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Thoroughbred   Listen
adjective
Thoroughbred  adj.  Bred from the best blood through a long line; pure-blooded; said of stock, as horses. Hence, having the characteristics of such breeding; mettlesome; courageous; of elegant form, or the like.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thoroughbred" Quotes from Famous Books



... generally in the brigade as "Beauty," and the appellative, gained at Eton, was in no way undeserved. His face, with as much delicacy and brilliancy as a woman's, was at once handsome, thoroughbred, languid, nonchalant with a certain latent recklessness, under the impassive calm ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... house of his uncle; and he was as thoroughbred a rebel as his father, though he said next to nothing about his "cause." At a later period both he and Major Pierson were duly exchanged; but the gallant officer had come to the conclusion that Miss Florry Passford was very far from ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... side of the grand animal that was taking easy, swinging strides, apparently without effort and without speed, his tongue lolling at one side. But we could see that the pace was really terrific—that Lieutenant Baldwin was freely using the spur, and that his swift thoroughbred was stretched out like a greyhound, straining every muscle in his effort to keep up. He was riding close to the buffalo on his left, with revolver in his right hand, and I wondered why he did not shoot, but Faye said it would be useless to fire then—that Lieutenant Baldwin must ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... gave me!" said Chunk, broadening his grin; "well, it was this way. I sat down at the supper table last night at Riddle's, and I looked at Rosy, and I says to myself, 'Chunk, if you get the girl get her on the square—don't try any hocus-pocus with a thoroughbred like her.' And I keeps the paper you give me in my pocket. And then my lamps fall on another party present, who, I says to myself, is failin' in a proper affection toward his comin' son-in-law, so I watches my chance and dumps that powder in old man ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... young gentleman present, who, I think, Vargrave might really find a dangerous rival,—a Colonel Legard,—one of the handsomest men I ever saw in my life; just the style to turn a romantic young lady's head; a mixture of the wild and the thoroughbred; black curls, superb eyes, and the softest manners in the world. But, to be sure, he has lived all his life in the best society. Not so his friend, Lord Doltimore, who has a little too much of the green-room lounge and French cafe ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the morose look of a man who is forced to be generous; and the visitors increase, followed by shop porters who carry flowers, bandboxes, or toys. Suddenly the great gates are opened, and a new carriage, drawn by thoroughbred horses, draws up before the doorsteps. They are, without doubt, the New-Year's gift presented to the mistress of the house by her husband; for she comes herself to look at the new equipage. Very soon she ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... called Old Pascal Dubois' Men Half-breeds all of us . . . I, a scamp, The best long-shot in the Touchwood Camp; Muscle and nerve like strings of steel, Sound in the game of bit and heel— There's your guide-book. . . . But, Jeanne Amray, Telegraph-clerk at Sturgeon Bay, French and thoroughbred, proud and sweet, Sunshine down to her glancing feet, Sang one song 'neath the northern moon That changed God's world to a tropic noon; And Love burned up on its golden floor Years of passion for Nell Latore— Nell Latore with her tawny hair, Glowing eyes and her reckless ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... is a real pleasure, my dear sir,' he said, with ten white fingers—the fingers of thoroughbred hands—closing round Mr. Piper's plebeian knuckles. No onlooker could have supposed for an instant that he had come, with the whole of his family, in an entirely destitute condition, to live upon his wife's brother. Besides, we know that among well-bred people, to receive a favour is virtually to ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... excitement and delight. He wore a cloak, broad striped, of white and crimson, a white frilled shirt of lawn showing above a vest of crimson velvet, fawn-coloured baggy trousers, and soft sheepskin boots. A snow-white turban crowned his whole appearance. His horse was thoroughbred and young, and he controlled its ceaseless dance to admiration. He told me that the stallion was his own, an uncle's gift, and quite the best in all the mountains; although mine, he added out of mere politeness, was undoubtedly a pearl of breeding and high spirit. He hoped with such a ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... always wanted a cheetah or hunting leopard. This desire is likely to go unfulfilled. These beasts are easily domesticated and are gentle and affectionate. They appear to have the best characteristics of both cat and dog. They are no more expensive than many a thoroughbred dog. Yet we shall not have one. Not only is the climate of Westchester County, New York, too unlike that of their native India for them to thrive, but consider the task of soothing terrified tradesmen and casual visitors. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... John Mac were their camp names, and I always think of them together. These four made a real cavalry man of me. It may be the mark of old age upon me now, for even to-day the handsome automobile and the great railway engine can command my admiration and awe; but the splendid thoroughbred, intelligent, and quivering with power, I ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... the new horse and made him caracole about the yard. The horse really was an exceptionally fine one, a broad and long gelding, with glossy coat, thick silky tail, and the soft fine mane and crest of a thoroughbred. He was so well fed that 'you might go to sleep on his back' as Lukashka expressed it. His hoofs, eyes, teeth, were exquisitely shaped and sharply outlined, as one only finds them in very pure-bred horses. ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... like a thoroughbred. Wild as was his inner revolt against this treatment, he uttered no word against the thieves and made no plea. He tried his fortunes here and in Haiti, where, during his short, restless sojourn, my own father was born. Eventually, grandfather became chief ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... sportsman has not in his day put off the most urgent business—perhaps his marriage, or even the interment of his rib—that he might "brave the morn" with that renowned pack, the Surrey subscription foxhounds? Lives there, we would ask, a thoroughbred, prime, bang-up, slap-dash, break-neck, out-and-out artist, within three miles of the Monument, who has not occasionally "gone a good 'un" with this celebrated pack? And shall we, the bard of Eastcheap, born all deeds of daring to record, shall we, who ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... on foot to catch De Wet on a thoroughbred. It was hopeless from the first, and yet went within measurable distance of succeeding, though even if we had rounded up some of his force at Olifant's Nek, it is very doubtful if De Wet ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... through the air towards the crested neck. One missed its mark, but the other fell, true as a gun-shot over the small, thoroughbred head. It was Jacky's rope which had found its mark. A hitch round the horn of her saddle, and her horse threw himself back with her forefeet braced, and faced the captive. Then the rope tightened with a jerk which taxed its rawhide ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... return for kindness. I know many a parent whose children repay what is done for them only with sneaking, unworthy conduct and utter ingratitude. Dick may not have been born into prosperity but he is a thoroughbred at heart and it shows in his actions. He is every inch ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett

... If I were Twenty-One I would get married VII. If I were Twenty-One I would save money VIII. If I were Twenty-One I would study the art of pleasing IX. If I were Twenty-One I would determine, even if I could never be anything else in the world, that I would be a thoroughbred X. If I were Twenty-One I would make some permanent, amicable arrangement ...
— 21 • Frank Crane

... so delicate in manner, when among people of fair class, and so judicious in his choice of victims, that in the strictly masculine part of the town's life he had come to be explicitly trusted and admired. People called him a thoroughbred. The fear and contempt with which his craft was regarded was undoubtedly the reason that his quiet dignity shone conspicuous above the quiet dignity of men who might be merely hatters, billiard markers, or grocery-clerks. Beyond an occasional ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane

... neither time nor change had any effect upon Tootsie. At the first sound of her voice he would spring to her side. He is a magnificent Angora, weighing twenty-four pounds, with the long, silky hair, the frill, or lord mayor's chain, the superb curling tail, and the large, full eyes of the thoroughbred. Then he has proved himself of aristocratic tendencies, has beautiful manners, is endowed with the human qualities of memory and discrimination, and is aesthetic ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... thing of laws and customs dictated by the youthful despot, aided and abetted by his father. The sacred rites of 'what isn't done' were established, and the mother gradually found herself in the position of an outsider—a privileged outsider, it is true, yet little more than the breeder of a thoroughbred, admitted to the paddock to watch his horse ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... evident that a thief or thieves were helping themselves at night to thoroughbred fowls and fruit at Harmony, and Mrs. van Warmelo asked the sergeant-major of the Military Mounted Police to consult with her about ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... true bulldog in this that, like the thoroughbred bulldog, Bismarck favored one feed a day. He took a light breakfast, no second breakfast, but at night would eat one ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... latter, flinging Quest back into the chair again as the infuriated man still struggled to rise. "You miserable drunken kid—do you think you would be enhancing your sister's reputation by dragging her name into a murder trial? What are you, anyway? By God, if I didn't know your sister as a thoroughbred, I'd have you posted here for a mongrel and sent packing. The pound is your proper place, not a club-house"; which was an astonishing speech ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... tell you that I am ready to sacrifice even my life for his. Far from sharing the spoil,' he added, in a rapid and earnest whisper, 'I had already proposed, and could have insured, his escape; when he went to Sinai, to that unfortunate Sinai. I had two dromedaries here, thoroughbred; we might have reached ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... In the first place, our Squeezer is a thoroughbred animal, the son of Harness and Chisels, while there's no getting at the pedigree of your dog at all.... He's old and as ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov

... the days of my boyhood I sometimes saw a queer character known as "Billy Button." He was a sight to behold, for he was decorated with buttons, mostly brass, from top to toe, and presented a sight that was enough to make a thoroughbred ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... of taking it and giving it to Sylvia, but they wouldn't have that either,—are just fixing up the old house a bit, and going to summer at the farm, while the old lady will keep on selling eggs the same as ever. Not but what she's a thoroughbred all right, though in a cheap stable. I was down at Vivvy's the day she came to call on Sylvia! Just as quiet and cool, except that her hands in the openwork silk mits shook, as if her son was a duke. I thought there would be a lively row, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... of the ferry-house were inexorably shut against them when at last Maitland brought the big machine to a tremulous and panting halt, like that of an over-driven thoroughbred. And though they perforce endured a wait of fully fifteen minutes, neither found aught worth saying; or else the words wherewith fitly to clothe their thoughts were denied them. The girl seemed very weary, and sat with head drooping ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... "There goes a thoroughbred moss trooper," said the smith. "That fellow will fight or flee as suits his humor, and there is no use to pursue him, any more than to hunt a wild goose. He has got your purse, I doubt me, for they seldom leave off till they ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... to camp. It did not suit him to be a modern soldier. In the thick, gritty, hideous khaki his subtle physique was extinguished as if he had been killed. In the ugly intimacy of the camp his thoroughbred sensibilities were just degraded. But he had chosen, so he accepted. An ugly little look came on to his face, of a man who has accepted his ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... not run from Al Hammond? Gene, your skull is as thick as an old cow's. Al will never know anything about what you did to his sister unless you tell him. And if you do that he'll shoot you. She won't give you away. She's a thoroughbred. Why, she was so white last night I thought she'd drop at my feet, but she never blinked an eyelash. I'm a woman, Gene Stewart and if I couldn't feel like Miss Hammond I know how awful an ordeal she must have had. Why, she's one of the most beautiful, the most sought after, the most exclusive ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... be duped by no intrigue because you hold the threads of all within your fingers; to see through all partitions; to penetrate all secrets, search all hearts, all consciences,—these are the things you fear! And yet you were not afraid to go and wallow in a Thuillier bog; you, a thoroughbred, allowed yourself to be harnessed to a hackney-coach, to the ignoble business of electing that ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... Lord Briarrose wanted to sell me. Bob—that is Briarrose—and I travelled together. He is going to be married, you know; heiress; great beauty—neighbour—rolling in wealth. I stopped at the Castle last night, and before Bob was up I was on the thoroughbred and well over the country, returning about eleven along the top of the cliffs. To my horror, I saw a carriage and pair charging down a road which at one time continued a long distance skirting the cliffs. Cliffs had fallen; ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... trial of two-year-olds for speed and durability. There were four entries—two bays, a sorrel, and Carter's own little thoroughbred "Nettie." He watched her as she pranced around the ring under Ricks's skilful handling; she had nothing to fear from the bays, but the sorrel was ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... help him. When there is an important job to do, the three go 'ato partnership, but they spend most of their time and all their money in litigation over an inheritance, and I'm afraid they are getting involved, Thoroughbred Sikhs of the old rock, obstinate, touchy, bigoted, and cunning, but good men for all that. Here is Bishen Singn—shall we ask him about ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... giving pledge of his sincere alienation from Christianity by keeping a couple of wives. The strangest feature in Osman's character was his inextinguishable nationality. In his house he had three shelves of books, and the books were thoroughbred Scotch! He afterwards died of the plague, of which visitation one-half of the whole people of the city, 200,000 in number, were carried off. I took it into my pleasant head that the plague might be providential or epidemic, but was not contagious, and therefore ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... should. But my mate Howie has his obvious limitations. I've long wanted a drop of new blood. Barmaid's thoroughbred and strong as an elephant; we're neither of us heavyweights; by the powers, I'll trust you, ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... manifested in many and divers ways, as—in rearing and plunging, in tossing of heads, in lashing of heels, in quivering, and snorting, and stamping—and all for no apparent reason, yet which is the prerogative of your thoroughbred all the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... foreman cutter is the only man in the street who gets twelve quid a week. They hadn't come from Crouch End, neither. They was first-class West End garments. It's the same with clothes as it is with thoroughbred hosses and women—you can always tell them, no matter how they've come down in the world. And it's like that with boots too. This chap's boots hadn't been cleaned for days, but they were boots, and not holes to put your feet into, like ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... to be led into the field of battle by the worthy justice. In case it should ever come to that issue, I had no doubt that proper and experienced officers would be appointed to lead us on. I bought an excellent thoroughbred charger, near sixteen hands high; for, although my own horse was a very good one, and better than eight out of ten in the troop, yet, as he was rather under the regulation size, I was determined to be as well mounted as any man in the regiment, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... as pitch, and Michael cursed his horse roundly as the willing animal, jumping under the spur, grazed the great gate as he sprang through it. Soon they were all out on the main road, where the thoroughbred that carried a double burden settled down into a long swinging stride that fairly devoured ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... would then come out bright and chipper. He was always ready to enter into the chase with all the chic and embonpoint of a regular Kenosha, and nothing pleased him better than to be about eight miles in advance of my thoroughbred pack in full cry, scampering 'cross country, while stretching back a few miles behind the dogs followed a pale young man and his financier, each riding a horse that had sat down too hard on its tail some time and driven it into his ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... the chase and the suddenness of it had told upon the youth at first so much that he had been somewhat distressed while running; but this feeling now began to wear off. Like a true thoroughbred, he improved in condition the longer he ran, and when at last the perspiration began to pour over his cheeks he felt as if he could have ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... assure you that I have not associated you with the crime, Colonel," said he. "The real murderer is standing immediately behind you." He stepped past and laid his hand upon the glossy neck of the thoroughbred. ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... seen the swift flood of worship that flowed into his face, she would have felt no scorn. She was of the cities, caste had hardened her as far as it could harden one of her nature, she was a thoroughbred to the last inch, used to flattery and the attentions of men of her own class; yet she would have held no contempt for this tall, bronzed man that looked at her with such awe and wonder. The surge of feeling was real in him; ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... witness a masterly performance to the utmost advantage. This stamped the thing. They were, undoubtedly, young men of rank and fashion; but their taste was greater than their regard for appearances. The pit was, after all, the true resort of thoroughbred critics and amateurs. When there was anything worth seeing, this was the place; and I began to feel a sort of reflected importance in the consciousness that I also was a critic. Nobody sat near them—it would have seemed like an intrusion. Not a syllable was uttered.—They ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... astonishment that of the myriads of those who had arrived ahead of him thousands were still gathered on the outside of the portal. They sat in a wide circle spreading out on each side of the entrance, big, little, curly, handsome, mongrel, thoroughbred dogs of every age, complexion, and personality. All were apparently waiting for something, someone, and at the pad of the Airedale's feet on the hard road they arose ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... lifting the line above the bushes, dropping the flies as far away as you can on the dark-brown water. See how quickly the answer comes, in two swift golden flashes out of the depths of the sleeping pool. This is a pretty brace of trout, from thirty to forty ounces of thoroughbred fighting pluck, and the spirit that will not surrender. If they only knew that their strength would be doubled by acting together, they soon would tangle your line in the roots or break your rod in the alders. But all the time they are fighting against each other, making ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... SLEEP.—The husband must get enough rest each night, so don't drag him away to parties and balls and late suppers. Be a philanthropist—give him the care you would give a thoroughbred horse with which you hoped to win a big stake. Let him think, however, that you are doing it for his sake. To you the prize is a greater stake—it means life's failure or success. Remember you are in this fight to win. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... smiled incredulously. 'I don't know that I do, quite,' he answered languidly. 'I confess I attach more importance than you do to the mere question of race and family. A thoroughbred differs from a cart-horse, and a greyhound from a vulgar mongrel, in mind and character as well as in body. Oswald seems to me in all essentials a ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... Ring-Necks were secured from the Wyandache Club, Smithtown, L. I. These birds were crossed, thus producing the English Ring-Neck Mongolian Pheasants, which are larger and better birds, and by introducing the old English Ring-Neck blood, a bird was produced that does not wander, as the thoroughbred ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various

... widow's mind, when they halted at an alehouse some miles further on, and heard the justice's character as given by his friends, that perhaps something more than capacity of stomach and tastes for the kennel and the stable, were required to form either a perfect country gentleman, a thoroughbred Englishman, or a genuine John Bull; and that possibly the terms were sometimes misappropriated, not to say disgraced. She little thought then, that a circumstance so slight would ever influence their future fortunes; but time and experience ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... fifteen, four thoroughbred cows and four calves disappeared mysteriously from the home ranch just before the calves had reached branding age. Buddy rode the hills and the valleys every spare minute for two weeks in search of them, and ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... you, that's certain! Why, she's like a thoroughbred horse. With much patience, much attention, and a firm hand that knows when to be gentle, so one succeeds. As for myself, I was always too rash, too impatient. These gracious devils soon perceive it, and ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... and switch of the tail, when everything about him was in repose, being the only indication that he might be untrustworthy. No one but a novice could be deceived by this, however, for the intelligence evinced in every feature, and his thoroughbred appearance, were so striking that any person accustomed to horses could not misunderstand such a noble animal. But Campbell thought otherwise, at least when the horse was to a certain degree yet untrained, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... sparkle between its borders of dark fir-trees; the flesh air played in Micheline's veil, and the tawny leather of the saddles creaked. Those were happy days for Micheline, who was delighted at having Serge near her, attentive to her every want, and controlling his thoroughbred English horse to her gentle pace. Every now and then his mount would wheel about and rear in revolt, she following him with fond looks, proud of the elegant cavalier who could subdue without apparent effort, by the mere pressure of his thighs, that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Polly to dance, and she did so with as much grace as she rode her father's thoroughbred horses on the ranch; or hiked the Rockies, over boulders and down-timber like a fawn. Kenneth Evans, the youngest man in the party from the city, was by far the handsomest one in the group; and when he guided Polly through the maze of dancers, they ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... elsewhere. She lost steadily, winning but one bet in every ten. She gave no sign, however, that her forces were in full retreat from the enemy. She played on, and the hand which placed the bets was steady. She was a thoroughbred. And when the gold was all gone, she opened her empty hands expressively and shrugged. She was beaten. Behind the chair of the banker, opposite, stood the Italian. The scowl still marred his forehead. When the woman ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... side-saddle, and for themselves without the side-seat strain. Almost as if it were a carefully permitted luxury, he saw the wide, wind-swept moors, heard the cheery shouts and the excited hounds, felt his thoroughbred sweeping gloriously along, as if its soul and his soul were both one in feeling the joy and exhilaration of the chase. What glories there were in those wind-swept, sun-bathed mornings in Devon! What joy of life! What lust of manhood! What splendid, whole-hearted ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... pony I had once." (I judged the man to be a small farmer; he talked in a wurzelly tone. I don't know if you understand what I mean, but an atmosphere of wurzels was the thing that somehow he suggested.) "It was a thoroughbred Welsh pony, as sound a little beast as ever stepped. I'd had him out to grass all the winter, and one day in the early spring I thought I'd take him for a run. I had to go to Amersham on business. I put him into the cart, and drove him across; it is just ten miles from my place. He ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... thoroughbred, through and through," declared Mrs. Davenport. "See how majestically he moves. Duke would be a good name for him. ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine

... met her. She's one fine girl, Tim, a sure-enough thoroughbred. She has fought against heavy odds all her life to keep good and honest. And ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... commenced his vigil underneath the drawing-room windows, he had been shocked into sobriety by his sister's violence, and his own rage against her tormentors. Growing more and more sober, and more and more sullen, he stabled the ill-used thoroughbred with his own hands, and then, avoiding alike both servants and family, he crept into the house, and up to ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... as I told you in my message," began Burke, when we had seated ourselves in a compartment of the Pullman, "were those of Captain Shirley, covering the wireless-controlled submarine. The old captain is a thoroughbred, too. I've known him in Washington. Comes of an old New England, family with plenty of money but more brains. For years he has been working on this science of radio- telautomatics, has all kinds of patents, which he has dedicated to the United States, too. Of course the basic, pioneer patents ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... usual adroitness, but all the while there was bubbling in his mind the news that these two men had met before. The history of Hildegarde von Mitter was known to him. But how much did she know, or this man Cathewe? The woman was a thoroughbred. He, Anatole Ferraud, knew; it was his business to know; and that she should happen upon the scene he considered as one of these rare good pieces of luck that fall to the lot of few. There would be something more than treasure hunting here; an intricate comedy-drama, with as many well-defined sides ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... a thoroughbred. I promised to let you have your way, and you shall. Even if we lose the patient it will be ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... 10,000 francs does not receive them to bury them; that would be against the hypothesis. He uses them to pay for goods, or to discharge debts. In the first case, trade is encouraged. Will any one pretend to say that it gains more by Mondor's purchase of a thoroughbred horse for 10,000 francs than by the purchase of 10,000 francs' worth of stuffs by Aristus or his friend? For if this sum serves to pay a debt, a third person appears, viz., the creditor, who will certainly employ them upon something ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... He was a thoroughbred son of the country, as far removed from what is known as the provincial, as the latter is from the out-and-out gentleman of culture. His trousers and waistcoat were of fustian, almost white, but he wore ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy

... up on thoroughbred hacks, spatter-dashed to the knee, and enter the house to drink cherry-brandy and pay their respects to the ladies, or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divest themselves of their mud-boots, exchange their hacks for their hunters, and warm their blood by a preliminary gallop ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... incorrigible Strachan. "Bailie Beerie is a brick, and I won't hear a word against him. But, O Fred! if you only knew what you missed last night! Such a splendid woman—by Jove, sir, a thoroughbred angel. A bust like one of Titian's beauties, and the voice ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... commandant's hearty, friendly laugh boomed out, filling the office with merriment and honest pride. "By Snyder, you will, Son, like a thoroughbred!" He went back behind that great desk, and was suddenly once more the strict disciplinarian. "Cadet ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... were heeded, the gate laid flat, and the thoroughbred entered the pasture. But to Jim, caught up in the wearisome classroom grind, the days held no glimmer of light. Of what possible value, he asked himself again and again, could it be to know the history of Nippur? Why should the cuneiforms have any bearing on the morals ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... and a sheepskin cap from which the rain ran down was riding a thin thoroughbred horse with sunken sides. Like his horse, which turned its head and laid its ears back, he shrank from the driving rain and gazed anxiously before him. His thin face with its short, thick black beard ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... father decided upon an experiment. He had raised his boy right, and trained him for the race of life, and now The Laird felt that, like a thoroughbred horse, his son faced the barrier. Would he make the run, or would he, in the parlance of the sporting world, "dog it?" Would his four years at a great American university make of him a better man, or would he degenerate into a ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... disorder no matter how long or freely it is used. It is so delicious and nourishing that there is no fish in the world that can even come second to it. It is as far superior in all food qualities to the finest Salmon or Trout as a first-prize, gold-medalled, nut-fed thoroughbred Sussex bacon-hog is to the roughest, toughest, boniest old razor-backed land-pike that ever ranged the ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton

... General repeated, with unshaken conviction: "a thoroughbred gentleman." And he scanned Philip up and down with his keen grey eye as if internally reflecting that Philip's own right to criticise and classify that particular species of humanity was a trifle doubtful. "I should much like to make a captain of hussars of him. He'd be splendid as ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... moving like the wind, perspiring not at all, a thoroughbred, a mount for a prince! At his present rate he should catch up with the Mongolian rear by nightfall; otherwise the pursuit was certainly lost. And then Peter fell to wondering what tactics he would pursue when he ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... something to me. I'm trying to give you a picture of her. But you'd have to see her to understand. When she's around mean and little things crawl out of your mind. She's on the level and square and fine—a thoroughbred if there ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... said aloud; and to himself: "She's ce'tainly a thoroughbred. Does everything well she tackles. I never saw anything like it. I'm a Chink if she doesn't run this ranch like she had been at it forty years. Same thing with her gasoline bronc. That pinto, too. He's got a bad eye for fair, but she makes him eat out of her ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... musician has dared to think in French; and that is the reason why I warned you of the danger of accepting too meekly German ideas about Berlioz. Men like Weingartner, Richard Strauss, and Mottl—thoroughbred musicians—are, without doubt, able to appreciate Berlioz's genius better and more quickly than we French musicians. But I rather mistrust the kind of appreciation they feel for a spirit so opposed to their own. It is for France and French ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... and fourth generation and still retained our complacency. We preach temperance to the young men of our day, but fail to set forth the fact that right living on their part will make for the well-being of their grandchildren. We exhibit our thoroughbred live stock at our fairs and plume ourselves upon our ability to produce stock of such quality. In the case of live stock we know that the present is the product of the past, but seem less ready to acknowledge ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... he chooses, and the most difficult to get hold of, is the thoroughbred colonial. Being able to read and write does not, however, keep him from being as brutal as Coupeau, and, except from a muscular point of view, he is often by no means a promising specimen of colonization. It is from this section of the community that the 'larrikins,' as they are called, are ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... events" of history. That is the way the brave Butler and his South Carolinians amused themselves—and the figure of this soldier is worth placing amid my group of "paladins." He was brave—none was braver; thoroughbred—I never saw a man more so. His sword had flashed at Fleetwood, and in a hundred other fights; and it was going to flash to ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... A gentleman might some time offend you by telling you the truth about yourself or your friends. The thoroughbred, never," and she lifted her ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... hand-writing compensated for the hands; and as she attached great importance to blood and race, that she did not live to read Byron's "thoroughbred and tapering fingers," or to be shocked by his theory that "the hand is almost the only sign of blood which aristocracy can generate." Her Bath friend appeals to a miniature (engraved for this work) by Roche, of Bath, taken when she was in her seventy-seventh year. ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... Slavic populations; and their personal appearance is also advantageous. "They are a remarkably tall and robust race of men; in form and feature they bespeak strength of body and energy of mind; but one seldom sees that thoroughbred look, so frequently found in the poorest peasants of Italy and Greece. The women I think very pretty. They are not so well-shaped as the Greeks; but their complexions are fine, their hair generally black and glossy, and their head-dress particularly graceful; and not being addicted to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... the nose, Magnet, may do well enough for an Indian, but your thoroughbred knows the virtue of the needle," said the uncle, as he trudged at the heels of the light-stepping Tuscarora. "America would never have been discovered, take my word for it, if Columbus had been nothing but nostrils. Friend Arrowhead, didst ever see ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... to watering places farther north. But in September all were back again under the one broad Kentucky roof, stopping for the beautiful Lexington fair, then celebrated all over the land; and for the races—those days of the thoroughbred only; and until frost fall should make it safe to return to the swamps and bayous, ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... Bracy drove up to the veranda of the Crustacean with a smart buggy and spirited thoroughbred for Miss Circe's especial driving, and his own saddle-horse on which he was to accompany her. Jack had dismounted, a groom held his saddle-horse until the young lady should appear, and he himself stood at the head of the thoroughbred. As Johnnyboy, leaning against ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... gentleman, and that's more than you can say for the rag-tag of nobility that paid court to Aline Tarnowsy. He was in love with her, but he was a gentleman about it. A thoroughbred, I say." ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... soon marry the General Marquis de Montriveau, peer of France, who commands the department, and is paying her attentions. Vinet is in his element, seeking victims; he never believes in the innocence of an accused person. This thoroughbred prosecutor is held to be one of the most amiable men on the circuit; and he is no less liked in Paris and in the Chamber; at court he is a ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... sarsaparilla, and one or two other patent medicines: they have a saw and a grist mill; the women make small fancy articles and baskets. But their most profitable business is the growth of fine stock—thoroughbred Durham cattle chiefly. They have, of course, shops in which they make and mend what they need for themselves—tailor's, shoemaker's, blacksmith's, wagon-maker's, etc. Formerly they manufactured more than at present—having ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... held their breath while the Judges looked Diddy over. Then the head man said, "That's a very fine pig, and young. She is a thoroughbred. Wherever did ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... have any but red-headed men—red-headed like me, you know—about my stable, on account of Blue Blazes. Course, it's foolish, but I guess the old fellow had a tough time of it when he was young, same as I did; and now—well, he just suits me, Blue Blazes does. I'd rather ride or drive him than any thoroughbred in this country; and, by jinks, I'm bound he gets whatever he wants, even if I have to lug in a lot of red-headed men from ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... use the general term "horse." You speak of a mare, a gelding, a horse, a four-year-old, a weanling or a sucker. To refer to a trotter as a thoroughbred is to suffer social ostracism, and to obfuscate a side-wheeler with a single-footer is proof of degeneracy. This applies equally to the ethics of the ballroom or the livery-stable. In Kentucky they read Richard's famous lines thus: "A saddler! a saddler! my kingdom for a saddler!" ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... was an old woman who lived at first in the kitchen of "the other house" and afterward on the home farm. Tall and thin, with big, thoroughbred eyes, and long, straight hair, like a witch, turning gray, she was rather terrifying, but more than anything ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy

... "What a thoroughbred Parisian you are, my dear Frederic! I believe if the tramp of the last angel were sounding, the Parisians would be divided into two sets: one would be singing the Marseillaise, and parading the red flag; the other ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... you don't. But we have the very thing for her, a two-year-old filly, unbroken, all but thoroughbred, with the makings of a splendid horse in her. If you care to ride down to the vley I will show her to you; it won't take us much more than a mile out of our way, and I should like Nell to ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... his hind-feet, with one fore-paw on the Master's forefinger raised shoulder high; or fall to attention with hind-quarters well set out, fore-feet even and forward, head up, and tail correctly curved, in the position of a thoroughbred hackney at rest. It was great fun to find how easily commendation could be earned from the Master in this simple manner, for Finn never realized that quite a number of hours of patient instruction and practice had been devoted to the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... jump out the window, Roger, remembering to shut the airlock after you?" the Golden Glacier said in tones not unkind. "When are your high-strung, thoroughbred nerves going to accept the fact that I would never consider marriage with a business inferior? You have about as much chance as a starving Ukrainian kulak now that Moscow's ...
— Bread Overhead • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... weight—M. Gayot—goes so far as to say that the American trotters really form a distinct race. "The Northern States of the Union," he writes, "have accomplished for the trotter what England has done for the thoroughbred: by selecting the best—that is to say, the swiftest and the most enduring—and by breeding from these, there has been fixed in the very nature of their progeny that wonderful aptitude for speed which," in direct contradiction ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... man took the seat by her side; the mechanic cranked and jumped to his place. The motor snorted, trembling like a thoroughbred about to run a race, then subsiding with a sonorous purr swept sedately out into the deserted street, swung round a corner into Broadway, settled its tires into the grooves of the car-tracks and ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... ride well; I taught him." But the gay smile which followed this statement robbed it of its air of conceit. "You see, I have ridden part of my life on the great plains of the West, and have mounted everything from a wild Indian pony to an English thoroughbred. My name is Max Scharfenstein, and I am here as a medical student, though in my own country I have the right to hang ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath

... a thoroughbred for fair. You bet I'll make her pay for this. But ain't she got sand in her craw? She's surely hating me proper." He laughed again in remembrance of the whole episode, finding in it something that stirred ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... not know what he means by that, but when he says it, people always look at me and smile. I know that I am not beautiful, and I know that I am not a thoroughbred. I ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... Rizzio, full of confidence in himself, and seeing in the queen's desire a road to success, hastened to obey her command, sang before her, and pleased her. She begged him then of Moreto, making no more of it than if she had asked of him a thoroughbred dog or a well-trained falcon. Moreta presented him to her, delighted at finding such an opportunity to pay his court; but scarcely was Rizzio in her service than Mary discovered that music was the least of his gifts, that he possessed, besides ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... morning swim in the lake, strolled a great mahogany-and-white collie. At sight of Lass he lowered his head for a charge. He was king of The Place's dogs, this mighty thoroughbred, Sunnybank Lad. And he did not ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... to raise stock and poultry to the best advantage, and also large farms at every military reservation where persons convicted of crime were taught how to become useful members of society. The Government raised only thoroughbred stock and poultry on the farms, and the service of the males was given free to every farmer that ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans

... look down upon the climbers, and the climbers in turn upon the creepers; for who of us does not felicitate himself upon his independence, such as it is, or such as he imagines it to be? But if independence is indeed a boon,—and I, for one, am too thoroughbred a New Englander ever to doubt it,—it is not the only good, nor even the highest. The nettle, standing straight and prim, asking no favors of anybody, may rail at the grape-vine, which must lay hold of something, small matter what, by which to steady itself; but the nettle might well ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... "Her soul is all feminine gameness, Trusting her insights, ardent for living; She would be weeping with me and be laughing, A thoroughbred, ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... codger himself for he brought Will—his adopted daughter up splendidly," Winnie observed with enthusiasm. "There isn't a girl in our set that can come anywhere near her, and I think it is a dashed shame that she's thrown out on her own. She took the whole business like a thoroughbred, walking calmly out like that and leaving them to haggle ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... secondly, because the picture shows, nearly half a century prior to the discussion, a white and black dog, typical in nearly every respect, except colour, of the black Newfoundland. There is no appearance of cross-breeding in Landseer's dog; on the contrary, he reveals all the characteristics of a thoroughbred. Seventy years ago, therefore, the white and black variety may be fairly considered to have been established, and it is worthy of mention here that "Idstone" quoted an article written in 1819 stating that back in the eighteenth century Newfoundlands were large, rough-coated, ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... across the pan were wide, the cannon-bone below them short and thin; the pasterns long and sloping; her hoofs round, dark, shiny, and well set on. Her mane was a shade darker than her coat, fine and thin, as a thoroughbred's always is whose blood is without taint or cross. Her ear was thin, sharply pointed, delicately curved, nearly black around the borders, and as tremulous as the leaves of an aspen. Her neck rose ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray

... literature and in song for more than two thousand years. The district of Nejd has been the chief breeding locality for these horses for many centuries. Contrary to tradition, however, even the finest animals are neither so large nor so swift as American thoroughbred horses. The qualities that have made the Arabian horse famous are its beautiful proportions, endurance, and intelligence. Young colts mingle freely with their owners and attendants, and they need, therefore, only the training to make them saddle-wise; they ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... mane, while in color he could easily have taken any premium put up for homeliness, being an ashen roan, mottled with flecks and patches of divers hues; but his legs were flat and corded like a racer's, his neck long and thin as a thoroughbred's, his nostrils large, his ears sharply pointed and lively, while the white rings around his eyes hinted at a cross, somewhere in his pedigree, with Arabian blood. A huge, bony, homely-looking horse he was, who drew the deacon and Miranda ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... in the devil of a fix. I don't know why it was, but directly I saw her—things seemed so different over in England—I mean." He swallowed ice-water in gulps. "I suppose it was seeing her with Lucille. Old Lu is such a thoroughbred. Seemed to kind of show her up. Like seeing imitation pearls by the side of real pearls. And that crimson hair! It sort of put the lid on it." Bill brooded morosely. "It ought to be a criminal offence for women to dye their hair. Especially red. What the devil do ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... rears, jerking his fine head from side to side, then bucks with a whinny of rage, and the "liver brigade" scatters. A mounted policeman, on the alert to render assistance and prevent accidents, brings along his well-trained steed at a hand-gallop, recognises the rider of the bucking thoroughbred, and reins up with a grin on his ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... humour; and a more original, tender, truthful, uncynical, real being never existed. He was a fine sportsman and had won the Grand Military when he was in the Grenadiers, riding one of his own hunters; he was also the second gentleman in England to win the Grand National in 1882, on a thoroughbred called Seaman, who was by no means every one's horse. For other people he cared nothing. "Decidement je n'aime pas les autres," he would have said, to quote my son-in-law, ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... for medical laboratories, to be ingratiating with the City Council; he was obliged to spend months travelling through the remote regions of Ireland in the company of extraordinary ecclesiastics and barbarous squireens. He was a thoroughbred harnessed to a four-wheeled cab—and he knew it. Eventually, he realised something else: he saw that the whole project of a Catholic University had been evolved as a political and ecclesiastical weapon against the Queen's Colleges of Peel, and that ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... more light-hearted than was Dora when in the saddle on the Kentucky thoroughbred. And her cousin was ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield

... Indian is also strikingly different from that of the whites. It is always black and straight, hangs loose and looks as if it were [27] oiled. There is a considerable resemblance in appearance, between it and the glossy black mane of a thoroughbred horse; though ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... and freedom that civilised woman has lost. Her clothes were of Connemara homespun, but to a body such as hers, clothes did not matter. She went barefoot like the girls of Joyce's Country, and her ankles were as clean cut as the cannon of a thoroughbred. She wore her black hair in a thick plait that fell below her waist. She had no friends but Biddy, her father and Considine, except a few men, contemporaries of Jocelyn, who joked with her in the hunting field. She knew no women; for ladies did not call at Roscarna, ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young

... is that the characters of this book are thoroughbred Americans, representative of various sections of the country and free from the slightest tinge of snobbery. Not all of them are even well-to-do, in the postwar sense; and their devices of economy in household ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... want," said Wild Bill, pointing to a black horse, full sixteen hands high, and evidently a thoroughbred. "Name your price, ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline

... thought of Blanco Diablo. How the great white thoroughbred had loved this spring! Belding straightened up and looked with tear-blurred eyes out over the waste of desert to the west. Never a day passed that he had not thought of the splendid horse; but this moment, with its significant ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... said, laughing. "So don't talk about it—I don't believe it exists." She stood watching him for a moment as he tried to mount; his big young thoroughbred resented the idea of anyone on his back, and Jim had to hop beside him, with one foot in the stirrup, while he danced round in a circle, trying to get away. Jim seized an opportunity, and was in the saddle with a lithe swing; whereupon the horse tried to get his ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... lightning-swift hand had snuffed out a score of lives to avenge the killing of a friend. The collector recalled that on that day he had ridden his favorite horse, a deep-chested buckskin, slender legged, and swift, with a strain of thoroughbred. ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... sir,' replied Sam. 'These here ones as is below, though, ain't reg'lar thoroughbred sawbones; they're only in trainin'.' 'In other words they're medical students, I suppose?' said ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens



Words linked to "Thoroughbred" :   pureblood, pedigreed, animate being, brute, thoroughbred racing, Gallant Fox, assault, pureblooded, Count Fleet, Omaha, purebred, creature, pedigree, adult, fauna, Sir Barton, bangtail, race horse, grownup



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