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Cur   Listen
noun
Cur  n.  
1.
A mongrel or inferior dog. "They... like to village curs, Bark when their fellows do."
2.
A worthless, snarling fellow; used in contempt. "What would you have, you curs, That like nor peace nor war?"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cur" Quotes from Famous Books



... of commiseration for my ignorance I ground my teeth and went below to inspect the pantry. Here I felt more at home. The long rows of canned provisions, beef stock, concentrated milk, pie fruits, and a small keg, bearing the quaint inscription, "Zante cur.," soon soothed my perturbed spirit and convinced me beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Olga was stanch and seaworthy, and built in the latest and most improved ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day— I like to dock the smaller parts-o-speech, As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur (You catch the paronomasia, play 'po' words?) Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days. Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern, And clapt it i' my poke, having given for same By way o' chop, swop, barter or exchange— ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... keep thee safe from cat and cur, No manner o' harm shall come to thee: Yea, I will be thy succourer, My ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... remarkable woman, a regular, so to speak, highstepper. Yet it must have been the Devil himself that blew this young oaf with the bloated jowl on to the scene. Otherwise I should soon have fixed up matters with her. The cur ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... at unkle Joshuas. Aunt Green gave me a plaister for my fingure that has near cur'd it, but I have a new boil, which is under poultice, & tomorrow I am to undergo another seasoning with globe Salt. The following lines Aunt Deming found in grandmama Sargent's[45] pocket-book & gives me leave to ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow

... Ricciardo's wife, disloyal traitor that thou art! Hearken if thou know my voice; it is indeed I; and it seemeth to me a thousand years till we be in the light, so I may shame thee as thou deservest, scurvy discredited cur that thou art! Alack, woe is me! To whom have I borne so much love these many years? To this disloyal dog, who, thinking to have a strange woman in his arms, hath lavished on me more caresses and more fondnesses in this little while I have been here with ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... "You cur!" cried August. "You knew well enough that he couldn't stand hearing the truth. You can't have any heart in ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof

... "Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?" Goldsmith replied: "He is not a cur; he is only a bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in sport, and he has ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... the Prophet," he muttered, "is it for this I have fed the girl and clothed her with linen from Beni Mazar all these years!" And he turned upon his heel, and kicked a yellow cur in the ribs; then he went to the nearest cafe, and making huge rolls of forcemeat with his fingers crammed them into his mouth, grunting like a Berkshire boar. Nor did his anger cease thereafter, for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... about that," he put in quietly. "Anyhow, remember that you are free, absolutely and unconditionally free. I hold a man a cur who, in dying, tries to ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... asserted that a part of the money was contributed by the inhabitants of Pesaro. 'Do they act out of pure mercy?' said he. 'Ay, they must, for what else could move them in behalf of such a lazy, unserviceable street-fed cur?' In the morning, at sunrise, he was sent aboard. And now, the vessel being under weigh, 'I have a letter from my lord Abdul,' said the master, 'which, being in thy language, two fellow slaves shall read unto thee publicly.' They came forward and began the reading. 'Yesterday ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... carefully, you will observe, also, a little, insignificant looking dog, who is apparently asleep, and, for aught I know, dreaming about the exploits of the day. You will no doubt smile, and wonder what exploits such a cur is able to perform; but I assure you that if he is at all like some of the gipsy dogs I have heard of, he has been taught a good many very shrewd tricks. The dogs of the gipsies are sometimes trained to steal ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... cur. But he wouldn't have done it, my Flintwinch, unless he had known them to have the will to silence him, without the power. He wouldn't have drunk from a glass of water under such circumstances—not even in a respectable house like this, my Flintwinch—unless ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... everyt'ing jus like de white folks," said the old woman. "We's no right to spect it. But Uncle Darry, he sot a sight by his praise-meetin'. He's cur'ous, he ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... walks of life he trod He never wagged an unkind tale abroad, He never snubbed a nameless cur because Without a friend or credit card ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... of Clogher showed you a pamphlet.(14) Well, but you must not give your mind to believe those things; people will say anything. The Character is here reckoned admirable, but most of the facts are trifles. It was first printed privately here; and then some bold cur ventured to do it publicly, and sold two thousand in two days: who the author is must remain uncertain. Do you pretend to know, impudence? How durst you think so? Pox on your Parliaments: the Archbishop has told me of it; but we do not vouchsafe to know anything of it here. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... his first words, uttered, as I have said, with an oath, that he was aware of his state. 'M. de Marsac,' he said, whining like a cur, 'you know me, to be ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... onct mo' wid a passel er game, an' she mighty cur'ous 'bout him by dat time. She say ter husse'f, 'Well! ef I ain' got de curisomest son-in-law in dese diggin's, den I miss de queschin. I wunner w'at mek him set wid his face turnt f'um de fire ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... ye can't have yer own plum puddin' in this outlandish counthry, ye can have a thing the same shape, anyhow. Mrs. Jackey showed me how to make it iligant, of the string of dried bits I had thrun in the box since we kem here first. Throth an' I'm cur'ous to see did they ever swell out agin, afther the ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... to tie a tin can to his tail," he explained, stuttering, "and the cur snapped at him. We was goin' to hit his head against ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... in the thickening dusk, and his eyes gleamed. "Peter, if there's a God, an' He thinks I did wrong then, let Him strike me dead right here! I'm willin'. I found out what the trouble was. There was a new Indian Agent, a cur. And near the tribe was a Free Trader, another cur. The two got together. The Agent sent up the Treaty Money, and along with it—underground, mind you—he sent a lot of whiskey to the Free Trader. ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... woman who was ten thousand times too good to be his wife-torturing her with his cruelties, degrading her with his infidelities, subjecting her to the domination of his paramour, and finally striking her in the face like a coward and a cur. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... went on his way to Ancrum, scourging himself. If ever there was an ungrateful cur, it was he! Why could he find nothing nice to say to that girl in return for all her pluck? Of course she would get into trouble. Coming to see him at that time of night, too! Why, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... fussy flock of poultry was now scrambling for the first choice of worms after the rain; and on the ground at my feet, where the door and its dreadful burden had been laid, a workman's dinner was waiting for him, tied up in a yellow basin, and his faithful cur in charge was yelping at me for coming near the food. The old clerk, looking idly at the slow commencement of the repairs, had only one interest that he could talk about now—the interest of escaping all blame for his own part on account of the accident that had happened. One of ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... of Oxfordshire,' considers fasciation to arise from the ascent of too much nourishment for one stalk and not enough for two, "which accident of plants," says Plot, the German virtuosi ('Misc. Curios. Med. Physic. Acad. Nat. Cur.,' Ann. i, Observ. 102,) "think only to happen after hard and late winters, by reason whereof, indeed, the sap, being restrained somewhat longer than ordinary, upon sudden thaws may probably be sent up more forcibly, ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... lean with anxiety and worn with care; his eyes were restless and bloodshot, and his limbs trembled beneath him. Santerre was not a man who much regarded externals; but, as he afterwards said, "he did not much like the hang-dog look of the royalist cur." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... cur, having twisted his body between the rails, began trotting toward the couple that were ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... Robert, of happy memory; that in the last quarrel before his departure he fought with four butchers, to prevent their killing a poor mastiff that had misbehaved in the bull ring, and narrowly escaped the fate of the cur that he was protecting. I will grant you also, that the poor never pass the house of the wealthy armourer but they are relieved with food and alms. But what avails all this, when his sword makes as many starving orphans and mourning widows ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... he whispered hoarsely; "a cur's bullet, that. Look after her for me. I'd rather—I'd rather hear the ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... white-faced American now. Look at him, he looks just like a coward, and he is a d—d cowardly cur, just like all ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan

... conversation to the provision of pistols, couriers, and guards, for travelling through the Abruzzi. The polysyllabic courage, and false alarms on such a scale, completely eclipsed a real pick-pocket, caught by a gipsy's cur ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bolde, Into a mouse hole they wold Runne away and creep Like a mainy of sheep: Dare not look out a dur For drede of the maystife cur, For drede of ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... earnestness, "I don't want to take the money. I begin to see how it is; I see you're right. To tell the truth, I was afraid I'd been a little hard on the boy. I knew that young cur of a Freeman was to blame for it, and I was sorry on the girl's account and all; but I was hasty, I suppose. I shouldn't have done anything, though, about taking him back; but now that you've made me see it plainer yet, and if he's in such a bad fix as ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... to-day; and I know not how to gainsay you," returned Sibyll, as the dogs, reluctantly beaten off, retired each from each, snarling and reluctant, while a small black cur, that had hitherto sat unobserved at the door of a small hostelrie, now coolly approached and dragged off the bone of contention. "But what sayst thou now? See! see! the patient mongrel carries off the bone from the gentleman-hounds. Is that ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... craft was a rough man. He drove Olaf Olsen forward with blows and curses and the strong Swede whimpered like a whipped cur. Then he came aft to where the cook was giving Shavings ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... he had misjudged Charnock in one respect, but saw that he had not. The fellow was a cur and would not have married Sadie if he had known about Helen's money. But this ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... that the pure-bred sheep-dog is indeed the last dog to revert to a state of nature; and that when sheep-killing by night is traced to a sheep-dog, the animal has a bad strain in him, of retriever, or cur, or "rabbit-dog," as the shepherds call all terriers. When I was a boy on the pampas sheep-killing dogs were common enough, and they were always curs, or the common dog of the country, a smooth-haired animal about the size of a coach-dog, red, or black, or white. I recall ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... old he-goat, the one-eyed, what shall be My saying of a knave, his fashion and degree? I rede thee vaunt thee not of praise from us, for lo! Even as a docktailed cur thou art esteemed of me. By Allah, without fail, to-morrow thou shalt see Me with ox-leather dress and ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... with a frown: "Nay, by my knees entreat me not, thou cur, Nor by my parents. I could even wish My fury prompted me to cut thy flesh In fragments and devour it, such the wrong That I have had from thee. There will be none To drive away the dogs about thy head, Not though thy Trojan friends should bring to me Tenfold and twentyfold ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... finish, and power to govern: without which all things had been but one and the same: all of the matter of heaven; or all of the matter of earth. And if we grant Nature this will, and this understanding, this course, reason, and power: "Cur Natura potius quam Deus nominetur?" "Why should we then call such a cause rather Nature, than God?" "God, of whom all men have notion, and give the first and highest place to divine power": "Omnes homines notionem deorum habent, omnesque summun locum divino ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... roof by sleeping under it again. You may lie to-night in the inn. It shall not be said that Cocheforet,' she continued proudly, 'returned even treachery with inhospitality; and I will give orders to that end. But to-morrow begone back to your master, like the whipped cur you ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... (cur enim non aperiam tibi vel iudicium meum vel errorem?) primum ego] in summa—primum (59 letters) om. F. As there are no homoioteleuta here at all, we surely are concerned with the omission of a line or lines. Perhaps 59 letters would make up a line in P{1} ...
— A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger • Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand

... a hundred without unsaddling, and you know it. Haven't I told you that this ranch would raise horses when we were all dead and gone? Suppose you had killed a couple of horses? What would that have been, compared to your sneaking into the ranch this way, like a whipped cur with your tail between your legs? Now, the countryside will ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... Cur.,” p. 29. The pageants of Corpus Christi day are described by Dugdale, and in ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... to flog "This cruel, regardless, unmannerly dog, "Who will not bite Piggy, though plainly you see "My pig will not stir, and there's no home for me." No reply made the stick, not a blow would it strike, But crab-stick and cur remained ...
— The Remarkable Adventures of an Old Woman and Her Pig - An Ancient Tale in a Modern Dress • Anonymous

... suspiciously and growled. At this moment Markham desired anything but commotion, so he chirped to the animal and stroke on, his head bent, his gaze on the portal of the ancien, which, as he noted, was forbiddingly closed. He paused a moment, eyeing the cur which stopped when he stopped, still regarding him uncertainly. And then summoning his courage he went to the door and knocked. This noise, which sounded faintly enough to Markham, seemed to be the demonstration of hostility the dog was waiting for, ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... just to go home and set down and eat my supper, but never mind," sighed Nate in wistful fashion. "Folks is cur'ous about such things. Just because a man don't git sent up for what he didn't do can't make a hero outen him, as I see. But it's nice of you all to care." He looked at Joyce, sitting opposite with Dalton, he and Lucy having been given the back seat together, and a smile played about his lips and ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... master was left to reflect on the part played by his inheritance of the half share of ninety thousand pounds in his proper respect for Lord Levellier's memory. Harsh to an inferior is a horrible charge. But the position of debtor to a titled cur brings a worse for endurance. Knowing a part of Lord Fleetwood's message to Lord Levellier suppressed, the bride's brother, her chief guardian, had treated the omission as of no importance, and had all the while understood that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... out at last). You beastly egotist! You think of nothing but your rotten career. You cur, you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various

... Will no pitying Power that hears me complain, Or cure my Disquiet, or soften my Pain? To be cur'd, thou must, Colin, thy Passion remove; But what Swain is so silly to live without Love? No, Deity, bid the dear Nymph to return, For ne'er was poor Shepherd so sadly forlorn. Ah! What shall I do? I shall die with Despair; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... trivial?—as if some diarist ought to take it down for the delight of ages to come. As Ross looked at the new-created realistic image of her, he was amazed. "Why, I've always disliked her!" he cried. "I've been lying to myself. I am too low for words," he groaned. "Was there ever such a sneaking cur?" Yes, many a one, full as unconscious of his own qualities as he himself had been until that moment; nor could he find consolation in the fact that he had company, plenty of company, and it of the world's most "gentlemanly" ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... jeered at Hero at first, but they soon tired of it when Stubby said he didn't want the cur but his mother made him stay around to keep the chickens out. He was a fine chicken dog, Stubby grudgingly admitted. He couldn't keep him from following, said Stubby, so he just let him come. Sometimes when they were waiting in line Stubby made ferocious ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... poisoned the Dauphine and the Duc de Berri. The Duc du Maine was instigated by Madame de Montespan and Madame de Maintenon to report things secretly to the King; at first for the purpose of making him bark like a cur at all whom they disliked, and afterwards for the King's diversion, and to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... whether I am or not," replied DeWitt. "You'd better be thankful that we are shooting you instead of hanging you, as you deserve, you cur! You'd better be glad you're dying! You haven't a white friend left in the country! All your ambition and hard work have come to this because you couldn't change your Indian hide, after all! Now then, say your prayers! Rhoda, ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... from his chair. "Never! Never! Frances is buying the king's complaisance, God knows at what price! It shall not be! The cur! The coward! I'll kill him before ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major

... he said; "so I needn't stay to listen. She's adding to it awfully. We didn't use any ropes, the window is only three feet from the ground, and the awful howling and barking of the mastiff was made by the shabbiest little cur. Flower is lovely, but she does dress up her stories. I love Flower, but I'll walk with you now, if ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... Raften pointed to Caleb's weapon. "I seen you with that ten years ago. An' sure I'm not scairt of you an' yer revolver," said Raften, seeing Caleb fingering his white pet; "an' I tell ye this. I won't have ye and yer Sheep-killing cur ramatacking through my woods an' making fires ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... House began his Acquaintance with Edgworth Bess. His sentiments were strangely alter'd, and from an Aversion to those Prostitutes, he had a more favourable Opinion, and even Conversation with them, till he Contracted an ill Distemper, which as he said, he cur'd himself of by a Medicine ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe

... other proof! My creed may be the mistaken one it seems to thee; but, oh! it is no garment we may wear and cast off at pleasure. Have mercy, gracious Sovereign! condemn me not as reprobate—hardened—more insensible than the veriest cur, who is grateful for the kindness of his master!—because I love my faith better even than thy love—the dearest earthly joy now ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... little cur that had been sitting between Mr. Tate's earth-stained boots ran at the gander and yapped shrilly. The big bird curved his neck, bristled his feathers, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... pleasure.... Ah, he's smiling, he's smiling! How kindly he looks at me! And you know, Alyosha, I've been thinking all this time you were angry with me, because of the day before yesterday, because of that young lady. I was a cur, that's the truth.... But it's a good thing it happened so. It was a horrid thing, but a good thing too." Grushenka smiled dreamily and a little cruel line showed in her smile. "Mitya told me that she screamed out that I 'ought to be flogged.' I did insult her dreadfully. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... pass, I ran away Like any ass, and had my day. They drag me round, a prishoner, As if they 'd found a naughty cur. 52 ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... a cur, for we'll go and tell her together." And Sylvia rose and went into the farther room, and put her arms round her mother's neck. "Mother darling," she said, in a half whisper, "it's really all your fault ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... fellow. I remember his coming home one afternoon with a fearfully nasty bite in his left arm, some stingy, big brute of a cur had given him, because he would not let it worry a little girl carrying a big basket, whom it was terrifying into convulsions with yelping and snarling, and making sudden and ferocious grabs at her bare little legs. He gave the beast a kick, and it turned and fastened its long yellow-looking ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce

... tree. Then there was a devil-dog, a little black-and-tan terrier in a blanket gorgeous and belled, whose duty it was to stand on the top of the coach and bark incessantly to keep the driver fully aroused to the enormity of his occupation. To have this cur silenced either by strangulation or ordinary clubbing, Coleman struggled with his dragoman as Jacob struggled with the angel, but in the first place, the dragoman was a Greek whose tongue could go quite drunk, a Greek who became a slave to the heralding and establishment of one certain fact, ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... Cedric, impatiently; "the day is already too short for our journey. For the dog, I know it to be the cur of the runaway slave Gurth, a useless fugitive ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... peasant reassured him. "The mare is young and frisky. . . . Only let her get running and then there is no stopping her. . . . No-ow, cur-sed brute!" ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... for you! I'd put two meals into you and fight you with one finger after, you starved cur. [To Jenny] Now are you goin to fetch out Mog Habbijam; or am I to knock your face off you and ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw

... And waxed so wanton that I did abhor it, And put her out amongst my neighbours for it. The next is Lust, a hound that's kept abroad, 'Mongst some of mine acquaintance, but a toad Is not more loathsome: 'tis a cur will range Extremely, and is ever full of mange; And 'cause it is infectious, she's not wont To come among the rest, but when they hunt. Hate is the third, a hound both deep and long. His sire is true or else supposed Wrong. He'll ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... there, under the man you killed!" he commanded. "Sit down, or by the gods I'll blow your head off where you stand! There—and I'll sit here, like this, so that the cur's heart within you is a bull's-eye for this gun. It's M'sieur Janette's turn tonight," he went on, leaning over the little table, the red spots in his cheeks growing redder and brighter as Nome cringed before his revolver. "M'sieur Janette's—and the colonel's; but mostly ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... To follow for ten minutes in the street some swaggering, canine cavalier is to receive a lesson in dramatic art and the cultured conduct of the body; in every act and gesture you see him true to a refined conception; and the dullest cur, beholding him, pricks up his ear and proceeds to imitate and parody that charming ease. For to be a high-mannered and high-minded gentleman, careless, affable, and gay, is the inborn pretension of the dog. The large dog, so much ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... tiddy little pony no bigger than a dog. If I had children like that I'd give 'em all the chances goin' of breaking their neck, as they wouldn't be worth savin' for anythink but sausage meat. Well, this cur still kep' on at his larks, so soon as I got the team on the level,—it was at Sapling Sidin', runnin' into Ti-tree creek; I could hear the creek gurgling above the sound of the rain, and the white froth on the water ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... to me, Brier, what you do like and what you don't," said his lady, with a toss of her head, "I'm boss of my own house, and no man shall dictate to me, not if I know it. You needn't sneak, like any miserable cur, nor put on that smirk to cover up your own acts, though I ain't afraid but what I can come out ahead, and fight my own battles, if you do show the white feather. Where would you be to-day, I'd like to know, if I'd let you gone on with that overgrown ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... really entitled them to entrance here, and partly that they were in especial need of a good dinner. There was likewise a homeless dog, with his tail between his legs, licking up the crumbs and gnawing the fragments of the feast,—such a melancholy cur as one sometimes sees about the streets without a master, and willing to follow the first that ...
— The Christmas Banquet (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to champion every fighting cur who is getting the worst of it," said Mr. Cuthbert. "What has become of Mr. Farrant's favorite? I suppose he is fussing over it instead of studying the affairs ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... for a full year as the conjuror or powwow of a tribe. When he returned to Europe, he brought with him a couple of human teeth, a pipe, a bow and arrow, a jackall, a wild sheep, a sharp-nosed, thievish Siberian cur, with his sleigh and harness, and a very pretty Samoyede girl, the last with a view to ascertain the peculiar cast of features and shade of complexion which should mark a half-breed, which he was so fortunate as to possess ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... feels to be it. There are in the Quiver of the God a great many different Darts; some that wound for a Day, and others for a Year; they are all fine, painted, glittering Darts, and shew as well as those made of the noblest Metal; but the Wounds they make reach the Desire only, and are cur'd by possessing, while the short-liv'd Passion betrays the Cheat. But 'tis that refin'd and illustrious Passion of the Soul, whose Aim is Virtue, and whose end is Honour, that has the Power of changing Nature, and is capable of performing all ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... Oxford to pry and peep into that snug comfortable fellowship of yours? Do you suppose I'm so much in love with you, Herbert Walters, that I can't let you go without wanting to fawn upon you and run after you ever afterwards! Pah! you miserable, pitiable, contemptible cur and coward, are you afraid even of a woman! Go away, and don't be frightened. I never want to see you or speak to you again as long as I live, you wretched, lying, shuffling hypocrite. I'd rather go back to my own people at Hastings a thousand ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... This gentle Maxwell!—Do not touch him, Bryan! [To the Presbyterians.] Whichever cur of you will carry this Escapes his fellow's fate. None ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... loathing rose to my lips. "That miserable contemptible cur lives by your body,—a dirty vagabond." "No he's not,—poor fellow, he would earn our living if he could, but he can't." "I don't believe it,—a man who lives by a woman is barely a man,—I would empty cesspools to keep a woman ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... who are willing to prey upon the infirmity of reason; that the mountebanks of former days are emulated by the quacks of the present time; that Mr. Halsted has met with abundance of patients, and a ready sale for his work: a hope of relief from disease acts as a stimulant to faith, but "Hope is a cur-tail dog in ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... non mirer esse quemquam, qui sibi persuadeat, corpora quaedam solida atque individua vi et gravitate ferri, mundumque effici ornatissimum et pulcherrimum ex corum corporum concursione fortuita? Quod si mundum efficere potest concursus atomorum, cur porticum, cur templum, cur domum, cur urbem non potest, quae sunt minus operosa, et multo quidem faciliora? Certe ita temere de mundo effutiunt, ut mihi quidem nunquam hunc admirabilem coeli ornatum, qui locus est ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen

... the former beggar, 'leave my house at once, with your wife—you coward! you cur! You robbed my father, and then cheated me when I was a spendthrift. Begone, and may your name be accursed in ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson

... a big mastiff looks at a snarling cur with a look more of pity than contempt. Then he said slowly, accentuating ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... gittin' a little ole an stiff in de j'ints. But dat summer he got des ez spry en libely ez any young nigger on de plantation; fac', he got so biggity dat Mars Jackson, de oberseah, ha' ter th'eaten ter whip 'im, ef he did n' stop cuttin' up his didos en behave hisse'f. But de mos' cur'ouses' thing happen' in de fall, when de sap begin ter go down in de grapevimes. Fus', when de grapes 'uz gethered, de knots begun ter straighten out'n Henry's ha'r; en w'en de leaves begin ter fall, Henry's ha'r 'mence' ter drap out; en when de vimes 'uz bar', Henry's head wuz baller ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt

... admiratio, seu legis communis aequitas, ut in nostro sexu, rarum non esse feram, id quod omnium votis dignissimum est. Nam cum sapientia tantum generis humani ornamentum sit, ut ad omnes et singulos (quoad quidem per sortem cujusque liceat) extendi jure debeat, non vidi, cur virgini, in qua excolendi sese ornandique sedulitatem admittimus, non conveniat mundus hic omnium longe pulcherrimus."—ANNAE MARIAE ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... dog's alarm and the loud outcry of men there was barely time in which to draw a breath. From the stair platform came a rapid fusillade of rifle shots that sang through the air above Howland's head, and mingled with the fire was a hoarse voice urging on the cur that followed within ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood

... back in his chair, was livid; his limbs shook as if with ague. Meanwhile the major, striding up and down and striking the tables wildly with his fists, continued: "So you have become a thief like the veriest scribbling cur of a clerk, and all for the sake of that creature here! If at least you had stolen for your mother's sake it would have been honorable! But, curse it, to play tricks and bring the money into this shanty is what I cannot understand! Tell me—what are you made of at your age to go ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... a portrait painted on porcelain. Mr. Hamlin was startled. Inexperienced as he was, a certain artistic inclination told him it was good, although it is to be feared he would have been astonished even if it had been worse. The mere fact that this headstrong country girl, who had run away with a cur like Stratton, should be able to do anything else took him ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... attended only by a favourite hound. Thus equipped, he, in a very obliging, but somewhat positive manner, desired his lady to seat herself on the cushion; which done, away they crawled. The road being obstructed by a gate, the dog was commanded to open it; the poor cur looked up and wagged his tail: but the master, to show the impatience of his temper, drew a pistol and shot him dead. He had no sooner done it, but he fell into a thousand apologies for his unhappy rashness, and begged as many pardons for his excesses before one for whom he had so profound a respect. ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... Good the song that quickly ceases; Better far to keep thy wisdom Than to sing it on the house-tops." Comes the hostess of Pohyola, Fleetly rushing through the door-way, To the centre of the court-room, And addresses thus the stranger: Formerly a dog lay watching, Was a cur of iron-color, Fond of flesh, a bone-devourer, Loved to lick the blood of strangers. Who then art thou of the heroes, Who of all the host of heroes, That thou art within my court-rooms, That thou comest to my dwelling, Was not seen without my portals, Was not scented ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... was shining in his eyes, the Indian's little black cur had come up and was barking at him from a respectful distance, and from behind a tree Job heard a girl's merry laugh, when he awoke ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher

... good part. Yet I felt all the time that I had done nothing to entitle me to an honourable discharge; that I had taken up many obligations and begun many friendships which I had no right to put away from me; and that for me to die was to play the cur and slinking sybarite, and desert the colours on the eve of the decisive fight. Of course I have done no work for I do not know how long; and here you can triumph. I have been reduced to writing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... alien she drags after her, and Scotland only her most thriving province. We are not surprised, for instance, when "Blackwood" echoes the abusive language of the metropolitan journals, for it is only as a village-cur joins the hounds that pass in full cry. So, when we talk of "the attitude of England," we have a tolerably defined idea, made up of the collective aspect of the unsympathetic Government, of the mendacious ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... tolle grabatum tuum;—simul et animi vigorem ad non timendos qui dicturi erant: Qui dimittet peccata nisi solus deus?... Cum Judaei merito retractarent non posse hominem delicta dimittere sed deum solum, cur... respondit, habere eum potestatem dimittendi delicta, quando et filium ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday

... arranged outside was a fiasco; the evening banquet was indefinitely postponed. Wimp had won; Grodman felt like a whipped cur. ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill

... Bat's hands clenched and his great shoulders heaved. "The infernal cur! that would be just ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre

... to damnation together. I don't care! I'll blow it all. I won't be disgraced alone because of something I did for your mother. I may sound like a cur. I don't care, I say! I'm going to have you, and I don't care ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... from time to time cast a glance at his vile dog, without deigning to speak a word, or even to acknowledge my presence. Furious at this behaviour, I bowed and said to him, "So, you are the owner of this precious cur?" ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... you. You manhunting cur, I'm going to send you to hell with your sins on your head. I'm going ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... he exclaimed, as he turned back to the rear of the car. "I beg the lieutenant's pardon, but—he is not in the regular army, I see," with a glance at the collar of the young officer's blouse. "We sometimes get hard cases to deal with, and this is one of them. This kind of a cur wouldn't hesitate to shoot an officer in the back or stab him in the dark if he didn't like him. I hope the lieutenant may never be bothered with him again. No, damn you!" he added between his set teeth, as he looked down at the sullen, scowling prisoner, "what you ought to have is a good hiding, ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... on earth. Worldly people may take advantage of your misfortunes, and cry over you—There, there, so would we have it. Take him and persecute him, for there is none to deliver him; where is now his God? So it may be with you; for as surely as you fall, many a cur will spring up and bark at you, who dared not open his mouth at you while you stood safe. Or—worse by far than that—the world may take hold of your really weak points, of your inconsistencies, of your faults and failings; and cry—Fie on thee, fie on thee. We saw it with our eyes. For all his ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... exaggeration of discourtesy which your superior civilized 'helps' think is self-respect. The excuse of servitude of any kind is its spontaneity and affection. When you know a man hates you and serves you from interest, you know he's a cur and you're a tyrant. It's your blank progress that's made menial service degrading by teaching men to avoid it. Why, sir, when I first arrived here, Jack Hammersley and myself took turns as cook to the party. I didn't consider ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... if she knew it was her own son?" she soliloquized. "He is a young cur, but she thinks him ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger

... first obscure hint of the infamous design van der Myle faced them with such looks, gestures, and words of disgust and indignation that the murderous couple recoiled, the son of Barneveld saying to the expreacher: "Let us be off, Slaet,'tis a mere cur. Nothing is to be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... charge—from Griffith!" he shouted. "Bridge overloaded—will go down when wind rises. We've got to clear her. She may go down when the empties back out. Any yellow cur that wants to quit can call for his pay-check. I'm going out. ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... have trouble," called Petty, cheerfully, "but if you ride right on through trouble you'll leave trouble behind. Nor this ain't nothin' either to what we kin expect before we git to the top of the pass. Cur'us what a pow'ful lot human bein's kin stand when they make ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... 'ere is suthin' cur'user than the right hoof o' the devil," said Solomon Binkus, as he pointed with his forefinger at a print in the ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... about with his face close to the ground to make sure that no smallest coin had escaped him, the cripple replaced his eye patches and heaved himself up with his crutch under his arm, turning to make his way once more toward the docks and the ships. His wailing cry lagged behind him like a cur dog: "Pity the blind! Pity the pore crippled blind!" Yet Chris now noticed that his head was tilted back to enable him to see under the ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... grave," he added. "Yo're cur'ous to know what's goin' to happen when we find that grave, Johnny. So ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... it were Upon the Decalogue, He classes with the minister, The rural pedagogue, And as a sort of angel-cur Regards ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... smile. He was the richer by half a crown. They stood aside and let him brazen it past them; but Manby and Ibbetson were still waiting for him as he came back alone. Ibbetson was content with a look of reproach. Manby told him fair and straight that he was a swindling cur. But meanwhile Warboise had stumped off and told Ibbetson's wife. This done, he hurried off, and catching Clerihew by the steps of the Hundred Men's Hall, threatened the rogue with his staff. Manby caught them in altercation, the one aiming impotent blows, the other evading them still with his shameless ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Canaanite to wife. The Adullamite king gave a banquet in his honor, at which his daughter Bath-shua poured the wine, and intoxicated by wine and passion Judah took her and married her.[75] Judah's action may be compared to that of the lion who passes a carrion and eats of it, though a cur preceding him on the way had refused to touch it. Even Esau came in time to acknowledge that the daughters of Canaan were wicked, and the lion Judah must needs take one of them to wife.[76] The holy spirit cried out against Judah when he married the Canaanite woman of Adullam, saying, "The glory ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... Providence," said one of the elders of the village;" no man must expect the help of God if he throws himself wilfully in the way of danger. Is it not so, M. le Cur? I heard you say as much from the pulpit on the first Sunday in ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... I, "you are not the cur I took you for; for I had no business to be nodding. Stay here, and I will fetch you a sword, and you ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... and his history, if he had one; and hid his hopes, joys, and sorrows, if he had any, behind a vacant grin, as Mitchell hid his behind a quizzical one. He never resented alleged satire—perhaps he couldn't see it—and therefore he got the name of being a cur. As a rule, he was careful with his money, and was called mean—not, however, by the Oracle, whose philosophy was simple, and whose sympathy could not realise a limit; nor ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... the aisle: The great cur showed his teeth,—and the devilish instincts of his old wolf-ancestry looked out of his eyes, and flashed from his sharp tusks, and yawned in his wide mouth ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... revenge my accomplishment was pitiful, for I had to chase the poor specimen for several minutes, my headache growing worse at every stride, and he yelling for mercy like a cur-dog shown the whip, while the Armenians—women and little children as well as men—looked on with mild astonishment and Gloria objected volubly. He took to the clay slope at last in hope that his light weight ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... a man who loved me, a cur and a knave. He thought for an hour he was cured of his passion. I could have told him 'twould spring up and burn more fierce than ever when he saw another man possess me. 'Tis so with knaves and curs; and 'tis so with him. He hath ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Paddy, an out-and-out cur amongst horses himself, was anxious to be relieved of the colt's head. Young horses sometimes knock down the man who is holding them. ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd



Words linked to "Cur" :   fice, feist, domestic dog, caitiff, pie-dog, mutt, Canis familiaris, pye-dog, coward, dog, mongrel, pariah dog



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