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Piebald   Listen
adjective
Piebald  adj.  
1.
Having spots and patches of black and white, or other colors; mottled; pied. "A piebald steed of Thracian strain."
2.
Fig.: Mixed. "Piebald languages."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Piebald" Quotes from Famous Books



... many odd characters in the piebald band, of which I had the honour to be chief, not the least odd was one who answered to the euphonious name of "Elijah Quackenboss." He was a mixture of Yankee and German, originating somewhere in the mountains of Pennsylvania. He had been a schoolmaster among ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... white as snow—there, a Barber had run against a Parson, and falling along with him, had dropped a pot of pomatum from his apron-pocket on the reverend gentleman's eye, and left a mark in perfect unison with the colour of his garments before the disaster, but which were now of a piebald nature, neither black nor white. A barrow of nuts, overturned in one place, afforded fine amusement for the scrambling boys and girls—a Jew old clothes-man swore upon his conscience he had losht the pest pargain vhat ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... think,' said the shameless Kim. 'Spread it also on the breast. It may be her father will tear my clothes off me, and if I am piebald—' ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... anything in his life as much as the all too brief moment in which, leaning from his mistress's lap in the prow of the flying "Bollee," he barked hysterically in the wake of the piebald dog, who, in all its dolorous career had never before had the awful experience of being chased by a motor-car. It darted in at the open door of the lodge; the pursuers pulled up outside. There were paraffin lamps in the windows, the open door was garlanded ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... fond of animals, and, besides her canary, whose cage hung on a nail in the massive wall of the keep by day, to the great annoyance of prisoners who relished an after-dinner nap, and was shrouded in an antimacassar on the parlour table at night, she kept several piebald mice and a restless revolving squirrel. This kind-hearted girl, pitying the misery of Toad, said to her father one day, "Father! I can't bear to see that poor beast so unhappy, and getting so thin! You let me have the managing ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... these. Pass the patient three times under the belly, and three times over the back of a donkey. Split a sapling or a branch of the ash tree, and hold the split open while the patient is passed three times through the opening. Find a man riding on a piebald horse, and ask him what should be given as a medicine, and whatever he prescribes will prove a certain cure. "I recollect," says Jamieson, "a friend of mine that rode a piebald horse, that he used to be pursued by people running after ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... looking ludicrously piebald after his ink bath, 'before resuming duties I wish to draw your attention to the crass foolishness of which our young friends Haddon and McKnight are guilty. You perceive that their ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... that prairie schooner, Said that they was friends of hisn, Like to wore me plumb to frazzles With his everlasting quiz'n. Rode a piebald, knock-kneed broncho; Coat was battered, ripped, and torn; He was yaller, long, and g'anted Like a steer with holler horn. An' you oughter seen his breeches! He must sure be shy on sense; Why, they looked like he'd been riding On a ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker

... himself in the position of a circus-rider who, with one foot on the white horse—which was Honour—and the other on the piebald—which was duty and a King's instructions,—has lost control of their heads and feels his unhappy legs drawn wider and wider apart with every stride. And in the emergency La Mothe did exactly what the ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... until the Lintogup party's return, to take a long drive around Misamis, and if we had time to even go so far as its four outposts. On the previous day the presidente had unearthed a queer little carriage out of a junk heap, and put this conveyance and a wise looking piebald pony at our disposal. The carriage was an odd affair between a calesa and carromata in shape, or like a high surrey with a small seat for the driver in front. It was beautifully clean, with a new bit of carpet at our feet, and ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner, galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourning coach. Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bachelors. Dun for ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... Cattle Market. The head of the Hanbridge part of the procession consisted of an enormous car of Jupiter, with six wheels and thirty-six paregorical figures (as the clown used to say), and drawn by six piebald steeds guided by white reins. This coach had a windowed interior (at the greater fairs it sometimes served as a box-office) and in the interior one of the delegates of the Signal had fixed himself; from it he directed ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... two or three small tents, and one large one, in which the horses were stabled. Dumpty longed to stop and talk to a dear little piebald pony, but Humpty carried her on till they ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... angry at this decision, and broke down the fences of her rice fields, and filled up the water sluices, and defiled her garden. And as she sat with her maidens in the weaving hall, he broke a hole in the roof and dropped upon them a piebald horse which he had flayed with a ...
— Japan • David Murray

... her, and not like the women at Nazeby (who all slouched) when I am married. Victorine looked better than usual too, and Heloise had put some powder on her face for her, but afterwards it came off in patches and made her look piebald; however, to start she was all right, and everybody was in a good temper. There were lots of people there already, and the Baronne and the Comtesse received us ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn

... the dog too, and it became a little silky lapdog that could nestle in your palm. Then he changed the old mare into a brisk, piebald palfrey. Then he changed himself so that he became the living image of Ae, the son of the King of Connaught, who had just been married to Ivell of the Shining Cheeks, and then he changed mac an Da'v into the likeness of Ae's attendant, and then they all set off ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... it had never entered into her heart to believe it possible that there could exist a living creature unto whom her society could be otherwise than rapturously welcome. In the cloak-room off the hall she put on two odd shoes, the two which came first to hand, and a piebald sealskin jacket, which, according to tradition, had descended from a great-aunt, and which was known in the household as "The jacket," and worn indiscriminately by whosoever might happen to ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... brother at the fireside at night, poring over some rare novel—he was only a phantom. Between me and the real man there was no bond. He had grown above the valley; I was becoming more and more a part of it, like the lone pine on Gander Knob, or the piebald horse that drew the stage. His clothes alone had made wider the breach between us. At first I had admired him. I was proud of my brother. But Solomon in all his glory was dressed in his best; from Dives ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... palfrey to ride on, and two piebald ponies to draw her little carriage when she wanted to drive; but she had no one of her own age to play with, and often she felt very lonely, and she was always asking her father to bring her ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... the Mayor, "d'ye think I brook 185 Being worse treated than a Cook? Insulted by a lazy ribald With idle pipe and vesture piebald? You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst, Blow your pipe there till you ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... Percival sat there resting and refreshing himself in that wise, there appeared of a sudden coming thitherward, a tall and noble knight riding upon a piebald war-horse of Norway strain. So when Sir Percival beheld that knight coming in that wise he quickly put on his helmet and mounted his horse and made him ready for defence in case the knight had a mind to ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... lovely land of Italy, Whose loveliness was more resplendent made By the mere passing of that cavalcade, With plumes, and cloaks, and housings, and the stir Of jewelled bridle and of golden spur. And lo! among the menials, in mock state, Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait, His cloak of fox-tails flapping in the wind, The solemn ape demurely perched behind, King Robert rode, making huge merriment In all the country ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... repeated denials of the queen, by the artifice of some Englishmen at his court who deluded him by pretended secret intelligence,—had sent to her majesty a royal present, and declared his intention of following in person. The present consisted of eighteen large piebald horses, and two ship-loads of precious articles which are not particularized. It does not appear that this offering was ill-received; but as Elizabeth was determined not to relent in favor of the sender, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... who came into the room first, his white shirt dyed with blood in great patches like the colour on a piebald horse. A cut in his cheek was slowly dripping. He went straight to a sofa covered in gorgeous yellow satin, and ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... the open gate, a gay grotesque rider reined in a piebald pony, and leaning down, handed to the house-boy a ribbon of scarlet paper. Behind him, to the clash of cymbals, a file of men in motley robes swaggered into position, wheeled, and formed the ragged front of a Falstaff regiment. Overcome by the scarlet ribbon, the long-coated ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... these, the silver grey, with black mane and tail, claims the highest place. Brown is rather exceptionable, on account of its dulness. Black is not much admired; though, as we think, when of a deep jet, remarkably elegant. Roan, sorrel, dun, piebald, mouse, and even cream colour (however appropriate the latter may be for a state-carriage-horse) are ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous

... infantry patrol skirted the frontier line every morning in the gray dawn, occasionally exchanging with little result a few shots with the French outposts on the Spicheren or down in the valley bounded by the Schoenecken wood. The Uhlans, their piebald lance-pennants fluttering in the wind, cantered leisurely round the crests of the little knolls which formed the vedette posts, despising mightily the straggling chassepot bullets which were pitched at them from time to time in a desultory way; but which, desultory ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... and an hour later Nejdanov sat by his side on the broad leather-cushioned seat of his comfortable old carriage. The little coachman on the box kept on whistling in wonderfully pleasant bird-like notes; three piebald horses, with plaited manes and tails, flew like the wind over the smooth even road; and already enveloped in the first shadows of the night (it was exactly ten o'clock when they started), trees, bushes, fields, meadows, ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... shears ever been near their manes or tails. Their coats were long, thick, and filled with dirt; their manes and tails of prodigious length, and matted together in inextricable knots. They were of all colours, and within certain limits of all sizes. Brown, bay, black, piebald, grey, and sorrel. There was no lack of variety; and Mr. Lloyd and Bert wandered up and down the long line as they stood tethered to the wall, scrutinising them closely, and sorely puzzled as to which ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... shall serve!" said Lewis an instant later; for they brought out two handsome horses, one coal-black, the other piebald, both mettlesome and high-strung. ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... flowing over the rustling corn, the song would reach his ear with an augmented volume and distinctness that made the unseen singer seem for the moment a hundred yards nearer than he really was. At length, right leisurely, they crept in sight—Cornwallis first, with his piebald face; then, as the old horse would dip his head to nibble at the green blades under his nose, short glimpses of Burl, though for awhile no further down than his enormous coon-skin cap, made, it is said, of the biggest raccoon that was ever trapped, treed, or shot in the Paradise. But presently, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... looked round on my first-night audience with a kind of wonder, discovered—as all new Dramatic Critics do—that it rested with me to reform the Drama, and, after a supper choked with emotion, went off to the office to write a column, piebald with "new paragraphs" (as all my stuff is—it fills out so) and purple ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... advancing the vast herd of oxen, some white, others red, some black with lighter spots, others piebald, others brindled. They were of all colours and all sizes. They passed by, lifting up their lustrous mouths whence hung filaments of saliva, opening their great, gentle eyes; the more impatient, smelling ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... but the best for his country, and therefore took the liberty to interfere, in the most arbitrary manner, even in the details of the property and business of private persons. He ordered, for instance, that no he-goat should run with the ewes; that all colored sheep, gray, black, or piebald, should be completely disposed of within three years, and only fine white wool be tolerated; he prescribed exactly how the copper standard measures of the Berlin bushel, which he had sent all over ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... impression that you got of his head was that it was a patchwork of black and white—black bushy hair and short white beard, or else the other way about. As a matter of fact, both hair and beard were piebald, so that if you saw him in the gloom a dim patch of white showed down one side of his head, and dark tufts cropped up here and there in his beard. His eyebrows alone were entirely black, with a little sprouting of hair almost joining them. And perhaps his skin helped to make me think of negroes, ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... the angry maiden, whose headstrong passion led her to speak first in answer to the last insult offered, "is no jargon like your piebald English, half Norman, half Saxon, but a noble Gothic tongue, spoken by the brave warriors who fought against the Roman Kaisars, when Britain bent the neck to them—and as for this he has said of Wilkin Flammock," she continued, collecting her ideas into ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... then, still running, he would top another summit until at last he was lost in a black canyon. It was different from the rest, its huge flank veiled in shadow until it was black as the entrance to a cavern; and the piebald point that crowned its southern rim was touched with a broad splash of white. Wilhelmina marked it well and then she turned back with crazy schemes ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge

... thirteen hands high, stoutly made, with good hind quarters, thick necks, well-shaped heads, and tremendously bushy manes. Their feet and fetlocks are particularly good, or they could not stand the journeys. There were black, white, brown, chesnut, or piebald, but we did not see a single roan amongst them; a very quaint group they made standing quietly there, laden with every conceivable kind of saddle or pack. Many of the smaller ones were almost hidden by the size of the sacks, filled with goods, which ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... half-past one to a quarter to five to see our shadow go over heaven. I didn't see much, the sky was too piebald: but I was not disappointed, as I had never watched the darkness into dawn like that before: and it was interesting to hear all the persons awaking:—cocks at half-past four, frogs immediately after, then pheasants and various others following. I was cuddled close up against my window, ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous

... sometimes well. In this sense John is certainly misrepresented, for he is pictured as something that none of his own friends or enemies saw. In that sense he was certainly not so black as he is painted, for he lived in a world where every one was piebald. ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... drove along the narrow hill-road a piebald pack-pony with a china-blue eye came round a bend, followed by two women, black-haired, bare-headed, wearing beadwork squaw-jackets, and riding straddle. A string of pack-ponies trotted through ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... "He's only piebald, not black," said Frank, laughing, as he rose to quit the tent. "But I must leave you. I see that Eda's eyes are refusing to keep open any longer, so good-night to you ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... road on that piebald pinto. He come twenty miles out of his way, plumb dressed for a wedding, all to give me an invite to a dance at Fraser's. Y'u would call that real thoughtful ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... Some men, rolling out stout bright-painted barrels which elephants could not crush by sitting on, attracted his attention for a moment. Next, in a pause on the part of the man who led him, he regarded with huge interest a piebald Shetland pony. It lay on the ground. A man sat on it. And ever and anon it lifted its head from the sawdust and kissed the man. This was all Michael saw, yet he sensed something wrong about it. He knew not why, had no evidence why, but he felt cruelty and power and unfairness. What ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... coming, say what is to become of him: once in Konigsberg, I shall have the pleasure to see him. "A detachment of five-and-twenty Saxon Dragoons of the Regiment Arnstedt, marching towards Dantzig, met me: their horses were in tolerable case; but some are piebald, some sorrel, and some brown among them," which will be shocking to your Majesty, "and the people ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... belief in Devonshire, Cornwall, and some other parts of England, that if one inquired of any one riding on a piebald horse of a remedy for this complaint, whatever he named was regarded as an infallible cure. In Suffolk and Norfolk, a favorite remedy was to put the head of a suffering child for a few minutes into a hole made in a meadow. It must ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... that no butter or lard, &c. is required, their own fat being sufficient to fry them: we have tried it; the sausages were partially scorched, and had that piebald appearance that all fried things have when sufficient fat ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... the step and drew up the rags that hung upon the limb. Above the distorted shoe, caked with the dust of a hundred leagues, they saw the link and the iron band. The clothes of the tramp were wreaked to piebald tatters by sun and rain and wear. A mat of brown, tangled hair and beard covered his head and face, out of which his eyes stared distractedly. Grandemont noticed that he carried in one ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... upon his shoulder the silver-studded sword, and took a mighty spear in his hand. But the great Pelian spear he took not, for that no man but Achilles might wield. Then Automedon yoked the horses to the chariot, Bayard and Piebald, and with them in the side harness, Pedasus; and they two were deathless steeds, but ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... he explained; "only, you see, there's no Kafirs, kiddy. Every nigger that had ever seen a boat was snapped up a week ago, when the big flit was happening. That dead-scared crowd that cleared out then took every single sailorman to ferry 'em down the coast—white, black, and piebald. And the plain truth of it is, 'Carnacion, I've been up and down this old rabbit-warren of a city since sun-down, looking for a sailor, an' the only one I could hear of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... spot, Leo was seen to emerge from the deep, dripping with pink and white foam like a very water-god. Oblooria followed instantly, like a piebald water-nymph. The boat had not been upset, though overwhelmed, and they had held on to it with the tenacity of ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... "Meanwhile," he said, "having no flying ships and no new crusades to prove our mettle, we spend ourselves on such errands as we have, or beat the air vainly—like the pigeons. Were it not that a man owes loyalty to his house and to his King I would enlist under the piebald banner of the Templars. But my brother and I have set ourselves to win back the place that our fathers lost, and until that is done I have ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... buff, many of the branches having a piebald aspect, or mottled with dark purple patches; when wetted these portions present a beautiful crimson colour. Polypidom five or six inches high, rising with a strong, tapering, longitudinally grooved stem, ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... brewed for that meal. Then Ragnar and Erik came up, and, when they saw the smoke issuing from the cottage, entered and went to sit at meat. When they were at table, and Kraka's son and stepson were about to eat together, she put before them a small dish containing a piebald mess, part looking pitchy, but spotted with specks of yellow, while part was whitish: the pottage having taken a different hue answering to the different appearance of the snakes. And when each had tasted a single morsel, Erik, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... the paper, and, tucking it under my arm, hurried on to the surgery, promising myself a mental feast of watercress; but as I opened the door I found myself confronted by a corpulent woman of piebald and pimply aspect who saluted me with a deep groan. It was the lady from the coal shop ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... a Vicar. There are vicars and vicars, and of all sorts I love an innovating vicar—a piebald progressive professional reactionary—the least. But the Vicar of Cheasing Eyebright was one of the least innovating of vicars, a most worthy, plump, ripe, and conservative-minded little man. It is becoming to go back a little ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... away as too large and too boisterous for his house, replacing them by pugs and King Charles spaniels and whatever other breeds of dog were the smallest. His father's stable was also sold. For his own use, whether riding or driving, he had six black Shetland ponies, with four very choice piebald animals ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... o' this argument the gunner protrudes his ram-bow from 'is cabin, an' brings it all to an 'urried conclusion with some remarks suitable to 'is piebald warrant-rank. Navigatin' thence under easy steam, an' leavin' Antonio to re-sling his little foreign self, my large flat foot comes in detonatin' contact with a small objec' on the deck. Not 'altin' for the obstacle, nor changin' step, I shuffles it along under the ball ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... unusually big and strong fellow, larger even than his fair companion above ground. His hair is short, black, and curly, as are his beard and whiskers, but at this moment his whole head and face are so besmeared with clay that his aspect is piebald and not more becoming than his attitude. Still, there is a massive grandeur in the outline of his features which cannot be destroyed by incrustations of clay, although his ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... big piebald calico mules, and when we charged those Indians, those pack mules outran every saddle horse which we had, and dashing into their horse herd, scattered them like partridges. Nearly every buck was riding a stolen horse, and for some cause ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... bent on the combatants, that Kate Peyton and her horse seemed to have sprung out of the very earth. And there she sat, pale as ashes, on the steaming piebald, and glanced ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... which is a puppy of the most orthodox puppy type. Then there is Jack, the terrier, and Sailor Boy, the Chesapeake Bay dog; and Eli, the most gorgeous macaw, with a bill that I think could bite through boiler plate, who crawls all over Ted, and whom I view with dark suspicion; and Jonathan, the piebald rat, of most friendly and affectionate nature, who also crawls all over everybody; and the flying squirrel, and two kangaroo rats; not to speak of Archie's pony, Algonquin, who is the most absolute pet ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt

... to be introduced. For this reason a good hotel cannot be supported. After the dinner, which went off with a good deal of fun and mirth, some of the party "chartered ponies for a cruise" in the interior of the island. Penang is remarkable for piebald ponies. ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall

... attention is paid to colours, the best being the dark rich bay ("red" of Arabs) with black points, or the flea-bitten grey (termed Azrakblue or Akhzargreen) which whitens with age. The worst are dun, cream coloured, piebald and black, which last are very rare. Yet according to the Mishkat al- Masabih (Lane 2, 54) Mohammed said, 'The best horses are black (dark brown?) with white blazes (Arab. "Ghurrah") and upper lips; next, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... grand entry into Monkshaven, with all the pomp of colour and of noise that it could muster. Trumpeters in parti-coloured clothes rode first, blaring out triumphant discord. Next came a gold-and-scarlet chariot drawn by six piebald horses, and the windings of this team through the tortuous narrow street were pretty enough to look upon. In the chariot sate kings and queens, heroes and heroines, or what were meant for such; all the ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... again, this time successfully. He began to fasten the girth, and then paused in wonder and thought deeply, for the pin in the buckle would slide to no hole but the first. "Huh! Getting fat, ain't you, piebald?" he demanded with withering sarcasm. "You blow yoreself up any more'n I'll bust you wide open!" heaving up with all his might on the free end of the strap, one knee pushing against the animal's side. The ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... conflicts with previous experience, the more complete must be the evidence which is to justify us in believing it. It is upon this principle that every one carries on the business of common life. If a man tells me he saw a piebald horse in Piccadilly, I believe him without hesitation. The thing itself is likely enough, and there is no imaginable motive for his deceiving me. But if the same person tells me he observed a zebra there, I ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... intimate friends," Archer continued. "Look at the Duke of Hampshire; what a pattern of a fine old English gentleman! He never misses 'the Derby.' 'Archer,' he said to me only yesterday, 'I have been at sixty-five Derbies! appeared on the field for the first time on a piebald pony when I was seven years old, with my father, the Prince of Wales, and Colonel Hanger; and only missing two races—one when I had the measles at Eton, and one in the Waterloo year, when I was with my friend Wellington ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... domesticity he had resigned his humanity and become an automaton, a thing in leading-strings. He had allowed constitutional usage, aye, and constitutional encroachments also, to crush him down. In constitutional usage he was as harnessed and bedizened as the piebald ponies who drew his state-coach when he went each year to open or shut the flood-gates of legislative eloquence. Constitutional usage, determined for him by others, was the bearing-rein that had bowed ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... hand. Twice the Indian fires, the lever of his Henry rifle working like mad, but the bullets whiz harmlessly by; then, with no time to reload, and dreading the coming shock, he ducks quickly over his nimble piebald's neck and strives to lash him out of the way, just as the young officer from ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... Dutchmen worked at the carpentry. Bricks ran short before we got very far, and we had to set to brick-making on the bank of the Labongo, and finish off the walls with green bricks, which gave the place a queer piebald look. ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... SHE must have come on HORSEBACK. A broader highway, however, intersected the trail at a point where the low walls of the Amador rancho came in view. Here he was startled by the apparition of an old-fashioned family carriage drawn by two large piebald mules. But it was unfortunately closed. Then, with a desperate audacity new to his reserved nature, he ranged close beside it, and even stared in the windows. A heavily mantled old woman, whose brown face was in high contrast to her snow-white hair, sat in the back seat. Beside her ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... has arisen in the most diverse kinds of animals with sometimes certain markings or colours peculiar to one group, e.g. dappling in horses, wing bars in pigeons. Thus in various kinds of Mammals and Birds we have white and black, red or yellow, chocolate with various degrees of dilution, and piebald combinations. Why should forms originally so different, as the cat with its striped markings and the rabbit with no markings at all, give rise to the same colour varieties? It seems probable that the reason is that the original form had the small number of pigments ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... had sown and raised a harvest of new plants in the garden; for the rose-trees, emaciated with leaflessness, had each a shadow that twisted on the earth like ground-ivy or climbed the wall like a creeper. Through an orchard piebald with moonbeams and shadow, and a gate, glaring as with new white paint, set in a lichen-grey hedge, they passed out on the grizzled hillside. He did not take her down the path by which she and Marion had ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... Yet, howsoever uninteresting this piebald jargon might seem, it was obviously Miss Wardour's purpose to give it her attention, in preference to yielding Captain M'Intyre an opportunity of renewing their private conversation. So that, after waiting ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... very handsome bird; and these two strains have affected the breed on that ground, and, doubtless, have also had their effect on pheasants in the neighbourhood generally. White broods of pheasants are from time to time hatched on the ground; also piebald varieties are not uncommon. In the year 1898, a cream-coloured specimen was shot. Some of the cocks have at times a decided fringe of blue or purple in their ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... sorrel, white, and piebald, not understanding why they were made to run round in one place and to crush the wheat straw, ran unwillingly as though with effort, swinging their tails with an offended air. The wind raised up perfect clouds ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... before, by what light is it lighted? Oh! Is it fourpence, or piebald, or gray? Is it a mayor that a mother has knighted, Or is it a horse of the sun and the day? Is it a pony? If so, who will change it? O golfer, be quiet, and mark where it scuds, And think of its paces—of owners and races— Relinquish ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... with his latest exploit at Cubat's resort. They were a noisy company, and certainly the quietest among them was not the general, who nursed on a sofa the leg which still held him captive after the recent attack, that to his old coachman and his two piebald horses had proved fatal. The story of the always-amiable Ivan Petrovitch (a lively, little, elderly man with his head bald as an egg) was about the evening before. After having, as he said, "recure la bouche" for these gentlemen spoke French like their own language and used it among themselves ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... view the group was seen to comprise a man on a piebald horse, and another man walking beside him. When they were opposite the house they halted, and the rider dismounted, whereupon a dispute between him and the other man ensued, apparently on ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... "chain" doesn't break before the 100th number is played it will corral all the wealth of this world. Mr. Densickr hath a great head. He's a church financier for your galways. Still I opine that the man who complies with his apparently modest request is one large piebald ass who ought to be saddled, bridled and ridden around the block, then turned loose to do the ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... he, stamping violently with his foot, partly from anger, and partly with a view of shaking off the unexpected covering, which stuck all over his dress in little patches, producing a somewhat piebald effect,—"so you are pleased to jest, gentlemen. Pray, who placed that piece of snow over the door?" Mr. Rogan glared fiercely round upon the culprits, who ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... the crossroads corner, with the field awaitin' there, There's Purcell on 'is piebald 'orse, an' Doctor on the mare, And the Master on 'is iron grey; she isn't much to look, But I seed 'er do clean twenty ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and she are all one glow of gold, all bunches of pearls, all diamonds, all rubies, all cloth of brocade of more than ten borders; with their hair loose on their shoulders like so many sunbeams playing with the wind; and moreover, they come mounted on three piebald cackneys, the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... men selling brooms or baskets here, although they all seemed to be very busy: some being dressed just as they had left the ring, and others leading cream-coloured and piebald horses, instead of going to bed, as Jimmy thought it ...
— The Little Clown • Thomas Cobb

... there had been lately quite a stir. Professor Gellert had been ill, and riding a well-trained horse had been recommended for his health. Now Prince Henry of Prussia, during the Seven Years' War, at the occupation of Leipzig, had sent him a piebald, that had died a short time ago; and the Elector, hearing of it, had sent Gellert from Dresden another—a chestnut—with golden bridle, blue velvet saddle, and gold-embroidered housings. Half the city had assembled when the groom, a man with iron-gray hair, brought the horse; ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach

... going to his Grace on the business of a horse,' quoth my companion. 'His officers have pressed my piebald four-year-old, and taken it without a "With your leave," or "By your leave," for the use of the King. I would have them know that there is something higher than the Duke, or even than the King. There is the English law, which will preserve a man's goods and his chattels. I would ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... assured it is genuine:—"Towards the end of the last century, a worthy Roman Catholic clergyman, well known as 'Priest Matheson,' and universally respected in the district, had charge of a mission in Aberdeenshire, and for a long time made his journeys on a piebald pony, the priest and his 'pyet shelty' sharing an affectionate recognition wherever they came. On one occasion, however, he made his appearance on a steed of a different description, and passing near a Seceding meeting-house, he forgathered with the minister, who, after the usual kindly ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... that they are never quoted by Irenaeus. "The language approaching dangerously near to heresy might," says he, "have led him to avoid directly quoting the doctrinal teaching." [76:1] A much better reason was that he had never heard of these letters; and yet their theology is exactly such a piebald production as might have been ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen

... experienced and have been told, I am of the opinion that horses possess the same faculty of separating their immaterial from their material bodies, as cats and dogs. I knew a Virginian lady who had a piebald horse that frequently appeared simultaneously in two places. She lived in an old country house near Winchfield, and one morning when she went into the breakfast-room, she was surprised to see the piebald horse standing on the gravel path, outside the window, ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... orthopedy. Where God had put a look, their art put a squint; where God had made harmony, they made discord; where God had made the perfect picture, they re-established the sketch; and, in the eyes of connoisseurs, it was the sketch which was perfect. They debased animals as well; they invented piebald horses. Turenne rode a piebald horse. In our own days do they not dye dogs blue and green? Nature is our canvas. Man has always wished to add something to God's work. Man retouches creation, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. The Court buffoon was nothing but an attempt to lead back man ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... Majesty's service must be done, and Matuara and I were again friends. He was a domesticated man, and passionately fond of his wife and children; but now became pensive and melancholy, dreading the child should be Piebald; though the lady was six months advanced in her pregnancy before ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards

... one by one I went out the other day and asked to have a horse saddled. It was done, and a lantern-jawed cowpuncher brought out a piebald gelding with long ears and sleepy eyes. Not a lovely beast, but a mild one. So I went into the saddle according to theory—with some slight hesitations here and there, planted my feet in the stirrups, ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... him, and the cortege is closed by two grooms in unimpeachable tops. In this guise, and followed by this etat major, he is a conspicuous figure upon a field of battle, and produces much the same effect as the head of a circus riding into a town on a piebald horse, surrounded by clowns and pets of the ballet. He was the confessor of the Empress, and is now the aumonier of the Press; but why he wears jack-boots, why he capers about on a fiery horse, why he has a staff of aides-de-camp, and why he has two grooms, are things which no one seems ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... peasants raised a hymn; the sound of it came to us in quavering snatches. Through the aisle formed by their bodies a procession passed the length of the long portico and back to the starting point. First came Swiss Guards in their gay piebald uniforms, carrying strange-looking pikes and halberds; and behind them were churchly dignitaries, all bared of head; and last of all came a very old and very feeble man, dressed in white, with a wide-brimmed ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... following the Double R owner, he did not ride the beaten trail but kept behind the ridges and in the depressions, and when he came within sight of Doubler's cabin he halted to reconnoiter. A swift survey of the corral showed him a rangy, piebald pony, which he knew to belong to Dakota. As the animal had on a bridle and a saddle he surmised that Dakota's visit would not be of long duration, and having no desire to visit Doubler in the presence of his ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... one horse in the White Hussars, and his portrait hangs outside the door of the mess-room. He is the piebald drum-horse, the king of the regimental band, that served the regiment for seven-and- thirty years, and in the end was shot for old age. Half the mess tore the thing down from its place and thrust it into the man's hands. He placed it above the mantel-piece, it clattered ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... the purpureo-auratus. But other authors give other lines of descent. So it is with Amaryllis, which is said by De Graaff to owe its stripes to A. vittata, its fine form to A. brasiliensis, the large petals to A. psittacina, the giant flowers to A. leopoldi, and the piebald patterns to A. pardina. But here, too, other authors give ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... the Tom Thumb type, much of which is written in vigorous blank verse. Queen Common-Sense is conspired against by Firebrand, Priest of the Sun, by Law, and by Physic. Law is incensed because she has endeavoured to make his piebald jargon intelligible; Physic because she has preferred Water Gruel to all his drugs; and Firebrand because she would restrain the power of Priests. Some of the strokes must have gone home to those receptive hearers ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... fantastic met had a scarlet body, brown tail and reddish-brown wings, with white maltese crosses against a bright green background. One machine looked like a pear flying through the air. It had a pear-shaped tail and was painted a ruddy brown, just like a large ripe fruit. One of the piebald squadrons encountered was made up of white, red and green machines. There still were others palpably painted for what became known as "camouflage" purposes, as guns, wagons and tents often are painted to blend with the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... of Hebe! how he swills the tea—how glass after glass of the steaming-hot liquid flows into his capacious maw, and diffuses itself over his entire person! It oozes from every pore of his skin; drops in globules from his forehead; smokes through his shirt; makes a piebald chart of seas and islands over his back; streams down and simmers in his boots! He is saturated with tea, inside and out—a living sponge overflowing at every pore. You might wring him out, and there would still be a ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... the body, and employ none of it to procure the means and helps of knowledge; who take great care to appear always in a neat and splendid outside, and would think themselves miserable in coarse clothes, or a patched coat, and yet contentedly suffer their minds to appear abroad in a piebald livery of coarse patches and borrowed shreds, such as it has pleased chance, or their country tailor (I mean the common opinion of those they have conversed with) to clothe them in. I will not here mention how unreasonable ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... that kennels only large enough for white mice, or perchance piebald rats, can never be successfully used to raise ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell

... royally. Carpenter, wheelwright and painter departed. The trim green wagon, picked out gayly in white, windowed and curtained and splendidly equipped for the fortunes of the road, creaked briskly away upon its pilgrimage, behind a pair of big-boned piebald horses from the Westfall stables, with Johnny at the reins. On the seat beside him Diane radiantly waved adieu to her aunt, who promptly collapsed in a chair on the porch and ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... rather piebald pageant with absorbed interest. The infantry marched wretchedly. The arms were as varied as the uniforms, and the artillery seemed a relic of Jackson's time. But the cavalry was superb. Never had he seen such splendid ranks, such noble horses. At sight of the tall, elegant figure of the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... sits down to execute repairs. He has an assorted packet of metal and cotton buttons beside him, from which he takes at random. He finishes with your socks, which he skilfully darns with white thread, and contemplates the piebald effect with much satisfaction; after which he puts them up in little balls, each containing a pair of different colours. Finally he will arrange all the clean clothes in the drawer on a principle of his own, the effect of which ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... twice six lads each leadeth to the war: In bands of even tale they shine, and like their leaders are. Their first array all glad at heart doth little Priam lead, Who from his grandsire had his name, thy well-renowned seed, Polites, fated to beget Italian folk: him bore A Thracian piebald flecked with white, whose feet were white before, And white withal the crest of him that high aloft he flung. Next Atys came, from whence the stem of Latin Atii sprung; Young Atys, whom Iulus young ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil



Words linked to "Piebald" :   multicolored, calico, multi-colored, multicoloured, colorful, multi-color, coloured, painted, multicolor, multi-coloured, colored, multi-colour, varicoloured



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