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Thoroughbred   Listen
noun
Thoroughbred  n.  A thoroughbred animal, especially a horse.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thoroughbred" Quotes from Famous Books



... right for it now," said the huntsman, as he came up alongside of Frank. He had crossed the bridge, but had been the first across it, and knew how to get over his ground quickly. On they went, the horsey man leading on his thoroughbred screw, the huntsman second, and Frank third. The pace had already been too good for the other ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... up, and find it is not over: a small thoroughbred white bull terrier is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled with. They are hard at it; the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his pastoral enemy fighting ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.

... a quiver in her voice and her nostrils were dilated like those of a thoroughbred eager to run the race. She had risen from her seat and stood facing him, her fists clenched, her face set and determined. Stott had never seen her in this mood and he gazed at her half admiringly, ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... young gentleman present, who, I think, Vargrave might really find a dangerous rival,—a Colonel Legard,—one of the handsomest men I ever saw in my life; just the style to turn a romantic young lady's head; a mixture of the wild and the thoroughbred; black curls, superb eyes, and the softest manners in the world. But, to be sure, he has lived all his life in the best society. Not so his friend, Lord Doltimore, who has a little too much of the green-room lounge and French cafe manner for ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... for perhaps ten minutes or so, before I heard any signs of life from the after suite. Then I heard the door pushed back, and saw a head come out, a head with dark tendrils of hair at the white neck's nape, and two curls at the temple, and as clean and thoroughbred a sweep of jaw and chin as the bows of the Belle Helene herself. She did not look at me, but studiously gazed across the river, pretended to yawn, idly looked back to see if she were followed; as she knew she ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... like a thoroughbred. Wild as was his inner revolt against this treatment, he uttered no word against the thieves and made no plea. He tried his fortunes here and in Haiti, where, during his short, restless sojourn, my own father was born. Eventually, grandfather became chief steward on the passenger ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... said Wild Bill, pointing to a black horse, full sixteen hands high, and evidently a thoroughbred. "Name your price, and ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline

... for two hours after this that the real business of driving began, and I was obliged to change my thoroughbred for a well-trained cattle horse—a bronco, which could double like a hare, and go over any ground. I had not expected to work like a vachero, but so it was, and my Hawaiian experience was very useful. We hunted the various canyons and known "camps," driving the herds ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... Ephron, and to Sihon, king of the Amorites. (Monarquia, tom. i. lib. 3, cap. 6.) It might seem strange, that a Christian should look for authority in the practices of the race he so much abominates, instead of the inspired precepts of the Founder of his religion! But in truth your thoroughbred casuist is apt to be ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... evident that a thief or thieves were helping themselves at night to thoroughbred fowls and fruit at Harmony, and Mrs. van Warmelo asked the sergeant-major of the Military Mounted Police to consult with her about catching ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... saw sheep there scarcely coarser than the average of Southdowns; and some fine, level, clean-limbed steers. Here has stood, for a dozen years past, the renowned Black Hawk, considered by many superior to his sire, the Morgan stallion of the same name. As I before said, he realized my idea of a thoroughbred weight carrier, better than anything I saw in Maryland; though if one of his stock—a brown two-year-old colt—"furnishes" according to present promise, he will probably be surpassed in his turn. There was a large number of colts and fillies well adapted for rapid road work; and ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... the people walked abroad on the plain-stones; a piper of the company of Boboon the wanderer, with but two drones to his instrument, played the old rant of the clan as Duke George went past on a thoroughbred horse. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... the (Buffalo) Exposition. By night it was especially beautiful. Alice and I also wished that you could have been with us when we were out riding at Geneseo. Major Wadsworth put me on a splendid big horse called Triton, and sister on a thoroughbred mare. They would jump anything. It was sister's first experience, but she did splendidly and rode at any fence at which I would first put Triton. I did not try anything very high, but still some of the posts and rails were about ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt

... hadn't just as good a right to ride along the road at my own pace as he; so the more he shouted, the more I didn't stop. But the beggar had the legs of me. He was mounted on something deuced like a thoroughbred, and gained on me hand over hand. At last when I judged he must be about twenty yards behind, I thought I might as well have a look at him, so I just turned for a moment, when, by Jove, there was my lord, lugging a pistol out of his right holster. He shouted again to me to stop. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... 'Rambler.' Johnson was, in my opinion and in Landor's, a great writer in spite of his mannerism; but the mannerism is always rather awkward, and in such places we seem to see—certainly not a squirrel—but, say, a thoroughbred horse invested with the skin ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... with enthusiasm. "The animal must be an Arabian or some other thoroughbred. Whose can he be? There is no such horse in these parts or I should have known it. And yet it is hardly possible that he should have ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... been born a thoroughbred and it was head up and run as she saw in a second, so she smiled up at him and said in ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... real thoroughbred manufacturer will get the better of two or three hundred weavers in the time it takes you to turn round—swallow 'em up, and not leave as much as a bone. He's got four stomachs like a cow, and teeth like a wolf. That's nothing to ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... "He looks the thoroughbred, through and through," declared Mrs. Davenport. "See how majestically he moves. Duke would be a good name for him. Here, ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine

... slipped out of that skirt she could ride with any rider there. He saw that she had become the center toward which all eyes shifted. It pleased him. She was his, like her mother, and as beautiful and thoroughbred as any rider could wish ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... seat by her side; the mechanic cranked and jumped to his place. The motor snorted, trembling like a thoroughbred about to run a race, then subsiding with a sonorous purr swept sedately out into the deserted street, swung round a corner into Broadway, settled its tires into the grooves of the car-tracks and leaped ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... on foot to catch De Wet on a thoroughbred. It was hopeless from the first, and yet went within measurable distance of succeeding, though even if we had rounded up some of his force at Olifant's Nek, it is very doubtful if De Wet himself ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... Gildart, "if you have a respectable horse. I love to ride, not only on the 'bursting tide,' but on the back of a thoroughbred, if he's not too tough in the mouth, ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... sick headache. Can't you see the arteries throbbing under the almost hairless skin of my temples—the transparent, bluish skin that denotes a thoroughbred? It's atrocious! The veins on my forehead are like writhing vipers, and I don't know what gnome forges in my brain! Oh, be quiet! Or at least speak so low that the coursing of my agitated blood may drown the sound ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette

... senator and a very pretty woman. Another of this set is the woman who was voted the best dressed woman at the horse show in a newspaper scheme. Her father is a millionaire doctor and her husband is a thoroughbred. It cannot be said even of this set, however, that it is fast in the immoral sense in which that word usually is employed. It is gay and the women are only unfortunate in having nothing to do and in dispelling weariness by silly and flashy pranks ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... all of us . . . I, a scamp, The best long-shot in the Touchwood Camp; Muscle and nerve like strings of steel, Sound in the game of bit and heel— There's your guide-book. . . . But, Jeanne Amray, Telegraph-clerk at Sturgeon Bay, French and thoroughbred, proud and sweet, Sunshine down to her glancing feet, Sang one song 'neath the northern moon That changed God's world to a tropic noon; And Love burned up on its golden floor Years of passion for Nell Latore— Nell Latore with her tawny hair, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... other slaves and the plantation were turned over to Marse Robert's relatives. After a few months stay in this place I was sold to Mrs. Ridley's brother, Enoch Womble. On the day that I was sold three doctors examined me and I heard one of them say: "This is a thoroughbred boy. His teeth are good and he has good muscles and eyes. He'll live a long time." Then Mr. Womble said: "He looks intelligent too. I think I'll take him and make a blacksmith out of him." And so to close the deal he paid his ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... corners somewhat grotesque, the scroll has a mixture of vigour, comicality, and majesty, which may force a smile and then a frown from the connoisseur. The comparison may seem a little forced, but the head of a thoroughbred English mastiff, if carved, might give some idea of the appearance sought to be described. Mr. Reade says of these instruments with much truth, "Such is the force of genius, that I believe in our secret ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... when he chooses, and the most difficult to get hold of, is the thoroughbred colonial. Being able to read and write does not, however, keep him from being as brutal as Coupeau, and, except from a muscular point of view, he is often by no means a promising specimen of colonization. It is from this ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... an opportunity of studying the appearance of Everard Grey. He had a typically aristocratic English face, even to the cold rather heartless expression, which is as established a point of an English blue blood as an arched neck is of a thoroughbred horse. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... pegs, inserted, for the purpose, in their own street doors. There were beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spotted barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. As it would have been hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a handle, so it ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... bend of the path within two hundred yards of the castle, behold an unmistakable enemy barred his way!—an ugly, hoggish, obese man, with bare legs most grotesquely like pillars of granite, and a protuberant paunch; but the devil must have been in his legs to carry him more swiftly than thoroughbred limbs had borne Count Victor. He stood sneering in the path, turning up the right sleeve of a soiled and ragged saffron shirt with his left hand, the right being engaged most ominously with a sword of a fashion that might well convince the Frenchman he had some new methods of fence to encounter ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... great joy that he had found a kindred spirit. "Shake again!" he said to her, after further most congenial talk, and then turned to Frank. "My boy, you're right. She is a phenomenon—a thoroughbred, even ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... began to cut the grass furiously, reminding me of a thoroughbred hunter I once saw ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... pluck and mettle like a thoroughbred horse!" said old General von Bergen, who, with his daughter and his adjutant, had come up from the barracks on a visit. "It is a pleasure to provoke her; her eyes light up so. Pohlen," he said, turning to the adjutant, "you seemed to be unfortunate in your remarks to her ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus

... benev'lent he'd give away a poker hand. I've done set an' see him give away his hand in a jack-pot for two hundred dollars to some gent 'cross the table who's organizin' to go ag'in him an' can't afford to lose. An' you can onderscore it; a winnin' poker hand, an' him holdin' it, is the last thing a thoroughbred kyard-sharp'll give away. But as I says, I sees this Cherokee do it when the opp'sition is settin' in hard luck an' couldn't ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... Urartu, and devastated it as far as the sources of the Euphrates; on reaching these he purified his arms in the virgin spring, and offered a sacrifice to the gods. On his return to the frontier, the chief of Dayaini "embraced his feet," and presented him with some thoroughbred horses. In 844 B.C. he crossed the Lower Zab and plunged into the heart of Namri; this country had long been under Babylonian influence, and its princes bore Semitic names. Mardukmudammiq, who was then its ruler, betook himself to the mountains to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the man whose pulses do not thrill at the mention of that heroic achievement! That wonderful, wonderful ride—that amazing, glorious tour de force which caused her name to be revered and hallowed in every sleepy hamlet and hovel of Old England—her ride to Norwich on Piebald Polly, her thoroughbred mare! On, on through the night—a fitful moon scrambling aslant the cloud-blown heavens, the wind whistling past her ears, and the tune of "God Save the King" ringing in her brain, the rhythm set by the convulsive movements of Piebald Polly. On, on, through towns and villages, and then once more ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... legumes not only furnishes forage but enriches the soil. Silos are to be seen here and there, and there are some excellent herds of dairy cattle, though the scarcity of reliable labor makes this form of farming hazardous. The cattle tick is being conquered, and more beef is being produced. Thoroughbred hogs ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson

... Terry had left the Yellowstone, asked me to carry him some important despatches from General Sheridan, and although I objected, he insisted on my performing this duty, saying that it would only detain me a few hours longer; as an extra inducement, he offered me the use of his own thoroughbred horse, which was on the boat. I finally consented to go, and was soon speeding over the rough and hilly country toward Powder River, and I delivered the despatches to General Terry the same evening. General ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... contended that the only pure type of horse was the primitive Arab, and that every departure from this resulted in the production of an animal more or less degenerate and debased. The reply of the Jockey Club was, that the English thoroughbred is, in fact, nothing else than a pure Arab, modified only by the influences of climate and treatment, and that it would be much wiser and easier to profit by a result already obtained than to undertake to retrace, with all its difficulties ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... Miss Dent. I know any number of fellows who are doing the same thing. We can't all be officers; a few of us must take orders. Out in the hunting field, we say it is the thoroughbred dog who answers ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... about him was the air of thoroughbred ease with which he adapted himself to his surroundings. He was in swell society on the occasion of our first meeting, being bestridden by the colonel of the regiment. He was dressed and caparisoned in the height of martial fashion; his ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... keeps prices high. It has been so for twenty years, and will be for twenty years to come. From $100 to $500 per acre per year can be had from fruits and vegetables. The same can be realized from poultry, nor will the dairy fall far behind when the scrub cow is abandoned and a choice thoroughbred animal takes its place and the soil is ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell

... has worked for Mr. Thoburn twenty years, buried his only child last Thursday, and his employer spent the afternoon speeding his thoroughbred on the race-track beside the cemetery. At the very moment when Tom was groping about the open grave, struggling with his broken heart and following his daughter with streaming eyes, Mr. Thoburn was bawling out that his filly had done it in two and a quarter—and the ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... of the house and gardens delighted her host and hostess. She could not be too much astonished at its wonders to please them, and, both being thoroughbred, they liked her the better for saying frankly that she was unused to beautiful houses. "You can't think what this is like after school in Potterston and cheap boarding-houses in New York and London," she said, laughing when the ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... stock and poultry to the best advantage, and also large farms at every military reservation where persons convicted of crime were taught how to become useful members of society. The Government raised only thoroughbred stock and poultry on the farms, and the service of the males was given free to every farmer that ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans

... and I are up, and find it is not over; a small thoroughbred, white bull-terrier, is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled with. They are hard at it; the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his pastoral enemy fighting wildly, but ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... late column captain, it was to be admitted that for some time he had been conscious of certain buffetings of fate. But as all thoroughbred animals are thin-skinned, so are all the short-bred pachydermatous, whereby they endure and mayhap arrive at the manger well as the next. True, even Woodhull's vanity and self-content had everything asked of them in view of his late series of mishaps; but by now he had ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... this magnificent world, it becomes a gross impropriety to divert it from the path of destiny into so futile an effort as hooking up a mere bit of fuss, feathers and fallals. You might just as well hitch up a pair of thoroughbred elephants to a milk wagon. It will do, as Adam says, for the Mollycoddle and the meticulous weakling, but never for a real man worthy of the name. But after all that is no reason why woman should ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... You don't like him; well, maybe — we all have our fancies, of course: Brumby to look at you reckon? Well, no: he's a thoroughbred horse; Sired by a son of old Panic — look at his ears and his head — Lop-eared and Roman-nosed, ain't he? — well, that's how the Panics are bred. Gluttonous, ugly and lazy, rough as a tip-cart to ride, Yet if you offered a sovereign apiece for the hairs on his hide That wouldn't buy ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... Revised and enlarged by the author. The points of the various English and American breeds are thoroughly discussed, and the great advantage of using thoroughbred males clearly shown. The work is equally valuable to the farmer who keeps but few pigs, and to the breeder on an extensive scale. By Joseph Harris. ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... gravity, began its business. The proceedings were important, from the announcement made and the explanation given by the Duke of Newcastle, the minister of war. His bearing was gentlemanly, and there was an air of conciliation about it which bespoke the thoroughbred gentleman. His voice was low, and his manner in speaking ungainly; an awkward and finicking gesture with the right hand below the table, to which he advanced when speaking, gave an idea of pettiness of thought, which his manner in other respects aided. The ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... ferry-house were inexorably shut against them when at last Maitland brought the big machine to a tremulous and panting halt, like that of an over-driven thoroughbred. And though they perforce endured a wait of fully fifteen minutes, neither found aught worth saying; or else the words wherewith fitly to clothe their thoughts were denied them. The girl seemed very weary, and sat with head drooping and hands clasped idly in her lap. To Maitland's ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... sir,' replied Sam. 'These here ones as is below, though, ain't reg'lar thoroughbred sawbones; they're only in trainin'.' 'In other words they're medical students, I ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... the following classes are provided: Percheron, Belgian, Clydesdale, Shire, Suffolk-Punch, Standard Trotter, Thoroughbred, Saddle Horses, Morgan, Hackney, Arabian, Shetland Pony, Welch Pony, Roadsters, Carriage Horses, Ponies in Harness, Draft Horses, Hunters, Jumpers, and Gaited Saddle Horses. Among special events in this section are the following: trot under saddle, one-mile track, one-mile ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... knows, that girl down there is handsome as ever looked through a bridle, and kind as she is handsome. I've seen her now, reg'lar, in my trips down there for quite a while, an' I promise you, she's a thoroughbred, an' high strung, but as even gaited as ever ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... early morning, the merciless cross-light of opposing windows, was gentle with her. Yes, she was young! Moreover, she ate as a person of breeding, and seemed thoroughbred in all ways, if one might use a term so hackneyed. Rank and breeding had been hers; she needed not to claim them, for they told their own story. I wondered what extraordinary history of hers remained untold—what history of hers and mine and of others she might yet assist ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... qualifications of mind and body which would make him a leader at anything he might undertake with unbridled vim and enthusiasm? The fellow who had been so completely misjudged by almost everyone during his early days at the academy, had demonstrated later that he was a thoroughbred, with nerve, brains, courage and the will to step into the front ranks wherever he might be. His one great fault, a fiery and unreasoning temper, he was fighting hard to master, and in this, as in other things, he had already shown that ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... a good many miles out of his way and had argued for a good while, and had finally paid a good many dollars to get the dog that sniffed and wagged at Helen May. The dog was a thoroughbred Airedale and had been taught from its puppyhood to herd goats and fight all intruders upon his flock and to hate Mexicans wherever he met them. He had learned to do both very thoroughly, hence the argument and the dollars necessary before Starr ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... to send a special appeal for a Mission Vessel by the next mail. We cannot get on without one. Vessels built for freight are to the "Southern Cross" as a cart-horse to a thoroughbred steed, and we must have some vessel which can do the work quickly among the multitude of the isles, and many other reasons there are which we seamen only perhaps can judge fully, which make it quite essential to the carrying on this peculiar Mission that we should ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Moscow; but the letter was not written. The letter was a very important one to a friend, asking him to bid for him for a picture of the Madonna which was to be offered for sale at an auction. As he reached the house he saw at the door four big, well-fed, well-groomed, thoroughbred horses harnessed to a carriage, the black lacquer of which glistened in the sun. The coachman was seated on the box in a kaftan, with a silver belt, and the horses were jingling their silver ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... got everything, and it comes without an effort. You sure showed good judgment when you picked Jack Fyfe. He's a thoroughbred." ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... Oddly enough, though he and a man from the Embassy followed Theydon from Waterloo to Forbes's place on Tuesday night, and again to Innesmore Mansions, he didn't recognize him today. Or perhaps he did. I don't know. Talk about the impassive Red Indian! A thoroughbred Chink would give a Pawnee chief one glass eye and a coat of paint, and then beat him hollow at ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... more than you can say for the rag-tag of nobility that paid court to Aline Tarnowsy. He was in love with her, but he was a gentleman about it. A thoroughbred, I say." ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... walking along the road, may possibly advance at a very lagging pace, or may even stand still; but whatever he may do, he is not likely to jump violently over the hedge, or to gallop off at twenty-five miles an hour. It must be a thoroughbred who will go wrong in that grand fashion. And there are intellectual absurdities and extravagances which hold out hopeful promise of noble doings yet: the eagle, which will breast the hurricane yet, may meet various awkward ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... Grandmother, the freezing courtesy of Grandfather, and the silent, eloquent resentment of the girl who saw herself on the verge of desertion by the one person who made life worth living in intermittent spots. He was nervous and overanxious to appear to advantage. The young thoroughbred at the head of the table who had given him a swift all-embracing look, an enigmatical smile and a light laughing question as to whether he would like to be called "Father, papa, Uncle George or what" awed him. He couldn't help feeling like a clumsy ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... all old men need some one to talk to and at, else they fret and grow peevish. Besides, I was anxious to put my young masters to the test. I have a grand piano of good age, with a sounding-board like a fine-tempered fiddle. The instrument, an American one, I handle like a delicate thoroughbred horse, and, as my playing is accomplished by the use of my fingers and not my heels, the piano does ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... almost as much as dogs love the Chief Officer, which is to distraction. He will take the solemn English terrier up on his knee and give me a lecture thereon. This same pup, I learn, is "low"—look at his nose! He is in bad health—just feel his back teeth! Saucy? Yes, certainly, but not a thoroughbred hair on him. He has worms, too, I understand, somewhere inside, and on several occasions during the voyage his bowels needed attention. I, in my utter ignorance of dog-lore, begin to marvel that the animal holds together at all under the stress of these deficiencies. Perhaps the dirt which he ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... the street, helter-skelter on a sweating thoroughbred, came Maharajah Gungadhura Singh just in time to see the back of the carriage as it rumbled in through the gateway and the iron doors clanged behind it. Scowling—altogether too round-shouldered for the martial stock he sprang from—puffy-eyed, ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... more scantily supplied with a mane, while in color he could easily have taken any premium put up for homeliness, being an ashen roan, mottled with flecks and patches of divers hues; but his legs were flat and corded like a racer's, his neck long and thin as a thoroughbred's, his nostrils large, his ears sharply pointed and lively, while the white rings around his eyes hinted at a cross, somewhere in his pedigree, with Arabian blood. A huge, bony, homely-looking horse he was, who drew the deacon ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... visitor complained that though good men wouldn't play, duffers were always keen, and that his side would probably be beaten, Pagett rose to look at his mount, a red, lathered Biloch mare, with a curious lyrelike incurving of the ears. "Quite a little thoroughbred in all other respects," said the M.P., and Orde presented Mr. Reginald Burke, Manager of the Siad and Sialkote ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... magnificent golden chariot, drawn by a great Lion and an immense Tiger, who stood shoulder to shoulder and trotted along as gracefully as a well-matched team of thoroughbred horses. And standing upright within the chariot was a beautiful girl clothed in flowing robes of silver gauze and wearing a jeweled diadem upon her dainty head. She held in one hand the satin ribbons that guided her astonishing team, ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... She was a splendid child—dark-haired, proud of chin, and thoroughbred down to her very toes. And the looks of fondness she threw at that stable-urchin were ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... now, across the reek of San Sebastian, and they wafted him back to England—to boyhood, dreaming of war but innocent of its crimes—to long thoughts, long summer days spent among the unheeding sheep, his dog Rover beside him—an almost thoroughbred collie, and a good dog, too, though his end had been tragic. . . . But why on earth should his thoughts be running on Rover ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... tender, truthful, uncynical, real being never existed. He was a fine sportsman and had won the Grand Military when he was in the Grenadiers, riding one of his own hunters; he was also the second gentleman in England to win the Grand National in 1882, on a thoroughbred called Seaman, who was by no means every one's horse. For other people he cared nothing. "Decidement je n'aime pas les autres," he would have said, to quote my ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... great good sign of her that she could talk about money plainly as she did. It wants a thoroughbred soul to talk just right about money. Most people treat money like a bosom-sin: they follow it earnestly, but do not talk about ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... "A thoroughbred; works between St. Louis and New Orleans. I can't just figure out yet what he is doing up here. I asked him flat out, but he only laughed, and he isn't the sort of man you get very friendly with, some say he has Indian blood in him, so I dropped it. He and the Judge seem pretty thick, and they ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... me how in the days of my boyhood I sometimes saw a queer character known as "Billy Button." He was a sight to behold, for he was decorated with buttons, mostly brass, from top to toe, and presented a sight that was enough to make a thoroughbred quaker swoon. ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... failures; there are geniuses on both sides of the law; and the pariah-dog is always just a bit quicker mentally than the thoroughbred hound who hunts him; indeed, to save his hide he has ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... cowboy, Indian or halfbreed, but fell abashed if a laundress looked at him. Billy Ray, captain of the sorrel troop and the best light rider in Wyoming, was the only man he ever allowed to straddle a beautiful thoroughbred mare he had bought in Kentucky, but, bad hands or good, there wasn't a riding woman at Frayne who hadn't backed Lorna time and again, because to a woman the ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... a thoroughbred, this woman, who walked beside him with the air of a queen who might lose a throne but never the mastery of her own soul. She was far more at ease than he, walking with her hands thrust carelessly ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... without betraying his fictitious origin. The Master of Ravenswood attitudinises a little too much with his Spanish cloak and his slouched hat; but we feel really sorry for him when he disappears in the Kelpie's Flow. And when Scott has to do with his own peasants, with the thoroughbred Presbyterian Scotchman, he can bring intense tragic interest from his homely materials. Douce Davie Deans, distracted between his religious principles and his desire of saving his daughter's life, and seeking relief even in the midst of his agonies by that admirable ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... neck and bosom revealed a skin of the thinnest, whitest texture—quite milk-white, with pink showing through on account of the heat. She had little strong brown hands, and the foot which she put on the dashboard was a very trim and graceful foot like that of a thoroughbred mare, built for flight rather than work, and it swelled beautifully in its grass-stained white stocking above her slender ankle ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... old woman who lived at first in the kitchen of "the other house" and afterward on the home farm. Tall and thin, with big, thoroughbred eyes, and long, straight hair, like a witch, turning gray, she was rather terrifying, but more than anything ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy

... next, happened in the flash of a few breathless seconds. There was the dull thud of hoofs. A scared bay thoroughbred, coming from Godbury, galloping hell for leather, with a dishevelled boy in khaki on his back. The boy had lost his stirrups; he had lost his reins; he had lost his head. He hung half over the saddle and had a death grip on the horse's mane. And the uncontrolled ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... work like a thoroughbred, which he surely was. About ten o'clock two men rode up from a camp to the north, which the boy had passed the day before with the letter. They never went near the dug-out, but straight to the kitchen. That movement showed that they were on to the racket. An hour ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams

... occurred in a bitch. A thoroughbred fox terrier bitch strayed and was discovered a day or two later with her right foreleg broken. The limb was set under chloroform with the help of Roentgen rays, and the dog made a good recovery. Several weeks later she gave birth to a puppy ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... began the world anew. I killed thirty-eight persons during the first two weeks—all of them on account of ancient grudges. I burned a dwelling that interrupted my view. I swindled a widow and some orphans out of their last cow, which is a very good one, though not thoroughbred, I believe. I have also committed scores of crimes, of various kinds, and have enjoyed my work exceedingly, whereas it would formerly have broken my heart and turned my hair gray, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast, He was something like a racehorse undersized, With a touch of Timor pony — three parts thoroughbred at least — And such as are by mountain horsemen prized. He was hard and tough and wiry — just the sort that won't say die — There was courage in his quick impatient tread; And he bore the badge of ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... collecting such a number of opinions, for I find that there is not one of whom I ask what I desire to know, who does not tell me that it is absurd to say that this is the pack-saddle of an ass, and not the caparison of a horse, nay, of a thoroughbred horse; so you must submit, for, in spite of you and your ass, this is a caparison and no pack-saddle, and you have stated and proved your case ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... at last I gave him the word, he gathered himself for one terrific spring; down went his head and he dashed forward with every ounce of strength behind his flying legs. His run was the long, smooth stride of a thoroughbred, and it sent the blood surging through my veins in a wild thrill of exhilaration. Once only I glanced back at Yvette. She was almost at my side. Her hair had loosened and was flying back like a veil behind her head. Tense with excitement, eyes shining, she was heedless of everything ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... sweating like diggers in a sewer, with their collars wilted to rags, watching the great hall-clock with the intentness of a man waiting to be hanged. "Still an hour left before closing time!" a speaker's friends would say. And the great orator, like a wearied horse, but a thoroughbred, would find new energy somewhere and start on another lap, round and round, repeating what he had already said a dozen times, summarizing the two ideas he had managed to produce in four hours of sonorous chatter. With duration as the test of quality, no one on the government ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... can't pass," shouted Vaska Denisov, showing his white teeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which twitched its ears as the bayonets touched it, and snorted, spurting white foam from his bit, tramping the planks of the bridge with his hoofs, and apparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... the wind, perspiring not at all, a thoroughbred, a mount for a prince! At his present rate he should catch up with the Mongolian rear by nightfall; otherwise the pursuit was certainly lost. And then Peter fell to wondering what tactics he would pursue when he reached the band. How could he, alone, armed only with ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... it, too. The General has valuable dogs, thoroughbred, and this is goodness knows what! No coat, no shape. . . . A low creature. And to keep a dog like that! . . . where's the sense of it. If a dog like that were to turn up in Petersburg or Moscow, do you know what would happen? They would not worry about the law, they would strangle it in a ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... appearance and courtly bearing. "No wonder the girl's course has been peculiar," he thought. "She comes from no common stock. If I've ever seen a Southern gentleman, her father's one, and her plump little body is full of hot Southern blood. She's a thoroughbred, and that accounts for her smartness and fearlessness. Where other girls would whine and toady to your face, and be sly and catlike behind your back, she'd look you in the eyes and say all she meant point-blank. I'm glad indeed things are taking their present ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... an idea of taking it and giving it to Sylvia, but they wouldn't have that either,—are just fixing up the old house a bit, and going to summer at the farm, while the old lady will keep on selling eggs the same as ever. Not but what she's a thoroughbred all right, though in a cheap stable. I was down at Vivvy's the day she came to call on Sylvia! Just as quiet and cool, except that her hands in the openwork silk mits shook, as if her son was a duke. I thought there ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... the largest bear in captivity and a thoroughbred Californian Grizzly. No naturalist needs a second glance at him to classify him as Ursus Horribilis. He stands four feet high at the shoulder, measures three feet across the chest, 12 inches between the ears and 18 inches from ear to nose, and his weight is estimated by the best judges ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... And so, thoroughbred that he was, Amedee overcame his emotion and recited, in a thrilling voice, his military rhymes, that rang out like the report ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... filed against the Day of Judgment. '...And not one of them is forgotten before God....' But there was worse than pain of body here. The dull, see-nothing eyes, the heavy-laden head, the awful-stricken mien, told of a tragedy to make the angels weep—an English thoroughbred, not dead, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... replied the incorrigible Strachan. "Bailie Beerie is a brick, and I won't hear a word against him. But, O Fred! if you only knew what you missed last night! Such a splendid woman—by Jove, sir, a thoroughbred angel. A bust like one of Titian's beauties, and the voice of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... windows, and quick decisive footsteps came across the broad piazza, and Peggy Stewart, only daughter and heiress of beautiful "Severndale," entered the room. By her side Tzaritza, her snowy Russian wolfhound, paced with stately mien; a thoroughbred pair indeed. ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... experience and long observation entitle his opinions to much weight—M. Gayot—goes so far as to say that the American trotters really form a distinct race. "The Northern States of the Union," he writes, "have accomplished for the trotter what England has done for the thoroughbred: by selecting the best—that is to say, the swiftest and the most enduring—and by breeding from these, there has been fixed in the very nature of their progeny that wonderful aptitude for speed which," in direct contradiction to the opinion of M. d'Etreilles, he declares to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... their lungs, whatever there might be with their limbs. It was a glorious sight to watch these two horses, representatives of all that was best in the sport on two sides of the world, struggling for supremacy. There was the blue blood of the English thoroughbred in both, although reared and trained under different conditions. Cheering and counter-cheering echoed over the heath as The Duke and Southerly Buster struggled on. Whichever won, the honors were almost equal; this is as it ought to be on a match of ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould

... garrison town, and, with a sudden jerk which threw the smoking horses on their haunches, pulled up at the door of the Waterloo hotel. A beautiful sight it is—a fine, well appointed coach, of what we must now call the ancient fashion, with its smart driver, brilliant harness, and thoroughbred team. Then it is a spectacle pleasing to gods and men, the knowing and instantaneous manner in which the grooms perform their work in leading off the horses, and putting fresh ones to—the rapid diving for carpet-bags and portmanteaus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... was more worth his attention—one of those New York examples, built on lean, rangy, thoroughbred lines—long limbed, small of hand and foot and head, with cinder-blond hair, greyish eyes, a sweet but too generous ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... pitch, and Michael cursed his horse roundly as the willing animal, jumping under the spur, grazed the great gate as he sprang through it. Soon they were all out on the main road, where the thoroughbred that carried a double burden settled down into a long swinging stride that fairly devoured the distance, league ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... burn or rankle or corrode are not the words to stimulate. No doubt Socrates said that he was the gadfly of the State and stung that noble animal into action, but what may be good for a sluggish old coach-horse is not necessarily good for a thoroughbred colt with ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... to pronounce on one at a considerable distance. The hair of an Indian is also strikingly different from that of the whites. It is always black and straight, hangs loose and looks as if it were [27] oiled. There is a considerable resemblance in appearance, between it and the glossy black mane of a thoroughbred horse; though ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... is doing with him?" Gurdon said. "At any rate, she is English enough. I never saw a woman with a more thoroughbred air. She ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... fearless eyes. It was the sensitive head of a free woman—a maid of windy hill-sides and of silent forests. He saw the faint quiver of the nostril, and he thought of the tremor that twitches the dainty muzzles of thoroughbred dogs afield. It was in her, the mystery and passion of the forest, and he saw it and dropped his eyes to the fish swinging from ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... a thoroughbred Northerner, having first opened his eyes in Illinois. He came to New Mexico just prior to the acquisition of the territory by the United States prior to the granting of the ranch then known as ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... to him near the fire on a low chair. There was a large shaded lamp in the room, but it was on a rather distant table. He saw Beatrice's face by the firelight and her narrow thoroughbred figure in a dark dress. And the firelight, he thought, gave to both face and figure a sort of strange beauty that was sad, and that had something of the strangeness and the beauty of those gold and red ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... Restaud was tall and gracefully made; she had one of the prettiest figures in Paris. Imagine a pair of great dark eyes, a magnificently moulded hand, a shapely foot. There was a fiery energy in her movements; the Marquis de Ronquerolles had called her "a thoroughbred," "a pure pedigree," these figures of speech have replaced the "heavenly angel" and Ossianic nomenclature; the old mythology of love is extinct, doomed to perish by modern dandyism. But for Rastignac, Mme. Anastasie de Restaud was the woman for whom he had sighed. He had contrived to write ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... was at last effected. And his hatred was likely to be deadly. A man with a shrewd, vivid face, cleanly cut features and a restless eye; wearing a close-fitting skull cap, which gave him something the lock of a monk, but with the thoroughbred and facile demeanour of one familiar with the world; stealthy, smooth, and cruel, a man coldly intellectual, who feared no one, loved but few, and never forgot or forgave; Francis d'Aerssens, devoured by ambition and burning with revenge, was a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... There was also the Litany, which drove him into the air again, much to Mrs. Failing's delight. She enjoyed this sort of thing. It amused her when her Protege left the pew, looking bored, athletic, and dishevelled, and groping most obviously for his pipe. She liked to keep a thoroughbred pagan to shock people. "He's gone to worship Nature," she whispered. Rickie did not look up. "Don't you think he's charming?" ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... found himself by the side of Elizabeth, he came to the conclusion that a short time longer would make but little difference, and for that time, at all events, he would enjoy her society, while he might also take a few more gallops on Master Pearson's thoroughbred horses. He had not forgotten Alethea, however, and he nattered himself that he was as true in his allegiance to her as he ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... the garrison was on the verge of starvation, while the officers' diet was merely threatened with curtailment. Witnesses state that private soldiers were seen actually to fall in the streets from lack of nourishment. The officers are reported to have retained their private thoroughbred riding horses until the day before the surrender, when 2,000 of them were killed to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Russians. A Russian officer of high rank informed me that when he entered the town hundreds of these bodies of beautiful thoroughbred horses were ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... is the daily lot of another habitue of the streets of this busy capital - large, pugnacious-looking rams, that occupy pretty much the same position in Turkish sporting circles that thoroughbred bull-dogs do in England, being kept by young Turks solely on account of their combative propensities and the facilities thereby afforded for gambling on the prowess of their favorite animals. At all hours of the day and evening the Constantinople sport may be met on the streets ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... say she did it, old top. I'm merely pointing out that it's possible she did. Point of fact your friend made a hit with me. I'd say she's a game little thoroughbred." ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... having been by these means promoted, Mr. Smangle proceeded to entertain his hearers with a relation of divers romantic adventures in which he had been from time to time engaged, involving various interesting anecdotes of a thoroughbred horse, and a magnificent Jewess, both of surpassing beauty, and much coveted by the nobility and gentry ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... prey. They ransacked Jake Benton's tent and demanded that he reveal the whereabouts of the preacher. Jake flatly refused. Except for his trembling, he stood like a stone wall and faced that score of masked men, thirsty for righteous blood. Really they appeared as so many thoroughbred devils right from the pit. They were masked in a way, not only to conceal their identity, but in a way to make them appear as hideous as possible. The leader of the mob shouted, "Jake Benton, you sanctified hypocrite, if you don't tell us where that preacher is we'll ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison

... Constance was a thoroughbred and played her part flawlessly. Her treatment by her employer left nothing to be desired; the amusing little grandfather appealed to her now and then with unmistakable liking, and the smiles that passed between her and Pierrette were evidence of the ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson

... in mid-air. Could she ever forget that moment of agony on the stairs when she thought he was going to fail her—that he was ashamed, and a coward! But what a thoroughbred he had been! She could better appreciate now the courage it ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... nature but to jocky amateurs in the sale of her specimens! Nor is the man called antiquaro in Italy, a whit a better representative of him whom we so designate, than is the soi-disant professor of taxidermy and seller of embalmed pole-cats of our own naturalist. Not that our thoroughbred antiquary at home stands high in our classification of English citizens. It was not as a reward for tracing sites, by following the vestiges of dry rubbish near a place ending in chester, that the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... cut off his traces." Said Al-Abbas, "And what hath Al-Akil done with King Zuhayr?" They replied. "He engaged for himself that he would bring the King every year a thousand dinars and a thousand she-camels, besides a thousand head of thoroughbred steeds and two hundred black slaves and fifty hand-maids; but it hath reached the king that Al-Akil purposeth to give naught of this; wherefore he is minded to go to him. So hasten thou with us, ere the King be wroth with thee and with us." Then said Al-Abbas to them, "O youths, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... locked up his precious stones in iron chests, delivered his palaces, vineyards, ships and servants into the keeping of his steward, gave his women to the protection of the gods, and gathered his slaves round him. He rode out of the town on a thoroughbred steed, he wore soft, bright-coloured garments adorned with gold and jewels, his scimitar at his side, and waving feathers of rare birds in his hat. A troop of servants accompanied him, and by his side rode Moors ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... my trousers," expostulated Mr. Green, who was by no means partial to the "play" of a thoroughbred terrier. ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... returned from his chase of the previous night, he went directly to the stable, there to find that the Indians had made off with a thoroughbred, and Betty's pony. Colonel Zane was furious, not on account of the value of the horses, but because Bess was his favorite bay, and Betty loved nothing more than her pony Madcap. To have such a march stolen on him after he had heard and seen the thieves was indeed hard. High ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... claim to a thoroughbred's points, the roan was as much a veteran of the forces as his groom, with all a veteran's ability to accept and enjoy small favors of the immediate present without speculating too much concerning the future. He blew gustily in pleasure under the attention and began to sample a convenient ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... him with Scotch snuff and put him away in the bureau till fall. He would then come out bright and chipper. He was always ready to enter into the chase with all the chic and embonpoint of a regular Kenosha, and nothing pleased him better than to be about eight miles in advance of my thoroughbred pack in full cry, scampering 'cross country, while stretching back a few miles behind the dogs followed a pale young man and his financier, each riding a horse that had sat down too hard on its tail some time and driven it into his system about ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... he is," said Barnes. "I might say a thoroughbred. I hate like poison to let him out to a stranger, but I let you take him because I see ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster

... The intercrossing of the several aboriginal wild stocks, and of the subsequently formed races, has probably increased the total number of breeds, and, as we shall presently see, has greatly modified some of them. But we cannot explain by crossing the origin of such extreme forms as thoroughbred greyhounds, bloodhounds, bulldogs, Blenheim spaniels, terriers, pugs, etc., unless we believe that forms equally or more strongly characterised in these different respects once existed in nature. But hardly any one has been bold enough to suppose that such unnatural ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... retired to roost mattered not to his accuser. The turkey had developed a convenient habit of gobbling under the window whenever emotion forced the Colonel to seek a vent in stern commands. Uncle Noah crossed to the window and commanded Job to be silent. Mrs. Fairfax, southern gentlewoman and thoroughbred from tip to toe, quivered proudly, and, as Uncle Noah returned, bade him serve the supper in tones as well ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple

... than might have been expected. Perhaps he was used to the sang-froid, perhaps he rather liked it, believing it, in his ignorance, a distinctive mark of class, not knowing—how should he?—that, once excited, these thoroughbred ones are, of all racers, the least ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... the midst of the melee, a great crash and much turning, twisting, and sawing of bits, and then all dashed the other way, the white girth in the lead, and the boy's lips fell apart in wonder. A black thoroughbred was making a wide sweep, an iron-gray was cutting in behind, and all were sweeping toward him. Far ahead of them he saw a frightened rabbit streaking through the weeds. As it passed him the lad gave a yell, dug his heels into the old mare, and himself swept down the pike, drawing his ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... are astonished at his luck! The man of success is a stone; there are a number of eggs who are bent on dancing in the same cotillon with him; they think he has great luck to last through to such music! The man of success is a thoroughbred; his sire won a Derby; all the drayhorses believe that, when ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... damned Scotchmen when they come, though I hope that you will think kindly of us when you get to your own country. Yes, yes, you shall go, and what is more, you may take my best horse to ride away on, the thoroughbred schimmel, and my new black felt hat that I bought in the dorp. There, that is done with, praise be to God, and I am going out, for this place is so thick with smoke that I can't see my own hand," and he rose to go, adding that if the two Scotchmen ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... their two days' journey through the May woods and meadows, a little barking dog sprung out at them, frightening Kate's thoroughbred until it almost threw her. Kildare struck furiously at the dog, and missed; struck again, leaped from his horse, and pursued it, striking and kicking, so that the terrified creature ran for its life, and Kate cried out, "Stop, Basil, stop. What are ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse, Cambridge, England, 1905. A standard work, though many of its conclusions are disputed, especially by Lady Wentworth in her Thoroughbred Racing Stock ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... "I have my doubts. And, after all, is it worth while to take so much trouble with the Duchess? Between ourselves a man of my stamp ought first to take her in hand and break her in; I would make a charming woman of her; she is a thoroughbred; whereas, you two left to yourselves will never get beyond the A B C. But you are in love with her, and just now you might not perhaps share my views on this subject——. A pleasant time to you, my children," added Ronquerolles, after a pause. Then with a laugh: "I have ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... afternoon she sat there scheming, pondering, a veiled sparkle playing under her half-closed lids. She saw him returning in the last lingering sun rays, leading his saddled horse down to the brook, and stand there, one arm flung across the crupper, while the horse drank and shook his thoroughbred head and lipped the tender foliage that overhung the water. There was the horse she required! She ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers

... like this there is, of course, the incessant entry and exit of carts, waggons, traps, gigs, four-wheels, and a large number of private carriages. The number of private carriages is, indeed, very remarkable, as also the succession of gentlemen on thoroughbred horses—a proof of the number of resident gentry in the neighbourhood, and of its general prosperity. Cart-horses furbished up for sale, with straw-bound tails and glistening skins; 'baaing' flocks of sheep; squeaking pigs; bullocks with their heads held ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... isn't very far behind and gets a dig in too. There are doves and pigeons galore, and just before we came to Dharwar across a clear space there cantered a whole family circle of large monkeys! What a lovely action they have, between a thoroughbred's and a man's. They wore yellowish beards and black faces and black ends to their tails, which they carry high with a droop at ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... races, and who, not typical of either, combined in her features and figure distinguishing merits of both. It is true that there is a particular pleasure which is roused in us only by the absolutely typical—the completely thoroughbred person or thing. It may be a pleasure not caused by beauty, and it may be very keen, nevertheless. When it is combined with the joy roused in us by all beauty, it is a very pure emotion of exceptional ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... actress woman was here last fall,—that friend of Harry Squires, I mean,—every derned dog in town has turned out to be related some way or other to a thoroughbred animal in some other city," said Alf. "Why, even that mangy shepherd dog of Deacon Rank's—accordin' to Mrs. Rank—is a direct descendant of two of the finest Boston terriers that ever came out of Boston. She told me so herself, but, of course, I ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... you suppose I'd know the step of any horse for ours? And though Nimrod is yours now I know him like—like a brother. Don't I, dear fellow?" and from Ninian's clasp she ran to embrace the down-bent head of the thoroughbred. ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... in cold weather. In their dress, they are precisely like our sailors. In addition to these Islanders, the Loriotte had two English sailors, who acted as boatswains over the Islanders, and took care of the rigging. One of them I shall always remember as the best specimen of the thoroughbred English sailor that I ever saw. He had been to sea from a boy, having served a regular apprenticeship of seven years, as English sailors are obliged to do, and was then about four or five and twenty. He was tall; but you only ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... good horse—I have often heard you say so. You love a good horse in spite of the fact that you once harnessed Colonel Jack Chinn's thoroughbred saddle animal to a trap, the subsequent events producing a better story than any you will find in these pages. Nevertheless, my dear sir, they are respectfully, even firmly dedicated ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan

... I was fully conscious of the nice distinction between white and white about which the people of my country are so jealously exacting; and my dark origin always formed a barrier between me and my thoroughbred sisters. Whenever Don Benigno, or his family, addressed me as 'Mulatica,' 'Chinita,' or 'Negrita,' I sometimes thought of the literal meaning of ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... father decided upon an experiment. He had raised his boy right, and trained him for the race of life, and now The Laird felt that, like a thoroughbred horse, his son faced the barrier. Would he make the run, or would he, in the parlance of the sporting world, "dog it?" Would his four years at a great American university make of him a better man, or would he degenerate into a snob and ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... these thoroughbred weeds, without a back that you can fit with to anything bigger than a racing saddle; and I've always maintained the same thing. A bit of blood may do very well for young gentlemen, but to go and put a gentleman of ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... proved by his winking knowingly whenever he delivered himself of a sentiment; a habit that he had most probably contracted, in early youth, at Stunin'tun, for it seemed to be quite as inveterate as it was thoroughbred. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... he began. "Miss Della Wetherby has asked me to give her and her sister a 'character,' which I am very glad to do. I have known the Wetherby girls from babyhood. They come from a fine old family, and are thoroughbred gentlewomen. You need ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... an interpreter whom they had engaged in the Indian country, they reached at last the designated place and found their sister. But alas! how changed! Instead of the fair-haired and laughing girl, the picture yet living in their imagination, they found her an aged and thoroughbred squaw in everything but complexion. She was sitting when they entered her lodge, composed of two large log-houses connected by a shed, with her two daughters, the one about twenty-three years old, and the other about ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... thoroughbred strain which the Basque woman had given her grandson that enabled Steve to be master of his house even if he knew very little of what it was all about. It was fortunate for his peace of mind—and pocketbook—that Beatrice had accepted the general rumour of a goat-tending ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... you that I have not associated you with the crime, Colonel," said he. "The real murderer is standing immediately behind you." He stepped past and laid his hand upon the glossy neck of the thoroughbred. ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... He came near enough to get a glimpse of the cage, and there read a placard which announced that "The blue ribbon and gold medal of the Knickerbocker High Society Cat and Pet Show" had been awarded to the "thoroughbred, pedigreed Royal Analostan, imported and exhibited by J. Malee, Esq., the well-known fancier. (Not for sale.)" Jap caught his breath and stared again. Yes, surely; there, high in a gilded cage, on velvet cushions, with four policemen for guards, her fur ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... the comment: "It is like tying together the legs of a thoroughbred, so that it is unable to gallop." One would naturally think of "the ruler" in this passage as being at home, and trying to direct the movements of his army from a distance. But the commentators understand just the reverse, and quote the saying of T'ai Kung: "A kingdom should ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu

... the perfection of stride and power. Her knees across the pan were wide, the cannon-bone below them short and thin; the pasterns long and sloping; her hoofs round, dark, shiny, and well set on. Her mane was a shade darker than her coat, fine and thin, as a thoroughbred's always is whose blood is without taint or cross. Her ear was thin, sharply pointed, delicately curved, nearly black around the borders, and as tremulous as the leaves of an aspen. Her neck rose from the withers to the head in ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray

... a tongue like a flag, looked in his man's eyes, and vanished, running as only the thoroughbred wolf-hound can run. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... that crowned her head. Well-groomed and graceful, she sat straight and sure upon the box, her gloved hand grasping the yellow reins firmly and confidently. Miss Cable looked neither to right nor to left, but at the tips of her thoroughbred's ears. Slender and tall and very aristocratic she appeared, her profile alone visible to ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... look down upon the climbers, and the climbers in turn upon the creepers; for who of us does not felicitate himself upon his independence, such as it is, or such as he imagines it to be? But if independence is indeed a boon,—and I, for one, am too thoroughbred a New Englander ever to doubt it,—it is not the only good, nor even the highest. The nettle, standing straight and prim, asking no favors of anybody, may rail at the grape-vine, which must lay ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... talking; Harkless answering "Yes" and "No" at random. The woodland-spiced air was like champagne to him; the road under foot so elastic and springy that he felt like a thoroughbred before a race; he wanted to lift his foot knee-high at every step, he had so much energy to spare. In the midst of a speech of Lige's about the look of the wheat he suddenly gave out a sigh so deep, so heartfelt, so vibrant, so profound, that Willetts ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... his own doorway, with the defence thus strangely secured in his hand; and, looking up the moon-lighted road, sees Mr. BUMSTEAD, in the sun-bonnet, leaping high, at short intervals, over the numerous adders and cobras on his homeward way, like a thoroughbred hurdle-racer. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various

... as she made this assertion, shaking her head in a bronco gesture which dashed the dark hair from her eyes and made her look like an unbroken thoroughbred. Never in all his life, even in the magazine pictures of stage beauties which form a conspicuous mural decoration in those parts, had Creede seen a woman half so charming, but even in his ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge



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