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Jab   /dʒæb/   Listen
Jab

noun
1.
A sharp hand gesture (resembling a blow).  Synonyms: jabbing, poke, poking, thrust, thrusting.  "He made a thrusting motion with his fist"
2.
A quick short straight punch.
3.
The act of touching someone suddenly with your finger or elbow.  Synonym: dig.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Jab" Quotes from Famous Books



... and bundles out after them, holloaing like a regiment. One or two turned, and there was a bit of a barney. I stuck one chap, and was just going to stick another—a fellow in blue jumping around in a queer kind of way—when all of a sudden he gave a jab in the back to one ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... "'Then jab two forked sticks in the ground ten feet apart, this side of the brook,' sais you, 'and clap a pole across atween the forks. Is ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... were all more or less together. There were people about constantly and it would seem as if there was small opportunity for anyone to inflict the scratch which caused her death. I don't mean that it would have been impossible to prick her. I mean that she would have felt the jab of the point. In all likelihood she would have cried out and glanced around. Take a needle yourself, sometime, Walter, and try to duplicate the scratch on your own arm in such a way that you would ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... won't hunt any," agreed Bunny, who did not want to go voyaging alone. "But if any come after us you'll want me to jab 'em with a sharp stick and drive 'em away, ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... But they had me guessing what it was all about. I couldn't make out why the old chap had to use up all the dago words in the box just to tell who was the lady that had the private view. Once in a while the Boss would jab in a question, and then old Vincenzo would work his jaw all the faster. When it was all over the Boss looks at me as pleased as though he'd got money ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... yer?" screamed McGuire. "Did I ever doublecross yer? Did I ask you to bring me here? Drive me out to your camps if you wanter; or stick a knife in me and save trouble. Ride! I can't lift my feet. I couldn't sidestep a jab from a five-year-old kid. That's what your d—d ranch has done for me. There's nothing to eat, nothing to see, and nobody to talk to but a lot of Reubens who don't know a punching ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... she knew, but he did not stop to ask; his words rushed out; it was as if the jab of a lancet had opened a hidden wound: "I never cared a copper for her. Never! But—it happened. I was angry about something, and,—Oh, I'm not excusing myself. There isn't any excuse! But I met her, and ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... While halting to adjust our lines, which had to be done every few paces, Colonel Rutherford and myself were reconnoitering in front, and discovered a white object a few feet away. The men saw it, too, and thought it a sheep. The Colonel advanced and gave it a slight jab with his sword. In a moment a white blanket was thrown off, and there lay, as nicely coiled up as little pigs, two of the Yankee sentinels. They threw up their hands in a dazed kind of way, and to our whispered threats and uplifted swords, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... "Rally on the colors!" I could see them coming—all that was left of them—fighting their way through the press, cleaving the mass with their blows as the prow of a ship cuts the sea. With one vicious jab of the spur I led them, a thin wedge of tempered gray steel, battering, gouging, rending a passage into that solid blue wall. Inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, slashing madly with our broken sabres, battling as men crazed with lust of blood, ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... guests, still speak of it with awe; and the next week's Box of Curios said of it editorially: "And while our little Yokohama police know much of ju-jitsu, they found that they had still something to learn of the short jab to the ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... off also, and lighting a half-consumed cigarette. He had been wearing it behind his ear, I believe, ever since the charge. Against this occasion. He'd kept close up to me all the time, I realised. And then old Park turned up very cheerful with a weak bayonet jab in his forearm that he wanted me to rebandage. It was good to see ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... sudden horror, he stood still. He was in love! With nothing done with everything before him! He was going to bow down to a face! The flicker of the dresses was no longer visible. He would not be fettered, he would stamp it out! He turned away; but with each step, something seemed to jab at his heart. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... brownness and slimness, too. Her pale hair was always falling from under her fillet of worn black velvet (with the dingy under side of the velvet showing curled up at the edges). A lock would tangle in front of her eyes, and she would impatiently shove it back with a jab of her thin rough hands, never stopping in her machine-gun ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... forward in a short jab that caught her dead center in the plexus below the ribs. Her breath caught in one strangled gasp and her eyes went glassy. She swayed stiffly in half-paralysis. My other hand came up, closing as it rose, until it became a fist that connected in a shoulder-jarring wallop on ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... eating, do not comb your moustache with your fork. By all means do not comb your moustache with the fork of another. It is better to refrain altogether from combing the moustache with a fork while traveling, for the motion of the train might jab the fork into your ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... Wayne. The captain slammed his fist forward, sending it crashing into Boggs's midsection. The sergeant came back with a jab to the stomach that pushed Wayne backward. Again the deadly needles flicked up from the ground, but they ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance

... of the platforms are pieces of wood belonging to the game of Matador—that splendid and very educational construction game, hailing, I believe, from Hungary. There is also, I regret to say, a blatant advertisement of Jab's "Hair Color," showing the hair. (In the photograph the hair does not come out very plainly.) This is by G. P. W., who seems marked out by destiny to be the advertisement-writer of the next generation. He spends much ...
— Floor Games; a companion volume to "Little Wars" • H. G. Wells

... built to a height of eight feet. It is a solid square erection which ought to stand a good deal of weathering, and on top we have placed a bamboo pole with a flag, making the total height twenty-five feet. Building the cairn was a fine warming jab, but the ice on our whiskers often took some ten minutes thawing out. To-morrow we hope to lay out the cairns to the westward, and then to shape ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... how to Jab and Counter and Upper-Cut and Bore in with the Left and Play for the Wind. He had Lumps on his Arms and a good Pair of Shoulders, and every one in the Club told him he had the makings of a World-Beater. He used ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade

... When the mahout or driver wants the elephant to do something, he jabs one of the goads into his hide—sometimes one and sometimes the other, and at different places on the neck, under the ears, and on top of the head, and somehow or another the elephant understands what a jab in a particular place means and obeys cheerfully like the great, good-natured beast that he is. I have never been able to understand the system. Elephant ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... in again with the grim purpose of discovering just how strong his antagonist was. Corrigan evaded a stiff left jab intended for his chin, and his own right cross missed as Trevison ducked into a clinch. With arms locked they strained, legs braced, their lungs heaving as ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... sideways, with affected complacency. He flourished, in his trembling hand, on the end of a forearm no thicker than a walking-stick, a shining pair of scissors which he tried before my very eyes to jab ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... breath-expelling shock of the jab in his side and got himself once more in a vertical position, both girl and priest were gone. He looked this way and that, rapidly becoming sober, and beginning to wonder how the thing could have happened so easily. His ribs felt ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... impressionable soldier who runs the gamut of this war's "experience"! And there will not be too many of our soldier-workmen returning to civil life without having had at least a taste of everything. The embryo Guardsman who sticks his bayonet into a sack, be he never so unimaginative, with each jab of that bayonet pictures dimly the body of a "Hun," and gets used to the sensation of spitting it. On every long march there comes a time that may last hours when the recruit feels done up, and yet has to go on "sticking it." Never a day passes, all through his service, without some moment when ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... them. I went out and examined the men. One had no less than five bullet-holes in him and yet seemed remarkably cheerful. Two others had single shots of a rather more dangerous nature. I am no surgeon, and it was manifestly impossible for me to jab into their wounds with my hunting-knife in the hope of extracting the bullets. I found, however, some corrosive sublimate tabloids in my leather medicine case. These I dissolved, and bathed the wounds with the mixture to stop suppuration. ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... was nobody on that train who cared an empty sardine-can for the doctor's failures or feelings. Nobody wanted to jab him in the ribs; nobody wanted to hear his complaint. He was wise enough to know it, in a way. So he kept to himself, pulling his shoulders up in soldierly fashion when he passed Agnes Horton's place, or when he felt that she ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... Bud and I decided that it was May Irwin. We were mistaken, though, as Irwin has this woman lashed to the mast at any time or place. As soon as Mike the Dago espied the dame it was all off. He rushed and drove a straight-arm jab, which had it reached would have given him the purse. But shifty Sadie wasn't there. She ducked, side-stepped, and landed a clever half-arm hook, which seemed to stun the big fellow. They clinched, and swayed back and forth, growling continually, while the orchestra played ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... read the directions twice, sweating. Emergencies only—this is. One dose only to be given and if patient is not in good health use—never mind that. I fit on the longest needle and jab it through the suit, at the back of the thigh, as far towards the knee-joint as I can get because the suit is thinner. Half one side, ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell

... Craney, I arrest you for embezzlement." And the king looked him over calm and benevolent. He says, "You don't mean it! Better be careful. Why, the trouble is, the army ain't really disciplined yet. They'd jab you full of holes, when I wasn't looking, if they caught your idea. Better come and have tea. I didn't expect you'd be along ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton

... that stuff! You're as much to blame as anybody," snapped the man nearest him, and gave the croaker a vicious jab with his elbow. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... in slippered yellow. Electric signs gleam out along the shop fronts, following each other. They grow, and grow, and blow into patterns of fire-flowers as the sky fades. Trades scream in spots of light at the unruffled night. Twinkle, jab, snap, that means a new play; and over the way: plop, drop, quiver, is the sidelong sliver of a watchmaker's sign with its length on another street. A gigantic mug of beer effervesces to the atmosphere over a tall building, but the ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... a dexterous jab of his cue at the pool-balls—"then, in your estimation, an author is a thing to be led about by the nose by the beings he selects for use ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs

... was at the window whirling his trusty Toledo about his head, lopping ears and noses from the red renegades who had followed in the track of the first. In the scrimmage he received another jab in the right eye with a fist. When day dawned it was discovered, with joy, that the evil eye was darkened—and forever. The people trusted him once more. Finding that he was no longer an object of dread, his voice became kinder, his manner more gentle. ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... swelled up en my eyes war closed foh days. After missing de baby en tending ter de uther chilluns all de day an night wen I put de baby ter bed I bed ter knit two round ebery night en would be sleepy en my missus would reach ober en jab a pin in me to keep me awake. Now dat is what I calls ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... I know not how many Neoterics. [1005]"This question of the immortality of the soul, is diversely and wonderfully impugned and disputed, especially among the Italians of late," saith Jab. Colerus, lib. de immort. animae, cap. 1. The popes themselves have doubted of it: Leo Decimus, that Epicurean pope, as [1006]some record of him, caused this question to be discussed pro and con before ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... quite dry by this time, although much wrinkled and discolored by the penetrating fog, so at once they prepared to follow the Pinkies. The two men walked on either side of them, holding the pointed sticks ready to jab them if they attempted to escape, and the two women followed in the rear, also ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum

... gasped. Then she laughed. Then she walked to her dressing-table and picked up a long hatpin. "Will you kindly jab this into me?" she said. "I'm having ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... mean, all right," said Spider; "and I guess I know my weakness, as well as anybody. To prove that I want to do the right thing, I'm going to fix it up with my mate to give me a jab with this pin, every time he gets a notion in ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... around from penetrating into the tiniest opening in our clothes. The blizzard blinded and baffled us, forcing us always to turn our faces from it. The stinging wind cut and slashed our cheeks like the constant jab of ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... foot movement, kid, like a baby hippopotamus trying to side-step a jab from a humming-bird. And you hold yourself like a truck driver having his picture taken in a Third Avenue photograph gallery. And you haven't got any method or style. And your knees are about as limber as a couple of Yale pass-keys. And ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... bandaged," exclaimed Mrs. Hornblower, surveying her injured arm in the mirror with a not unnatural annoyance. "A little prick is to be expected now and then when you're dress-making, but this was a regular jab. I don't know what ails you, Persis. Looks like your mind must have ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... put up a really splendid guard as he advanced warily upon the freshman. Dick's guard, at the outset, was not as good. They feinted for two or three passes, then Ripley let out a short-arm jab that caught Dick Prescott on the end of the nose. ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... on his knees and began to help him, and together they soon had the injured spot revealed to their anxious eyes. They beheld a reddish place, with a center like a pin jab, but not a drop ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... independent woman, I was on a newspaper. I know lots of things that are utterly strange to you, because, in all probability, you never ran a woman's department. If you want soup, you must boil meat slowly, and if you want meat, you must boil it rapidly, and if dough sticks to a broom straw when you jab it into a cake, ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed

... got the jab in my rough ol' heart, an' I got it a-plenty, too, A center shot from a pair o' eyes of the winninest sort o' blue, An' I ride the ranges a-sighin' sighs, as cranky as a locoed steer— A durned heap worse ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various

... an old trick, but one seldom tried. This hair came from the tail of a white horse. It was threaded into a long, keen needle. The fellow who got at your horse yesterday was an expert. With one jab of that needle he passed the hair through the flesh just back of this cord. It went in at one side, and came out on the other. After that, while he was pretending to look at the horse's feet, he clipped off the ends, and the hair was left in there. It could remain a day or so without doing any ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... which was eloquent of a woman's sore need and complete trust. He stepped forward to meet the Count, a stoutly built, heavy man, who had reckoned on closing with an undersized Frenchman. There was no time to rectify mistakes. Curtis met his rival's onset with a beautiful half-arm jab on the nose. Scientifically, it was perfect, since the blow was delivered at the back of the Count's head with complete disregard of intervening tissues, and its recipient went down like one of those pins which succumbed so regularly to the ball bowled ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... near to a wild cat as anything else that comes handy by way of illustration. Two legs and one arm he twined and twisted around Hawkeye's legs; and the other arm, with a hard and knotty fist on the end of it, caught the conductor a wicked jab in the region of the bottom button of the vest. The brass button peeled the skin off Toddles' knuckles, but the jab doubled the conductor forward, and coincident with Hawkeye's winded grunt, the lantern in his hand sailed ceilingwards, crashed into the center lamps ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... lightning to dodge a deadly blow from its bony tail. Again and again they felt the horrifying brush of the killer's fins or armor-tough hide. By this time, Mel had revived. Repeatedly the two boys dived to jab and slash at the shark's ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton

... and him and church doings, and it wasn't purty. And he says if he was as deep in eternal fire as what he now is in rain-water, and every fish that nibbles at his toes was a preacher with a red-hot pitchfork a-jabbing at him, they could jab till the hull hereafter turned into snow afore he'd ever sign nothing a man like Mr. Cartwright give him to sign. Hank was stubborner than any mule he ever nailed shoes onto, and proud of being that stubborn. That town was a awful religious town, and Hank he knowed he was called the ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis

... beating, for he was, indeed, a rare sport. However, he would have to retaliate. The feud must go on. Unless he could mix a modicum of fun with his profits, J. Augustus would not have regarded the fight worth while, so accordingly he kept his eyes and his ears open for a handy weapon with which to jab Cappy through that same old rift in his armor—his passion for a large profit through an adroit and ingenious deal in a commodity where even a very modest profit was not discernible to ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... face was gone. Cheever had bent his neck just enough to escape the fist. He met the weight of Dyckman's rush with all his own weight in a short-arm jab that rocked Dyckman's whole frame and crumpled the white cuirass ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... to make that sensitive young man feel something—" she confided to Jacques. A moment later she had pulled over a sansculotte's bayonet, with which she executed a neat jab into Picard's anatomy. ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... hands on the crook of his cane, was staring irascibly at the five-foot television screen that dominated the room. On the screen, a news commentator was summarizing the day's happenings. Every thirty seconds or so, Gramps would jab the floor with his cane-tip and shout, "Hell, we did that a hundred ...
— The Big Trip Up Yonder • Kurt Vonnegut

... them get away!" yelled Ham Spink, and made a jab for Snap. But just then the doctor's son hit out desperately and the rich youth received a blow in the mouth that loosened two teeth and caused him ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill

... on this man. One night he asked me if I could tell him how to fix a key so that it would not 'break,' even if the circuit-breaker was open, and also so that it could not be easily detected. I told him to jab a penful of ink on the platinum points, as there was sugar enough to make it sufficiently thick to hold up when the operator tried to break—the current still going through the ink so that he could ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... anger. I forgot the muzzle of the pistol pressed against my side, and the menacing threat in Kirby's low voice. The face of the man was indistinct, a mere outline, but the swift impulse to strike at it was irresistible, and I let him have the blow—a straight-arm jab to the jaw. My clinched knuckles crunched against the flesh, and he reeled back, kept from falling only by the support of the deckhouse. There was no report of a weapon, no outcry, yet, before I could strike again, I was suddenly gripped from behind by ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... he said, "getting a jab in the wrist, to have you looking after me like this. I wonder if you realize that you saved my ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... the audience, while Parr charged on into Shanklin. His impact interrupted the words "I take this woman" just after the appropriate syllable "wo". As once before with Ling, Parr dusted Shanklin's jaw with his fist, followed with a digging jab to the solar plexus, and swung again to the jaw. Shanklin tottered, reeled back, and ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman

... gasped Tom through his instrument, and, seeing his chance, he gave another jab to the devil fish attacking him. Koku, too, was standing up well under the attack of the monster he had first wounded. Ned, watching his chance, got in several blows, first at one and then at the other of the huge creatures. The third devil fish, which had not been wounded, had ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton

... his own shoulder, and not eight inches away from Jimmie's leering jowl, closed into a very hard fist. Before the tough knew what had hit him that nearby fist had sent him reeling into the gutter from a short shoulder jab, which had behind it every ounce of weight in the ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... child! Sorry, old girl, but I'm in training. Will you order broiled steak and pale ale for me? I'm going to box Tricky Sal, the coloured girl-boxer from the Other Side. Wonder how she'll like my upper-cut and left-hand jab! Isn't it glorious, people? I've got my ambition! I'm a White Hope! See if we don't fill the Colidrome at our Grand ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various

... sacrilegiously. "More than his ringlets tangled here this morning," with a final jab of the strongest variety of golden bone hair-pin. "Aunt Mary always said my mood (she meant temper) affected my hair. And I am sure she was always ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... of extraordinary difficulty, there in those dense and dim-lit thickets, felling a tall spruce, limbing it out and cutting it into three sections. But Stern attacked it like a demon. Now and again he stopped to listen or to jab tile suspended wolf with ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... out with the point of the knife. Then cut down each side of the skin between the sections so as to separate the pulp from the skin. Around the edge next to the outside skin, cut the pulp in each section with a single jab of the knife, taking care not to cut the skin between the sections. The entire pulp of each section, which will be found to be loose on both sides and ends if the cutting is correctly done, can then be readily ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... to remove himself, but no man worthy of the name can decline to come to the rescue of womanhood in distress. To twist the lady's upper lid back and peer into it and jab at it with the corner of his handkerchief was the only course open to him. His conduct may be classed as not merely blameless but definitely praiseworthy. King Arthur's knights used to do this sort of thing all the ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... that Robert Turold did not put down his pen voluntarily," he said. "He stopped involuntarily, in the midst of a word. That suggests great surprise or sudden shock. The letter 'e' in the word 'clear' terminates in a sprawling dash and a jab from the nib which has almost pierced the paper. Could the unexpected appearance of his daughter have startled him in that fashion? It rather suggests that somebody sprang on him unawares, surprising him so much that he almost stuck the pen through ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... sarcasming, I reckon I know how to keep my end up. That jab made this fellow squirm. The abbot inquired after the queen and the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... drove us to the lee of rocks and the shelter of our ponchos, to watch the mists drifting, to listen to the swell and lull of the wind and the patter of the cold rain. There were glimpses now and then of the inner Cuchullins, a fragment of ragged sky line, the sudden jab of a black pinnacle through the mist, the open mouth of a gorge ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... his hands, and throttle me into lifeless pulp. Here was where skill and coolness won. I fought him back, driving blow on blow through his guard, sidestepping his mad rushes, landing again and again on his body. Twice I got in over his heart, and at last, found the chance I sought, and sent a right jab straight to the chin. All the force of one hundred and eighty pounds was behind the clinched fist, and the negro went down as though floored by a poleaxe. Once weakly he endeavored to rise, but this time I used my left, and he never stirred again, lying there with no sign of life except the ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... hadn't known it would be quite like this. He tried to remember how it was—how it felt to move in the various ways Milt always sent him. Funny how you could forget such things. The left hook—that jab—how did they go? ...
— Vital Ingredient • Gerald Vance

... Jan found on a low shelf a can of milk. A half-blind jab of his muzzle brought it tumbling to the ground. Its lid was open, but the milk was firmly frozen. Jan licked at it, cutting his deep flews as he did so on the uneven edges of the tin. The warmth of his ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... bustling into the verandah from the nursery. "He's as mad as ever on swords and fighting, you see. It's a soldier he'll be, the lamb. He's taken to making that black orderly pull out his sword when he's in uniform. Makes him wave and jab it about. Gives me the creeps—with his black face and white eyes and all. You won't encourage the child at it, will you, Sir? And his poor Mother the gentlest soul that ever stepped. Swords! Where he gets his notions I can't think (though I know where he gets his language, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... Ellen from her old position at the window. "I guess you'd rather anyhow have all your time to write poetry instead of studying." She glanced around just in time to see Lila's lips set in a grimmer line as the lead in the short pencil snapped beneath a more impatient jab of the dull knife. She ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... unpainted toolhouse, a temporary structure near one of the immense stone pillars from which the bridge is swung. But, as he lunged, the toolhouse door opened, and a policeman, who was coming out wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, received a jab in the pit of a ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... with disdain. "Well, we did kill him, didn't we? You don't want to pretend that he's alive now, after that jab in the back your master gave him ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... achieve higher things. Who fishes just to kill? At Long Key last winter I met two self-styled sportsmen. They were eager to convert me to what they claimed was the dry-fly class angling of the sea. And it was to jab harpoons and spears into porpoises and manatee and sawfish, and be dragged about in their boat. The height of their achievements that winter had been the harpooning of several sawfish, each of which gave birth to a little one while being ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... shot through him. His reply was an earnest, if ill-directed blow. This Tommy dodged by the simplest expedient of twisting his head sidewise without moving his body, and launched at the same time a return jab which neatly smacked against ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... talked, the more he groaned; but the devil a word, good or bad, could she get out of him at all. With that, she stoops down, and catches up his staff, and says she, 'I have as great a mind to give you a jab with this here toothpick, where your mother used to spank you, as ever I had in all my life. But if you want it, my old 'coon, you must come and get it; for if you won't help me, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... order and system which so compelled our admiration yesterday were not in evidence. There were a lot of sentries at the door and they took care to jab a bayonet into you and tell you that you could not enter; but any sort of reply seemed to satisfy them, and you were allowed to go right up to the landing, where the General had established himself in state at a couple of huge tables. Here confusion reigned supreme. There were ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... not to give me a jab, won't you, please, Thad?" asked the other, between his groans. "I'm bad enough off as it ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... the Old Un, fiercer than ever, "you won't have nothing t' call with when I've done wi' ye. I'm goin' t' jab ye on th' beak t' begin with, then I'll 'ook my left t' your kidneys an' swing my right to your p'int an' crumple ye up with a jolt on your perishin' solar plexus as 'll stiffen you till th' ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... horns of the animal and his head was drawn tight to the hub of a heavy laden prairie schooner. A bullwhacker, tightly grasping the tail of the beast, would twist him to attention. The man with the branding implement heated to a white heat would quickly jab the ox on the hind quarter, burning through hair and hide and into the flesh. Then, after applying a solution of salt and water, he was left to recover as best he could. The brand would remain in evidence more than a year ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young

... Abracadabra, written in the usual triangular form; in the centre, a number of planetary symbols, and on the right, a circular figure filled in with lines and symbols, and beneath them the words, 'By Jah, Joh, Jab.' It was the custom to rub these charms over the cattle, etc. a number of times, while some incantation was being mumbled. The paper was then carefully folded up, and put in some safe place where the animals were housed, as ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... "that once I landed a straight from the shoulder jab square in the eye of a feller; because I heard him yell out like it hurt. And say, perhaps if you look around, you might find somebody with ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... that jab pushed him off balance. What did this man want of him anyway? Rennie had said it plain that he did not want Drew ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... sixpence. Brawn of course is cheaper, but then if you have brawn you want a tin-opener. The tongues are in glass jars which you can break with a stone or a rowlock. The lids are supposed to come off quite easily if you jab a knife through them, but they don't really. All that happens is a sort of fizz of air and the lid sticks on as tight as ever. Things hardly ever do what they're supposed to according to science, which makes me think that science is rather rot, though, of ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... husband to murder Northrop, in order that they might obtain the so-called 'Pillar of Death' and the key to the treasure. Then, when the senora was no doubt under the influence of sake in the pretty little Oriental bower at the curio shop, a quick jab, and Otaka had removed one who shared the secret ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... did seem a hard thing to do, for the heron was there waiting for Bully to come out, when he would jab his bill right through the frog boy. Then Bully thought and thought, which you must always do when you are in trouble, or have hard examples at school, and finally Bully ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis

... 'I could not sleep for thinking of that light, jab-jabbing the poor fellow in his cell. Nay, it appeared to be in my own bedroom, searching for my face and challenging me, "Are you there? Ha, ha, are you there?" What an eerie torture, to a slumbering soul, in that recurrent flame from the prison darkness! ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne

... you," says I; "but I feel the jab. Anyhow, it's instructin' and elevatin' to hear you run on. Maybe you've got ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... instant, Mr. Perkins clenched his own fists and held them before him on guard. But also he advanced, though elusively, slipping to one side of those great paws. As he side stepped, with a duck of the head he gathered himself together, snapped forward, and landed a jab square upon Barber's ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... rage, Mallow fell into a frenzy; and frenzy never won a ring-battle. Time after time he endeavored to grapple, but always that left stopped him. Warrington played for his face, and to each jab he added a taunt. "That for the little Cingalese!" "Count that one for Wheedon's broken knees!" "And wouldn't San admire that? Remember her? The little Japanese girl whose thumbs you broke?" "Here's one for me!" It was not dignified; but Warrington ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... one of his terrible upper-cuts, and Montgomery half broke it with his guard. The student sprang the other way and was against the other converging rope. He was trapped in the angle. The Master sent in another with a hoggish grunt which spoke of the energy behind it. Montgomery ducked, but got a jab from the left upon the mark. He closed with ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... around in a quick circle at the haymow, and I thought that if Bob Till and Shorty Long had been there, they might have hidden it under some hay just for meanness, so I got a pitch fork and started to jab it into the hay all around in different places in the haymow, and Pop looked in a tunnel under a long beam, and also we all looked down stairs and all around. Once I looked up into the cupola, and had a half-glad feeling in my heart ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens

... on the local-organization level. Maybe there are teams all over the country, all ready to synchronize their minds and jab somebody in the thought processes at just the right time, in just the right way, as soon as they get the word. That's one way of doing it, ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... and even now I don't want to! I know now I am dying, and there is morphia here under my hand. But I'll be damned in pain rather than be beaten by it! I won't die a cow's death, as the old Norsemen used to call it! I'll fight every inch of the way.—But I wish Aunt Janet would come in and jab the needle in me, forcibly. That would be quite ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... felt in our new way. For we've got our new way of feeling things. Rosamund tells us she repeated the words to Jennie Stileman, and Jennie had them set by a young Athenian who's over here studying English. He catches the butterfly, lets it flutter for a moment in his hand and go. He doesn't jab a pin into it as our composers would. Oh, there's Cynthia! I hope she ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... thousands of pilgrims were expected to assemble, but he insisted on our remaining behind, since cholera was certain to break out among the devotees. He appointed a certain spot, at the foot of the Himalayas, in the jab, where we were to meet ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... straight before, long legs stretched straight behind. But the Tragedian (he was the longest and the lankest) minded us not at all. At the last of the ebb, a snag over near the shore would suddenly add on another angle and jab down in the water, coming up again with a shiver and a fish. Then, it would approach the houseboat and stalk the waters beside our windows. The stage stride of the creature won for it the name of the Tragedian. Knowing the ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... that late. Why should the curtains be up now? Why, indeed! It was a question that interested other prowlers beside himself, for, as he paused for breath, close at hand he heard the stamp of a horse's hoof, followed by a muttered curse, and evident jerk of the bit and jab with the spurs, for the tortured creature plunged and stamped ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... is come," thought he. "Let me meet death like a man." He kneeled down and grasped a small shoot to steady himself, drew his long knife, and clenching his teeth, prepared to jab the huge brute as soon as ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... eye, which began to swell ominously. Though his supporters were obviously chagrined, Keeks kept his head admirably, and cleverly ducked under a right swing and clinched. At the breakaway Cockles got his left home on the ribs, but in doing so left himself open, and Keeks shook him up badly with a jab to the jaw. Cockles' hands dropped momentarily, and Keeks, whipping in a smashing right uppercut, had his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various

... narrow glass door—on the veranda. I think you might get in there!" She made a jab with the pencil. "Of course I should hate awfully to have you get caught! But you must have had a lot of experience, and with all the help ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson

... people have," and we knew that it was all over and that she was closing the article with: "A dazzling array of costly and beautiful presents was exhibited in the library," for then she would pick up her copy, dog-ear the sheets, and jab them on the hook as she sighed: "Another great American pickle-dish ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... protesting shout with a charge. De Launay was peaceful, but he did not intend to lose his prize without a fight. He smote the first man with a straight jab that shook all his teeth. The next one he ducked under, throwing him over his shoulder and down the stairs. Another he swept against ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... jab!" cried the mate angrily. "Ain't we good enough for you? What's a land lubber like you doing here at all? We ain't aboard the Dolphin now, I'll let ye know, and here we're all equal, and smite my eye, if you complains of your company, and gives honest ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... not know how intensely she longed for this, how she ached to see Stefan jab his finger at the baby as McEwan did, or watch it with the tender smile of Farraday. She tried a thousand simple wiles to bring to life the father in him. About to nurse the baby, she would call Stefan to see his eager search for the comfort of her ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... same; I was a child in his grip. But with his weapon useless, and Larry rushing into the room, Tugh must have felt that for all his strength and fighting skill he would be worsted in this encounter. He blocked a jab of my fist, flung me headlong away and sprang to his feet just as Larry leaped ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... strand of wire, And down you go; perhaps it saves your life, For over sandbag rims you see 'em fire, Crop-headed chaps, their eyes ablaze with strife. You crawl, you cower; then once again you plunge With all your comrades roaring at your heels. HAVE AT 'EM, LADS! You stab, you jab, you lunge; A blaze of glory, then the red world reels. A crash of triumph, then . . . you're faint a bit . . . That cursed puttee! Now to fasten it. . ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service

... observed. 'The fact that we cannot meet without your endeavouring to plant a temperamental left jab on my spiritual solar plexus encourages me to think that you are beginning at last to understand that we are affinities. To persons of spirit like ourselves the only happy marriage is that which is based on a firm foundation of almost ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... Sure, when she was draggin' ye into the house, didn't some divil jab her in the neck wid a ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... work was to split one of the shingles over his knee so that he had a strip of wood about two inches wide. It took him but so many seconds to jab four or five holes through this, and adjusting it between two slopes of the power wheel so that it stood crossways and was re-enforced by the spokes themselves, he proceeded to bind it in place with ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh



Words linked to "Jab" :   touch, biff, punch, slug, poking, gesture, goad, touching, clout, prick, strike, lick



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