving that foul-fac'd vermin poverty. This sucks the eggs of my invention, Evacuates my wit's full pigeon-house. Now may it please thy generous dignity To take this vermin napping, as he lies In the true trap of liberality, I'll cause the Pleiades to give thee thanks; I'll write thy name within the sixteenth sphere: I'll make th'Antarctic ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... preparations. Then, one morning, at haphazard, he drove to the train that would transport him to Boulogne and dispatch him thence to the shores of Britain. As he rolled along in the train he asked himself what had become of his revenge, and he was able to say that it was provisionally pigeon-holed in a very safe place; it would keep till ...
— The American • Henry James

... striking against a great land map on the wall. Upon the hearth had been thrown an armful of hickory and pine. Rand, kneeling, laid a fire, struck a spark into the tinder, and had speedily a leap and colour of pointed flames. He rose, opened his desk, drew papers out of pigeon-holes and laid them in order upon the wood, then pushed before it his accustomed chair. He did not take the latter; instead, after standing a moment with an indescribable air of weary uncertainty, he turned, went back to the firelit hearth, sat down, and, bending ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... the same tubby, murderous little man, with a steel blade screwed to the wooden stump of his forearm, as when, swelling his breast, he had stepped on his toes before me like a bloodthirsty pigeon, in the steerage of the ship that had brought us from home. I heard him mumble, with almost incredible, sardonic contempt, that, indeed, the senor would soon have none but dead friends if he refrained from striking at his enemies. Had the senor taken the very excellent opportunity afforded ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... Rosewater till they are like your Curd, then mingle them with the yolks of twenty Eggs and a quart of Cream, two great Nutmegs, one pound and a half of sugar, when your Coffins are ready and going to set in the Oven; then mingle them together, let your Oven be made hot enough for a Pigeon Pye, and let a stone stand up till the scorcthing be past, then set them in, half an hour will bake them well, your Coffins must be made with Milk and Butter as stiffe as for other Past, then you must set ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."

... philanthropy with its expenditure of alms. Those aviaries and fish-ponds of the grandees were of course, as a rule, a very costly indulgence. But this system was carried to such an extent and prosecuted with so much keenness, that e. g. the stock of a pigeon-house was valued at 100,000 sesterces (1000 pounds); a methodical system of fattening had sprung up, and the manure got from the aviaries became of importance in agriculture; a single bird-dealer was able to furnish at once 5000 fieldfares—for they ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... mirror over the chimney-piece, and in the grate a charred stick or two of firewood which had lasted them for two winters, as my head-clerk put it. As for the office, you can guess what it was like—more letter-files than business letters, a set of common pigeon-holes for either partner, a cylinder desk, empty as the cash-box, in the middle of the room, and a couple of armchairs on either side of a coal fire. The carpet on the floor was bought cheap at second-hand (like the bills and bad debts). In short, it was the mahogany furniture ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac

... Rhine, and Clara. Lewis, the Little Emigrant. The Easter Eggs, and Forget-me-not. The Cakes, and the Old Castle. The Hop Blossoms. Christmas Eve. The Carrier Pigeon, the Bird's Nest, etc. The Jewels, and the Redbreast. The Copper Coins and Gold Coins, etc. The Cray-Fish, the Melon, the Nightingale. The Fire, and the Best Inheritance. Henry of Eichenfels; or, the Kidnapped Boy. Godfrey, the Little Hermit. The Water Pitcher, and the ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... w'en nice cool win' is blowin' An' up above ma head, I hear de pigeon on de roof, To bring ma chair an' sit dere, an' watch de current flowin' Of ole Riviere des Prairies as she ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond

... my mullioned window flew a pigeon in the air, And beneath its wing lay folded lines for her I loved the best; Daily from her palace window it returned and brought me there, Rhymeless idyls full of heart-speech, faithful ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey

... speculating upon the general principles by which the 'people in power' should be guided. To construct a general chart for legislation, to hunt down sophistries, to explode mere noisy rhetoric, to classify and arrange and re-classify until his whole intellectual wealth was neatly arranged in proper pigeon-holes, was a delight for its own sake. He wished well to mankind; he detested abuses, but he hated neither the corrupted nor the corruptors; and it might almost seem that he rather valued the benevolent end, because it gave employment to his faculties, than valued ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... the object he carried. It was a bird, apparently a pigeon of some sort. It seemed to have been stunned, but as Arthur held it out it stirred, then struggled, and in a moment was flapping wildly ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster

... soon left the fishing wear and coasted along the northeastern shore of Lake Simcoe until they reached its most eastern border, when they made a portage to Sturgeon Lake, thence sweeping down Pigeon and Stony Lakes, through the Otonabee into Rice Lake, the River Trent, the Bay of Quinte, and finally rounding the eastern point of Amherst Island, they were fairly on the waters of Lake Ontario, just as it merges into the great River St. Lawrence, and where the Thousand Islands begin to loom into ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain

... in from some calls at the Goldthwaites and the Haddens, and the news was told, and they had their bonnets to take off, and the dinner-bell rang, and the smell of the spicy pigeon-stew came up the stairs, all together. And they went down, talking fast; and one said "house," and another "carpets," and another "music and German;" and Desire, trailing a breadth of green silk in her hand that she ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... Love Which built the mountains, spread the earth abroad, And fixed the bounds that ocean cannot pass; Which taught the seasons their accustomed rounds, Lest seed-time and the happy harvests fail; Which guides the stars in their celestial course, And guides the pigeon's swift unerring flight O'er mountain, sea and plain and desert waste, Straight as an arrow to her distant home; Teaching the ant for winter to prepare; Clothing the lily in its princely pride; Watching the tiny sparrow when it falls; Nothing too great for His ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... Major?" asked Clayley, looking on the major's proposition as ridiculous under the circumstances. "Have you a pigeon in ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... papers discovered that he was the very fac-simile of the great King of Prussia. The laureate made an ode upon him, which was set to music; and the public learned, with tears of compassionate regret at so romantic a circumstance, that pigeon-pies were sent daily to his prison, made by the delicate hands of one of his former mistresses. Some sensation, also, was excited by the circumstance of his poor wife (who soon afterwards died of a broken heart) coming to him ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... will have for dinner. "Will you have an apple-pie, sir? Will you have a gooseberry-pie, sir? Will you have a cherry-pie, sir? Will you have a currant-pie, sir? Will you have a plum-pie, sir? Will you have a pigeon-pie, sir?" "Any pie, madam, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... Prince, perceiving that Palmerston was more firmly fixed in the saddle than ever, decided that something drastic must be done. Five months before, the prescient Baron had drawn up, in case of emergency, a memorandum, which had been carefully docketed, and placed in a pigeon-hole ready to hand. The emergency had now arisen, and the memorandum must be used. The Queen copied out the words of Stockmar, and sent them to the Prime Minister, requesting him to show her letter to Palmerston. "She thinks it right," she wrote, "in ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... have! I've been expecting just this thing ever since you began playing the game with Conway there as a stool pigeon. If we'd have sent him on a trip to Paris and paid his expenses we'd have saved trouble and money. Can I have a drink and something to ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... lights in the finger-print department, Green sat down at a table and with the aid of a magnifying-glass carefully scrutinised the prints which he carried on a sheet of paper. Ranged on one side of the room were high filing cabinets divided into pigeon-holes, numbered from 1 to 1024. In them were contained hundreds of thousands of finger-prints of those known to be criminals. It was for the detectives to find if among them were any identical with those of ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... year that they had secured Sam Houston's pocket-knife or Santa Ana's whisky-flask or Davy Crockett's rifle—all absolutely authenticated—and demanded legislative appropriation to purchase. Most of the work in the history branch went into pigeon-holes. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... rose to announce that the prize for the most complete compound was given to Mr. Kittredge, who had conceived of a "pigeon-toad, with a lovely long dove-tail, and a pot-pied waistcoat ringed and streaked, and a sweet dove-cot-ton veil." Frieda and Hannah came solemnly into the room, bearing a crate, from the top of which appeared the ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... as any ball; You scarce can see his head or tail at all. He's not a carrier-pigeon, though he brings Important messages beneath his wings. And 'tis this freak of ornithology They mean who say, ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells

... Re-enter scrubs. Scrubs more dense. A known point. Magnetic rocks. Lowans' eggs. Numbers of the birds. Crows, hawks. Natives and water. Induce natives to decamp. Unusually vigorous growth of scrubs. Alec sights Mount Churchman. Bronze-winged pigeons. Pigeon Rocks. Depart. Edge of a cliff. Mount Churchman in view. Some natives arrive. A wandering pet. Lake Moore. Rock-holes. Strike old dray tracks. An outlying sheep-station. The first white man seen. Dinner of ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... particulars together, as has been done here for convenience in printing; leave a considerable space between the first and second, and the third and fourth lines. When letters are folded and docketed they should be tied up in the order of their dates, or put away in pigeon holes under the different letters of the alphabet. One can never tell when it may be necessary to refer to old letters on matters of business, so it is prudent to keep them all. Doing so and turning them over occasionally is ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various



Words linked to "Pigeon" :   family Columbidae, clay pigeon, ringdove, Ectopistes migratorius, Columbidae, pouter, pigeon breast, domestic pigeon, pigeon toes, Columba livia, pigeon-pea plant, pigeon-breasted, pigeon guillemot, band-tailed pigeon, passenger pigeon, stool pigeon, pigeon hawk, columbiform bird, pouter pigeon, carrier pigeon, dove, rock dove, pigeon pea, homing pigeon, Columba palumbus, tumbler pigeon, rock pigeon, pigeon droppings, Columba fasciata, pigeon loft, cushat, pigeon berry



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