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Gobble   Listen
verb
Gobble  v. t.  (past & past part. gobbled; pres. part. gobbling)  
1.
To swallow or eat greedily or hastily; to gulp. "Supper gobbled up in haste."
2.
To utter (a sound) like a turkey cock. "He... gobbles out a note of self-approbation."
To gobble up, to capture in a mass or in masses; to capture suddenly. (Slang)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gobble" Quotes from Famous Books



... that to us remains an unfathomable mystery, the Cerambyx-grub leaves the inside of the oak, its peaceful retreat, its unassailable stronghold, to wriggle towards the outside, where lives the foe, the Woodpecker, who may gobble up the succulent little sausage. At the risk of its life, it stubbornly digs and gnaws to the very bark, of which it leaves no more intact than the thinnest film, a slender screen. Sometimes, even, the rash one opens ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... "Gobble-gobble!" It was answered from all directions. Gradually the truth dawned on Lewis. He had won, and the warm blood rushed through his ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... missed his invitation,' chaffed Fagerolles. 'Don't you see that his fine ladies didn't ask him to stay to dinner, and so now he's come to gobble up our leg of mutton, as he doesn't know ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... to you by return of post, I must gobble up my dinner, and dispatch this in propria Persona to the office, to be in time. So take it from me hastily, that you are perfectly welcome to furnish A.C. with the scrap, which I had almost forgotten writing. The more my character comes to be known, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... sufficiently definite to indicate Araminta's hapless father—"was always tracking dirt into the clean kitchen, and he had an appetite like a horse. Barbara would make a cake to set away for company, and he'd gobble it all up at one meal just as if 't was a doughnut. She was forever cooking and washing dishes and sweeping up after him. When he come into the house, she'd run for the broom and dustpan, and follow him around, sweeping up, and if you'll believe me, the brute scolded her ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... chanced that Waska had gone down to the palace cellar to hunt for mice and rats, and seeing an especially fat, well-fed mouse, she pounced upon it, buried her claws in its soft fur, and was just going to gobble it up, when she was stopped by the pleading tones of the little creature, saying, 'If you will only spare my life I may be of great service to you. I will do everything in my power for you; for I am the ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... demanded the latter chum, indignantly; "do we sit down and watch him gobble all our fine grub without lifting a hand to stop him? Say, I'd be ashamed to tell the story afterwards; and him only a half-grown bear in ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone

... murders of March. She lays the ground-bait for the victims. Out pop the stupid little flowers, eager to be deceived (one could forgive the annuals, but the perennials ought to know better by now), and down comes March, a roaring lion, to gobble them up. ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne

... reading by my fire one afternoon in Shanghai the door was quietly opened, two hands gently pushed an enormous live turkey into the room and the door was again closed. The turkey commenced to stalk about with an occasional gobble. After watching the intruder for a few seconds I started to catch him, but found it was no easy matter. He flew on to the sideboard, from there to the mantelpiece and then to the window-sill, scattering knick-knacks and photographs far and wide. ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... upon the ear. Even in Calcutta, a large and populous city, one is not exempt from their howlings, but in Benares they are a recognized institution, and are molested by no one. These creatures voraciously gobble up everything that is left exposed, good or bad,—vermin, decayed food, offal, every refuse,—thus rendering a certain necessary service in a climate so hot as that of India. The natives are not permitted to keep any sort of ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... on earth did dwell; An' "Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!" But now he gives me bigges' joy, An' rests ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley

... his chair, some men, some women. The warriors squatted in line out in front among the flowers. Whenever we were through with a dish, Craney would send the rest of it down to the warriors, and they'd gobble it, and watch for more, with their eyes shining, but very quiet. I recollect there was something that was like a duck, and some canned tomatoes, and a kind of fruit ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton

... it, and some poetry; waal, and a little spice, too. We've got to have the spice, you know." He admired, for different reasons, a lecture by Greeley that he once heard, into which so much knowledge of various kinds was crowded that he said he "made a reg'lar gobble of it." He was not without discrimination, which he exercised upon the local preaching when nothing better offered. Of one sermon he said, "The man began way back at the creation, and just preached right along down; and he didn't say nothing, after all. It just seemed to me as if he was tryin' to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... was not enough for you," said the old man, without the slightest sense of shame; "why, you would waste the wealth of the Indies! Good-night! I am too ignorant to lend a hand in schemes got up on purpose to exploit me. A monkey will never gobble down a bear" (alluding to the workshop nicknames); "I am a vinegrower, I am not a banker. And what is more, look you, business between father and son never turns out well. Stay and eat your dinner here; you shan't say that ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... compensation for this. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of existence like pulp—tadpoles which herons gobble up, and tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that sometimes it has rained flesh and blood! With the liability to accident, we must see how little account is to be made of it. The impression made on a wise man is that of universal ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... mighty jealous uh the range, and he didn't take none to the idea of anybody else shoving stock onto it more than naturally drifted on in the course uh the season. If he's going to start another cow-outfit, I'll bet yuh he's going to gobble land—and that's what we better do, and ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... now are a breathless steeplechase, during which we take our viand hedges and champagne ditches at a dead run, with conversation pushed at much the same speed. To be silent would be to imply that one was not having a good time, so we rattle and gobble on toward the finger-bowl winning-post, only to find that rest is ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... many on this part of the coast. They scare off the fish and break the nets of the fishermen. Then, too, they're dangerous if any one falls overboard, and no one can be comfortable when he knows those pirates are cruising around, ready to gobble him up." ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... Quixote," and which shows the United States represented by a hog and the insurgents represented by a negro imprisoned in the trocha, while Weyler stands ready to turn the Spanish lion on them and watch it gobble them up. ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis

... either you or your mother if you'll be sensible," he said irritably, for, unreasonably enough, the extreme fear she showed and her pleading tones annoyed him. He had a feeling that he would like to shake her, it was so absurd of her to look at him as though she expected him to gobble ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon

... did," said Mark;—"there, don't you see the end of his tail sticking out from under the largest stone? May-be he has had one little girl for breakfast this morning, and don't care about another for luncheon, or else he would spring up after you, and gobble you up ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... father did me a service. Here, Corde-a-puits, go and get some cakes and sugar-plums," he said to the pupil who had tortured Joseph, giving him some small change. "We'll see if you are to be artist by the way you gobble up the dainties," added the sculptor, chucking Joseph ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... of this part of the nature, is a vampyrism which is constantly on the alert to see what, and how much it can gobble up for its own delectation. This is the lowest grade. It begins with the selfism of the individual, its manifestations are named lust. It seeks expression through the sensuous nature, but extends ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... the island we had just left, while the former would take to the mountains. Steptoe coincided with me in this opinion, and informing me that Lieutenant Alexander Piper would join my detachment with a mountain' howitzer, directed me to convey the command to the island and gobble up all who ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... his life the Desert Rat should be engaged in learning how to die, and meet the issue unafraid. For the Desert Rat was a philosopher, and even at this ghastly spectacle his sense of humor did not desert him. He sat down on the skull of one of the burros and laughed—a dry cackling gobble. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... the pot hung on the pot-hook, than she would slip away with a big saucer and fetch sirup from the shop. And she would flounce down before the porridge dish and gobble to her heart's content. If any of her fellow-servants claimed an equal share, she would simply ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... hunted of all living things. From the day they leave the egg, enemies lurk on all sides to gobble them up. The weak ones are eaten, and none of them has the chance to die of old age! So we find a defence of spines and prickles worn by many sea-fish. Spines on the fins are the commonest, and no doubt help to keep away enemies; ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith

... was the boys' friend, especially George's friend, whom she thought unjustly treated by his mother, warned the lads to be prudent, and that some conspiracy was hatching against them. "Ward is more obsequious than ever to your mamma. It turns my stomach, it does, to hear him flatter, and to see him gobble—the odious wretch! You must be on your guard, my poor boys—you must learn your lessons, and not anger your tutor. A mischief will come, I know it will. Your mamma was talking about you to Mr. Washington the other day, when I came into the room. I don't like that Major Washington, you know ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... in the end. Listen, there are three cocks in the hen-house; one is yellow, one black, and the third is white. If one of them crows during the night you must tell me which one it is. Woe to you if you make a mistake. I will gobble you ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various

... a servant out of my house. Do you believe in the story of the little boy and the sausages? Have you swallowed that little minced infant? Have you devoured that young Polonius? Upon my word you have maw enough. We somehow greedily gobble down all stories in which the characters of our friends are chopped up, and believe wrong of them without inquiry. In a late serial work written by this hand, I remember making some pathetic remarks about our propensity ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to the Saxons on shore; and it is because I hope she is going to do such good service to England that I would be careful of her. You must remember, too, that many of the Danish galleys are far larger than those we had to do with to-day. We are not going to gobble them all up as a ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... I'll come pretty close to owning the watershed. Why not the waterworks too? There's two water companies in Oakland now, fighting like cats and dogs and both about broke. What a metropolis needs is a good water system. They can't give it. They're stick-in-the-muds. I'll gobble them up and deliver the right article to the city. There's money there, too—money everywhere. Everything works in with everything else. Each improvement makes the value of everything else pump up. It's people that are behind the value. The bigger the crowd ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... in the lane, That couldn't speak plain, Cried, Gobble, gobble, gobble; The man on the hill, That couldn't stand ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies - Without Addition or Abridgement • Munroe and Francis

... them well. Ciprianu is a Wallach, but a nobleman of Hungary for all that, and his poultry unique of its sort. The cocks are white, but in head and neck they bear a strong resemblance to turkeys, and they gobble like turkeys, too. They are a special breed and Ciprianu wouldn't part with one of them for a fortune. He guards them jealously from thieves, and that explains why he has so many dogs. As soon as he hears our carriage-wheels he'll come out ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... the way, Marshfield, you can sit tight to a horse, I trust? If you were to roll off, you know, these splendid fellows—they would chop you up in a second. They would chop you up,' he repeated unctuously, 'snap, crunch, gobble, and there would ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... water, and I verily believe if I had had the patience, I might have taught them to feed from my fingers. Sometimes for a treat I would bring "Flap" and place him near the water, and he seemed to enjoy looking at the denizens; but they were all too big for him to gobble, or he would have made an Aldermanic dinner ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... him, trying to snatch the booty from him. A flying bird with his beak engaged in holding a treasure is very much at the mercy of his pursuers; his only resource is either to outstrip his covetous comrades, or else hastily to gobble the desired morsel in a manner that must rob it of some of its sweetness. These gulls are peculiarly fond of settling on the boats that are moored at the foot of the gardens; sometimes as many as fourteen or fifteen may be seen on one little rowing-boat, all sitting solemnly ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... from being struck on the head with a railroad tie somewhere down the long trail of years behind him, gulped his lean Adam's apple into a laugh, and began to gobble a long, rambling tale about a feller he knew once in Minnesota who could locate mines with a crooked stick, and wherever he pinted the ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... I am not contemplating any very rapid or slap-dash work. You may put that on your novels, or books of amusement, if you choose, and I will not be very cross about it; but for the books of improvement, I want you to improve by reading them. Do not "gobble" them up so that five years hence you shall not know whether you have read them or not. What I advise seems slow to you, but if you will, any of you, make or find two hours a day to read in this fashion, you will be one day accomplished men and women. Very few ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... to that made by a turkey-cock before he begins to gobble—a sound that may be represented by the word Phut, and ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... forget the pig you purchased—so gallantly and confidingly. I would not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments—your pig will gobble 'em up. You should by this have received a communication from my solicitors. Remember, you have pledged your sacred promise. There must be no question of trying to shirk or burke it. Remember that I am quite outrageously rich. I have no children of ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland

... reliable one. And even when the feller got afoul of him, the chances are the old land-pirut would steal the brick. This here"—jabbing thumb at Mr. Bodge—"is fresher bait. I believe the old shark will gobble it if he's fished for right. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... out without our accomplishing anything. I remember distinctly that my Regiment would go into line, strip themselves, and throw down the chickens, potatoes, apples, and other eatables they had foraged and taken during the day, and as they would go forward the troops in our rear would come up and gobble what they had dropped. About the third time the Regiment went into line I noticed the boys had left nothing but their knapsacks, and were holding on to their chickens and provisions. One of the boys saw me looking at them, and thinking I was going to order ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge

... time with due seriousness. The break at noon in the great manufactories, as well as in the family workshop, is long, averaging one hour and a half, and reaching often to two hours. The French never gobble. Because food is necessary to animal life, they do not on that account take a puritanical view of it. They dare enjoy it, in spite of its physiological bearing. They sit down to it, dwell upon it, get its flavor, and after the meal they sit still and as a nation permit themselves ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch

... bein' so orbstinit, mate," said Wriggs, reproachfully. "Think I don't know? I tell yer it was the head bit as went and twissened itsen round the binnacle and wheel, a-lying in wait for us poor sailors to go there and take our trick, when he meant to gobble us up. Don't matter how long a sarpent is, he can't bite you with his ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... nex' time Sandy wuz turnt back he had a little roun' hole in his arm, des lack a sharp stick be'n stuck in it. Atter dat Tenie sot a sparrer-hawk fer ter watch de tree; en w'en de woodpecker come erlong nex' mawnin' fer ter finish his nes', he got gobble' up mos' 'fo' he stuck his bill ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt

... used to leave them among the ice, though somehow they always did get left to the last. Then later on he began to side with public opinion himself, and think that perhaps there was something soft and unmanly about caring so much for anything to eat, so he used to gobble them first of all, trying not to taste them very much. Then there came an awful holiday when he wouldn't have any at all. That was just before he insisted on going to sea. But then he came back—and ever since he's had it every time we come here, and now ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... this we had only hints, not experience. There were various day-boarders, who frequented only our table, and lodged elsewhere. A few of these were decorous Spaniards, who did not stare, nor talk, nor gobble their meals with unbecoming vivacity of appetite. They were obviously staid business-men, differing widely in character from the street Spaniard, whom I have already copiously described. Some were Germans, thinned by the climate, and sharpened ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... Life is short. If you can't see the jewel in the toad's head, still believe in it. Take it for granted. The Parisienne says that the English woman has no je ne sais quoi, The English woman says the Parisienne has no aplomb. Amen! When you are in Turkey—why gobble. Why should I decline to have a good time at the Queen's drawing-room, because English women have no je ne sais quoi, or at the grand opera, because French women lack aplomb? Take things smoothly. Life is a merry-go-round. Look at your own grandfather, dear Mrs. Potiphar,— fine ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis

... There you go in a hurry! Gobble! gobble! goblin! There you go a wobblin'; Hobble, hobble, hobblin'— ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald

... here. If we were really hungry and in need of food, of course I'd say we had a right to get fresh meat; but we're on our way home now, and seems to me it would be a shame to spoil all our splendid sport by being cruel to a poor old bear that doesn't know any better than to gobble flour and anything else ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler

... about stage holdups and everything! I'd just like to know how a girl would ever have a chance to know what was going on in the country, unless she heard the men talking while she poured their coffee. Only this bunch don't talk at all. They just gobble ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... sometimes-trulee, sometimes, I look up there at where he lives, and I think I see a thousand men on horses ride out of the woods behind his house and down here to gobble us all up. That's the way I feel. It's fancy, but I can't help that." Dame Thibadeau rested her hands—on her huge stomach as though the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... A gobble came from a tree near by. He caught the bronze gleam of the wild turkeys sitting high on the branches. They may have seen him or heard him, but they did not stir. Something sprang up in the bushes, ran a little way and stopped, regarding ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler

... bolt Blankets, Boas must: If Snakes will rush upon their end, why not?" "My friend," said I, "The Blanket and the Boa— You will conceive me—are a type, yes, just a type, Of this our day. The dumb and monstrous, tasteless appetite Of stupid Boa, to gobble up for food What needs must scour or suffocate, Not nourish! My friend, let the wool of that one blanket Warm but the back of one live sheep, And the Boa would bolt the animal entire, And flourish on his meal, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... consume or to obtain. The phrase 'gobble up' tends to imply 'consume', while 'gobble down' tends to imply 'obtain'. "The output spy gobbles characters out of a {tty} output buffer." "I guess I'll gobble down a copy of the ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... water from a lake, not the rotten poison you would pump out of our millstream for us. We have tried to do this for our town and make an honest dollar for ourselves. Now you have got us lashed to the mast, financially, so you think, and you propose to step in and gobble our franchise. That's ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... our pet armchair—but the love of a good dinner, that, at least, can make the everyday of an octogenarian well worth living. Young people little realise the awful prophecy implied in that irritating remark—"Don't gobble!" There is another one, almost equally irritating to youth—"Go and change your socks!" But, if the truth must be told, you regret the "No" you said to Edwin when he asked you to "fly with him"; the louis you failed to place en plein on thirty-six, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... but one chimney. The silly moles had not the sense to see that they did not need a door apiece. That shows they have no mother. We will leave the cake on the shore of the mermaids' lagoon. These boys are always swimming about there, playing with the mermaids. They will find the cake and they will gobble it up, because, having no mother, they don't know how dangerous 'tis to eat rich damp cake.' He burst into laughter, not hollow laughter now, but honest ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie

... more of a hurry than I am. I don't like to do anything in a hurry, least of all to eat my dinner. Now, why should these chickens, turkeys and ducks gobble everything right down? The corn seems to taste good to them; so, after a handful, I wait till they have had a chance to think how good the last kernel was before they get another. You see I greatly prolong ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... the older man, "the properties throughout the region where we are located are mainly held by independent operators. The Octopus is trying to gobble us up, but it hasn't succeeded, and won't if we can prevent. But, just the same, it isn't there for the Mexicans to attack. If they want to harass anybody in the hope of getting the United States Government to intervene, they must attack us and ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge

... considerable knowledge of almost every subject that can be broached in general conversation, united with genuine modesty. When he sat down to table he did not grasp everything within his reach; he began by offering to carve and help others, and when at length he did begin to eat, he did not gobble. He "guessed" a little, it is true, and "calculated" occasionally, but when he did so, it was in a tone that fell almost as pleasantly on the ear as the brogue ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... among the bushes that lined the creek. I had not gone far when a dense fog arose, shutting out all objects, even at the distance of a few feet. It was a bad day for hunting, but presently as I rode along I heard a turkey gobble close by, and, dismounting, I crept among the bushes and peered into the fog as well as I could. I saw several dark objects, and drawing up my double-barrelled shot-gun fired at them. Hardly had the noise of the explosion died away, when I ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... accustomed to the discomforts of the place, to the midden in the centre of the yard, to the lean long-eared pigs that try to gobble up everything that comes within their reach, to the hens that flutter over our beds and shake the dust of ages from the barn-roof at dawn, to the noisy little children with the dirty faces and meddling fingers, who poke their hands into ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... can't imagine the effect of that on me. I crept off to bed shivering, and lay awake half the night. Every time the wind shook my windows, I pictured some monstrous, hoary-headed creature trying to get in and gobble me up!" She laughed a little. "It gives me a grue to think of it even yet. I discovered the explanation of the phrase the next day. Can ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... Frog in time for him to get away with nothing more than a great scare," said Little Joe Otter, as they hurried along. "It will be such fun to see his big goggly eyes pop out when he opens them and sees Longlegs just ready to gobble him up! And won't Longlegs be hopping mad when we cheat him out of the breakfast he is so sure ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess

... small dark place with a much-worn tile floor and a charcoal range of two pockets faced and covered with blue and white tiles; an immense hood above yawning like the flat open jaws of a gigantic cobra, which might not only consume all the smoke and smells but gobble up the little tile-covered range itself upon ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... giving a piece at a time as Fanny had told him to do, fancying that the dog was going to snatch it from him, threw the whole handful on the ground and retreated several paces. Trusty began quickly to gobble up ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston

... this vixen!" Ch'ing Wen shouted. "If I don't ask for her, she won't come. Had there been any monthly allowances issued and fruits distributed here, you would have been the first to run in! But approach a bit! Am I tigress to gobble ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... by, trying hard to arouse the curiosity of the worms that lived there, so as to cause them to poke out their heads to see who was so noisy at their front doors; when of course the feathered hammerer stood ready to gobble ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... congratulated Pickle upon his succession, and shook his two friends by the hand, the misanthrope asked whose mare was dead, that he was summoned in such a plaguy hurry from his dinner, which he had been fain to gobble up like a cannibal? Our hero gave him to understand, that they had made an appointment to drink tea with two agreeable ladies, and were unwilling that he should lose the opportunity of enjoying an entertainment ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... humanities, who are always so dimly conscious that you are all lies to one another, get a glimpse of various truths from some cynical dead man's diary, or some statesman's secret papers. But you never are warned: you placidly continue greedily to gobble up, unexamined, the falsehoods of public men; and impudently to adjudicate on the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... get around us that way. That ain't goin' to do no good! You want to gobble up everythin' for nothin'! We works till we got no breath. Hours an' hours soakin' in the snow, not to speak o' the risk, there in the pitch dark. That's no joke, ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... legs?... For people will always be kind, And you need not show that you mind When the others come in after hunting To gobble their muffins ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... wings in the sunlight, as if to try them out before essaying flight. It is a moment of great peril. A passing ripple may swamp his tiny craft and shipwreck him to become the prey of any passing fish or vagrant frog. A swallow sweeping close to the water's surface may gobble him down. Some ruthless city employe may have flooded the surface of the pond with kerosene, the merest touch of which means death to a mosquito. Escaping all of the thousand and one accidents that ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... one. He seized the turkey by the neck, so that the big bird could not call out. But Fatty was not quite quick enough. Before he could pull her off her perch the turkey began to flap her wings, and she struck the turkey next her, so that THAT turkey woke up and began to gobble and flap HER wings. Then the next turkey on the limb woke up. And the first thing that Fatty Coon knew, every one of the thirty-nine turkeys that were left was going gobble-gob-gob-gob-gobble! And some of them went sailing off across the yard. One of them lighted ...
— Sleepy-Time Tales: The Tale of Fatty Coon • Arthur Scott Bailey

... "You mustn't 'gobble' before the seamen's daughters," said Mrs. Forcythe, smiling. "It will be a capital lesson for you to try to teach what you haven't ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... to give he wants to grab! Mouth wide open to gobble down my gold! Holds up a bit of bread in one hand and has a stone in the other! I don't trust one of these rich fellows when he's so monstrous civil to a poor man. They give you a cordial handshake, and squeeze something out of you at the same time. I know all about ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... sake," said Smathers, "don't tell anyone—not anyone—about this, just yet. We don't want all your men rushing out in the forest to gobble down those things until we are more sure of them. Give us a few ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett

... hath made his play. No Filipino hunts the hills for gold. Americanos show this vulgar greed, And so we'll tax them: tax them till they squeal! Then they may in disgust depart this land, While we, just for a song, may gobble up The claims which they so ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock, And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; O it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best, With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... after to-morrow to Madame de Blanchemain's, as she'd expected to do before she heard that the Dragon was coming to gobble her up. She wants to stay there quietly until Honore can take her, and she wants me to pretend to ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... help allowing that her husband had made a good bargain, but being by nature a grumbler, she was determined not to be pleased, so she began to scold the old man for not having settled exactly the share the bear was to have; 'For,' said she, 'he will gobble up the potful before we have finished ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... war!' he answered, unstrapping his bag, and producing packets of French bon-bons, bought on his way home, from the sketching tour Mr. Renville always made with sundry of his pupils in early autumn. 'Gobble them up, little mice, before ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... who float Up and down the moat Gobble the bread the Bishop feeds them. The slim bronze men beat the hour again, But only the gargoyles up in the ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... Grasshopper. He mounted a mullein leaf and sang, and sang, and sang, until Professor Turkey Gobbler slipped up behind him with open mouth, and Signor Grasshopper vanished from the footlights forevermore. And as Professor Turkey Gobbler strutted off my stage with a merry gobble, the orchestra opened before me with a flourish of trumpets. The katydid led off with a trombone solo; the cricket chimed in with his E. flat cornet; the bumblebee played on his violoncello, and the jay-bird, laughed with his piccolo. The music ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... stand together this way or there wouldn't be any political parties in a short time. Civil service would gobble up everything, politicians would be on the bum, the republic would fall and soon there would be the cry of "Vevey ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt

... grassy plain and struck another gradual descent where aspens and pines crowded a shallow ravine and warm, sun-lighted glades bordered along a sparkling brook. Here he heard a turkey gobble, and that was a signal for him to change his course and make a crouching, silent detour around a clump of aspens. In a sunny patch of grass a dozen or more big gobblers stood, all suspiciously facing in his direction, heads erect, with that wild aspect peculiar to their ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... gobble me when I'm escorting ladies," replied Scott. Then meeting her eyes, the twinkle faded out of his. "You'd better say what would I have done if you hadn't hidden in that cave." His head rested for a ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... 'Greedy Dick,' that I very soon picked up the words; and when I saw him slipping into the press to steal the sugar, I would call out—'Oh fie! fie!—who stole the sugar?' His aunts used to tell him that even a bird had more sense, and used to beg him to take an example from me; for I did not gobble up everything I got at once, but put it in my tin dish till I was hungry. Ah! Master Dick knew that very well indeed; and many a time had he slipped up and stolen my piece of ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples

... all were hungry, and ran chirping round her to pick up the worms and seeds she found for them. Cocky soon began to help take care of his sisters; and when a nice corn or a fat bug was found, he would step back and let little Downy or Snowball have it. But Peck would run and push them away, and gobble up the food greedily. He chased them away from the pan where the meal was, and picked the down off their necks if they tried to get their share. His mother scolded him when the little ones ran ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... while they lunched, he went on to entertain his brother with particulars concerning the place and its owners. John had inherited the bulk of the enormous Havens fortune, and he posed as his father's successor in the Steel Trust. Some day some one of the big men would gobble him up; meantime he amused himself fussing over the petty details of administration. Mrs. Havens had taken a fancy to a rural life, and they had built this huge palace in the hills of Connecticut, and she wrote verses in which she pictured herself ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... the shore with the noise as of a great wave breaking upon the beach, which is caused by the efforts of the fish to gain their freedom. The best fish are picked out and the others returned to the sea, while the gulls swoop down with querulous cry and gobble all that float on the surface of the water. These fishermen have a prejudice against skate, and ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson

... instantly, and proud of the great noise she had made, she peered through the smoke, expecting to see the bear topple over upon his nose, extinguished. Instead of that, however, she observed a convulsive flopping of wings in the birch-tree above the bear's head. Then, with one reproachful "gobble" which rang loud in Mrs. Gammit's ears, the old turkey-cock fell heavily to the ground. He would have fallen straight upon the bear, but that the latter, his nerves completely upset by so much disturbance, was making off at fine ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... must be worrying to a Police Judge sometimes, when he is in his right mind. I would rather be secretary to a wealthy mining company, and have nothing to do but advertise the assessments and collect them in carefully, and go along quiet and upright, and be one of the noblest works of God, and never gobble a dollar that didn't belong to me—all just as those fellows do, you know. (Oh, I have no talent for sarcasm, it isn't ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... crystal trumpets keep up their gobble. Groups of polite and frivolous persons pass and repass like fantastic shadows: childish bands of small-eyed mousmes with smile so candidly meaningless and coiffures shining through their bright silver flowers; ugly men waving at the end of long branches their eternal lanterns shaped like ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... up the fire. He was surprised, at last, to hear a far-away gobble, the welcome of a wild turkey for the first false dawn. By and by he became conscious of the light which was crowding the fire ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... a fellow. It's your own fault, you know well enough, if you will be so handsome. Now, if you were an ugly old girl, or I was certain of you, I shouldn't feel so bad, nor act so neither. But when there's a lot of hungry chaps round, all gaping to gobble you up, and even poor little Snipes trying to peck and bite at you, and you won't say 'yes' nor 'no' to me, how do you expect a man to keep cool? Can't do it, nohow, and you needn't ask it. Human nature's human nature, I suppose, and mine ain't a quiet nor a patient one, not by no manner of ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... be some town," Mudge told each with a confidential air, "and you've got a chance to make something if you gobble up a corner lot or two before prices soar. Quick turns while the boom is on is the way to do it in ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... beneath the weeds at Napoleon's jack-boots: they have seen Frederick's lean shanks reflected in their pool; and perhaps Monsieur de Voltaire has fed them, and now for a crumb of biscuit they will fight, push, hustle, rob, squabble, gobble, relapsing into their tranquillity when the ignoble struggle is over. Sans souci, indeed! It is mighty well writing "Sans souci" over the gate; but where is the gate through which Care has not slipped? She perches on the shoulders of the sentry in the sentry-box: she whispers the porter sleeping ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray

... Sniff-gobble-gulp! Was there ever such haste and excitement? Sara jumped up and down with delight, and everybody in the Garden laughed. As for the Snimmy, he was quite overcome, and began to ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... forgot you hadn't heard what it was all about. It seems there's oil in the north pasture. Lynch found it and told this man Draper, and ever since then they've been trying to force you to sell the ranch so they could gobble it up themselves." ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... went through all my presentations at Versailles. 'Tis very convenient to gobble up a whole royal family in an hour's time, instead of being sacrificed one week at Leicester-house, another in Grosvenor-street, a third in Cavendish-square, etc. etc. etc. La Reine is le plus grand ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... you have? You've had her to yourself, without the worrit Of a man to wear your soul out, all these years. If I'd been married, before a week was through, I'd have picked my husband's pocket, to buy rats' bane: Envying the spiders who can gobble up Husbands they've no more use for between meals. But I wasn't born to kick my heels in air For a plaguey husband: and if I'm to dangle, 'Twon't be for that, but something worth putting myself Out of the way ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

... many paths she wants to follow, there are so many bundles of hay. As I told you, she wishes to gobble them all," the girl pursued. Then she added: "Yes, go and take the carriage; take a turn round the Park—you always delight in that—and come back ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... said to the President, 'She wants you.' 'Yes, yes,' said Mr. Lincoln, without stirring. Soon afterward the messenger returned again, exclaiming, 'I say she wants you.' The President was evidently annoyed, but instead of going out after the messenger he remarked to us: 'One side shall not gobble up everything. Make out a list of the places and men you want, and I will endeavor to apply the rule of give and take.' General Wadsworth answered: 'Our party will not be able to remain in Washington, but we will leave such a list with Mr. Carroll, and whatever he agrees to will be agreeable ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... out to her presently. She was a large woman, and as she was angry she seemed to swell and redden and gobble as ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... a Big Colugo, a Klang-utang—whatever that may be. It does not often attack man, but I suppose you made it nervous. They say there is a Big Colugo and a Little Colugo, and a something else that sounds like gobble. They all fly about at night. For my own part, I know there are flying foxes and flying lemurs about here, but they are none of ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... An' make the fire, an' bake the bread' an' earn her board-an'-keep; An' all us other children, when the supper things is done, We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun A-list'nin' to the witch tales 'at Annie tells about, An' the gobble-uns 'at gits ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... was quite too primitive; after which she said: "We needn't discuss the case if you don't wish to, but I happen to know—how I obtained my knowledge isn't important—that the moment Mr. Parker should propose to my daughter she'd gobble him down. Surely it's a detail worth mentioning ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James

... first two pages of your letter might have been written with a turkey-cock's quill, they actually gobble in the pugnacity of their style, and as it lies by me, the very paper goes fr-fr-fr. But you shall keep that identical picture, my dearest, since you have grown to like it; so shake your feathers smooth ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... a tree Some turkeys served as citadel. That villain, much provoked to see Each standing there as sentinel, Cried out, 'Such witless birds At me stretch out their necks, and gobble! No, by the powers! I'll give them trouble.' He verified his words. The moon, that shined full on the oak, Seem'd then to help the turkey folk. But fox, in arts of siege well versed, Ransack'd his bag of tricks accursed. He feign'd himself about to climb; Walk'd on his hinder legs ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... a horrid dream of the future if you gobble them like that," Prudence said warningly, "and you've forgotten Grizzel's oranges; go and pull three fresh ones, and we'd better send ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... for her great breadth of shoulder and the enormous bulk of her bust. I thought she looked absurdly dumpy. What I particularly hated in her was her laughter, which sounded for all the world like the gobble of ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... had gone, "I'd as soon eat a mess of toads as touch any of this stuff—although it smells mighty good," he added regretfully, "and I'm hungry enough to gobble up a crocodile, ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... know Mermen," she said sorrowfully. "They are such gluttons, and will gobble up their children in a moment if their meals are a little late. Scores of my children have been taken from me. That is how it is," she explained, "that you do not oftener see us sea-folk. Poor children, they never learn wisdom! Directly their father begins to whistle or sing, they ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... were bursting with delight at seeing people come to their shop-doors, and they smiled primly and devoutly every time they heard anyone say as they passed that they looked very nice. Madame Boche and Madame Lorilleux lagged behind, because they were interchanging their ideas about Clump-clump, a gobble-all, whose daughter would never have been confirmed if the relations had not found everything for her; yes, everything, even a new chemise, out of respect for the holy altar. Madame Lorilleux was rather concerned about the dress, calling Nana a dirty thing every time the child ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola



Words linked to "Gobble" :   cry, emit, let out, eat, bolt, gobble up



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