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Spat

noun
1.
A quarrel about petty points.  Synonyms: bicker, bickering, fuss, pettifoggery, squabble, tiff.
2.
A cloth covering (a legging) that covers the instep and ankles.  Synonym: gaiter.
3.
A young oyster or other bivalve.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Spat" Quotes from Famous Books



... giver. A penny obtained, for instance, the first thing in the morning, by stumbling on it in the street, by the sale of an article in the market, or by gift of charity, is considered to bode luck, and cherished as a pledge of good fortune by being slightly spat upon several times on receipt, and then carefully stowed away, for a longer or shorter period, in some safe sanctum. Job was the luckiest man that ever lived; his very goats even were so lucky as to kill the wolves that came to devour them; and ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... ground finely as in peanut butter." Digital efforts at removal of foreign bodies frequently force the object downward, or may hook it forward into the larynx, whereas if not meddled with digitally the intruder might be spat out. Before general anesthesia the mouth should be searched for loose teeth, removable dentures, etc., and all unconscious individuals should be likewise examined. When working in the mouth precautions should be taken against the possible ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, put the clay on the eyes of the blind man, and said to him, "Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam." So he went off and washed, and returned able ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... spat blood from gashed lips, and shook his head like a lion wounded in the mouth. He ran backward a few feet to recover himself, and then, with a mad cry, rushed at Westerfelt and caught him by the throat. Westerfelt tried to shake him off, but he was unsuccessful. He attempted to ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben

... dirt to cure the pain. Here we cure all kinds of pain with dirt. If my child is ill I dig up a spadeful of fresh mould and rub it well—best remedy out. I'm not religious, but I remember one miracle. The Saviour spat on the ground and made mud with the spittle to anoint the eyes of the blind man. Made him see directly. What does that mean? Common remedyof the country, of course. He didn't need the clay, but followed the custom, same as in the other miracles. In Scotland dirt's wickedness—how'd ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... appreciation of Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" and her fondness for "Gray's Elegy" for the sake of its calm came to him. He would not be classed with her. He put his knife back into his pocket and bit a small bit off the tongue. Then he leaned over the side of the boat and spat out a good deal of broken glass. He also ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... began brightly, had long been overcast, and the clouds now spat down a few spiteful drops upon us, besides that the east-wind was very chill; so we descended the winding tower-stair, and went next into the garden, one side of which is shut in by almost the only remaining portion of the old city-wall. A part of the garden-ground is devoted to grass ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... silence, the first man evidently turning the situation over in his mind. The sheriff bent across the rail, and spat into ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... for a taxi, a little shrimp of a man came out on the steps of the hall and spat on the sidewalk ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... across the tracks to inspect the Afghan prisoners. They were unlike any "niggers" that the Fore and Aft had ever met—these huge, black-haired, scowling sons of the Beni-Israel. As the men stared the Afghans spat freely and muttered one to ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... spirit, in manner and appearance a romantic outlaw, a man after his own heart. Henceforth Byron is reckoned at best a dupe, and at worst a sluggish poltroon; while Trelawny, it is said, imitated his hero so loyally that "he ate, dressed, and even spat in his manner." When the poet died Trelawny ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... had meanwhile advanced, and it was grand to see the steadiness of our men. Though bullets spat viciously in the sand before, between, and behind them, not a man flinched, but went steadily on to the heights beyond. I asked the General to send me with another order, which he wished taken to a half battalion some distance ahead, but as he was about to do so, he saw the cross ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers

... spat wide and far, "I guess she's aiming to decorate the hull blamed town, back there, with greens. She ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... two the ragged line of the barrage wallowed forward through the outraged mist alone. Then, as a sudden flight of rockets spat forth from the Greek first line to warn that the enemy infantry was on the way, all the Allied artillery that could be brought to bear opened up and began dropping shells just behind where the murky mist-clouds marked the swath of ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... pain, he sat straight down upon his feet when they tried to set him upright. But all the time his two little black eyes, which had seemed so kindly and so innocent in the coach, were glaring at me like a wounded cat, and he spat, and spat, and spat in my direction. My faith! when the wretches jerked me on to my feet again, and when I was dragged off up one of the mountain paths, I understood that a time was coming when I was to need all my courage and resource. My enemy was carried upon the shoulders of two men ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... wanted him at any price. What was the good of a man being willing to work if there was no one to employ him? A nice look-out certainly. Hardly a dollar left and no prospect of getting any more. He hardly had the courage to return home and face Annie. With a muttered exclamation of impatience he spat from his mouth the half-consumed cigarette which was hanging from his lip, and crossing Broadway, walked listlessly in the direction of ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... spoke there was a puff of smoke, a dull report, and a sharp spat on the rock close to the young officer's hand, and he started up, looking a little white, while Sergeant Gee picked up a flattened-out piece ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... mistaken, however I would not exchange it for a skin of Anthyllan wine; and if they could only know that at least one of the stripes which torments me is due to each one of themselves, they would be surprised! But away with pride! How they spat on Thee, Jesus my Lord, and who am I, and how mildly have they dealt with me, when I for once have taken on my back another's stripes. Not a drop of blood was drawn! I wish the old man ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... as when he used as general to be conducted in state out of the assembly, they wondered at his composure and greatness of soul. His enemies accompanied him and abused him, and one even came up to him and spat in his face. At this outrage it is said that Phokion looked towards the archons, and said, "Will no one make this fellow behave himself?" As Thodippus in prison, when he saw the hemlock being prepared, bewailed his fate, and said that he did not deserve to perish with Phokion, Phokion said, "Are ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... for a while. I felt that his little beady black eyes were examining me but I would not satisfy him by looking up from my plate. He returned to his pipe and finally spat rudely into ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... knew that my father was a man of few words and that he would without delay proceed to action. I managed to get a chair between him and me. He went to work deliberately, as if he were a prize-fighter. First, he spat on his hands, and was about to give me a knock-out-blow, when I, with the courage of desperation, raised the chair above my head, crying out, 'Father, if you strike me, I'll hit you with this chair.' He was so astonished at my audacity that his arms fell ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... three teeth, which he spat out altogether while he was sitting at the spot he had chosen for his tomb. He gathered in his robe the last fragments of his loose jaw and interred them in a heap of earth. His heir need not gather his bones when he is dead, Picens has ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... on the Somme that wrought us more havoc than all his armament. How we cursed that mud! We cursed it sleeping, we cursed it waking, we cursed it riding, we cursed it walking. We ate it and cursed; we drank it and cursed; we swallowed it and spat it; we snuffed it and wept it; it filled our nails and our ears; it caked and lined our clothing; we wallowed in it, we waded through it, we swam in it, and splashed it about—it stuck our helmets to our hair, it plastered our wounds, and there were men drowned in it. Oh, mud, thou ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... absolutely laughed in his face. "And if they do," he answered, "why should I be put out by these little familiarities, pleasantries, and bursts of merriment, seeing that I am quite certain they do not hate me? They have not yet struck me, spat in my face, or offered me any of those indignities which Jesus Christ our Lord suffered at the hands of the high priest's servants, and not alone from those who scourged Him, derided Him, and crucified Him. Is it fitting that I, who glory in being the ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... cried, and spat deliberately down into the other's naked palm. Then he stood back, facing his enemy in a manner to have done credit to ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... with the tricolour cockade, that proclaimed his momentary political views. He carried a short wooden pipe, from which the odour of rank tobacco emanated. He looked with some suspicion and a great deal of contempt at the two travellers, muttering "SACRRRES ANGLAIS!" and spat upon the ground to further show his independence of spirit, but, nevertheless, he stood aside to let them enter, no doubt well aware that these same SACCRES ANGLAIS always had ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... heat and smoke, but the animals came running up and trampled out the fire. Then the dragon rushed upon the huntsman, but he swung his sword until it sang through the air, and struck off three of his heads. Then the dragon grew right furious, and rose up in the air, and spat out flames of fire over the huntsman, and was about to plunge down on him, but the huntsman once more drew out his sword, and again cut off three of his heads. The monster became faint and sank down, nevertheless it was just able ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... dwelling. "Ah, you wicked thief, I see you!" she cried. "You see me; how?" he inquired. "With my eyes," she replied. "In that case I will soon put you out of power to play the spy," he answered. So saying, he spat in her face, and she became blind on the spot. A Danish story also relates that a midwife, who had inadvertently anointed her eyes with the salve handed to her by the elf-folk for the usual purpose, was going home afterwards and passed by a rye-field. The field was swarming with elves, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... threw the dice to the roller on his left. He spat blame at Sniffles for not riding with him. He was one big clot of crushed misery. After all, hadn't he wanted to lose? They all do. I couldn't get very upset over his curses. So far he had lost one buck, net. And he'd had some action. ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett

... to Islam and taught him the words of the creed. Now Marah-Silou being asleep dreamed that he was in the presence of the prophet of God, and the prophet said to him, "Marah-Silou, open your mouth." He opened it and the prophet spat in it, and Marah-Silou, awaking, perceived throughout his whole body a perfume like that of spikenard. When day broke he told ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... ye had had any gumption," Mr Snaggs was saying fearlessly to the parsons, "ye'd ha' gone straight to th' Chief Bailiff and ye'd ha'—Houch!" He made the peculiar exclamatory noise roughly indicated by the last word, and spat in disgust; and without the slightest ceremony of adieu walked ponderously away up the ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... chals—aye, and uses it too, otherwise I might ha' been tamed by now instead o' being free to choose. Ah, yes, I might ha' been creeping the ways wi' some man's brat on my shoulders, to work while he slept, go hungry till he'd ate his fill and slave for him—ah, I hate men!" And she spat in contempt and very coarsely. Yet I could not but notice how perfectly shaped was this vivid, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... word of what you've been sayin'. Why, man, if you hadn't already proved yourself to be the primest seaman and the most willing hand aboard this here dandy little hooker I'm blest if I shouldn't almost be inclined to believe you was a Socialist. Pah!" and he spat contemptuously on the floor of ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... red and swollen face of the holder of the illuminated address from the Rajah of Puttapongpoo like a plum-stone spat at her across the table. Rosalie blinked. These beastly men! Violent, vulgar, fat, rude beasts! Uncle Pyke the worst of them! But she came back bravely from her flinch. "If he wasn't a banker, he knew all about banking. Oh, that's what I would ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... of a form in the blockhouse port, there was an instant when a candle flung its rays upon a cannon's flank, and Tom's rifle spat a rod of flame. A red blot hid the cannon's mouth, and behind it a man staggered and fell on the candle, while the shot crunched its way through the logs of the cottage in the yard where we stood. And now the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... it; I'm a dead man." He then staggered toward his own room, and I, remembering the loaded revolver which still lay on the chest of drawers, tried to intercept him. In his rage, for I verily believe that he also remembered that the weapon was there, he spat in my face, and struck me with all his force between the eyes; but I stuck to him, and with the help of the boy, who had been all this time in hiding, but who came forward at my call, I laid him for the last time upon his bed. There he lay exhausted for the remainder of the night; but there was ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... beside the engine-driver and warned him to pull out before trouble started. But he had to take in water first. And he seemed to be an expert in symptoms of lawlessness. Leaning his grimy head and shoulders out of the cab, he looked the crowd over, spat, and showed his yellow teeth in a grin that vaguely reminded me of ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy

... and then, as if waiting to gather strength, biff! and away she went. Never before soared rocket so beautifully; it raked the very stars; its awful voice died out in the dim distance; with infinite grace it waved its trail of fire, and then spat forth such constellations of variegated stars—you would have thought a rainbow had burst into a million fragments—that shamed the very planets, and made us think mighty well of ourselves and our achievement. There was still a long ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... fruit about the size of a nut, and is chewed all over India to sweeten the breath, and is supposed to carry off phlegm from the stomach and to prevent thirst. The king had likewise a gold bason on a golden stand, into which he spat out the betel when chewed; and a gold fountain with water for washing his mouth. The king was served with betel by an old man who stood close to the sofa; all the others who were in the presence held their left hands to their mouths, that their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... lie," and he emphasised his words with a crescendo as he curled up what he possessed in the shape of a nose—for it was so flat that it hardly deserved the name; indeed, to give strength to his speech, he spat with violence on the ground, as if to clear his mouth, as it were, of the unclean ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... McKenna spat out an obscenity. "Aren't we ever going to have any luck?" he demanded. "Jarrett out on a writ this morning, ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... more than a wrinkle between the brows those Monday evenings when she had to dodge among the steamy wet clothes hanging on the kitchen pulleys as she cooked the supper, those Saturday nights when she and her mother had to wait for the cheap pieces at the butcher's among a crowd that hawked and spat and made jokes that were not geniality but merely a mental form of hawking and spitting; of the way that in those days her attention used to leap like a lion on the shy beast Beauty hiding in the bush, the housewifely ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... Slowly and carefully he laid a log in position, then he adjusted it with great accuracy, and considered awhile where he should begin to saw it, whether in the middle or on the right or the left. Then he applied the saw with the same care, laid it aside once more, spat on his hands and picked it up again. Now he took three or four strokes, cutting half an inch into the wood, but then drew the saw out again and examined it minutely, turned the screw, set it a little ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... for Murphy's plans, the chief's stateroom was located in the after part of the house and on the side opposite the skipper's, and following their brief spat through the speaking-tube, Terence Reardon had confined himself exclusively to his engine-room and that portion of the ship along which he must of necessity pass when going to and from his state-room. He told himself it was the part of wisdom ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... had dashed the holy crucifix on the floor at their feet and spat on it, they could not have shuddered under the ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... in its way rather than auxiliaries. He asks me to believe that the intolerance of Christianity—by which it refused all alliance with other religions, and insisted in reigning alone or not at all, by which it spat contempt on the whole rabble of the Pantheon—was likely to facilitate its reception among nations, whose pride and whose pleasure alike it was to encourage civilities and compliments between their Gods, each of whom was on gracious visiting terms with its neighbors! ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... the Metro. You're spat on if you're down and spat at if you're up. A dog's own life." Lifting her voice, the fat woman sang: "Croyez-moi car j'ai ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... spat," repeated the coroner, looking around the room as if to ask the people on whose votes he depended for reelection what they thought of a "little spat" which ended in a man's death. There was a sort of broad ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... was under a hail of Hun lead, without being able to understand why, or feel that any time had passed since giving up my job to go to war. Queer how I saw my old desk!... Well, that's how Smith got his. I heard the bullets spat him, sort of thick and soft.... Ugh!... Owens and I dragged him along, and finally into the trench. He had a bullet through his shoulder and leg. Guess he'll live, all right.... Boys, take this from me. Nobody can tell you what a machine-gun ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... to his fits of wild passion, and she was frightened by the gusts of hatred with which they were followed; but when, afterwards, he was cringing and lachrymose she had such a contempt for him that she could have spat in his face. Sometimes he was violent, but now she was prepared for him, and when he hit her she kicked and scratched and bit. They had horrible battles in which he had not always the best of it. Very soon it was known all over Apia that they ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... amazement, for the Dago turned and spat a brief word at him, making a gesture with his hand as though to ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... visit a brewery, that of Barclay and Perkins. There he was recognized; a voice whispered: "It is Haynau!"—"It is Haynau!" repeated the workmen!—It was a fearful cry; the crowd rushed upon the wretch, tore out his infamous white hair by handfuls, spat in his face, and thrust him out. Well, this old bandit in epaulettes, this Haynau, this man who still bears on his cheek the immense buffet of the English people, it is announced that "Monseigneur the Prince-President invites him to ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... jerk of his neck the Senior Surgeon rooted his mud-gagged mouth a half inch further towards free and spontaneous speech. Very laboriously, very painstakingly, he spat out one by one two stones and a wisp of ground pine and a brackish, prickly tickle ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... bed and coaxed him and comforted him. Never had I seen such tenderness. It was like a vision of a classic hereafter. In a second I would have exchanged my youth for the position of this doddering old nobleman who spat ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... in it. He seized it adroitly in his paws, twisted out the cork, and held the bottle up to his mouth with a comical dexterity that told of previous experience. But, whatever it was, it did not please the invader; he spat and spilled it out, and flung the bottle down as Kellyan gazed, astonished. A remarkable "crack! crack! crack!" from the fire was heard now, and the cartridges began to go off in ones, twos, fours, ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton

... themselves scarce in that particular neighborhood; because ere many moons had waxed and waned Josh intended coming back again to look them up; and the law would no longer protect the shy inmates of the North Woods against the "sticks that spat out fire and stinging missiles" whenever ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone

... down and kissed his boot, and bawled and looked a hundred ejaculations and blessings. The prince bade the aide de camp give him a piece of money; and when the party saluting us had ridden away, Cravat spat upon the piece of gold by way of benediction, and swaggered away, pouching his coin and twirling ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... in the porch, and the rain increased outside. Presently the gurgoyle spat. In due time a small stream began to trickle through the seventy feet of aerial space between its mouth and the ground, which the water-drops smote like duckshot in their accelerated velocity. The stream thickened ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... "you young fellers never look more than skin deep. Now the way she trifles with that young 'Zekiel Pettengill I think's shameful. They ust to have a spat every week about something but they allus made it up. But I heard Lindy say that after you come here, 'Zeke he got huffy and Huldy she got independent, and they hain't spoke to each other ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... me, therefore, to settle on that gratuity which should be least conspicuous—so large that nobody could grumble, so small that nobody would be tempted to boast. My decision was hastily and nor wisely taken. The one fellow spat on his tip (so he called it) for luck; the other developing a sudden streak of piety, prayed God bless me with fervour. It seemed a demonstration was brewing, and I determined to be off at once. Bidding ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... came over the amazed heathen at sight of this awful air-devil from whose sides spat forth invisible death; but then, as they divined at least a portion of the truth, as they saw their longed-for victims thus borne bodily away, a revulsion came, and, amid the most hideous howls and screeches, missiles ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... this affair. When you took it into your head to dishonor my family and the name that I have borne, in peace and war, for more than threescore years, you forfeited, not only the right to question my designs, but that of looking me in the face. If your father had been alive, he would have spat on you and turned you out of doors. His was the hand of iron. You may bless your God you have only to deal with the hand of velvet, mademoiselle. It was my duty to get you married without delay. Out of pure ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... with great nervous apprehension, kept mumbling his rice, and turning it over between his jaws, until he cried out in a querulous tone, 'Why do you give me this stuff to chew? I am old, and have no teeth:—it is impossible for me to reduce the grain'; and then he spat it out. My mother, too, complained of her want of power to break the hard rice, and did the same thing. A silence ensued, which made us all look with more attention than usual upon them, and it was only broken by a time-server of my mother, an old woman, who cried out, 'What child's play is ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... day, near gifted Clay, a youthful member sat, And like a free American upon the floor he spat; Then turning round to Clay, he said, and wiped his manly chin, "What kind of Locofoco's that, as ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... the same attitudes, spat tobacco with the same calm delight, and joked each other, breaking into short and sudden fits of laughter, and pounded each other on the back, just as when he was a student at the La Crosse Seminary and going to and fro daily ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... a legend as might be evolved by persons in the same savage intellectual condition as, say, the Bushmen, who account for celestial phenomena by saying that a big star has swallowed his daughter and spat her out again. ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... length I sprang up and cursed in my agony. At first I was at a loss to know what occasioned this torment, till I perceived that the air was alive with gnat-like insects which made a singing noise, and then settling on my flesh, sucked blood and spat poison into the wound at one and the same time. These dreadful insects the Spaniards name mosquitoes. Nor were they the only flies, for hundreds of other creatures, no bigger than a pin's head, had fastened on to me like bulldogs to a baited bear, boring their heads into the flesh, where in the end ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... become terror-stricken about them. They seem to want things badly. Then ostriches disguised as judges cannot deal with them. Anarchism—men die for that, they undergo intolerable insults. They are tarred and feathered and spat upon. Is it possible that Republicans, Democrats and Socialists clip the wings more than free spirits can allow? Is civilization perhaps too tightly organized? Have the irreconcilables a soul audacious and less blunted than ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... on Jean Servien and spat in his face; she abandoned herself to a frantic orgy of obscenity in word and gesture and clapped the muzzle of ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... He spat into the gutter, and a sound that was almost a snarl escaped from his throat. He stopped, irresolute, and the wound in his head burst into a violent pain. He leaned against a post until the agony had passed, and once more he made for Broadway. At the sight of his face ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... said Barrows. He walked off the verandah and turned and spat carefully into the dusty path. He climbed into his ground-car and ...
— The Helpful Robots • Robert J. Shea

... third had received a ball among the thews and muscles behind his knee, and his whole body appeared to be paralyzed. Two were wounded in the shoulders, and the sixth was shot in the breast, and was believed to be injured inwardly, as he spat blood, and suffered almost the pain of death. The ride with these men, over twenty miles of hilly, woody country, was like one of Dante's excursions into the Shades. In the awful stillness of the dark pines, their screams frightened ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... increasing, a blister was applied to her back, and the Digitalis infusion directed to be taken every night. The effect was an increased secretion of urine, a considerable relief to her breath, and some return of appetite; but soon afterwards she became hectic, spat purulent matter, and died in a ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering

... Ansdore too well for that ... and Socknersh, fine fellow as he was, had no mind and very little sense—he could scarcely read and write, he was slow as an ox, and had common ways and spoke the low Marsh talk—he drank out of his saucer and cut his bread with his pocket-knife—he spat in the yard. How dared people think she would marry him?—that she was so undignified, infatuated and unfastidious as to yoke herself to a slow, common boor? Her indignation flamed against the scandal-mongers ... that Woolpack! She'd like to see their licence taken away, and then perhaps ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... shell-hole with Volpatte." And they mixed the two exploits together in a muddled way, that of the shell-hole, and the present, and looked on him as the hero of the moment, while he puffed, sniffled, grunted, spat, and tried to dry himself under the celestial shower-bath with rapid rubbing and as a measure of deception; then at last he ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... flared up threw an orange-red light on his face, showing eyes which were lusterless. For a few moments he held the match in his hollowed palms, coaxing its blaze in the breeze. Before it had burned out there came a sharp report and Karyl heard the spat of flattening lead on the masonry at his back. The echo rattled along the rocky side of the hill. One of the sentry-boxes had answered his unasked ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... Powerless, he was lifted in the air and borne swiftly away. For an instant he found himself held face to face with his turbaned brother. Into that pallid terror-stricken human mask the renegade's eyes stabbed like two daggers. Then deliberately and after the fashion of the Muslim he was become he spat ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... the ebb of blood to his cowardly heart, Roarin' Russell opened his fingers wide, judging implicit obedience his greatest safety. Sandy did not move position, he hardly seemed to move wrist or finger as his guns spat fire, left and right, eight shots blending, eight bullets smashing their way through the door between the "V's" of the bully's fingers while the crowd held their breath ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... brain the maddening potion still worked, laughed frantically at them. It was at this moment that Elizabeth Device, who had conceived a project of revenge, put it into execution. While near Dorothy, she stamped, spat on the ground, and then cast a little mould over her, breathing in her ear, "Thou art ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the end, and spat it on the floor, as if preoccupied. His brow wrinkled, as if the mental exercise were ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... at the widely grinning man and saw him spin around. Mike's target rifle spat again and the man Joe had hit wheeled and ran heavily, making incoherent yells. The one who'd tumbled scrambled to his feet and fled, hopping crazily, favoring one leg. Deserted, the third man turned and ran too, still doubled ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... poor Madame Duval was unspeakable; she dashed the candle out of his hand, stamping upon the floor, and, at last, spat in ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... beehive shape, about twelve feet high, hollow inside, and its walls were about two feet thick. A part of its imperfect top was blown off, and a piece of its side blown out, and the side rent gave one a frightful view of its interior, with the risk of having lava spat at one at intervals. The name "Blowing Cone" is an apt one, if the theory of their construction be correct. It is supposed that when the surface of the lava cools rapidly owing to enfeebled action below, the gases force ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... foot of the great peach tree; there shalt thou find an anointed twice-anointed one[342] and an hundred turds of my sitting hen;[343] set thy mouth to the flagon and get thee gone again and do thou no hurt to my Gianni nor to me.' Then to her husband, 'Spit, Gianni,' quoth she, and he spat. Federigo, who heard all this from without and was now quit of jealousy, had, for all his vexation, so great a mind to laugh that he was like to burst, and when Gianni spat, he said under his breath '[Would ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... long in suspense. As soon as he had arrived upon the ground, he stooped down, and spat a quantity of the juice over the head of the snake. Then, taking the sapling out of my hand, he plucked it up ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... one o' they young college gentlemen stayin' at the farm-nice feller tu, with 'is 'ead in the air. I liked 'e very well, an' I never see nothin' between 'em, but to my thinkin' 'e turned the maid's fancy." The old man took the pipe out of his mouth, spat, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... a'ready!" he exclaimed, as he spat energetically into the mud. "I d'clar if it don't beat all—one minute we're thar an' the next we're here. It's a movin' world we live in, ain't that so, mum?" Then, as the severe matron still stared unbendingly before her, he descended between the wheels, and stood nervously ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... door, and piled up their fire. It was long since their study had glowed with such a cheerful blaze. The resin-wheel flared, and crackled, and spat as if it was in the jest and was enjoying it, and the flames blazed up the chimney as though they were racing who should be the first ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... scarcely ended, when she was spat upon by dowager lady Chia. "You rotten-tongued, good-for-nothing hag!" she cried abusively. "What makes you fancy him of no good! You wish him dead and gone; but what benefit will you then derive? Don't give way to any dreams; for, if he does die, I'll just ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... been many a year since Mackenzie had mixed in a fight, and the best that had gone before was nothing more than a harmless spat compared to this. The marvel of it was how he had developed this quality of defense in inactivity. There must have been some psychological undercurrent carrying strength and skill to him through all the years of his romantic imaginings; the spirits of ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... feed fer the buzzards," he croaked, in his hoarse voice. He had so often strewed the plains with human flesh for the carrion birds that the thought had a deep fascination for him. "D'ye hear, scalp-hunter? Feed for buzzards!" He deliberately spat in the hunter's face. "D'ye hear?" ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... sweltering foam. The tide was rushing south through the Gouliot Pass like a mill-race. It drove a bold furrow into the comparatively calm waters beyond, a furrow which leaped and writhed and spat like a tortured snake with the agonies of the narrow passage. And presently it sank into twisting coils, all spattered and marbled with foam, and came weltering up from conflict with the rocks below, and then hurried ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... idea when I entered that recruiting office that the sergeant would receive me with open arms. He didn't. Instead he looked me over with unqualified scorn and spat out, "Yank, ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes

... know?" cried the startled youth. And on the heels of that: "It's a lie!" He was getting a better grip on his courage. He spat defiantly a splash of tobacco juice on a flat pebble which his eye found. "No such thing! This calf was a maverick. Ask Phyl. She'll tell you ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... anger at the impudence of Tchelkache; he spat upon the ground in a vain effort to speak. Tchelkache let go his hand and turned back quietly and deliberately at the entrance to the wharf. The officer, swearing like ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky

... spat at their vanishing heels, sat down on his tail in the chimney-corner, and was ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... witness to these last three days! What anxiety have we not suffered ever since our arrival in Uvinza! The Wavinza are worse than the Wagogo, and their greed is more insatiable. We got the donkey across with the aid of a mganga, or medicine man, who spat some chewed leaves of a tree which grows close to the stream over him. He informed me he could cross the river at any time, day or night, after rubbing his body with these chewed leaves, which he believed to ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... went into the kitchen to light a match. Seeing the glaring, fiery eyes of the cat, he thought they were live coals, and held a match toward them that he might light it. But Puss was frightened; she spat at him and scratched his face. This frightened the robber so terribly that he rushed to the door, but the dog, who lay there, sprang out at him and bit him on the ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... at the same time, and they all stood near the cage of the parrot, as he tore at a claw-full of biscuit and spat it out, seemed to mock them with a pompous dance of his body without moving his feet, and suddenly turned himself upside down and trailed himself all over the outside of his golden cage, with the aid of his cruel beak ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... have you any goblins in this place?" asked R——, walking close up to the Norwegian, and blowing the smoke from his pipe so voluminously in the little man's face, that he coughed till he nearly spat his quid out of ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... thing approaching a disagreeable difference between the Secretary of War and myself that occurred until the war was over, when we had another little spat. Owing to his natural disposition to assume all power and control in all matters that he had anything whatever to do with, he boldly took command of the armies, and, while issuing no orders on the subject, prohibited ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... such love by this people that it was not their wish to force any husband on her. Moreover, the chief said that he and his people defied Dingaan and the Zulus, as their fathers had defied Chaka before him, and spat upon his name, and that no maid of theirs should go to be the wife ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard

... of the French, or such his forgetfulness of good manners in his anger, that he spat right and ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... One old fellow spat right at Desmond, and when he saw that the shot had been successful, shrieked and chuckled with laughter as he climbed back to a more secure part of the bough. The monkeys on this, emboldened by success and increased in numbers, discharged volleys of missiles of ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... could no longer contain herself; not doubting the treason of Bras-Rouge, which she had prophesied, she cried, "I was sure that you sold my son who is at Toulon. There, Judas!" and she spat in his face. "You sell our heads; so be it; they will see handsome corpses-corpses ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... engagement to preach lest the congregation should stone him. The Bishop of Litchfield barely escaped with his life after preaching at St. Bride's, Fleet Street. Archbishop Howley, entering Canterbury for his primary visitation, was insulted, spat upon, and only brought by a circuitous route to the Deanery, amid the execrations of the mob. On the 5th of November the Bishops of Exeter and Winchester were burnt in effigy close to their own palace ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... him fiercely across the mouth. The blood came, but the shiftless one merely spat it out, and looked ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... spat on their rapid firers as we reached the trench and delightedly called our attention to the sizzle that told how hot the barrels were ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... Side by side on the table sat; 'Twas half-past twelve, and (what do you think!) Nor one nor t'other had slept a wink! The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate Appeared to know as sure as fate There was going to be a terrible spat. (I wasn't there; I simply state What was told to me ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... nodded assent), for who would deal with the estates and make suitable arrangements if the heir, who already largely controlled them, were laid by the heels? But that the largeness of the undertaking was recognised by the Council, was plain enough, in that no less a man than Topcliffe (Mr. Bassett spat on the floor as he named him), Topcliffe, "the devil possessed by worse devils," was sent down to ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... tangled two of them, got in a tear, as he calls it, snapped the sid, bit the rusty hook off, spat out a shred of old bait, brought the boat's head too far into the wind, cursed the flapping sail and cursed the tiller, grubbed in his pockets for a new hook, and made tiny knots with clumsy great fingers and his teeth. "An't never got ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... over his shoulder. Only a flare here and there as a rifle spat its red threat, that and a blur of running figures. As yet no horseman following them. That would take another minute or two. He looked at Betty. She rode astride and well; no need to bid her make haste. She leaned forward in the saddle, the loose ends of her reins whipping back and forth regularly, ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... host of other aspects—Mr. Pepys whose nose his jealous wife attacked with the red-hot tongs as he lay in bed; Mr. Pepys who always held an anniversary feast on the date on which he had been cut for the stone; Mr. Pepys who was not "troubled at it at all" as soon as he saw that the lady who had spat on him in the theatre was a pretty one; Mr. Pepys drinking; Mr. Pepys among his dishes; Mr. Pepys among princes; Mr. Pepys who was "mightily pleased" as he listened to "my aunt Jenny, a poor, religious, well-meaning good soul, talking of nothing ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... hat on the head of a scarecrow whose construction had occupied his spare hours, and in which he felt some little pride. But after surveying the result a moment he seemed to feel that he had insulted a helpless object, for he took the hat off, spat into it, and kicked it into shapeless pulp. Then he came back to the house and grimly asked his wife if she had anything handy to take the poison out of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... taken the line I had marked out—do you think we should have been assured a happy life? Not a bit of it. We might have been happy for twenty years. And then—women are women and can't help themselves—the old word—by George, sir, she spat it at me from a festering sore in her very soul—the old word would have rankled all the time, and some stupid quarrel having arisen, she would have spat it at me again. I wasn't taking ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... sober. He pursed his lips, and spat across the ditch; then he gave his mouth a wipe, and glanced thoughtfully ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... John was watchful and looked into her face, and suddenly she turned pale and fell to the ground, as if she were dead. On this he ran hastily to her, lifted her up and bore her into a chamber—-then he laid her down, and knelt and sucked the three drops of blood from her right breast, and spat them out. Immediately she breathed again and recovered herself, but the young King had seen this, and being ignorant why Faithful John had done it, was angry and cried, "Throw him into a dungeon." Next morning ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... Hogg spat out complacently over the grass. "Now, that is an absurd thing," he said, smiling. "Because a man's tired and wants some air after his day's work he's accused of being a nuisance. It's a bit thick, that's ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... bourgeoisie—why don't you stay in New York?" He figuratively spat upon the proprieties, and Milly was bewildered. "An apartement meublee au cinquieme, near the Boul' 'Mich for us, ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... pie oftener than they could help, being content to look on and laugh, there are very few left. They are dying out day by day in such manner that I fear greatly to see these illustrious fragments of the ancient breviary spat upon, staled upon, set at naught, dishonoured, and blamed, the which I should be loath to see, since I have and bear great respect for the refuse of ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... woman first?" de Gatinais spat at him, viciously, for the Frenchman now saw his air-castle shaken ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... not to notice how the great book, as though it were a living mouth, spat its deathless scorn upon the things that he also—in the imperfect measure of his powers—had always hated: all cowardice of mind or body, all lying, all oppression, all unfaithfulness, all secret revenge and hypocrisy and double-dealing: the smut of the heart and mind. ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... spat brightly. "He ain't learned yet," said he, slanting his elbows at Billy and sliding a match over his rump. "But beer, now—I never seen anything in it." He and Towhead soon left Billy and his callow profanities behind, and ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... La Corriveau spat at the mention of the sacred name. "But it is in her, Fanchon. It is in all of us! If she is not so already, she will be. But go into the house and see your foolish uncle, while I go prepare for my visit. We ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... fine counsellor," she shrieked; "ye persecute a lone old body like me for selling rum—do ye? And here ye are, carried home drunk—Hoot! ye villain, I scorn ye!" And she spat upon him. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... "The cursed boat." He spat as though something bitter were in his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He did not seem to care a button whether the lady were alive or not. He had been dreaming that he was in a tavern, just raising ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... the quack drew together, and the eyes peered out sharply through half-closed lids. "There's plenty of wanting and not much getting in this world," he rejoined, with a leer of contempt, and spat on the floor, while yet the furtive watchfulness of the eyes indicated ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... was curious and foolhardy, and resolved to see if I could bear the atmosphere which this visitor had left; but though I did not advance within thirty yards of the spot at which he had first appeared, I was driven back by a vapour that wellnigh stifled me. Cospetto! I have spat ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... calculated to our value—we are not much, my boy, in Sunday's universe. He has got hold of all the cables and telegraphs himself. But to kill the Supreme Council he regards as a trivial matter, like a post card; it may be left to his private secretary," and he spat ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... savage warriors, steel on hips, Muttered between their bearded lips, And spat upon the floor, To see a thing so debonnaire Enthroned upon a conqueror's chair, And find ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson

... too, suffered every kind of punishment. One kind of torture was to make us hold a board at arm's length and hold it out by the hour. They also had a practice of twisting our legs, while they spat on our faces. When ordered to undress, one person replied, 'I am not guilty of any offence. Why should I take off my clothes ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... thar," drawled a tall mountaineer who supported himself against the chimney and spat with placid regularity into the fire. "They tell me thet gal thar hes writ things as hes been in print. They say she's powerful smart—arns her livin' by it. 'T least thet's what Jake Harney says, 'n they's a-boardin' at Harney's. ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... outdoing the old gentleman when he whistled still more shrilly on his fingers, coughed still more wrathfully and spat still more decisively. The qualities in the old gentleman that had really commanded respect, the consistency which, even where it degenerated into obstinacy, compelled esteem, the calm, self-contained dignity of a capable personality—these he failed to see. Not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... communication, he built highways of steel across this territory from east to west and from north to south; of how, undismayed by the savageness of the countenance which the desert turned upon him, he laughed and rolled up his sleeves, and spat upon his hands, and slashed the face of the desert with canals and irrigating ditches, and filled those ditches with water brought from deep in the earth or high in the mountains; and of how, in the conquered and ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... casing of the door which led into the dining-room, with her tail as big as a bed-bolster. I suppose she had gone up early in the wolf-fight, not liking such proceedings. She was still in the greatest state of fright, and spat and scratched at me as ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth

... "Now I know you. You saved me from the catmen, and again in Canarsa, so my hands are bound from harming you. But it is evil to have dealings with those who have been touched by the Toad God." He spat noisily on the ground, looked at me with loathing, and said, "We will reach Shainsa in three days. Stay ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... worshipping idols, did not care much to reason that an image which man had made could not be God. The priests might have been a match for them in reasoning. They walked up to the idol in the presence of its votaries. They threw stones at it, spat upon it, insulted it. 'See,' they said, 'I do this to your God. If he is God, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... Sarnax spat against the door. "In the face of Jirzyn of Starpha!" he said. "And in the face of his zortan mother, and of his father, whoever he was! Dirzed, do not talk foolishly; one does not speak of betraying betrayers." He turned to Verkan Vall. ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper

... bristling with waving horns, rode the brave men. Their revolvers spat out fire and the smoke almost obscured the oncoming steers. The men yelled until their ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... great as when he occupied a prison cell; and Jesus Christ reached the height of his success when, smitten, spat upon, tormented, and crucified, He cried in agony, and yet with triumphant satisfaction, "It ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... no pirut," he declared with unconcealed disdain, as he spat into the gutter. "Anybody can see ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... surround it? Had all rushed bravely from all directions how long would it have fired? Even thus, could more have died than did die? Scores they slew—and retired but when they could fire no longer.... And ye allowed it to go because a dozen men stood between it and you——," and again the good man spat. ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... marionettes of Providence, in fact, are not made to last so long as It." In his dying hour Voltaire was seen showing more concern for terrestrial scandals than for the terrors of conscience, crying aloud for a priest, and, with his mouth full of the blood he spat, still repeating in a half whisper, "I don't want to be thrown into the kennel." A sad confession of the insufficiency of his convictions and of the inveterate levity of his thoughts; he was afraid of the judgment ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... a restraining hand. His lips trembled. His eyes seemed to snap in a rapid fire between the eyes and mouth of the big man slouched down in the chair in front of him. "Wait a minute," he spat out. "Since you do know that somebody is being ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... but I spat in his face and went home and told my uncle Tourlough, who forthwith took out a knife and began to sharp it on a whetstone, and I make no doubt would have gone and stuck the fellow like a pig, had not my poor aunt begged him not on her knees. ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... the belief that Eliza was possessed with the devil. I went again to the priest's on Wednesday to find Eliza, when the priest told me that he, Mr. McDonnel, exorcised the devil at high mass that morning in the church, and drove the devil out of Eliza. That he, the devil, came out of Eliza, and spat at the Holy Cross of Jesus Christ, and departed. He then told me that, as Eliza got the devil from Mr. Lockwood, in the house where I lived, I must leave the house immediately, and made me promise him that I would. During the appalling scenes of Tuesday night, ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson



Words linked to "Spat" :   collide with, offspring, attach, gesture, sanction, bickering, fall, row, okay, bravo, gaiter, Bivalvia, scrap, words, young, quarrel, class Pelecypoda, class Bivalvia, altercate, run into, leging, dispute, strike, class Lamellibranchia, tiff, clap, Lamellibranchia, impinge on, spawn, boo, argufy, gesticulate, approve, o.k., legging, motion, wrangle, leg covering, come down, run-in, hit, bicker, precipitate, dustup, acclaim



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