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Decoy   Listen
verb
Decoy  v. t.  (past & past part. decoyed; pres. part. decoying)  To lead into danger by artifice; to lure into a net or snare; to entrap; to insnare; to allure; to entice; as, to decoy troops into an ambush; to decoy ducks into a net. "Did to a lonely cot his steps decoy." "E'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy."
Synonyms: To entice; tempt; allure; lure. See Allure.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Decoy" Quotes from Famous Books



... medicine for the poor, a tonic for the rich, a recreation for the fatigued and a beneficient check to the strenuous. It acts as a shield to the reformer, as an entering wedge to the recluse and as a decoy for ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... want to go to the hockey match now, and made up her mind obstinately that nothing in this wide world should decoy her to it. Bess came to school next morning armed with full permission to use her father's car and to invite as many of her schoolfellows as it would accommodate. She cordially pressed Ingred ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... be a mere blind; a decoy to engage Mr. Blake's attention. He must be a little obvious, rather blundering—so that Mr. Blake can't miss him. He will know nothing about my real scheme at all. While Mr. Blake's attention and suspicion are fixed on the first man, the second man, who is to be a real detective ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... which the defendant had given to the complaining witness and in which he held himself out as a veterinary. The testimony of the complainant stood uncontradicted. The complainant was not an accomplice and his testimony did not have to be corroborated. A decoy wasn't an accomplice. That was the law. Neither was what had passed between the complainant and defendant privileged as a confidential communication, because the complainant was not a physician. That was all there ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... his life he saw himself as he was, and loathed himself, his past life, and all the alluring influences that had conspired to decoy him into the downward ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... prey to the delusion. They ended by admitting her into the sisterhood of this convent, excusing the payment of the large sum usually demanded; and as her darkness was now great in proportion to the measure of light against which she had sinned, they found her a valuable decoy-bird to draw others into the snare. I did not learn all these particulars at the time, nor until after her decease, when I met with a near family connection of hers who told them to me. I simply gleaned the fact of her apostasy, with that of her abounding ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... directly to the gaming-table, where Mr Watson, to my surprize, pulled out a large sum of money and placed it before him, as did many others; all of them, no doubt, considering their own heaps as so many decoy birds, which were to intice and draw over the heaps ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... view, firing, yelling, and making the most furious gestures. The appearance was so singular, and so different from their usual manner of fighting, that some of the more wary and experienced of the garrison instantly pronounced it a decoy party, and restrained the young men from sallying out and attacking them, as some of them were strongly disposed to do. The opposite side of the fort was instantly manned, and several breaches in the picketing rapidly repaired. ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... catch; crook, tenaculum, peavey, clives, agraffe, fluke, pot-hook, cant-hook, cleek, trammel, cottrel; snare, decoy, trap; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... used to talking straight out to you, grandfather. I'm willing to help as far as it's in my poor power. But I want you to tell me that I'm not being used as a decoy-duck in ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... out precisely as I had anticipated. My opponent began at the beginning, as he saw it, and all his time went over those decoy points and the chairman rapped him down long before he reached that ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis

... it up and carried it the rest of the way, and I was offul glad cause it was a heavy gun. His coat-tail smelled like when you burn a rag to make the air in the room stop smelling so, all the forenoon. You know Pa is a little near sighted but he don't believe it, so I got some of the wooden decoy ducks that the hunters use, and put them in the lake, and you ought to see Pa get down on his belly and crawl through the grass, to get ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck

... ballad-monger; a corranto-coiner; a decoy; an exchange man; a forrester; a gamester; an hospitall-man; a iayler; a keeper; a launderer; a metall man; a neuter; an ostler; a post-master: a quest-man; a ruffian; a sailor; a trauller; an vnder sheriffe; a wine-soaker; a Xantippean; a ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... are people on the earth Doomed with doom of too great worth. Look on Helen not with hate, Therefore, but compassionate. If she suffer not too much, Seldom does she feel the touch Of that fresh, auroral joy Lighter spirits may decoy To their pure and sunny lives. Heavy honey 'tis she hives. To her sweet but burdened soul All that here she may control— What of bitter memories, What of coming fate's surmise, Paris' passion, distant din Of the war ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... by the Malay; and when he and his native friends found that they could not induce Mr. Wright to further weaken his ship's company by sending another boat's crew on shore, so that the Union might the more easily be captured, she was ordered under the most awful threats to act as decoy. Resolved to upset their diabolical plan, or die in the attempt, she gave an apparently cheerful assent to the meditated scheme of murder, and hence her appearance in the canoe with the ...
— The Adventure Of Elizabeth Morey, of New York - 1901 • Louis Becke

... for them the hunter placed the traps either in the water or on the bank at a spot where they were in the habit of going ashore, and to decoy them to that landing Oo-koo-hoo rubbed castoreum on the branches of the surrounding bushes—just in the same way as he did for mink or otter. Another way he had of setting traps was to cut a hole in the side of a muskrat's house, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... they farm the fields which they rob their debtors of, nor do they inhabit their houses when they have thrust them out, nor use their tables or apparel, but first one is ruined, and then a second is hunted down, for whom the first one serves as a decoy. For the bane spreads and grows like a fire, to the destruction and ruin of all who fall into their clutches, for it consumes one after another; and the money-lender, who fans and feeds this flame to ensnare many, gets no more advantage from it but that some ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... of the Downs to the right are hereabouts very beautiful; one of the spurs is occupied by Angmering Park belonging to the Duke of Norfolk. At Poling, on a tributary of the Arun southwards, is a decoy for wild fowl. Here is a Perpendicular church containing a fourteenth-century brass to a former priest, one Walter Davey. A chapel belonging to a commandery of the Knights of St. John still stands near the church; it has been converted into ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... a person of her condition. The commodore, conscious of his own inferior capacity in point of reasoning, did not think proper to dispute the proposal but lent a deaf ear to her repeated remonstrances, though they were enforced with every argument which she thought could soothe, terrify, shame or decoy him into compliance. In vain did she urge the excess of affection she had for him as meriting some return of tenderness and condescension: he was even proof against certain menacing hints she gave touching the resentment of a slighted woman; and ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... it. I had the verbal assurance of the President that I could stay safe and undisturbed, but he would not put anything in writing. Then they appointed a committee to give permits, and they would not give me one. And so it became more and more manifest that they meant to decoy me into staying, and then hold me at mercy. And what this mercy is may be seen from the last news from Johannesburg; any one without a written permit has been condemned to 25 lashes ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... to victims of a lower class than himself; young clerks and medical students who were flattered by his condescension. He did not actually fleece them himself, he had too little worldly wisdom for that; but he was the decoy of a coterie of Nyms, Pistols, and Bardolphs, who gathered up the spoil of these and any unwary youth who came to Rockpier in the wake of an invalid, or to 'see life' at a fashionable watering- place. Miles thought the old man was probably reduced to a worse style ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... schoolroom, but nothing will be of any use but your coming away at once, and appearing in society with me, so you had better send the children to Acton Manor, and come to me next week. If there are any teal in the decoy bring some, and ask Mervyn where he ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... he was reminded of it, was not this, perhaps, but a device of the enemy's to decoy him from the comparative safety ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... credit; pretty girl, curly head. good manners. Well, she's off. Good trick, too. She was the decoy. Banin stood in the shadow with club. She brought gentleman into alley, friend did work. That's Banin's story. Perhaps a lie. You have a brother in Algiers? Thought so. Girl went out there once? So I was told. Probably there now. African officers say not; but they're ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... Doctor, grasping her meaning intuitively, "that youth is given up to illusions. It seems to be a provision of Nature; a decoy to secure mothers for the race. And Nature takes no account of moral consequences, of arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain at ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... all out as delightsome to some sorts of men, be it with guns, lime, nets, glades, gins, strings, baits, pitfalls, pipes, calls, stalking-horses, setting-dogs, decoy-ducks, &c., or otherwise. Some much delight to take larks with day-nets, small birds with chaff-nets, plovers, partridge, herons, snipe, &c. Henry the Third, king of Castile (as Mariana the Jesuit reports of him, lib. 3. cap. 7.) was much affected [3236]"with ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... course, the chance that Mrs. Clephane had lured him into the trap, and had herself written the decoy note; but he did not believe her guilty. Even though Crenshaw had adroitly implicated her, he was not influenced. Indeed, he was convinced of just the reverse:—that she was honest and sincere and inexperienced, and ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... the poor man's death. And Fifanti himself was not entirely without blame. Largely had he contributed to the tragedy. There had been evil in his heart. A good man would have withdrawn his wife from surroundings which he knew to be perilous and foul, not used her as a decoy to enable him to trap and ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... by some that the Hannibal hauled the ensign down, and then hoisted it reversed, as a signal of distress, and afterwards, when she struck, hauled it down; and that the French hoisted it union down to decoy the Calpe. But, for the refutation of these absurdities, we must refer the reader to the testimony of Colonel Connolly, who was then acting captain of the marines, an officer of the highest character, whose veracity cannot be ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... not been taught that it was his mission to thwart and humble them? Had he not continually striven to do so? He must have been bewitched to have forgotten the fact for an instant. No doubt this creature with her rare beauty was a decoy brought hither to tempt him to betray ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... acted decoy for them and trapped their game and used to inveigle damsels from marriage-banquets, once caught them a woman from a bride-feast, under pretence that she had a wedding in her own house, and fixed for her a day when she should come to her. As soon as the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... handful of British troops rendered themselves as conspicuous for valour, as the noble Tecumseh did for valour and clemency united, the siege, (a second time attempted,) was, after a final but fruitless attempt to decoy the enemy from his defences, abandoned as hopeless, and the expedition re-embarked and directed against Fort Sandusky, a post of the Americans, situate on the river of that name, and running also into ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... the first proclamation when it was followed by another, which so entirely qualified and impaired the character of the former, as to revolt the people whom it had invited, and to impress them with the conviction that they had been imposed upon—that the first measure was a mere decoy,—a trap involving their pledges, yet withholding the very securities for which they had been given. This second proclamation, premising that it was necessary for all good citizens to uphold his Majesty's Government, proceeded to discharge from protection and parole all ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... and make sure of his presence. I have imagined a plan to decoy him into the service of his lord; but I would now know ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... his face. He saw what was going on well enough, and understood it all perfectly well. Of course the schoolmaster had been trying to make Elsie jealous, and had succeeded. The little school-girl was a decoy-duck,—that was all. Estates like the Dudley property were not to be had every day, and no doubt the Yankee usher was willing to take some pains to make sure of Elsie. Doesn't Elsie look savage? Dick involuntarily moved his ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... of perseverance, of judgment, of every quality that should adorn a man. So eager was he to be off and at the road again that he could scarcely wait to swallow his refection. All the charms of the profusely spread board had not availed to decoy him from the subject, and the repast of the devoted jury of view was seasoned with his sage advice and vehement argument against the project, which its advocates, fully occupied, failed for the nonce to combat. Now and again Mrs. Minerva Slade sought to interpose in ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... the call, though Arlington could have sworn he heard suppressed voices within. It flashed upon him that the place might be a trap for travellers, and the sign-board a decoy. His two heavy pistols, each more than a foot long, hung strapped to his belt. The priming was fresh; the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... too hot a reception, the whites kept a more respectful distance. Hovering now just out of reach of the hurtling hatchets, they, with a view to the close encounter which must soon come, sought to decoy the blacks into entirely disarming themselves of their most murderous weapons in a hand-to-hand fight, by foolishly flinging them, as missiles, short of the mark, into the sea. But, ere long, perceiving the stratagem, the negroes desisted, though not before many of them had to replace their lost ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... Thing had better been asleep, Whatever thing it were, Or Breeze, or Bird, or fleece of Sheep, That first did plant you there. For you and your green twigs decoy The little witless Shepherd-boy To come and slumber in your bower; And trust me, on some sultry noon, Both you and he, Heaven knows how soon! Will perish ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... footstep, the tone of her call Is hailed with rejoicings—rejoicings of joy; Her whisper so gentle, her breathings of peace All feelings of sadness allure and decoy. ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar

... obtain a sure trial of his skill, set up his little son as a butt, and for a mark a shilling on the boy's cap, commanding him to carry off the shilling without the cap with his arrow. But when the wizard said he could do it, though he would rather abstain, lest the Devil should decoy him to destruction; still, being led on by the words of the chief, he thrust one arrow through his collar, and, fitting the other to his crossbow, struck off the coin from the boy's cap without doing him any harm; seeing which, when the lord asked the ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... then, I will go and see to the horses. I leave you, Mr. Falkirk, to defend yourself! I have been unable to decoy the enemy.' ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... much noise then!" retorted Yussuf Dakmar. Jeremy, who thinks habitually about ten times as fast as I do, slipped away at once into the shadows to find Narayan Singh and decoy the guard elsewhere. I didn't envy him the job, for Sikhs use cold steel first and argue afterward when on the qui vive in the dark. However, he accomplished his purpose. Narayan Singh saved his life, and the ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... we heard the 'turkeys' gobbling. Then he followed the sound of one and I went after the other. When I came near the place I saw it was a warrior trying to decoy us." ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson

... suffered a great deal during the last three days. My heart does not bear you any ill-will now, and I will try to restore your beautiful and unhappy wife to you, and to console her. But I must request you to leave this room. I know a charm, by which I shall decoy Fanny from that room; but in order to do so I must be alone, and nobody, save herself, must be able ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... through the tar-weed to call upon her new neighbor. Palmerston watched the good woman's departure, and awaited her return, taunting himself remorselessly meanwhile for the curiosity which prompted him to place a decoy-chair near his tent door, and exulting shamefacedly at the success of his ruse when she sank into it with the interrogative glance with which fat people always ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham

... the midst of the mire and the grass, and mumbling "Te Deum laudamus." "Unktomee[72]—Ho!" muttered the braves, for they deemed him the black Spider-Spirit That dwells in the drearisome caves, and walks on the marshes at midnight, With a flickering torch in his hand, to decoy to his den the unwary. His tongue could they not understand, but his torn hands all shriveled with famine He stretched to the hunters and said: "He feedeth his chosen with manna; And ye are the angels of God ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... sick-room. One does not escape from being a patient because of being also a physician, and for my part I am glad to confess my sense of enjoyment in such visits, and how I have longed to keep my doctor at my side and to decoy him into a protracted stay. The convalescence he observes is for him, too, a pleasant thing. He has and should have pride in some distinct rescue, or in the fact that he has been able to stand by, with little interference, and see the disease run its normal ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... the Americans fast," she did not join in the encounter. When Captain Barry afterwards "asked them why they did not come down during the action, they answered they thought they might have been taken, and the signal known; that the action was only 'a sham to decoy him.'" ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin

... Then, at the sound of a trumpet, all the knights were assembled to council; and after much talking, Prianius said, "Cease your words, for I warn you in yonder wood ye shall find knights out of number, who will put out cattle for a decoy to lead you on; and ye are not ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... spoke out boldly against it. He warned them, in eloquent and solemn language, of the evils that would ensue. It countenanced, he said, "the dangerous practice of stock-jobbing, and would divert the genius of the nation from trade and industry. It would hold out a dangerous lure to decoy the unwary to their ruin, by making them part with the earnings of their labour for a prospect of imaginary wealth. The great principle of the project was an evil of first-rate magnitude; it was to raise artificially the value of the stock, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... Indian ladders, and then drawing these after them. After being well fixed, and having taken up a number of stones, they began to imitate the voices and cries of the various beasts of the woods, and even that of children, to decoy him thither. Having spent some days without success, a detached party took a stroll to some distance from the rock. Before they had reached the rock again, this beast had got scent, and was in full pursuit of them; yet they reached it before ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... answered low. "The Power, the type of life, she would waken is stupendous. And if roused enough to be attracted by the patterned symbol into which she would decoy it down, it will take actual, physical expression. But how? Where is the Body of Worshippers through whom it can manifest? There is none. It will, therefore, press inanimate matter into the service. The terrific impulse to form itself a means of expression will force all loose matter at hand towards ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... virtuous and Honourable, who Scorn Advantage, are a constant Prey to the vicious and dishonourable, who never Play without one. nor does the Vice Stop here: For the Sharper having Stript his Bubble of his Estate, he next Corrupts his Mind, by making him a Decoy-Duck, in Order to retrieve his Fortune as he lost It. And, from an indegent Virtuous Bubble, the Noble Youth becomes an ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin

... as a Fowler was sitting down to a scanty supper of herbs and bread, a friend dropped in unexpectedly. The larder was empty; so he went out and caught a tame Partridge, which he kept as a decoy, and was about to wring her neck when she cried, "Surely you won't kill me? Why, what will you do without me next time you go fowling? How will you get the birds to come to your nets?" He let her ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... not, it is expected from him, if there comes a Brief to town, for the Minister to cast in his mite will not satisfy! unless he can create sixpence or a shilling to put into the box, for a stale [lure], to decoy in the rest of the parish. Nay, he that hath but L20 or L30 [ L60 to L90 now] per annum, if he bids not up as high as the best in the parish in all acts of charity, he is counted carnal and earthly-minded; only ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... night I have heard the stuttering call of a blind quail, A caged decoy, under a cairn of stones, Crying for light as the quails cry ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... of slip nooses attached to a central cord which surrounds a tame decoy is also found in use here, and boys frequently secure birds by means of blow-guns. The latter do not differ from those already described on p. 73, but with this tribe they are regarded only as a ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... was seen that evening to go into the house of the Spanish ambassador. Sir John then sent a message to Ferro—that's a small town on the Portuguese coast to the southward—with a despatch to Sir Hyde Parker, desiring him to run away to Cape St Vincent, and decoy the Spanish fleet there, in case they should come out after him. Well, Mr Simple, so far d'ye see the train was well laid. The next thing to do was to watch the Spanish ambassador's house, and see ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... Macdonald sprang back to regain the shelter of his walls, sensing too late the trap that the cowboy's unguarded word had betrayed. Chance Dalton at one corner of the rude bungalow, his next best man at the other, had been waiting for the decoy at the gate to draw Macdonald away from his door. Now, as the homesteader leaped back in sudden alarm, they closed in on him with their ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... would jeopardise everything and so it was determined to make an attempt to clear No Man's Land the night before. A patrol of two officers and thirty other ranks accordingly got orders to move out to the old British trenches to act as a decoy to entice the enemy to pursue them towards our lines, while on the flank were to be stationed two companies of another unit, whose orders were on hearing rapid fire coming from the patrol to close with the bayonet on the flank of the enemy and roll up his line against our wire. It was an ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... fourth chapter, he charges them afresh with this murder (verse 10), but withal tells them salvation is in no other. Then, like a heavenly decoy, he puts himself also among them, to draw them the better under the net of the gospel; saying, 'There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved' ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... to understand that Fletcher acted as a decoy, to ingratiate himself with parties leaving Melbourne for the mines, and then giving secret information to the bushrangers with whom he was connected, enabling them to attack and ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger

... pass for the memsahib," she urged. "The memsahib will pass for a man. Wait by the gate until the maharajah enters, while I stand at the door under the lamp as a decoy. I will run into the house, and he will follow with the eunuchs, while the rest of you slip out through the gate, and run before the guard can close it. Perhaps one, at least, of the other maids had better stay ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... we used to have wild duck on the island. . . . There were lagoons on the east side, fairly teeming with them, and we fixed up a decoy. I don't pretend that we fixed up an orange salad like this, with curacao: but in the beginning we practised with limes, and later on I invented one of sliced bananas, with a sort of spirit I brewed from the fruit. Also we found bait in the pools, not so much unlike the whitebait ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the islands and two hundred ships loaded with sugar from being captured, so that the gain was all on his side. So far as the West Indies were concerned, the French expedition ended not only in a dead loss, but was a humiliating fiasco, unless, as I have stated before, it was a preconceived decoy for some other purpose. But whether it were strategy or decoy, it taxes one's intelligence to conceive why the French fleet did not proceed to bombard the British possessions on arrival, then steal into safe obscurity and make their way ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... from the nine young men, who began to divide, with the intention of obeying its simple final instructions; when the Indians, seeing the design, unwilling to forego the advantage of the first open shot and perhaps hoping by a weak fire to mask their strength, and decoy the young Kentuckians into closer quarters, let fly a volley of six or seven guns from the bushes near to where Roland lay, but without doing much mischief, or even deceiving the young ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... behind Helgoland came a number of German destroyers, followed by two cruisers; and the English submarines, with the two small destroyers, fled westwards, acting as a decoy. As the Germans followed, the British destroyer flotillas on the northwest came rapidly down. At the sight of these destroyers the German destroyers fled, and the British attempted to head ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... more delicately nurtured. They had known every degree of hunger and nakedness; during the first few years of their lives they had often been compelled to subsist for days and weeks upon roots and herbs, wild fruits, and game which their fathers had learned to entrap, to decoy, and to shoot. Thus Louis and Hector had early been initiated into the mysteries of the chase. They could make deadfalls, and pits, and traps, and snares,—they were as expert as Indians in the use of the bow,—they could pitch ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... her, suppressed a slight maternal pang, having daughters to marry, and took her line in a moment; here was a decoy duck. Mrs. Lucas was all graciousness, made acquaintance, and took a little turn with her, introducing her to one or two persons; among the rest, to the malignant woman, Mrs. Barr. Mrs. Barr, on this, ceased to look daggers and substituted icicles; ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... all have some art or device to decoy one away from the nest, affecting lameness, a crippled wing, or a broken back, promising an easy capture if pursued. The tree-builders depend upon concealing the nest or placing it beyond reach. But the bluebird has no art either way, and its ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... not only inclines us to feel satisfaction at finding we have companions in misfortune, but too often stimulates us to increase the number by our own exertions. From the stupendous elephant, down to the smallest of the feathered tribe, all will act as a decoy to their own species, when in captivity themselves; and, in all compulsory service, which may be considered a species of captivity, man proves that he is imbued with the same propensity. Seamen that have been pressed themselves into the navy, are invariably the most active in pressing others; and ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... was fading away. The whole party was concealed in a dense canebrake which fringed the stream. Two of the Indians were sent forward as a decoy—a shameful decoy—to lure into the hands of two hundred warriors an unarmed man, two women, and eight or ten children. The Indians picked out some of their best marksmen and hid them behind trees and logs near the river. They were to shoot down the Indians ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... so uncomfortable to be alone without any other creature, as it is to be alone in the midst of wild beasts. Man is to man all kind of beasts—a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture. The civilest, methinks, of all nations, are those whom we account the most barbarous; there is some moderation and good nature in the Toupinambaltians who eat no men but their enemies, whilst we learned and polite and Christian Europeans, like so many pikes and ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... Andalusia. The water of the Pozo de la Solana forms a clear and deep brook at which all the birds of the neighborhood come to drink, and on whose borders they are caught by hundreds, by means of reeds smeared with bird-lime, or of nets, in the center of which are fastened a cord and a decoy. All this carried my thoughts back to the sports of my childhood, and to the many times that I too had gone to catch birds in ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... Carver Doone's passport (as I heard long afterwards), which Charleworth Doone had imitated, for decoy of Lorna. The sentinel took me for that vile Carver; who was like enough to be prowling there, for private talk with Lorna; but not very likely to shout forth his name, if it might be avoided. The watchman, perceiving the danger perhaps of intruding on ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... a sort of swing, which I found extremely useful in beguiling time. I would also practise jumping with long poles. One day I captured a young pelican, and trained him to accompany me in my walks and assist me in my fishing operations. He also acted as a decoy. Frequently I would hide myself in some grass, whilst my pet bird walked a few yards away to attract his fellows. Presently he would be joined by a whole flock, many of which I lassoed, or shot with ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... wife, the Countess Ingomede; he was prepared to play upon that admiration for the success of his efforts. The Countess disappeared on a recent night, leaving the court in extreme doubt as to her fate. Later a decoy telegram was sent by a Marlanx agent, informing Tullis that she had gone to Schloss Marlanx, never to return, but so shrewdly worded that he would believe that it had been sent by coercion, and that she was actually a prisoner in the hands of her own husband. Tullis was expected to ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... of many things, some that may be useful, and some that, for aught I know, may be very diverting. I am merry that I may decoy people into my company, and grave that they may be the better for it. Now and then I put on the garb of a philosopher, and take the opportunity that disguise procures me to drop a word in favour of religion. In short there is some froth, and here and there some sweetmeat ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... Barbosa Machado's curious collection of pamphlets, in the library of Rio de Janeiro, is one by the Capt. Symam Estacio da Sylveira, printed in 1624. He had been at the taking of Maranham from the French, and his paper is evidently a decoy for colonists. He says, that Daniel de la Touche was induced to go thither by Itayuba of the Iron arm, a Frenchman who had been brought up among the Tupinambas. Is this ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... bushes. I finally located a cat, sure enough, and came for bait! I laid my trap, for the animal was too frightened to be approachable, and then shot it; I had to. That yellow fiend used the light as a decoy. The branch which killed him jutted out over the path at a spot where an opening in the foliage above allowed some moon rays to penetrate. Directly the victim stood beneath, the Chinaman uttered his bird cry; the one below looked up, and the cat, previously held silent and helpless in the leather ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... the honesty of Hamlet as much as the shrivelled meaning with its pompous phrase insults his intelligence. So with the other characters; they are all made to justify his demeanour towards them. The queen is heard to confess her guilt, Ophelia is seen to act as a decoy; his college friends attempt ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... then, I covenant that your acquaintance be general; that you admit no sworn confidant or intimate of your own sex; no she friend to screen her affairs under your countenance, and tempt you to make trial of a mutual secrecy. No decoy-duck to wheedle you a FOP-SCRAMBLING to the play in a mask, then bring you home in a pretended fright, when you think you shall be found out, and rail at me for missing the play, and disappointing the frolic which you had to pick me up and ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... been arrested, Armand; but why should you not trust me on that account? Have we not succeeded, I and the others, in worse cases than this one? They mean no harm to Jeanne Lange," he added emphatically; "I give you my word on that. They only want her as a decoy. It is you they want. You through her, and me through you. I pledge you my honour that she will be safe. You must try and trust me, Armand. It is much to ask, I know, for you will have to trust me with what is ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... now and did him good service, he felt himself a man, able to resist and proud to endure, and he hoped to meet the parson and demand explanations from him, for he could scarcely be blamed for divining some connexion between the deadly gap in the bridge and the carefully planted decoy—the carpet-bag. Yet in this induction he was wrong. The hole under the snow had not been known to Ringfield and the bag had been left by him in a certain position of safety while he was inside the little church—nothing ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... January, as the Alabama was lazily drifting in a north-easterly direction, near the Malabar coast, a ship was discovered running down towards her. The useful decoy—the United States flag—was at once hoisted, and the same colours were run up by the stranger. A gun brought the Yankee vessel to, and the Alabama forthwith took possession of the Emma Jane of Bath, Maine, bound from Bombay to Amherst in ballast, and at 8.30 P.M. the prize ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... will not last. It is but an ignis fatuus that will decoy to deeper gloom and darker morasses. I have swept and garnished, and the seven other devils will dwell with me forever! My child, I have tempted you, and you stood firm. Forgive my suspicions. Twenty ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... not being able to catch eels, and asked how I thought I should catch them. They said when I could decoy wild-fowl, I might set a trap for the Redfurns. But it does not follow that that is all true because they said it. I don't see but they might be caught if there was anyone to do us justice afterwards. That's the worst part of ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau

... our opinion that Mason sent your father a decoy telegram to the Union Club, and lured him to the empty house in Thirty-sixth street. We believe he and Sim Johnson arranged to attack and drug him there. We think, when they either killed or drugged him, they packed him in the box and shipped ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous

... we were held in check by the stubborn defense of the place, and a conviction was forced on my mind that our enemy would hold fast, even though every house in the town should be battered down by our artillery. It was evident that we most decoy him out to fight us on something like equal terms, or else, with the whole army, raise the siege and attack his communications. Accordingly, on the 13th of August, I gave general orders for the Twentieth ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... the instrument, and tried to play upon it himself. But although he blew into it with all his strength, and shifted his fingers up and down the pipe, he was not able to bring a better tone from it than the cry of a cat when she is seized by the tail, or the squeaking of a decoy-pig at a wolf-hunt. The fisherman laughed, and said, "Don't give yourself so much trouble for nothing. I see well enough that you'll never make a piper. My boy can manage it much better." "Oho," said the Devil, "you seem to think that playing this instrument is like playing ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... leading him by a chain; and even then, there were often battles between them, and bloody ones too, you may bet! Tired of this, the little Auvergnat said one day, 'Well, well, I will revenge myself on you, you lubberly baboon!' So one morning he set off with his beast as usual; to decoy him he bought a sheep's heart. While Gargousse was eating, he passed a cord through the end of his chain, and fastened it to a tree; and when he had the scoundrel of an ape once tied fast, he poured on him such a ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... abundant in the Atlantic States, the gun, decoy and net are brought into operation against them, and very considerable numbers of them are taken. In some seasons they may be purchased in our markets for one dollar a hundred, and flocks have been known to occupy two hours in passing, in New Jersey and the adjoining States. Many thousands are drowned ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... lots of allocations. These are not the times to conceal hereditary distinctions. But now comes the serious work. We must have one or two men of known wealth upon the list. The chaff is nothing without a decoy-bird. Now, can't you help me with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... at an hotel as billiard-marker and decoy, and in six months he managed that pub. Smith, who'd been away on his own account, turned up in the town one day clean broke, and in a deplorable state. He heard of Steelman's luck, and thought he was "all right," so ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... replied the commodore, "that it's all off but the shouting with me and you, Scraggsy. This fellow Tabu-Tabu is a damned traitor, and his people are still cannibals. He's the decoy to get white men ashore. They schemed to treat us nice and be friendly until they could get the whole crew ashore, or enough of them to leave the ship helpless, and then—O Gawd, Scraggsy, old man, can you ever forgive me for gettin' you ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... to decoy Montcalm to emerge from his fastnesses and to enter into a general engagement were unceasing; but the French General was not to be tempted. Several British men-of-war sailed up the St. Lawrence, past the city, and got into the upper river. Wolfe was thus enabled to reconnoitre the country above, ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... from the clear look. Fontenoy's rage of defeat, however modified in her presence, had nevertheless expressed itself to her in phrases and allusions that had both perplexed and troubled her. Had Marcella indeed made use of her beauty to decoy a weak youth from his allegiance? And now she spoke his ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... I rejoice to see How I have spoil'd his thrift, by spending thee. Now thou art gone, he courts my wants with more, His decoy gold, and bribes me to restore. As lesser lode-stones with the North consent, Naturally moving to their element, As bodies swarm to th' centre, and that fire Man stole from heaven, to heav'n doth still aspire, So this vast crying sum draws ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... think of felling a huge tree to procure so insignificant a reward as the carcass of a squirrel; and without felling the tree, and splitting it up, too, the creature could not be reached. Various devices, however, are practised to decoy it forth; and these, unfortunately for the ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid

... agent, who had a large number of the cases growing out of the robberies, to come on at once. The two men took stations, one on each side of Raven's Nest, and in thirty hours they arrested the youthful criminal, who in the interval stole four decoy letters, and paid a portion of the contents to one of the officers who ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... thou bane of fear, And last deserter of the brave, Thou soothing ease of mortal care, Thou traveller beyond the grave; Thou soul of patience, airy food, Bold warrant of a distant good, Reviving cordial, kind decoy; Though fortune frowns and friends depart, Though Silvia flies me, flattering joy, Nor thou, nor love, shall leave ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... cold. "It was a decoy then, the card you used?" he interrupted. "And was that one also, young woman, when you threatened that ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... informant, the fiery Bishop Klingensmith, remarked, this was not so generous as it seemed, since, while it would serve to decoy them on their way toward San Bernardino, they would never get out of the valley with it. The train had started on, but the animals were so weak that three days had been required to reach Iron Creek, twenty miles beyond, ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... the parties there—except the sailors an' sodgers—are thieves an' blackguards. They've drugged your beer, I know; that's why I capsized it for you, and the feller that has got hold o' you is a well-known decoy-duck. I don't know how much of the ready you may have about you, but this I does know, whether it be much or little, you wouldn't have a rap of it in the mornin' if you stayed the night in ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne

... (or at least with that summum jus which the Roman proverb denounces as summa injuria,) in having ever interfered at all with Mr O'Connell, others of the same faction are roundly imputing to them a system of decoy, a "laying of traps," (that was the word,) in waiting so patiently for the ripening of the Repeal frenzy. Upon the same principle, a criminal may have a right to complain that her Majesty, when extending mercy to a first crime, or a crime ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... muskets, though swords were rife enough in Dalness, so a stand and a defence by weapons was out of the question. M'Iver struck on a more pleasing and cleanly plan. It was to give the MacDonalds tit for tat, and decoy them into the house as their friends had decoyed us into it, and leave them there in durance while we went ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... of the madness that came to the young warrior, of how year after year he followed the trail of wolves, wreaking his vengeance on their breed. And last he thought of Wolf—how Mukoki and Wabigoon had found the whelp in one of their traps; how they tamed him, grew to love him, and taught him to decoy other wolves to their riffes. Wolf had been their comrade of a few months before; fearless, faithful, until at last, escaping from the final murderous assault of the Woongas, he had fled into the forests, while his human friends fought their ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood

... keep a strict watch over the woman who had come to Guernsey to find Olivia. If possible I must decoy her away from the lowly nest where my helpless bird was sheltered. She had not sent for me again, but I called upon her the next morning professionally, and stayed some time talking with her. But nothing resulted from the visit beyond the assurance that she had not yet made ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... to please," I apologized to Peter. "He passed over place after place before he finally fixed on Hilderton Hall. Either the heronry wasn't ventilated properly, or the decoy ponds had the wrong ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... to repeat an old sermon. Dame Tourtelot had been present on the momentous occasion, with such a tempest of suggestions in regard to the wrappings and feeding of the new comer, that the poor mother had quietly begged the good clergyman to decoy her, on her next visit, into his study. This he did, and succeeded in fastening her with a discussion upon the import of the word baptize, in which he was in a fair way of being carried by storm, if he had not retreated under cover of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... from her in the beginning. She'd had more love affairs than one; her late father's masquerading as a doctor for another. They had only used that as a cloak. They had run a gambling-house on the sly—he as the card-sharper, she as the decoy. They had drained one poor fellow dry, and she had thrown him over after leading him on to think that she cared for him and was going to marry him. He blew out his brains in front of her, poor wretch. They say she never turned a hair. You wouldn't believe it possible, if you saw her; ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... commenced to run! But the bombardment was continued for two reasons. In the first place, every house, as in Paris, was a fort; and, secondly, the Neapolitan commander could not possibly trust the white flag immediately after he had lost a whole battalion by a false flag being hoisted to decoy them into ambush, where the ground was mined. But no single fact of needless cruelty has been proved against the King of Naples, though I know, from a person attached to our Navy, and in those seas at that time, whose account I have read, as also from that of a traveller accidentally ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... in which these people also excel: this is fishing on the ice when the lakes are frozen over—a sport that requires the exercise of great patience. The Indian, provided with his tomahawk, with which he makes an opening in the ice, a spear, his blanket, and a decoy-fish of wood, proceeds to the place he has fixed upon. Having cut a hole in the ice he places himself on hands and knees, and casts his blanket over him, so as to darken the water and conceal himself from observation; in this position he will remain for hours, patiently watching the approach ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... forth together into the streets, and entering St. James's Park, took their way round by the head of the decoy towards the side of the river. While in the streets they both kept silence; but as soon as they had passed the ever-moving crowds that swarm in the thoroughfares of the great metropolis, Wilton began the conversation, by inquiring eagerly after his ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... By and by I had to recross, and so on, off and on, till at noon I camped for dinner. Here the dog found me a nest of young ducks, nearly fledged, from which the parent birds tried with great success to decoy me. I fully thought I was going to catch them, but the dog knew better and made straight for the nest, from which he returned immediately with a fine young duck in his mouth, which he laid at my feet, wagging his tail and barking. ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... outside the limits of Proconsularis, and was, as it were, the patriarch of the African Church. For twenty-three years the see had had no pastor, and the restoration marked a distinct step towards the ending of the Vandal domination. But there was a final effort; Hunneric, unable to decoy the Catholics, determined to exterminate them; a writer of the time tells that nearly five thousand clergy were banished to the desert, where their fate was a practical martyrdom. A conference was {105} summoned in 484, at which it was endeavoured to make the Catholic clergy abate the strictness ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton

... begin with, I'm afraid it is some trap of hers to decoy you over there, get you into ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... learned that this was a method they employed to decoy the guides, to draw them securely into their toils. They first of all give them very insignificant things to do, in order not to frighten them, and pay a high price: it is afterwards that they fasten you up tight. ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... came the ducks in myriads, filling the ponds and flashets of the vast barrens with tumultuous quacking; and the young wolves learned, like the foxes, to decoy the silly birds by rousing their curiosity. They would hide in the grass, while one played and rolled about on the open shore, till the ducks saw him and began to stretch their necks and gabble their amazement at the strange thing, which they had never seen before. Shy and ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long

... supper was preparing, Denys disappeared, and was eventually found by Gerard in the yard, helping Manon, his plump but not bright decoy duck, to draw water, and pouring extravagant compliments into her dullish ear. Gerard grunted and returned to table, but Denys did not come in for a good quarter of ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... For three days, now, a gold-rigged ship, bearing a princely crew with rich armor and abundant wealth, has been sailing carelessly over these seas. Tomorrow I shall send my daughters and the bewitching mermaids to decoy the vessel among the rocks. And into my net the ship, and the brave warriors, and all their armor and gold, shall fall. A rich prize it will be. No: I cannot part with my net, even for a ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... again. Cluck! cluck! soul!" Then she gathers up the rice in a basket, carries it to the sufferer, and drops the grains from her hand on his head, saying again, "Cluck! cluck! soul!" Here the intention clearly is to decoy back the loitering bird-soul and replace it in the head of ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... the Decoy," said the chasseur, with intense relish. A sinister man with very black hair (probably in collusion with the decoy) was looking on, ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... Inheritance may sometimes thus be hastily gotten at the beginning, but the end thereof shall not be blessed. Hark what the Prophet saith; Wo to him that coveteth an evil covetousness, that he may set his nest on high. {50e} Whether he makes drunkenness, or ought else, the engine and decoy to get it; for that man doth but consult the shame of his own house, the spoiling of his family, and the damnation of his Soul; for that which he getteth by working of iniquity, is but a getting by the ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... mischance she occupied the seat opposite to mine. And in this trap of Iblis was decoy enough for a poor mouse like me. It is an age since I beheld such an Oriental gem in an American setting; or such a strange Southern beauty in an exotic frame. For one would think her from the South, or further down from Mexico. Nay, of Andalusian, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... she-wolf," Henry whispered back, "an' that accounts for Fatty an' Frog. She's the decoy for the pack. She draws out the dog an' then all the rest pitches in an' ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... decided to make a prisoner of whomsoever should be sent to find the cow. He had reason to believe that this person would be a youth, and since every thing was so quiet in that section, he was not likely to be armed. Hence, it would be an easy matter to decoy him a goodly distance from the settlement, when the warrior could pounce upon, make him a prisoner and compel him to go with him. After the couple were far enough from the settlement the lad could be put to death, if his captor ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... Caesar went an hour after the extinction of his pyre. Nor will there be more remains of any of us. And the whole of Humanity, and the Earth itself, will also disappear one day. Let no one talk of the Progress of Humanity as an end! That would be too gross a decoy. ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... drawing near—it became evident she was no pirate. Indeed, she made no secret of what she was, for the British flag was run out to her peak, at once proclaiming her a British vessel of war. It is true a pirate might have used that signal for a decoy; but, considering the time and place, it was not likely, and the Pandora's people did not entertain the thought of its being one. The cutter was a British cruiser beyond doubt. That was their full ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... you not think so yourself? Why, to snare birds you would get up by night in the depth of winter and tramp off in the cold; your nets were laid before the creatures were astir, and your tracks completely covered and you actually had birds of your own, trained to serve you and decoy their kith and kin, while you yourself lay in some hiding-place, seeing yet unseen, and you had learnt by long practice to jerk in the net before the birds could fly away. [40] Or you might be out after hares, and for a hare you had two breeds ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... so. But Tony Babington always was a fool, and a wrong-headed fool, who was sure to ruin himself sooner or later. You remember the decoy for the wild-fowl? Well, never was silly duck or goose so ready to swim into the nets as ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... nobody dared believe it. But the pilot could be seen on vision. He was known. No blueskin would be left alive long enough to be used as a decoy by the men of Weald! Presently the giant ship on its second voyage to Dara—the first had been a generation ago, when it threatened death and destruction—appeared as a dark pinpoint in the sky. It came down and down, and presently it hovered over the center of the tarmac, where Calhoun ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster

... us, with her nose to the ground, when suddenly she made a run through the short heather after a lapwing, which was, or pretended to be, unable to fly. I think it was trying to decoy the dog away from its nest. As we watched ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... abound! What a hailstorm of pleasantries, and what stories of wise aphorisms and profound reflections! How I see with my mind's eye the literary traveller trying to overhear the Attic drolleries of the waiters as they wash up their glasses, or endeavouring to decoy Boots into a stroll with a cigar, well knowing his ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever



Words linked to "Decoy" :   device, chum, bait, cheater, fisherman's lure, stool pigeon, accomplice, entice, fish lure, trap, confederate, slicker, lure, beguiler, cheat, tempt, roper



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