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noun
Squabble  n.  A scuffle; a wrangle; a brawl.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Squabble" Quotes from Famous Books



... That's a nuisance! Now we shall have to wait till they separate—sure to squabble, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various

... Hervey," she broke in before the foreman could speak for himself. "He'll bear no malice to you. He's forgotten that squabble over—" ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... true that a man must not laugh at his own jokes? Don't you suppose that the man who invented the canard about the Jews in Roumania is laughing at the squabble which he has raised between the Associated Press and the American Press Association, by means of his little joke? And don't you suppose, when the returns of the last election came in, that Mr. TWEED laughed ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble with loafers. "What do you ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... wind which blows nobody good." We had earnestly desired, during two terms of service in the Levant, to visit Egypt, but some untoward event had always prevented us from doing so. A threatened massacre at Damascus, some consul's squabble at Sidon or Haiffa, or some fresh atrocity reported in the course of the Cretan insurrection, or the desire on the part of our minister to have "the flag shown" at Constantinople, had invariably barred us from getting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... to mention; Resolves air a thing we most gen'ally keep ill, They're a cheap kind o' dust fer the eyes o' the people; A parcel o' delligits jest git together An' chat fer a spell o' the crops an' the weather, 50 Then, comin' to order, they squabble awile An' let off the speeches they're ferful'll spile; Then—Resolve,—Thet we wunt hev an inch o' slave territory; Thet President Polk's holl perceedins air very tory; Thet the war is a damned war, an' them thet enlist in it Should ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... as there was no use in getting into a squabble about such a trifle, I handed my partner over to the care of a gentleman of the party, who was fortunately accoutred according to rule, and, stepping to my quarters, I equipped myself in a pair of tight nether integuments, and returned to the ball—room. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... voice broke in upon her self-arraignment. "Don't squabble, girls. The day is altogether too perfect. None of you are really cross. ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... Liszt beyond all bounds, and in his reply he included some such phrase as this: 'If we are not prepared to admit this, what do we prove ourselves to be? Baboons!' I laughed, but again Karl only smiled—this time, with deadly embarrassment. I discovered afterwards through Bulow that in some youthful squabble he had had the word 'Baboon-face' hurled at him. It soon became impossible to hide the fact that Ritter felt himself grossly insulted by 'the doctor,' as he called him, and he left my house foaming with rage, not to set ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... would be asleep," came the relieved reply. "Say, Chrystobel, I'm sorry I got mad this afternoon. Maybe if I had had more patience I could have shown you just how selfish you were without all that fuss and squabble. Will you forget the hateful things I said and be friends with me? You can have both big drawers and twenty-one hooks in the ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... of the fish could begin: "Hey there, me first, you——!" "No, my turn, you——!" "You were first yesterday!" The usual morning fight for precedence was on, waiting for arbitration by tia Picores, with her cannonading voice and formidable obscenities. But Dolores had not joined the squabble—she even missed the place her basket held, by rights, in the line. Something on the bridge had caught her eye; and, in fact, over the side rails of that structure the head and shoulders of a straggler could be seen advancing slowly, staggering along under the weight ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... hundred miles of unknown country, was the publication by Robert Dunn of an extraordinary narrative in several consecutive numbers of Outing, afterward republished in book form, with some modifications, as "The Shameless Diary of an Explorer," a vivid but unpleasant production, for which every squabble and jealousy of the party furnishes literary material. The book has a curious, undeniable power, despite its brutal frankness and its striving after "the poor renown of being smart," and it may live. One is thankful, however, that ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... next occasion Goldsmith was of the company, and the visit after that was brought about through Boswell's inability to keep his promise to entertain Johnson at his own rooms. The little Scotsman had a squabble with his landlord, and was obliged to take his guest to the Mitre. "There is nothing," Johnson said, "in this mighty misfortune; nay, we shall be better at the Mitre." And Boswell was characteristically oblivious of the slur on his gifts as a host. But ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... else's laundry—the two ladies are enabled to say the most dreadful things to one another without any one being a penny the worse. They do not understand one another's language. But if they speak a common tongue, the words which pass when the most ephemeral squabble arises stick ...
— Getting Together • Ian Hay

... But the disgraceful squabble between Hohenlo and Edward Norris had been more unlucky for Leicester than any other incident during the year, for its result was to turn the hatred of both parties against himself. Yet the Earl of all men, was originally ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the melancholy gentleman), was not this an extremely hard case? To be thus abused, and reviled, and scouted, for merely desiring to be allowed to live in peace, and to have nothing to do with a squabble in which I did not feel in any way interested. But this was not all. I was lampooned, caricatured, and paragraphed in the newspapers, in a thousand different ways. In the first, I was satirized as the fair dealer; in the second, I was represented as a wolf in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... of a quarrel between Aristotelian professors on one side and professors favouring the experimental method on the other. But this position was attacked and carried by a very simple statement. If the divine guidance of the Church is such that it can be dragged into a professorial squabble, and made the tool of a faction in bringing about a most disastrous condemnation of a proved truth, how did the Church at that time differ from any human organization sunk into decrepitude, managed nominally by simpletons, but really by schemers? If that argument be true, the condition of the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... however, had their advocates. There was Frank, the richest farmer in the parish, whose great grandfather had been knocked on the head many years before, in a squabble between the parish and a former landlord. There was Dick, the merry-andrew, rather light-fingered and riotous, but a clever droll fellow. Above all, there was Charley, the publican, a jolly, fat, honest lad, a great favourite with the women, who, if he had not been rather too fond of ale ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... said the Duke speculatively, watching the squabble at the distant gate keenly, turning his horse to head that way by a pressure of ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... latter course, under fear, his wife merrily declared, of being circumvented by Mrs. Dugdale. The brother and sister, she had already discovered, seemed on as pleasant terms as fire and water, since, as Harrie punningly averred, one invariably "put out" the other. They did not squabble—Nathanael Harper never squabbled—but they always met with a gentle hissing, like water sprinkled on coals. Agatha, who was quite new to these harmless fraternalities, always occurring in large ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... you'll git it, Mr. Winston, er Sam Hayes will find out why. This yere 'Independence' outfit is no favorites o' mine, an' if the whole difficulty turns out ter be nothin' but a minin' squabble, the jury ain't likely ter be very hard on yer. That's my way o' figgerin' on it, from what little I know." He glanced keenly about, seeking to gain a clearer idea of their immediate surroundings. "Maybe you an' Swanson better mosey back yonder to the cabin, where I can keep an eye on you easy, ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... death, is for the hour lifted above the satire of postillions. A good genius prompted Evan to avoid the silly squabble that might have ensued and made him ridiculous. He took the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... almost as serious an offence as killing a cow, and, in both cases, before an offender can be reinstated he must kill a fowl and swallow a drop or two of its blood with turmeric. Women commonly get the lobe of the ear torn through the heavy ear-rings which they wear; and in a squabble another woman will often seize the ear-ring maliciously in order to tear the ear. A woman injured in this way is put out of caste for a year in Janjgir. To grow turmeric or garlic is also an offence against caste, but a man is permitted ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... refused to admit the third to their table, saying, "as he and his master only serve a president's wife, he cannot presume to compare himself with us, who serve Princesses and Duchesses." The rejected footman called another fellow to his aid, and a violent squabble ensued. The commissaire was called: he found that they served three brothers, the sons of a rich merchant at Rouen; two of them had bought companies in the French Guards; one of the two had an intrigue with the wife of Duc d'Abret, and the other with the Duchesse de Luxembourg, while the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... express a wish for a parrot-wing or water-worn stone, or such like, after a time I would be certain, on issuing from my bedroom, to find that it had been surreptitiously laid there, and the little soft-eyed fellows would squabble for the privilege of bringing me my post, simply to give me pleasure. Poor little Lizer, and Rose Jane too, copied me in style of dress and manners in a way that was ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... at Kohl and Middleton's, Chicago, and the following week at Burton's Museum, Milwaukee; but when we made the next jump I found that White was not along. They had had a family squabble, the other apex of the triangle being a circus grafter who "shibbolethed" at some of the "brace games," which at that time had police protection, so far as that could be given. He had interfered between the couple, and was, I am sorry to say, quite ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... introduced for that purpose in the Bill, that nothing in the Act should affect the supremacy of the British Parliament. In short, the whole discussion here necessarily resolved itself into a mere verbal squabble as to the construction of a clause in a Bill not yet in Committee, and had ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... over to Paradise Row, and was seated with Mrs. Roden when this little squabble was going on. "You don't think that I ought to let things remain as they are," he said to Mrs. Roden. To all such questions Mrs. Roden found it very difficult to make any reply. She did in truth think that they ought to be allowed to remain as they were,—or rather that some severance ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... daylight playing the dish game they had learned among the Ottawas. I heard them stake their patrimony in this world, and their hopes of the next, on the throw of the black and yellow balls, but I smoked my pipe, and let them brag and squabble. The bees were droning, the sun lay warm on my back, and the forest was at peace. Two years before, I remembered, I had worn lace and periwig on this day, and had stood in his majesty's antechamber. Now ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... I, 'some folks that know me call me the rain-maker. They may be right. They may be wrong. I'm not going to squabble about it. You can call me what you please. I ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris

... business), and muttered something about satisfaction, in a verbal answer to a note of the poor Prussian: this was stated at table to Gropius, who laughed, but could eat no dinner afterwards. The rivals were not reconciled when I left Greece. I have reason to remember their squabble, for they wanted to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... fellows. Cod, a pillow. Coft, bought. Cog, a wooden drinking vessel, a porridge dish, a corn measure for horses. Coggie, dim. of cog, a little dish. Coil, Coila, Kyle (one of the ancient districts of Ayrshire). Collieshangie, a squabble. Cood, cud. Coof, v. cuif. Cookit, hid. Coor, cover. Cooser, a courser, a stallion. Coost (i. e., cast), looped, threw off, tossed, chucked. Cootie, a small pail. Cootie, leg-plumed. Corbies, ravens, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... of K'ang Hsi, and he forthwith declared that in future he would only allow facilities for preaching to those priests who shared his view. In 1716, an edict was issued, banishing all missionaries unless excepted as above. The Emperor had indeed been annoyed by another ecclesiastical squabble, on a minor scale of importance, which had been raging almost simultaneously round the choice of an appropriate Chinese term for God. The term approved, if not suggested, by K'ang Hsi, and indisputably ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... I shall send you an Athenaeum with a rather humorous account of a Cockney squabble about whether Shelley called his Lark an 'un-bodied,' or 'em-bodied,' Spirit. I really forget which way was settled by MS. Shelley is now the rage in Cockayne; but he is too unsubstantial ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... noble name, to his parents as their daughter-in-law, he replied that, being a Greek, she was of course a Melchite. Those present asked no better reason; as soon as the question of creed was raised the conversation, as usual in these convivial evenings, became a squabble over dogmatic differences; in the course of it a legal official ventured to opine that if the case had been that of a less personage than a son of the Mukaukas—for whom it was, of course, out of the question—of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... well-bred to squabble here, Or insult back to render; But may you wither soon, my dear, Although so ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Jonson asks in that dialogue (which was spoken on the stage after 'The Poetaster' had given rise to a general squabble), how it came about that such a hubbub was made of that play, seeing that it was free from insults, only containing 'some salt' but 'neither tooth, nor gall,' whilst his antagonists, after all, had been the cause of whatever remarks ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... slowly from the kitchen, as befitted a man of his superior character. He heard the row well enough, but considered it beneath him to hasten to a petty squabble. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... believe he means peace, and war will be averted, unless he is overruled by the disunion portion of his party. We all know the irrepressible conflict is going on in their camp.... Then, throw aside this petty squabble about how you are to get along with your pledges before election; meet the issues as they are presented; do what duty, honor, and patriotism require, and appeal to the people to sustain you. Peace is the only policy that can save the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... the immediate cause of this our latest Insurrection—the word is big, much too big for the deed, and we should call it row, or riot, or squabble, in order to draw the fact down to its dimensions, but the ultimate blame for the trouble between the two countries does ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens

... going home day after to-morrow, and very likely we'll never see the Cliftons again, after we leave here. They don't come here every summer like we do. And I hate to spoil these two last days with a horrid squabble, when we six have been so nice and chummy and pleasant all the time we've been here. You needn't have much to do with Pauline, if you don't want to, but just for two days, can't you just be decently polite to her, and not say anything ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells

... began to assert his rights against his oppressor. Still, the other was his master, and, by his superior strength, always tackled with him and threw him down. One afternoon, before we were turned-to, these boys got into a violent squabble in the between-decks, when George (the Boston boy) said he would fight Nat, if he could have fair play. The chief mate heard the noise, dove down the hatchway, hauled them both up on deck, and told them to shake hands and have no more trouble for the voyage, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... and the unreality thereof has been cleared up by Vollmer, as will be duly shown. The squabble of the medieval savants has also given rise to the story that Apicius is but a joke perpetrated upon the world by a medieval savant. This will be refuted also later on. Our book is a genuine Roman. Medieval savants have made plenty of Roman "fakes," for sundry reasons. ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius

... and the night with its heaven of stars above us. "It is strange," I reflected, "how men can go on worrying themselves about Rome and Canterbury four hundred years after the discovery that the earth moved, and involuntarily a comparison rose up in my mind of a squabble between two departments in an office after the firm has gone bankrupt.... But how to get all these vagrant thoughts into a sheet of paper? St. Paul himself could not proselytize within such limitations, and apparently what I wrote was not sufficient to lead ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... my dear, honest old, HONEST old idiot, there are scores of families here in this parish, within a stone's throw, that squabble, wrangle, all but politely tear each other's eyes out, every day of their earthly lives. It's perfectly natural. Where should we poor old busybodies be else. Peace on earth we bring, and it's mainly between husband ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... admiration for them is entirely boundless. In one or two individual instances, it is true, it has been broken down by an unfortunate squabble with thick-set fellows in the Chapel aisle. A person who sits not far before you at prayers, and whose name you seek out very early, bears a strong resemblance to some portrait of Dr. Johnson; you have very much the same kind of respect for him that you feel for the great ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... there a corner of Europe where men of science will not laugh when they hear that the prosperity of the University of Saint Andrews is to be promoted by expelling Sir David Brewster on account of a theological squabble? The professors of Edinburgh know better than this Presbytery how the prosperity of a seat of learning is to be promoted. There the Academic Senate is almost unanimous in favour of the bill. And indeed it is quite certain that, unless this ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... nominally a cardinal at the age of thirteen, and had advanced to the highest station in the Church. He was much absorbed in matters pertaining to learning and art, and in political affairs, and at first looked upon this Saxon disturbance as a mere squabble of monks. He attempted ineffectually to bring Luther to submission and quietness, first through his legate Cajetan, a scholarly Italian, who met him at Augsburg (1518), and then by a second messenger, Miltitz (1519), a Saxon by birth. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... growing good. We haven't had a squabble since Florence went away. I suppose, now she can't get anybody else, she has to put up with me. She has just three ideas in her head at present: cooking, some singing lessons she is going to begin next month, and her new gown. I suppose she would say I'm envious, ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... much more love than lovers ever give had to be taken back. Besides, it had no dignity, and a lover's quarrel always has. A lover's quarrel always springs from a more serious cause, and has an air of romantic tragedy. This had no grace of the kind. It was a poor shabby little squabble." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... question, on each clause of the bill, amounts to this:—Is the measure proposed required by the necessities of India? I cannot consent totally to lose sight of the real wants of the people who are the objects of it, and to hunt after every matter of party squabble that may be started on the several provisions. On the question of the duration of the commission I am clear and decided. Can I, can any one who has taken the smallest trouble to be informed concerning the affairs of India, amuse ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... North and South. At nightfall roysterer and reveller roamed with torches through the narrow lanes, defying bailiffs, and cutting down burghers at their doors. Now a mob of clerks plunged into the Jewry and wiped off the memory of bills and bonds by sacking a Hebrew house or two. Now a tavern squabble between scholar and townsman widened into a general broil, and the academical bell of St. Mary's vied with the town bell of St. Martin's in clanging to arms. Every phase of ecclesiastical controversy or political strife was preluded by some fierce outbreak ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... mating is pure bunk, it seems to me," Charlie tacked off on a new course of thought. "A man and a woman somewhere near of an age generally hit it off all right, if they've got common horse sense—and income enough so they don't have to squabble eternally about where the next new hat and suit's coming from. It's the coin that counts most of all. It sure is, Sis. It's me that knows it, ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... very much at stake depending on Graham's remaining unrecognized, with old Fort Reynolds only six miles ahead, and Silver Shield only twenty-six farther, it would be foolish to become involved in a squabble. But Toomey had been nursing his wrath. Big Ben was not too fond of Cullin, and Geordie found that they were quite bent on making trouble at first opportunity. In spite of the early hour an air of excitement pervaded the station. Many ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... Peckinpaw, who was a very old woman and who never spoke to Miss Peckham because of some neighborhood squabble which had happened so long before that neither of them ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... uncle. "We're still in the painful early stages of the squabble. I'll tell you what I'll do, Andrew: I'll compromise with you. Instead of making the bargain you proposed, I'll stand aside and let you go ahead of me into the next world. Then you can come back at your leisure and keep the spook compact. It'll be quite interesting. Every time a knock ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... wit, was asked, because of his jokes; and Mrs. Butt, on whom he practises; and Potter, who is asked because everybody else asks him; and Mr. Ranville Ranville of the Foreign Office, who might give some news of the Spanish squabble; and Botherby, who has suddenly sprung up into note because he is intimate with the French Revolution, and visits Ledru-Rollin and Lamartine. And these, with a couple more who are amis de la maison, made up the twenty, whom Mrs. Timmins thought ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray

... A squabble ensued, and the Irishman continued to answer them with the utmost contempt. In a short time two of them gained courage enough to threaten to turn him out; to which he replied—'Oh! By the sweet Jasus but I should be glad to see the pretty boy that would dare ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... diamond-mine?" Mollie interrupted, feeling that another squabble was in the air. "Did you make a fortune, ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... his in these early days of the contest are recorded. "Brother Martin," he said, "is a man of a very fine genius, and this outbreak the mere squabble of envious monks;" and again, "It is a drunken German who has written the theses; he will think differently about them when sober." Three months after the theses had appeared, he ordered the vicar-general of the Augustinians to "quiet down the man," hoping still to extinguish ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... it when it came to the actual feeding of the pigs, and for their digestion's sake, it was well that the farmer's wife warned him that there might be such a thing as over-feeding, even of pigs. He would have spent the best part of the afternoon in filling the trough and watching them squabble over it. ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth

... great; it is morally dangerous; for it brings with it the temptation to look on the thing found as your own possession, all but your own creation; to pride yourself on it, as if God had not known it for ages since; even to squabble jealously for the right of having it named after you, and of being recorded in the Transactions of I- know-not-what Society as its first discoverer:- as if all the angels in heaven had not been admiring it, long before you were ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... Bremerton, to whom the Squire had dictated some letters in connection with the squabble, had quietly made a suggestion—had asked leave to write a letter on approval. For sheer boredom with the whole business, the Squire had ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... gentlemen!" said the cardinal, "three men placed hors de combat in a cabaret squabble! You don't do your work by halves. And pray what was ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... along the Cornish valley in a dream, and once more kangaroos bound in slow, great curves down the hills, and gay parrakeets squabble on the ground, and the soft grey apple-gums slumber in the distance, and the fragrance of the wattles is ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... up as heretical. Instead, he wrote three bold pamphlets, in one of which he appealed to the "Christian nobility of the German nation" to rally together against Rome. The pope, at first, had paid little attention to the controversy about indulgences, declaring it "a mere squabble of monks," but he now issued a bull against Luther, ordering him to recant within sixty days or be excommunicated. The papal bull did not frighten Luther or withdraw from him popular support. He burnt it in ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... conveyances in any continental city with which we are acquainted. Greater fault still is to be found with the drivers, a large proportion of whom are so prone to overreach, that it is hardly possible to settle for their fares without a squabble. Our experience leads us to say, that at an average a stranger pays 30 per cent. above the proper sum, besides having his temper in almost every instance ruffled to some extent by the sense of having no adequate protection from the rudeness of this ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various

... but the expressman had had some trouble with a drunken man who actually took the package out of his hands and didn't give it back without a squabble. Strange how men can drink till they can't see, and so early in the morning, ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... supercilious indifference to mere 'theological subtleties.' To him Paul's preaching and the Jews' passionate denials of it seemed only a squabble about 'words and names.' Probably he had gathered his impression from Paul's eager accusers, who would charge him with giving the name of 'Christ' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... heard the wren scream desperately; turning, I saw the little vagabond fall into the grass with the wrathful bluebird fairly upon him; the latter had returned just in time to catch him, and was evidently bent on punishing him well. But in the squabble in the grass the wren escaped and took refuge in the friendly evergreen. The bluebird paused for a moment with outstretched wings looking for the fugitive, then flew away. A score of times during the month of June ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... us willin'. We fix it up and agree to try over ag'in, and then, fust thing we know, we're right into the middle of another squabble. I want Marthy, and I guess Marthy wants me, but we want each other like we was five year back and not like ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... already he could see with steady clearness. And while his eyes were still closed, he had felt, tasted, and smelled. He knew his two brothers and his two sisters very well. He had begun to romp with them in a feeble, awkward way, and even to squabble, his little throat vibrating with a queer rasping noise (the forerunner of the growl), as he worked himself into a passion. And long before his eyes had opened he had learned by touch, taste, and smell to know his ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... they had thrown all that kind of thing overboard long ago," said Miss Fitzgibbon. "It would be better that they should have no veil, than squabble about the ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... themselves, which were intended to pay the greatest respect to the memory of the deceased; but the cautions they took brought about the very result they were anxious to avoid, and at once revived all the slumbering sympathies of the mob in favour of the unhappy queen. A squabble took place at the outset, Dr. Lushington, as one of the executors, protesting against the removal of the corpse; but, escorted by squadrons of Horse-guards Blue, the procession left Brandenburg House at eight o'clock in the morning of the 15th of August, in a drizzling ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... "it's like anchoring to a thought. Thought is a fidgety thing, restless, perverse. It anchors itself very easily on to a grievance, or an unpleasant incident, or a squabble. Don't you know the misery of being jerked back, time after time, by an unpleasant thought? I think one ought to practise the opposite—and I know now by experience that it is possible. I will make a confession. I ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... be! He's coarse-grained, like his carved black cross-bow stock. Ha, look now, while we squabble with him, look! Well done, now—is not this beginning, ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning

... glorious scramble they had—these three little boys and three little girls! How they laughed and jumped and knocked heads together in picking up the cherries, yet never quarreled—for there were such heaps, it would have been ridiculous to squabble over them; and besides, whenever they began to quarrel, Brownie always ran away. Now he was the merriest of the lot; ran up and down the tree like a cat, helped to pick up the cherries, and was first-rate at filling the ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... our first "guineas" were struck. In both countries there was a general irritation which vented itself in cries for war, and in the session of 1664 the English Parliament presented an address to the Crown praying for the exaction of redress for wrongs done by the Dutch to English merchants. But the squabble was of long standing, and there was nothing to threaten any immediate strife. Charles himself indeed shrank from wars which he foresaw would leave him at the mercy of his Parliament; and Clarendon with Ormond, the bishops, and the whole Church party, were conscious ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... remembered that Charlemagne had forceful argument with these Avari; it had something to do with that worthy's trip to visit the Empress of the East; there was a squabble about fares, river dues and such matters. However, this is vieux jeu, and has nothing to do with Prague. The Avari were devoted to the time-honoured practice of robbing and ravishing their neighbours, among them the Bohemians. These latter seem to have borrowed one Samo the Frank, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... the budgets, giving instructions to architects as to alterations to be made at the Tuileries and the Church of the Madelaine, throwing an occasional sarcasm at Madame de Stael and the Parisian journals, interfering to put down a squabble at the Grand Opera, carrying on a correspondence with the Sultan of Turkey and the Schah of Persia, so that while his body was at Finkenstein, his mind seemed to be working at a hundred different places in Paris, in Europe, and throughout ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... is generally only the disgruntled politician. His revolution is seldom more than a violent squabble among greedy spoilsmen for control of the loose-jointed administration. But the great Mosquera Revolution which burst into flame in New Granada in 1861 was fed with fuel of a different nature. It demonstrated, if demonstration were necessary, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... a note stating that "this duchess, when the head of this lady's family came by his death lately in a fatal duel, never rested until she got a pension for the orphan heir, and widow, from her Majesty's bounty." The squabble did not advance poor Esmond's promotion much, and indeed made him so ashamed of himself that he dared not show his face at the Commander-in-Chief's ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... delightfully warm spring night, and there on the platform of Stickney's store, where the softened light from within shone upon them through a huge window, the boys had gathered. They were chatting, jesting, chaffing one another, and occasionally playing pranks, which once or twice started a squabble. As Rackliff sauntered up Chub Tuttle was complaining that nearly a pint of peanuts had been stolen from ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... but praise for the way in which Bismarck created his Versailles masterpiece. That there was a political squabble behind the curtain, in ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... German smokes, the Spaniard serenades; and on all hands it is agreed that the Irishman fights. Naturally bellicose, his practice is pugnacious: antagonism is his salient and distinctive quality. Born in a squabble, he dies in a shindy: in his cradle he squeals a challenge; his latest groan is a sound of defiance. Pike and pistol are manifest in his well-developed bump of combativeness; his name is FIGHT, there can be no mistake about it. From highest to lowest—in the peer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... patriots as well as rebels, and the seminary can vie with the college, or possibly outdo it, occasion given. Ask Juliette Adam whether the bread-and-butter misses of France in the year 1847 did not squabble over the obstinacy of King Louis Philippe and the greed of M. Guizot, the claims of Louis Napoleon and the theories of Louis Blanc, of Odilon Barrot, and Ledru-Rollin? And I who write, have I not seen a North Antrim Sunday-school wrecked in a faction-fight between the Orange and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... off well; the libations were plentiful. The antagonists and their four seconds made it a point of honor that a duel, involving so large a fortune, and the reputation of two men noted for their courage, should not appear the result of an ordinary squabble. No two gentlemen could have behaved better than Philippe and Max; in this respect the anxious waiting of the young men and townspeople grouped about the market-place was balked. All the guests, like ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... roads they wrought, For the needs of the soil within; A time to squabble in court, A time to bear ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... had lost "that man" (Nietzsche), we begin to perceive that personal bitterness and animosity are out of the question here. We feel we are on a higher plane, and that we must not judge these two men as if they were a couple of little business people who had had a suburban squabble. ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.

... the kirangozi would harangue the camp, cautioning all hands to keep together on the line of march, as the Watuta were constantly hovering about, and the men should not squabble and fight with their master, else no more white men would come this way again. On the 11th we were out of Bogue, in the district of Ugomba, and next march brought us into Ugombe (12th), where we crossed the Ukongo nullah, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... with this society, alack! a tremendous squabble ensued. It had fallen almost entirely into the hands of the boarders, and they seemed determined to keep all its privileges to themselves. They fixed upon a play, shared the cast among them, and held rehearsals in the evenings. Mavis, Merle, and Muriel, the only day-girls ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil

... a foolish thing to squabble over a piece of grazing land where all the world lay out of doors, but Hector Hall's way of coming up to it was unpleasant. It was decidedly offensive, bullying, oppressive. If he should give way before it he'd just as well ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... came from her old friend, giving a lively description of her journey home, and of a disgraceful squabble between Polly and a tiny pug, in which the former blasphemed, and the latter barked bravely from the arms of his mistress, until the wrathful conductor bundled both off into the baggage-car, but saying nothing of Jasper, except a casual ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... well-meaning governors, two years ago, had succeeded in forcing upon Fellsgarth the adoption of a Modern side, the School had been rent by factions whose quarrels sometimes bordered on civil war. When people squabble about the management of a school outside, the boys are pretty sure to quarrel and take ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... want to discuss, so much awe was lavished upon them by Brother Raymond and Brother Augustine. It did not strike Mark that the fight at St. Agnes' might appear to the large majority of people as much a foolish squabble over trifles, a cherishing of the letter rather than the spirit of Christian worship, as the dispute between Mr. So-and-so and the Bishop of Somewhere-or-other in regard to his use of the Litany of the Saints in solemn procession on high days ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... COURTNEY down on him like cartload of bricks; declined to put Motion, declaring it abuse of forms of House. This rather depressing. In good old times there would have been an outburst of indignation in Irish camp; Chairman's ruling challenged, and squabble agreeably occupied rest of evening. But times changed. No Irish present to back TANNER, who, with despairing look round, subsided, and business went forward without ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various

... it prudent to pursue him. To boys, under ordinary circumstances—boys who have buffeted their way through a scolding nursery, a wrangling family, or a public school—there would have been nothing in this squabble to dwell on the memory or vibrate on the nerves, after the first burst of passion: but to Philip Beaufort it was an era in life; it was the first insult he had ever received; it was his initiation into that changed, rough, and terrible career, to which the spoiled darling ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... acts in a way that's entirely inconsistent with all he knows of her, he never thinks of trying to work backwards to find out the cause. The effect's enough for him! Oh!"—with a sigh—"I do think Peter and Nan are most difficult people to manage. If it were only that—just a lovers' squabble—one might fix things up. But now, just when every obstacle in the world is removed and they could be happily married, Nan must needs decide that it's ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... and impetuous wooer. It is a trial of speed, as if the female were to say, "Catch me and I am yours," and she scurries away with all her might and main, often with three or four dusky knights in hot pursuit. When she takes to cover in the grass, there is generally a squabble "down among the tickle-tops," or under the buttercups, and "Winterseeble" or "Conquedle" ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... "a verbal strife followed by strained or severed relations: wrangle or squabble: to dispute angrily." This is connected to hatred ...
— The Key To Peace • A. Marie Miles

... you two to squabble. You should be leaving for school in less than five minutes," ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson

... As this squabble was growing into a quarrel the physician arrived; he had not been long alone with the unknown, before he sent for a surgeon, and the surgeon for a nurse. There was so much bustle, alarm, and secrecy, above-stairs, that the landlord began to consider which of the two undertakers, his ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... away without leave from the learned professor, and had got into difficulties. Oh, didn't I just love you for it! There's a Miss Frost here who tries to teach me; but, bless you! she can't knock much learning into me. She is as terrified of me as she can be, is old Frosty. She and I had a squabble in the passage; she said I was not to come in because I had my red dress on. You know, it's only a year since father died, and mother is in deep mourning still; but I will wear red—it is my sort of mourning. I suppose ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... good-natured falconer repeated to his master the whole history of the squabble which had brought Roland Graeme into disgrace with his mistress, but in a manner so favourable for the page, that Sir Halbert could not ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... fools that in their anxiety to observe the rules of warfare" (here von Hoffner laughed sardonically) "they play into our hands. More than a twelvemonth of war has not taught them that the hitherto recognized observances of war are no longer binding. This is not a petty squabble between two nations. It is a struggle for existence; consequently it ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman



Words linked to "Squabble" :   spat, pettifoggery, fence, quarrel, dustup, contend, bicker, argue, words, debate, pettifog, fuss, niggle, bickering, brabble, quibble



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