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Crowing   Listen
adjective
crowing  adj.  
1.
Same as bragging.
Synonyms: boastful, braggart(prenominal), bragging(prenominal), braggy, big, cock-a-hoop, self-aggrandizing, vainglorious.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Crowing" Quotes from Famous Books



... hear him crowing from our dove-cote. The One he is whose song is more an ornament to the landscape than the white hamlet to the hill! The One he is whose cry pierces the blue horizon like a gold-threaded needle stitching the hill-tops to the sky! The Cock he is! When you would praise him, ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... after, ready to devour both the ship and her. Wherefore this young lady, when night came, smote fire with a stone, wherewith the ship was greatly lightened, and then the whale durst not adventure toward the ship for fear of that light. At the cock-crowing, this young lady was so weary of the great tempest and trouble of sea, that she slept, and within a little while after the fire ceased, and the whale came and devoured the virgin. And when she awaked and found herself swallowed up in the whale's belly, she smote fire, and with a knife wounded ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... men are accustomed to making caches, they are expert at this; and soon sink a shaft that would do credit to the "crowing" of a South African Bosjesman. It is a cylinder full five feet in depth, with a diameter of less than two. Up to this time its purpose has not been declared to either Stocker, or Driscoll, though both have ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... I dared say it, for her eyes were blazing in her white face, and my heart was thumping, but there was Robinson Crusoe crowing in his hooded cradle, and Robin's father was on the front step, with the old oak door ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... knows too Who is coming to-night; She is crowing, and clapping Her hands with delight! There's his footstep at last! Oh, hurrah! he's ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... house hard by; And if the breeze kept the good news back, For other couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing.— And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, Warmed with the new wine of the year, Tells all in his lusty crowing! ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... the manner in which the sound is produced. And observers say that it beats with its wings on a log, that it raises its wings and strikes their edges above its back, that it claps them against its sides like a crowing rooster, and that it beats the air. The writer has seen a grouse drum, appearing to strike its wings together over its back. But there is much difference of opinion on the subject, and young observers may settle the question ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... They were distinctly heard at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, only fourteen miles from Aldington and a distance of nearly one hundred miles from the guns, in a direct line. The reports were so loud at Woodstock, near Oxford, that the pheasants began crowing in ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... when I have no French, and he no English! He is a comely fellow, with a blithe tongue and a merry eye, I warrant you a chanticleer who will lose nought for lack of crowing. He'll crow louder than ever now he hath given our Harry ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... woke, and see, near by was Emlyn making ready her garments, as she had done these many years, and at her side lay the boy crowing in the sunlight and waving his little arms, the blessed boy who knew not the terrors he had passed. At first she thought that she had dreamed a very evil dream, till by degrees all the truth came back to her, and she shivered at its memory, yes, even as the weight of it rolled off ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the influence of character is in its infancy. As a political power, as the rightful lord who is to tumble all rulers from their chairs, its presence is hardly yet suspected. Malthus and Ricardo quite omit it; the Annual Register is silent; in the Conversations' ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... astonished me beyond description. There is a wonderful callousness in human nature which enables us to live. I had no feeling one way or another, from New York to California, until, at Dutch Flat, a mining camp in the Sierra, I heard a cock crowing with a home voice; and then I fell to hope and regret both ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... cathedral lay near some place where he had to call, and did not like to take her, he would leave her there in front of the tinsel Madonna, where she would sit, perfectly good, amusing herself with low crowing noises and see-sawings of her tiny body. And when Sarti came back, he always found that the Blessed Mother had ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... the least necessity for doing anything of the kind," said Marian. "We can be just as explicit, and much more interesting, by referring to the future." She rose and held up the child kicking and crowing in her arms. "Do you know who this is, Walter?" she asked, with bright tears of happiness ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... what lies in that word, enlarge my little sketch, and see the young mother nursing and washing, and dressing and undressing, and crowing and gambolling with her first-born; then swifter than lightning dart your eye into Italy, and see the cold cloister; and the monks passing like ghosts, eyes down, hands meekly crossed over ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... on the yellow strip of sand by the river's margin, long-legged snipe were scurrying about. Two fishermen were rocking in a boat in the steamer's wash as they hauled their tackle. Floating from the shore there began to reach us such vocal sounds of morning as the crowing of cocks, the lowing of cattle, and the persistent murmur ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... brownie, set, at dead of night, to thy task by the blazing ingle, or in the solitary barn, where the repercussions of thy iron flail half affright thyself, as thou performest the work of twenty of the sons of men, ere the cock-crowing summon thee to thy ample cog of substantial brose. Be thou a kelpie, haunting the ford or ferry, in the starless night, mixing thy laughing yell with the howling of the storm and the roaring of the flood, as thou viewest the perils and miseries of man on the foundering horse, or ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... being laid out in plantations of sugar- canes, plantains, yams, and other roots, and watered by little rills, conducted by art from the main stream, whose source was in the hills. Here were some cocoa-nut trees, which did not seem burdened with fruit. We heard the crowing of cocks, but saw none. Some roots were baking on a fire in an earthen jar, which would have held six or eight gallons; nor did we doubt its being their own manufacture. As we proceeded up the creek, Mr Forster having shot a ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... the long Winter out; Often our midnight shout Set the cocks crowing, As we the Berserk's tale Measured in cups of ale, Draining the oaken ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... of the following morning our slumbers were disturbed by the crowing of a whole army of cocks, which assured us of the proximity of the town we were in search of. We got under weigh, and, rounding the point, Loondoo hove in sight, a fine town, built in a grove of cocoa-nut trees, and by no means despicably fortified. We found our ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... a Cock, and took counsel with himself how he might find a reasonable excuse for eating him. He accused him as being a nuisance to men, by crowing in the night time, and not permitting them to sleep. The Cock defended himself by saying that he did this for the benefit of men, that they might rise betimes, for their labors. The Cat replied: "Although you abound in ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

... proverb from this time forth," said Mr. Taylor, as he leaned back against the wall and thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his vest. "Whistling girls and crowing hens will hereafter have a chance to be heard. Old saws ain't always true, eh, ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... He pushed open the cellar door, and mounted the steps to the kitchen. It was early morning, and the cocks were crowing lustily. The one old deaf woman was striving to make a fire burn, but the wood was wet and ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... watched the date tree till the cocks were crowing and it was getting light; then I lay down for a little, and I slept. When I woke a slave was standing over me, and he said, "There is not one date left on the tree!" And I went to the date tree, and saw it was true; and that is what I have to ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... farm was no time for prolonged slumber. With the first crowing of roosters Aunt Maria rose. After the early breakfast there were numerous tasks to be performed before the departure for the meeting-house. There was the milking to be done and the cans of milk placed in the cool spring-house; the chickens and cattle to be fed; each ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... way of taking it, that they had to laugh; and Frank took his humiliation so meekly that Jack soon fell to comforting him, instead of crowing ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... called disgrace—what then? Cannot one, in case of need, always carry a small powder about one, which quietly smooths the weary traveller's passage across the Styx, where no cock-crowing will disturb his rest? No, brother Moritz! Your scheme is good; so at least ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... could do nothing. Caiaphas still fumed. I went out in the court again. In the corridor was Judas. Peter was wrangling with the servants. I did not wait for more. I got away and into the valley and up again on the hill. A cock was crowing, and I saw the dawn. O Mary, ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... brother of his soul, as their sons know each other. Not so, Jacques? But le pere Bellefort, Valerie, he is gigantesque, like his son. These rocks, these towers, they have the hearts of children, the smiles of a crowing infant. You laugh, D'Arthenay? I say something ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... Letter against Popery by Sophia Charlotte, the late Queen of Prussia: Being, &c. &c. London, 1712). But the finest Duel of all was probably that between Beausobre and Toland himself (reported by Beausobre, in something of a crowing manner, in Erman, pp. 203-241, "October, 1701"), of which Toland makes no mention anywhere.] What is Father Vota to say?—The modern reader looks through these chinks into a strange old scene, the stuff of it fallen obsolete, the spirit ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle

... spirit which prompted and still directs this enterprise. Last spring when the Duchess was thought for a time to be hopelessly ill, a young girl came down to Baron's Court weeping bitterly. On her arm was a basket, in which were two young chanticleers crowing lustily. The poor girl said these were all she had, and she had brought them "to make soup for the Duchess, for she heard that was what the great people lived on, and it might ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... suppose he can't, it's no wonder. I don't see why those fellows shouldn't have a school for themselves. It's not pleasant to have the fellow who cuts your waistcoat crowing over ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... so loud, that a fox in a hole near by was up in an instant thinking: "What a funny thing for a cock to be crowing in the forest! I expect he's lost his way and ...
— More Russian Picture Tales • Valery Carrick

... ancient Britons and Caledonians, Picts, Celts, and Scots, and perhaps of Scottish Turanians, were to be present in our Museum—(certainly the most appropriate room in the kingdom for such a reunion)—for a short sederunt, somewhere between twilight and cock-crowing, to answer any questions which the Fellows might choose to ply them with, what an excitement would such an announcement create! How eagerly would some of our Fellows look forward to the results of one or two such "Hours with the Mystics." And what a battery ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... word that the Mohawks had been deceived by the pig and the ringing bell and the effigies for more than a week. Crowing came from the chicken yard, dogs bayed in their kennels, and when a Mohawk pulled the bell at the gate, he could hear the sentry's measured march. At the end of seven days not a white man had come from the fort. At first ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... dagger through Brian's heart, and he attending to his prayers. What the Danes left in Ireland were hens and weasels. And when the cock crows in the morning the country people will always say: "It is for Denmark they are crowing; crowing they are to be ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... the dawn be not crowing, Rolls on her oven and weeps, Sees all her past rising up to confront her— O'er ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

... to stop those two chaps crowing away like cocks there,' said Lieutenant Halley, shivering ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling

... the lowering thunder grumbled, And the lightning jumped and tumbled, And the ship and all the ocean Woke up in wild commotion. Then the wind set up a howling, And the poodle dog a yowling, And the cocks began a crowing, And the old cow raised a lowing, As she heard the tempest blowing; And fowls and geese did cackle, And the cordage and the tackle Began to shriek and crackle; And the spray dashed o'er the funnels, ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... 18: Ilio nana e hae. The barking of a dog, the crowing of a cock, the grunting of a pig, the hooting of an owl, or any such sound occurring at the time of a religious solemnity, aha, broke the spell of the incantation and vitiated the ceremony. Such an untimely accident was as much deprecated as were the Turk, the Comet, ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... down from the cliffs with a load of implements, shouldering rake and spade, and dangling tiny buckets from their arms. One little group makes straight for its sand-hole of yesterday, and is soon busy with huge heaps and mounds which are to take the form of a castle. A crowing little urchin beside is already waving the Union Jack which is ready to crown the edifice, if the Fates ever suffer it to be crowned. Engineers of less military taste are busy near the water's edge with an elaborate system ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... of his glances and words—at the time scarcely regarded—it became plain to her how greatly they had been dictated by his knowledge of this new event. "Had he been a man to bear a jilt ill-will he would have told me of his good fortune in crowing tones; instead of doing that he mentioned not a word, in deference to my misfortunes, and merely implied that he loved me still, as one superior ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... chimney-piece, was deeply carved with curious devices. The doors and window-frames, the cupboards and the shelves for the crockery, were all of dark oak, fashioned into leaves and ferns, with birds on their nests, and timid rabbits, and still more timid wood-mice peeping out of their coverts, cocks crowing with uplifted crest, and chickens nestling under the hen-mother's wings, sheaves of corn, and tall, club-headed bulrushes—all the objects familiar to a country life. The dancing light played upon them, and shone also upon Roland Sefton's sad and weary ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... punctilious lord, and has calculated to the very day and hour when I may again reach the imperial palace. For our interview here he allowed me one hour; and, lo! the cock of your great wall clock had just stepped out and crowed eleven as I entered your room, and is already here, crowing twelve as loud as he can. It is therefore time for me to depart. I have briefly made you acquainted with the Emperor's intentions and desires, and your wise and fertile brain will know how to enlarge and construe. Farewell, Sir Stadtholder in the Mark, farewell, and may every ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... the bustle in the camp subsided. Everyone sought repose, preparatory to the next day's trial. The King retired early, that he might be up with the crowing of the cock to head the destroying army in person. The Queen had retired to the innermost part of her pavilion, where she was performing her orisons before a private altar. While thus at her prayers she was suddenly aroused by a glare of light and wreaths of suffocating smoke. In ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... scrambled, and fought, and when all of this little was eaten they set their minds to other enterprises. Romulus fetched the spades and industriously began to dig into Wang Tai's grave, and Moses, crowing and laughing, fell to as assistant, and as the result of their labor the earth flew to either side. Only three feet of loose Christian law covered ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... get one on his cheeke: yet he will not sticke to say, his Face is a Face-Royall. Heauen may finish it when he will, it is not a haire amisse yet: he may keepe it still at a Face-Royall, for a Barber shall neuer earne six pence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man euer since his Father was a Batchellour. He may keepe his owne Grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said M[aster]. Dombledon, about the Satten for my short Cloake, and Slops? Pag. He said sir, you should ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... instance was that of a pet red-winged blackbird, which, instead of whistling the labored "Grook-o-lee" of his species, learned to mimic all kinds of sounds in and out of the house, among them the crowing of the cocks of the barnyard. These two instances would indicate that some birds must at least be associated with their kin in order to learn the songs of ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... structure which the Germans continued to shell. The horses were turned loose in the field and proceeded to enjoy themselves like colts, and although the Germans fired shrapnel at them they did not hit one. In a moment the "red cock," as the Germans say, "was crowing on the roof." The flames rose to a great height and in a few minutes there was nothing but the ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... up, feeling stiff and bruised, her back aching, her head swimming, all her desiring ebbing as the moon waned. Already the glimmer of dawn paled the moonshine. She could hear the crowing of the cocks, the occasional rumble of a cart, the indescribable murmur that betokens an awakening city. The night had gone at last and the daylight had come and she had worn herself out and conquered. She thought this without joy; it was her fate not her heart. Nature itself ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... "the pen of my female cousin," but the local tactical situation remained as foggy as ever, our backers were showing signs of impatience, and we were both lathering freely. Then by some happy chance we discovered we had both been in Africa, fell crowing into each other's arms, and the local tactical situation was cleared "one time" in flowing Swahili. Our respective reputations as linguists are now ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various

... delivered this message, Matty grew outrageous at the means "my lady" took of crowing over her, and rushing to the door, with her face flushed with rage, roared out, "Tell the old baggage I want none of her custom; let her lay eggs ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... is a series of rattan nooses placed around a decoy cock. This bird, by his lusty crowing, challenges his wild fellows to fight. When the fight begins the champion of the woods soon finds his feet enmeshed in the nooses, and within a short time his whole body safely lodged in the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... brightened every morning they felt that it might be the light of His coming; they thought of Him as only hidden from them by the neighbouring cloud. They looked for Him to return at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the noonday, and none could say how soon. And so it came to pass that this expectation made those first believers, those humble followers of Christ, those Galilean fishermen, those obscure provincials, instinct with that great life ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival

... should come into your hands. Didn't you hear how he neighed when you talked about leaving the country. My granny was a wise woman, and was up to all kind of signs and wonders, sounds and noises, the interpretation of the language of birds and animals, crowing and lowing, neighing and braying. If she had been here, she would have said at once that that horse was fated to carry you away. On that point, however, I can say nothing, for under fifty pounds no one can have him. Are you taking that ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... tremble at any quick, unexpected movement. He would burst into tears at any sudden sound. Small noises, whisperings, murmurings, creakings, soft shufflings, irritated him. Loud noises, the slamming of doors, the barking of dogs, the crowing of cocks, made him writhe in agony. For Colin the deep silence of the Manor was the ambush for some stupendous, crashing, annihilating sound; sound that was always coming and never came. The droop of the mouth that used to appear suddenly in his moments of childish anguish was fixed now, ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... yet risen, and a cold gray mist crept up from the valley, closing high up and around the wood-girdled brow of the mountain as billows around a rock in the sea. The faint, far-off crowing of cocks added to the weirdness; for their shrill voices alone broke through the silence which came down with the mist. Around the brow of Sand Mountain the vapor made a faint halo—touched as it was by the splendid flush of ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... he spoke, from high overhead came the deep resonant boom of a village drum. But the beat was slow, there was no panic in the sound. They were directly beneath the village, and they could hear the crowing of roosters, two women's voices raised in brief dispute, and, once, the crying of a child. The run-way now became a deeply worn path, rising so steeply that several times the party paused for breath. The path never widened, and in places the feet and the rains of generations had ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... reckoned a bird possessed of magic power. At its crowing, we are told, all unquiet spirits who roam the earth depart to their dismal abodes, and the orgies of the Witches' Sabbath terminate. A cock is the favourite sacrifice offered to evil spirits in Ceylon and elsewhere. Alectromancy(2) was an ancient and peculiarly senseless method of divination ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove

... of ivory teeth in less time than any other little fellow, before or since. Instead of the palest, and wretchedest, and puniest imp in the world (as his own mother confessed him to be, when Ceres first took him in charge), he was now a strapping baby, crowing, laughing, kicking up his heels, and rolling from one end of the room to the other. All the good women of the neighborhood crowded to the palace, and held up their hands, in unutterable amazement, at the beauty and wholesomeness of this darling little prince. ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... said Darquelnoy. "But there it is. At the moment, they've divided themselves into two camps—generally speaking, that is—and the two sides are trying like mad to outdo each other in everything. As a part of it, they're shooting all sorts of rubbish into space and crowing every time a piece of the ...
— They Also Serve • Donald E. Westlake

... it has shone with varying luster. And still it shines. The dawn of a new day as I write is breaking upon this mountain valley. The cocks are crowing in the village, recalling the apostle who in the midst of the threatening soldiery denied his Lord. And even as Peter went out and wept bitterly, and ever after became the stoutest and bravest disciple of the Master, may it not yet be with ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead

... father were separated an hour when they could be together! Mr. Coppered would take that little owl-faced baby downstairs with him when he came in before dinner, and 'way into the night they'd be in the library together, the baby laughing and crowing, or asleep on a pillow on the sofa. Why, the boy wasn't four when he let the nurse go, and carried the child off for a month's fishing in Canada! And when we first knew that the hip was bad, Mr. Coppered gave ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... to go to his mother; and he came to-night crowing and laughing, and kicking his little blue shoes in boisterous rapture. Jane kept guard at the door while Clarissa put on her bonnet and jacket, and wrapped up the baby—first in a warm fur-lined opera-jacket, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... ducks. 11. Regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard. 12. Guinea fowls fretted about, like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. 13. Before the barn-door strutted the gallant cock, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart—sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... the blue jay up, are capable of certain low ventriloquial notes that have peculiar cadence and charm. I often hear the crow indulging in his in winter, and am reminded of the sound of the dulcimer. The bird stretches up and exerts himself like a cock in the act of crowing, and gives forth a peculiarly clear, vitreous sound that is sure to arrest and reward your attention. This is, no doubt, the song the fox begged to be favored with, as in delivering it the crow must inevitably let drop the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... first place, it is not true, and probably never was true even when hens were at their lowest. We doubts its Sanscrit antiquity. It is perhaps of Puritan origin, and rhymed in New England. It is false as to the hen. A crowing hen was always an object of interest and distinction; she was pointed out to visitors; the owner was proud of her accomplishment, he was naturally likely to preserve her life, and especially if she could lay. A hen that can lay and crow is a 'rara avis'. And it should be ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... possible. Hens will lay at a year old, but the eggs are always insignificant in size, and the layers giddy and unsteady sitters. The hen-bird is in her prime for breeding at three years old, and will continue so, under favourable circumstances, for two years longer; after which she will decline. Crowing hens, and those that have large combs, are generally looked on with mistrust; but this is mere silliness and superstition—though it is possible that a spruce young cock would as much object to a spouse with such peculiar addictions, as a young fellow of our own species ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... to the girdle or armed to the teeth. By our Saint Trinidad! I will have satisfaction for the contumelious affront he hath put upon the very learned gymnasium to which I belong; and it would gladden me to clip the wings of this loud-crowing cock, or any of his dunghill crew," added he, with a scornful ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... very day. Before they had left the castle, however, they had set what was left of the elixir of life out in the courtyard. Hens and hounds picked and licked it up, and all flew up into the skies. In Huai Nan to this very day the crowing of cocks and the barking of hounds may be heard up in the skies, and it is said that these are the creatures who followed ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... awakened by the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs, and a clamour of birds. He was driving slowly at a low level over a broad land lit golden by sunrise under a clear sky. He stared out upon hedgeless, well-cultivated ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... from off the trap-door through which he had emerged from the nether world, and by which it was his duty to descend. In this dilemma he groped about, hoping to distinguish the aperture, keeping the audience in wonder why he remained so long on the stage after the crowing of the cock. It was apparent from the lips of the ghost that he was holding converse with some one at the wings. He at length became irritated, and "alas! poor ghost!" ejaculated, in tones sufficiently audible, ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... is crowing, The stream is flowing, The small birds twitter, The lake doth glitter, The green field sleeps in the sun; The oldest and youngest Are at work with the strongest; The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one! 10 Like an army defeated The Snow hath retreated, ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... Archibald, he was rather neglected than otherwise. He was a dull and stolid baby, neither crying nor crowing much: he would sit all day over a single toy, not playing with it, but holding it idly in his hands or between his knees. He could neither crawl, walk, nor talk till long after the usual time for such accomplishments. It seemed as if he had made up his mind to live according ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne

... striking of the clock I heard the crowing cock, And I arose and threw the window wide; Long, long before the setting of the moon, And yet I knew they must be passing soon— My neighbors who had died— Back to their narrow green-roofed homes that wait Beyond ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... landscape is seen through an open window, which admits a mellow light to fall upon a Turkey rug, tasteful furniture, and that 'wellspring of joy in a house,' a young soul, endowed with undeveloped, perhaps wonderful capacities, crowing in the arms of a turbaned nurse. It is altogether one of the best interiors ever exhibited in New York. No. 305, 'Summer,' a pleasant nook, and No. 121, 'Autumn, New Jersey,' are by the same accomplished hand. The latter is a meadow scene, with a pleasing sky, some graceful trees in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the eldest went away with his cock, but wherever he came the cock was already known; in the towns he saw him from a long distance, sitting upon the steeples and turning round with the wind, and in the villages he heard more than one crowing; no one would show any wonder at the creature, so that it did not look as if he would ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... reclined on a couch nigh by, following the movements of both, with the joint feelings of mother and wife, and laughing in pure sympathy with the noisy merriment of her young hope. A girl, who was the youthful image of herself, with tresses that fell to her waist, romped with a crowing infant, whose age was so tender as scarcely to admit the uncertain evidence of its intelligence. Such was the scene as the clock of the piazza told the hour. Struck with the sound, the father set down the boy and consulted ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... wife," said he, crowing loudly as he came up, that he might put a cheerful face on the matter, "I have been very unlucky; I could not get you any water, but I have got something so nice for you! I have brought you a pair of silver-gauze stockings which the snail ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... what it is. There's a boat on the pond that belongs to an enemy of mine. He is always crowing over me. Now, if you'll manage this evening to set it on fire, I'll ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger

... Sundays came, the father, daughter, son Walked to the church across their own loved fields. It was an ugly church, with scarce a sign Of what makes English churches venerable. Likest a crowing cock upon a heap It stood—but let us say—St. Peter's cock, Lacking not many a holy, rousing charm For one with whose known self it was coeval, Dawning with it from darkness of the unseen! And ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... of which they are conscientiously innocent of knowing anything whatever, or to find a vent for the playful exuberance of their wine-inspired fancies, in boisterous shouts of 'Divide,' occasionally varied with a little howling, barking, crowing, or other ebullitions of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... mean by crowing louder every morning, and wearing that silly old plume on top o' your poll, and those stupid long ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... of their beauty sleep—i.e., the slumber before midnight—when, as the clocks were striking twelve, and an early chanticleer was crowing for the morn, Edie was awakened by some mysterious sounds—sounds as of something bumping against the walls ...
— The Island House - A Tale for the Young Folks • F. M. Holmes

... the village-clock, When he crossed the bridge into Medford town, He heard the crowing of the cock, And the barking of the farmer's dog, And felt the damp of the river-fog, That rises when the ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... siksiklat which she saw she did not break any more, but the siksiklat encircled and carried her up. When they reached the sky (literally "the up"), the siksiklat placed her below the alosip [85] tree. She sat for a long time. Soon she heard the crowing of the rooster. She stood up and went to see the rooster which crowed. She saw a spring. She saw it was pretty because its sands were oday [86] and its gravel pagapat [87] and the top of the betel-nut tree was gold, and the place where the people step was a large Chinese ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... fascinating to be borne along without effort through the enchanted wood in the luminous green gloom that filled it, lulled by the swaying motion of the elephant's stride. The soothing silence of the woodland was broken only by the crowing of a jungle cock. The thick, leafy screen overhead excluded the glare of the tropic sunlight; and the heat was tempered to a welcome coolness by ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... owner of the farm, "that rooster will split his throat if he doesn't stop crowing so loud and long. He doesn't generally keep it up so long. If he continues to crow like that in the mornings when I wish to sleep, we will roast him ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery

... comes every year in my quiet life. Then I go to Dresden, and there I am met by my dear friend and companion, Fritz von Tarlenheim. Last time, his pretty wife Helga came, and a lusty crowing baby with her. And for a week Fritz and I are together, and I hear all of what falls out in Strelsau; and in the evenings, as we walk and smoke together, we talk of Sapt, and of the King, and often of young Rupert; and, as the hours grow small, at last we speak of Flavia. For every year ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... which the cock, perched on his roost, crowed aloud. All Michael's sickness could not prevent him considering very inquisitively the landlady's cantrips, and particularly the influence of the sauce upon the crowing of the cock. Nor could he dissipate some inward desires he felt to follow her example. At the same time, he suspected that Satan had a hand in the pie, yet he thought he would like very much to be at the bottom of the concern; and thus his reason and his curiosity clashed against each ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... amusing your child, imitate the crowing of the cock, and gambol on the carpet, answer his thousand impossible questions, which are the echo of his endless dreams, and let yourself be pulled by the beard to imitate a horse. All this is kindness, but also cleverness, and good ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... response, not of cackling terror, but of crowing counter-defiance, and Vive la Nation; young Valour streaming towards the Frontiers; Patrie en Danger mutely beckoning on the Pont Neuf. Sections are busy, in their permanent Deep; and down, lower still, works unlimited Patriotism, seeking salvation ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... blowing; the rye and colza were sprouting, little dewdrops trembled at the roadsides and on the hawthorn hedges. All sorts of joyous sounds filled the air; the jolting of a cart rolling afar off in the ruts, the crowing of a cock, repeated again and again, or the gambling of a foal running away under the apple-trees: The pure sky was fretted with rosy clouds; a bluish haze rested upon the cots covered with iris. Charles as ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... the child uplifts his cherub face, Opens his soft small arms to stroke thy cheek, Crowing with glee, while the slant sunbeams light A halo of gold fire about thy hair, I see again a canvas that is hung Over the altar in our church at home. "Mater amabilis," yet here be traits, Colors ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... one of the children with croup—I am sure it sounded like what I have heard croup described, or like that dreadful illness they call the crowing cough," she said to Mr. Caryll, as she rushed out of ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... contained many books, mostly old and such as had seen long service. As his habit was when a friend sat with him, Mr. Blaydes presently reached down a volume, and, on opening it, became aware of a passage which sent him into crowing laughter. ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... went red; he gurgled and gasped for breath; he was sinking to his knees when the yelling and crowing of the students on the platform straightened him up. He walked about a few minutes, then ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey

... so terrible, fears nothing more than the noise of empty carts, and likewise the crowing of cocks. And it is much terrified at the sight of one, and looks at its comb with a frightened aspect, and is strangely alarmed when its ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... they had the Confederates in a position from which they must either "ingloriously fly" or come out in the open where certain defeat awaited them. But "Fighting Joe" was soon to learn the folly of crowing until one is out of the woods, for as he emerged from the forests sheltering the fords, he discovered that Lee's army had not remained tamely in its intrenchments, but had quietly slipped away and planted ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... that Spirits came to the earth was mid-night, and they remained until cock-crowing, when they were obliged to depart. So strongly did the people believe in the hours of these visits, that formerly no one would stay from home later than twelve o'clock at night, nor would any one proceed on a journey, until ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... late in the dark, the screech-owl at even, the horned-owl at midnight, the cock before the dawn. Indeed these animals seem to have made a compact together as to the various times and tones of their song. The crowing of the cock is a sound should wake men from their beds, the horned-owl groans, the screech-owl shrieks, the night-owl cries 'tuwhit, tuwhoo', the cicalas chatter, and the swallows twitter shrill. But the wisdom and eloquence of the philosopher ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... Elliotson, Trousseau, Laycock, Cagentre, and others. Marshall Hall relates what would seem to verify the Corsican myth, the history of twin brothers nine months of age, who always became simultaneously affected with restlessness, whooping and crowing in breathing three weeks previous to simultaneous convulsions, etc. Rush describes a case of twin brothers dwelling in entirely different places, who had the same impulse at the same time, and who eventually committed suicide ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... Phaedrus, and others went away—he himself fell asleep, and as the nights were long took a good rest: he was awakened towards day-break by a crowing of cocks, and when he awoke the others were either asleep, or had gone away; there remained awake only Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon, who were drinking out of a large goblet which they passed round, and Socrates was ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... crowing. If we had beaten them, I should not have permitted a word to be spoken that would create a hard feeling in the minds of any of them," replied Frank. "And I know that Tony is exactly ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic

... went away with the ox. After he had gone for some distance he thought he would kill him. He heard a cock, however, crowing in the distance and he knew that there must be a farm yard near. There would be flies of course. He went on farther and again he thought that he would kill the ox. The ground looked moist and damp and so did the leaves on ...
— Fairy Tales from Brazil - How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore • Elsie Spicer Eells

... unfailing curiosity which would have been highly flattering to the possessors if it had not been neutralized by a strain of comment which was much less satisfactory. When Mr. May went in, he found him in the dining-room, with Sir Robert and his daughters standing by, clapping his wings and crowing loudly over a picture which the Dorsets prized much. It represented a bit of vague Italian scenery, mellow and tranquil, and was a true "Wilson," bought by an uncle of Sir Robert's, who had been a connoisseur, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... loved in connection with them. But from a distance and seen from above, the little graveyard never looked grim, it was calm, it slept with the sun.... Sleep!... She loved to sleep! Nothing would disturb her there. The crowing cocks answered each other across the plains. From the homestead rose the roaring of the mill, the clucking of the poultry yard, the cries of children playing. He could make out Sabine's little girl, he could see ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... was the dearest thing on earth to Chihun. He swung out his trunk with a fascinating crook at the end, and the brown baby threw itself shouting upon it. Moti Guj made fast and pulled up till the brown baby was crowing in the air twelve ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling

... The best race of the day is a quarter-mile race for the 'All Army Cup.' There is a horribly conceited young Engineer of the name of Montague who already regards it as his own property; and saddest of all remains the fact that, notwithstanding his crowing, he can run above a bit; we have nobody in the camp with a chance ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart

... covered its earthy breast, and field and garden and orchard crowned its brow, where lay the Monastery of St. Michaelsburg—"The White Cross on the Hill." There within the white walls, where the warm yellow sunlight slept, all was peaceful quietness, broken only now and then by the crowing of the cock or the clamorous cackle of a hen, the lowing of kine or the bleating of goats, a solitary voice in prayer, the faint accord of distant singing, or the resonant toll of the monastery bell from ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle

... cocks roosting beneath the house awaken the household by their crowing and the flapping of their wings. The pigs begin to grunt and squeal, and the dogs begin to trot to and fro in the gallery. Before the first streaks of daylight appear, the women light the fires in the private rooms or blow up the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... further than this and under the proper treatment is well in a few days. In other cases, however, there develops marked interference with breathing. Every inspiration is accompanied by a loud hissing or "crowing" sound. This feature of the disease is one that frightens the parents, though it seldom means anything serious. The child sits up in bed, frightened, and struggles for breath. It may clutch its throat with its hands as if something was tied round its neck. The lips may become slightly blue and ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... glowing so warm that the earth, rich and teeming, seemed once more to quiver under its ardor. The sloth of ease and comfort was in the air. The big bees droned among the flowers at the lattice, and out in the glaring sunlight the lusty cocks led their bands betimes, crowing each his loud defiance. In the pastures, under the wide-armed oaks, the cattle and horses stood dozing. Life on the old plantation seemed, after all, to have set on again much in its former quiet channels. If within the year there had been insubordination, violence, death hereabout, the ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... gestures. The ends of the grass let the dew trickle out. The night was perfectly black, and everything remained motionless in a profound silence, an infinite sweetness. In the distance a cock was crowing. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... tell how Adrienne would have answered this indiscreet question of Rose-Pompon, for suddenly a loud, wild, shrill, piercing sound, evidently intended to imitate the crowing of a cock, was heard close to the door ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... near the blasted oak," said Surrey, galloping towards it: "the demon is sure to revisit his favourite tree before cock-crowing." ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... SUSAN: You are a happy woman and we are all crowing to think the people love, honor and call for you so loud and long. It suits one's sense of poetic justice; it confirms one's faith in human nature and the Heavenly Power not ourselves "that makes for righteousness." ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... crowing under her lattice. He said how old you are!—how old you are! every time ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... the first hour after release, sitting on the porch of a villa, looking across a valley at amethyst mountains, crowned with a sprinkling of blue and white snow. The noises that come to me are not raucous;—the twitter of birds, a rooster crowing, a well-pump throbbing its heart out, the shouts of some children at play, a distant school bell, with no silver in its alloy, however, the swish of a wood-sawing machine in some back-yard. So my ears are not lonesome. Immediately ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... silvery dusk a cock-pheasant was crowing somewhere on a wheat-field's edge. A barnyard chanticleer replied. Clear and truculent rang out the challenge of the Gallic cock in the dawn, warning his wild neighbour to keep to the wilds. So the French trumpets challenge ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... waked the chickens, and the crowing roosters roused Mrs. Barclay, and in the hurry of the hour she forgot to look for her son. As "the gray dawn was breaking," a hundred men came into the room, and found the smoking breakfast on the table. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... and the first classes are lined with a kind of drab cloth, which does not seem so suitable for railway work as our dark blue colour. The guard sets us off with a little "birr-r-r" like a toy cock crowing. When we move out of the station at last we find ourselves going at a snail's pace along a street, and at once we catch our breath with interest—it is all so strange! Never will you forget that ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... mount guard by these gates, Aratus, nor wear our feet away with knocking there. Nay, let the crowing of the morning cock give others over to the bitter cold of dawn. Let Molon alone, my friend, bear the torment at that school of passion! For us, let us secure a quiet life, and some old crone to spit on us for luck, and so keep ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... into an easier way; This age knew better than to fast and pray. Good sense in sacred worship would appear 1020 So to begin, as they might end the year. Such feats in former times had wrought the falls Of crowing Chanticleers[133] in cloister'd walls. Expell'd for this, and for their lands, they fled; And sister Partlet,[134] with her hooded head, Was hooted hence, because she would not pray a-bed. The way to win the restive world to God, Was to lay by the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden



Words linked to "Crowing" :   cock-a-hoop, line-shooting, boastful, bragging, gasconade, proud, braggart, vaporing, self-aggrandizing, jactitation, self-praise



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