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Barb   Listen
noun
Barb  n.  
1.
Beard, or that which resembles it, or grows in the place of it. "The barbel, so called by reason of his barbs, or wattles in his mouth."
2.
A muffler, worn by nuns and mourners. (Obs.)
3.
pl. Paps, or little projections, of the mucous membrane, which mark the opening of the submaxillary glands under the tongue in horses and cattle. The name is mostly applied when the barbs are inflamed and swollen. (Written also barbel and barble)
4.
The point that stands backward in an arrow, fishhook, etc., to prevent it from being easily extracted. Hence: Anything which stands out with a sharp point obliquely or crosswise to something else. "Having two barbs or points."
5.
A bit for a horse. (Obs.)
6.
(Zool.) One of the side branches of a feather, which collectively constitute the vane. See Feather.
7.
(Zool.) A southern name for the kingfishes of the eastern and southeastern coasts of the United States; also improperly called whiting.
8.
(Bot.) A hair or bristle ending in a double hook.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Barb" Quotes from Famous Books



... breathed though it was by tender lips, and launched in ignorance of the barb which carried it to his heart, Mr. Sutherland recoiled and cast an anxious look upon the door. Then with forced composure he quietly said: "If you who are so much nearer his age, and, let me hope, his sympathy, do not feel sure of his real feelings, how should I, who am his father, but ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... can you do against it—a man that was raised in squatter country behind a barb-wire fence, who has to gentle his horses before he can sit up on one, who has hitched a gun on his belt because he thinks it's the thing to do, and has stowed it in a place where he'd have to tie himself in a knot—or undress—to reach ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... and slim white horse of purest barb breed seemed almost one creature. Instinctively the Master's service-cap came off, at sight of him. The lieutenant's did the same. Both men stepped forward, cap over heart. These two, if no others, understood ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... immediately speak, but with the head of her dying boy upon her heart she sat in mute and unbroken agony, every pang of her departing orphan throwing a deeper shade of affliction over her countenance, and a keener barb of sorrow ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... further troubles for the optimistic angler; a tough alder stem, just under water, became entangled in the line; the fisherman gave a cautious jerk; the hook sank into the water-soaked wood, buried to the barb. ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... sacrificed art to the welfare of her sex, but who with Mrs. Burke had shared rooms and studio with Nick for many months. Tommy's narrative was spotted with hardly perceptible sarcasms concerning art, women, Betty Burke, Mrs. Burke, and Nick; but she put no barb into Rosamund. And when Miss Ingate, who had never met Rosamund, asked what Rosamund amounted to in the esteem of Tommy, Tommy evaded the question. Miss Ingate remembered, however, what she had said ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... lingers, and have set me free From th' other circles. In the sight of God So much the dearer is my widow priz'd, She whom I lov'd so fondly, as she ranks More singly eminent for virtuous deeds. The tract most barb'rous of Sardinia's isle, Hath dames more chaste and modester by far Than that wherein I left her. O sweet brother! What wouldst thou have me say? A time to come Stands full within my view, to which ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... and anon excited in the distance denoted the arrival of a regiment of Cavalry. Even now one approaches; it is the Red Lancers. How gracefully their Colonel, the young Count of Eberstein, bounds on his barb! Has Theseus turned Centaur? His spur and bridle seem rather the emblems of sovereignty than the instruments of government: he neither chastises nor directs. The rider moves without motion, and the horse judges without guidance. It would ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... smothered exclamation on the part of the man he addressed. A barb had been hidden in this simple statement which had reached some deeply-hidden but vulnerable spot in Brotherson's breast, which had never been pierced before. His eye which alone seemed alive, still rested piercingly upon that of Mr. Challoner, but its light was fast fading, ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... STRANGER: Of this barb-fishing, that which strikes the fish who is below from above is called spearing, because this is the way in which the three-pronged ...
— Sophist • Plato

... we can object to and they know it; somebody has put 'em wise how to act. Here they are, sober this morning, behaving themselves, and so on. We can't keep men from going for a walk if they want to; we can't string barb-wire around the camp and hold them in; we can't even say they can't touch a bottle if a stranger offers them one when they're on ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... and devote it to the pursuits of war. Further, they should know that the plunder had been abandoned by the enemy of set purpose, and that the gold had been scattered rather to betray them than to profit them. Moreover, the honest lustre of the silver was only a bait on the barb of secret guile. It was not thought to be that they, who had first forced the Britons to fly, would lightly fly themselves. Besides, nothing was more shameful than riches which betrayed into captivity the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... descriptive phrases." Then, on her appearance in "Much Ado About Nothing:" "She permeates the raillery of Beatrice with an indescribable charm of mischievous sweetness. The silver arrows of her pungent wit have no barb, for evidently she does not mean that they shall really wound. Her appearance and carriage are beautiful, and her tones melt into music. There is no hint of the virago here, and even the tone of sarcasm is ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... The Soldier of Fortune The Gramaphone at Fond-Du-Lac The Land of Beyond Sunshine The Idealist Athabaska Dick Cheer The Return The Junior God The Nostomaniac Ambition To Sunnydale The Blind and the Dead The Atavist The Sceptic The Rover Barb-Wire Bill "?" Just Think! The Lunger The Mountain and the Lake The Headliner and the Breadliner Death in the Arctic Dreams Are Best The Quitter The Cow-Juice Cure While the Bannock Bakes The Lost ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... so pure redeems a world of sin! Thou Heav'n that I have mock'd, O hear me now, And spare! let her not feel the bitter pangs Of disappointed love! Draw the barb gently, That she may sigh her soul away, and sleep Throughout her passage to a ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... vie with the poppy's hue, Eyes that shame the violet's blue, Hearts that beat with love so true, Sylvia, sweet, I come to you! Barb'ra, sweet, I ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... no more shots and he resumed work. Later on, as he neared the fence and was establishing his last points within the field, a horseman with a gray moustache came galloping up along the stretch of barb wire. He nodded, inquired if the engineer was named Bryant, and announced that he had half a dozen injunctions ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... a clever, willful child, full of the childish passion for imitation and mockery. And she proceeded to "take off" the grand Miss Burroughs—enough like Josephine to give the satire point and barb. He could see Josephine resolved to be affable and equal, to make this doubtless bedazzled stray from the "lower classes" feel comfortable in those palatial surroundings. She imitated Josephine's walk, her way of looking, her voice ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... City, too! Willie stayed out by the barb-wire fence; he didn't dast to go in. When I come out I found him ready to cry. That desperado has sure got the heart of a woman. I reckon he'd commit a murder for that phonograph—he's so ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... merchandise on their backs, cross the bazaar at every moment; or files of donkeys, stooping under bundles of faggots, pick their careful way. By-and-by—but this is not a frequent sight—a Moslem swell ambles past on a barb, gorgeous in caparisons, the enormous peaked saddle held in its place by girths round the beast's breast and quarters, and covered with scarlet hammer-cloth. If we move about and examine the stalls, we see lumps of candied sweetmeats ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... barb wire us ever seen, us scairt of it. Us thunk lightnin' be sho' to strike it. It sho' ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... promises happiness to-morrow, is implicitly believed; Love, when he comes wandering like a lost angel to our door, is at once admitted, welcomed, embraced. His quiver is not seen; if his arrows penetrate, their wound is like a thrill of new life. There are no fears of poison, none of the barb which no leech's hand can extract. That perilous passion—an agony ever in some of its phases; with many, an agony throughout—is believed to be an unqualified good. In short, at eighteen the school of experience ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... saw, and smote his grieving breast; Flew to their pallid limbs, and as he rais'd, Their bodies, in the pious office fell: For Phoebus drove his fate-wing'd arrow deep Through what his heart inclos'd. Sudden withdrawn, On the barb'd head the mangled lungs were stuck; And high in air his soul gush'd forth in blood. But beardless Damasichthon, by a wound Not single fell, as those; struck where the leg To form begins, and where the nervous ham A yielding joint supplies. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... much delighted to recount. The porcupine's quills may be pulled out easily by anything which presses too rudely against them, such as the mouth of a mastiff; and this because they are very slightly attached by their roots, and have a barb upon their tops that takes hold upon any enemy that may attempt to touch them. This is the only defence the poor animal has got—as it is so slow of foot that any of its enemies can easily come up with it. But, notwithstanding its slowness, ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... said Higgins. "The same all over the world! A fence makes them see red. Barb wire is to 'em like a new steel trap to a wolf. Wonder if it was ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... 100 lb.) a heavy wooden hook was always used by the natives in preference to a steel hook of European manufacture. I saw that it was impossible to convince him, so dropped the subject; and showed him other gear of mine—flying-fish tackle, barb-less pearl-shell hooks for bonito, etc., etc He "bosh-ed" nearly everything, and wound up by saying that he wondered why people of sense accepted the dicta of ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... so remarkable for its weakness and momentary duration, that gives us the liveliest idea of beauty and elegance. Among animals, the greyhound is more beautiful than the mastiff, and the delicacy of a jennet, a barb, or an Arabian horse, is much more amiable than the strength and stability of some horses of war or carriage. I need here say little of the fair sex, where I believe the point will be easily allowed me. The beauty of women is considerably owing to their weakness ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... minutes and a little more; and Dalavill since came but little short of him. Peacock was first Sir Thomas Thynne's of Long-leate; who valued him at 1,000 pounds. Philip Earle of Pembrock gave 51i. but to have a sight of him: at last his lordship had him; I thinke by gift. Peacock was a bastard barb. He was the most beautifull horse ever seen in this last age, and was as fleet as handsome. He ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey

... mesh the seine Swimming shoals draws from the wave: Nor do fish the bait disdain Till they feel the barb's swift pain, Captives of ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... them to each particular fish. But white or black, every fish takes one fly or the other, and then comes the question—is the fish that has swallowed the big gaudy lure so much worse or more foolish than that which has fallen to the delicate white moth with the same sharp barb in ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... in the handsome and showy uniform of a Cossack officer. The Grand Duchess had on a white alpaca robe, with the seams and gores trimmed with black barb lace, and a little gray hat with a feather of the same color. She is young, rather pretty modest and unpretending, and full ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... washing-shed, on a corner of what seemed to be another wing of the building, and on a bleak lifeless abject landscape of scrubby woods beyond—which constituted the view from the ten windows on the right. The authorities had miscalculated a little in one respect: a merest fraction of the barb-wire pen which began at the corner of the above-mentioned building was visible from these windows, which windows (I was told) were consequently thronged by fighting men at the time of the girl's promenade. A planton, I was also told, made it his ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... sharpness &c. adj.; acuity, acumination[obs3]; spinosity[obs3]. point, spike, spine, spicule[Biol], spiculum[obs3]; needle, hypodermic needle, tack, nail, pin; prick, prickle; spur, rowel, barb; spit, cusp; horn, antler; snag; tag thorn, bristle; Adam's needle[obs3], bear grass [U.S.], tine, yucca. nib, tooth, tusk; spoke, cog, ratchet. crag, crest, arete[Fr], cone peak, sugar loaf, pike, aiguille[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... out. At first sight a prison camp looks very much like a chicken ranch; the high wire fences around the whole enclosure and the little frame huts in the centre all carry out the idea. But when you get in, there is a vast difference, the outside fence is fourteen feet high, and of barb-wire with the barbs poisoned; three yards in, there is another fence, a low one this time, to prevent the "chickens" getting under, and this is made of live wire. In between these fences there is a line of German guards, each one having his own beat. The centre of the camp is ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien

... until the wars of Augustus that Heras of Cappadocia designed the famous duck-bill forceps which, with every conceivable modification, has continued in use until our time. Celsus instructs that in extracting arrow-heads the entrance-wound should be dilated, the barb of the arrow-head crushed by strong pliers, or protected between the edges of a split reed, and thus withdrawn without laceration of the soft parts. According to the same authority, Paulus Aegineta also treated fully of wounds by arrow-heads, and described a method used in his time to ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... of treacherous depths, joined by foaming, rock-broken rapids. The bank was lined with great boulders through which a day-time path wound a difficult way. Jerry wasted no time in trying to follow it, but skirted far around through a waist-high cornfield. A barb-wire fence held him prisoner long enough to allow Dave to break cover first on the opposite shore and send a vigorous but quavery ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart

... Point, during the time Mr. Keith was there, killed five very large sea lions by spearing them at night. Two canoes being lashed together, they approach very softly, and throw their spears, which are fastened by a long, strong cord, with a barb so fixed in a socket that, when it strikes the animal and pierces the flesh, it is detached from the shaft of the spear, but remains fastened to the cord. This is instantly made fast between the canoes; the animal dives and swims down river, dragging the canoes ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... the delicate barb, and flushed slightly as he replied, "I admit that perhaps I ought to be, but whether I am or not, is quite another question. I am sure that your views upon the subjects treated yesterday are far truer than mine were. The wretched, heretical ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... other end of the line. As soon as the spear has been thrown, and the animal struck, the siatko is thus purposely separated; and being slung by the middle, now performs very effectually the important office of a barb, by turning at right angles to the direction in which it has entered the orifice. This device is in its principle superior even to our barb; for the instant any strain is put upon the line it acts like a toggle, opposing its length to a wound ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... confirming sincere minds. Does not this other appearance explain itself? The brief spasm of cowardice and denial had changed into penitence when the Lord looked, and the bitter tears that fell were not only because of the denial, but because of the wound of that sharp arrow, the poisoned barb of which we are happy if we have not felt the thought—'He will never know how ashamed and miserable I am; and His last look was reproach, and I shall never see His face any more.' To respond to, and to satisfy, love, to clear and to steady thought, to soothe the agony of a penitent, were worthy ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... amidst all his sorrow, Godolphin returned to Rome. Lucilla's letter rankled in his heart like the barb of a broken arrow; but the stern resolve with which she had refused to see him appeared to the pride that belongs to manhood a harsh and unfeeling insult. He knew not that poor Lucilla's eyes had watched him from the walls of the convent, and that while, for ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... This arrow passed through the top of her neck. I notched it and broke it, so as not to be obliged to draw the barb or plume through the wound. She is weak from her long run and loss of blood. The wound might be bound up if ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis

... conservative nightcaps and dumplings. This brilliant poet, with his marvelous mastery of German lyric tones, expressed a wide range of poetic inspiration; but he loved particularly to conceive of himself as an apostle of liberty, an outpost of the revolutionary army, and none so well as he could tip the barb with biting sarcasm and satire. Heine's personality was full of seemingly inconsistent traits. He was both fanciful and rational, serious and flippant, tender and cynical, reverent and impious; and he could be at once ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... came in contact with a sharp object that he recognized on the instant. It was the barb on a broken ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall

... those two horsemen; the ease, lightness, spirit of the one, with the fine-limbed and fiery steed that literally "bounded beneath him as a barb"—seemingly as gay, as ardent, and as haughty as the boyrider. And the manly, and almost herculean form of the elder Beaufort, which, from the buoyancy of its movements, and the supple grace that belongs to the perfect mastership of ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... their blue uniforms white and flashed on their steel helmets. They were like men in armor, and so still that only when you brushed against them, cautiously as men change places in a canoe, did you feel they were alive. At times, one of them thinking something in the gardens of barb-wire had moved, would loosen his rifle, and there would be a flame and flare of red, and then again silence, the silence of the hunter stalking a wild beast, of the officer of the law, gun in hand, waiting for the breathing of the ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis

... proper shape, and his manufacture of the bowstrings; for the arrows, when finished, were as nearly perfect as such missiles could possibly be, the shafts being of uniform length, perfectly straight, and each tipped with a strong, hard thorn, sharp as a needle, and growing naturally in the form of a barb. Two dozen arrows for each constituted their initial equipment, but they cut a considerable quantity of spare reeds and thorns, and wound quite a large skein of silk to bind the barbed heads with, as they were quite prepared to lose several of their arrows ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... ordered to charge, and take, if possible, a very difficult objective held by the Germans. Captains Fairfax and Green, two colored officers, were in command of the detachments. They made the charge, running into several miles of barb-wire entanglements, and hampered by a murderous fire from nests of German machine guns ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... Peggy's twin," she added, starting up the steps. "Bring in their bags, Billy. Barb—let's give Dad a nice hot cup of coffee! Peggy, you ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott

... the pike pole again, cautiously hooked the barb into the dead man's clothing, and, assisted by the men, pulled him aft to the poop, where the professor had preceded, and was examining his ankle. There was a big, red wale around it, in the middle of which was a huge blood blister. He pricked it with his knife, then rearranged ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... of a bowstring might have been heard by one of the koris, had he been listening. The other could not possibly have heard it; for before the sound could have reached him, a poisoned arrow was sticking through his ears. The barb had passed through, and the shaft remained in ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... not likely that an enemy, badly wounded with a poisoned arrow, will survive; for the head is set on loosely, in order that, when the arrow is withdrawn, the poisoned barb may remain in the wound. How opposed are these cruel stratagems of war to the precepts of the gospel of peace, which are "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... sister; and, instead of making her burden lighter, contribute to increasing its weight. Such women having never felt the iron pierce their own souls, can not realize the woes of those in whose bosoms the barb is rankling at every pulsation, and they weakly fancy that the sorrows of those suffering ones are but the inventions of an ill-ordered mind, or, at most, that ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... need ever expect to receive sympathy from me in recounting the social pangs or slights of poverty. You never can be slighted, if you do not slight yourself. People may attempt to do it, but their shafts have no barb. You turn it all into natural history. It is a psychological phenomenon, a study, something to be analyzed, classified, reasoned from, and bent to your own convenience, but not to be taken to heart. It amuses you; it ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... only the last long curve flat on the surface. Then this snaps off, and leaves the head deep hidden. The spear-like grass you see opposite p. 40 follows the same rule: it is so sensitive to the heat that even the warmth of one's hand will set it twisting and thrusting its barb in. Cannot we trust the God Who planned them, to give us arrows that will be sharp in the hearts of His enemies, and to drive them home? At each fresh adaptation of the plants to their aim, we hear an echo of the words of Jesus, "Shall He not ...
— Parables of the Christ-life • I. Lilias Trotter

... Ventadour; the rest of the cavalry did not budge. Count de Moret had been killed; terror was everywhere taking possession of the men. The duke was engaged with the king's light horse; he had just received two bullets in his mouth. His horse, "a small barb, extremely swift," came down with him and he fell wounded in seventeen places, alone, without a single squire to help him. A sergeant of a company of the guards saw him fall, and carried him into the road; some soldiers who were present ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... most beautiful amongst them was the young Countess of Exeter, whose magnificent black eyes did great execution. The lovely Countess was mounted on a fiery Spanish barb, given to her by De Gondomar. Forced into a union with a gouty and decrepit old husband, the Countess of Exeter might have pleaded this circumstance in extenuation of some of her follies. It was undoubtedly an argument employed by her admirers, who, in ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... court, would be afraid to attack a dignitary of Marmoustier. When they were sitting down to table their little one happened to be playing, and in spite of the reiterated prayers of his mother, would not stop his games, since he was galloping about the courtyard on a fine Spanish barb, which Duke Charles of Burgundy had presented to Bastarnay. And because young lads like to show off, varlets make themselves bachelors at arms, and bachelors wish to play the knight, this boy was delighted at being able to show the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... E'en the Master of a College, as he saw them overlap, Shouted 'Well rowed, Lady Margaret,' and took off his College cap; And a Doctor of Divinity, in his Academic garb, Sang a solemn song of triumph, as he lashed his gallant barb; Strong men swooned, and small boys whistled, sympathetic hounds did yell Lovely maidens smiled their sweetest on the men who'd rowed so well: Goldie, Hibbert, Lang, and Bonsey, Sawyer, Burnside, Harris, Brooke; And the pride of knighthood, Bayard, who the right course ne'er ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling

... is like the hapless fish in some of our much-angled streams. It is not enough to avoid the tempting bait displayed on every side. So thick are the hooks and snares that merely to swim along, intent on his own business, is likely to result sooner or later in his being impaled on some cruel barb. Not enough has been said, either, of the hundreds of American lads who shipped before the mast, made their voyages around Cape Horn and through all the Seven Seas, resisted the temptations of the sailors' quarters in a score of ports, kept themselves clean morally and physically, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... him, "the consequences of being a woman of intellect, and I would recommend you, if there is occasion, to dissuade any females of your family from attempting it." I endeavoured to keep up my spirits by boldness, but I felt the barb in my heart. ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... being in proximity to a live wire," he says. "A certain insulating film of kindly stupidity is needed to give a margin of safety to human intercourse." I do not think that Dr. Crothers could have known a Penguin Person when he wrote that. The Penguin Person is not a wit, there is no barb to his shafts of fun, no uneasiness from his preternatural cleverness, for he is not preternaturally clever. You never feel unable to cope with him, you never feel your mind keyed to an unusual alertness to follow him; you feel, indeed, a sense of comforting superiority, for, after all, you do ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... bag will probably overflow and you will get splashed and so will the bathroom floor when your wet body moves rapidly from the tub to the toilet. I've imagined making an enema bag from a two gallon plastic bucket with a small plastic hose barb glued into a hole drilled in the bottom or lower edge. If I were in the business of manufacturing enema bags I'd make them hold ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... not insult calamity: It is a barb'rous grossness, to lay on The weight of scorn, where heavy misery Too much already ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... doctor, "you took him for a screw! The history of this fine fellow would take up too much time just now; let it suffice to say that Roustan is a thoroughbred barb from the Atlas mountains, and a Barbary horse is as good as an Arab. This one of mine will gallop up the mountain roads without turning a hair, and will never miss his footing in a canter along the brink of a precipice. He was a present to me, and I think that I deserved it, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... wouldst have me speak, Lord, give me speech. So many cries are uttered now-a-days, That scarce a song, however clear and true, Will thread the jostling tumult safe, and reach The ears of men buz-filled with poor denays: Barb thou my words with light, make my song new, And men will hear, or when I sing ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald

... New England conscience, which has never been able to divorce art from morals; and as the literary dominance of New England was at that time absolute, Poe was buried under a mass of uncharitable criticism. It should not be forgotten that he had struck the poisoned barb of his satire deep into many a New England sage, and it was, perhaps, only human nature to strike back. So it came to pass that Poe was pointed out, not as a man of genius, but as a horrible example and degrading influence ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... picture truly. The pen is sharp and cuts like a knife,—but it is the surgeon's knife, not the poisoned barb of a foreigner's taunt. This is the hopeful and promising aspect of these delineations and denunciations of the laboring man's condition. That low, damp, ill-ventilated, contracted room in which he pens his family at night, was, quite likely, constructed in the ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... ice, which was still quite solid except close to the shores, and soon made two or three holes for a hook and line, the thickness of the ice in the middle being from six to seven feet. The Esquimaux fishhook is generally composed of a piece of ivory, having a hook of pointed iron, without a barb, let into it. The ivory they consider useful in attracting the salmon, but they also bait the hook with a piece of blubber well cleared of its oil by chewing, and securely tied on with a thread of sinew, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... destin'd to a barren strand, A petty fortress, and a dubious hand; He left the name, at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale. [y]All times their scenes of pompous woes afford, From Persia's tyrant to Bavaria's lord. In gay hostility and barb'rous pride, With half mankind embattl'd at his side, Great Xerxes comes to seize the certain prey, And starves exhausted regions in his way; Attendant flatt'ry counts his myriads o'er, Till counted myriads sooth his pride no more; Fresh praise is try'd till madness fires ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... I shall yet have the memory of my beloved to be with me, and cheer me, and bear me up, for I may never again despise that which she hath loved as she hath loved me. And yet again a thought smote me, and it was as an arrow of the lightning, and its barb was the truth: But she will grow old, it said, and will wither before thy face, and be as the waning moon in the heavens. And my heart cried out in an agony. But my will sought to comfort my heart, and said, Cry not out, for, in spite of old ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... ere it had finished its intended course; then another arrow was sped, but that also was consumed; and another, and still another, till only one remained in his quiver, but this was the magical arrow that had never failed its mark. Ta-wats, holding it in his hand, lifted the barb to his eye and baptized it in a divine tear; then the arrow was sped and struck the sun-god full in the face, and the sun was shivered into a thousand fragments, which fell to the earth, causing a general conflagration. Then ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... "How you barb with keen regret the mortifying reflection that I, alas! cannot as an American lay claim to a moiety of your ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... crown'd with Light, imperial Salem rise! [10] Exalt thy tow'ry Head, and lift thy Eyes! See, a long Race thy spacious Courts adorn; [11] See future Sons and Daughters yet unborn In crowding Ranks on ev'ry side arise, Demanding Life, impatient for the Skies! See barb'rous Nations at thy Gates attend, [12] Walk in thy Light, and in thy Temple bend. See thy bright Altars throng'd with prostrate Kings, And heap'd with Products of Sabaean Springs! [13] For thee Idume's spicy Forests ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... were loaded, horses were saddled, and the caravan started for Alexandria. By the side of the camel that carried the queen, quietly stepped the proud barb that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... blade is made like an arrow, but with only one barb, which turns on a steel pivot. The point of the harpoon blade is ground as sharp as a razor on one side and blunt on the other. The shaft is about thirty inches long and made of the best soft iron so that it is ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... both hold on to the line, which is wound around their arms so as to cause as much friction as possible, in order to exhaust the animal speedily. The spear-head is of walrus tusk, and is about three inches long and three-quarters of an inch thick, with an iron barb that is kept very sharp. The line is attached to the middle of the spear-head, the near end being slanted, so that when the line is tightened it lies cross-wise in the wound, like a harpoon, and it is almost impossible for it to draw out after once passing through the tough hide of the animal. ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... casing to occupy an hour or more, and when it was accomplished he endeavored to back out of his situation. He was stopped fast and tight in his regression. The arrangement of the armor about the head and shoulders, making a cone whose apex was the helmet, prevented his exit. It was like the barb of a harpoon, and caught him fast in the wood. Such a danger is not sudden in its revelation. There is at first only a feeling of impatience at the embarrassment, a disposition to "tear things." In vain attempts at doubling and other gymnastic feats the diver wasted several ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... desirable consequences so sure? Is there no chance of being caught red-handed, and stoned then and there, as a murderer? The tempters are discreetly silent about that possibility, as all tempters are. Sin always deceives, and its baits artfully hide the hook; but the cruel barb is there, below the gay silk and coloured dressing, and it—not the false appearance of food which lured the fish—is what ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... lasted, cannot readily be conceived: the pole of the spear, not less than ten feet in length, sticking out before him, and impeding his flight, the butt frequently striking the ground, and lacerating the wound. In vain did Mr. Waterhouse try to break it; and the barb, which appeared on the other side, forbade extraction, until that could be performed. At length it was broken, and his excellency reached the boat, by which time the seamen with the muskets had got up, and were endeavouring to ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... on the implement termed a crochet-hook. It should not be sharp or pointed, either in the point or barb, but smooth, and quite free from any angularity that can catch the silk. Cheap and common crochet-hooks are in the end the dearest, as they break cotton, ravel silk, wear out the patience, and prick the finger. They should be of the ...
— The Ladies' Work-Book - Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. • Unknown

... The barb had been broken by the rock against which it struck so hard, though the shaft, long, polished and feathered, showed that it had been made by an artist. But he did not know enough about arrows to tell whether it was that of a Sioux or of a warrior belonging to some other tribe. ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... law in this respect, and to enable parties to make such bargains as they please with their attorneys. Code of Procedure, s. 258; Satterlee v. Frazer, 2 Sandf. S. C. Rep. 142; Benedict v. Stuart, 23 Barb. 420; Ogden v. Des Arts, 4 Duer (N. Y.), 275; Sedgwick v. Stanton, 4 Kernan, 289. In Kentucky there appears to be a statute, which provides that any one not a party, receiving as compensation for services in prosecuting or defending a suit the whole ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood

... strung with twisted sinew. The arrow, which is neatly made of a reed, the thickness of a finger, is bound with thread to prevent splitting, and notched at the end for the string. At the point is a head of bone, or stone with a quill barb; iron arrow-blades obtained from the Bantu are also found. The arrow is usually 2 to 3 ft. long. The distance at which the Bushman can be sure of hitting is not great, about twenty paces. The arrows are always coated ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... least he said that he, too, saw the red-cloaked girl, and was glad that nothing serious had come of the mischance. As regarded the proposed deal, he should be most happy to go into it upon the lines mentioned, as the grey, although a very good horse, was aged, and he thought the barb one of the most beautiful animals that he had ever seen. At this point, as he had not the slightest intention of parting with his valuable charger, at any rate on such terms, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... that lamprey, splat that pike, souce that plaice, sauce that tench, splay that bream, side that haddock, tusk that barbel, culpon that trout, fin that chivin, transon that eel, tranch that sturgeon, undertranch that porpus, tame that crab, barb that lobster. ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May

... sweethearts, to say nothing of wives, who all of them are proud to show their loyalty by at least refraining from saying where their men are posted. It is said that Switzerland is armed, mined, and barb-wired along every foot of her frontier, and it has lately transpired that this perfect defense, and the fact that practically every soldier is a sharpshooter, led the Germans to give up their plan of breaking ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... the upper extremity while the lower point is a sharp subulate firm point beset at it's base with little stiff bristles standing with their points in a contrary direction to the subulate point to which they answer as a barb and serve also to pres it forward when onece entered a small distance. these barbed seed penetrate our mockersons and leather legings and give us great pain untill they are removed. my poor dog suffers with ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... say amen to that, Caroline, any time. Only I want you to be sure those you call friends are real ones and that the truths they tell ain't like the bait on a fishhook, put on for bait and just thick enough to cover the barb." ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... little note—only a short one, but with, I hope, a bit of a barb to it. I said that his letter had been a source of gratification to me, as it removed the only cause for disagreement between my mother and myself. She had always thought him a blackguard, and I had always defended him; but I was forced ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... offence, and whether ancient or modern, in the rudest form among savages or refined by art, is always a slender stick, armed at one end, and occasionally feathered at the other. The natives of Tropical Africa feather the metal barb. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... custom had prevailed under the republic, and the force of habit had availed to propagate that practice under a new mode of government. But now were introduced new regulations: the tribune was selected for his military qualities and experience: none was appointed to this important office, "nisi barb plen" The centurion's truncheon, [Footnote: Vitis: and it deserves to be mentioned, that this staff, or cudgel, which was the official engine and cognizance of the Centurion's dignity, was meant expressly ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... were peopled with all forms and shapes That nightmare with its horrors can conceive, Egyptian sphynxes down to Barb'ry apes: Entangled in all nets that dreams can weave They struggled to get liberty and leave The meshy maze, yet struggled all in vain, Such horribles you never could believe I wonder if they all transgressed again As then; thus pleasure's always found ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott

... two animals stood motionless. The tearing of the cruel barb into her side brought a sudden scream of pain and fright from the mare, and then they both wheeled and broke for safety; but Tarzan of the Apes, for a distance of a few yards, could equal the speed of even these, and the first stride ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... for a drop, was a vicious looking hook. With a keen point and a barb fully three inches across, with a shaft of half-inch steel which was driven into a pole three inches in diameter and of indefinite length, it could drive right through Johnny's stomach, and pin him to the planks ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell

... (by substitution) in Bob. Ded would be of ill omen; therefore we have, for Edward, Ned or Ted, n and t being coheir to d; for Rick, Dick, perhaps on account of the final d in Richard. Letters are dropped for softness: as Fanny for Franny, Bab for Barb, Wat for Walt. Maud is Norman for Mald, from Mathild, as Bauduin for Baldwin. Argidius becomes Giles, our nursery friend Gill, who accompanied Jack in his disastrous expedition "up the hill." Elizabeth ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various

... so hard that it entered the wood up to the arrow-shaft. The earl looked that way, and asked if they knew who had shot; and at the same moment another arrow flew between his hand and his side, and into the stuffing of the chief's stool, so that the barb stood far out on the other side. Then said the earl to a man called Fin,—but some say he was of Fin (Laplander) race, and was a superior archer,—"Shoot that tall man by the mast." Fin shot; and the arrow hit the middle of ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... case is not only irreconcilable with the numerous authorities and the fundamental principles of criminal law to which I have referred, but the enormity of its injustice is sufficient alone to condemn it. I refer to the case of Hamilton vs. The People (57 Barb., 725). In that case Hamilton had been convicted of a misdemeanor, in having voted at a general election, after having been previously convicted of a felony, and sentenced to two years imprisonment in the State prison, and not having been pardoned; the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... about going in the army, Arthur," said Mr Temple, hesitating about extracting the hook, which was buried in the boy's leg, for he felt that he would have to make a deep cut to get it out—it being impossible to draw it back on account of the barb. "How would it be with you if the surgeon had to take off an ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... thick as one's little finger, has a curvature about as large as that of a man's hand when half closed, and is from six to eight inches in length, with a formidable barb. This fierce-looking grappling-iron is furnished with three or four feet of chain, a precaution which is absolutely necessary; for a voracious shark will sometimes gobble the bait so deep into his stomach, that he would snap ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... but I've got to get some barb wire loaded to take home, and you've preached the regulation hour and a half," Hugh said. He was living in the Hunter home, and he really loved both John Hunter and his wife, and honour demanded that he ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... the dim room was afforded by the big lamp at the Squire's elbow. He spread the sheet on the table in the lamp's circle of radiance. "Boys, The Hornet is out and it looks as if it has a barb in its stinger," he stated, and then paused while he fixed ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... small flotilla was rowing quietly along not far from the bank, a man in the hospital canoe cried out. He had been hit in the chest by a poisoned barb, and this was followed by a whole shower of arrows. The boats were rowed out from the dangerous bank, and a camp was afterwards pitched on an old market-place. The usual fence was set up round the tents, and sentinels were posted in the bush. Then were heard shots, cries, and noise. ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... was the wrench that tore Affection's firmest links apart; And doubly barb'd the shaft we wore Deep in each bleeding heart of heart; For, who can bear from bliss to part Without one sign—one warning token; To sleep in peace—then wake and start To ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various

... then hang on some more, after they git the barb well hooked, with the game fish kickin' up an awful row," chuckled Perk. "Huh! don't I know how impatience is my besettin' sin and ain't I always a'tryin' to curb it? That's why I'm crazy to work in double harness with you, brother, 'cause you hold me in when I feel like spreadin' ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... extent of good and substantial fences, erected during this period, aggregate about 100 rods of board and picket fences around the campus, garden and stock yards; 12 large farm gates, all hung between tall posts with overhead tie; and 780 rods of web and barb wire fence; all set with good Bodark or Locust posts, top down and reinforced with a strong oak stub in every panel, making a ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... preaching for those who are not drunk, or asleep, or in the parks, or at Coney Island, or giving week-end parties at their country places, or planning the millennium without God along socialistic scantlings of thought and barb-wire theories of the brotherhood of man. And I went with the girls to a fashionable church. And this is how the morals in me that William planted came to take offense, and how I reached the conclusion that I had ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... and was fixed in the back of one of the monsters, which almost sprang out of the water as it felt the pain of the wound; then off it went, towing the canoe at a tremendous rate after it, the end of the rope being secured to the bows, while the barb to which the rope was attached being shaken out of its socket remained firmly ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston

... benevolent spectacles, but our unerring eye instantly discerns in him Black Donald, the robber-captain; and if we do not tremble for our heroine, it is only because we are morally certain that her deadly peril is only an excuse for her inevitable lover's "dashing up on a coal-black barb, urged to his utmost speed," and delivering the desolate fair, who has won our regard alike by her indignant virtue, and the skill with which, while laboring under uncontrollable agitation, she constructs sentences so ponderous and intricate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... sign that he understood; but there was no mistaking the prince regent's inference, however. The recipient of this compliment stubbornly refused to give the prince the satisfaction of seeing how neatly the barb had gone home. ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... fish, which proved to be a fair-sized specimen. Then Mr. Gordon tried again. In a short time he had a strike, and with a quick motion of the wrist succeeded in fastening the barb of the hook in the jaw ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... I believed his death to be certain; but find that he enjoys the fruit of my labour and study! I will, however, prevent his enjoying it long, or perish in the attempt." He was not a great while deliberating on what he should do, but the next morning mounted a barb, set forward, and never stopped but to refresh himself and his horse, till he arrived at the capital of China. He alighted, took up his lodging in a khan, and stayed there the remainder of the ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... consultation pledged not to attempt to remove the thorn from its flesh, and trained to regard it as the spear-head in the side of Epaminondas,—extract it, and the patient dies. In the writhings of the sufferer the barb has fallen out, and lo! he lives and is getting well. We can now forgive most of those blind healers, and even admire such of them as were honest and not cowards; for, in truth, it was an impossibility with which ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... amused Elsa. Their nods were abrupt, and they spoke in the most formal manner. She was under grave suspicion; in the first place, she was traveling alone, in the second place, she was an American. At table there was generally a desultory conversation, and many a barb of malice Elsa shot from her bow. Figuratively, the colonel walked about like a porcupine, bristling with arrows instead of quills. Elsa could have shouted at times, for the old war-dog was perfectly oblivious. There was, besides, the inevitable German tourist, who shelled with questions ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... appetites. Such fugitives from civilised life, I have never seen otherwise occupied than with their bows and arrows. The bows are small, but made of good elastic wood; the arrows are formed of small reeds, the points furnished with a well-wrought piece of bone, and a double barb, which is steeped in a potent poison of a resiny appearance. This poison is distilled from the leaves of an indigenous tree. Many prefer these arrows to fire-arms, under the idea that they can kill more game by means of a weapon that makes no report. ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham

... what that is," said Happy Jack. So down the tree he ran, and in a few minutes he had found the queer thing, which had caught his eyes. It was smooth and black and white, and at one end it was very sharp with a tiny little barb. Happy Jack found it out by pricking himself ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess

... hastened to pick it up, straightened it out and re-read it feverishly. He forgot the old servant; but had he remembered the man's curious gaze, no resolution could have hidden that joy which slowly wrote itself upon his face. There was balm in the barb for all the wound it made. This is ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... on any question. There were men of very strong individuality among us, and these gave as good as they got. I can recall these scenes, but I cannot recall a single word he said that involved a personal wound or left a barb. When it was all over he was the same loving brother, and not an atom of bitterness was left behind. By us, the brethren of the English Presbyterian Mission, he was looked up to as a revered father, just as much as he was by the brethren of his own Mission. This will be seen more fully further ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

... to his rather doubtful record as a member of the Daily Palo Alto board. The sins of his Freshman days rose up against him when they touched on the fact that he had been elected class-president on a barb ticket, and had immediately gone over to the enemy in a fraternity house. Finally, to fill his cup, a Freshman, who had withstood fraternity blandishments for a year, glided through the hands of ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field

... Should have more weight than merit has in the army. I would fain not be meaner than my equal, So in an evil hour I let myself Be tempted to that measure. It was folly! But yet so hard a penance it deserved not. It might have been refused; but wherefore barb And venom the refusal with contempt? Why dash to earth and crush with heaviest scorn The gray-haired man, the faithful veteran? Why to the baseness of his parentage Refer him with such cruel roughness, only Because he had a weak hour and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... in sharp contrast what God had done with Jesus, and what Israel had done, and the barb of his arrow lies in the last words, 'whom ye crucified.' And this bold champion of Jesus, this undaunted arraigner of a nation's crimes, was the man who, a few weeks before, had quailed before a maid-servant's saucy tongue! What made the change? Will anything ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... name, though it was fixed like the barb of an arrow in his heart, and fastened the closer the more exquisite she seemed. The strife between love and anguish robbed him of speech. But Amanda's sweet lips only moved the faster, while she made him sit down and brought ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... be said of certain politicians by way of odium that they mumbled the dry bones of political economy; but you, sir, who sit trembling in that chair [laughter]—you are trying not to look it, but you are trembling with apprehension of the delicately anointed barb with which Madame Sarah. Grand will presently transfix you [laughter]; you must feel that we shall not very long be permitted even to mumble the barren epigrams of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... if the widow hadn't kept her head. She leaned over the for'ard rail of the after cockpit and squeezed a rubber bag that was close to Jonadab's starboard arm. It was j'ined to the fog whistle, I cal'late, 'cause from under our bows sounded a beller like a bull afoul of a barb-wire fence. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... that?" said Mr Button. "You might job it into a fish, but he'd be aff it in two ticks; it's the barb that holds them." ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... marvelous amplification, the story with which the letter of his agent had already made him familiar. This time he had received a genuine wound, with poison upon the barb of the arrow that had pierced him. He crushed the paper in his hand and ascended to his room. All Wall street would see it, comment upon it, and laugh over it. Balfour would read it and smile. New York and all the country would gossip about it. Mrs. Dillingham would peruse it. Would it change ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... frown destroy; In whose fair cheeks destructive Cupids wait, And with unerring shafts distribute fate; Whose snowy breasts, whose animated eyes, Each youth admires, though each admirer dies; Whilst you deride their pangs in barb'rous play, } Unpitying see them weep, and hear them pray, } And unrelenting sport ten thousand lives away; } For you, ye fair, I quit the gloomy plains; Where sable night in all her horrour reigns; No fragrant bowers, no delightful glades, Receive the unhappy ghosts of scornful maids. For kind, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... a chance to sell a few first-class polo-ponies. Then there were the ponies of thirty teams that had entered for the Upper India Free-for-All Cup—nearly every pony of worth and dignity, from Mhow to Peshawar, from Allahabad to Multan; prize ponies, Arabs, Syrian, Barb, country-bred, Deccanee, Waziri, and Kabul ponies of every colour and shape and temper that you could imagine. Some of them were in mat-roofed stables, close to the polo-ground, but most were under saddle, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... individually practicable, uncle—just this time. Pshaw! I don't believe you're half-trying to argue. Why, when Boyar bucked you off that time and ran into the barb-wire, then he didn't need doctoring for that awful cut on his shoulder, ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... piece of line, thirty inches. The line with which it was caught was made of new four-stranded coir-cinnet, as thick as a stout lead pencil, and the hook a piece of 3/6 or 1/2 inch iron with a 6-inch shank, once used as a fish spear, without a barb! The natives seemed much pleased at the interest displayed, and told me that sometimes these eels grew to elua gafa (i.e., two fathoms), but were seldom caught, and asked me if I had tackle strong enough ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke

... consists of a "socket," "shank," and "mouth." The shank, which is made of the most pliable iron, is about two feet long; the socket is about six inches long, and swells from the shank to nearly two inches in diameter; and the mouth is of a barbed shape, each barb or wither being eight inches long and six broad, with a smaller barb reversed in the inside. The object of the barb, of course, is to prevent the harpoon being drawn out of the whale ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... Professors of the art of healing came To tend them and to cure them through the night. But they for all their skill could do no more, So numerous and so dangerous were the wounds, The cuts, and clefts, and scars so large and deep, But to apply to them the potent charms Of witchcraft, incantations, and barb spells, As sorcerers use, to stanch the blood and stay The life that else would through the wounds escape:— Of every charm of witchcraft, every spell, Of every incantation that was used To heal Cuchullin's wounds, a full fair half Over the Ford was westward sent to heal Ferdiah's ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... returned from her early ramble. At this moment a messenger arrived from the yacht to say that, from some error, Lord Bohun had repaired to the casino, where he awaited the Consul. The major mounted his barb, and soon reached the pavilion. As he entered the garden, he beheld, in the distance, his daughter and—Mr. Ferrers. He was, indeed, surprised. It appeared that Henrietta was about to run forward to him; but her companion checked her, and she disappeared down a neighbouring ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli

... look a barbd arrow send, 45 On those soft lips let scorn and anger live! Do any thing, rather than thus, sweet friend! Hoard for thyself the pain, thou wilt ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... mountain's shape—two fishhooks bound together back to back, one prong to the east, the other to the west, the barbs pointing to the north. Sweetwater Spring is on the barb of the eastern hook; three miles west, on the main shank, an all but impassable ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... the car sharply to the left, past the aviation field, and so came to the wide-scattered settlement—almost a colony—which, hidden behind high, barb-wire-topped fences, carried on the many and complex activities of the partners' experiment station. Here were the several laboratories where new products were evolved and old ones refined, for Flint's and Waldron's greater ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... life indeed began for me. I wept often; I felt the barb of a real remorse; when I passed a crucifix on the road I trembled with true terror and penitence; but I fled away, always. I drew my girdle closer about my spangled coat, and, despite all my remorse, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... the trouble." She stared into his face solemnly and slowly opened her mouth. From beneath her tongue, a barb slowly protruded until its point projected several inches from her ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis

... The barb'rous natives of the shaggy wood From horrible repasts, and ads of blood, Orpheus, a priest, and heav'nly teacher, brought, And all the charities of nature taught: Whence he was said fierce tigers ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... barb-wire fence bordering the road, and like an inspiration Alex Ward's feat with the rails at Hadley Corners occurred to him. Could he not do the same thing with one of the fence wires? Connect this end of the ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... manufactured adequate tackle with a well-trimmed alder pole, a line of leather thongs and a hook of stout piano wire, properly bent to make a barb and rubbed to a fine point on a stone. He caught a dozen young frogs among the sedges in the marshy stretch at the north end of the landing-beach, and confined them in the only available receptacle, the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... down in the breaks on round-up time and kinda forget the world's fenced clear 'way round it with barb-wire," Andy bettered the statement. "But round-up gets shorter ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... old bear staggered down the valley. His eyes were glazed and he could not tell where the trees and barb-wire fences were until he butted his nose against them. The gout in his maimed foot throbbed horribly, and all the loose bullets in his system seemed to have assembled in his chest and taken the place ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... Tabitha Grimes, with a premeditated acerbity apparent even in the threading of her needle, into the eye of which she thrust the thread as if piercing the flesh of an enemy with a barb; "yes;" she pulled the thread through with a motion as if she enjoyed its rasping against the steel. "Rachel Bond started into this work quite as brash as Harry Glen started into the war. Her enthusiasm died out about as quickly as his courage, when it came to the actual business, and she found ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... miles above the raised road; and a body of English was holding Venette, a mile and a half below it. A kind of bow-and-arrow arrangement, you see; the causeway the arrow, the boulevard at the feather-end of it, Marguy at the barb, Venette at one end of the ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... Captain Chase's. Claxton road, coming in from the county-seat, changed its name a mile or so out of Thornton and became Claxton Road. The Wright residence may be said to have been located just where the capital R began. At this point the barb wire of the prairie thoroughfare gave way, on the left-hand side, to the white fences of suburban estates with big front yards and windmills and stables; and on the right there came, at the same time, an unfenced vacancy, or "free grass," which, though it had a private owner somewhere, might ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... not to hear. Thundering madly forward, he appeared blind as well as fear-stricken, and Helen, suddenly seeing a barb-wire fence ahead, felt herself go faint, for she had never taken a fence, and she knew that Pat never had. She must get control of herself again. And this she did. Stiffening in the stirrups, she gripped a single rein in both hands and pulled with ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... "Thar he is, Barb; thar he is," he said, not loudly. Miss Alathea and the Colonel, following close behind, were ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... knows the fair and friendly moon The band that Marion leads,— The glitter of their rifles, The scampering of their steeds. 'Tis life to guide the fiery barb Across the moonlit plain; 'Tis life to feel the night wind That lifts his tossing mane. A moment in the British camp,— A moment,—and away Back to the pathless forest Before the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... of your dress would be pretty," mother went on, parting off a section and wrapping it round a "curler." A sudden remembrance clutched at Missy's ecstatic reply; the shine faded from her eyes. But mother, engrossed, didn't observe; more deeply she sank her unintentional barb. "No," she mused aloud, "a garland of little rosebuds would be better, I believe-tiny delicate little buds, tied with a ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... my country!" exclaimed he; "what are my personal griefs to thine? It is your afflictions that barb me to the heart! Look there," cried he to the soldiers, pointing to the miserable spectacles before him; "look there, and carry vengeance into the breasts of their destroyers. Let Praga be the ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... of the Barb-Wire Business" of this country, is now a hale and hearty man of seventy-one. He was born at Charleston, N.H. When about one year old the family came West, to Clarendon, Orleans county, New York, and engaged in farming. The young lad, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... 'tree,' 'dodge,' and 'squat,' he could play 'log-lump,' with 'wind' and 'baulk' with 'back-track' so well that he scarcely needed any other tricks. He had not yet tried it, but he knew just how to play 'barb-wire,' which is a new trick of the brilliant order; he had made a special study of 'sand,' which burns up all scent, and was deeply versed in 'change-off,' 'fence,' and 'double' as well as 'hole-up,' which is a trick requiring longer notice, and yet he never ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton

... from bended knee, Assoiled, and from their sins set free; The archbishop blessed them fervently: Then each one sprang on his bounding barb, Armed and laced in knightly garb, Apparelled all for the battle line. At last said Roland, "Companion mine, Too well the treason is now displayed, How Ganelon hath our band betrayed. To him the gifts and the ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... used by out- prehistoric ancestors. At Laugerie-Basse a rough drawing shows us a man striking with a harpoon a fish that is trying to escape. These harpoons were generally made of reindeer horn (Figs. 10 and 13). Some had but one barb, others several. One of the largest was found in the Madeleine Cave; it is eight inches long, and has three barbs on one side and five on the other. Most of these weapons have a notch in the handle, with the help of which they could be firmly fastened to ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... since the city had its narrow escape before the battle of the Marne present one of the wonders of the world. Not only has Gallieni's army intrenched the surrounding country and barb-wired it until the idea of any forward advance seems preposterous, but every foot of ground is measured and the exact artillery ranges taken to every other ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... boune! Thou mount'st behind Upon my black barb steed: O'er stock and stile, a hundred mile, We haste to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... in this than meets the eye," muttered the partisan, and drawing the arrows from the earth he examined them by the light of the fire. Robert stood by, silent, but his eyes fell on fresh marks with a knife, near the barb on each weapon, and the great pulse in his throat leaped. The yellow flame threw out in distinct relief what the knife had cut there, and he saw on each arrow the rude but unmistakable outline ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... of society are infinitely more numerous and infinitely finer than those of strategy. Woe betide the rash knight who dashes into the thick of the polished melee without some slight experience of his barb and his lance! Let him look to his arms! He will do well not to appear before his helm be plumed with some reputation, however slight. He may be very rich, or even very poor. We have seen that answer with a Belisarius-like air; and more than one hero without ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... a piece of gold, but a laborer ought to retrace his steps to find ten sous; though both are equally bound to obey the laws of economy. A daughter of Este, who is worth six millions, has the right to wear a broad-brimmed hat and plume, to flourish her whip, press the flanks of her barb, and ride like an amazon decked in gold lace, with a lackey behind her, into the presence of a poet and say: "I love poetry; and I would fain expiate Leonora's cruelty to Tasso!" but a daughter of the people would cover herself with ridicule by imitating her. ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... rose upon his seat; and although his hand was severely lacerated by grasping the bayonet which had been drawn through it, he seized his spear lying by his side, and quick as lightning planted it to the barb in the side of the assailant with whom he had been clenched. The man fell and expired—proving to be Lieutenant McDonald, one of the ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... the schooner said, as he picked up a lance not unlike a whale lance, "and we don't want much weight in the boat because it might pull the barb out of the fish if he starts ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... down the Barb'ry Coast, I reckon. Sealers have liberties last shore-day. Like whalers. I've buried a few irons myself, matey, but I'll never sight the vapor of a right whale ag'in. Stranded, I am. So you'll do me a favor, matey, an' pilot me down into the cabin, if so be the skipper's there. If ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... meant to set the police by the ears, using his gray-seal device both as an added barb and that no innocent bystander of the underworld, innocent for once, might be involved—he had meant to laugh at them and puzzle them to the verge of madness, for in the last analysis they would find only an abortive attempt at crime—and he had ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... Savouring in his nostrils the smell of horse flesh soaked in rum and of rotten seal blubber, he would rush on the scent and greedily swallow whatever was offered. When he realised the sad truth that a huge hook with a strong barb was hidden inside this tempting dish and that it was no easy matter to disgorge the tasty morsel, he would try to gnaw through the shaft of the hook with his teeth. Very occasionally he might succeed, but usually his efforts failed. Attached to the book was a length of strong iron chain; and ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... authorities and the fundamental principles of criminal law to which I have referred, but the enormity of its injustice is sufficient alone to condemn it. I refer to the case of Hamilton vs. The People, (57 Barb. 725). In that case Hamilton had been convicted of a misdemeanor, in having voted at a general election, after having been previously convicted of a felony and sentenced to two years imprisonment in the state prison, and not having been pardoned; ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous

... hair and faces on the Lord's Day, which ought to be kept sacred, it is ordered by the whole consent of this court, and if any brother of the said Company shall at any time hereafter either by himself, servant, or substitute, tonse, barb, or trim any person on the Lord's Day, in any Inn or other public or private house or place, or shall go in or out of any such house or place on the said day with instruments used for that purpose, albeit the same cannot be positively proved, or made appear, but in ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews

... man who invented barbed wire and who had his abundant reward. Blessings on him! though one is sometimes inclined to add cursings too. It is dangerous stuff to handle. Heavy gloves should always be worn. The flesh is so torn by the ragged barb that the wound is most irritating and hard to heal. When my fence was first erected it was a common thing to find antelope hung up in it, tangled in it, and cut to pieces. Once we found a mustang horse with its head practically cut completely off. The poor brutes ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson



Words linked to "Barb" :   arrowhead, alter, comment, vane, modify, cheap shot, lance, input, dig, point, filament, change, fibril, shot, web, slam, hook, shaft, jibe, remark, barbwire, spear



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