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Prick   Listen
noun
Prick  n.  
1.
That which pricks, penetrates, or punctures; a sharp and slender thing; a pointed instrument; a goad; a spur, etc.; a point; a skewer. "Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary." "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks."
2.
The act of pricking, or the sensation of being pricked; a sharp, stinging pain; figuratively, remorse. "The pricks of conscience."
3.
A mark made by a pointed instrument; a puncture; a point. Hence:
(a)
A point or mark on the dial, noting the hour. (Obs.) "The prick of noon."
(b)
The point on a target at which an archer aims; the mark; the pin. "They that shooten nearest the prick."
(c)
A mark denoting degree; degree; pitch. (Obs.) "To prick of highest praise forth to advance."
(d)
A mathematical point; regularly used in old English translations of Euclid.
(e)
The footprint of a hare. (Obs.)
4.
(Naut.) A small roll; as, a prick of spun yarn; a prick of tobacco.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prick" Quotes from Famous Books



... clay used may be broken up and put back in your jar, wet again, stirred smooth and is all ready to begin again. Great care should be taken that it is kept clean, that bits of wood or glass be not left in it, or you may cut or prick your fingers ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... no doubt that the subject of dispute was whether he should be killed at once or carried away prisoner. As after a time he was lifted up, the cords round his legs taken off, and he was hurried along with many curses and an occasional sharp prick with a spear, he judged that those in favour of sparing his life for the present ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... already, grandchildren, who some of them were staid heads of families themselves, and the little group of great-grandchildren, who knew as well as any one that when their father's grandfather began to talk of "the days when he was young," it was worth their while to hold their peace and prick up ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... man should do wrong merely out of ill nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or brier, which prick and scratch because they ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... are brought from Noraway, Well seasoned with plenty of Noraway pitch; All dried and split for that jubilee day, The day of the holocaust of a witch. The prickers are chosen—hang-daddy and brother— And fixed were the fees of their work of love; To prick an old woman who was a mother, And felt still the yearnings of motherly love For she had a son, a noble young fellow, Who sailed in a ship of his own the sea, And who was away on the distant billow For a cargo of wine to this bonnie Dundee. Some said she was ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... sure to go to fisticuffs. Master was indeed too strong for her, but Miss would not yield in the least point; but even when Master had got her down, she would scratch and bite like a tiger; when he gave her a cuff on the ear, she would prick him with her knitting-needle. John brought a great chain one day to tie her to the bedpost, for which affront Miss aimed a penknife at his heart. In short, these quarrels grew up to rooted aversions; they gave one another ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... offers. I saw women distinguished by rank, elegant in person, modest, and even reserved in manner, sitting at the Rouge-et-noir table with their rateaux, or rakes, and marking-cards in their hands;—the former to push forth their bets, and draw in their winnings, the latter to prick down the events of the game. I saw such at different hours through the whole of Sunday. To name these is impossible; but I grieve to say that two English women ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... most dutiful scheme. I recollected our right honourable father's denunciations against Scottish marriages, and secret marriages of all sorts,—denunciations perhaps not the less vehement, that he might feel some secret prick of conscience on the subject himself. I remembered that my grave brother had always been a favourite, and I forgot not—how was it possible I could forget—those ominous expressions, which intimated a possibility of the hereditary ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... done, I will prick my name in With the front of my steel, And your lily-white skin Shall be printed with me. For I've come here ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell

... women and Gharib went to his tent, where he cleansed himself of the blood of the Infidels, and they lay on guard through the night. Next morning, the two hosts mounted and sought the plain where cut and thrust ruled sovereign. The first to prick into the open was Gharib, who crave his charger till he was near the Infidels and cried out, "Who is for jousting with me? Let no sluggard or weakling come out to me!" Whereupon there rushed forth a giant Amalekite of the lineage of the tribe of Ad, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... alter) can be found who know what harmony is, though the word is always on their tongue." (De Fructu, p. 54-5.) Ascham, while lamenting in 1545 (Toxophilus, p. 29) 'that the laudable custom of England to teach children their plain song and prick-song' is 'so decayed throughout all the realm as it is,' denounces the great practise of instrumental music by older students: "the minstrelsy of lutes, pipes, harps, and all other that standeth by such nice, fine, minikin fingering, (such ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... profitless talk—on mere words,' and his words flowed in a stream. He spoke nobly, ardently, convincingly, of the sin of cowardice and indolence, of the necessity of action. He lavished reproaches on himself, maintained that to discuss beforehand what you mean to do is as unwise as to prick with a pin the swelling fruit, that it is only a vain waste of strength and sap. He declared that there was no noble idea which would not gain sympathy, that the only people who remained misunderstood were those who either did not know themselves what they wanted, or were not worthy ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev

... talk pretty good English, for a native," returned Griffith, "yet you have a small bur-r-r in your mouth that would prick the tongue of a man who was born on the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... fiend unto the Sumner; "see, I told thee how 'twould fall. Thou seest, dear brother, The churl spoke one thing, but he thought another. Let us prick on, for we ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... he said, "you have seen that before. It does not hurt a pin-prick. But what does it show? The capacity for pain is not needed in the muscle, and it is not placed there,—is but little needed in the skin, and only here and there over the thigh is a spot capable of feeling pain. Pain is simply our intrinsic medical adviser to warn us and stimulate us. Not ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... thumping in a miserable fever of fear. 'There was a scraping and shuffling as of some animal or animals trying to climb up to the footboard. In another moment, through the snow-encrusted glass of the carriage window, he saw a gaunt prick-eared head, with gaping jaw and lolling tongue and gleaming teeth; a second later ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... her Lord, carrying away every thing in the house; so much as every dish, and cloth, and servant but the porter. He is gone discontented into France, they say, to enter a monastery; and now she is coming back again to her house in Kingstreet. But I hear that the Queen did prick her out of the list presented ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... endurance, he had spared her still, At any cost of silence. What is such love To mine, that would outrival Roman heroes— Watch mine arm crisp and shrivel in quick flame, Or set a lynx to gnaw my heart away, To save her from a needle-prick of pain, Ay, or to please her? At their worth she rates Her wooers—light as all-embracing air Or universal sunshine. Luca, go And tell Fiametta—rather, bid the lass Hither herself. [Exit Luca.] He comes to pay me homage, As would his royal ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... manner the Scythians make oaths to whomsoever they make them:—they pour wine into a great earthenware cup and mingle with it blood of those who are taking the oath to one another, either making a prick with an awl or cutting with a dagger a little way into their body, and then they dip into the cup a sword and arrows and a battle-axe and a javelin; and having done this, they invoke many curses on the breaker of the oath, and afterwards they drink it off, both they who are making the oath and ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... blood. But in the matter of vulnerability they seem not to have enjoyed complete exemption, any more than did Milton's angels. Although they ate not bread nor drank wine, still there was in their veins a kind of ambrosial blood called ichor, which the prick of a javelin or spear would cause to flow freely. Even Ares, the genius of homicide and slaughter, was on one occasion at least wounded by a mortal antagonist, and sent out of the melee badly punished, so that he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... King John was at variance with his barons and his prelates, the Chapter of St. David's nominated, not Gerald, their old champion, but Iorwerth, the Abbot of Talley, from whose reforming zeal they had nothing to fear. This last prick of Fortune's sword pierced Gerald to the quick. He had for years been gradually withdrawing from an active life. He had resigned his archdeaconry and his prebend stall, he had made a fourth pilgrimage, this time for his soul's sake, to Rome, he had retired to a quiet pursuit of letters ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... he. "Look out that you don't prick yourself. I'm delighted to have them, for the chances are that they are all he has. There is the less fear of you or me finding one in our skin before long. I would sooner face a Martini bullet, myself. Are you game ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... absently, "that you admire my favourite Alps." Nothing more. I tried to prick him to the consideration of the scenery by asking him which were his favourite Alps, but this also came to nothing. Having acknowledged his approval of the Alps, he seemed willing to let them go unadorned by either fact or fancy. I offered him sandwiches, but he seemed to prefer ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... not injure the tares. Your thought was, I take it, to pull them up unaided, without paining me by the sight of them; but let us be in this also one heart and one flesh, even if your little thistles sometimes prick my fingers. Do not turn your back on them nor conceal them from me. You will not always take pleasure in my big thorns, either—so big that I cannot hide them; and we must pull at them both together, even though our hands bleed. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... marriage vow unbroken as long as you possibly can. I neither intend nor wish to leave you in the charge of any person, but leave you to be your own guardian. Truly, there is no duenna, however watchful, who can prevent a woman from doing what she wishes. When therefore your desires shall prick and spur you on, I would beg you, my dear wife, to act with such circumspection in their execution that they may not be publicly known,—for if you do otherwise, you, and I, and all our friends ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... then Ariel, in the likeness of an ape, would make mouths at him. Then swiftly changing his shape, in the likeness of a hedgehog, he would lie tumbling in Caliban's way, who feared the hedgehog's sharp quills would prick his bare feet. With a variety of such-like vexatious tricks Ariel would often torment him, whenever Caliban neglected the work which ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... strong enough to produce the illusion which is sometimes fatal to the suffering member; but each dog mistakingly thinks that the others, or one of the others, inflicted the injury, and his impulse is to take the part of the injured animal. If the cry for help—caused perhaps by a sudden cramp or the prick of a thorn—is not very sharp or intense, the other dogs will not attack, but merely look and growl at each other in a ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... others. "See here," she said, handing me one; "THESE are the needles I keep in antiseptic wool—the needles with which I always supply the Professor. You observe their shape—the common surgical patterns. Now, look at THIS needle, with which the Professor was just going to prick my finger! You can see for yourself at once it is of bluer steel and ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... intituled, de Tintinnabulis—that is, of little Bells, the Language Latin, but pen'd by a Dutchman, being a Discourse of striking tunes on little Bells with traps under the feet, with several Books on several Instruments of Music, and Tunes prick't for the same; Then considering that the Well-wishers to either of them, took great pains to make plain the use of them, I thought it worth a Dayes labour, to write something on this Art or Science, that the Rules thereof might not be ...
— Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing - Wherein is laid down plain and easie Rules for Ringing all - sorts of Plain Changes • Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman

... spite of the fact that it gave him an appearance rather distinguished and military. He wanted it off. Its chief crime was that it made him look older. Besides, it was inclined to be reddish. And it must tickle and prick like the ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood

... from these disgusting creatures. When a steamer has been nearly three years in these hot latitudes it becomes horribly full of rats and cockroaches. My husband, taking a trip in H.M.S. Contest, in 1858, woke one morning unable to open one eye. Presently he felt a sharp prick, and found a large cockroach sitting on his eyelid and biting the corner of his eye. They also bite all round the nails of your fingers and toes, unless they are closely covered. It must be said that insects are a great discomfort at Sarawak. Mosquitoes, and sand-flies, and stinging ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... to make an end of this cave-dweller," thought Eric; "but that is a deed I will not do—no, not even to a Baresark—to slay him in his sleep," and therewith he stepped lightly to the side of Skallagrim, and was about to prick him with the point of Whitefire, when! as he did so, another man ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... "'I can better take a blister of a nettle than a prick of a rose; more willing that a raven should peck out my eyes than a dove. To die of the meat one liketh not is better than to surfeit of that he loveth; and I had rather an enemy should bury me quick than a friend belie me ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... o' your deil's play-books for me,' said Lucky Dods; 'it's an ill world since sic prick-my-dainty doings came into fashion. It's a poor tongue that canna tell its ain name, and I'll hae nane o' your scarts upon pasteboard.'"—St ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop

... things, or daub with her color-box, while people brought me oranges and waited upon me, did very well. I was not a gentle, timid, feminine sort of a child, as I have said before—one who would faint at the prick of a pin, or weep showers of tears for a slight headache; I was a complete little hoyden, full of life and spirits, to whom the idea of being in bed in the day-time was extremely disagreeable—and when I had been "awful," according to ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman

... turn about, raising their bodies on their fore fins, and face you with their mouths wide open, so that we used to clap a pistol to their mouth, and fire down their throat. Sometimes five or six of us would surround one of these monsters, each having a half pike, and so prick him till he died, which commonly was the sport of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... know," answered the stranger quietly. "However, captain, even if all your cabins are full, that excuse will not serve you. I can stow myself away anywhere. I've been accustomed to rough it, and Cudjoe here won't object to prick for a soft plank!" The black, hearing his name pronounced, grinned from ear to ear, though he ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... at having her presence ignored even by a village lad, determined to arouse him. 'Moreover, I have heard Priest Stephens speak of you to my father,' she went on, with a little pin-prick of emphasis on each word, though addressing her remarks apparently to no one in particular, and with her dainty ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... needle gun. Alwa's wrinkled hands went to his scrawny neck where, just off the center, was a sudden tiny pin prick of a hole. A faint trickle of red coursed over the dark blue of his skin. The old man's knees gave way under him as the rage of the poisoned needle dart struck him, and he ...
— Happy Ending • Fredric Brown

... liberty, and make a false show with it, as if we were all husk and shell, with no tender and living kernel to us? Shall our institutions be like those chestnut-burs which contain abortive nuts, perfect only to prick ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... upon the water at all. It happened to be a foggy morning and the disciples were deceived; he was really walking on the shore. Where it says "one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side," we were informed that the Greek word here means primarily to prick as with a pin, to pave the way to belittle the wound of Jesus, despite the fact that the narrative adds, "straightway there came out blood and water." The purpose of this was to make way for the theory that Christ did not die ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz

... scoring of such points as these that I preen myself, and my memory is always ringing the 'changes' I have had, complacently, as a man jingles silver in his pocket. The noise of a great terminus is no jar to me. It is music. I prick up my ears to it, and paw the platform. Dear to me as the bugle-note to any war-horse, as the first twittering of the birds in the hedgerows to the light-sleeping vagabond, that cry of 'Take your seats please!' ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... Ugh! the horrible treacherous thing, so green and innocent looking, with here and there a quicksand or a peaty morass, in which, without a moment's warning, your horse sank up to his withers! It was dreadful, and when we came to such a place Helen used to stop dead short, prick her pretty ears well forward, and, trembling with fear and excitement, put her nose close to the ground, smelling every inch, before she would place her fore foot down on it, jumping off it like a goat if it proved insecure. Generally she crossed a swamp, by a series of ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... injected into the blood. Shirley died of jequirity poisoning, or rather of the alkaloid in the bean. It has been used in India for criminal poisoning for ages. Only, there it is crushed, worked into a paste, and rolled into needle-pointed forms which prick the skin. Abrin is composed of two albuminous bodies, one of which resembles snake-venom in all its effects, attacking the heart, making the temperature fall rapidly, and leaving the blood fluid after death. It ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve

... the hands of the last man, with a whispered injunction to secrecy. The soldier handed the papers to the captain as soon as he was aboard again. A few minutes later Nick and Ned Johnson were sent for into the cabin. The first question caused each one to prick up his single ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... heads together, Somebody's cap got a notable feather By the announcement with proper unction 260 That he had discovered the lady's function; Since ancient authors gave this tenet, "When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege, Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet, And with water to wash the hands of her liege In a clean ewer with a fair toweling, Let her preside at the disemboweling." Now, my friend, if you had so little religion As to catch a hawk, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... a habit he had of shrugging up his shoulders, and making himself appear hump-backed, he hung up a sword over his back, so that it might prick him, with its sharp point, whenever ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker

... I entered the Transportation Buildin', and looked round me, there wuz no gentle prick to that overgrown puff ball to let the gas out drizzlin'ly and gradual—no, there wuz a sudden smash, a wild collapse, a flat and total squshiness—the puff ball wuz broke into a thousand pieces, and the wind it contained, where wuz it? Ask the breezes that wafted away Caesar's last ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... stars have their say in the matter! None can kill a man until his destiny says yes to it. Not even a doctor," he added, chuckling. "Otherwise the doctors would have killed me long ago with jealousy! A man dies when his inner man grows sick and weary of him. Then a pin-prick does it, or a sudden terror. Until that time comes you may break his skull, and do not more than spoil his temper! As a philosopher I have learned two things: respect many, but trust few. But as a doctor I have learned ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... a thicket. They had eaten and drunk, played and laughed. Never a thought of the past! Conscience was as silent as a satisfied child. In the beginning, when her first husband had slunk half drunk by her window, she had felt a prick ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... contend, As at th' Olympian games or Pythian fields; Part curb their fiery steeds, or shun the goal With rapid wheels, or fronted brigades form: As when, to warn proud cities, war appears Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush To battle in the clouds; before each van Prick forth the airy knights, and couch their spears, Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms From either end of heaven the welkin burns. Others, with vast Typhoean rage, more fell, Rend up both rocks and ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... Pagatipanan, let us make balaua [97] and invite our relatives who are sorrowing for Aponibolinayen," and Pagatipanan said, "We shall make balaua when next month comes, but now Aponibolinayen feels ill, perhaps she is tired." Not long after that Aponibolinayen commanded them to prick her little finger which itched; and when her mother pricked it out popped a pretty baby. [98] Her mother asked, "Where did you get this baby, Aponibolinayen?" But Aponibolinayen did not tell. "I do not know where I ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... felt disposed to do was to turn himself into a young modern ascetic, prick his legs well in going through the furze, and then take a little bark off his shins in climbing twenty feet up on to the great monolith, ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... forget it? Every morning, some pin-prick renewed his wound. Three days running, Angelique received a wonderful sheaf of flowers, with Arsene Lupin's card peeping from it. The duke could not go to his club but a friend ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... her a sharp prick. Could it be her doing that trouble was coming upon the old house? What a punishment for a moment's ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... first, (Some say his Queen) was forc'd to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When ev'ry coxcomb perks them in my face? A. Good friend, forbear! you deal in dang'rous things. 75 I'd never name Queens, Ministers, or Kings; Keep close to Ears, and those let asses prick; 'Tis nothing—P. Nothing? if they bite and kick? Out with it, DUNCIAD! let the secret pass, That secret to each fool, that he's an Ass: 80 The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?) The Queen of Midas slept, and ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... brown bride had a little penknife, That was both long and sharp, And betwixt the short ribs and the long, Prick'd fair Ellinor to ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... that great image of our mother nature, in her full majesty and lustre, whoever in her face shall read so general and so constant a variety, whoever shall observe himself in that figure, and not himself but a whole kingdom, no bigger than the least touch or prick of a pencil in comparison of the whole, that man alone is able to value things according to their ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... better beware the moon!" exclaimed Dudley, striking the but of his musket against the ice with so much force as to cause his companion to start, in alarm. "What fool's errand hath again brought him to prick his nag so ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... came down, a lancer dashed at me with lance in rest. With my sabre I parried his thrust, only receiving a slight flesh-wound from its point in the arm, which felt at the time like the prick of a pin. The lancer turned and fled; at that moment a ball passed through my horse on the left side and shattered my right side. The shot killed the horse instantly, and he fell upon my left leg, fastening me by his weight to the earth. There I lay, right ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... disappointing. No traces of poison were to be found in the stomach nor was there to be seen on the body any mark of violence with the exception of a minute prick upon one of ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... And that mummery the old foolish rogue thought more efficacious than ointments and medicines for the wretches he had made! And of the chaplains and clerks he instituted in that dormitory, one was to teach grammars and another prick-song. How history makes one shudder and laugh by turns! But I fear I have wearied your lordship with my idle declamation, and you will repent having commanded me to send ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... were times when Victor could lie cheerfully and without the prick of conscience. "One hasn't time to think of home. But how are you ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... a puff of hot wind, blew upon me and made my skin prick me. All that I had endured at this rascal's hands swelled within; and now I remembered also that I, a gentleman by birth and training, had been the galled slave of a low ruffian, who now intended ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... as the classic Pattycake had been much in favour. Chellalu's Attai (the word here and hereafter signifies Mrs. Walker, "Mother's elder sister") had taught it to her; and whenever and wherever Chellalu saw her Attai, she immediately began to perform "Prick it and nick it" with great enthusiasm. But after she could walk, Chellalu would have nothing more to do with such childish things. "Show us Edward Rajah!" the older children would say; and instead of standing up with a regal dignity and crowning her curls with the appropriate gesture, Chellalu ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... common; one would have called it a spark of fire which flew, and just at the moment Cut-in-half gave the razor to Gargousse, the golden gnat flew straight into the eye of the wicked wretch. A fly in the eye is no great thing; but, for a moment, it stings like a prick with a needle; so Cut-in-half, who could hardly stand, fell on the floor and rolled like a log to the foot of the bed where Gargousse ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... a fitting and inspiring illustration of serenity. In the presence of certain and imminent death he was far less perturbed than many another man in the presence of a pin-prick. And his imperturbability betokened bigness and not stolidity. While his disciples wept about him, he could counsel them to calmness and discourse to them upon immortality. He wept not, nor did he shudder back from the ordeal, but calm and masterful ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... in the front of his cap gave a touch of grace to his somber garb. This and other points of his attire, the short hanging mantle, the leather-sheathed hunting-knife, the cross belt which sustained a brazen horn, the soft doe-skin boots and the prick spurs, would all disclose themselves to an observer; but at the first glance the brown face set in gold and the dancing light of the quick, reckless, laughing eyes, were the ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... man's bared breast she curls inside. Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve For each of the five pictures we require: It saves a model. So! keep looking so— My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds! —How could you ever prick those perfect ears, Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet— My face, my moon, my everybody's moon, Which everybody looks on and calls his, And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, While she looks—no one's: very dear, no less. You smile? why, ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... shoulders of a well-filled haversack, and supports his arms on the stock of his weapon, the muzzle of which he sets in the ground. He will wait the horsemen's coming. With lightning quickness the hounds start suddenly, prick up their ears, make a bound forward. "Hold there!" exclaims Romescos, at the same time directing Bengal's attention to the figure far away to the right. His horse shies, an imprecation quickly follows; ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... powers to see and hear Seem'd in her frame residing; Before the watch-dog prick'd his ear She heard her lover's riding; Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd She knew and waved to greet him, And o'er the battlement did bend As on the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... Whose sundry cullers of one kinde First from one Root derived, Them in their seuerall sutes Ile binde, My Garland so contriued; A course of Cowslips then I'll stick, And here and there though sparely The pleasant Primrose downe Ile prick Like Pearles, which will show rarely: Then with these Marygolds Ile make My Garland somewhat swelling, 130 These Honysuckles then Ile take, Whose sweets shall helpe their smelling: The Lilly and the Flower delice, For colour much contenting, For that, I them doe only prize, They are but ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton

... chinkapins and other fodder for the long winter at hand, something is stirring. Yes, stirring vigorously, too, if one may judge by the hullabaloo which suddenly arises far down the East Pike. The people gathered upon the porch at the store prick up their ears to listen. There are a dozen or more there upon one errand or another, for the store is the commercial center of the district, and from it can be bought or ordered every nameable thing under the sun. It is also the ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... falling asleep so frequently after dinner. There came a period of my life, when having reached the summit of felicity I was quite tired of the prospect I had there: I yawned in Eden, and said, "Is this all? What, no lions to bite? no rain to fall? no thorns to prick you in the rose-bush when you sit down?—only Eve, for ever sweet and tender, and figs for breakfast, dinner, supper, from week's end to week's end!" Shall I make my confessions? Hearken! Well, then, if I must make ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... at half-past seven in the morning of the 15th, a sharp wind blowing in our faces. We had not gone far when the dogs began to prick up their ears, and finally started off on a brisk run, barking and manifesting great excitement. The Inuits at once attributed this unwonted energy on the part of the dogs to the fact that there were people not far distant, and, sure enough, we soon saw several igloos about three-quarters ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... to get hold of Blitzen?" I'd say, and Piddie would prick up his ears like a fox-terrier sightin' ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... stump, an old hat stuffing a vacant pane and proclaiming the shiftlessness of the Aroostook Billingses, would serve when nothing else offered excuse for skittishness. Even sober Old Jeff, the off horse, sometimes caught the infection for a moment. He would prick up his ears and look inquiringly at the suspected object, but so soon as he saw what it was down went his head sheepishly, as if he was ashamed of ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... dare fight, but never for a woman, I will not have her in my cause, she's mortal, and so is not my anger: if you have brought a nobler subject for our Swords, I am for you; in this I would be loth to prick my Finger. And where you say I wrong'd you, 'tis so far from my profession, that amongst my fears, to do wrong is the greatest: credit me we have been both abused, (not by our selves, for that I hold a spleen, no sin of malice, and ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... crucifix and a Buddha and an African idol alike parts of the artistic furniture. But, no doubt, it is to consider too curiously to consider so, and the good priest whose cassock and trousers have occasioned these reflections would smilingly prick my fancies, after the dialectic manner of his calling, and say that his trousers on the clothes-line were but a humble reminder to the faithful how near to the daily life of her children, how human at once as well as ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne

... sword from its sheath, and with a mighty blow did he strike at the boar's neck. But the sword broke in his hand, and the boar felt not so much as a prick. ...
— Celtic Tales - Told to the Children • Louey Chisholm

... in one way or another exceptional. One of the bulldogs was a really magnificent creature of the famous Stone strain, whose only fault seemed to be a club-foot. There was also a satanic-looking creature of enormous stature; a great Dane, with very closely cropped prick ears, and a tail no more than five inches long. This gentleman was further distinguished by wearing a muzzle, and by the fact that his leader carried a venomous-looking whip. The lady with the hairless terrier was particularly careful to avoid the proximity of this rather ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... bit my tongue watchin' uv 'em. They got locked, 'n' both swords came up t' the hilts t'gether with a swish 'n' a bang luk thet. The blades clung, 'n' they backed off. Then Ray he begun t' feint 'n' lunge 'n' hustle 'im. Quicker 'n scat he gin 'im an awful prick 'n the shoulder. I c'u'd see the blood come, but they kep' a-goin' back 'n' forth 'n' up 'n' down desperit. The red streak on thet air feller's shirt kep' a-growin'. Purty quick one side uv 'im wus red an' t' other white. See he wus gettin' weaker 'n' weaker. Ray c'u'd 'a' ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... wrongs, praying for his deliverance, and presenting his kneeling image constantly before the public eye on bags and needle-books, card-racks, pen-wipers, pin-cushions, &c. Even the children of the north are inscribing on their handy work, "May the points of our needles prick the slaveholder's conscience." Some of the reports of these Societies exhibit not only considerable talent, but a deep sense of religious duty, and a determination to persevere through evil as well as good report, until every scourge, ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke

... sea around was literally a sea of blood. At one moment his head was poised in the air; the next, he buried himself in the gory sea, carrying down, in his vast wake, a whirlpool of foam and slime. But this respite was short; he rose again, rushing furiously upon his enemies; but a slight prick of a lance drove him back with mingled fury and terror. Whichever way he turned, the barbed irons goaded him to desperation. Now and again intensity of agony would cause him to lash the waters with his huge flukes, till the very ocean appeared ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... gradually increases in volume, approaches, and changes into broken peals which embrace the whole heavens. Vasili stands upon the box, and raises the cover of the britchka. The coachmen put on their armyaks, and, at every clap of thunder, remove their hats and cross themselves. The horses prick up their ears, puff out their nostrils as if smelling the fresh air which is wafted from the approaching thunder-cloud, and the britchka rolls faster along the dusty road. I feel oppressed, and am conscious that the blood courses ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... second, is as laborious as he is empty; he wears a ridiculous comicalness of aspect (which was, indeed, the physiognomy of the poor poet), that makes people smile when they see him at a distance. His mouth opens, because he must be fed, while we laugh at the insensibility and obstinacy that make him prick his ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... until it squeezed the soul out of him, then he would have forced back the walls again. If only once she had walked by his side through the crowds, then he would have caught their cry in time. The world had narrowed down to a pin prick, but if only she had come a scant two days ago, she would have bent his eye to this tiny aperture as to the small end of a telescope as she did now and made him see big enough to grasp the meaning ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... thrust into his nose. Also, give salt and water to drink. Where death has resulted from seeing goblins, take the heart of a leek and push it up the patient's nostrils—the left for a man, the right for a woman. Look along the inner edge of the upper lips for blisters like grains of Indian corn, and prick ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... gloated over it. My thanks must have been sadly jumbled and broken, but my pride and pleasure made Mr. Ellsler laugh, and then the carriage was there, and laughter stilled into a silent, close hand-clasp. As I opened the door of the dusty old hack, I saw the first star prick brightly through the evening sky. Then the hoarse voice said, 'God bless you'—and I ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... who wished to know how far American politicians were scholars, and how far American authors took part in politics. In my mind I first revolted from the inquiry, and then I cast about, in the fascination it began to have for me, to see how I might handle it and prick myself least. In a sort, which it would take too long to set forth, politics are very intimate matters with us, and if one were to deal quite frankly with the politics of a contemporary author, one might accuse one's self of an unwarrantable personality. So, in what I shall have to say in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... a little blood!" shouted Count Lehrbach, in a hollow voice, and laughing hoarsely. "These overbearing French have trampled us under foot for two long years, and tormented us by pricking us with pins. Now we will also trample them under foot and prick them, and if our pins are longer than theirs, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... the doll, prick it as you will, and say who the pricks be for. [Phoebe sticks a pin into ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... doorway," she said, pointing to one near the orchestra, if so it could be called; "it will lead you to the sleeping-room, where you'll be after finding some beds. You'll remember that first come first served, and if you don't be tumbling into one it will be your own fault, and you'll have to prick for the softest plank in the corner of the room. Now, boys, you'll be after handing me out a couple of shillings each. I don't give credit, except to those I happen to know ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... dear Whisper," moaned the child; "you know I have lost my kind father and mother; and the thorns prick me; and then this is such a lonely road; there is nobody to ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May

... watched the two men go down the wide cool hall and turn into the bedroom. He heard the spectacled man talking in there, then Steve Earle, then Marian Earle, the boy's mother, but not the boy, prick his ears as he would. He sat down on his haunches, panting and whining softly to himself. He lay down, head between his paws, agate-brown eyes deep with worry. Still no sound of the boy. He got up and fumbled at the screen door with his ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux

... fly, and the faint beams Of glow-worms light grows bright a-pace; The stars are fled, the moon hides her face. The spindle now is turning round, Mandrakes are groaning under ground: I'th' hole i'th' ditch (our nails have made) Now all our images are laid, Of wax and wooll, which we must prick, With needles urging to the quick. Into the hole I'le poure a flood Of black lambs bloud, to make all good. The lamb with nails and teeth wee'l tear. ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... Kaffirs following on the dead soldier's path crawled out from under the waggon. Two of them gained their feet and ran at him lifting their assegais. I thought that all was lost, for one hole in our defence was like a pin prick to a bladder, but with a shout Jan dropped the empty gun and rushed to meet them. He caught them by the throat, the two of them, one in each of his great hands, and before they could spear him dashed ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... said, anxious to prick the bubble of her egotism. She made no answer, but he had the uncomfortable feeling that she knew he had been proud ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd. Nor wail'd to all in vain: some here and there, The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave. I meantime at his feet obsequious slept; Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear Prick'd up at his least motion; to receive At his kind hand ray customary crums, And common portion in his feast of scraps; Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent With our long day ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... the little crucians lie motionless on the surface of the water in the sunshine, only stirring their fins a little from time to time, just to feel they are alive,—that must feel good. But suddenly she had a recollection that was like a prick of conscience. She felt as if she were neglecting or betraying ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... traveler crossing the desert feels himself surrounded by creatures thirsting for his blood; by day vultures fly about his head; by night scorpions creep into his tent, jackals prowl around his camp-fire, mosquitoes prick and torture him with their greedy sting; everywhere menace, enmity, ferocity. But far beyond the horizon, and the barren sands peopled by these hostile hordes, the wayfarer pictures to himself a few loved ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the very highest in the Holy Fold. And I must consider it as scarcely decent, as (by the Mass) not seemly at all, that your Holy Thorn, this sainted sprig of your planting, should lack the power to prick. Our people, madam, do indeed expect it. It is not much. Nay!"—for he saw his Lady frown and heard her toe-taps again—"indeed, it is not much. A little pit for your female thief to swim at large, for your ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... on: "Now I'm myself," says Farmer John. And he thinks, "I'll look around!" Up leaps the dog: "Get down, you pup, Are you so glad you would eat me up?" The old cow lows at the gate to greet him. The horses prick up their ears, to meet him. Well, well, old Bay! Ha, ha, old Grey! Do you get good ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... to me with a look of curiosity, and another sort of look also that made me tremble, and said, 'Now, there you have put your finger on the point—my point, the choice weapon I had reserved to prick the little bubble of Bigot's hate and the Governor's conceit, if I so chose, even at the last. And here is a girl, a young girl just freed from pinafores, who teaches them the law of nations! If it pleased me I should not ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... got the day before, had begun to bleed afresh. He wiped the blood away with his handkerchief, and laughed at the thought of this little care. In a few minutes he would be facing death, and now he was staunching a pin-prick. ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... the cellular connective tissue of the integument, intermuscular septa, tendon sheaths, or other structures. Infection always takes place through a breach of the surface, although this may be superficial and insignificant, such as a pin-prick, a scratch, or a crack under a nail, and the wound may have been healed for some time before the inflammation becomes manifest. The cellulitis, also, may develop at some distance from the seat of inoculation, the organisms having travelled by ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... nomination. Harrison may give old Colonel Harrison its vote on the first ballot, just as a compliment, you know; and I'll admit that down Hall City way there's some talk of Sile Munyon, but there ain't nothin' to it. We'll prick the Munyon boom before it's bigger'n a pea. We'll fix things, you bet. And we'll elect you, too! It's a good job to hold down—that of being a Congressman; it ain't the office so much as it is the purgatives that go with it. I'd like to go to Congress myself. Maybe I will some ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... has the murd'erous Moor, who slays his guest with felon blow, Save sorrow he can slay no more, what prick of pen'itence can ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... croaked Josh, indulging in a hoarse laugh. "I taught him how to do that, sir. It'll only prick a bit now, and heal up ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... said her Aunt Miranda, who had a pin-prick for almost every bubble; "but don't forget there's two other mouths to feed in this house, and you might at least give your aunt and me the privilege of chokin' if we feel to ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... the prick of a goad, and made Dexie determine to stay and show Miss Gussie whether her "bad manners" had placed her lower or higher in the estimation of her friends. When the piece was rehearsed in which she sang the solo, she put forth her best efforts, and rendered it with such pathos and feeling ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... to Craig's side, and with a prick of his sword in their backs made them go forward. The American was too bewildered to think evenly. Why, the god Aten was the Sun God!—the divinity Egypt worshipped in five hundred B.C.? How had these warm-blooded ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... fine-looking man in the uniform of a Federal colonel. Parrying his blow, Calhoun, by a skilful turn of his horse, avoided the other. They wheeled their horses, and came at Calhoun again. Again did Calhoun parry the fierce blow aimed at him; at the same time he managed to prick the horse of the other, so that for a moment it became unmanageable. This left Calhoun free to engage the Colonel alone, who aimed at him a tremendous blow. This blow Calhoun avoided, and as it met with no resistance, its force threw the Colonel forward on his saddle. ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... Inventor of the Telegraph, and in this work it is my aim to prove that the judgment of posterity has not erred, but also to give full credit to those who aided him when he was most in need of assistance. My task in some instances will be a delicate one; I shall have to prick some bubbles, for the friends of some of these men have claimed too much for them, and, on that account, have been bitter in their accusations against Morse. I shall also have to acknowledge some errors of judgment on the part of Morse, for the malice ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse



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