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Scurvy   Listen
adjective
Scurvy  adj.  (compar. scurvier; superl. scurviest)  
1.
Covered or affected with scurf or scabs; scabby; scurfy; specifically, diseased with the scurvy. "Whatsoever man... be scurvy or scabbed."
2.
Vile; mean; low; vulgar; contemptible. "A scurvy trick." "That scurvy custom of taking tobacco." "(He) spoke spoke such scurvy and provoking terms."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scurvy" Quotes from Famous Books



... for he knew that the Lord loved St. Peter, so he went home and immediately put his mother in the hot oven. What more could you expect? The old woman was burned to a coal. "Ah! santu di cca e di dda!"[K] cried the son; "that scurvy fellow has made me kill my mother!" He hastened to St. Peter. The Master was present, and when he heard the story could not control his laughter, and said: "Ah, Peter! what have you done?" St. Peter tried to excuse himself, but the poor man kept crying for his mother. ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... were in excellent health, and every care was taken to preserve it. Regulations were made, in the allowances both of bread and meat: as a preservative against scurvy, the men were allowed a quantity of vinegar with their meat, and they, every day, took a portion of lime-juice and sugar. The next care was for the minds of the men, the health of which Captain Parry wisely considered to have no small influence on that of the body. This excellent officer, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... and joints began to swell, the flesh turning black, while their mouths, gums, and lips took on the color of rich cream. Instead of being drawn together by their misery, each gloated over the other's symptoms as the scurvy took ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London

... Byron to Hobhouse, February 27, 1808, "I am cut to atoms by the E——-'Review;' it is just out, and has completely demolished my little fabric of fame. This is rather scurvy treatment for a Whig Review; but politics and poetry are different things, and I am no adept in either. I ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... His own constitution was thoroughly undermined. For nearly a year, remarks his biographer, 'he had never quitted the "foul and defective" flag-ship. Want of exercise and sweet food, beer, wine, water, bread, and vegetables, had helped to develop scurvy and dropsy; and his sufferings from these diseases were now acute and continuous.' But his services were indispensable, and Blake was not the man to shrink from dying in harness. His sun set gloriously ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various

... the ship was provisioned for more than a year, but most of the provisions were salt, and Tom Singleton could have told them, had they required to be told, that without fresh provisions they stood a poor chance of escaping that dire disease, scurvy, before which have fallen so many gallant tars whom nothing in the shape of dangers or difficulties could subdue. There were, indeed, myriads of wild fowl flying about the ship, on which the men feasted and grew fat every day; and the muskets ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... allowance left: this discovery induced me to determine on taking the first opportunity that should offer of leaving the coast and resorting to Timor; for, besides our want of water, several of the crew were attacked by scurvy, so that it was also necessary to visit it to procure some fresh ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... also discovered that the late lamented Lord Harry, whose death I myself have the greatest reasons to deplore, played me a scurvy trick in regard to certain sums of money. The amount for which he was insured was not less than 15,000 pounds. The amount as he stated it to me was only 4,000 pounds. In return for certain services rendered at a particular ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... coachman, 'you are mistaken; I will give you nothing. You have been very insolent to me as I rode behind you on the coach, and have encouraged two or three trumpery fellows, who rode along with you, to cut scurvy jokes at my expense, and now you come to me for money; I am not so poor but I could have given you a shilling had you been civil; as it is, I will give you nothing.' 'Oh! you won't, won't you?' said the coachman; 'dear me! I hope I shan't starve because you ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... efforts ideas of his greatness disappeared. No matter what might be his skill with the sword—and the priest already had shown its limitations—his inexperience in literature was patent. Ah! If he could but win the head of this scurvy cleric. His mind now was totally removed from thoughts of himself. For two days and two nights he never closed his eyes, which were fastened on the infernal ideographs—palpably so full of a meaning he could not grasp. Then he was worn out. He went to sleep, and slept ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... fell. The heat of the sun was so intense that every screw in their boxes was drawn, and all horn handles and combs split into fine laminae. The lead dropped from their pencils, their finger-nails became as brittle as glass, and their hair, and the wool on their sheep, ceased to grow. Scurvy attacked them all, and Mr. Poole, the second in command, died. In order to avoid the scorching rays of the sun, they had excavated an underground chamber, to which they retired during the heat ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... scurvy lot, you people!" said he. "I've been wearing my pins out for three hours waiting on that road, and a gendarme even came and asked me for my papers. It isn't right to play such dirty tricks on a friend! You might at least have sent me word by a commissionaire. Ah! no, you know, joking apart, it's ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... "Scurvy trick that 'd been," muttered Bland. "You did right. All the same, Duane, I want you to stop quarreling with my men. If you were one of us—that'd be different. I can't keep my men from fighting. But I'm not called on to let an outsider hang around ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... will tell you the reason; this afternoon the rat played me a very mean and scurvy trick; he disgraced me before the king, and made me a common laughing-stock to all the council, for which I swore to have his life. Besides, upon one occasion he bit his teeth right through my ear—the marks of it are there still. See for yourself." So the weasel thrust ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... side. He has made Walford's acquaintance, having met him, perhaps, some half a dozen times in all, at "Sea View," and, despite his simplicity, he has had no difficulty in recognising in the lieutenant a would-be rival. And this is just where his own modesty and self-depreciation have played him a scurvy trick. He has noted Walford's easy, nonchalant bearing, and his two or three flashy accomplishments; he has noticed, too, that the lieutenant is not altogether devoid of good looks, and has jumped—all too hastily, as we are aware—at the conclusion that, where a woman is concerned, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... extremity. As to spirits, we have the testimony of all arctic explorers, that their regular supply and use, so far from being beneficial, is directly the reverse—weakening the constitution, and predisposing it to scurvy and other diseases; and that, consequently, spirits should not be given at all, except on extraordinary occasions, or as a medicine. Sir John Ross, in his search of the North-West Passage in 1829, and ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various

... "After the above scurvy treatment I was naturally anxious to witness the man's funeral, which I understood was to be a gorgeous affair, six respectably-attired females having been sworn in to kiss the body, amid the hysteric weeps of three more ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various

... an eye, scrambling out of the galley nearly naked, in his trowsers, shirt, and greasy nightcap, and sprawling on all fours after two tubsful of yams, which the third thump had capsized all over the deck. "Oh you scurvy—looking tief," said he, eying the pilot; "if it was running us ashore you were set on, why the blazes couldn't ye wait until the yams, were in the copper, bad luck to ye—and them all scraped too! I do believe, if they even had been taties, it would have been all the same to you." We stood ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... of him now to the backbone,' added Sir Marmaduke, 'and it is well that it should be the lady herself who wants first to be off with it, so that none can say he has played her a scurvy trick.' ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... I know you will raile now; I shall like it. Call me a scurvy fellow, proud and saucie, An ill bred, crooked Clowne; ile here this rather Then live upon your pitty. And yet doe not; For, if you raile, too, men that know you can Dissemble, may beleeve you love me, and Tis not ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... Queen very assiduously in council; makes a considerable figure in the House of Commons; by his prudent administration, obliges everybody in the exchequer; and in time may prove a great man.—Swift. He had some very scurvy qualities, particularly avarice. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... cruel work having to do with boys, sir—cruel and thankless. If ever I try to help a boy in my class I think is trying to get on and please me, what does he do? Turn round and play me some scurvy trick, just to prove to the others he's not currying favour. And then they insult me—why, that very boy has been and shouted "Shellfish" through my keyhole many a ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... Time and Taste Had turned our parish topsy-turvy, When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste, And roads as little known as scurvy, The man who lost his way between St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket, Was always shown across the Green, And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... we see any person finely dressed, and set off with rich apparel and with a train of servants, we are moved to show him respect; for, though we cannot but remember certain scurvy matters either of poverty or parentage, that formerly belonged to him, but which being long gone by are almost forgotten, we only think of what we see before our eyes. And if, as the preacher said, the person so raised by good luck, from nothing, as it were, to the tip-top of prosperity, be well ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... by raiding parties, not leaving sufficient for the actual necessities of the inhabitants. To such an extent did this go, that to the officers with means to purchase such provisions as were to be had, potatoes and onions became luxuries. The whole army was threatened with scurvy. ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist

... ice-fields were put on board. The amount of provisions was increased, and spirits and charcoal were added; for it might be that they would have to winter at some point on the Greenland coast. They also procured, with much difficulty and at a high price, a quantity of lemons, for preventing or curing the scurvy, that terrible disease which decimates crews in the icy regions. The ship's hold was filled with salt meat, biscuits, brandy, &c., as the steward's room no longer sufficed. They provided themselves, moreover, with a large quantity of "pemmican," ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... to justify an action to a man," went on Clowes, "but, no, the scurvy fellow would put no faith in my words, insisting that the person I sought to clear was covinous and tricky, and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... woman, and ignorant, may be honest, when 'tis out of obstinacy and contradiction. But, s'death, it is but a may be, and upon scurvy terms. Well, farewell then—if I can get out of sight I may get the better ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... into prisons where they were provided with the poorest of covering and meanest food for their bodies; where scurvy and other loathsome diseases have made their impress upon them and where incentive to cleanliness is as distant as the North and South poles. Freed from prison life they have gone forth mingling with a class of people infecting them with their scales ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... that hath bought his place, or come to it by some nobleman's letter. He loves alive dead pays, yet wishes they may rather happen in his company by the scurvy than by a battle. View him at a muster, and he goes with such a nose as if his body were the wheelbarrow that carried his judgment rumbling to drill his soldiers. No man can worse design between pride and noble courtesy. He that salutes him not, so far as a pistol carries level, gives him ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... Scarborough. But there was no ship at Scarborough going south, wherefore I set out for mine own country on foot. And to-day, which is my first on this journey, I came to this inn for a pint of good ale, and paid my money for it too, whereupon yonder scurvy knave gives me small beer, thin as water. And I, being somewhat hot and choleric of temper, threw the measure at him, and rewarded him for his insolence. So now I will go on my way, for 'tis a brave step from here to Marazion, and I love not ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher

... the peas, who wanted to sell their article to the Crown, declared that an extensive,—perhaps we may say, an unlimited,—use of the article would save the whole army and navy from the scourges of scurvy, dyspepsia, and rheumatism, would be the best safeguard against typhus and other fevers, and would be an invaluable aid in all other maladies to which soldiers and sailors are peculiarly subject. The peas in question were grown on a large scale in ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... men have each, daily, but a quarter pound of meat and 16 ounces of flour. They have, besides, 1 pound of rice to every ten men, two or three times a week. He says this may keep them alive; but that at this season they should have more generous food. The scurvy and the typhoid fever are appearing among them. Longstreet and Hill, however, it is hoped will succeed in bringing off supplies of provision, etc.—such being the object of ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... invective against "the most hellish father, St. Paul, or Paula III" and his "hellish Roman church." "One would like to curse them," he wrote, "so that thunder and lightning would strike them, hell fire burn them, the plague, syphilis, epilepsy, scurvy, leprosy, carbuncles, and all diseases attack them"—and so on for page after page. Of course such lack of restraint largely defeated its own ends. The Swiss Reformer Bullinger called it "amazingly violent," and a book ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... lungs: one form of consumption, congestion and subsequent bronchitis. (c) Diseases of the heart: irregular beat, feebleness of the muscular walls, dilation, disease of the valves. (d) Diseases of the blood: scurvy, dropsy, separation of fibrine. (e) Diseases of the stomach: feebleness of the stomach and indigestion, flatulency, irritation and sometimes inflammation. (f) Diseases of the bowels: relaxation or ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... surprised him at a very unseasonable time; being afterwards himself engaged upon the same account, the horror of the former story on a sudden so strangely possessed his imagination, that he ran the same fortune the other had done; and from that time forward, the scurvy remembrance of his disaster running in his mind and tyrannising over him, he was subject to relapse into the same misfortune. He found some remedy, however, for this fancy in another fancy, by himself frankly confessing and declaring beforehand to the party with whom he was to have to do, this ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... eating, sleeping, and drinking: and in sleeping, drinking, and eating. Still he wallowed and rolled up and down himself in the mire and dirt—he blurred and sullied his nose with filth—he blotted and smutched his face with any kind of scurvy stuff—he trod down his shoes in the heel—at the flies he did oftentimes yawn, and ran very heartily after the butterflies, the empire whereof belonged to his father. He pissed in his shoes, shit in his shirt, and wiped his ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... When Asmund next saw the mare and stroked her back, the hide came off beneath his hand. He taxed Grettir with the deed, but the boy sneered mockingly and said nothing. Keingala had to be killed. Such and many other scurvy tricks did Grettir play in his childhood, but meanwhile he grew in body and strength, though none as yet knew him to be strong ...
— The Book of Romance • Various

... William laughingly excused himself for having so long detained the hostages, "in order, my guest, to make thee come and fetch them. And, by St. Valery, now thou art here, thou shalt not depart, till, at least, thou hast lost in gentler memories the recollection of the scurvy treatment thou hast met from that barbarous Count. Nay, never bite thy lip, Harold, my friend, leave to me thy revenge upon Guy. Sooner or later, the very maneir he hath extorted from me shall give excuse for sword and lance, and then, pardex, thou shalt ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the good would result which is before mentioned. Salt meat is not as good as fresh for soups, but it gives an higher flavor to the vegetables boiled with it. The experience of a great part of America, which is fed almost entirely on it, proves it to be as wholesome as fresh meat. The sea scurvy, ascribed by some to the use of salt meat, is equally unknown in America as in Europe. It is the want of vegetables at sea which produces the scurvy. I have thus hastily mentioned reasons and objections, to ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... thus: brandy, cayenne pepper and quinine, will induce inflammatory fever; scammony and ipecac will cause cholera morbus; nitre, calomel and opium, will provoke typhoid or typhus fever; digitalis will cause Asiatic, or spasmodic cholera; cod liver oil and sulphur promote scurvy, and all the cathartic family inevitably cause diarrhcea, the disease in each case being nothing more than the effort of Nature to get rid of ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell

... will be enough this day!' said the good dame. 'Poor bairn! 'Twas scurvy treatment. Now will we put her to bed, and in the morn we will see how ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... known throughout Australia as Captain Cook's tea tree, from the circumstance that, on the first landing of this navigator in that country, he employed a decoction of the leaves of this plant as a corrective to the effects of scurvy among his crew, and this proved an efficient medicine. Thickets of this plant, along the swampy margin of streams, are known as Tea-tree scrubs. It is also known among the natives as the Manuka plant. The wood is hard and heavy, ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders

... on June 25 listened to his explanation, which was promptly published by order of the council. The story briefly was this. Ever since he had reached Virginia the preceding June he had suffered a succession of violent sicknesses—fevers, the flux, gout, and finally scurvy, "till I was upon the point to leave the world." In preference to this he left Virginia in a vessel commanded by Argall, and in the hope that he might recover his health with the aid of hot baths in the West Indies. Contrary ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven

... the simpler and more familiar forms of food, and usually styled these "desecrated vegetables and consecrated milk." We were also supplied liberally with lime-juice, sauerkraut, and pickles, as an antidote to scurvy, and I now recall the extreme anxiety of my medical director, Dr. Kittoe, about the scurvy, which he reported at one time as spreading and imperiling the army. This occurred at a crisis about Kenesaw, when the railroad was taxed to ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... had enough of your ordering, Claggett. You may order your scurvy men about as you wish—half-wits, rascals, thieves and murderers who know no better than to do your bidding, knowing they may well die by your hands as by some other. But you have met your match. I, Osterbridge Hawsey, shall not give in ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... the robber of the Rhine, is a great favourite on the banks of the river which he so long kept in awe. Many amusing stories are related by the peasantry of the scurvy tricks he played off upon rich Jews, or too-presuming officers of justice — of his princely generosity, and undaunted courage. In short, they are proud of him, and would no more consent to have the memory of his achievements dissociated from their river than they would to have ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... loftiest hopes on earth Draw lots with meaner hopes: heroic breasts, Breathing bad air, ran risk of pestilence; Or, lacking lime-juice when they cross the Line, May languish with the scurvy." ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... The French style of dress, uncomfortable and unhealthy for a man, is especially bad for children. The stagnant humours, whose circulation is interrupted, putrify in a state of inaction, and this process proceeds more rapidly in an inactive and sedentary life; they become corrupt and give rise to scurvy; this disease, which is continually on the increase among us, was almost unknown to the ancients, whose way of dressing and living protected them from it. The hussar's dress, far from correcting this fault, increases it, and compresses the whole of the child's body, by way of dispensing ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... thee, thou impudent little baggage!" he shouted. "I'll break thy neck for thee, little scurvy beast;" and pulled the bell as he were like ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... what I told you as to giving her money. And as to her transfer to the hospital, about which His Excellency has written, there is no objection to it, and the physician also consented. But she herself does not wish it. 'I don't care to be chambermaid to that scurvy lot,' she said. That is the kind of people they ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... sickly spell,— Mi appetite aw'm fain to tell Ne'er plays noa scurvy tricks on me, Nowt ivver seems ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... of the wilder and more reckless outcasts of this steady-going community that frequent the back store, results in my appearing at the manse door late at night, very unsteady of leg and incoherent of speech. By a most unhappy chance, a most scurvy trick my familiar devil played upon me, the door is opened by the minister's wife. I can see her look of fear, horror, and loathing yet. It did more to pull me together than a cold bath, so that I saved myself the humiliation of speech ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor

... run over the several sorts of fools or all the names of folly, so thick do they swarm everywhere. And yet your priests make no scruple to receive and cherish them as proper instruments of profit; whereas if some scurvy wise fellow should step up and speak things as they are, as, to live well is the way to die well; the best way to get quit of sin is to add to the money you give the hatred of sin, tears, watchings, prayers, fastings, and amendment of life; such or such a saint will favor you, if you imitate his ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus

... was the sister of that scurvy scalawag with jailbird branded all over his hulking hide? He ain't fit to wipe her little feet on. She's as fine as silk. Think of her going through what she is to save that coyote, and him as crooked as a dog's hind leg. There ain't any limit to what a good woman will do for a man when she thinks ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... some few vegetables kept by the sutler were too expensive to be indulged in. So during all the period I lived at Fort Duncan and its sub-camps, nearly sixteen months, fresh vegetables were practically unobtainable. To prevent scurvy we used the juice of the maguey plant, called pulque, and to obtain a supply of this anti-scorbutic I was often detailed to march the company out about forty miles, cut the plant, load up two or three wagons with the stalks, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan

... diseased man, in his unbridled career of licentiousness, contaminate ever so many of these poor beings—who, to the honor of woman be it said, are mostly driven by bitter want or through seduction to ply their disgraceful trade,—the scurvy fellow remains unmolested. But woe to the woman who does not forthwith submit to inspection and treatment! The garrison cities, university towns, etc., with their congestion of vigorous, healthy men, are the chief centers of prostitution and of its dangerous diseases, that are ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... before served me a scurvy trick, which set the queen a-laughing, although, at the same time she was heartily vexed, and would have immediately cashiered him, if I had not been so generous as to intercede. Her majesty had taken a marrow-bone ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... I said as regards money. And as to her removal to the hospital, that his excellency wrote to me about, it can be done; the doctor would agree. Only she herself does not wish it. She says, 'Much need have I to carry out the slops for the scurvy beggars.' You don't know what these people are, Prince," ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... practically sure to mean an increase in health. Many of us, especially city-dwellers, do not eat enough of them. Many a young girl who "does not like vegetables" probably owes part of her languor to inadequate diet. The old-fashioned "touch of scurvy" formerly noticed at the end of the winter and even now not an unknown thing, was probably due to lack of vegetables in the winter diet. The constipation which is so disturbingly prevalent can ...
— Food Guide for War Service at Home • Katharine Blunt, Frances L. Swain, and Florence Powdermaker

... simply "suspicious character." No other reason for his sentence was given. I handed this fearful record to sister Backus, and we both read with heavy hearts. Every free State was represented. What can we do, we asked ourselves, for these poor men, some of whom are sick and dying with scurvy? This was a query hard to answer. I retired to bed, but not to sleep, wrestling in prayer to Him who hears the sighs of the prisoner to lead me to a door that would open for the 3,000 men in irons. The captain was a kind-hearted man, and told me that he had in many cases put ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... exchange are sent out luxuries and manufactured goods. New clearings are made by the farmer, who has now abundance of manure; the artisan plies useful trades, and ceases to labour in the place of beasts of draught or burden; hateful scurvy, the scourge of new colonies, is expelled, not by medicine, but by fresh meat, milk, and vegetables. But the worker of all this good is unmindful of it; he has bargained to get the highest price he can for his stock, and is already plotting new enterprises; ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... Scurvy, occasioned by salt provisions and cold, made fierce work in the garrison, and in the army scarce a man was free from it. On April 30th a return of Fraser's Highlanders, in the garrison at Quebec, showed three hundred and fourteen fit for duty, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... into which another conservative woman with a will of her own, was changed. It is solid salt. Salt pork, salt beef, salt fish, relieve one another in an endless chain upon her board. She averts scurvy by means of cabbage and potatoes. I know well-to-do farmers' wives who do not cook what they call "butcher's meat," three times a month, or poultry above twice a year. Dried and salt meat and fish replenish what an Irish cook once described to me as "the meat ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... ripens its glossy crow-berries; and from where the sea-spray dashes at full tide along the beach, to where the snow gleams at midsummer on the mountain-summits, the thin short sward is dotted by the minute cruciform stars of the scurvy-grass, and the crimson blossoms of the sea-pink. Not a few of the plants of our existing sea-shores and of our loftier hill-tops are still identical in species; but wide zones of rich herbage, with many a fertile field and many a stately tree, intervene between the bare marine belts ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... a broken gallop; and finding the gates shut, he rode about to see whether he might not find some other way to get in. But he no sooner came to the back-yard wall, which was none of the highest, when he was an eyewitness of the scurvy trick that was put upon his squire. There he saw him ascend and descend, and frolic and caper in the air with so much nimbleness and agility, that it is thought the knight himself could not have forborne ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... give him back his vessel at the end of the time. He was as good as his word, and I never saw a poor fellow so happy and grateful as the fisherman was when he was put on shore. Some time after, when we were all suffering from scurvy, not having had a fresh piece of meat or vegetables for many months, the same man came off to us with a full supply for several days, which I believe saved the lives of ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... you're a better guide than constable, young man, or, as that old fellow said in the road this morning, we'll fley the bird and not grip him. Your clattering tongue had served us a scurvy trick, my man; let your head serve us in better stead, or mayhap you'll ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... his sense of comfort and peace had gone. For he had discovered what Armitage, wishing to give him some hours of unmixed enjoyment, had not meant to mention until the following morning, and this was that there had been an outbreak of scurvy—the disease that has played a particularly important, and often a tragic, part in the adventures of Polar travelers, and the seriousness of which everyone who has read the history of Polar ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... up the mountain, and the Fire Spirits, when they saw him come, were laughing and very merry, for his appearance was much against him. Lean he was, and his coat much the worse for the long way he had come. Slinking he looked, inconsiderable, scurvy, and mean, as he has always looked, and it served him as well then as it serves him now. So the Fire Spirits only laughed, and paid him no ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... this time I think, good-man Puritan, that thou art persuaded, that I know as well as thy own conscience thee, namely Martin Makebate of England, to be a most scurvy and beggarly benefactor to obedience, and per consequens, to fear neither men, nor that God Who can cast both body and soul into unquenchable fire. In which respect I neither account you of the Church, nor esteem of your blood, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... schooner and cargo, and gave him a certificate to secure him against being captured by any other vessel. The man came off afterwards to the ALBEMARLE, at the hazard of his life, with a present of sheep, poultry, and fresh provisions. A most valuable supply it proved, for the scurvy was raging on board: this was in the middle of August, and the ship's company had not had a fresh meal since the beginning of April. The certificate was preserved at Boston in memory of an act of unusual generosity; and now that the ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... the head-jailer of Clerkenwell Prison, raising his glass; "and, though he played me a scurvy trick, I'll drink to his ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... gentleman, we are prone to infer that he is also a man of upright principles and honorable feelings. But we are very often mistaken in this inference; the nice garment proves to be little better than a nice disguise; and the robe of respectability may cover the heart of a very scurvy fellow. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... you blame me quite? The horror of the long, long night Is on me, and I've borne with pain So long, and hoped for help in vain. So frail am I, and blind and dazed; With scurvy sick, with silence crazed. Beneath the Arctic's heel of hate, Avid for Death I wait, I wait. Oh if I falter, fail to fight, Can you, dear comrade, blame me ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... in Berkshire, what must it have done in the Bay of Biscay? As a matter of fact, as we learned from a picture postcard from Jaffery and a short letter from Liosha posted at Bordeaux, and from their lips considerably later—for impossible as it may seem, they did not go to the bottom or die of scurvy or the cannibal's pole-axe—they had made their way from Havre in an ever-increasing tempest, during which they apparently had not slept or put on a dry rag. Heavy seas washed the deck, and kept out the galley fires, ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... had she settled. But we had determined to sail that lovely day to visit the island of Calypso, and had got all our arms and munitions of war aboard, besides being provisioned and carrying some fruit for fear of scurvy. There was of course the gun, placed so as not to get wet; for the boat leaked, and had to be frequently baled out with a tin mug—one that ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... the immigrant to Virginia beset on all sides with deadly perils. If he escaped the plague, the yellow fever and the scurvy during his voyage across the Atlantic, he was more than apt to fall a victim to malaria or dysentery after he reached his new home. Even if he survived all these dangers, he might perish miserably of hunger, or be butchered ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... suffered dreadful privations: they were nearly four months at sea without discovering land. Their stock of provisions was almost exhausted, the water became putrid, and in consequence the poor men were attacked with that horrible disease the scurvy. The only source of consolation, under these troubles, was the uninterrupted fair weather they enjoyed, and the favorable winds which wafted them gently onward; so that Magellan was induced to call the Ocean Pacific: hence the ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... reduced the spirits of the sailors of the "Adams" to very low ebb. They were forced to struggle unceasingly against the fierce gales which in winter sweep the Atlantic. Their stock of food and water was giving out; and, to add to their distress, scurvy, the sailors' worst enemy, began to show itself in the ship. They had boldly run into the very waters in which the "Argus" had won so rich a reward, yet not a sail gladdened the eyes of the lookout ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... community as wholesome moral nourishment. There is no great nutritive value in that sort of fare, I can assure you; and, as a doctor, I ought to know. These "majority truths" are like last year's cured meat—like rancid, tainted ham; and they are the origin of the moral scurvy that is rampant ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen

... some regiments had abundance of bread, but no coffee or meat rations. As to vegetables—beans, or anything of the sort—if the pockets of the soldiers had not been well supplied from home, the army that set out for Manassas would have been eaten with scurvy and the skin diseases that come ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... dog; but as soon as he fancies he is about to marry the wealthy dowager, Lady Allworth, he is most servile, and offers to lend him money. Marrall now plays the traitor to his master, Sir Giles, and reveals to Wellborn the scurvy tricks by which he has been cheated of his estates. When, however, he asks Wellborn to take him into his service, Wellborn replies, "He who is false to one master will betray another;" and will have nothing to say to him.—Massinger, A New Way ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... observation of Sir John Pringle's, which led to it, to be in a considerable degree antiseptic; and since it is extracted in great plenty from fermenting vegetables, he had recommended the use of wort (that is an infusion of malt in water) as what would probably give relief in the sea-scurvy, which is said to ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... look at them! Their names are continually in the newspapers and on men's lips! If you are not tired of listening I will illustrate it by an example. Some years ago I built a bridge in the town of K. I must tell you that the dullness of that scurvy little town was terrible. If it had not been for women and cards I believe I should have gone out of my mind. Well, it's an old story: I was so bored that I got into an affair with a singer. Everyone was enthusiastic ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Carpentaria; for we had at this time ten men in the sick list with diarrhoea, and many others were slightly affected. It seemed possible that the change of food, from salt provisions to the fresh meat, fruit, and vegetables of Timor—a change by which I hoped to banish every appearance of scurvy, might have had an influence in producing the disease; and if so, it was avoiding Scylla to fall upon Charybdis, and ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... the scurvy, with many formidable symptoms, began to make its appearance among our navigators. Tupia, in particular, was so grievously affected with the disease, that all the remedies prescribed by the surgeon could not retard its progress. Mr. Green, the astronomer, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... but dried fruit is rich in carbohydrates. Fruit acid (that of prunes, dried apricots, and dehydrated cranberries, when fresh fruit cannot be carried) is a good corrective of a too fatty and starchy or sugary diet, and a preventive of scurvy. Most fruits are laxative, and for that reason, if none other, a good proportion of dried fruit should be included in the ration, no matter how light one travels; otherwise one is likely to suffer from constipation when he changes from 'town grub' ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... gods, Rag, get thee to sleep once more, thou stupidest lout in Britain! It is a scurvy trick to waken thus at the wrong time and trumpet thy nonsense in such fashion. Good youth canst not skip that bit for peace's sake, and get on ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... that to him, lad," cried Dr Thorpe, "when he can put his hand into the King's treasury, and draw it out full of rose nobles? The scurvy rogue! ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... representative was obliged to lie down in his petticoats upon a topsail which lay between decks, with a bullock on each side of him, who every now and then made a dart at him with their horns, as if they knew that it was to him that they were indebted for their embarkation and being destined to drive the scurvy out of ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... them, and more particularly to pride and ingratitude. I never conversed with a people more ungrateful and puffed up than the Florentines. Therefore, if judgment comes, it is but right and reasonable. As for the sixty ducats you tell me you are fined, I think this a scurvy trick, and am exceedingly annoyed. However, we must have patience as long as it pleases God. I will write and enclose two lines to Giuliano de' Medici. Read them, and if you like to present them to him, do so; you will see whether they are likely to be of any use. If not, consider whether ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... love to pluck the quils With which I make pens, out of a Lions claw. The King! shoo'd I be bitter 'gainst the king I shall have scurvy ballads made of me Sung to the Hanging Tune[201]. ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... second prize and follow hard after me. We will not risk too much, and one load will suffice for present necessities, albeit I should like well enough to obtain the two. I would make our ministers smart for their scurvy ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... to what a misery hath Age brought thee: to what a scurvy Fortune! Thou that hast been a Companion for Noblemen, and at the worst of those times for Gentlemen: now like a broken Servingman, must beg for favour to those, that would have crawl'd like Pilgrims to my Chamber but for an Apparition of me. You ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... a Hessian the ship became his first cradle, without granting unto him in its hasty course a place which he could call his birthplace, there were others, who, deceased, were buried at the bottom of the sea, the Ensign von Stedel of the Regiment von Donop, among the first victims. Scurvy was developed as a result of tainted humors, for which the drinking of sea water was used as a medicine, and also the chewing of tobacco, which the Hessians had learned from the sailors and later kept up as ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister

... the master, was indignant beyond measure at the scurvy treatment thus meted out to us as prisoners of war, and talked a great deal about the representations he intended to make to the authorities with regard to it; but in the meantime he decided to give his parole, in the ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... Dragon's blood, And calls so angry, and so loud? That English dog, will he before me stand? I'll cut him down with my courageous hand. With my long teeth, and scurvy jaw, Of such I'd break up half a score, And stay my stomach, till ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... runs about very fairly, but the mange has assumed that character of scurvy which I do not know how to grapple with. Continue the alterative balls, and ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... as December. Some of the party became listless and sluggish, their faces turned sallow and their eyes appeared sunken. They found it difficult to breathe and their gums were swollen and spongy. Macdonell, a veteran in hardship, saw at once that scurvy had broken out among them; but he had a simple remedy and the supply was without limit. The sap of the white spruce was extracted and administered to the sufferers. Almost immediately their health showed improvement, and soon all were on the road to recovery. But the medicine ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood

... was never of hasty or violent temper, it was quite as well that I failed to gain a sight of De Croix as I passed the posts and the sentry clanged the gate behind me. The Frenchman's scurvy trick would have heated cooler blood than mine; nor was my spirit soothed by the harsh fall I suffered. But De Croix had not waited; nowhere along the bare sunlit parade was he visible. I saw nothing ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... of the most perfect, rare and absolute true Gulls, that ever thou saw'st, if thou wilt come. 'Sblood, invent some famous memorable lie, or other, to flap thy Father in the mouth withal: thou hast been father of a thousand, in thy days, thou could'st be no Poet else: any scurvy roguish excuse will serve; say thou com'st but to fetch wool for thine Ink-horn. And then, too, thy Father will say thy wits are a wool- gathering. But it's no matter; the worse, the better. Anything is good enough for the old ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson

... beauty has been the last jest which the Arch-Jester has practised on me. I fancy he thought that this final scurvy trick would wipe Simon de Gex for ever out of the ranks of his rivals. But I flatter myself that, having snapped my fingers in his face, the last laugh has been on my side. He has withdrawn discomfited from the conflict and left me master of the ground. Love conquers ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... it's going to materialize, and then get out of my way, for I'll be a whirling, irresponsible lunatic, with the wild joy of it. Oh I've got faith in that kiss of yours, Ruth! It's on the way. The fates have booked it. There isn't a reason on earth why I should be served so scurvy a trick as to miss it, and I never ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... Sea, clinging to the dykes by their finger-tips, and fighting their way back to their homes and altars. And here are the American boys confined to the prison ship, the Jersey, starved victims of scurvy and fever, without food, without medicine, with the corpses of their brothers floating in the water just outside, boys whose monument stands yonder in Fort Greene. What a tale of ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... chap," Frank answered. "It has a scurvy trick Porter played on you, and—and it might have resulted ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish

... best mount and away with the ladies, Sir Guy," he said. "Yon scurvy loons are in poor humor ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye



Words linked to "Scurvy" :   scorbutic, common scurvy grass, hypovitaminosis, miserable, scorbutus, avitaminosis, low, abject



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