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Hitch   Listen
noun
Hitch  n.  
1.
A catch; anything that holds, as a hook; an impediment; an obstacle; an entanglement.
2.
The act of catching, as on a hook, etc.
3.
A stop or sudden halt; a stoppage; an impediment; a temporary obstruction; an obstacle; as, a hitch in one's progress or utterance; a hitch in the performance.
4.
A sudden movement or pull; a pull up; as, the sailor gave his trousers a hitch.
5.
(Naut.) A knot or noose in a rope which can be readily undone; intended for a temporary fastening; as, a half hitch; a clove hitch; a timber hitch, etc.
6.
(Geol.) A small dislocation of a bed or vein.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hitch" Quotes from Famous Books



... road-side facing the gateway stood one of the open sheds in which the New Englander shelters his farming implements and visitors "hitch" their "teams." Archer, jumping down, led his pair into the shed, and after tying them to a post turned toward the house. The patch of lawn before it had relapsed into a hay-field; but to the left an overgrown box-garden full of dahlias and rusty rose-bushes ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... better,' Mrs Tresize answered composedly, 'hitch your horse's bridle to the staple you'll find on the left, and step inside—that is, if you are not in too great a hurry.' Here she turned for a look behind her. 'My goodness!' she cried with a well-feigned start, 'if you haven't scared the ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... still asleep in the chair, and, with a smile at the clever way in which he had solved a difficulty, he stooped down, and, raising her in his strong arms, bore her from the room and downstairs. Then a hitch occurred. The triumphant progress was marred by the behaviour of the hall door, which, despite his efforts, refused to be opened, and, encumbered by his fair burden, he could not for some time ascertain the reason. Then, full of shame ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... that hour the longest that they had ever passed. At last, however, their father looked at his watch, shook the ashes out of his pipe and put it in his pocket. "Now, boys, it is five minutes to the hour. Examine your carbines and revolvers, see that everything is in order, and that there is no hitch. Tighten the saddle-girths and examine the buckles. See that your ammunition and spare carbine chambers are ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... corpse and of setting the place in order again devolves upon four men; these are selected from Samurai of the middle or lower class; during the performance of their duties, they hitch up their trousers and wear neither sword nor dirk. Their names are previously sent in to the censor, who acts as witness; and to the junior censors, should they desire it. Before the arrival of the chief censor, the requisite utensils for extinguishing a fire are prepared, firemen are engaged,[109] ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... but this, unfortunately, did not endure. It was his first experience of the weightier anxieties of a commander-in-chief; for when he had succeeded to that position, temporarily, in the Mediterranean and the Baltic, he had found either a squadron in good running order, or at the least no serious hitch about necessary maintenance. Now all this was different. The difficulties about supplies and the condition of his ships have been mentioned, as have also his fears for Naples, Sicily, and the Morea,—all of which, in his belief, might possibly be conquered, even without the interposition ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... alone its size, its beauty, its symmetry, its density of foliage, that made it the glory of the neighborhood, but the low grown of its branches and the extra-ordinary breadth of its shade. Passers-by from the adjacent towns were wont to hitch their teams by the wayside, crawl through the stump fence and walk across the fields, for a nearer view of its magnificence. One man, indeed, was known to drive by the tree every day during the summer, and lift his hat to it, respectfully, ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... course!" came in chorus, as every one at the table grasped the hitch that the American ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... the line the influx of supplies never ended. It looked like a huge snake slowly crawling forward, never a hitch or break, a wonderful tribute to the system and efficiency of Great Britain's "contemptible little army" ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... knowledge backward: some of them have discovered symptoms of all arts in Homer; and Pineda,[2] had so much faith in the accomplishments of his ancestors, that he believed Adam understood all sciences but politics. But as these great champions for our forefathers are dead, and Boileau not alive to hitch me into a verse with Perrault, I am determined to admire the learning of posterity, especially being convinced that half our present knowledge sprung from discovering the errors of what had formerly been called so. I don't think I shall ever make any great discoveries ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... and just then Lady Barbara came in, found half a dozen strewn on the floor, and ordered her to put them tidy, and then be dressed. That put her out, and after her old bouncing fashion she flew upstairs, caught her frock in the old hitch at the turn, and half ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge

... North's car, you know—dosing him with things out of Doctor Van Bruce's traveling case, and trying to get him in shape to show me the way to Copah. After the stampede, which took all the four-legged horses as well as the two-legged asses, I persuaded your man Gallagher to hitch his engine to our car to drag us up to Frisbie's camp at the front. I thought Frisbie would probably be in communication with you. Gallagher's intentions were good, but about three miles up Horse Creek he ditched the car so thoroughly ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... now," he thought, with his whole heart pulling him her way. But he did not desist from his intention to drop his eyes from the distraught figure entrapped between a locked door and a fall of thirty feet. He could reach her if he kept his nerve. A slow but steady hitch along the gutter was bringing him nearer every instant. Would she see him and take courage? No! her eyes were on the flames which were so bright now that he could actually see them glassed in her eyeballs. Would a shout attract her? The air was full of cries as the yards filled with escaping figures, ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... said, 'Hitch your wagon to a star,' and I will add, never let go, although the rocks in the road may bump you badly. Why, there's nothing impossible for a young man like you. You may be rich, if you want to; I expect to see you learned; and the Priesthood which you have is your assurance, through your ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson

... hitch up to the big mower," ordered Kurt. "We'll have to cut all around our field. Bring drinking water and whatever you can lay a hand on ... ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... man arose and commenced to hitch around the stove with stiff joints, like a mechanical figure. The company broke into a wild chant in a minor key, commencing on a high note and descending the whole gamut, with strange pauses, ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... having been reached, the negotiations ran rapidly to a settlement without further serious hitch; a conclusion to which contributed powerfully the increasing anxiety of the British ministry over the menacing aspect of the Continent. The American projet,[522] besides the customary formal stipulations ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... troops to gallop past the saluting point as a final tour de force before the last advance in review order. However, with the assistance of an able staff and preliminary conferences with my commanding officers, the review passed off without the slightest hitch. Just as the presence of the Japanese sailors under arms at the review had established a record in Melbourne, so did that of the Americans establish one in Sydney, and, for the second time, I had the honour of commanding armed forces of a Foreign ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... the small pack and drew down the hitch. Little Jim ducked under Lazy and took the rope on the other side, passing ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... there is still a considerable hitch or hobble in your enunciation; and that when you speak fast you sometimes speak unintelligibly. I have formerly and frequently laid my thoughts before you so fully upon this subject, that I can say nothing new upon it now. I must therefore only repeat, that your whole depends upon ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... weight, with the blankets on top, and, over all, the canvas tarpaulin folded the proper size and neatly tucked in around the ends; and finally securing the whole with the, to the uninitiated, intricate and complicated diamond hitch. The order of their march, also, would place Croesus first; which position—the novelist, again, gravely explained, as he drew the cinches tight—is held by all who value good form, to be the donkey's proper place in the procession. As he watched his friend, ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... me as out of place; nothing ought to have followed the death of Bradamante, which was as affecting a scene as I have ever witnessed. The only hitch occurred when Marfisa dismounted; her left foot came to the ground capitally, but her right would not come over her saddle for some time; she got it free at last, however, and stood upright on both feet. I thought again of Master ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones

... next to this just now, and as I was leanin' against the partition I happened to overhear what you chaps was sayin' in here. From what I heard, I judged you didn't love this Merriwell none to brag about, and I says to myself, 'Mike, if you want to get even, them is the boys to hitch fast to.' Then I got right up and came in here without bein' invited. I hope you'll excuse me, gents, but I couldn't help it under the circumstances. I had a sort of feller-feelin' for you chaps, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... to the harpoon at the other, 'Now, Jack you are a new hand; mind all I told you last night, or your mother will see me come ashore without you, and that will vex her; and, my lads, remember, if there is a single lubberly hitch in that line, you will none of you come up ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... Paradise Street to make my way out along the river bank at a little after six o'clock. I passed Absalom in the street and spoke a word to the boy, but time was pressing and I did not dare to be late. It was of the utmost importance that there should be no hitch in any part of the plan, for the Lady Helen could not delay over an hour. I got to the appointed place by the river just ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... school would have friends in the audience that evening save herself. She wished that Aunt Alvirah could have attended the spelling-bee; but of course her back and her bones precluded her walking so far, and neither of them dared ask Uncle Jabez to hitch up and take them to the ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson

... was yet to be seen, and sleep overpowered him. He took a hitch of the main-sheet round his finger, that, should the breeze freshen, he might be roused, in case he should go to sleep; and, having taken this precaution, in a few minutes the ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... as to take care of themselves in the mountains, find a trail, or go to a given spot without a trail, fish, hunt, make camp, build fires in a rain-storm, find proper shelter during a lightning-storm, carry a pack, pack a mule or burro, even to the throwing of the "diamond hitch," the "squaw hitch," and the "square" or other packer's especial "knots" and "ties". They were induced to climb mountains, row, swim, "ski", and snow-slide, and all were taught to recognize at sight the common ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... one night at Crockford's, which was always better informed on these matters than the political clubs, and people looked amazed, and stared incredulously in each other's face. But it was true; there was a hitch, and in four-and-twenty hours the cause of the hitch was known. It seemed that the ministry really had resigned, but Berengaria, Countess of Montfort, had ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... taking out the trees as I advance; this gives me a chance not to destroy the roots. I care nothing about the top, because I cut them into what is called poles eight or ten feet long. Sometimes I draw them out by hitching a team when I can get them so far excavated that I can turn them down enough to hitch above where I intend to cut them off; by this method I often get almost the entire root. I have three particular points in this; good root, a stem without any blemish, and a rapid growing tree. This is seldom to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... both he and I agreed in this decision, we yet thought that men would judge of your policy by its result: if it turns out as we wish and desire, everybody will say that you acted wisely and courageously; if any hitch occurs, those same men will say that you acted ambitiously and rashly. Wherefore what you really can do it is not so easy for us to judge as for you, who have Egypt almost within sight. For us, our view is this: ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... to overtake him and dissuade him from his purpose took possession of the girl. But the thought of Microby in the power of Bethune, and of the sorrowing face of poor Watts stayed her. She saw her husband hitch his belt forward and swiftly look to his six-gun, and as the sound of galloping hoofs grew fainter, she watched his diminishing figure until it was swallowed up ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... Mandy's afeerd she's going to lose her. She's got a beau—a feller named Dan Sweeney, and his hair is so red you could light a match by techin' it. He works for your brother 'Zeke. He's a good enuf feller, but he and Strout don't hitch horses. You see he was in the same regiment with the Perfesser an' he knows all about him, same as you found out, and Strout don't talk big afore him. The fact is, the Perfesser hain't many friends. There was Abner Stiles. They two used to be as thick as molasses, but ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin

... concern ob mine," returned Jim indifferently. "Ise consarned 'bout getting young Marse Ed'ard safe home, an' don't care nuffin' for all de white trash in de country. Jes hitch yo' hoss an' help me lift him ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... the supposed recalcitrants. They must fight their own battles. Mr. Hand wrote down the names, determining meanwhile to bring pressure to bear. He decided also to watch Mr. Gilgan. If there should prove to be a hitch in the programme the newspapers should be informed and commanded to thunder appropriately. Such aldermen as proved unfaithful to the great trust imposed on them should be smoked out, followed back to the wards which had elected them, and exposed to the people who were behind them. Their names ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... friend, man or woman, the kind you chum with, you know, and that you're glad to be with and sorry to be away from. Hegan is the nearest man I get to, and he's a million miles away from me. Outside business, we don't hitch. He's got a big library of books, and some crazy kind of culture, and he spends all his off times reading things in French and German and other outlandish lingoes—when he ain't writing plays and poetry. There's nobody I feel chummy with except ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... some hitch," she explained. "If you get the box, and it reaches Dorfield safely, then I'll accept the return of my money; but railroads are unreliable affairs and have queer rules, so let's wait ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... successful issue has been most carefully estimated in advance; every preparation which forethought can suggest has been thought out, so that the moment the word was given by the supreme authority, the Cabinet, the mobilisation and despatch of the forces could begin and proceed without a hitch. The Army was never in better condition either as regards the zeal and skill of its officers from the highest to the lowest, the training and discipline of the men, or the organisation of all branches of the ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson

... minerals. (2 points.) 3. Tie a square knot, a weaver's knot, a slip knot, a flemish coop, a bowline, a half, timber clove, boom hitches, stevedore and wall end knots, blackwall and catspaw turn and hitch hook hitches. (2 points.) 4. Make a "star" fire and cook a meal upon it for the boys of your tent. (3 points.) 5. Find the south at any time of day by the sun with the aid of a watch. (1 point.) 6. Estimate the distance across water. (1 point.) 7. Judge the time of day by ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... at Nancy, where she was to arrive with her mother and a lady in waiting. He rushed forward, saw three ladies, caught his fiancees hand and carried it to his lips. Not at all! It was the lady-in-waiting's. This momentary hitch was soon forgotten, and when the Princess entered the Cour du Cheval- Blanc at Fontainebleau, in her state coach and eight, amidst the roar of cannon and the beating of drums, we all went down the great staircase to receive her, with the King at our head, just like the great lords ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... the concert began, with Borwick at the piano. Everything went off without a hitch. Although "K" Company provided most of the talent, the Battalion shared the honours of the entertainment. Each song had a chorus, and so appreciative was our audience that the choruses were repeated again and again. The one "lady" of ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh

... "Farmer Green will hitch the bays to the carryall. And to tell the truth, I'll be just as pleased to stay behind. It will be a great day to take naps here ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey

... Miss Wren with another chop. 'You have changed me wiser, godmother.—Not,' she added with the quaint hitch of her chin and eyes, 'that you need be a very wonderful godmother to do ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... about that Noo York Limited. Chauncey Depew himself couldn't hitch his car to her," Miss ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling

... tell stories until they are finished. And it seems that Thatcher, with a zeal worthy of a better cause, has been raking up the ashes of an old affair of Bassett's with a woman, and he's trying to hitch it on to the story I told him about this book. He says by shaking this at Bassett he can persuade him that he's got enough ammunition to blow him out of the water. But I don't believe a word of it; I won't believe such a thing of Morton ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... there, Shawn, and take a hitch around that cottonwood with that line—we're at the mouth of Salt River, an' no better fishin' on ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis

... bold enough to suggest: "Maybe Luke would be differ'nt if you'd let him go to college. You know, Mr. Mellows, if you'll 'scuse my saying it, there's some natures that are differ'nt from others. You hitch a race horse up to a plow and you spoil a good horse and your field both. Seems to me as if, if Luke got a chance to be a writer or a professor or something, he might turn out to be a wonder. You can't teach a canary bird to be a hen, you ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... the West was rising to a climax; and if a much longer delay were made, real danger might follow. It was sadly disconcerting, therefore, to him to hear that there was any hitch in the London designs: for the promise that he had given to some of the leaders in the West (whose names, he said, with an appearance of a stupid boorish kind of cunning, "had best not be said even here") was that a demonstration ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... them into the house, and they all trooped in after her. Ezra's family, too, were crowding in at the doorway; and the brothers, who had paused only to hitch the horses, filled up the way behind. Mary, by a just self-election, was ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... derision: "The Fashion Saloon." Several ponies were hitched to the rail in front of the building; the bridle of one was gaily decorated with a bow of ribbon. Only a woman would have decorated a pony thus, the young man decided with a smile. Yet what sort of woman would hitch her pony in front of a saloon? He looked about him for some explanation and saw a vacant space beside him and beside the vacant space a store. There was no hitching rail in front of the store, therefore ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... But money's easy enough to come at by a fellow like you when he needs it. You haven't come across all square with me yet!" It was not mere inquisitiveness; it was the insistence of a plain man who wanted a definite peg on which to hitch the first warp of association. "You've got to handle money of mine," he went on. "I'm in a tight place and I have got to have the right men tied up with me. I wouldn't have to ask one of those boys yonder why he wanted to lug ice. But you ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... were used to travelling together, so there was no hitch here, and the speed made by all three was very good. When the corn-crib was passed, Deck found himself passing through a stubble field, but this was less than two hundred ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic

... London to Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, and from Johannesburg to Durban and back, to say nothing of constant journeys between this place and Pretoria. On no single occasion has there been the slightest hitch or the least cause for alarm. The trains have been absolutely up to time, and very good time. They could not have been more regular in the most peaceful country. This personal experience, in itself unimportant, is typical of a general improvement. I may add, in confirmation ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... the sea till they had lowered it to its full extent and they could do no more, save once or twice when they hung down from the stay and gave the canvas, which was slowly growing saturated, a thrust or two with the foot where it seemed disposed to hitch against the brig's keel. ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... Academy or Lyceum. The more time he took, the better pleased were such visiters; for they came expressly to listen, and had ample proof how truly he had declared, that whatever difficulties he might feel, with pen in hand, in the expression of his meaning, he never found the smallest hitch or impediment in the utterance of his most subtle reasonings by word of mouth. How many a time and oft have I felt his abtrusest thoughts steal rhythmically on my soul, when chanted forth by him! Nay, how often have I fancied I heard rise up in answer to his gentle touch, an interpreting music ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... conclusion, by some tacit syllogism of infancy, that the rail-fence was at least half to blame for the catastrophe, and always carefully avoided it. I likewise avoided the wasps; a certain trick they have of giving a hitch to their after-parts as they walk along always struck ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... handling a ship under the exigencies of fleet tactics. Howe certainly was in this respect disappointed in his followers, but probably not greatly surprised. At the same time it is but fair to note that the service was performed throughout without any marked hitch traceable to want of general professional ability. A French writer has commented upon this. "There occurred none of those events, so frequent in the experiences of a squadron, which often oblige admirals to take a course wholly contrary to the end ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... question triumphantly. Strange to say, that whenever he stumbled most in his speech, so that he was compelled to halt, and give that short whistle, Toby was able to finish what he was saying without a single hitch. ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie

... She is a feature of the scheme—quite an important one. She represents the hitch which is sure to develop early in the history of ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... program of the murder. Why, then, are we looking for any other program? The crime was committed precisely according to this program, and by no other than the writer of it. Yes, gentlemen of the jury, it went off without a hitch! He did not run respectfully and timidly away from his father's window, though he was firmly convinced that the object of his affections was with him. No, that is absurd and unlikely! He went in and murdered him. Most likely he killed him in anger, burning ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... burlap, or rather enough burlap from which to fashion a square of the desired size, Ezekiel Bailey framed up the fabric as the good old grandmas used to hitch up quilts at a quilting bee, the only difference being that the burlap was framed or stretched over a table made of planed boards large enough for the full spread of the burlap. With paint and brush he began his work. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... shove me through all that without a fatal hitch somewhere," Ventimore told himself, "I shall be agreeably disappointed in him," But, after reading a few more lines, he cheered up. For the Efreet finished as a flame, and the Princess as a "body of fire." "And when we looked towards him," continued the narrator, "we perceived ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... a little hitch in starting from Bagnara. From the windings of the carriage-road as portrayed by the map, I guessed that there must be a number of short cuts into the uplands at the back of the town, undiscoverable to myself, which would greatly shorten ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... been comfortable with Martha Deane, anyhow," Miss Lavender grimly remarked. "'T isn't good to hitch a colt-horse and an old spavined critter in one team. But that's neither here nor there; you ha'n't told us why you made up to her for a purpose, and kep' on pretendin' she didn't know ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... the flow of the narrative; it was a dredging process. Day before yesterday my shovel fetched up three more chapters and laid them, reeking, on the festering shore-pile of their predecessors, and now I think the yarn swims right along, without hitch or halt. I believe it will be a readable book of travels. I cannot see that it lacks anything ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... he said, "you get in. Joe and Ford and Fuz on the back seat to hold the greens. Frank, get up there, forward, while I hitch the ponies. These fellows are full ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... he had to wait his turn at the mill, he didn't use to get back until sundown. Then came Gordon and built his mill almost right here among us—a horse-mill with a windlass, all mighty handy: just hitch the horse to a windlass and pole, and he goes round and round, and never gets nowhere, but he grinds the corn and wheat. Something like me: I go round and round, and never seem to get anywhere, but something will come ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... quagmire, hot water, hornet's nest; sea-, peck of troubles: pretty kettle of fish; pickle, stew, imbroglio mess, ado; false position; set fast, stand; dead,-lock,-set; fix, horns of a dilemma, cul de sac; hitch; ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett

... down yonder," continued Hiram, "and unless you agree to bring them back at once, and put them in our coop, I shall hitch up and go to town, first thing, and get out a ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... Ye're like too many people today who expect to get things without workin' for them. But this troop is not run on sich lines. Some day ye'll come bang up aginst another troop, and how'll ye feel if ye git licked. Why, when I asked some of you boys to tie a clove-hitch ye handed me out a reef-knot, which is nothin' more than a 'granny' knot, which any one could tie. I want yez to do more than other people kin, or what's the use of havin' a troop? So git away home now, fer we'll have no more fun until ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... the farmers use them for plowing, they always hitch to the plow one buffalo that has been tame for a long time, and one that is newly-tamed. Then it becomes easy for the new one to learn the work by just ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh

... War. The regiment arrived in Baltimore at the old President Street Station, which was then the main station of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and which, now used as a freight station, looks like an old war-time woodcut out of Harper's Weekly. It was the custom in those days to hitch horses to passenger coaches which were going through and draw them across town to the Baltimore & Ohio Station; but when it was attempted thus to transport the northern troops a mob gathered and blocked the Pratt Street bridge ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... Mailie, an' her lambs thegither, Was ae day nibbling on the tether, Upon her cloot she coost a hitch, An' owre she warsl'd in the ditch: There, groaning, dying, she did lie, When Hughoc ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... was attended by no end of worry, work and excitement. The final rehearsal of the play proved, as is often the case, anything but satisfactory; but when it came to the "last tug of war" in the evening, everything "went off without a hitch," only those behind the scenes being aware of the strenuous efforts put forth ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... analine dyes and to the marabout feathers. It goes along with all the conceits and fantastic unrest of the decorative art. Indeed, but for the discovery of the capacities of the chrysanthemum, modern life would have experienced a fatal hitch in its development. It helps out our age of plush with a flame of color. There is nothing shamefaced or retiring about it, and it already takes all provinces for its own. One would be only half-married—civilly, and not fashionably—without ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... as I helped him hitch Water-Light to the buckboard—for Whinnie's foot makes it hard for him to ride horseback—that he nursed a pretty respectable inkling of the situation. He offered no comments, and he even seemed averse to having his eye meet mine, but he obviously ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... "comes the hitch. I am compelled, by another matter which is far more important,—having been appointed one of the consulting engineers on the Great Laurel Valley Power Plant,—to desert this job almost entirely, and yet, I am bound, on the strength of my word, to see ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... a grand American plan went off without a hitch. Washington and Rochambeau left New York on August 21, getting away without detection by Clinton. Simultaneously Lafayette moved his troops south of Cornwallis to block an escape into the Carolinas. On August 30 de Grasse with his great fleet of 24 major ships, ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education

... working it. There would be this difficulty in the way, and that difficulty, and the other one. You would think, to hear them talk, the world as it stands was absolutely perfect, and moved without a hitch in all its bearings. They don't see that every existing institution just bristles with difficulties—and that the difficulties are met or got over somehow. Often enough while they swallow the camel of ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... possible profits from the projected entertainment), which he had erected upon his own ground under Dot's superintendence, and thenceforth preparations went gaily forward; not, however, without many a hitch, which Lucas generally managed directly ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... swinging there, banging against the hull with every roll of the ship. It was fastened by a rope lanyard to a large bolt below the rail, and fastened with what Burns called a Blackwall hitch—a ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... quietude of the night betokened all was well. The landing was successfully made without interruption, and the men gaily entered on the task of transporting the cargo to its destination, believing, as they had a right to believe, that a big haul would be stored without a single hitch in the process. The accomplices scattered after their work was done, and the sailors returned to their vessel, no doubt well satisfied with the night's enterprise. But notwithstanding the many scouts they sent out, they were quite oblivious of the fact that their movements had ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman

... waggons ran short, and the crew were ordered to do odd jobs. The poor lad was sent to the fore topmast head to splice a new lanyard into the main royal stay. He had done this, and was setting the stay up when the marline spike must have slipped out of the hitch in the lanyard. Suddenly the song he was singing ceased; a jerky, nervous shout attracted attention to what had happened; then the hush of anguish seized the horror-stricken spectators who watched the tragedy, and soon all was over. He tumbled backwards, and the sails all being loosened ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... in the world to make a road across a sandy desert, or to work one that has been used, is to take two telephone poles, fasten them the same distance apart as automobile wheels, hitch on an engine, and drag them lengthwise along the road. This not only grinds down the uneven bumps but packs the sand into a smooth, firm ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... his ecstatics. "I kept on thinking of a clever machine," he said. "The wheels went round without a hitch. She's a grand invention, that woman! She can sing her pieces without thinking about them. She hardly knows the notes are coming out of her mouth ... she doesn't know where they come from or why they come at all, and I don't suppose it matters ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... and the sliding footsteps pass back across his front, and gradually diminish. But he would not let his impatience risk the success of his enterprise; he lay without moving a muscle for many long and nervous minutes. At last he began to hitch himself slowly, an inch at a time, along the edge of the crater away from the point to which the German lookout had moved. He halted and lay still again when his ear caught a fresh murmur of guttural voices, the trampling of many footsteps, and once or twice the low but clear clink of ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... animals. They were used as beasts of burden, and they seemed to have made up their minds to be a burden to every one there. The old Yankee, who had made many a journey with mule teams, had taught them, and taught them well, all he could about the mysteries of lasso and lariat, and the diamond-hitch; but even after a fortnight's practice it was not easy to bind the loads well-balanced upon each mule's back without getting kicked, and when this was done, the mules having been disappointed at not being able to kick anybody, mostly made desperate attempts to kick at nothing, ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... agitation of his mind, he went on deck and paced up and down by himself. At length, as he turned to walk forward, he saw Bob Doull coming aft, hat in hand, to the quarter-deck. The young seaman gave the usual hitch to his waistband, with a scrape of his foot, while he swung back his hat, and then waited till his superior looked as if he was ready to ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... mother; and I wish he had got her business ability with them, and her horse sense, if the lady will excuse me. She runs the property and he spends it, as far as she'll let him, on the newest reforms. And there's another hitch!—To belong to the Truly Good at twenty-four! But beggars can't be choosers. He's going to settle something handsome on Moya out of the portion Madame gives him on his marriage. My poor little girl, as you know, will get nothing from me but a few old bits and trinkets and a father's ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... "Hitch on behind, Jack," she cried patronizingly, and the bonanza king's sleigh went up the hill with its queer freight: queer, for this was that one of them whose strength was subtlety, whose forte was guile, whose left hand knew not the charitable acts of his right—and ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... fight of 'The Angel of Death' and just such success (excepting, of course, the hitch about The Plank) rewarded the efforts of old Pedro for over twenty years. Up and down the Spanish Main he sailed, and the sight of that foresail, with its terrible picture of the Black Angel, struck terror to the heart of every man afloat. Even men-of-war ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson

... mariner from Blyth; I don't know where Blyth is, do you? but I thought it sounded natural. I begged from a little beast of a schoolboy, and he forked out a bit of twine, and asked me to make a clove hitch; I did, too, I know I did, but he said it wasn't, he said it was a granny's knot, and I was a what-d'ye-call-'em, and he would give me in charge. Then I begged from a naval officer—he never bothered me with knots, but he only gave me a tract; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Hitch yer cheers up t' the blaze; it's a cool night fer September," said Captain Bowen, drawing his own splint-bottom chair toward the great fire-place of his homely but thoroughly comfortable home, and slowly sipping new cider, just old enough ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden

... up in front to wait, the Incubators never takin' their eyes off'n Woodie, and him as pink as a sportin' extra, and sayin' things under his breath. Every time he took a hitch sideways the whole line dressed. All hands from the club turned out to see the show, and the rockin'-chair skippers made funny cracks ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... splendid trip over," declared Mrs. Nellie Rover. "Not a single hitch all along the way. Tom had everything mapped out to the last detail." And she gave her husband ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer

... his schooldays onwards. Memories of the rambling old house and its park crowded upon him. By force of one circumstance or another he had not been there for nearly ten years, and a great impatience to see it again took hold of him. He looked at the clock. At the best, supposing there were no hitch, his suit-case could hardly arrive for another hour and a half. Wynford Place was a bare mile away, perhaps twenty minutes' walk; the night was fine and moonlight, he was getting horribly bored in that room; he would stroll out and have a look at the outside of the old place. ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William

... wink at Tom, but there was a hitch in his eye. "My dear, you don't understand the old fellow," said he. "And therefore you misjudge him. I know that he is weak, but I also know that he is strong, and he is quite as necessary to me as I am ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... I made up my mind some time ago that there was going to be a hitch of some sort in our arrangements, and ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon

... That hitch of the belt had brought his heavy six-shooter well around on the side of his leg and as the gunmen watched him he looked them over, still struggling to get back his breath. Then as no one moved he advanced deliberately and put his hand on ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... his father tells me, for the union. He is coming to see her when I give my permission, and I will send him word at as early a date as propriety will admit. I must not let them be seen together too soon, you know. There might be a hitch in the marriage negotiations. The earl is a tight one in business matters, and might drive a hard bargain with me should I allow his son to place Doll in a false position before the marriage contract is signed." He little knew how certainly ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... get the traps ready to be moved," he said, "for if we should all go, it would be quite as bad, if we were seen, as if we hadn't George and Ralph with us. Besides, your horses must be fresh for to-night, for we will hitch them into the torpedo wagon, and it is necessary that they should be able to get away from anything on the road, in case Newcombe should take it into his ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis

... begun; old friends—Talavera, Luis de Santangel, and the Grand Cardinal himself—were all brought into consultation with the result that matters soon got to the documentary stage. Here, however, there was a slight hitch. It was not simply a matter of granting two, or three ships. The Genoese was making a bargain, and asking an impossible price. Even the great grandees and Court officials, accustomed to the glitter and dignity of titles, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... right," thought Charley, grinning broadly. Then he turned an agonized face to Tim, his chest rising. "Hitch! Hitch!" he choked, fighting with all his will to master it. "Hitch-chew! Hitch-chew! Hitch-chew!" he sneezed, loudly. There was a scramble below and a ripple of mirth floated up ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... through 'em, and got 'em back to the ranch. Then the Indians attacked us there, and there was only four of us, and some one had to cut his way out. Wells said you fellows were down at Lodge Pole, but he da'sn't try it. I had to." Here "Pete" looked important, and gave his pistol-belt a hitch. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... rose to fight the duel, and I followed the swift thrusts and parries of the swords and the waverings of poor Bob as his courage oozed out at his finger ends. Then the great actor gave his coat a hitch and his mouth a twitch, and in an instant I was in the village of Falling Water and felt Schneider's shaggy head against my knee. Mr. Jefferson recited the best dialogues of "Rip Van Winkle," in which the tear came close upon the smile. He asked ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... ago the miner had got so far as to hitch his jigging basket or sieve on to some part of his machinery, generally his pumping engine, and thus to avoid the wearing muscular effort involved in moving it in the water by hand. It was not until the obvious ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... saying once in a while that there is no such thing as luck. They are wrong. There is; I know it. It runs in streaks, like accidents and fires. The thing is to get in the way of it and keep there till it comes along, then hitch on, and away you go. It is the old story of the early bird. I got up at five o'clock, three hours before any of my competitors, and sometimes they came down to the office to find my news hawked about the street in extras ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... grade at a fearful pace. The men on the cars watched the engine sharply. They saw what the engineer meant to do. If he succeeded, he would save their lives—provided he could let the cars strike the engine, could hitch on, and then pull ahead before the train behind smashed into them from the rear. On and on flew train and engine. Slowly they drew nearer, and at last they bumped with a gentle jar. The fireman was on the pilot all ready to couple on. He dropped the pin in the coupling, and the ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... of opposing her mother. She was gentleness and pliability itself. These qualities, so admirable in domestic life, have a tendency of which he had not thought before to make their charming owner, if a hitch occurs, subside into becoming another man's wife. If only women could be adamant until they reach the altar, and like ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... October of this same year a highly ingenious device was discovered through a hitch, which unfortunately ruined the smugglers' chances. In its broad conception it was but a modification of an idea which we have already explained. In its application, however, it was unique and original. At half-past six on this morning a fore-and-aft-rigged vessel was observed to be sailing ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... hitch," grunted Mr. Grigsby, as he hauled tight, while the little burro stood with ears meekly drooped. "Rope makes the shape of a diamond—see? But it's only the regular trappers' pack throw. I've used it a thousand times and more. Well, we're all ready; hurrah for the gold ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... go out there and look her up, and if she ain't married, me and her we might let bygones be bygones and hitch. I could open a oyster parlor out there on the dough I've saved up; I'd dish 'em up and she'd wait on the table and take in the money. ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... There is a slight hitch when I jam in the trap door, then B helps me get the boat off my back and I drop it on the Fragile Cargo and emerge into the cabin of a Hopper, drop-shaped, cargo-carrying; I have been in ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell

... help me," cried Bob, in desperation, growing each moment more afraid of the steed. "I want to get him up by the fence, where we can hitch him, till we find out ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis

... Johnson, single and unaided, for the execution of a work which in other countries has not been effected but by the co-operating exertions of many, were Mr. Robert Dodsley, Mr. Charles Hitch, Mr. Andrew Millar, the two Messieurs Longman, and the two Messieurs Knapton. The price stipulated was fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds. The "Plan" was addressed to Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, then one of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton



Words linked to "Hitch" :   inactivity, period of time, stoppage, gait, preventive, gimp, timber hitch, knot, halt, logjam, inaction, Blackwall hitch, limp, obstacle, move, link, clove hitch, rolling hitch, period, weaver's hitch, connect, connective, walk, connection, interference, hindrance, encumbrance, connecter, hitch up, connector, stay, becket bend, hinderance, snag, arrest, tour of duty, enlistment, link up, half hitch



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