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Prod   /prɑd/   Listen
Prod

noun
1.
A verbalization that encourages you to attempt something.  Synonyms: goad, goading, prodding, spur, spurring, urging.
2.
A pointed instrument that is used to prod into a state of motion.  Synonym: goad.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Prod" Quotes from Famous Books



... in an argument with the detective, who, being helpless, was obliged to endure a tirade the old gentleman was delivering to the accompaniment of an occasional prod ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... tricked. And he'll always fight like fury to protect his mate from any enemy. The bulls have awful big duels between themselves occasionally. When they're real mad, they don't stop for a few wounds. They prod each other with their terrible brow antlers till one or the other of 'em is stretched dead. If a moose ever charges you, boys, take my advice, and don't try to face him with your rifles. Half a dozen shots mightn't ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... whole military history of France from the days of King Clovis till the French Revolution. They run in historical order. The pictures begin with battles of early barbarians—men with long hair wielding huge battle-axes with their eyes blazing, while other barbarians prod at them with pikes or take a sweep at them with a two-handed club. After that there are rooms full of crusade pictures—crusaders fighting the Arabs, crusaders investing Jerusalem, crusaders raising the siege of Malta and others raising the siege of Rhodes; all very picturesque, ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock

... Abolition principles to wider fields and more abundant harvests in the republic. Anxious lest the cat-like temper of the populace was falling into indifference and apathy, he and his disciples took occasion to prod it into renewed wakefulness and activity. The instruments used for this purpose were anti-slavery meetings and the sharp goad of his Liberator editorials. The city was possessed with the demon of slavery, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... put nobody next," Slim asserted. "Happy's got to take chances, same as I did. And while we're on the subject, Patsy was on the prod before I struck camp, or he wouldn't uh acted the way he done. Somebody else riled him up, ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... When told to advance, he made one more appeal to the captain, avowing that he was an American. The captain, with an oath, said that was the more reason for flogging him. He appealed until the marine guard was ordered to prod him with his bayonet. They had to actually drag Sukey to the gratings. Sukey's cheek, which was usually pale, was now whiter than a ghost. As he was being secured to the gratings, and the shudderings and creepings of his dazzling white back were revealed, he turned his ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... greater trouble may be loked for from the wild boar before capture; I speak of the male animal. If it should be a sow that falls into the toils, the huntsman should run up and prod her, taking care not to be pushed off his legs and fall, in which case he cannot escape being trampled on and bitten. Ergo, he will not voluntarily get under those feet; but if involuntarily he should come to such ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... have a mighty good hatching, Nancy, but I have no faith in half-way measures, and a tin box is a half-way measure for a hen, just as cleaning house without bed-sunning is trifling," said Mrs. Addcock, with a final prod as she came out to the barn with Mrs. Tillett to reclaim ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... of the sort; it's simply that I knew of your benevolence, which is known to all the world. All we get, as you know, is an armful of hay, or a prod with a fork. Last Friday I filled myself as full of pie as Martin did of soap; since then I didn't eat one day, and the day after I fasted, and on the third I'd nothing again. I've had my fill of water ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... again by a prod of a sword, and bidden to stand up. His hands were tied and the end of the rope made fast to the stirrup iron of ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... giving such a prod of the knife into his own stomach that he killed himself. That is the way the ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... under his shaggy brows at the manuscript by his elbow and, muttering, began to prod the stiff buttons of the keyboard slowly, sometimes blowing as he screwed up the drum to ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... of heart and cold of head who don't smoke, drink, or swear, or do much of anything else that is brase, and resentful, and stinging, because in their feeble fibres there has never been the stir and prod of life to well over its boundaries and be devilish and daring. One doesn't meet these in saloons, nor rallying to lost causes, nor flaming on the adventure-paths, nor loving as God's own mad lovers. They are too busy keeping ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... been mighty mean. But I couldn't help it, pa. When you put a wild horse in a pen, it don't do to prod him and throw things and—That's what they've done to me. I bite and kick like any bronc. When you're hurt, constant, you get spells when you've got to hurt back. I've been rotten to her, and now this ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... but the Frenchman would not fight with pistols. B— would not fight with swords; so at last it was agreed that they should fight on horseback, with lances. The duel took place in the neighbourhood of Beauvais, and a crowd assembled to witness it. B— received three wounds; but, by a lucky prod, eventually killed his man. B— was a fine-looking man and a good horseman. My late friend the Baron de P—, so well known in Parisian circles, was second to the Frenchman ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow

... cable this message along the track; The Prod's out West, but he's coming back; Put plenty of veal for one on the rack, Trolla lala, ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... strangers—the last infamy of the base! You are loathsome, a mercenary false to his salt, a hound who sold himself for money first and for disgraceful gain afterwards! How can I touch you? Where can I prod you? On what nerve, since the nerve of shame is dead? Like the groom, one could only punish you with a whip. I shall lay the matter before the Duke. I will urge it upon my colleagues,' he swept his arm ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... Philippines is as absolute as personal liberty in the United States or England. Far from making any attempt to keep the native in a condition of ignorance, the alien occupiers are trying to coax or prod him, by all the short cuts known to humanity, into the semblance of a modern educated progressive man. There is no prescription which they have tried and found good for themselves which they are not importing for the Philippines, to be ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... on the part of any member of this command. But I did not ask you to change the dotting of an I or the crossing of a T. Nor did you hear a word out of me when I received my bawling out. The army is like that. From enlisted man to Commanding General, every fellow thinks he is the only one with a prod in his side. The truth is, the greater the rank, the higher the responsibility, and the sharper the gaff. I often wish for the quiet, untroubled mind of a buck private—and I thank Heaven that I am only a Major. Which reminds me that I am one, and had better ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke

... from her abruptly and tottered away. Glancing aside, she met the Vicomte de Tocqueville's tired smile; he was using his cane to prod the butcher and recall his attention to the half-cut steak. But the butcher continued to stare down ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... I repeated gravely through the crack of the door to the shifting shape on the kitchen wall. Then, while he stooped over in the firelight to prod fresh tobacco into his pipe, I began again my insatiable quest for knowledge which had brought me punishment at the hand of my mother an ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... liable to get on the prod with him. He'll have to play his own hand. Tha's reasonable. But kinda back him up when you get a chance. That notion of lettin' him lick you is a humdinger. ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... Nimble had thought it fun to use his new horns to jab anybody that happened to be with him. One day he even stole up behind his own mother and gave her a sharp prod with them. ...
— The Tale of Nimble Deer - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... fellow fine, Can you shoe this horse of mine?" "Yes, good sir, that I can, As well as any other man: Here a nail, and there a prod, And now, good sir, ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous

... in the new leadership. As for the Dioscuri, they had the wisdom to see that one sharp campaign was enough; that for the rest they could further the good cause much more effectively by admirable creation than by peppery epigrams. Prod a man for his bad taste or his foolish opinions, and you harden his heart and provoke him to retaliate; give him something to admire, and you make him a friend in spite ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... without vouchsafing anything or anybody else the slightest glance. Nor did he seem to pay more attention to Yank as a human being, but prodded and pulled and hauled and manipulated him from top to toe, his gray, hawk face intent and absorbed. Occasionally, as he repeated some prod, he looked up keenly into Yank's face, probably for some slight symptom of pain that escaped us, for Yank remained stoical. But he asked no questions. At the end of ten minutes he threw the blanket over our friend's form and stood erect, carefully ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... particular as to the exact words," said Raymonde. "Probably it's the tone of voice that does it. Let's wait till he gets to the top of this hill, then I'll prod him again, and we'll both growl out 'Go on!' and see if ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... always waited. She liked to see the fire of rage burn itself through Martin's tan and feel that she had the power to kindle it. He never disappointed her. Sometimes, to be sure, she had to prod him more than once, but eventually his retort, sharp as the sting of an insect, was certain to come. From it she derived a half-humorous, half-vindictive satisfaction, for she was a keen student of human nature, ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... answered. "And when it comes there will be no genteel lodgings, but Theobald and I will take care of you somewhere. In a little house it may be, but one with a garden where you can walk in the sun in winter mornings as you do now, and prod at the weeds in the path as you do now ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan

... words were Dathan and Abiram, and it was neither the first nor the last time they inflicted an injury upon Moses. The other Israelitish officers were gentle and kind; they permitted themselves to be beaten by the taskmasters rather than prod the laborers of their own ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... from the flap of the saddle when using the spur. This leaping head, which almost encircles the left leg, would, of course, be a most dangerous thing to use when hunting. The spurred lady also has a spur clamped on to her whip, in order that she may be able to prod her horse equally on both sides. The whip-spur (Fig. 91) is like a wheel with sharp spokes and no tyre. The application of the spur by Continental ecuyeres, especially in obtaining the more difficult airs, is more or less constant, so as to keep the animal ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... solum feruorem pii cordis et deuocionem erga hominum inopiam releuandam [reuelandam MSS.] exhiberet; uerum et in creaturum irrationabilium necessitatibus infatigabilem ostenderet affectum. Et quia tanta lucerna non debuit sub modio abscondi, ideo a puerili etate cepit miraculorum prod[ig]iis coruscare. ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... a shrapnel fracture of the cranium, with the resulting delirium, in which the sufferer's incoherence included memories of childhood scenes, moments on the firing-line, calls for his mother, and prayers to be put out of misery. A prod of the hypodermic from the major surgeon, and "On the operating-table in fifteen minutes" was the answer to Marta's question if the poor fellow ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... of campaigning, Tiberius (as stated) had already withdrawn, he could not venture to send any other influential man, and Gaius and Lucius were, as it happened, young and inexperienced in affairs. Still, under the prod of necessity, he chose Gaius, gave him the proconsular authority and a wife (an act intended to increase his dignity) and assigned advisers to him. Gaius set out and was everywhere received with marks of distinction, occupying as he did the ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... Arden, my old friend, I grow prosy, and you tire; Fill the glasses while I bend To prod up the failing fire. . . . You are restless:—I presume There's a dampness in the room.— Much of warmth our nature begs, With rheumatics in our ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley

... water tried to get hold of a net or a rope or a firm piece of ice, while they floundered about in the water, and the peasants fished them up with their long hooks, at the same time giving many of them a sharp prod ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... white gleaming on front bench; with supple turn of wrist Bobby brought flambeau to bear upon it; found it was TANNER—TANNER, hatless, coatless, without even a waistcoat on! You might have knocked me down with much less than bayonet-prod. 'Morning, Colonel,' says he. 'Been here all night?' I gasped. 'Oh, no,' says he; 'had cup of coffee at stall by Westminster Bridge, bought a few hats in the New Cut, and, you see, I've planted them out.' So he had, by Gad! Every corner-seat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various

... resolution to change the town—awaken it, prod it, "reform" it. What if they were wolves instead of lambs? They'd eat her all the sooner if she was meek to them. Fight or be eaten. It was easier to change the town completely than to conciliate it! She could not take their point of view; it was a negative thing; an intellectual ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... his mistress repented of her sins. Yet he gave his tail feathers a slight flirt and quavered some guttural to sustain his part in the conversation, and to beg that he might be excused from holding the sword this time. As she continued to prod him, however, he struck her with his beak. Le Rossignol was human in never finding herself able to bear the punishment she courted. She flew at the swan, he spread his wings for ardent warfare, and ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... meat to eat, fuel for your fire and oil for your lamp, but also leather for your finnesko and an antidote to scurvy. As he lies out on the sea-ice, a great ungainly shape, nothing short of an actual prod will persuade him to take much notice of an Antarctic explorer. Even then he is as likely as not to yawn in your face and go to sleep again. His instincts are all to avoid the water when alarmed, for he knows his enemies the killer ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... past them, Blindeye Bozeman, returning from the celebration. Picking up a drill, he studied it with care, finally to lay it aside and reach for a gad, a sort of sharp, pointed prod, with which to tear away the loose matter that he might prepare the way for the biting drive of the drill beneath the five-pound hammer, or single jack. His weak, watery eyes centered ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... sorrel bounds lightly away, circling southwestward under the guiding rein. Another minute and he is at the arroya and cautiously descending, then scrambling up the west bank, and then from the darkness comes savage challenge, a sputter of pony hoofs. Ray bends low and gives Dandy one vigorous prod with the spur, and with muttered prayer and clinched teeth and fists he leaps into the wildest race ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... valley, with the result that the donkey brayed again and had to be held by main force by Pierre's arm round his neck, for he had dragged his head out of the bridle; while Gros began to kick and back and behave so obstreperously that Dale gave him a sharp prod with ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... the case of the seizure of an important person, those of neighbouring villages will join them. All available boats are manned by men armed with spears, some of which are lashed to the ends of long poles. Congregating in their boats near the scene of the disaster, the men prod the bed of the river with their spears, working systematically up and down river and up the small side streams. In this way they succeed in stabbing some of the reptiles; and in this case, though they usually do not rise ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... prod in the back he urged his prisoner on. But the old lady seized the skirts of his coat and held him ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... gift. I had a foreman-bricklayer like him once,' said Mr Springett. 'He used to prod 'em in the back like with a pointing-trowel, and they ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... dresses. And sometimes I think it is really better, if you have to choose, to drink beer out of an earthen pot and be kind and gentle, than to have a sharp nose for other folks' faults and be continually trying to pinch and prod the old world into the straight and narrow path of virtue. Yet there is wisdom in all folly, and I can see that the prohibition concerning little Sebastian's playing the violin only an hour a day—mind you! was not without ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... battles' wild commotion I shouldn't at all object If Sambo's body should stop a ball that was coming for me direct, An' the prod of a Southern bayonet; so liberal are we here, I'll resign and let Sambo take it, on every day in the year, On every day in the year, boys, an' wid none of your nasty pride, All right in Southern baynet prod, wid ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... wi' pickled rod, Wad gie' ye mony a lash an' prod, But aye ye went the rantin' road, An prone tae err, You sair misca'd douce men o' God An ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke

... helpless against him? 'Here is my last missile,' say you; 'my ammunition is quite exhausted: just wait till I get the last in—it will irritate, it cannot hurt him. There—you see!—he is furious now, and I am quite helpless. One more prod, another kick: now he is a mere lunatic! Stand behind me; I am quite helpless!' Mr. Romaine, I am asking myself as to the background or motive of this singular jest, and whether the name of it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... me, who knows everything there is to know about machinery, they won't let me even find out which end of the cannon you put the shell in and which end it comes out of. All I do all day long is to prod around a couple of fat-hipped hayburners. ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... unconscious, while Elsie had been swept on in the crowd. More than that, the keeper of the tiger, who had courageously leaped after the terrible beast with his spearlike iron goad, hoping to be able to prod and cow it into subjection, had been knocked flat also by the horse, his iron goad flying out of his hand ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... threat of exposure of the documents I had found in his files. Using their disclosure as a prod I could have made him jump through hoops. It wasn't necessary. As soon as I showed him the different blueprints and explained the possibilities he understood. If anything, he was more eager than I was to find out who was using ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)

... thus prevent it from making a sudden rush. Then when the bear does try to come out, the hunter, standing over the opening, kills it with the back of his axe. Sometimes a second hole is dug in order to prod the beast with a pole to make it leave its den. The white hunter frequently uses fire to smoke a bear out, but not infrequently he succeeds in ruining the coat by singeing the hair. It requires more skill, however, to find a ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... had been doing tricks in a village for hours he would get very tired and lie down and sulk, when Pedro would beat and prod him cruelly. ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... slowly to the north, I thought of nothing but the new Spanish sailor. He would be living on crusts, so the smugglers told me; and always he would have an overseer to prod him with a knife if, in a moment of sickness or weariness, he faltered in his work, no matter how hard it might be. But by this time I had learned that the smugglers loved to frighten me. I know now ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... a sanguine animal, of rather dull vision and slow understanding. In captivity it gives little trouble, and lives long. Adults individually often become pettish, or peevish, and threaten to prod their keepers without cause, but I have never known a keeper to take those lapses seriously. The average rhino is by no means a dull or a stupid animal, and they have quite enough life to make themselves interesting to visitors. In British East Africa a black rhinoceros often ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... she hits the high notes sure did have some class to it. He's so busy followin' her motions that he don't even know when I leans in within six inches of him and whispers. So I has to give him the gentle prod. ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... I noted hurriedly that the first man was one of Arnald's men, and one of our men behind him leaned forward to prod him with his spear, but could not reach so far, till he himself was run through the eye with a spear, and throwing his arms up fell dead with a shriek. Also I noted concerning this first man that the laces of his helmet were loose, and when he saw me he lifted his left hand ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris

... soul—subconsciously as I would now put it. I was trying to put truth into the prophecy. As I look at the whole matter these days I can see that Mr. Grimshaw himself was a help no less important to me, for it was a sharp spur with which he continued to prod us. ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... unwillingly. But the mare had eyes and ears only for her master. What she had never done before, she nosed him over face and shoulders, trembling all the time. Suddenly one of her tormentors darted forward, and gave her a terrible prod in the off hind quarter. But he paid dearly for it. Ere he could draw back, she lashed out, and shot him half across the yard with his knee joint broken. The whole set of them rushed ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... With a prod of his pole, Wayland shoved off, and the frontiersman lengthened out the leading lines for the horses. The Ranger smiled whimsically to find the reverse side of Holy Cross peak, up-side down in the water, and he set to figuring out what sort of triangular lines thought-waves ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... and little disappointments like Helen Adams's, it really takes very little to make a college reputation. One brilliant recitation may turn an unassuming student into a "prod."; and on the strength of one clever bit of writing another is given the title of "genius." This last distinction was at once bestowed on Eleanor. She was showered with congratulations and compliments. Her old school ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... institutions. Often he made, but too often he marred. He suffered sadly from the lack of a sense of humour. "What does Lincoln mean?" he would blankly exclaim, impervious alike to the drollery and to the keen prod concealed within it. In his fancied superiority he sought to patronise and dominate the rude Illinoisian. The case is pathetic. The width and the depth of the chasm which separates the two men in the regard of ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... must expect a certain amount of trouble and anxiety. She wasn't sure but that wives were needed to keep men spurred to their highest pitch of working efficiency. She had an obscure idea that the male was by nature lazy and self-indulgent, and required the steel prod of necessity to do his best work. As she looked about her among the struggling households, it seemed such was the rule,—that if it weren't for the fact of wife and children and bills, the men would deteriorate.... Naturally ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... reform, and that meni and the w[u]rst irregiularitiz in I[n]glish speli[n] kud be removed without goi[n] kweit so far. The prinsipel that haf a loaf iz beter than no bred iz not without s[u]m tru[t], and in meni kasez we no that a polisi ov kompromeiz haz been prod[u]ktiv ov veri gud rez[u]lts. B[u]t, on the [u]ther hand, this haf-harted polisi haz often retarded a real and komplete reform ov ekzisti[n] abiusez; and in the kase ov a reform ov speli[n], ei almost dout hwether the difik[u]ltiz inherent in haf-me[z]urz ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... said the policeman, mopping up the blood from his stab, which was more painful than dangerous. "He has given me a nasty prod." ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... our way and came into this place, without realizing whither our steps were leading us," he said, while he continued to prod the mud before him; "and at length we fell, as you might observe, into the miry clay. I had just suggested the expediency of our return, when Mrs. Pennypoker—um—in short, met with an accident which unduly detained us and—ah, I have it!" ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... all properties provided. To tell of all which took place would crowd out too much which must follow. Of course apples were bobbed for, a hat pin was run through them to prod the seeds for the true lover's heart, and they were hung upon strings to be caught in one's teeth (the apples, not the hearts) if luckily one did not get one's nose bumped as they swung back. ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... said the professor, "I think I should leave that young man alone—until I saw where he headed. They're going to get more out of him than organization could compel or even hope for. If they prod him too hard they may upset things. ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... splintered into shafts of light Wheeling about the fish, who churned the air And made the fish-line hum, and bent the rod Almost to snapping. Care The young man took against the twigs, with slight, Deft movements he kept fish and line in tight Obedience to his will with every prod. ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... riding did his best, but even then could not avoid a sharp prod that would have ripped him up had not my leather bastos intervened. Then we retired to a distance in order to plan further; but we did not succeed in inducing that cow to revise her ideas, so at last we left her. When, in some chagrin, I mentioned to the round-up captain the fact that ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... will go down beyond the Chelsea flats, And hang with barges under Battersea, Will press past Wapping with decaying cats, And the dead dog shall bear it company; Small bathing boys shall feel its clammy prod, And think some jellyfish has fled the surge; And so 'twill win to where the tribe of cod In its own ooze intones a fitting dirge, And after that some false and impious fish Will likely have it for a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various

... "This is the famous Katu-kurundu, or 'thoray cinnamon,' of the Singhalese, figured and described by Gaertner as the Limonia pusilla, which after a great deal of labour and research I think I have identified as the Phoberos macrophyllus" (W. and A. Prod. p. 30). Thunberg alludes to it (Travels, vol. iv.)—"Why the Singhalese have called it a cinnamon, I do not know, unless from some fancied similarity in its seeds to ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... "They're on the prod," Nell Beecroft said briefly, and strode to the cellar-door. "Cache yourself!" She would have thrust Dr. ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... he could keep Maurice long enough, help might arrive. And he had an excellent story to tell. Still Francois doddered. With his eye on the Colonel and the revolver sighted, Maurice picked up the sword. He gave Francois a vigorous prod. Francois needed no further inducement. He started forward with alacrity. In the wink of an eye he threw the cord around Beauvais's arms and pinned them to his sides. Beauvais swore, but the valet was strong in his fright. He struggled and wound and knotted and tied, murmuring his pitiful ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... Tommy delivering the aforesaid oration from memory, on the stage of the Grand Opera House, to a warm-hearted and perspiring audience of his towns-people, amid tremendous applause and not the slightest prod-dings of conscience. ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet

... growth.[107] This was the case of Kursachsen and Brandenburg in the sixteenth century, and of the United States throughout its history. But beside the danger of inherent weakness before attack, a condition of relative underpopulation always threatens a retardation of development. Easy-going man needs the prod of a pressing population. [Compare maps pages 8 and ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... Men will arise with specious programmes by means of which they can hypnotize a group and aim at capturing the country. Progress carries on by means of such men and such groups. But the devil himself stands behind the stage bush to prod these zealots into the limelight and the next moment to lead the claque in the gallery. We are carried away by the act, afterwards find that we have been duped and hold indignation meetings after the show is safely ten ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... if the Pig should have been palmed off on you by fraud, you not having found it able to "calculate" at all, or even select with its snout a number not previously fastened to a piece of onion, though assisted in its selection, according to the directions, "with a smart prod with a carving-fork," there still, as you truly say, remains the alternative of disposing of it advantageously to some German sausage-maker. As to the Ethiopian Pashas, if their feats, as is just possible, shock and horrify, rather than divert ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various

... his heroism which led the ship and all but gave his life. And when he had fulfilled his mission he stepped back into the place of a subaltern; he was modest, even embarrassed, at the great people who thronged to him. England was saved; that was all his affair; nothing, so the books say, could prod him into prominence—though he rose to be a General later—after that, after being the first man in England for those days. It was this personage with whom I had gone out to dinner, and to whom I dared make ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... a pole and prod about well first. After all this water there may be a young alligator ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... might have been different. I don't know. Perhaps even now he can live up to all the lovely, lovely things that you and he are always talking about. But I've had to talk to Mills about what he likes to eat and what we have to pay for things; I've had to push him and prod him and praise him, and it has been hard work. If you want him you can have ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... Bunting Behaved like a consummate loon: Her offspring in frenzy confronting She screamed herself mottled maroon: She felt of his vertebrae spinal, Expecting he'd surely succumb, And gave him one vigorous, final, Hard prod in the pit of ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... had given her chance enough to learn where he lived; and this minor proof of her indifference became, as he jammed his way through the crowd, the main point of his grievance against her and of his derision of himself. Half way down the pier the prod of an umbrella increased his exasperation by rousing him to the fact that it was raining. Instantly the narrow ledge became a battle-ground of thrusting, slanting, parrying domes. The wind rose with the rain, and the harried wretches exposed to this double ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... strange places, is one which rejoices in the name of "Fat Man's Misery." At one minute the feet get fixed as in the stocks; at another, the upper portion of the body is called upon to make a right angle with the lower; even then, a projecting point of the rock above will sometimes prod you upon the upturned angle, in endeavouring to save which, by a too rapid act of humility, you knock all the skin off the more vulnerable knee. Emerging from this difficulty, and, perhaps, rising too hastily, a crack on the head closes your eyes, filling ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... craft the madman picked up the long ice pole and aimed a vicious prod with it at our ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty

... asked Haslinger, on the strength of your friendship, to enforce my demands, and as he (being prevented by illness, as I afterwards heard) did not reply, I hunted up the address of your cousin (from 1856), and again invoking your sacred name, asked him to prod on Haslinger. That had the desired effect, and to both I owe it that my manager will probably discharge his debt before long. You see, it is always "Franz Liszt," even if he knows nothing ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... with fevered lips, to roar forth shrapnel in Trafalgar Square; why not Gatling guns? The artillery did not come for very shame, but the Guards did, and there were regiments of infantry in the rear, with glittering bayonets to prod folk into moving on. All about these little grains ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... been speaking when Maggie entered the room, was now silent. She had a note-book in her hand and was rapidly writing something in it with a pencil. Some one gave Maggie a rather severe prod on her elbow. Polly Singleton, tall, flushed and heavy, stood close to ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... who, though called as witnesses, might themselves be accused, if she pronounced them to bear the mark. It was a hateful thing to see this brazen-faced girl made sole mistress of the fate of those wretched beings, commissioned to prod them all over with needles, and able at will to assign ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... buffalo. Hand me up the two first joints of a masheer rod, and I'll prod it. It's lying on the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... their visit to the bizarre little cathedral, they turned to the right through the Sacred Gate. Mr Evergreen did not observe that every one passing under it took off his hat, and very nearly got a prod from the sentry's bayonet for his neglect of that ceremony. The story goes, that the picture over the gateway was unscorched by fire, and that the lamp continued burning all the time the French were in occupation of the city, untrimmed and unattended. ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... body of the Kukuana soldier, or rather what had appeared to be his dead body, suddenly sprang up, knocked Good head over heels off the ant-heap, and began to spear him. We rushed forward in terror, and as we drew near we saw the brawny warrior making dig after dig at the prostrate Good, who at each prod jerked all his limbs into the air. Seeing us coming, the Kukuana gave one final and most vicious dig, and with a shout of "Take that, wizard!" bolted away. Good did not move, and we concluded that our poor comrade was done for. ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... Varney went off to the sailing-master and spoke with him again, concisely. The sailing-master, a sensitive man to criticism, once more apologized, very technically, and redoubled his energies. He went below himself to superintend the repairs and to prod the laggards to their utmost endeavors. In less than three quarters of an hour, by Peter's watch, he was up again, in a shower of falling perspiration, to announce ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... next door, seemed hostile from the first for no apparent reason, and always unpacked his crates with a full back to his new neighbour, and from the first Mr. Polly resented and hated that uncivil breadth of expressionless humanity, wanted to prod it, kick it, satirise it. But you cannot satirise a hack, if you have no friend to nudge while ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... trench-labourers, my heart going pit-a-pat from the excitement of my narrow escape. I dared not ask the Quaker to go fast, lest he should worm my story from me, but for the first three miles I assure you I found it hard not to prod that old nag with my knife to make him quicken his two mile an hour crawl. Often during the first hours of the ride I heard horses coming after us at a gallop. It was all fancy; we were left to our own devices. My pursuers, I found, afterwards, were misled ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... who had followed their chum to the nipa hut, now entered and stood by the door. Ned saw them winking knowingly at each other when the Major spoke of going away in the motor boat, and decided to prod ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson

... Dick did not wait for the second lunch-gong. At the sound of the first he started, for he felt the desire for one of Oh Joy's cocktails—the need of a prod of courage, after the lilacs, to meet Paula. But she was ahead of him. He found her—who rarely drank, and never alone—just placing an empty cocktail ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... to tax my judgment to fix the proper stopping-place. Sudden qualms of reluctance warn me where the past and present meet. I have reached a point where my yesterdays lie in a quick heap, and I cannot bear to prod and turn them and set them up to be looked at. For that matter, I am not sure that I should add anything really new, even if I could force myself to cross the line of discretion. I have already shown ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... I became tortured day and night by the prod of reason, then I quietly left the church and bade farewell to the heathen Scapular and the ten thousand other trinkets of blind paganism, and resolved to break the chain of this "slave of the soul" ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... signal, Nat, prod yur critter sharp, an' sweep the support from unner them. They've been thegither in this world in the doin' o' many a rascally deed. Let's send 'em thegither inter ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... the word. And if they had enough humour to put on a thumb nail, could they wear the stick-out and stick-up ornaments on their hats they did wear, to prod each other's eyes? No, they couldn't! And what with feathers standing straight out behind, and long corsets down to their knees, they could never lean back against anything, no matter how tired they were. So, what with tight dresses and high heels and thin silk stockings and low shoes ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... rescuer she charged with an angry rumble. Round and round a stunted pinon they raced, hot and angry. I was too helpless with mirth to be of any aid, and the Chief's gun was in the car. Still, an angry range cow on the prod is no joke, and it began to look serious. At last the impromptu marathon ended by the Chief making an extra sprint and rolling into the Ford just as her sharp horns raked him fore ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith



Words linked to "Prod" :   thrust, elbow, goose, device, gad, push, halloo, jog, force, encouragement, ankus



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