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Kick   Listen
noun
Kick  n.  
1.
A blow with the foot or feet; a striking or thrust with the foot. "A kick, that scarce would move a horse, May kill a sound divine."
2.
The projection on the tang of the blade of a pocket knife, which prevents the edge of the blade from striking the spring.
3.
(Brickmaking) A projection in a mold, to form a depression in the surface of the brick.
4.
The recoil of a musket or other firearm, when discharged.
5.
A surge of pleasure; a thrill; usually used in the phrase get a kick out of; as, I always get a kick out of watching an ice skater do a quadruple jump. (informal)
Synonyms: bang (3).






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Kick" Quotes from Famous Books



... national conscience and sympathies, blood-sucking the hardworking population, and frittering their time away in idleness, pilfering, and filth, I expect, and justly so, the inhabitants would begin to "kick," and the place would no doubt get rather warm for Mr. John Bull and his motley flock. If the Gipsies, and others of the same class in this country, will begin to "buckle-to," and set themselves out for real hard work, instead of cadging from door to door, they will find, notwithstanding ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... Helene Vauquier lied about the colour of the strange woman's hair. Now we get another fact. Mlle. Celie was wearing buckles on her shoes. And there is my slit in the sofa cushions. For when she is flung on to the sofa, what will she do? She will kick, she will struggle. Of course it is conjecture. I do not as yet hold pigheadedly to it. I am not yet sure that Mlle. Celie is innocent. I am willing at any moment to admit that the facts contradict my theory. But, on the contrary, each fact that I discover ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... ago. I wonder if there's some one kick down there? Bubble says they're getting a tremenjous practice. I don't like Bubble any more. He thinks he's smart. I don't like Ann, either. I shan't ask her ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... battle against men of a different origin. But know there is one who is master of all here on earth, as he is King of Heaven! It is his pleasure that the sweet savor of his worship should arise from the wilderness. His will is law, and they that would withstand do but kick against the pricks. Listen then to peaceful counsels, that the land may be parcelled justly to meet the wants of all, and the country be prepared for the incense ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... a auction block, I saw right here in Petersburg on the corner of Sycamore street and Bank street. Slaves were auctioned off to de highest bidder. Some refused to be sold. By dat I mean, "cried". Lord! Lord! I done seen dem young'uns fought and kick like crazy folks; child it wuz pitiful to see 'em. Den dey would handcuff an' beat 'em unmerciful. I don' like to talk 'bout back dar. It brun' a sad feelin' up me. If slaves 'belled, I done seed dem whip 'em wid a strop cal' "cat nine tails." Honey, dis ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... from another city, but I think the state will keep them here as guests for a nice long time, Cleary. They say New York is inhospitable to strangers, but we occasionally pay for board and room from the funds of the taxpayers without a kick. We saved the day for the Van Clefts, all right. The paper told of a beautiful but quiet funeral ceremony, while the daughter has postponed her marriage for ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... was something unfamiliar to him in the ways of his present rider, as well as in the rider himself, whom, perhaps, he regarded with contempt, he grew more and more unmanageable, and began to neigh and prance, and even to kick; but I remained firm and serene, showing him that I was his master, chastising him with the spur, touching his breast with the whip, and holding him in by the bridle. Lucero, who had almost stood up on his hind-legs, now humbled himself so far as ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... another kick in him. He had one last scheme up his sleeve. Looking out on a changing world, it was the popular novelties which had the last fascination for him. The Skating Rink, like another Charybdis, had all but entangled him in its swirl as he pushed painfully off from the rocks of Throttle-Ha'penny. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... the traps?—you long-legged swine!" With a mighty back-kick, the Prospector lodged the heel of his heavy boot fairly on Scarlett's shin. In a moment he had struggled free, and ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... afterwards accompanies the young. The cock when on the nest lies very close; I have myself almost ridden over one. It is asserted that at such times they are occasionally fierce, and even dangerous, and that they have been known to attack a man on horseback, trying to kick and leap on him. My informer pointed out to me an old man, whom he had seen much terrified by one chasing him. I observe in Burchell's "Travels in South Africa" that he remarks, "Having killed a male ostrich, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... fly,— It seemed not such to the Abbot's eye; Gaily it glittered with jewel and jem, And its shape was the shape of a diadem. It was fastened a gleaming hook about By a chain within and a chain without; The Fisherman gave it a kick and a spin, And the water fizzed as it ...
— English Satires • Various

... of his mouth that is indescribable. "You tink I's a free man! but I's a slabe, same as yourself, on'y de diff'rence am dat dere's nobody to ransum me, so dey don't boder deir heads 'bout me s'long as I do my work. If I don't do my work I'm whacked; if I rebel and kick up a shindy I'm whacked wuss; if I tries to run away I'm whacked till I'm dead. Das all. But I's not free. No, no not at all! Hows'ever I's free-an'-easy, an' dat make de pirits fond o' me, which goes a long way, for dere's nuffin' ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... organizer of success, whose puffs open the tightest closed pockets, and start up the old louis from the bottom of the old woolen stocking,—I am driven to have my boots half-soled. You stint me my existence; you kick as soon as I ask you to pay for the big ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... moment at his sister, and then withdrew as hastily an agitated glance, and then with his eyes on the ground said, in a voice half murmuring, and yet scoffingly: "I should like to see Mr. Neuchatel's face were I to ask permission to marry his daughter. I suppose he would not kick me downstairs; that is out of fashion; but he certainly would never ask me to dinner again, and that would ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... menacing, the farmer and his big, raw-boned son were upon us. They evidently thought that we were all in such a drunken condition that they could kick us about as they choose. They had just driven ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... corn." He had a great deal of broad sense in his speech; but presently some others began praying vociferously close by, as if to drown this free-thinker, when at last he exclaimed, "I mean to fight de war through, an' die a good sojer wid de last kick, dat's my prayer!" and suddenly jumped off the barrel. I was quite interested at discovering this reverse side of the temperament, the devotional side preponderates so enormously, and the greatest scamps kneel and groan in their prayer-meetings ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... foot, and a kick at a chair which stood in his way, Mr Brandon precipitately left the room, and slammed the door after him; and if Peggy had not nimbly sprung to one side, he would have stumbled over her, and have had a very bad fall for a man ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... do was to kick and squirm and twist his head around to see what was happening. It didn't take long to find out. Even as he looked, he felt another sharp pain which brought another "Ouch!" from him and made him kick harder than ever. Two ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess

... reckoned on that," laughed the other. "It wouldn't be Buck Lemington if he didn't make a kick. What was he yelling ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... horses led to drink under his window. He made a magical horse of wood, according to one of the books of Hermes, which perfectly answered its purpose, by frightening away the horses, or rather the grooms! the wooden horse, no doubt, gave some palpable kick. The same magical story might have been told of Dr. Franklin, who finding that under his window the passengers had discovered a spot which they made too convenient for themselves, he charged it with his newly-discovered ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Ernest quietly. "I can kick the bar, or swing on it, or circle it, or do the grasshopper, or hang by my legs, or make a true lover's knot, or pass through my arms, or hang by my feet. You fancy that I am boasting, but the fact is this, my father won't let ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... round their bodies, ladies who kick up to the ceiling, flying people, lions, cafe'-chantants, dinners and lunches begin to sicken me. It is time I was home. I ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... the simple rabbits cried, "The parsley smells like spring!" And into the bag their noses slipped, And Pussy pulled the string. Only a kick, and a gasp for breath, And, one by one, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... war drags on and seems as though it were never going to end. Not that I've much to kick about, for it's proved a chance for me. Here's the great news. I'm in for my commission and shall soon be 'an officer and a gentleman.' Don't tell his Lordship if you write to him or see him; he's still in the ranks and might not like it. It's funny to think ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... Help!" roared Bob, badly frightened. He began to kick and struggle, but Randy held him down and as a consequence he was covered with dust and dirt from head ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.

... happened, however, that he succeeded in thrashing, in fair fight, a bigger boy who was higher in the school, and who had given him a kick. His success awakened a spirit of emulation in other things than boxing, and young Newton speedily rose to be top of ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... a house within this mile, beat me, Kick me and beat me as I go, and I'le beat thee too, To keep us warm; if ever we recover 'em— Kick hard, I am frozen: so, so, ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont

... we stop, or go back. So I concentrate the atomic force just as I choose. It makes us go, or it carries us back to earth, or it holds us motionless, according to the way I apply it. The earth is what I kick against at present, and what I hold fast by; but any other sufficiently massive body would serve the same purpose. As to the machinery, you'd need a special education in order to understand it. You'd have to study the whole subject from the bottom up, and go ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss

... o'clock it was by my watch; which, judging to be a civil way of demanding it, I sent it him immediately, desiring the messenger to tell him it was a very good gold watch. When it was delivered to the quartermaster he held it up by the chain, and presently laid it down on the deck, giving it a kick with his foot, saying it was a pretty football. On which one of the pirates caught it up, saying he would put it in the common chest to ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... go to the devil in view of what a similar excursion had done for me. I managed to subdue my temper—it's a bad one, as you know—and put the matter up to him in plain terms. 'I am your father, Geoffrey, when all is said and done. Are you going to kick me out into the world when I've got no more than a month or two to live? Are you going to allow my body to lie in the Potter's field? Are you willing to allow this poor nephew of mine to take care of me, to assume the responsibility ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... by degrees the vast space of the apse before us became alive with forms. At first these were vague and shadowy, not to be separated or distinguished. Then they became so real that until he was reproved by a kick, Tommy growled at them and threatened to break out into one of ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... is mastered And the galley-bench creaks with a Pope, We shall see Buonaparte the bastard Kick heels with his ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... his too deferential manners and pronounced effeminacy, which made him shun manly sports, had something to do with his masculine unpopularity; but, from the bishop downward, he was certainly no favourite, and in every male breast he constantly inspired a desire to kick him. The clergy of the diocese maintained towards him a kind of 'Dr Fell' attitude, and none of them had more to do with him than they could help. With all the will in the world, with all the desire to interpret brotherly love ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... like a cat in difficulties. My other assailant I hurled into a heap of ashes, and the way he blubbered was a caution to a Nantucket whaleman. Rushing down the stairs, I passed over the prostrate form of my crippled uncle, who requested me to come back, so that he might kick me with his serviceable foot; but, brute that I was, I disregarded him—requested him to go to a place which shall be nameless—and then left the house as expeditiously as possible, fully determined never to return, whatever ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson

... blank. 'Avent 'ad so much as a kick at a lorst dorg. Christmas Eve ain't wot it was." I felt for my note-book. "Lawd! I remembers the time when the drunks and disorderlies down this street was as thick as flies on a fly-paper. One just picked 'em orf with one's ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... not so much the angry carpenter who waked me as the little jack rabbit you're father to," Martha said. "As you say, a Bun who can kick so hard, and barefoot, too, will be a strong ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang

... unreasoning animals. It is hard for one to control this feeling when the opposition comes from some living creature, as a balky horse or a kicking cow, or a pig that will not be driven through the open gate. When I was a boy, I once saw one of my uncles kick a hive of bees off the stand and halfway across the yard, because the bees stung him when he was about to "take them up." I confess to a fair share of this petulant, unreasoning animal or human trait, whichever it may be, myself. It is difficult for me to refrain from ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs

... indignation. An abandoned profligate may think that it is not wrong to debauch my wife, but shall I, therefore, not detest him? And if I catch him in making an attempt, shall I treat him with politeness? No, I will kick him down stairs, or run him through the body; that is, if I really love my wife, or have a true rational notion of honour. An infidel then shall not be treated handsomely by a Christian, merely because he endeavours to rob with ingenuity. I do declare, however, that I am ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... spoke to him, spoke loudly, spoke severely. 'Baby,' they said, 'if you have any dealings with the niece of Farmer Johns we'll kick you ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... looked back. They had gone down to a shallower ford, and when they, too, had waded across, they said nothing and the girl said nothing—so Hale started on, the two boys following. The mule was slow and, being in a hurry, Hale urged him with his whip. Every time he struck, the beast would kick up and once the girl came ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... do he did. As he turned in the dark he implanted a heartfelt kick which sent Sam Woodhull on his knees before Molly Wingate as she ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... did more than two millenniums ago, only the grass was for a while a little ranker on the plain. Olivet lifts the same outline against the pale morning twilight as when David went up its slope a weeping exile. The pebble that we kick out of our path had thousands of years of existence ere we were born, and may lie there unaltered to all appearance for centuries after we are dead. 'One generation cometh and another goeth, but the earth ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... been blasted down. A little piece of the quartz, crushed in a mortar panned out four dollars in gold. I picked out one piece of rock, not larger than a peach, and the manager, after weighing and testing it, announced that it contained ten dollars in free gold. The kick of a boot would reveal ore which showed glittering ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... lately; he used to till my hide got hardened, but now he has a white-oak goad-stick with an iron brad in its end, with which he jabs my hind quarters and hurts me awfully.' I asked him why he did not kick up, and knock his tormentor out of the wagon. 'I did try once,' said he, 'but am old and was weak, and could only get my heels high enough to break the whiffletree, and besides lost my balance and fell down ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... carriage," says Sir Brian. "Kick your shins; always in the way. I remember, when we used to come in the carriage from Clapham, when we were boys, I used to kick my brother Tom's shins. Poor Tom, he was a devilish wild fellow in those days. You don't ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... have a glimpse in madame's letters which his biographers, generally at least, omit. She tells us that he used to have violent fits of insanity, during which he would imagine that he was a horse, jump over a billiard-table, kick his servants, neigh, and make a fearful noise for an hour. His domestics would then get him into bed, and after much sweating he would wake without the least memory of what had passed. As "jumping over a billiard-table" might appear an incredible feat, at least ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... ever see such perfectly dreadful boys to kick up such a dust? Oh, dear me, Polly ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... around the corner in a jiffy. Oh, I could hardly walk, Mag! I wanted to fly and dance and skip. I wanted to kick up my heels as the children were doing in the Square, while the organ ground out, Ain't It a Shame? I actually did a step or two with them, to their delight, and the first thing I knew I felt a bit of a hand in mine like a cool ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... developed, are powers not to be underestimated by wise men. There is hell in them, Malcolm, I tell you there is hell in them." Sir George meditatively snuffed the candle with his fingers and continued: "If a horse once learns that he can kick—sell him. Only yesterday, as I said, Doll was a child, and now, by Jove, she is a full-blown woman, and I catch myself standing in awe of her and calling her Dorothy. Yes, damme, standing in awe of my own child! That will never do, you ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... Judge of the Exempts in Angouleme, perceived that the Judge's wife (with whom he was in love) went up into the garret alone; thinking to surprise her, he followed her thither; but she dealt him such a kick in the stomach that he fell from the top of the stairs to the bottom, and fled out of the town to the house of a lady that had such great liking for those of his Order (foolishly believing them possessed of greater virtues ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... more amusing still. Just about sundown the stately herdsman again appeared with his motley following. He took no manner of notice of them. He stalked majestically towards his own particular hovel, and at each corner of a lane or group of cottages the pigs said "Good night" to each other by a kick-up of their heels and a whisk of their curly little tails, and scampered off home by themselves, until, at the end of the village, only one solitary pig was following his leader—probably they shared one home between them. It seemed a peaceful, if ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... find the stirrup with his toe, Sultan wheeled away from him with a little kick that was as dainty as that of ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... Mr. Perkins said genially, "I'll be glad to see the beggars having to work. Look out for the black one—he's a sly old dog, and looks to me like an ox that would keep friends with a man for ten years to get a good chance to land a kick on him ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... English beeble. The English are our friends; they're Christians like what we are. Blease God, they take this country like they taken Egybt, and gif the Turks an' Muslims good old Hell! Ha, ha! we're English, we are, just the same. The Turks all done for—no dam' good. The Christians kick 'em all the time. They got to lick our boots, that's sure. The English they soon string up the rotten ole Sultan, first they christen ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... heavyweights that 'a all right. He can't time an' distance as good as me, an' I can keep set better, too. But he's cleverer an' quicker. I never was quick like him. We both can take punishment, an' we're both two-handed, a wallop in all our fists. I know the kick of his, an' he knows my kick, an' we're both real respectful. And we're even-matched. Two draws, and a decision to each. Honest, I ain't any kind of a hunch who's gain' to win, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... flinging the first bones of condescension to the rustic Yankton; the preliminaries of a series of expectations and hopes deferred that were intended to reduce him to a state of submission suitable to receive the final kick which was to leave Mr. Yankton a wiser but ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... possibly tell. It may be a mystery: it may be as simple as bread and cheese. The body not being robbed looks interesting, but he may have been outed by some wretched tramp whom he found sleeping in the grounds and tried to kick out. It's the sort of thing he would do. Such a murderer might easily have sense enough to know that to leave the money and valuables was the safest thing. I tell you frankly, I wouldn't have a hand in hanging a poor devil who had let ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... which I am grateful—laid four days upon my back by a wound. And was that wound inflicted by a shell, shrapnel, bomb, lance, saber, bullet or any of the other noble weapons of warfare? No, sir, it was done by a horse, and not by a kick, either, he jostled me with his knee when he wasn't looking. Would you call that an ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... broths and jellies. To others, also, a board of guardian angels doled out payments, though some one had once told him you had scant chance unless you were a Dutchman. But the inexperienced in begging are naturally not so successful as those always at it. 'Twas vain for Zussmann to kick his heels among the dismal crowd in the corridor, the whisper of his misdeeds had been before him, borne by some competitor in the fierce struggle for assistance. What! help a hypocrite to sit on the twin stools of Christendom and Judaism, fed by the bounty of both! In this dark hour ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... A kick from my right leg sent one of them to the ground, and, with my clenched paw, I struck a blow at the second. Never do I remember feeling such strength within me, such a resolution to attack twenty dogs if it were necessary, although the next minute I might be torn in pieces. I have sometimes asked ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes

... very hard for one who has fought them long to believe that suddenly those shore rats are entrusting themselves to the waves, venturing out to stir us with their swords. One does not descend into the depths to kick a salkar in the rump; not if one still has his wits safely encased under his skull braid. As for a rogue fleet ... what would turn brother against brother to the extent of slaying children and women? Raiding ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... brains or beauty enough to attract a passing glance, thus has the opportunity to elicit volleys of applause from crowds of men; and, without stopping to question the value of it, she makes herself doubly drunken with it. If to kick up her skirts is to attract attention—hoop la! If indecency is then the distinguishing feature of the evening, she is the woman for your money. So she jumps rather than dances. She has a whole set of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... one of Johnnie Green's favorite sports. Whenever boys from neighboring farms came to play with him, Johnnie was sure to entertain them by taking them out behind the barn to show them how high he could make Twinkleheels kick. ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey

... glancing round to see on whom he could heap his vengeance, he caught sight of our two friends, and looking up indignantly at them, he continued—"I von't have no row in my the-a-ter. If you vants to kick up a row you'd better go the The-a-ter R'yal." The audience seeing Mr. Holloway addressing the gallery, all eyes were now turned up to where our friends were seated, and the lady, (who had thrown up her veil in consequence of the intense heat) being recognised, ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... may, or they may not. If they knew how easily they could get the better of us they would make a rush. Tut, tut, tut! Kick that fellow, Poole. Can't he sleep without snoring like that? Who ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... it. It seemed to me that the earth might be compared to an egg, it looked so warm under the white sky, and the sky was as soft as the breast feathers of a dove. This sudden bow-wowing of the literary skeleton made me feel that I wanted to kick myself. Nature has forgotten to provide us with a third leg whereby we may revenge ourselves on instincts that we cannot control. A moment afterward I found myself plunged in reflections regarding the impossibility ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... boots Mahatma, except that they are hard things with iron on them which kick one out of one's form if one sits too close. Once that happened to me. Well, my form was under a particularly fine turnip that had some dead leaves beneath the green ones. I chose it because, like the brown earth, they just matched ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... she said to herself, "and easy for my poor old arms to shake or fold. With careful usage, it would last for years yet; but who knows how two wandering bodies that have been tramping miles through the storm may kick about in their sleep? And who knows if they're decent folk at all? likely enough they're two hedge birds, who have imposed a pitiful tale on the good fathers, and never slept under anything finer than a shock of ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... punished, so that its excessive humility and apparent fear and trembling were quite unaccountable. Like all dogs of its class it was passionately affectionate, and intensely grateful for the smallest favour. In fact, it seemed to be rather thankful than otherwise for a kick when it chanced to receive one, and a pat on the head, or a kind word made it all but jump out of its black skin for ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... prepossessing in Freddie Dirk's appearance. He was of the low brow, heavy jaw, bruiser type. The term a "tough" fits him closely. He had a punch like a kick from a dray horse but when called upon to use his hands he preferred to rely upon his mascot to ensure success. Freddie's mascot was a few lengths of whalebone bound with twine and socketed into a pear-shaped lump of lead. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... that by sane legislation legalizing the sale of drugs under controlled conditions, they had already licked the problem, and wouldn't be in the market. For two cents, I thought, I'd make China pay me the money to keep the virus buried. For that matter, the Syndicate would gladly kick in with a million. But I'm an American first, and couldn't play it that way, especially remembering ...
— Revenge • Arthur Porges

... Sergeants and swanking about and letting their men waddle up to their gun like cows—and when I see them, as I've done with your eyes—watch one of their men pass by an officer in the street without saluting, and don't kick the blighter to—to—to barracks—it fairly makes me sick. And I ask myself, sir, what I've done that I should be loafing here instead of ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... hand over the jewel, and proceeded to kick Eberhard Ludwig's shins with all the violence he could muster. 'A lady gave it to me, and you shall never have it! I will kill ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... Allan, "but if we find it's all right when we get there, and we've only a few measly hundred dollars along, we'll want to kick ourselves all the way home. Lots of fellows are making big money just because they had some capital to work with, and why shouldn't we do it, too? Couldn't you fix it some way to get the money without coming back, if everything looks all right? ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... I reckon no tall kick would be a-comin' if you was to call me Red," drawled Larry. "Or better—Reddy. No other lady ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... occasionally is: In what category are my relations with Carlotta to be classified? I do not regard her as a daughter; still less as a sister: not even as a deceased wife's sister. For a secretary she is too abysmally ignorant, too grotesquely incapable. What she knows would be made to kick the beam against the erudition of a guinea-pig. Yet she must be classified somehow. I must allude to her as something. At present she fills the place in the house of a pretty (and expensive) Persian cat; and like a cat she has ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... were everything Mosby had hoped. He became a Confederate hero over night, and there was no longer any danger of his being recalled. There were several half-hearted attempts to kick him upstairs—an offer of a commission in the now defunct Virginia Provisional Army, which he rejected scornfully, and a similar offer in the regular Confederate States Army, which he politely declined because it would deprive ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper

... cowardice to murmur at. But the long habit of victory has made them generous. They know how to spare when they see occasion; and when they strike, the axe may be sharp indeed, but its edge is seldom poisoned with ill-will; nor is it their custom ignominiously to kick the head which ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... If you were to kick with all your force and even upset the barrel they would not hear you. And what is more, they are not even thinking of you, for the apples are ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... the next fellow, but I don't believe in giving everybody a slap on the back or a kick in the pants to prove it. You may be a lawyer, all right, Mr. Smith, but I'll bet you're on the bench. You've got that way with you. Not that it's ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... waste with impartiality and grandeur, are conjoined the host of scholastic architects, licensed and sworn, degrading all they touch with the discernment and selection of bad taste, substituting the tinsel of Louis XV. for Gothic lace-work, for the greater glory of the Parthenon. This is the donkey's kick at the dying lion. It is the old oak, decaying at the crown, pierced, bitten ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... the dignity of step which nature gave him—picking his way through a quadrille like a goose upon red hot bricks, or gyrating like a bad teetotum in what English fashionables are pleased to term a "valse"—I never see a man thus occupied without a fervent desire to kick him. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... Dick was in the saddle, and giving a kick with his heels to the horse he was on, and striking the other with the halter which he held in his hand, dashed ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... was submitted to the Senate, Calhoun's friends adroitly managed matters so that the Vice President should have the satisfaction of preventing confirmation by his casting vote. "It will kill him, sir, kill him dead," declared the vengeful South Carolinian to a doubting friend. "He will never kick, sir, never kick." But no greater tactical error could have been committed. Benton showed the keener insight when he informed the jubilant Calhoun men that they had "broken a minister," only to elect a ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... kick that way," said Romaine Smith, choking and sneezing. "Oh dear, I shall smother. Eyebright, please open the ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge

... glad we came along when we did," indignantly spoke up Tubby. "You'd have been in a bad fix if we hadn't. Instead of being thankful for it, all you can do is to kick ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson

... bed, he came up against an incomprehensible force, and, entirely against his will, found himself on the stroke of eleven ready to begin the performance on the sands. Sometimes he felt an almost irresistible desire to kick Andrew, so mild and gentle, with his eternal idiotic grin; but he knew in his heart that Andrew was not one of the idiots whom people kicked with impunity. He lashed him, instead, with his tongue, which Andrew, within limits, did not mind a bit. To Bakkus, however, Andrew owed the conception of ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... was ten feet, perhaps, above the lower platform; and as he felt the numbness strike him, he lost his hold upon the tube-pipe. But he had presence of mind enough to kick himself outward with a last effort. His body fell upon the onrushing Argo. They ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... said ironically, "the distinguished honor to be their messenger, but first let me say that, although with that gang of beasts, I am not of them. I've killed my man, but it was in fair fight, and not by a knife in the back. I have no kick coming over what the law dealt out to me. Furthermore, if I had known the animals, I would have to travel with, I would not have let my longing for freedom draw me away from the turpentine camp. Lord knows, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... you kick him, Mr Gregory, sir," said Widgeon. "If you do, he'll take hold; and I know this here sort, you can't get them off again ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... as though an explanation were needed, "Parson Rasba ain' used to hit; he could carry more, an' hit'll take him longer to get lit up. But, law me, when hit begins to act! That's three yeah old, boys, mild, but no mewl yo' eveh saw has the kick that's got, apple an' berry cider, stilled down from ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears

... "particularly as no one has complained; and there might be a row if she turned out to be the nurse to those children. The whole party are Southerners, that's clear; and these Southerners are mighty touchy about their niggers sometimes, and kick and cut like the devil about them. I guess we had better let her alone, unless some one complains about her ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... have been. When he had first heard some one in the bushes where he had hidden his pail of berries, he had been very sure that it was one of the cows or young cattle who live in the Old Pasture during the summer. He had been afraid that they might stupidly kick over the pail and spill the berries, and he had hurried to drive whoever it was away. It hadn't entered his head that it could be anybody who would eat ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess

... do with a proposition of that sort! It hasn't got any drugs in it, so we won't have to label it under the law. It ain't medical; so the most particular newspaper and magazines won't kick on the advertising. Yet, with the copy I'm getting up on it, we can put it over to cure more troubles than Certina ever thought of curing. Only we won't use the word 'cure,' of course. All we have to do is to ram it into ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... not to know how Mr. Locket would "work" the mystery of his marvellous find. Nothing could help it on better with the public than the impenetrability of the secret attached to it. If Mr. Locket should only be able to kick up dust enough over the circumstances that had guided his hand his fortune would literally be made. Peter thought a hundred pounds a low bid, yet he wondered how the Promiscuous could bring itself to offer such a sum—so large ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James

... enjoy a time every day without clothes, when they can kick to their hearts' content. If this is begun by degrees, a short time at first, gradually getting longer every day, there will be no danger of giving the child cold through letting it lie unclothed, on a rug on the floor for half-an-hour at a time, with the window open. The air-bath ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... boy, I've got a certain mealy-faced hypocrite where any decent man would like to have him—by the scruff of his neck. He's fit only to kick; and I'm going to kick him good and plenty; and in the process he's going to let go of several things." Mortimer leered, pleased with his own similes, then added rather hastily: "I mean, he's going to drop several things that don't ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... bould fellow. "None o' yer randy-tandy-tissimee-tea tied to the old mawther's apron-strings about him. He's coming home rich, and he'll buy half the island over, and make a donation of a harmonia to the chapel, and kick ould Cowley and his ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine

... scale of the European powers." Bless me! this new system of France, after changing all other laws, reverses the law of gravitation. By throwing in weight after weight, her scale rises, and will by-and-by kick the beam. Certainly there is one sense in which she loses her preponderance: that is, she is no longer preponderant against the countries she has conquered. They are part of herself. But I beg the author to keep his eyes fixed on the scales for a moment longer, and then to tell ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... is no resisting her attacks. A halo of sympathy gathers round her, while a cloud envelopes the unfortunate antagonist; and people at last think that they are performing an act of pure and disinterested justice, when they kick him into the Seine. Impressed with this disagreeable conviction, (from which we gather that Madame Lebrun was a handsome woman, while the husband was nothing to boast of—at all events compared to the Sieur Grimod,) he hurries on to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... had a hard job to persuade Frank Kingston that you lost anything by being religious. He knew far better than that; and while of course he was too thorough a boy, with all a boy's hasty, hearty, impulsive ways, to do everything "decently and in order," and would kick over the traces, so to speak, sometimes, and give rather startling exhibitions of temper, still in the main and at heart he was a sturdy little Christian, who, when the storm was over, felt more sorry and remembered it longer than ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley

... long, broad, profound curse upon the men of the Cross-Roads, and Meredith's gratitude to him was keen. Barrett went away, soon after, leaving the cab for the gentlemen from Plattville. Meredith had a strange, unreasonable desire to kick Barrett, possibly for his sergeant's sake. Warren Smith sat in the ward with the nurse and Gay, and the room was very quiet. ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... provoke another:" but it is an erroneous opinion, for if that were true, there would be no end of abusing each other; lis litem generat; 'tis much better with patience to bear, or quietly to put it up. If an ass kick me, saith Socrates, shall I strike him again? And when [3975]his wife Xantippe struck and misused him, to some friends that would have had him strike her again, he replied, that he would not make them sport, or that they should stand by and say, Eia Socrates, eia ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... hoe de corn." He had a great deal of broad sense in his speech; but presently some others began praying vociferously close by, as if to drown this free-thinker, when at last he exclaimed, "I mean to fight de war through, an' die a good sojer wid de last kick,—dat's my prayer!" and suddenly jumped off the barrel. I was quite interested at discovering this reverse side of the temperament, the devotional side preponderates so enormously, and the greatest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... melodramatic, but it is not brofessional, Meess," he stammered, striving to get hold of some satisfactory argument. "Vy, Mooney vos not so pad. Meess Lyle she act dot bart mit him all der last season, and make no kick. Dunder! vat you vant—an angel? You don't hafe to take dot bart mit me, or Meester Lane ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... to kick him if he wasn't such a duffer," was Nick's reluctant thought, for he had wanted to be favourably impressed by the Dook. If this were really anything like an English duke, give him a crossing-sweeper! But he must not be too hasty in his generalization. He was unhappily sure that Mrs. May's ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... that he has a more desirable tenant who wants these quarters. He gives us till tomorrow morning to raise the rent or he will out us kick. ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings

... and I have felt very bad about it. I don't know how it is. I am sure I didn't think once that I should ever come to be what I am. But I took to drinking, and then to quarrelling. Since I began to go down hill, everybody gives me a kick. You are the first man who has ever offered me a helping hand. My wife is sickly, and my children are starving. You have sent them many a meal, God bless you! and yet I stole the hides from you, meaning to sell them the first chance I could get. But I tell you ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... went on positively; "the oven couldn't have more than half done its work by then; so even if Pete had gobbled the gobbler he'd have had to eat him partly cooked. Not that Pete would have objected very much to that, for he was too near the starving point to kick. Now, my opinion is, we had greater luck because we dug up our breakfast ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne

... distance separating him from May's accomplice, and with three bounds he was upon him. The man in the slouched hat attempted to shout, but an iron hand stifled the cry in his throat. He tried to escape, and to beat off his assailant, but a vigorous kick stretched him on the ground as if he had been a child. Before he had time to think of further resistance he was bound, gagged, and carried, half-suffocated, to the corner of the Rue de la Chaise. No sound had been ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... fists at the twinkling wall, strove to kick and smite it like an angry child, cursed it—not childishly. Dared it to hurl me down ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... other door, and putting his whole weight against it, tried to burst it open. The door was a new one—he had had them renewed himself, in readiness for their coming in after the honeymoon. In a rage he lifted his foot to kick in the panel; the thought of the servants restrained him, and he felt suddenly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... of the boat, the dog braced himself for a new effort to tear free. The man, in anger, planted a vigorous kick against the collie's furry side. As his foot was bare, the kick lost much of its potential power to injure. Yet it had the effect of rousing to sudden indignation the dusty youth who had stopped on his tramp from Miami to watch ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... intelligence only imperfectly performs the analysis by which jurists carry responsibility back to the beginning of a chain of causation. The hatred for anything giving us pain, which wreaks itself on the manifest cause, and which leads even civilized man to kick a door when it pinches his finger, is embodied in the noxoe deditio and [12] other kindred doctrines of early Roman law. There is a defective passage in Gaius, which seems to say that liability may sometimes be escaped by giving up even the dead ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.



Words linked to "Kick" :   kick down, protest, kick out, scuff, foreswear, kick up, kicking, bound, strike out, bewail, take a hop, score, propel, hit, free kick, grouse, nag, forgo, gripe, goal-kick, repine, scissors kick, grizzle, kick one's heels, reverberate, drop-kick, give up, recoil, blow, place-kicking, thrill, report, inveigh, kick the bucket, bang, rush, cheer, motion, sound off, kick start, croak, mutter, sport, waive, complain, peck, exhilaration, impel, move, forego, kick pleat, movement, rail, lament, rack up, dance, kick turn, trip the light fantastic, charge, motility, displace, backbite, holler, whine, stimulus, kicker, flush, dolphin kick, rebound, bemoan, kick about, grumble, kick starter, yawp, bellyache, spring, kick in, quetch, dispense with, gnarl, athletics, frog kick, kick back, murmur, corner kick, dropkick, excitement, beef



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