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Prick   Listen
verb
Prick  v. t.  (past & past part. pricked; pres. part. pricking)  
1.
To pierce slightly with a sharp-pointed instrument or substance; to make a puncture in, or to make by puncturing; to drive a fine point into; as, to prick one with a pin, needle, etc.; to prick a card; to prick holes in paper.
2.
To fix by the point; to attach or hang by puncturing; as, to prick a knife into a board. "The cooks prick it (a slice) on a prong of iron."
3.
To mark or denote by a puncture; to designate by pricking; to choose; to mark; sometimes with off. "Some who are pricked for sheriffs." "Let the soldiers for duty be carefully pricked off." "Those many, then, shall die: their names are pricked."
4.
To mark the outline of by puncturing; to trace or form by pricking; to mark by punctured dots; as, to prick a pattern for embroidery; to prick the notes of a musical composition.
5.
To ride or guide with spurs; to spur; to goad; to incite; to urge on; sometimes with on, or off. "Who pricketh his blind horse over the fallows." "The season pricketh every gentle heart." "My duty pricks me on to utter that."
6.
To affect with sharp pain; to sting, as with remorse. "I was pricked with some reproof." "Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart."
7.
To make sharp; to erect into a point; to raise, as something pointed; said especially of the ears of an animal, as a horse or dog; and usually followed by up; hence, to prick up the ears, to listen sharply; to have the attention and interest strongly engaged. "The courser... pricks up his ears."
8.
To render acid or pungent. (Obs.)
9.
To dress; to prink; usually with up. (Obs.)
10.
(Naut)
(a)
To run a middle seam through, as the cloth of a sail.
(b)
To trace on a chart, as a ship's course.
11.
(Far.)
(a)
To drive a nail into (a horse's foot), so as to cause lameness.
(b)
To nick.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prick" Quotes from Famous Books



... as by the hem, and steal Help from His lowest skirts, their souls to heal. For the first step to heaven is to live well All our life long, and each day to excel In holiness; but since that tares are found In the best corn, and thistles will confound And prick my heart with vain cares, I will strive To weed them out on feast-days, and so thrive By handfuls, 'till I may full life obtain, And not ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... bridge of time on which we tread sinks back into eternity at every step we take. The past is gone from us forever. It is gathered in and garnered. It belongs to us no more. No single word can ever be unspoken; no single step retraced. Therefore it beseems us as true knights to prick on bravely, not idly weep because we ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... the tent was clear, then dismounted. Belle was for following, but Jim said, "Would you mind holding the horses? I won't be a minute." His face was so drawn and sad that she was deeply touched. She had meant to prick and lash him for a while yet, but now in pity ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... of one-half she must have the satisfaction of being right. And yet, even with these tight limits to the misery of a boundless discretion, permit me, Liege Lady, with all loyalty, to submit that now and then you prick with your pin the wrong man. But the poor child from Domremy, shrinking under the gaze of a dazzling court—not because dazzling (for in visions she had seen those that were more so), but because some of them wore a scoffing smile on their features—how should she throw her ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... all things so in thy mind that they may be as a goad in thy sides, to prick thee forward in the way ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... that, after much pains and trouble, you would have but an imperfect idea of all those works. Poetry is a kind of music in which a man should have some knowledge before he pretends to judge of it. When I give you a translation of some passages from those foreign poets, I only prick down, and that imperfectly, their music; but then I cannot express the ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire

... up en tol' 'im 'bout de craps, en 'bout de hosses en de mules, en 'bout de cows en de hawgs. En w'en he 'mence' ter tell 'bout de noo nigger, Mars Jeems prick' up 'is yeahs en listen', en eve'y now en den he 'd say, 'Uh huh! uh huh!' en nod 'is head. En bimeby, w'en he'd ax' Solomon some mo' queshtuns, ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt

... delighted at the honors he imagined were being showered upon him. No sooner did the crowd on the wharf get news of the major's approach, than they sent up a deafening shout, and hastened to meet him with so much determination to do him homage, that even old Battle began to prick up his ears. Two mischievous urchins now tied a small air balloon to old Battle's tail, while another would every few minutes switch his gambrels with a twig of thorn, and so make him jerk his hinder legs as nearly to throw the indomitable major over his head. Duncan, the pig, was led by a ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... window, is characteristic. After the solemn procession which was belle et gorgiaise he saw the king, clothed in a glittering suit of armour and mounted on a barbed charger, accoutred in white and cloth of silver, prick his steed, making it prance and rear, faisant rage, that he might display his horsemanship, his fine figure and dazzling costume before the queen and her ladies. It was all bien gorriere a voir. ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... long peon villages, mere grass huts on the bare earth floors of which the inhabitants lay rolled up in their blankets. I had not been supplied with spurs, essential to all horsemanship in Mexico, and was compelled at thirty second intervals to prick up the jade between my legs with the point of a lead pencil, the only weapon at hand, or be left behind entirely. As the stars dimmed and the horizon ahead took on a thin gray streak, peons wrapped in their ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... hands hung limp by his side, as he said in measured tones: 'You two ladies are the most maneuvering politicians in the State of New York. I saw in the manner my wife's petition was presented, that Mr. Curtis was acting under instructions, and I saw the reporters prick up their ears.' Turning to Mrs. Stanton, he asked, 'You are so tenacious about your own name, why did you not inscribe my wife's maiden name, Mary Cheney Greeley, on her petition?' 'Because,' she replied, 'I wanted all the world to know that it was the wife of Horace ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... wrote on tablets of clay like those used by the great empires of Babylon and Assyria, and by the people of Canaan. Clay was cheap enough; all one had to do was to mould moist clay into a smooth tablet, and then to prick words on it with a metal pen. The prophet Jeremiah mentions this kind of ...
— The Bible in its Making - The most Wonderful Book in the World • Mildred Duff

... me up the latitude, Mr Mackintosh, while I work out the longitude from the sights which I took this morning. In five minutes, Mr Seagrave, I shall be ready to prick off over our place on ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat

... and on—far, far over mountain and dale, over sand-hills and moor. Then Dapplegrim began to prick up his ears again, and at last he asked the ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... hands rested on the spiked branches, a gentle trembling went through the Thorn, and in a moment there burst out such a blooming and blossoming as the maiden had never seen. Every prick became a rose, and they were so many that the light of the day was tinged with them, and their sweetness was like the breath of paradise. But below her window the Thorn was as black and forbidding as ever, ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... beginning to see that I am essentially anti-theatrical at heart. For the stage, this mob art par excellence, my soul has that deepest scorn felt by every artist to-day. With a stage success a man sinks to such an extent in my esteem as to drop out of sight; failure in this quarter makes me prick my ears, makes me begin to pay attention. But this was not so with Wagner, next to the Wagner who created the most unique music that has ever existed there was the Wagner who was essentially a man of the ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.

... Inspired Volume, through which, as through a window, it could look upwards and discern its celestial Home." That "shoe-shop, had men known it, was a holier place than any Vatican or Loretto-shrine...Stitch away, every prick of that little instrument is pricking into the heart of slavery." Thirty-six years after Fox had begun to wear his leathern doublet he directed all Friends everywhere that had Indians or blacks to preach ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... looked foolish. "Of course," they cried. "We didn't think of that. But we are quite sure that these queer things that prick so are not claws, and certainly they are ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess

... a little friendly assistance with the bayonet, pricking the old hag in a tender part as if by accident. She jumps and squeals. Sly Picard watches another chance, shoves forward his friend's bayonet to prick her again. ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... ever, and studied her plate all the harder, and I began to show interest and prick up my ears, for I wondered who on earth son-in-law could be? I knew perfectly well there was no young white man in all that region, and that even if he lived in the nearest frontier town, it would take him, either by canoe or on snowshoes, at least two weeks to make the round trip to Spearhead, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... one side of his character had been almost unknown to him. He had been quite unaware that he possessed a conscience most painfully sensitive with regard to the interests of others, a conscience that would prick him and poison his peace were he to leave even little things undone in the fulfilment of the trust ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... us. Some of these qualities, such as extension, figure, solidity, motion, and number, are classed as primary; others, as, for instance, smell, taste, colour, sound, as secondary. Now that these latter have no existence apart from mind can readily be shown thus. If I prick my finger with a needle, the pain I suffer in consequence is surely in myself, not in the needle, nor anywhere else but in myself. If an orange be placed on my open hand, my sensation of touching it is in myself, not in the orange. If the orange could feel, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... the common girls do who kill themselves by means of a brazier of charcoal; I had enough of that once; twice raises your gorge, as Mariette says. No, I will go a long way off, out of France. Asie knows the secrets of her country; she will help me to die quietly. A prick—whiff, it ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... deil's play-books for me,' said Lucky Dods; 'it's an ill world since sic prick-my-dainty doings came into fashion. It's a poor tongue that canna tell its ain name, and I'll hae nane o' your scarts upon ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop

... sitting alone with his chin resting upon his hands, and his elbows upon his knees, staring miserably out over the desert, when Belmont saw him start suddenly and prick up his head like a dog who hears a strange step. Then, with clenched fingers, he bent his face forward and stared fixedly towards the black eastern hills through which they had passed. Belmont followed his gaze, and, yes—yes—there was something moving there! He saw the twinkle of metal, and the ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... the old woman, "thou canst laugh at sorrows now, Morva; but when they come they will prick thee like that furze." ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... what we do When we delve or hew— Hack and rack the growing green! Since country is so tender To touch, her being so slender, That, like this sleek and seeing ball But a prick will make no eye at all, Where we, even where we mean To mend her we end her, When we hew or delve: After-comers cannot guess the beauty been. Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve Strokes of havoc unselve The sweet ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... obligations. "You have, however," said Reynolds, "the comfort of being relieved from a burden of gratitude." The saying is a little too much like Rochefoucauld, and too true to be pleasant; but it was one of those keen remarks which Johnson appreciated because they prick a bubble of commonplace moralizing without demanding too literal an acceptation. He went home to sup with Reynolds and became his intimate friend. On another occasion, Johnson was offended by two ladies of rank at ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... your under crust, and trim the edge. Fill the dish with the ingredients of which the pie is composed, and lay on the lid, in which you must prick some holes, or cut a small slit in the top. Crimp the edges with a ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie

... prick, does it soil, Simon?" she asked. "See, touch it, touch it. It is as it was, isn't it?" She put it close by my hand, waiting for me to take it, but I did not take it. "As it was when you kissed it," said she; but still I did not ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... here," said the doctor; "I could prick it with a pin without causing any sensation of pain." Then, again placing his hand upon Marsa's forehead, he tried to rouse some memory in the ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... case," continued Kennedy, his will-power overcoming his weakness, "with a poison which is apparently among the most subtle known. A particle of matter so minute as to be hardly distinguishable by the naked eye, on the point of a lancet or needle, a prick of the skin not anything like that wound of Mendoza's, were necessary. But, fortunately, more of the poison was used, making it just that much easier to trace, though for the time the wound, which might itself easily have been ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve

... from Noraway, Well seasoned with plenty of Noraway pitch; All dried and split for that jubilee day, The day of the holocaust of a witch. The prickers are chosen—hang-daddy and brother— And fixed were the fees of their work of love; To prick an old woman who was a mother, And felt still the yearnings of motherly love For she had a son, a noble young fellow, Who sailed in a ship of his own the sea, And who was away on the distant billow For a cargo of wine to this bonnie Dundee. Some said she was bonnie when she was ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... the moon!" exclaimed Dudley, striking the but of his musket against the ice with so much force as to cause his companion to start, in alarm. "What fool's errand hath again brought him to prick his nag so ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... such discussions, I seldom or never saw the least anger in him against me or any friend. When the blows of contradiction came too thick, he could with consummate dexterity whisk aside out of their way; prick into his adversary on some new quarter; or gracefully flourishing his weapon, end the duel in some handsome manner. One angry glance I remember in him, and it was but a glance, and gone in a moment. "Flat Pantheism!" urged he once (which he would often enough ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... this Babel of knaves and fools; and with this abominable good health of mine, which won't even help me with gout or indigestion, I am likely to have three-and-thirty years more of it....I know nothing, and I care for nothing, and I expect nothing; and I actually can't take the trouble to prick a hole in myself, and let the very small amount of wits out, to see something really worth seeing, and try its strength at something really worth doing—if, after all, the other side the grave does not turn out to be just as stupid as this ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... surrender ourselves at once Prisoners of War. Prisoners of War, forsooth! They treated us worse than Galley Slaves. Our hands were bound behind us with cords, Halters were put about our necks, and, the Grenadiers prodding us behind with their bayonets,—the Dastards, so to prick Unarmed Men!—we were conducted in ignominy through the rascal Crowd, which made a Grinning, Jeering, Hooting lane for us to pass to the Guardhouse at the Entrance of the Gardens. The Officer of the Guard was at first for having both of us strapped down to a Bench as a preliminary ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... stopped, and somber-faced, respectable-looking men in black suits and pearl-gray neckties poured out and seized him. The briefcase was yanked out of his hand. He felt the prick of a needle in his shoulder. Then, with no ...
— Forever • Robert Sheckley

... the newest development of the rissole and croquette. They require strict attention to details to secure perfect form. Roll puff-paste a quarter of an inch thick; prick it all over—this is to deaden it; roll it now till it is no thicker than cartridge-paper. Cut it with a sharp knife dipped in flour into strips about two inches and a half wide and about the length ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen

... coach. Dames, monks, and invalids, its load, On foot, outside, at leisure trode. The team, all weary, stopp'd and blow'd: Whereon there did a fly approach, And, with a vastly business air. Cheer'd up the horses with his buzz,— Now pricked them here, now prick'd them there, As neatly as a jockey does,— And thought the while—he knew 'twas so— He made the team and carriage go,— On carriage-pole sometimes alighting— Or driver's nose—and biting. And when the whole did get in motion, Confirm'd and settled in the notion, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... favourite pastime with the bullies of London streets. A dozen or more with drawn swords surround a hapless and unarmed passer by. They will close upon him in a circle, the points of their swords towards him, and then one will prick him in the rear, causing him to turn quickly round, whereupon another will give him a dig in the same region, and again he will jump and face about; and so they will keep the poor fellow spinning round and round, like a ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... ravish the morning air; Let their exhaled unwholesome breaths make sick The life of purity, the supreme fair, Ere he arrive his weary noon-tide prick; And let thy misty vapours march so thick, That in their smoky ranks his smother'd light May set at noon and ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]

... her. She has made me feel that nine parts in ten of my heart have always been sound as a bell, and the tenth bled from a mere puncture: a lancet-prick that will ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... But, for that it is a very manifest thing that they are enamoured of certain of us who are here, I fear lest, without our fault or theirs, scandal and blame ensue thereof, if we carry them with us." Quoth Filomena, "That skilleth nought; so but I live honestly and conscience prick me not of aught, let who will speak to the contrary; God and the truth will take up arms for me. Wherefore, if they be disposed to come, verily we may say with Pampinea that fortune is favourable to ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... bid her come, Before my words are chronicled in Heaven. (Exit LUCRETIA.) I do not feel as if I were a man, But like a fiend appointed to chastise The offences of some unremembered world. My blood is running up and down my veins; A fearful pleasure makes it prick and tingle: I feel a giddy sickness of strange awe; My heart is beating with ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... ne'er gav'st nane, —Every nighte and alle, The whins sall prick thee to the bare bane; And ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... half mile or so, as must be confessed, each prick of the black horse's ears and change in his pace sent a quake through her, as did the sight of every vehicle upon the road she passed or met. Her nerve was nowhere, her self-confidence in tatters. But, since this parlous state was, in the main, physical, air and movement, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... affirmations of men enthrone. It was brought out from the first—it came tramping on in the first act, in the first scene—with its sneer at the commons' distress, longing to make 'a quarry of the quartered slaves, as high' as the plumed hero of it 'could prick his lance'; and that, too, because they rebelled at famine, as slaves will do sometimes, when the common notion of hunger is permitted to instruct them in the principle of new unions; when that so impressive, and urgent, and unappeasable teacher comes down to them from the Capitol, and ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... answered the Princess, gravely. "Supposing I were to prick my finger, what should I do if there was n't a room to cry in? Then, there is a middling-sized room to be serious in; for there is just a chance that I might want to be serious sometimes, and it would be as well to have ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp

... a quick gesture, she was about to prick the skin of her left arm between the top of her long glove and the sleeve of her low-cut dress. But Sir Cyril, and I ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... has the murd'erous Moor, who slays his guest with felon blow, Save sorrow he can slay no more, what prick of pen'itence can ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... and Dave in the paddock mowing lucerne. Jack sinking post-holes for a milking-yard close to the house. Joe at intervals stealing behind him to prick him with straws through a rent in the rear of his patched moleskins. Little Bill—in readiness to run—standing ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... left to itself would wince occasionally at the slight pricking pain, and then turn its entire attention elsewhere, and thus become refreshed for the next trial. But under the adult influence the agony of the first little prick is often magnified until the result is a cross, tired baby, already removed several degrees from the beautiful state of peace and freedom in which Nature ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... "business end" of a bee, it will sting even though its head be off. But the bee carries the antidote to its own poison. The best remedy for bee sting is honey, and when your hands are besmeared with honey, as they are sure to be on such occasions, the wound is scarcely more painful than the prick of a pin. Assault your bee-tree, then, boldly with your axe, and you will find that when the honey is exposed every bee has surrendered, and the whole swarm is cowering in helpless bewilderment and terror. Our tree yields only a few pounds ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... go with thee. What greatness, or what private hidden power, Is there in me to draw submission From this rude man and beast? sure. I am mortal, The daughter of a shepherd; he was mortal, And she that bore me mortal; prick my hand And it will bleed; a fever shakes me, and The self-same wind that makes the young lambs shrink, Makes me a-cold: my fear says I am mortal: Yet I have heard (my mother told it me) And now I do believe it, if I keep My virgin flower uncropped, pure, chaste, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... unexpected honor, noble sire, Will prick my courage unto braver deeds, And cause me to attempt such hard exploits, That all the world shall sound ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... art and mystery of fighting; but not a single pair of drab-colored breeches moved at his "forward march;" not a broad beaver wheeled at his word of command; no hand unclosed to receive a proffered musket. Patriotic appeal, hard swearing, and prick of bayonet had no effect upon these impracticable raw recruits; and the stout general gave them up in despair. We are inclined to believe that any attempt on the part of the Commander-in-chief of our army and navy to convert the good people of Massachusetts into expert slave-catchers, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... fallen when we came up on deck. Joyce bethought himself of some cigars in his state-room and went back. For the moment I was alone with his wife by the rail, watching the stars beginning to prick through the darkening sky. The Sylph was running smoothly, with the wind almost aft; the scud of water past her bows and the occasional creak of a block aloft were the only sounds audible in the silence that lay like a benediction upon ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... good girl, after all, and I hope James De Vere will fall in love with you," was Nellie's exclamation as she saw a large roll deposited at their door, but not a stitch in the making of the carpet did she volunteer to take. "She should prick her fingers or callous her hand," she said, "and Mr. De Vere thought so much ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... was indifferent—that a cow would have shown a manner no less docile or resigned. He did look at Van with a certain expression of surprise and hurt, or so, at least, the horseman hoped. Then the man on his back shook up the reins, gave a prick with the spurs, and ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... Betty did not know that Prancer had once belonged to a militia officer; and if she had, it would have made no difference, as all the fire of youth seemed to have died out with Prancer years ago. But early associations are strong; and as the "horse scenteth the battle afar off," so did Prancer prick up his ears and quicken his pace at the spirit-stirring sounds of the fife and drum; and now he began to make an awkward attempt to dance sideways upon the points of his hoofs; and as he neared the brow of the hill, his excitement ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely

... returned, and, approving of Surja Mukhi's design, said to Hira, "And if you can, prick her ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

... high capering heads, Prick'd up from ear to ear; And cloaks and caps were rarities, For gentle folks to wear: Oh, the times, the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... pretty good English, for a native," returned Griffith, "yet you have a small bur-r-r in your mouth that would prick the tongue of a man who was born on the other ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... I raised a hand to it. My forehead was swathed in bandages, like a turbaned Turk's. Oh, to be sure, in the castle at Prezelay, as we were retreating up the staircase, Schwartzmann had fired at me; but, then, hadn't that been a pin prick, the merest scratch? ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... is like a great big bubble; You'll find there's nothing in it. Prick it and for all your trouble It has vanished ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess

... Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same Winter and Summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? if we are like you in the rest, we ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... pinch as I could administer before I could get at his neck. No, I am not going home with you; thanks for the invitation. Do you wish Dr. Millar to think me crazy? Do you apply to your father for medical assistance when you give yourself a pin-prick?" ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... else. So I rode along the plain which stretches between the desert and the mountains, keeping on the edge of the sand-hills. I rode all day, but when night came I halted, since I could see no more. There I sat in that great place, thinking, and after an hour or two I observed Pharaoh prick his ears and look toward the west. So I also started toward the west, and presently I thought that I saw one faint streak of light which seemed to go upward, and therefore couldn't come from a falling star, but might have ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... keenest powers to see and hear Seem'd in her frame residing; Before the watch-dog prick'd his ear She heard her lover's riding; Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd She knew and waved to greet him, And o'er the battlement did bend As on the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... put ut to you, sorr, is an elegint palanquin, fit for the princess, the natural abidin' place av all the vermin in cantonmints? We brought ut to you, afther dhark, and put ut in your shtable. Do not let your conscience prick. Think av the rejoicin' men in the pay-shed yonder— lookin' at Dearsley wid his head tied up in a towel—an' well knowin' that they can dhraw their pay ivry month widout stoppages for riffles. Indirectly, sorr, you have rescued ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... almost Carlylean in its grotesqueness. "Here is a horse who have a bad looks. He not sail know to march, he is pursy, he is foundered. Don't you are ashamed to give me a jade as like? he is unshoed, he is with nails up; it want to lead to the farrier." "Let us prick (piquons) go us more fast, never I was seen a so much bad beast; she will not nor to bring forward neither put back." "Strek him the bridle," cries the horsedealer, "Hold him the rein sharters." "Pique stron gly, ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca

... has ideas, but he has no knowledge of facts; his heroes are utopian creatures, philosophical or Liberal notions masquerading. He is at pains to write an original style, but his inflated periods would collapse at a pin-prick from a critic; and therefore he goes in terror of reviews, like every one else who can only keep his head above water with the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... a Cloak-Cabal I see, Whose Prick-ears glow, whilst they their Jealousie In Essence find; but Citty-Sirs, I fear, Most of you have more cause to be severe. We yield you are the ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere

... of the grave diction of sober, moral writers, and the pompous, flowing style of modern historians. Fame began now to prick up his vanity to try an imitation of the great Dr. Robertson, Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Gibbon, those giants of literature. He thought if he could muster dollars enough to buy a style-mill, which those heroes of science undoubtedly ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... dream that art could only be said to have flourished among Mediterranean peoples, until he was roused from his reverie by his horse, who suddenly pricked up his ears and broke into a canter. He had been travelling since six in the morning, and it was now evening; but he was fresh enough to prick up his ears, scenting, no doubt, an encampment, the ashes of former fires, the litter left by some wayfarers, desert ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... Quavers or Semiquavers, as 2, 4, 6, 8, you must begin with your Bow forward; yea, though the Bow were imployed forward in the next Note before them. But if the number be odd, as 3, 5, 7 (which always happens by reason of some Prick-Note or odd Rest) the first of that odd number must be played with the Bow backward. This is the most proper motion of the Bow, though not absolutely without some exception; for sometimes the quickness of the Notes may force the contrary. Also quick Notes skipping from the Treble to the Bass, ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George

... injury done to it. Upon these transplanted pieces were tatooed the letters of the alphabet; so that, when a communication was to be made, either of the persons, though the wide Atlantic rolled between them, had only to prick his arm with a magnetic needle, and straightway his friend received intimation that the telegraph was at work. Whatever letter he pricked on his own arm pained the same letter on the arm ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... getting out of breath; consequently, an undersized student is usually chosen for this considerate office. The heads and faces of the duellists are swathed in bandages—no small incentive to perspiration, the vital parts of their bodies are well protected against a fatal prick or blow, and the pricks or slashes must be delivered with the hand and wrist raised head-high above the shoulder. It is considered disgraceful to move the head, to shrink in the smallest degree before the adversary, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... merrily, "come and teach me that trick of the broidering needle. I never can do it but I prick myself. Nevertheless, I can fashion the Red Axe almost as clearly as the pattern, and ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... together. This was true leadership the pack felt, a thing Lupus would never have done; something to be placed to the great Wolfhound's credit, and not forgotten. The mother of the whelps that were attacked, a big, light-coloured dingo, with sharp, prick ears, was particularly ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... officers of rank, and by some few civilian riders. An aide galloped up to her where she stood with the corps of her Spahis, and gave her his orders. The Little One nodded carelessly, and touched Etoile-Filante with the prick of the spur. Like lightning the animal bounded forth from the ranks, rearing and plunging, and swerving from side to side, while his rider, with exquisite grace and address, kept her seat like the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... verse his thoughts naturally reverted to Ophelia, for the little poesy was full of a faint scent of the past, like a pressed flower. His conscience did not prick him at all. How fortunate for him and for her that matters had gone no further between them? Predisposed to melancholy, and inheriting a not very strong mind from her father, Ophelia was a lady who needed cheering up, if ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... strength, and yet he was weak to resist sorrow. He could have held his hand on a brazier of burning coals, but he would have started at a pin-prick. And now that Monte-Cristo had gone, Esperance felt like a child deprived of ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... Jane. "I have two, five new sheets and two scissors that don't prick that my Aunt Effie sent to me and she said that Doris could play with ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson

... an inch from the edges, and also the short perpendicular lines half an inch apart. (See next page.) Rule lines on the other side in just the same way, and in order that they shall coincide it is well to prick through the card with a needle the points where the short lines end. Now take your penknife and split the card from A A down to B B, and from D D up to C C. Then cut right through the card along all the short perpendicular lines, and half through the card along the short portions of B B and ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... such topping insolence, had he not supposed himself supported by a mutinous spirit from without. It was a dangerous spirit which, if inflamed by indulgence, would become a deadly boil to poison the whole body politic. Prick therefore the imposthume at once, and, like wise surgeons, let out the offensive matter. He was not surprised at the indignation of the worthy Deputy. It was a zeal unto godliness, and devoutly did he wish, that himself, and all, were more inspired with it. When he had asked that the prisoner ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... speak unkindly of the absent. Half a cent had to be paid every time I did any of these things, and I kept my own account of them, and punished myself. I always knew when I had violated one of mother's golden rules by her grieved look, or father's surprised one, or by a little prick from ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... of the door-bell rang out, clearly and imperiously, vibrating through the house. It seemed to M. Mauperin as though it had been rung within him, and a shudder passed through him to his very finger-tips like a needle-prick. He went to the ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt

... passer-by, from among the green leaves, like a jolly face, and promised good cheer. The horse-trough, full of clear fresh water, and the ground below it sprinkled with droppings of fragrant hay, made every horse that passed, prick up his ears. The crimson curtains in the lower rooms, and the pure white hangings in the little bed-chambers above, beckoned, Come in! with every breath of air. Upon the bright green shutters, there were golden legends about beer and ale, and neat wines, and good beds; and an affecting picture of ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens

... Stimulant (Lat. stimulo, to prick or goad on). An agent which causes an increase of vital activity in the body or in ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... eloquently and learnedly in his presence, slipping in once in a while such high-sounding words as "domestic economy," "well-ordered household," "proper distribution of time and labor," &c., &c., he began to prick up his ears, and fancy his thrifty little daughter Enna was not quite so excellent in her management as he had blindly dreamed. Poor man! his former ignorance had surely been bliss, for his unfortunate knowledge only made him look vexed and full of care whenever he entered the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... delicacy and susceptibility of their consciences. I dare say there are people here now who, after they have done a wrong thing, go on very quietly, with no knowledge of those agonies that I have been speaking about, with scarcely ever a prick of conscience for their sin. But what then? I did not say that all sin purchased pleasure by inflictions of agony; but I do say, that all sin purchases pleasure by loss of peace. The silence of a seared conscience is not peace. For peace you want something ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... linen or filter-paper, and allowed to distribute itself in a thin layer. In this manner one can recognise the difference between the colour of anaemic and of healthy blood more clearly than in the drop as it comes from the finger prick. After a few trials one can in this way draw conclusions as to the degree of the existing anaemia. Could this simple method which is so convenient, which can be carried out at the time of consultation, come more into vogue, it alone would contribute ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich

... Josh, indulging in a hoarse laugh. "I taught him how to do that, sir. It'll only prick a bit now, and heal up in a day ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... once perceives anything odd or distorted or overblown to be an excrescence, a protuberance, a swelling, literally a humour: and the function of Thalia, the Comic Spirit, as you may read in Meredith's "Essay on Comedy," is just to prick these humours. I will but refer you to Meredith's "Essay," and here cite you the words ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... "I can prick a coat indifferently well," he responded, solemnly, "and if such trifles delight you, I can blaze arms by the days of the week or the ages of man or the flowers of the field, though I hold that a true herald will never ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... that hour, to the thickest part of the grove; then is the time; it must be the prick of noon, for the slanting lights of morning and eve are quite another concern; only at noon can one appreciate the incomparable effects of palm-leaf shadows. The whole garden is permeated with light that ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... ye meeting-house, he did spy Mr. Tomlins sleeping with much comfort, hys head kept steadie by being in ye corner, and his hand grasping ye rail. And soe spying, Allen did quickly thrust his staff behind Dame Ballard and give him a grievous prick upon ye hand. Whereupon Mr. Tomlins did spring vpp mch above ye floore, and with terrible force strike hys hand against ye wall; and also, to ye great wonder of all, prophanlie exclaim in a loud voice, curse ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... "What will mother say?" she thought, and began to run distractedly along the road, crying and sobbing as she went, and telling herself that it wasn't her fault, that she only went upstairs to make the beds,—but here her conscience gave a great prick. It was but ten o'clock when she went ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge



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