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Killer   Listen
noun
Killer  n.  
1.
One who deprives of life; one who, or that which, kills.
2.
(Zool.) A voracious, toothed whale of the genus Orca, of which several species are known; called also killer whale. Note: The killers have a high dorsal fin, and powerful jaws armed with large, sharp teeth. They capture, and swallow entire, large numbers of seals, porpoises, and dolphins, and are celebrated for their savage, combined attacks upon the right whales, which they are said to mutilate and kill. The common Atlantic species (Orca gladiator), is found both on the European and the American coast. Two species (Orca ater and Orca rectipinna) occur on the Pacific coast.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Killer" Quotes from Famous Books



... is a very old one, which all nations have loved to tell, though with different names. You will be amused to think that the old Cornish way of telling it is found in "Jack the Giant-Killer," who had seven-leagued boots and a cap of mist, and delivered fair ladies ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... they do not trench upon the vital and imperative duties of his high calling. "This one thing I do," said single-hearted Paul; and if Paul were a pastor now in New York or Boston or Chicago, he would make short work of many an intrusive rap of a time-killer at his study door. ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... "I am Hereward the outlaw, I am the champion, I am the Berserker, I am the Viking, I am the land thief, the sea thief, the ravager of the world, the bear-slayer, the ogre-killer, the raven-fattener, the darling of the wolf, the curse of the widow. Touch me, and I will give you to the raven and to the wolf, as I have this ogre. Be my men, and follow me over the swan's road, over the ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... months the tenth chapter of Nehemiah himself could not terrify me. My father bought me many tragical ditties; such as Chevy Chace, the Children in the Wood, Death and the Lady, and, which were infinitely the richest gems in my library, Robin Hood's Garland, and the History of Jack the Giant-killer. To render these treasures more captivating, observing the delight it gave me, he used sometimes to sing the adventures of Robin Hood with me; whether to the right tunes, or to music of his own composing, is ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... of somewhat apocryphal adventures. She ransacked her memory for biblical boys, but these met with small favor. "Pooh! they weren't any good! They couldn't play stick-knife and pitch-in. Besides, they all died. Besides, they weren't any great shakes. Jack the Giant-Killer was worth a dozen of 'em, sir! Now tell it all over again, or else I won't say ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... had already been discovered by the great naturalists who had gone before her, in order that she might take a step beyond them. With that in view, she plunged into the course of study that the Colonel outlined for her with the same energy and dogged determination which made her a successful killer of snakes. ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston

... accordance with Mr. Whitelaw's hospitable invitation, while that gentleman himself ploughed away with a steady persistence that made awful havoc with the ham, and reduced the loaf in a manner suggestive of Jack the Giant-killer. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... with a thin-lipped killer's mouth and a frozen face that never betrayed its owner's thoughts—he was the specialist in ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper

... time-killer, whose only business in life is to murder the hour, is also just arrived; and my lord is resolved ...
— The Dramatist; or Stop Him Who Can! - A Comedy, in Five Acts • Frederick Reynolds

... and yet you came like a shot to do battle for my body with Barney Maguire! Jack-the-Giant-killer wasn't in ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... London Bridge Station in a profoundly dejected condition. However happy one may be, London Bridge Station possesses the qualities of a sovereign joy-killer, and would have inclined the thoughts of Mark Tapley toward the darker things of life; but to Flamby, alone in a world which she did not expect to find sympathetic, it seemed a particularly hopeless place. She was dressed in black, and black did not suit her, and all the ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... Brother of Pity must have found him," said my godfather, still laughing. "And he must have got Jack the Giant-killer's cloak of darkness for his dress, so that ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... count had the father fetched, but the fellow stuck to it. He was sent for trial and condemned to hard labor, I believe. Now the father has come to intercede for him. But he's a good-for-nothing lad! You know that sort of tradesman's son, a dandy and lady-killer. He attended some lectures somewhere and imagines that the devil is no match for him. That's the sort of fellow he is. His father keeps a cookshop here by the Stone Bridge, and you know there was a large icon of God Almighty ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... and were all turned into the fish called killers, a fish which has ever since been an enemy to whales, and is its greatest terror; As the sister was always a gay girl, painting her cheeks of many hues, and loving many-coloured ornaments, he commanded her to become, and she became, the striped killer. He bade her brothers be always very kind to her, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... Highlands, who had never in her life seen any one more attractive than the red-headed heroes of her native hills, and who, having aurific tresses of her own, was particularly prejudiced against that splendid hue, and fatally ensnared by the raven ringlets and dark eyes of this professional lady-killer. ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... however the emetic apomorphine is injected anywhere under the skin, vomiting surely follows within a very short time. It is well known that morphine is injected under the skin in preference to taking it through the mouth as its action as a pain killer is much prompter. ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum

... best and simplest fly killer is a weak solution of formaldehyde in water (two teaspoonfuls to the pint). This solution should be placed in plates or saucers throughout the house. Ten cents' worth of formaldehyde, obtained in the drug store, will last ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... here with what ethic and philosophy come from being fed on fairy tales. If I were describing them in detail I could note many noble and healthy principles that arise from them. There is the chivalrous lesson of "Jack the Giant Killer"; that giants should be killed because they are gigantic. It is a manly mutiny against pride as such. For the rebel is older than all the kingdoms, and the Jacobin has more tradition than the Jacobite. There is the lesson of "Cinderella," which is the same as that ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... cosy Flat, far away, she had him propped up on the Piano in a Silver-Gilt Frame and featured to beat the Cars. Any one who dropped in to see her was made to understand that he was merely an Understudy, who was being used as a Time-Killer. ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not, if I could, be both handsome and fat and well dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a 'tone-poet' and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... and parted, and I went on my way cheered by the encounter. I had spoken the exact truth, and found amusement in doing so. One has often extracted humour from the contemplation of the dissolution of others—that of the giant in "Jack the Giant-killer" for instance, and the demise of the little boy with the pair of skates in the poem. Why not extract it from the ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... of romance in Nance's soul. Up to this time she had demanded of Mr. Demry the most "scareful" stories he knew, but from now on Blue Beard and Jack, the Giant-Killer had to make way for Cinderella and the Sleeping Beauty. She went about with her head full of dreams, and eyes that looked into an invisible world. It was not that the juvenile politics of the alley were less interesting, or the street fights or adventures ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... the first to get his rod together, and selecting a particular fly that he had considered as "a certain killer," jumped into his pram. The men who row these prams are generally Norwegians, born on the banks of the river, and knowing pretty well under what rocks, or in what eddy, the salmon abound. The Norwegian who rowed P——'s pram was a fine young fellow, but as unable ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... Ben, as he cut short the conversation and hurried away, "if you wish to be a bug-killer this summer, you may ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... stood by to see what I'd do with it—didn't you, old Scotty?" Hector nodded a trifle guiltily. "Andrew Daney wrote me you swore by all your Highland clan that the man who sold you that red cedar was ripe for the fool-killer." ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... on a fish through waves advanced, He twanged his catgut, and the Dolphin danced. Hags rode on broom-sticks, heathen-gods on clouds; Ladies, on rams and bulls, have dared the floods. Much famed the shoes Jack Giant-killer wore, And Fortunatus' hat is famed much more. Such vehicles were common once, no doubt; But modern versemen must even trudge on foot, Or doze at home, expectants of the gout. Hard is the task, indeed 'tis wondrous ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... meant, and he could see how the Count always acted by calculation and never from impulse. Best of all he saw that Beatrice was a mere child who was being deceived by the coolly assumed passion of a veteran woman-killer. It was bitterly hard to bear. And he had felt a foreboding of it all in the afternoon—and he wished that he had risked all and brought down the brass tiller on San Miniato's head and submitted to be sent to the galleys for life. He could never have forgotten ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford

... and Samuel being in every way enfeebled, she overcame. As for Cyril, he was divided between fear and curiosity. On the whole, perhaps Cyril regretted that he would not be able to say at school that he had had speech with the most celebrated killer of the age on ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... his trade. First he unfurled the Hieropath banner, which floated proudly in the breeze. Then on a folding table he displayed his collection of ointment-boxes (together with pills and a toothache-killer which he sold on his own account) and a wax model of a human foot on which were grafted putty corns in every stage of callosity. As soon as half-a-dozen idlers collected he commenced his harangue. When their numbers increased he performed ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... is magical power in it—and the economic obligation to provide food overbears the sense of reverence for the totem. The only obscure point in the ceremony under consideration is the obligation on the killer or gatherer to taste the food before he gives it to his fellows. This may be a survival of the rule, known to exist among some tribes, that in a hunting party he who kills an animal has the first right ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... of jealousy. The young officer was one of the elegant gentlemen of the service—a professed lady killer—a fellow, who, notwithstanding his well-known deficiency of brains, was ever welcome among women. She seemed to press closely to him as they whirled around, while her head rested languishingly upon his shoulder. She appeared to be contented with her partner. I could ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... 'Les commissaires veulent,' &c. Manslaughter is the killing a man with design, but in a sudden gust of passion, and where the killer has not had time to cool. The first offence is not punished capitally, but the second is. This is the law of England and of all the American States; and is not a new proposition. Those laws have supposed that a man, whose passions have so much dominion over him, as to lead him to repeated acts ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Billy has killed an Indian stone-dead—too dead to skin,” said one of the men, who had approached nearer than the rest, and had almost stumbled over the corpse. From that time forward I became a hero and an Indian killer. This was, of course, the first Indian I had ever shot, and as I was then not more than eleven years of age, my ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... mysterious man who had called up the police at 10.25 to tell them that Cunningham had been murdered in his rooms. Who was this man? Could he be the murderer? If so, why should he telephone the police and start immediately the hunt after him? If not the killer, how did he know that a crime had been committed ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... Oroonoque positively affirm that he grows to the length of seventy or eighty feet and that he will destroy the strongest and largest bull. His name seems to confirm this: there he is called "matatoro," which literally means "bull-killer." Thus he may be ranked amongst the deadly snakes, for it comes nearly to the same thing in the end whether the victim dies by poison from the fangs, which corrupts his blood and makes it stink horribly, or whether his body be crushed to mummy, and swallowed ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... pretty and picturesque; and Maecenas was sure to be charmed with it as a birthday Ode, for such it certainly was, whether there was any real Phyllis in the case or not. Most probably there was not,—the allusion to Telephus, the lady-killer, is so very like many other allusions of the same kind in other Odes, which are plainly mere exercises of fancy, and the protestation that the lady is the very, very last of his loves, so precisely what all middle-aged gentlemen think it right ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... These tales made their way slowly in England, but gradually eclipsed the native English tales and legends which had been discouraged by Puritan influence. In Perrault's time, when this influence was beginning to decline, they superseded the English tales, crowding out all but Jack the Giant-Killer, Tom Hickathrift, Jack and the Beanstalk, ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... pitcher the tail would make a very convenient handle, at which the other dragon always appeared to be laughing heartily, which he had no reason to do, because his own tail was not arranged any too gracefully. But the things that, next to Jack the Giant Killer, and Beauty and the Beast, and Tom Thumb and his other heroes and heroines, Tom liked the most, were two great brazen Andirons that stood in the fireplace. To Tom these Andirons, though up to the ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs

... Rickity Tickle, in the days of his pride, when I was a lad o' the place; an' he cotched his load, down north, lean seasons or plenty, in a way t' make the graybeards an' boasters blink in every tickle o' the Shore. A fish-killer o' parts he was: no great spectacle on the roads o' harbor, though—a mild, backward, white-livered little man ashore, yieldin' the path t' every dog o' Rickity Tickle. 'I gets my fish in season,' says he, 'an' I got a right ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... him, the grotesque and fantastic aspects of his situation afford him the same emotions, of unquestioning wonder and romantic sympathy, that he derived in the old time from the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, the exploits of Jack the Giant-Killer, what Gulliver saw, or Munchausen did. Behold Belzoni in the necropolis of Thebes, crawling on his very face among the dusty rubbish of unnumbered mummies, to steal papyri from their bosoms. Fatigued with the exertion of squirming ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... discretion so far as to kill an Englishman who contended with him with desperate obstinacy for two hours. I am informed that the particular blow by which he felled the poor wretch for the last time is known in pugilistic circles as 'Cashel's killer,' and that he has attempted to repeat it in all his subsequent encounters, without, however, achieving the same fatal result. The failure has doubtless been a severe disappointment to him. He fled from Australia and reappeared in America, where he resumed his victorious career, distinguishing ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... breakfast!" called Mrs. Moss; and for about twenty minutes little was said, as mush and milk vanished in a way that would have astonished even Jack the Giant-killer with ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... the way Carmack was struck down. Nothing cute and fancy, no frills or improvisation—just the proverbial blunt instrument, after which the killer simply walked out of there. Believe me, I know about these things. The very simplicity is the killer's protection. You can bet no trace will ever be found of that blunt instrument, and naturally he left no evidence coming or ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse

... a woman in her season doth not grant her wishes, is called, O Brahmana, by those conversant with the Vedas, a slayer of the embryo. He who, solicited in secret by a woman full of desire and in season, goeth not in unto her, loseth virtue and is called by the learned a killer of the embryo, O son of Bhrigu, for these reasons, and anxious to avoid sin, I went into Sarmishtha.' Sukra then replied, 'Thou art dependent on me. Thou shouldst have awaited my command. Having acted falsely in the matter of thy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... one to waste much breath on talking love. My Ogallalla Sioux warriors know me as the soldier-killer. Be cautious when you go back, and give no hint to any one but Addie Neidic that there is a living being in Dead Man's Hollow, for so this ravine ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline

... the MacMorrogh Brothers' 'killer'," said Ford evenly. "Have you ever heard of a professional man-killer, Miss Adair; a man whose calling is that of a ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... fury, which are irresistibly funny—all the more so because there is nothing whatever to provoke this display of ferocity. Finally he stops in front of the footlights, strikes an attitude, and delivers himself thus: "For to-day, Scapin, I am willing to let my man-killer here have a little rest, so that there may be an opportunity to get all its recent victims decently buried, in the cemeteries I contribute so largely towards filling. When a man has performed such feats of courage and carnage as I have—killing ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... robber!" raged the Butterfly Man. "You're a damn little bird-killer, that's what you are! I ought to wring your neck for you, and I'd do it if it would do the rest of your tribe any good. But it wouldn't. It wouldn't bring back the lost eggs nor the spoiled nest, either. Besides, ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... father of waters beyond that." The spokesman stepped forward. "Greeting from the great black one, the river-wolf—he who met the wild man of the woods alone; he who crept in at the gate and slew the man-hunters; he the chief Muata. Greeting to the lion- killer, the cleaver of heads, the maker of plans, who came out of the mist in a shining boat. Greeting to the young lions ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... of the present, whereby you probably offend the author for life, and thus get rid of him anyhow. Commonly, he is a minor poet, and sends you his tragedy on John Huss; or he is a writer on mythological subjects, and is anxious to weary you with a theory that Jack the Giant Killer was Julius Caesar. At the worst, you can toss his gift into the waste-paper basket, or sell it for fourpence three-farthings, or set it on your bookshelf so as to keep the damp away from books of which you ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... fresh meat for supper. I had no saddle, as mine had been left at camp a mile distant, so taking the harness from Brigham I mounted him bareback, and started out after the game, being armed with my celebrated buffalo killer Lucretia Borgia—a newly improved breech-loading needle-gun, which I ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... The killer stood on his feet, upright. He laughed—a chilling, mirthless rattle—and began to reload his old-pattern rifle. He was a half-breed Indian. The dying sun glistened on his coppery, strongly muscled flesh, for he was stripped to the waist. He wore trousers ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens

... rights or their means of defense have been immemorially denied to a large class, does humanity, or justice, or good sense require that they should be registered and called to vote upon their own restoration? Why, Mr. Chairman, it might as well be said that Jack the Giant Killer ought to have gravely asked the captives in the ogre's dungeon whether they wished to be released. It must be assumed that men and women wish to enjoy their natural rights, as that the eyes wish light or the lungs an atmosphere. Did we wait for emancipation until the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the fine Count Podstadsky-Liechtenstein," cried another. "I know him. He rejoices in the title of 'woman-killer.' Only look how he sneaks along as the tribe of Israel are dogging ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... abbreviations and familiar names with which times past and present have supplied us, that which honest Falstaff found most pleasing to his ears, "Jack with my familiars!" is the household word with which ours are most conversant. Were not Jack the Giant-killer, Jack and the Bean-stalk, and Little Jack, the intimates of our earliest days? when we were lulled to sleep by ditties that told of Jack Sprat and his accommodating wife (an instance of the harmony in which those ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various

... it out loud, an' yo' ole gran'dad he done said it, too. Wrop up dem fishin'-lines now, an' th'ow 'em up on de rafters. Now come set down heah, an' lemme tell yer 'bout Christmas on de ole plantation. Look out how you pop dat whup 'crost my laig! Dat's a reg'lar horse-fly killer, wid a coal of fire on 'er tip." ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... "is a sort of enchanted island, where nothing appears as it really is, nor what it should be. In London, it is a sort of time-killer, or exchange of looks and smiles. It is frequented by persons of all degrees and qualities whatsoever. Here Lords come to laugh and be laughed at—Knights to learn the amorous smirk and a-la-mode grin, the newest fashion in the cut of his garments, the twist of his body, and the adjustment ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... notes easy that this person's scared, it's plain he's a killer jest the same. It's frequent that a-way. I'm never much afraid of one of your cold game gents like Cherokee Hall; you can gamble the limit they'll never put a six-shooter in play till it's shorely come their turn. But timid, feverish, locoed people, whose jedgment ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... give this woman freedom. He would devote himself to restoring her to the air and sunshine. What nobler ambition! He was an idler, he had never done anything for anybody. He was only a killer of time, a vagrant, but now was his opportunity—he would do for this beautiful soul what no one else on earth could do. She was slipping away as it was—the world would soon lose her. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... overhear Atla-Hi bickering with itself, even if the second voice didn't give a damn (any more than a farmer would mind the pigs overhearing him squabble with his hired man; of course this guy seemed to overlook that we were killer-pigs, but there wasn't anything we could do in that line just now except ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... her long sleep of a hundred years; and Puss in Boots curling his whiskers after having eaten up the ogre who foolishly changed himself into a mouse; and Beauty and the Beast; and the Blue Bird; and Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack the Giant Killer, and Jack and the Bean Stalk; and the Yellow Dwarf; and Cinderella and her fairy godmother; and great numbers besides, of whom we haven't time to ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce

... Dora, but if "killing a pig" means having a lark, Mrs. Bax is as good a pig-killer as any ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... hole, placed him in it, and covered him carefully with leaves, grass, and bushes. An Indian, or hardy backwoodsman, could alone have existed under such circumstances. The hunter waited anxiously till he heard loud snores proceeding from the cavern. Then, slipping up, like Jack the Giant-killer from the castle of the ogre, he scampered off as fast as his legs ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... officers rewarded by the Government as are navy officers, while public knowledge and admiration for the service is vastly less than for the navy. It is a curious phenomenon, and yet one as old at least as the records of man, that the professional killer—that is to say, the officer of the army or navy—has always been held in higher esteem socially, and more lavishly rewarded, than the man whose calling it is to ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... A killer arranged by Beldman? It would be natural for Beldman or Stout to take a chance and fight back the direct way. But there was no evidence. How could either of them have decided who to blame or ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye

... IDE. Mrs. T. a Presbyterian kind woman-killer; Female slave whipped to death; Food; Nakedness of slaves; Old man flogged after praying for his tyrant; Slave-huts not as ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... them all our lives, like Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme, who had always spoken prose without knowing it. The child is a poet, in fact, when he first plays at Hide-and-seek, or repeats the story of Jack the Giant-killer; the shepherd-boy is a poet when he first crowns his mistress with a garland of flowers; the countryman, when he stops to look at the rainbow; the city apprentice, when he gazes after the Lord Mayor's ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... content and submissive. Captives taken on head-hunting expeditions are held as slaves until human sacrifices are wanted.[708] The souls of all those who are put to death at the death of a Dyak rajah become his servants in the other world. In this world the killer can command, as his fetich, the soul of the killed. On the death of a great man his debtor slaves are bound to the carved village post, which indicates the glory of head-hunting, and are tortured to death.[709] "Slavery is greatly practiced" on Timorlaut. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... need help. Just watch her!" And Polly grinned appreciatively as Constance, recognizing and sorting the tottering lady-killer at a glance, took his money handed him a nosegay and a pin, and returned to the back of the booth to arrange ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester

... a grizzly, girls!" she exclaimed. "The grizzly is ordinarily a tame animal beside this fellow. The blackbear is the meat-eater—and the man-killer, too. I learned all about that in our first trip out ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson

... by Mr. Haddon Chambers, The Awakening, turned on a sudden conversion—the "awakening," in fact, referred to in the title. A professional lady-killer, a noted Don Juan, has been idly making love to a country maiden, whose heart is full of innocent idealisms. She discovers his true character, or, at any rate, his reputation, and is horror-stricken, while practically at the same moment, he "awakens" to the ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... around six people, three on each shoulder; besides this, the management offers one hundred dollars to any man, regardless of color, who can throw Orso in a wrestling match. A rumor arose in Anaheim that from the mountains of San Bernardino comes for this purpose the "Grizzly Killer," a hunter who was celebrated for his bravery and strength, and who, since California was settled, was the first man who attacked these great bears single-handed and armed only with a knife. It is the probable victory of the "Grizzly ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... poison myself with vermin-killer if I felt any risk of such contentment! Like other people? Heaven forbid and forfend! Like other people? ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... b'lieve my racket. My powder are not good powder, gentlemen; I bought it thum (from) Zeb Daggett, and gin him three-quarters of a dollar a pound for it; but it are not what I call good powder, gentlemen; but if old Buck-killer burns it clear, the boy you call Hiram Baugh eat's paper, or comes mighty ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... Doubleday shun me like a man with the smallpox? Because they put it up to her I was a man-killer. When they couldn't make me out a rustler, they made me out a gambler. When they couldn't make me out a thief, they made me out a gunman. I had a fine reputation to live down; and all of it from her own father and his friends—what could you ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... controlled a most useful and dangerous floating vote. His saloons harbored the largest floating element that was to be found in the city—longshoremen, railroad hands, stevedores, tramps, thugs, thieves, pimps, rounders, detectives, and the like. He was very vain, considered himself handsome, a "killer" with the ladies. Married, and with two children and a sedate young wife, he still had his mistress, who changed from year to year, and his intermediate girls. His clothes were altogether noteworthy, but it was his pride ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... end to end with those painted masterpieces, the Life of Robinson Crusoe, the Hunting of Chevy-Chase, the History of Jack the Giant-Killer, and all the little eager faces and trembling hands bent over these, and filling them up with some choice quotation, sacred or profane;—no, the galleries of art, the theatrical exhibitions, the reviews and processions,—which are only not childish because they are ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... that the club was, to use his own style of language, not worth a button-hole; for it was all knotted over at the head, something like the club which I remember to have observed in picture-books of Jack the Giant Killer, besides being so heavy that he required to grasp it with both hands in order to wield it at all. However, he took it with him, and, in this manner we set ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... respect any of the goblins and mythological monsters of Western Europe, except perhaps in her cry, which puts one in mind of the exclamation of the giant in the English nursery tale of Jack the Giant killer:— ...
— The Story of Yvashka with the Bear's Ear • Anonymous

... light keeper's command. She looked at the chair by the ancient parlor organ and announced: "Yes, indeed, it'll do real well, thank you, Cap'n Jethro." Her voice was a sharp soprano with liquid gurgles in it—"like pourin' pain-killer out of a bottle," this last still another quotation ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... this, steered straight to meet the monster, and, coming to him, said, "I am the great hunter of beavers; lo, I am their butcher; many a one has fallen by my hand." [Footnote: This is oddly like the speech of the beaver-killer in The Hunting of the Snark.] Now the Beaver had placed himself under water, with his tail out of it and rising upwards, that he might sink the canoe with a blow thereof; for the Beaver strikes ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... temporary structures, the camp headquarters where the power supplies and the computer were; and the sleeping quarters. Beyond, nose high, stood the silver scout ship that had brought the advance exploratory party of scientists and technicians to Waiamea three days before. Except for a few of the killer robots rolling slowly around the camp site on their quiet treads, there ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik

... this with such unctuous satisfaction that even the callous lawyer experienced a slight ripple of repulsion. He now saw clearly in his fatuous visitor the conceit of the lady-killer, the egoistic ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... this cruel, suave killer of men flashed into the girl's brain. "Get some water," she cried, and dropping to her knees began to unbutton MacNair's ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... face was red; his eyes anxious, blue and bulging. He had the unwholesome, frenetic aspect of the patent medicine enthusiast, not uncommon in the North. Garth interrupted him in a grave discussion of the relative merits of "Pain Killer" and "Golden Discovery." ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... for the Old Rye-woman lives in the last stalks, and whoever cuts the last stalks kills the Old Rye-woman, and by killing her he brings trouble on himself. In Wilkischken, in the district of Tilsit, the man who cuts the last corn goes by the name of "the killer of the Rye-woman." In Lithuania, again, the corn-spirit is believed to be killed at threshing as well as at reaping. When only a single pile of corn remains to be threshed, all the threshers suddenly ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... millions, thanks to his much advertised quack 'Catarrh-Killer.' The point is, from what I can discover, Mr. Roderick Hoff isn't worth retrieving at ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... windows of the sunny houses; and Credhe herself, having three times fifty women with her, came out to speak with them. "It is to ask you in marriage we are come," said Finn. "Who is it is asking for me?" said she. "It is Cael, the hundred-killer, grandson of Nemhnain, son of the King of Leinster in the east." "I have heard talk of him, but I have never seen him," said Credhe. "And has he any poem for me?" she said. "I have that," said Cael, and he rose up then and ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... servant-girls; devote an all-night session to the secrets of a drunkard.[2218] They enter on their official report and without any disapproval, the petition of M. Hure, "living at Pont-sur-Yonne, who, over his own signature, offers one hundred francs and his arm to become a killer of tyrants." Repeated and multiplied hurrahs and applause with the felicitations of the president is the sanction of scandalous or ridiculous private misconduct seeking to display itself under the cover of public authority. Anacharsis Clootz, "a Mascarille officially stamped," who proposes a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... eldest of the brothers of that name. As an Indian killer he ranked next to the intrepid Wetzel; but while Wetzel preferred to take his chances alone and track the Indians through the untrodden wilds, McColloch was a leader of expeditions against the savages. A giant in stature, ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... he glanced at me as if I were in league with the man-killer, my lover. My father, exhaling sweet-scented smoke, assented—'How,' Then interrupting the 'Eya' on the lips of the round-eyed talebearer, he asked, 'My friend, will you smoke?' He took the pipe by its red-stone ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa

... uneasiness. It but added to the ferocity of the square scowling massive head. His huge shoulders, stooped forward as he salaamed, suggested the half-crouch of a tiger—even the eyes, the mouth, induced thoughts of that jungle killer. ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... surrounding Manhattan Armory. Two policemen were killed, four others seriously injured. Tammany Hall has warned that this man is extremely dangerous. Citizens are cautioned to keep clear of him. Lane is an insane killer. He is armed with the latest military weapons. A built-in electronic brain controls ...
— Mutineer • Robert J. Shea

... Otter-man, the mischievous Puck of Indian lore, who was waiting for voyagers to land and camp, when he would seize their sleeping forms and transport them a dozen miles in a moment, or cradle them on the tops of the highest trees. Again there was a most rapacious and ferocious killer-whale in a piece of swift water, whose delight it was to take into his great, tooth-rimmed jaws whole canoes with their crews of men, mangling them and gulping them down as a single mouthful. Many were these ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young

... "Am I a killer of old men? No, Paul. De Brissac and I were on excellent terms. You ought to know me better. I do not climb into windows, especially when the door is always open for me. I am like my sword, loyal, frank, and honest; we scorn braggart's cunning, dark alleys, stealth; we look not at a man's ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... shuffling dancers padded something on four feet. The canine-feline creature was more than just a head; it was a loose-limbed, graceful body fully eight feet in length, and the red eyes in the prick-eared head were those of a killer.... Words issued from between those curved fangs, words ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North

... pretty confederacy, indeed! Judge Temple, the landlord and owner of a township, with Nathaniel Bumppo a lawless squatter, and professed deer-killer, in order to preserve the game of the county! But, Duke, when I fish I fish; so, away, boys, for another haul, and well send out wagons and carts in the morning to ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... when I said they had to kill Frank Law." Ellsworth maintained his fixity of gaze, and when Dave started he nodded his head. "It's God's truth. The details were too—dreadful. Your father turned his hand against the woman he loved and—died a wife-killer. The Guadalupes had to destroy him like a mad dog. I'm sorry you had to learn the truth from me, my boy, but it seems necessary that I tell you. When I knew Frank Law he was like any other man, quick-tempered, a little too ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... Balbus!" Nicanor said shortly. "What is thy haste? Dost hope that thou wilt be chosen, man-killer? What wouldst give to be in my place? For I shall go, having neither religion nor blood ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... old hand and could not mistake its source. Everything assured me that I was on the track of an insect that rivalled the Sitares and the Oil-beetles in the strangeness of its transformations; and, what was a still more precious fact, its occurrence amid the burrows of the Mantis-killer told me that its habits would be ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... the young and the robust; historians have sensed the influence omnipresent death had upon the attitudes and aspirations of the European and American of earlier centuries. School children today learn of such a dramatic killer as the bubonic plague, but even its terrible ravages do not dwarf the toll of ague (malaria), smallpox, typhoid and typhus, diphtheria, respiratory disorders, scurvy, beriberi, and flux (dysentery) in ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes

... in one form or another have thrilled the bosoms of happy childhood for so many hundreds of years, and which will continue to thrill them through centuries yet unborn. Then it was that he made the acquaintance of Little Red Riding Hood, Jack the Giant Killer, and the Seven Champions of Christendom. The mingled lights and shades from the blazing logs of hickory in the fireplace lent additional charm to the thousand and one stories which the mother recounted for the child's edification, and I doubt not that Jack's wonderful bean-stalk is still ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... the Greek At length vociferates, "Brutus, let me speak! You are our great king-killer: why delay To kill this King? I vow 'tis ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... provision for the young on the part of insects is seen in the behavior of the big sphex wasp, known as the cicada killer. The cicada, it will be remembered, is what is commonly called a locust. The cicada killer is a magnificent big wasp, whose body is nearly an inch long, banded with black and yellow, while the wings are colored a smoky brown. This muscular ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... some warning sign, as though she were near to him through some tie of blood, or some old established friendship that might warrant his right to do so. The defiant, half gallant way in which Verus, the dissipated lady-killer, had spoken to her had enraged him and filled him with anxiety, and long after the illustrious visitors had left Lochias he had thought of her again and again, and had resolved, if it were possible, to keep a watchful eye on the descendant of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Carvil, who had been eying the stranger Indian with a hesitating air. "I thought, from the first, I knew you, but couldn't quite decide. Moose-killer, I am glad you have come. We are just at this time trying to search out a dark affair, which we fear has happened, and with which this boat you came in may possibly be connected. We should be glad to make a few inquiries ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... always was a t-tough nut, has gone bad since the boys rode him on a rail. He's proud as Lucifer, an' it got under his hide. He's kinda cuttin' loose an' givin' the devil in him free rein. Wouldn't surprise me if he turned into a killer of ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... senior held out his hand, "What a lot of you there are!" he continued, as he reached Dottie, who, dreadfully frightened at his size, tried to hide behind Susie. Dottie compared him in her own mind to one of their favorite giants. "He was so dreadfully like Fee-fo-fum in 'Jack the Giant-Killer,'" she pouted, when Mattie afterwards took her to task, "when he kissed me I thought he was going to eat ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... interpretation, which the reader probably looks for in the parable, may be shown if I mention the ethical purposes that here and there emerge in our psychoanalytic interpretation of the parable. I might remind the reader that the wanderer is a killer of dragons like St. George; the holy Mary is represented standing over a dragon; also under the Buddha enthroned upon a lotus flower, there curls not infrequently a vanquished dragon; etc. I might mention the religious ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... into the paddock when Selinus was at its further corner. The moment the beast saw him he charged at full-run, screaming like an angry gander, the picture of a man-killer, ears laid back, nostrils wide and red, mouth open, teeth bared, forehoofs lashing out high in front, an equine fury. The lad vaulted the fence handily when Selinus was not three yards from him and the brute pawed angrily at the palings and ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... Never mind, you'll do something of the same sort for me one day, and then I shall have the crow over you. And now just give me some idea of the state of affairs. Keep your silly head quiet, can't you? I didn't tell you to get up. Well, put your back against the tree, if you must sit up. Who killer Cock Robin—that is to say, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... lover, but something bigger and higher. The man expanded under her smiles, her teasing, her playfulness, her affection. Neale had no pang in divining the love Larry bore Allie. Drifter, cowboy, gun-thrower, man-killer, whatever he had been, the light of this girl's beautiful eyes, her voice, her touch, had worked the last marvel in man—forgetfulness of self. And ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... wound a pig in the future I shall, myself, follow its trail to the bitter end. Moreover, I learned that, to knock over a wild boar and keep him down for good, one needs a heavy rifle. The bullet of my 6.5 mm. Mannlicher, which has proved to be a wonderful killer for anything up to and including sheep, has not weight enough behind it to stop a pig in its tracks. These animals have such wonderful vitality that, even though shot in a vital spot, they can travel an unbelievable distance. Next time I shall carry a ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... the heart of Opunui. His friend was driven over the cliff at Maunalei, and he himself had lived only by crawling at the feet of the slayer. He hid his hate, and planned to save his girl and balk the killer of his people. He said in his heart, "I will hide her in the sea, and none but the fish gods and I shall know where the ever-sounding ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various

... dinna ken; I daur say it's nonsense, but they say she has gathered the fern-seed, and can gang ony gate she likes, like Jock the Giant-killer in the ballant, wi' his coat o' darkness and his shoon o' swiftness. Ony way she's a kind o' queen amang the gipsies; she is mair than a hundred year auld, folk say, and minds the coming in o' the moss-troopers in the troublesome times when the Stuarts were put awa. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... result, stepped off the prayerrug, rolled it up tightly; then, hugging it beneath his arm, went on: "That four-eyed guy slipped me a whole lot of feed- box information. Why, he's a killer, Wally! And he's got a cash- register to tally ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... friend Bax stood in the room. He was somewhat dishevelled in appearance, as if he had travelled fast. To the clerks in that small office he appeared more fierce and gigantic than usual. Peekins regarded him with undisguised admiration, and wondered in his heart if Jack the Giant-Killer would have dared to encounter such a being, supposing him to have ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... implements—that of Larry O'Hale being, of course, a genuine shillelah, while the weapon cut by Muggins was a close imitation of the club of Hercules, or of that used by the giant who was acquainted with the celebrated giant-killer named Jack! ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... and east, the Bottle-nose on the north, the Humpback on the east and south; and the Finback and Sulphur-bottom are common and widely distributed, especially on the east. The Little White whale, or "White porpoise," is fairly common all round; the Killer is widely distributed, but most numerous on the east, where the Narwhal is also found. The Harbour and Striped porpoises, and the Common and Bottle-nosed dolphins, are chiefly on the east and south. There are six Seals—the Harbour, Ringed, Harp, ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood

... me that's the lady-killer, sir," grinned Riley. "I'm a regular Blarney stone when I'm out on a job of that sort. Sure, I'll have some of them for ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... Representatives, where it was referred to the Committee on Post-Roads, of which Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was then the chairman. The Rev. Obadiah B. Brown, who had meanwhile been promoted in the Post-office Department, wrote a report on the subject for Colonel Johnson, which gave "the killer of Tecumseh" an extended reputation, and was the first step toward his election as Vice-President, a ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... is a citizen of the world, being found in both hemispheres. It does not appear that the European species differs essentially from our own. In Germany he is called the nine-killer, from the belief that he kills and sticks upon thorns nine grasshoppers ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... telephone, though. A posse with shot-guns and bench-warrants met us a mile out from the next place and shooed us away. They'd heard that Rajah was a man-killer and they had brought along a pound of arsenic to feed him. After they'd been coaxed from behind their barricade, though, and had seen what a gentle, confidin' beast Rajah really was, they compromised by letting us take a road that ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... with a large box-stove in the middle of the intervening space. On the shelves and racks upon the walls and from hooks in the rafters rested or hung a conglomeration of goods to be offered in trade to the natives. There were copper pails and calico dresses, pain-killer bottles and Hudson's Bay blankets, sow-belly and chocolate drops, castor oil and gun worms, frying-pans and ladies' wire bustles, guns and corsets, axes and ribbons, shirts and hunting-knives, perfumes and bear traps. In a way, the ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... escape, and we then attended to the case of the squirrels in the branches. This was somewhat difficult, as the night was excessively dark, but our snipers, circling everywhere underneath them, finally got them; not a single baby-killer escaped; it was a case of getting limburgers in ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant



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