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Lick   Listen
verb
Lick  v. t.  (past & past part. licked; pres. part. licking)  
1.
To draw or pass the tongue over; as, a dog licks his master's hand.
2.
To lap; to take in with the tongue; as, a dog or cat licks milk.
To lick the dust, to be slain; to fall in battle. "His enemies shall lick the dust."
To lick into shape, to give proper form to; from a notion that the bear's cubs are born shapeless and subsequently formed by licking.
To lick the spittle of, to fawn upon.
To lick up, to take all of by licking; to devour; to consume entirely.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lick" Quotes from Famous Books



... bitterness of death. Jack Dobson! I liked Jack, but not clinquant in crimson and gold, with spurs and sword clanking on the hard, frost-bitten road. I laughed at the idea; Jack Dobson, whom I had fought time and time again at school until I could lick him as easily as I could look at him; Jack Dobson, a jolly enough lad, who fought cheerily even when he knew a sound thrashing was in store for him, but all his brains were good for was to stumble through Arma virumque cano, and then ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... reception would be. On occasion it would suit the despot's sense of humor to snub and slight the veteran soldier of a said-to-be superior race; and he would choose to do that when there was least excuse for it. On the other hand, he recognized Tom as almost indispensable; he could put a lick and polish on the maharajah's troops that no amount of cursing and coaxing by their own officers accomplished. Tom understood to a nicety that drift of the Rajput's martial mind that caused each sepoy to believe himself the equal of any other Rajput man, but ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... up, red-eyed and coughing. "We can hold it here," he said, "but we can never cross the valley. The fire will be on us before we have burned a mile. It will beat around our south flank and lick up everything!" ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... and waved their torches as they ran for the steps. But neither the noise nor the fire saved them. They owed their safety to the cubs. These ran at once to their mother, and the fierce creature stayed a moment to lick and fondle them and assure ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... By George!" After the speech was over, Governor Hoyt introduced him to the athlete; and as Lincoln stood looking down at him from his great height, evidently pondering that one so small could be so strong, he suddenly gave utterance to one of his quaint speeches. "Why," he said, "I could lick salt off the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the overseers; but I protest they seem to me very rational and collected. But nothing is so deceitful as mad people, to those who are not used to them. Try him with hot water; if he won't lick it up, it's a sign he does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally or perpendicularly? That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general deportment cheerful? I mean when he is pleased, for otherwise there is no judging. You can't be too careful. ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... elegant bachelor ease and convenience that good taste could dictate. The best "Songs From Vagabondia," I am told, are written in comfortable apartments, where there are a bath and a Whitely Exerciser; but patient, persistent effort and work overtime are necessary to lick the lines into shape so they will live. Good poets run their ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... ram's throat, the warm blood and the tender meat, but the finger of Howkawanda felt along his shoulders for the scar of the Blood-Mixing, the time they had killed the buck at Talking Water. Then the First Father of all the Dogs understood that Man was his Medicine and his spirit leaped up to lick the face of the man's spirit. He lay still and felt the blowing in and out of Howkawanda's long hair on the ram's breath, as he nuzzled them from head to heel. Finally the Bighorn stamped twice with all his four feet together, as a sign that he had found no harm in the strangers. ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... him. As he came near, the Lion put out his paw, which was all swollen and bleeding, and Androcles found that a huge thorn had got into it, and was causing all the pain. He pulled out the thorn and bound up the paw of the Lion, who was soon able to rise and lick the hand of Androcles like a dog. Then the Lion took Androcles to his cave, and every day used to bring him meat from which to live. But shortly afterwards both Androcles and the Lion were captured, and the slave was sentenced to be thrown to the Lion, after the latter ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... nut-hatches. Occasionally a Clarke's crow soared about overhead or clung in any position to the swaying end of a pine branch, chattering and screaming. Flocks of cross-bills, with wavy flight and plaintive calls, flew to a small mineral lick near by, where they scraped the clay with their queer ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... enough And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken, And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black, Seeming to lick his lips, And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air, And slowly turned his head, And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream, Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round And climb again the broken bank ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... struck with him, and later pushed him forward as a holy man, yet for his trouble afterwards found himself swept away, and his successor appointed by Rasputin's own hand. The monk was relentless, overbearing, suspicious of any persons who did him a favour, and at the same time ready to lick the ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... Jeff giv him a lick, Ole Hick'ry'd tried his head to sof'n So 's 't wouldn't hurt thet ebony stick Thet's made our side see stars so of'n? "No!" he'd ha' thundered, "on your knees, An' own one flag, one road to glory! Soft-heartedness, in times like these, Shows sof'ness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... the back of the waggon and pulled at the Impala buck that hung there, and the other came round my way and commenced the sniffing game at my leg. Indeed, he did more than that, for, my trouser being hitched up a little, he began to lick the bare skin with his rough tongue. The more he licked the more he liked it, to judge from his increased vigour and the loud purring noise he made. Then I knew that the end had come, for in another second his file-like tongue would have rasped through the skin of my leg—which was luckily pretty ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... immediately after Russia forced Japan {72} to give up her spoils of victory he was amazed to see the tremendous interest in the military drills in all the Japanese schools. When he asked what it meant, there was one frank answer: "We are getting ready to lick Russia." ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... sledge. Beside it knelt Marx, holding the clumsy head on his knee, and blowing with his crooked mouth into the animal's nostrils. The creature showed its yellow teeth, and put out its bluish tongue as if it wanted to lick him; then the heavy head fell, the dying animal's eyes started from their sockets, its legs grew perfectly stiff, and this time the horse was really dead, while the shafts of the sledge vainly thrust themselves into the air, like the gaping mouth of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... fine manners giving to the pressure of the volcano within. "I can't stand the connection, if you can. Carey was bad enough, but he had some claim beside his coat to rank as a gentleman. This crawling ass, who would lick your boots for sixpence, to have him patting me on the back and calling himself my brother—Good God! it's ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... Get the whine out of your voice and breathe with a wheeze—like this; get up the nearest approach to a deathrattle that you can. Move as if you were badly hurt in your wind—like this. (If you don't do it better'n that, I'll stoush you.) Make your face a bit longer and keep your lips dry—don't lick them, you damned fool!-breathe on them; make 'em dry as chips. That's the only decent pair of breeks you've got, and the only shoon. You're a Presbyterian—not a U.P., the Auld Kirk. Your mate would have come up to the house only—well, you'll have to use the stuffing in your head a bit; you ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... know," replied he, "that I am Ralph Jobson? Why it knew me, and seemed to wag its tail; nay, made as though it would lick my hand." ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... blue jackets," was Young Glory's reflection. "Why, Dan Daly and half a dozen of our fellows would lick the whole crowd." ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott

... eaten I resolved to die up in the tree, and then he would get nothing but my dry bones for his pains. I tried his patience I saw, for he growled and growled louder and more fiercely, and then began to lick his paws, as a baby does its fingers to amuse itself when hungry. Two or three times he began to climb up the tree; but the way in which I flourished the pole in his face, and his recollection that he could not reach me ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston

... heart; thank thy Lord thereof, and love Him therefor: for these, they who thither may win, find treasure of love. Think thou seest His wounds streaming of blood, and falling down on the earth; and fall thou down and lick up that blood sweetly, with tears kissing the earth, with remembrance for that rich treasure, which for thy sins was shed, and say thus with thine heart:—"Why lieth this blood here as if lost, and ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole

... the line-of-battle-ship Ohio, lay not far away from the California. How tremendous she looked, with her yards all aslant, and the round, black muzzles of her cannon staring out through her open ports! Nothing could lick ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... was, Judge. There wasn't no money for him to git but mine. He ain't hit a lick of work since God been to Macon. Know whut he 'lowed when I worry him 'bout workin'? Says he wouldn't take a job wid de Careless Love Lumber Company, puttin' out whut make you do me lak you do, ...
— Three Plays - Lawing and Jawing; Forty Yards; Woofing • Zora Neale Hurston

... nevertheless, whispered that Robbie was the favored sweetheart among many of Matthew Branthwaite's young daughter Liza; but the old man, who had never been remarkable for sensibility, had said over and over again, "She'll lick a lean poddish stick, Bobbie, that weds the like of thee." Latterly the young man had in a silent way shown some signs of reform. He had not, indeed, given up the good ale to which his downfall had been attributed; but when he came to the Red Lion he seemed to sleep more of his time ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... sort made John Kars the richest guy in Leaping Horse. It ain't that play set him doping around 'inside' where there ain't much else but cold, and skitters, and gold. It ain't that play set him crazy to make Bell River with an outfit to lick a bunch of scallawag neches. No, sir. He's wise to the value of dollars in a world where there's nothing much else counts. There ain't no joy to life without 'em. An' you just can't live life without joy. If you're fixed that way, why, you'll ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... desirous of drinking the Amrita. They saw that the bed of kusa grass whereon the Amrita had been placed was empty, the Amrita itself having been taken away by a counter-act of deception. And they began to lick with their tongues the kusa grass, as the Amrita had been placed thereon. And the tongues of the snakes by that act became divided in twain. And the kusa grass, too, from the contact with Amrita, became sacred thenceforth. Thus did the illustrious Garuda bring Amrita ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... around. She saw that the dirt on the windows was all on the outside. The inside was clean. So was the room. So were the curtains. The room needed a dusting—a most thorough dusting. It had been given a haphazard lick-and-a-promise cleanup not too long ago, but the cleanup before that had been as desultory as the last, and without a doubt the one before and the one before that had been of the same sort of half-hearted cleaning. As a woman and a housekeeper, ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... Dat belong to skipper, and better ask him. If he do n't gib you lick in de chop, p'rhaps ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he can be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... the centre of which was graced by a large pile of manure in an advanced stage of decomposition. Outside the square of buildings was a moat full of green slime and mosquito larvae. Here the men washed, and here, too, our buckets were filled each morning for the "lick and a promise" that served as a substitute ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry

... if you lick us tomorrow?" asked Kennedy. Such indifference on the part of a house-master respecting the fortunes of his house seemed to him, having before him the bright example of ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... burning all night to scare him out uh the coulee, and they're going to break camp to-day and hike for home. They say he give a screech that'd put a crimp in the devil himself, and went galloping off, jumping about twenty feet at a lick. And—" ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... what a man's family was," the General said stoutly, "so long as he's a fine, well-made, soldierly fellow, like this Ingledew body, capable of fighting for his Queen and country. He's an Australian, I suppose. What tall chaps they do send home, to be sure! Those Australians are going to lick us all round ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... pride—such as Mr. Malone and Mr. Donne knows nought about. Theirs is mucky pride. Now, I shall teach my lasses to be as proud as Miss Shirley there, and my lads to be as proud as myseln; but I dare ony o' 'em to be like t' curates. I'd lick little Michael if I seed him show any signs o' ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... not tell you, madam." Keggs paused, reluctant to deal the final blow, as a child lingers lovingly over the last lick of ice-cream in a cone. "I last saw her at about five o'clock, driving off with Mr. Winfield in ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... his father smiled. "He's grown so big he can lick his old dad. Well, let me tell you, my young jackanapes, that if anybody has said anything against ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... its height, the pent-up kine Are driven from their flails to take the air. How stupidly they stare! and feel how strange! They open wide their smoking mouths to low, But scarcely can their feeble sound be heard; Then turn and lick themselves, and step by step Move dull and heavy to their flails again. In scatter'd groups the little idle boys With purple fingers, moulding in the snow Their icy ammunition, pant for war; And, drawing up in opposite array, Send forth a mighty fliower ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie

... To "lick the butter," in proverbial phraseology, is to supplant a person in business, or so interfere with his arrangements ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop

... now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take it. Say to him, 'This is the message of Jehovah, "Have you killed and also taken his vineyard? In the very place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth there they shall also lick your blood."'" Ahab said to Elijah, "Have you found me, O my enemy?" He answered, "I have. And Jehovah has declared: 'The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the district of Jezreel.'" When Ahab heard those words, he tore ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... constitution 'ill dae the rest,' and he carried the lad doon the ladder in his airms like a bairn, and laid him in his bed, and waits aside him till he wes sleepin', and then says he: 'Burnbrae, yir a gey lad never tae say "Collie, will ye lick?" for a' hevna tasted ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren

... looked longingly at them. And then almost before he knew it himself he had snatched one of the sausages from the fire and had bitten a piece off the end! It was so very hot that it burned both his fingers and his tongue like everything, and when he tried to lick his fingers, he let go of the sausage, and Argos snapped it up and swallowed it whole. It burned all the way down to his stomach, and Argos gave a dreadful howl of pain and dashed through the door out into the farm-yard. Dion heard his Mother's footsteps coming down ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins

... and new, and then the food! I never, I think, so fully appreciated the phrase "the fat of the land" as I have done since I have been here installed. There was a dish of eggs at dejeuner the other day, over the memory of which I lick my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... her arms she hugged him, while he tried to lick her face. He was some comfort after all, and his presence ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... officers while on shore a few days ago; and you shall pay the penalty of your insult. I'll lick you; I'll be damned if I ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... picked the thing up and started again, and at once my hand began to slip away from its hold (nightmare sensation exactly). I bent my head down, managed to lick my hand without raising it, and stiffened the muscles of my arm. We were watched, once more, by a million eyes—again I stepped on a head of hair buried somewhere in the ground. Then some voice cried shrilly: "Ah! Ah!" ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... You see, without your aid. We have dislodged their troops; They look on us at distance, and, like curs 'Scaped from the lion's paws, they bay far off, And lick their wounds, and faintly threaten war. Five thousand Romans, with their faces upward, Lie ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... called Miss Crawley; and there, I am sorry to say, his younger brother Rawdon used to lick him violently. But though his parts were not brilliant, he made up for his lack of talent by meritorious industry, and was never known, during eight years at school, to be subject to that punishment which it is generally thought none but a cherub ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... father! Forgive! Down, Watch!' cried Hal, falling down at his feet, with one arm holding down Watch, who tried to lick his face and ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... him that the next time he talked rot about how much better Claflin is than Brimfield I'd lick him. I gave him fair warning, and he ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour

... and Cupars, have done their best to get her to visit them. I knew better than permit such folly. She would have told all sorts of things, and raised the country-side against me; though, really, no one will ever know what I have gone through in my efforts to lick ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... lessons on the sewing machine lately—eh, old chap?" inquired Joe. "We know all about you, Magnus minor and I. There's fellows at our school could lick you into a cocked hat. You come to our sports ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... Starr called. Pat came running in long leaps, nearly wagging himself in two because someone he liked was going to be nice to him. Starr petted him and talked to him and pulled his ears and slapped him on the ribs, and Pat in his joy persisted in trying to lick Starr's cheek. ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... at him, where the honey was smeared, and began to lick his face with her tongue, and presently thrust her tongue into his mouth. He bore it ill, and bit into the tongue of the she-wolf; she sprang up and tried to break loose, setting her feet against the stock, so as to snap it asunder: but he ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... and precincts, Now the wide, primeval limits Bound neat villages and districts. There are Bryantsville and Fitchport, Buckeye, Logan Town and Tyro, Duncan Town and Buena Vista, Hyattville, Paint Lick, and Lowell, Clustered round the mother city, The fair city on the hillside; Clustered 'mid the charming bowers Of the Garrard county woodlands. Now the wild flower's timid blooming Colors distant fields and by-ways, And the city's rare exotics, ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... duty of prosecuting opinions not your own overrode the private duty of respecting confidence. Most of the Monkshaven politicians confined themselves, therefore, to such general questions as these: 'Could an Englishman lick more than four Frenchmen at a time?' 'What was the proper punishment for members of the Corresponding Society (correspondence with the French directory), hanging and quartering, or burning?' 'Would the forthcoming child of the Princess of Wales be a boy or a girl? If a girl, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... "Not a lick of it, Conseil my friend," the harpooner replied. "But keep going, because you fill me ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... manner of hunting large game is usually by ambush. As most of his victims are more fleet of foot than he, he does not undertake to run them down in the open, but if he can get them at disadvantage in thick cover, or at the lick, ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... child. You haven't got the excuse that you're training her. And you know she can't hit you. You're a good fighter, but I notice you don't hit Peter Knight or Charleton Falkner, any time they peeve you a little. It was all right to lick me and Jude when we were little. But now I warn you. I'm going to hit back. And you got to leave ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... not necessary for the purpose of the present narrative to say how he did it. He had done it, and that is why he bought the Hill of Whernside and about a thousand acres around it and built an Observatory on the top with which, to use his own words, he meant to lick Creation by seeing further into Creation than anyone else had done, and that is just what his great reflector had enabled ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... and if you get anything very good to eat, think of me. I should like a drop of sweet red christening wine myself.' All this, however, was untrue; the cat had no cousin, and had not been asked to be godmother. She went straight to the church, stole to the pot of fat, began to lick at it, and licked the top of the fat off. Then she took a walk upon the roofs of the town, looked out for opportunities, and then stretched herself in the sun, and licked her lips whenever she thought of the pot of fat, and not until it was evening ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... the Alleghanies westward, where we shall find a thickly-wooded country. As we proceed onwards, entering Kentucky, we reach a spot of great geological interest, called the Big-bone Lick. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... as soon allow a dog to lick his face as he would think of eating pork in public with his women folk; so the bearded, hook-nosed believers in the Prophet who looked down from the rock wall that lines one side of Adra knew what to think of Curley and his friend Joe Byng long before either of them realized that they ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... melted away before blue distances swimming with light. Still bareheaded, Jack looked into the face of the sun which heaved above an irregular roof of rocks. It blazed into the range on the other side of the valley. It slaked its thirst with the slight fall of dew as a great, red tongue would lick up crumbs. Sun and sky, cactus and sagebrush, rock and dry earth and sand, that was all. Nowhere in that stretch of basin that seemed without end was there a sign of any other ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... unnoticed, through a window, and has just time to give himself a hurried lick down before he hears the cook's step on the stairs. When she enters the kitchen he is curled up on the hearthrug, fast asleep. The opening of the shutters awakes him. He rises and comes ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... washing. If Crows make a great Noise in the Evening, if Geese gaggle more than usual, these are all Signs of Rain, because these Animals love wet Weather, and rejoice at the approach of it. On the other Hand, if Oxen lie on their Right Sides, look towards the South, and lick their Hoofs, if Cows look up in the Air, and snuff it, if Asses bray violently, and if Cocks crow at unusual Hours, but especially when a Hen and Chickens crowd into the House, these are sure ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge

... talk o' gin and beer When you're quartered safe out 'ere, An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it; But when it comes to slaughter You will do your work on water, An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... girl at this house, and one day, while I was struggling rapidly with a piece of mince-pie, I was so unfortunate as to wink slightly at her. The rash act was discovered by a yellow-haired party, who stated that she was to be his wife ere long, and that he "expected" he could lick any party who winked at her. A cursory examination of his frame convinced me that he could lick me with disgustin ease, so I told him it was a complaint of the eyes. "They are both so," I added, "and they have been so from infancy's hour. See here!" And I ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne

... and the whole North rose in fury. It was the silliest act ever committed. The South, with one-third of the votes, had two-thirds of all the civil, military, and naval appointments, and every other new State, and withal half of the North, ready to lick its boots, and still was not satisfied. It could not go without giving us a thrashing. And that was the drop too much. So we fought. And we conquered; but how? It was all expressed in a few words, which ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... Aldershot business. How on earth did you manage to lick Allen like that? I thought he was ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... pushes in the old familiar way; but more often than not the upstart who has won his way to wealth and consideration finds himself to his own surprise courted and fawned upon by those whose boots his abilities would have fitted him to black, and his disposition prompted him to lick. Noble sportsmen are proud to be seen in his company, aristocratic guinea-pigs are constantly in his pocket in the congenial society of the great man's purse, art willingly reproduces his features, journalism enthusiastically commemorates his adventures, and even Royalty does not thrust away ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... rather like it. It opens up many strictly practical ideas. It adds very much to the value of the land. For instance, a 'salt-lick,' as your sweet Yankees call it—and set up an infirmary for foot and mouth disease. And better still, the baths, the baths, my dear. No expense for piping, or pumping, or any thing. Only place your ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... I said to him, 'we've been together thirty years, but we've got to part. You're a drunkard and a thief and a worthless darky all round, and you've lived on my place ever since the war without doing a lick of work for your keep. I've stood it as long as I can, but there's an end to human endurance. Yes, Amos, the time has come ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... came to Jacob, his friendship to require, I drew near and near till I came to the fire: There hard beside me stood the pottage-pot, Even as God would have it, neither cold nor hot; Good simple Jacob could not turn his back so thick, But I at the ladle got a gulp or a lick; So that, ere I went, I made a very good meal, And din'd better cheap than Esau a good deal. But here cometh ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley

... brook and find slides for yourselves. You shan't use ours," cried Charlie, as shaking his fist at the two girls, he added, "I'll lick you both if ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester

... you expect? I had to do something. I'll lick it if you like, but I'd rather not. No particular ill-feeling, you understand; all the same ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James

... in state, as though to pay A last, sad tribute there, while neighbors craned Their heads above the high board fence, and deigned To sigh "Poor Dog!" remembering how they Had cuffed him, when alive, perchance, because, For love of them he leaped to lick their hands— Now, that he could not, were they satisfied? We children thought that, as we crossed his paws, And o'er his grave, 'way down the bottom-lands, Wrote "Our First Love Lies ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley

... Sydenham. One day out in a country lane I met Theresa Wright, her old maid. She told me all about her, about him, about everything. I tell you, gentlemen, it nearly drove me mad. This drunken hound, that he should dare to raise his hand to her, whose boots he was not worthy to lick! I met Theresa again. Then I met Mary herself—and met her again. Then she would meet me no more. But the other day I had a notice that I was to start on my voyage within a week, and I determined that I would see her once before I left. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... "Yes, you think you are a marvelous fellow, but you are only a childish boy, just like the rest of them, only at times a bit worse. You always want to play the young gentleman, but young gentlemen don't lick honey from their plates, or at least don't deny it if they have done so, in fact they never tell lies. Not long ago I heard you prating about honor, but I want to tell you, that doesn't look to me like honor." She ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... bloody kin—thou shalt be drunken with the blood of thy wives; and thy end shall be a fearful one. Thou shalt linger out a living death—a mass of breathing corruption shalt thou become—and when dead the very hounds with which thou huntedst me shall lick thy blood!" ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Naboth's vineyard, whither he hath gone To take possession. Thou shalt speak to him, Saying, Thus saith the Lord! What! hast thou killed And also taken possession? In the place Wherein the dogs have licked the blood of Naboth Shall the dogs lick thy blood,—ay, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... will have to take keer of her now," said Jimmy; "she surely will miss her pa. He never done a lick of work since I knowed him, but he was a nice, quiet old fellow, and he certainly was good to ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice

... General Stoneman from East Tennessee got off on the 20th of March, moving by way of Boone, North Carolina, and struck the railroad at Wytheville, Chambersburg, and Big Lick. The force striking it at Big Lick pushed on to within a few miles of Lynchburg, destroying the important bridges, while with the main force he effectually destroyed it between New River and Big Lick, and then turned for Greensboro', ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... know exactly how—but they would inflict a deadly blow upon haughty England. At this point Mr. CHANDLER became incoherent, the only intelligible remark which reached the reporters, being that he could "lick" ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various

... the longest speech that Jake had ever made, and he paused to lick his dry lips for ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass

... should the poor be flattered? No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, Where thrift may follow fawning. Hamlet, Act iii. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... too short a journey, when, putting his hand on the mare's bridle—the creature loved him, and turned to lick his arm the minute he came near—John stopped me to see the view from across ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... fust, then if you lick me, you can 'ave a go at 'im. If you can't lick me, 'ow can ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs

... Jim, if de boys got to have water 'foh dey kin lick dem Injun, an' you 'sist on me goin,' 'cose den I'll ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... greatest drinkers, by any means. I was once looking for an American, and asked a friend of his, where I should find him. "Why," replied he, pointing to an hotel opposite, "that is his licking place, (a term borrowed from deer resorting to lick the salt:) we will see if he is there." He was not; the bar-keeper said he had left about ten minutes. "Well, then, you had better remain here, he is certain to be back in ten more—if not sooner." The American judged his friend rightly; in five minutes he was ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... under the arm-pits, and his hind legs dangle. He continues to lick his chops and looks at me sardonically. He is stolid over his cups—which is somewhat disappointing. No matter; he can be shaken ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... no hands at all," said I, "fair damsel, only by looking at me: I never saw such a face and figure, both regal—why, you look like Ingeborg, Queen of Norway; she had twelve brothers, you know, and could lick them all, ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... foreign women are!" exclaims Eleanor, "so short, plump, and round. Why, even our miller's daughters could lick them into fits." ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... such partings must come. I love this one because he was with me in fear and sadness. He used to cling to me, and look up and lick my face, as if he were telling me to hope, when my brother seemed ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... public is a pack of idiots to run after people who merely keep them loitering about while they feather their own nests. We are out to lick the Germans, and yours is not the way ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... one amend all this if one had the power? Alas! it could only be by silencing all stupid and clumsy people, all rigid parents, all diplomatic priests, all the horrible natures who lick their lips with a fierce zest over the pains that befall the men with whom they do not agree. I would teach a child, in defiance even of reason, that God is the one Power that loves and understands him through ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... butts, to be sent out, would recommend putting two ounces of ground rice into each barrel which will create briskness, and much improve the beer. Ran the small beer into the hop back of the strong beer, and so on the coolers, thereby giving it a chance to lick up all the strong ale it met with in its progress to the tun, which it entered at 65 with three gallons of yest, and was cleansed within thirty-six hours. The quantity of beer here mentioned would be much improved by the addition of six or seven pounds of brown ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... whose face was disfigured by many blotches and pimples, had just brought the tobacco for a cigarette into a shapely cylinder but when spoken to he undid his handiwork meditatively. Then he began to roll the tobacco again meditatively and after a moment's thought decided to lick ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... "it's meself that thinks Mister Dubrosc won't throuble any ov us any more. It was a purty lick that same, ayquil to ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... horse I could not deceive, for as soon as his back was toward them, head and tail went up, and there was snort after snort. He could not run, as we were still in the alkali lick. I looked back and saw that the big gray beasts were slowly moving toward us, and I recognized the fact that the mud would not stop them, if they chose to cross it. Once free of the awful stickiness, I knew that we would be out of danger, as the swiftest wolf could never overtake ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... now," replied Frank. "Our men and our guns and our tanks and everything else we need to lick the Kaiser will be coming in droves pretty soon. ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall

... doth Lisboa[43] first unfold![as] Her image floating on that noble tide, Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold,[at] But now whereon a thousand keels did ride Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied, And to the Lusians did her aid afford: A nation swoln with ignorance and pride,[44] Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword[au] To save them from the wrath of Gaul's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... trick," he muttered, more than half angry now, flinging himself to his feet. "White man's fightin' I c'n lick every inch of you from red ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... disappointed. He'd planned on spendin' a couple of hundred thousand or so of Pyramid's money at one lick, you see, which would have been some haul for him, and my turnin' the scheme down so prompt was a hard blow. He continued to argue the case for ten minutes ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... you can lick me every time. Besides, I wouldn't want to be able to lick you—except when I'm very, very angry. And I ought not to become angry the way I do. Kathleen tries so hard to make me stop and reflect before I do things, but I can't seem to learn.... ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... up, too? Then you have been hit hard. But atter all, my boy, a lick that ain't hard don't count fur much. Understand I believe in yo' Book all right, but not as the most of 'em reads it. The most of 'em reads it so as to make you do the things you don't want to do, and ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read

... shake herself, walk off a few rods, return and lie down again by my side. I did not know what to make of it, unless the excitement of the day had been too much for her sensitive nerves. I spoke to her kindly and petted her. In response she would rub her nose against me, and lick my hand with her tongue—a peculiar habit of hers—like a dog. As I was passing my hand over her head, I discovered that it was hot, and the thought of the old wound flashed into my mind, with a momentary fear that something might be ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray

... into a pillar of salt. Possibly, if the truth were known, Lot's wife desired to be turned into a pillar of salt—who can tell? Janet, walking along so unrelated and ineffectual, rather fancied that she herself might want to be turned into a salt-lick (she had passed one all worn hollow as the stone of Mecca by the tongues of many Pilgrims); because if she were such a thing she would not be so utterly useless and foolish under the eye of heaven. But still she kept trudging along, feeling the ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... and it was against my father's religious principles to lick us on Sunday—that was one of the compensations, youthful compensations of that holy day—but Monday wasn't far off, and father's memory was remarkably acute. Ah, those sad times, but there was fun in ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... mindin' y'r own business, and not come interfarin' wid me. She's my gal, and I've a right to lick her if ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... a reprover he acted in the most prudent and gaining manner, when he did lick with his tongue the mote out of his brother's eye, he did it with all tenderness, and with the tear in his own. His words wanted neither point nor edge for drawing the blood, when the case of the offender made it an indispensable duty; ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... time have I seen him placidly extended before a fire, while puss used his shaggy body as a sleeping box, and once he was observed to help that anxious tabby-mother with the toilet of her kittens by licking them carefully all over. At every lick of Rufus's huge prehensile tongue a kitten was lifted bodily into the air, only, however, to descend washed and unharmed to the ground. But out of doors, in the society of Flick, Rufus's whole nature seemed to change. He became ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various

... time, and she'll make a casus belli, right enough, when the time comes. Of course, she'd have taken advantage of the position last year, but she simply wasn't ready. If you ask me, I believe she thinks herself now able to lick the whole of Europe. I am not at all sure, thanks to Busby and our last fifteen years' military administration, that she wouldn't have a good chance of doing it. Any way, I am not going to have my fleet ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... ye divvle, and I cajo lick ye if ye wor Fin-mac-Coul himself," he panted; and Graham gave it judiciously, this time on the point of the jaw. For five bloody minutes it went on, give and take, down and up; methodically on Graham's part, fiery hot ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... he'll lick him sure. See that lunge? My, what a shaking he gave him that time!" George was a dancing Dervish by this time. Then noticing the guns for the first time, seized one ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... war's rough game Unmeet: but peace and battle-fray Found thee, their centre, still the same. Grim Cerberus wagg'd his tail to see Thy golden horn, nor dream'd of wrong, But gently fawning, follow'd thee, And lick'd ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace



Words linked to "Lick" :   counter, flail, work out, answer, rabbit punch, cream, lam, lap up, sediment, touch, hook, jab, trounce, strike, KO punch, work, infer, stroke, shell, parry, drink, lap, drub, slug, vanquish, Sunday punch, knockout punch, bat, crush, punch, break, counterpunch, tongue, riddle, understand, reason



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