Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Truncheon   Listen
noun
Truncheon  n.  
1.
A short staff, a club; a cudgel; a shaft of a spear. "With his truncheon he so rudely struck."
2.
A baton, or military staff of command. "The marshal's truncheon nor the judges robe."
3.
A stout stem, as of a tree, with the branches lopped off, to produce rapid growth.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Truncheon" Quotes from Famous Books



... guilty of misconduct may be suspended from duty, and, if so suspended, shall forthwith give up his warrant card, truncheon, armlet, and whistle to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various

... be a thing they call a "constabeel" going by, and the owner of the sugar-cane appealed to him for justice and relief. So the "constabeel" prodded Akbar's rump with his truncheon, and helped himself, too, to sugar-cane by way of balancing accounts. And while the owner of the sugar-cane was bellowing red doctrine about that, Ismail went out and helped himself likewise, only more liberally, carrying ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... away-ward from all the knights, until he came under a wood's side. When he saw that he was from the field nigh a mile, so that he was sure he might not be seen, he besought Sir Lavaine as he loved him to draw the truncheon out of his side. This Sir Lavaine dreaded sore to do, lest Sir Launcelot should be in peril of death from loss of blood, if the truncheon were drawn out. Yet he did as his lord would have him do, and Sir Launcelot gave a great shriek, and so swooned ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler

... by a Hindu assistant apothecary who lectured him on brotherly love with interlarded excerpts from Carlyle done into Hindustani. But the climax came when a native policeman poked him in the ribs with a truncheon and ordered him out ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... He is sitting: holding a truncheon in his right hand. A helmet and plume are before him. He wears a white sash. This is a dark, but may be called a finely painted, picture. Yet the Duke is not represented ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... hidden treasure, soon prompted him to force open the door. He was immediately surprised by a sudden blaze of light, and discovered a very fair vault. At the upper end of it was a statue of a man in armour, sitting by a table, and leaning on his left arm. He held a truncheon in his right hand, and had a lamp burning before him. The man had no sooner set one foot within the vault, than the statue, erecting itself from its leaning posture, stood bolt upright; and, upon the fellow's advancing another ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... Ulysses near th' enclosure drew, With open mouths the furious mastiffs flew: Down sat the sage and, cautious to withstand, Let fall th' offensive truncheon from his ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... slums of any city; the same lean, dark-eyed, eager, vulgar face, the same sudden, hoarse guffaws, the same forward and yet anxious manner, as with a tail of an eye on the policeman: only the policeman here was a live king, and his truncheon a rifle. I doubt if you could find anywhere out of the islands, or often there, the parallel of Fatty, a mountain of a girl, who must have weighed near as many stones as she counted summers, could have given a ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... piazzetta, where Colleoni alighted between the two great pillars, and, conducted by the doge in person, walked to the Church of St. Mark. Here, after mass had been said, and a sermon had been preached, kneeling before the high-altar he received the truncheon from the doge's hands. The words of his commission ran ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... Six men, partially dressed, with disheveled hair, stood regarding me angrily. They all carried candles. One of them had a bootjack, which he held like a truncheon. Another, the foremost, had a pistol. The night ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw

... to watch those grim and silent horsemen that fronted each other, the length of the lists between; even Duke Ivo, leaning on lazy elbow, looked with glowing eye and slow-flushing cheek, ere he let fall his truncheon. ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... and warned Cock to stand back. The policeman came on. Peace fired, but deliberately wide of him. Cock, undismayed, drew out his truncheon, and made for the burglar. Peace, desperate, determined not to be caught, fired again, this time fatally. Cock's comrade heard the shots, but before he could reach the side of the dying man, Peace had made off. He returned to Hull, ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... right; which nonsense meant in effect, that no strong man could ever be wrong. A great holiday was made; a great crowd assembled, with much parade and show; and the two combatants were about to rush at each other with their lances, when the King, sitting in a pavilion to see fair, threw down the truncheon he carried in his hand, and forbade the battle. The Duke of Hereford was to be banished for ten years, and the Duke of Norfolk was to be banished for life. So said the King. The Duke of Hereford went to France, and went no farther. The Duke of Norfolk made a pilgrimage ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... the symphonic prose of Milton, only to run, the next moment, to the Silenian ribaldry of Tom Brown the younger,—and so keeping up a Saturnalia, in which goat-footed sylvans mix with the maidens of Diana, and the party-colored jester shakes his truncheon in the face of Plato. Only in this wild and promiscuous license can we taste the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... multitude. That, men said, was the great Count Schomberg, the first soldier in Europe, since Turenne and Conde were gone, the man whose genius and valour had saved the Portuguese monarchy on the field of Montes Claros, the man who had earned a still higher glory by resigning the truncheon of a Marshal of France for the sake of the true religion. It was not forgotten that the two heroes who, indissolubly united by their common Protestantism, were entering Exeter together, had twelve years before been opposed to each other under the walls of Maestricht, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... grades, warders and assistant warders, from two to three thousand employed in all Her Majesty's prisons in Great Britain and Ireland. Warders and assistant warders are provided with a short, heavy truncheon, which each carries in his hand or in a leather sheath which hangs from his belt, to which is also attached a sort of cartouch box in which he keeps the keys, which are fastened to a chain, the other end to his belt. When about to leave the prison, on going off duty, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... some things to them, namely a knife fastened to a piece of board, and a glass bottle corked up with some beads in it, which they took up and seemed well pleased. They often struck their left breast with their right hand, and as often held up a black truncheon over their heads, which we thought was a token of friendship; wherefore we did the like. And when we stood in towards their shore they seemed to rejoice; but when we stood off they frowned, yet kept us company ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... came in their rent and battered war-gear: and the tall Hiarandi bore but the broken truncheon of his sword; and Valtyr a woodman's axe notched and dull with work; and Geirbald a Roman cast-spear, for his own weapons had been broken in the medley; and he came the last of the three, going as a belated reaper from the acres. There ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... dawn of day, We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array; With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears. There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land; And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand; An as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood, And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war, To fight for His own holy name, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... the ape-man is bad for some temperaments. It is apt to become a habit of mind. It may surge up again when there are no Germans present, but some old woman behind an open till, or some policeman with a bull's-eye lantern and a truncheon, or in a street riot where fellow-citizens are for the time ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... up "in the nurture of good learning," and in godliness; but their different tempers soon showed themselves. Simon, the little Earl of Northampton, while a child, was always playing at building castles, and bestriding the "truncheon of a spear," as a war-horse. Waltheof was a builder, too, but his were churches, and his delight was in making the sign of the Cross and singing chants. It was still the same as they grew older; Waltheof ever drew more apart, and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... of the theatrical profession—a bona fide flesh and blood, silk-stocking'd and tinsel-rapier'd "pride of Astley's stage." If you unite in your own person the artist and the player; if you occasionally handle the painter's brush as well as the field-marshal's truncheon—for have I not seen you lead the British troops with heroic valour through the awful passes of Cabul, which I had seen you creating with lamp-black and grey chalks in the morning?—it will only prove that your genius is universal, or, at least, not limited to one mode ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... off on all hands other dead embers, other flaming suns, wheel and race in the apparent void; the nearest is out of call, the farthest so far that the heart sickens in the effort to conceive the distance. Shipwrecked seamen on the deep, though they bestride but the truncheon of a boom, are safe and near at home compared with mankind on its bullet. Even to us who have known no other, it seems a strange, if not an ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and laid a hand upon his truncheon. I stood still, with the handcuffs still dangling from my wrists, and the man, reassured by my manner, completed his task. The door was open, and any number of dishevelled heads and staring eyes ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... as men. Down went Floppart to the basement of the building, invading the sanctity of the letter-carriers' kitchen or salle-a-manger. A dozen stalwart postmen leaped from their meals to rush at the intruder. In the midst of the confusion the policeman's truncheon was seen to sway aloft. Next instant the vaulted roof rang with a terrible cry, which truth compels us to state was Floppart's ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... painfully from his pocket, and let it fall by his side. It was really one of the most emphatic gesticulations I ever saw, and tended obviously to quell the rising discord. It was as if the herald at a tournament had dropped his truncheon, and ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... is sentenced," said Angelo: "it is too late."—"Too late!" said Isabel: "Why, no: I that do speak a word may call it back again. Believe this, my lord, no ceremony that to great ones belongs, not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, the marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, becomes them with one half so good a grace as mercy does."—"Pray you begone," said Angelo. But still Isabel entreated; and she said, "If my brother had been as you, and you as he, you might have slipped like him, but he, like you, would not have been so ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... with two or three of the guard, attired in round hose, long stockings, a close doublet, a high-crowned hat, with a brooch, a long, thin beard, a truncheon, little ruffs, white shoes, his scarfs and garters tied cross, and his drum beaten ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... of the Sheriff and the insurgent Knights of Labour. Every American mob feels itself invested with something of the majesty of the sovereign people. Every body of English rioters—political, social, or simply lawless—knows and feels itself guilty of resistance to the Sovereign. The truncheon of the police, the uniform of the soldier, unquestionably represents the legal will of the Sovereign; and before that will the largest and most excited multitude gives way ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... some hidden Treasure, soon prompted him to force open the Door. He was immediately surpriz'd by a sudden Blaze of Light, and discover'd a very fair Vault: At the upper end of it was a Statue of a Man in Armour sitting by a Table, and leaning on his Left Arm. He held a Truncheon in his right Hand, and had a Lamp burning before him. The Man had no sooner set one Foot within the Vault, than the Statue erecting it self from its leaning Posture, stood bolt upright; and upon the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... brigandine^, hauberk, lorication^, helmet, helm, bassinet, salade^, heaume^, morion^, murrion^, armet^, cabaset^, vizor^, casquetel^, siege cap, headpiece, casque, pickelhaube, vambrace^, shako &c (dress) 225. bearskin; panoply; truncheon &c (weapon) 727. garrison, picket, piquet; defender, protector; guardian &c (safety) 664; bodyguard, champion; knight-errant, Paladin; propugner^. bulletproof window. hardened site. V. defend, forfend, fend; shield, screen, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... policemen came rushing in from outside and the neighbourhood. An Irish M.P. on the platform was waving his gingham like a shillelagh in sheer excitement, forgetting his new-found respectability and dreaming himself back at Donnybrook Fair. Him a conscientious constable floored with a truncheon. But a shower of fists fell on the zealot's face, and he tottered back bleeding. Then the storm broke in all its fury. The upper air was black with staves, sticks, and umbrellas, mingled with the pallid hailstones of knobby fists. Yells, and groans, and hoots, and ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... the other, regarding them with a sneer, painfully contorted into a pathetic smile; Henry the King, robed in a sack of penitence, trembling and hesitating, leaning on the arm of Epergnon, but quailing even under the protection of that mighty swordsman; Mucio, careering, truncheon in hand, in full panoply, upon his war-horse, waving forward a mingled mass of German lanzknechts, Swiss musketeers, and Lorraine pikemen; the redoubtable Don Bernardino de Mendoza, in front, frowning and ferocious, with his drawn sword in his hand; ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... put on an apron," was upon Arthur's lips, but he did not say it; and just then his attention was taken by a short thick truncheon, with a curious notch or ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... had not seen our young stripling rehearse. But, when he came ready, at the entrance, his ears were pierced with a voice not familiar to him. He cast his eyes upon the stage, where he beheld the diminutive Pizarro, with a truncheon as long as ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... up, and Tom looked up, too; for the voice was that of the Irishwoman who met them the day they went out together to Harthover. She ordered Grimes to march off in the custody of the truncheon, who was to see that he devoted himself to the considerable task of sweeping out the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... this glorious city represented an inheritance derived from ancient Carthage; here, it was said, survived the arts and arms of that injured state; hither, across Bilidulgerid, had the children of Phoenicia fled from the wrath of Rome; and the mighty phantom of him whose uplifted truncheon had pointed its path to the carnage of Cannae, was still the tutelary genius watching over a vast posterity worthy of himself. Here was a wilderness of lies; yet, after all, the lies were but so many voluminous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... impatience the arrival of the supper; but, with the sagacious knowledge of physiognomy peculiar to their race, forbore to intrude upon the moody silence of their master, apprehensive probably of a small white truncheon which lay by Cedric's trencher, for the purpose of repelling the advances of his four-legged dependants. One grisly old wolf-dog alone, with the liberty of an indulged favourite, had planted himself close ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... by the edifying spectacle of natives being thrashed, tents being burnt, and white people surrounded by ferocious crowds who can scarcely be kept back from carrying out their desire for vengeance by a small truncheon ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... suffer this wild Asse, that doth not onely eat up his fellowes meat, but also would spoyl the images of the gods? Why doe I not kill this lame theefe and weake wretch. And therewithall looking about for some cudgel, hee espied where lay a fagot of wood, and chusing out a crabbed truncheon of the biggest hee could finde, did never cease beating of mee poore wretch, until such time as by great noyse and rumbling, hee heard the doores of the house burst open, and the neighbours crying ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... now drawn the warder over him, holding up his chest with one arm, had also poured chloroform upon the rag, and when the convict- orderly came, Hogarth, by means of a short struggle, had him asleep, then seized the warder's truncheon and keys, and ran out in his ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... command of this army. The queen, however, herself, went to visit this encampment, and reviewed the troops in person. She rode to and fro on horseback along the lines, armed like a warrior. At least she had a corslet of polished steel over her magnificent dress, and bore a general's truncheon, a richly-ornamented staff used as a badge of command. She had a helmet, too, with a white plume. This, however she did not wear. A page bore it, following her, while she rode, attended by Leicester and the other ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... tourney. Amadis, it will be observed here, does not condescend to use his sword against a woman. And this is not from tenderness, but from contempt. For when the Queen saw that he only took the broken truncheon of his lance to her, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... very like the ordinary hair-brush, except that the bristles are replaced by a solid block of high-explosive. The policeman's truncheon has gay streamers of tape tied to its tail, to ensure that it falls to the ground nose downwards. Both these bombs explode on impact, and it is unadvisable to knock them against anything—say the back of the trench—when throwing ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... truncheon of his lance, Spurs through the storm and fury of the fight, And rushes on the Pagan Malsarun, Breaks down his shield with flowers and gold embossed, Thrusts from their orbs his eyes; his brains dashed out Are crushed and trampled 'neath the victor's feet; With seven hundred men of ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier

... tobacco into my mouth to prevent hunger, I went to the tree, and getting up into it, endeavoured to place myself so that if I should sleep I might not fall. And having cut me a short stick, like a truncheon, for my defence, I took up my lodging; and having been excessively fatigued, I fell fast asleep, and slept as comfortably as, I believe, few could have done in my condition, and found myself more refreshed with it than, I think, I ever was on such ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... are few situations capable of throwing the New York policeman off his balance. In that favored clime, savoir faire is represented by a shrewd left hook at the jaw, and a masterful stroke of the truncheon amounts to a satisfactory repartee. Thus shall you never take the policeman of Manhattan without his answer. In other surroundings, Mr. Patrick McEachern would have known how to deal with his young acquaintance, Mr. Jimmy Pitt. But another plan of action was needed here. First of all, ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse

... the helmet, the small boy seizes a very large truncheon, and makes a desperate effort ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... there was no recovery. Sir Kenneth's lance had pierced through the shield, through a plated corselet of Milan steel, through a secret, or coat of linked mail, worn beneath the corselet, had wounded him deep in the bosom, and borne him from his saddle, leaving the truncheon of the lance fixed in his wound. The sponsors, heralds, and Saladin himself, descending from his throne, crowded around the wounded man; while Sir Kenneth, who had drawn his sword ere yet he discovered his antagonist ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... power, like the Deys of Barbary, by military revolutions recurring at short intervals. Lambert seemed likely to be the first of these rulers; but within a year Lambert might give place to Desborough, and Desborough to Harrison. As often as the truncheon was transferred from one feeble hand to another, the nation would be pillaged for the purpose of bestowing a fresh donative on the troops. If the Presbyterians obstinately stood aloof from the Royalists, the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... republic, and the force of habit had availed to propagate that practice under a new mode of government. But now were introduced new regulations: the tribune was selected for his military qualities and experience: none was appointed to this important office, "nisi barb plen" The centurion's truncheon, [Footnote: Vitis: and it deserves to be mentioned, that this staff, or cudgel, which was the official engine and cognizance of the Centurion's dignity, was meant expressly to be used in caning or cudgelling the inferior soldiers: ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... to great ones 'longs, The monarch's crown, and the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, and the ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... away."—Schmidt, I. 235 (Dutard, May 28): "Another plan would be to drill young men in the use of the staff. One must be a sans-culotte, must live with sans-culottes, to discover the value of expedients of this kind. There is nothing the sans-culotte fears as much as a truncheon. A number of young men lately carried them in their trousers, and everybody trembled as they passed. I wished ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... together and told them that every man who joined would have his wages paid to his wife, and his wife or his mother, as the case might be, could stop on in her cottage. And Mr. Withells became a special constable, with a badge and a truncheon. But he worried every soldier that he knew with inquiries as to whether there wasn't a chance for him in some battalion: "I've taken great care of my health," he said. "I do exercises every day after my bath; I'm young-looking for my age, don't you think? And ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker

... and resounded from every side, and soon a posse of eight policemen were battling with the besiegers, trying to push themselves between them and the gate. A fat and genial officer worked his way past Bloomah, his truncheon ready ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... the Chieftain if he stood On Highland heath or Holy-Rood? He rights such wrong where it is given, If it were in the court of heaven.' 'Still was it outrage;—yet, 'tis true, Not then claimed sovereignty his due; While Albany with feeble hand Held borrowed truncheon of command, The young King, mewed in Stirling tower, Was stranger to respect and power. But then, thy Chieftain's robber life!— Winning mean prey by causeless strife, Wrenching from ruined Lowland swain His herds and harvest reared in vain,— ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... was every now and then obscured by masses of scurrying cloud-wrack, and in these periods of semi-darkness Doomsman and Stockader were hardly to be told apart. So closely packed was the scrimmage that the use of any missile weapon was impossible. The dagger and the night-stick (the latter a stout truncheon weighted with lead) were doing the work, and effectively, too. And in that press a man might be struck and die upon his feet, the corpse being stayed from falling through its juxtaposition to the bodies ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... loneliness. All the other crowned heads of Christendom are titled nobodies beside these mighty potentates. The General of the Jesuits wields, they say, wonderful power; but his sceptre is a bulrush beside the truncheon which these kings of the earth hold in their grasp. And here, yes, here in Republican America, the thousands who scout Napoleon, frown on Victoria, and pity the Pope, do nightly homage to this mighty dynasty, and find grace and loveliness in their bottle noses and crooked legs. And—must I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... was Simon Glover's apprentice. See, here is the stick I had from you when we nutted together in the sunny braes of Lednoch, when autumn was young in the year that is gone. I would not exchange it, Catharine, for the truncheon ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... day, We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array; With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears, There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land; And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand; And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood, And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war, To fight for his own holy name, ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... where lived one of the two constables who preserved the peace in the parish of Alderworth, and Wildeve went straight to the constable's cottage. Almost the first thing that he saw on opening the door was the constable's truncheon hanging to a nail, as if to assure him that here were the means to his purpose. On inquiry, however, of the constable's wife he learnt that the constable was not at home. Wildeve said he ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... echoed Wamba. "Let me tell you that when you fill my cloak you are wrapped in a general's cassock. Five hundred men are there without, and I was this morning one of their chief leaders. My fool's cap was a [v]casque, and my [v]bauble a truncheon. Well, we shall see what good they will make by exchanging a fool for a wise man. Truly, I fear they will lose in valor what they may gain in discretion. And so farewell, master, and be kind to poor Gurth and ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... let the milk run down into the pool; and at that all the poor salmon turn up dead. Then comes the water-bailiff, and catches the poachers. Then comes the policeman, with his sword at his side and his truncheon under his arm: and then comes a "cheap journey" to Tralee Gaol, in which those foolish poachers sit and reconsider themselves, and determine not to break the salmon laws—at ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley

... or threescore and ten as the case may be. Misery is but a mockery of language after all; for have I not heard it rampant with lungs, and hoarse with disciplined harmony in Exeter Hall, as Hullah cut capers with his tiny truncheon, with Royalty itself, heroic field-marshals, and grave ministers of state, in seeming ecstasy at the sleight of hand? Just as I have heard and seen in the barracones of Bozal negroes for sale, when, at the crack of the black negro-driver's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... the ear and made him release his hold of the prisoned piece of timber for the moment, and when he splashed after the boat, after recovering from his surprise, and made another grab, the second free peg caught him on the arm like a blow from a constable's truncheon. The sailor uttered a yell for help, but it was cut short by a blow on each side of his neck as Tom's legs snapped together, and then he fell forward with a splash and was helped out by a couple of his mates, who stood, waist-deep, gazing into ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... us that in the dalmatic of Charlemagne, (called that of Leo III.) Cola di Rienzi robed himself over his armour, and ascended to the Palace of the Popes after the manner of the Caesars, with sounding trumpets before him, and followed by his horsemen—his crown on his head and his truncheon in ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... through night Till she came where that lawn of the woods lay wide in the flood of light. Then she looked, and lo, in its midmost a mighty man there stood, And laboured the earth of the green-sward with a truncheon torn from the wood; And behold, it was Sigmund the Volsung: but she cried ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... new mode of government. But now were introduced new regulations: the tribune was selected for his military qualities and experience: none was appointed to this important office, "nisi barba plena" The centurion's truncheon, [Footnote: Vitis: and it deserves to be mentioned, that this staff, or cudgel, which was the official engine and cognizance of the Centurion's dignity, was meant expressly to be used in caning or cudgelling ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... leading-staff, or truncheon, to the background, where, in such perspective as the artist possessed, were depicted the remains of a burning church, or monastery, and four or five soldiers, in red cassocks, bearing away in triumph what seemed a brazen font or laver. Above their heads ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... Wagrams and Stillfrieds but so many ready-built Casemates, wherein the house of Hapsburg might batter with artillery, and with artillery be battered? Koenig Ottokar, amid yonder hillocks, dies under Rodolf's truncheon; here Kaiser Franz falls a-swoon under Napoleon's: within which five centuries, to omit the others, how has thy breast, fair Plain, been defaced and defiled! The greensward is torn-up and trampled-down; man's ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... King's service", and "that his Majesty had given him authority to make use of any persons he found there".[281] This answer did not satisfy the Councillors. Matthews declared "that if things were done on this fashion it would breed ill bloude in Virginia", and in anger "turning his back, with his truncheon lashed off the heads of certain high weeds that were growing there".[282] Harvey, wishing to appease the Councillors, said, "Come gentlemen, let us goe to supper & for the night leave this discourse", but their resentment was too great to be smoothed ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... swell of solemn music, with the clang of a mighty bell breaking forth through its regulated uproar, announces his approach. He comes; a severe, sedate, immovable, dark rider, waving his truncheon of universal sway, as he passes along the lengthened line, on the pale horse of the Revelation. It is Death! Who else could assume the guidance of a procession that comprehends all humanity? And if some, among these many millions, should deem themselves classed amiss, yet let them take to their ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... dissentions an army which their concord would have rendered formidable. The necessity of military operations required their absence from Paris; but they preferred rather to there exhibit themselves to their mistresses, decked out in a general's uniform, and grasping the truncheon of command. No greater harmony existed between the Prince de Conti and Madame de Longueville than when La Rochefoucauld severed them. At Bordeaux they favoured opposite parties, and contributed to augment ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... described by Monstrelet to have grown grey with age and honour; and when orders were given for the English army to march toward the enemy, by Henry crying aloud, "Advance banners," Sir Thomas threw his truncheon in the air as a signal to the whole field, exclaiming, "Now strike;" and loud and repeated shouts testified the readiness with ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare

... over, the heavy thud of a policeman's truncheon was heard, and a few minutes later, with Bob's help, the two men were led away to the ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... said, any real good. Both are in England, and one will never leave it. But if things were different.... If only that soldier brother had joined earlier and had written to me from Rheims, say, or Compiegne, how my stock would fly up! Or if that other one would even now fling away his truncheon, enlist in time to share the march to Berlin, and then sit down to tell me all about it, what a swell I should become! How dinner-parties would assemble to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various

... waist was I, And deep within my breast did lie, Though no man any blood could spy, The truncheon ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris

... arms, body and nether limbs, answering excellently as ground for a cope the color of the cap, divided before and behind into embroidered squares defined by rows of pearls. Boots of purple leather, also embroidered, gave finish to the costume. Instead of sword or truncheon, he carried a plain ivory crucifix. The people staring at him from the doors and windows knew he was going to Sancta Sophia intent ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... lasted for a week. The reforming theologians fought for their dangerous cause bravely and temperately; and Weston, who was at once advocate and prolocutor, threw down his truncheon at last, and told Philpot that he was meeter for Bethlehem than for a company of grave and learned men, and that he should come no more into their house.[161] The orthodox thus ruled themselves the victors: but beyond the doors of the Convocation House they did not benefit their cause. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... a truncheon of new grown wood about a foot in length and the same size at each end: some call these clavolae ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... be happy to receive Madame's instructions how to obtain the honour: her name would, I feel, be a greater passport to the royal presence than that of a deceased soldier; and Venus's cestus may obtain that grace which would never be accorded to the truncheon ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... stately draw bridge over the canale. Over the first gate stands a marble Lowis the 13, this present kings father, on horseback: on his right hand stands Mars the God of Armes; on his left Hercules wt his great truncheon or club. ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... another in the giving of sumptuous feasts. And all is done with the pomp and ceremony of a court banquet. When the chapel bell rings out noon hour and workers file to the long table, there stands the Master of the Revels, napkin on shoulder, chain of honor round his neck, truncheon in his hand. The gavel strikes, and there enter the Brotherhood, each bearing a steaming dish in his hand,—moose hump, beaver tail, bears' paws, wild fowl smelling luscious as food smells only to out-of-doors men. Old Chief Membertou dines with the whites. Crouching round the wall ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... with it rather than letting it drive all it might, so that Ralph turned the point with his shield that it glanced off, but he himself smote the other full on the shoulder, and the shaft brake, but the point had pierced the man's armour, and the truncheon stuck in the wound: yet since the spear was broken he kept his saddle. The Lord cried out, "Well, Black Anselm, this is better done; yet art thou a big man and a well-skilled to be beaten ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... room. The Haunted Man rubbed his eyes,—no! there could be no mistake about it,—it was the Knocker's face, mounted on a misty, almost imperceptible body. The brazen rod was transferred from its mouth to its right hand, where it was held like a ghostly truncheon. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... frame, The slave, perhaps, of some insatiate dame; But if, exempted from the Herculean toil, A fairer field awaits him, rich with spoil, There shall he shine, with mingling honours bright, His master's pathic, pimp, and parasite; 80 Then strut a captain, if his wish be war, And grasp, in hope, a truncheon and a star: Or if the sweets of peace his soul allure, Bask at his ease, in some warm sinecure; His fate in consul, clerk, or agent vary, Or cross the seas, an envoy's secretary; Composed of falsehood, ignorance, and pride, A ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... constable was wise enough to give him the point of his truncheon in the gullet, and that ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... yourself you'll be locked up," said a severe voice, and, turning around, the children beheld a very stern-looking fish, wearing a helmet, and carrying a truncheon. ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow

... long stockings, a closed doublet, a high-crowned hat, with a brooch, a long thin beard, a truncheon, little ruffs, white shoes, his scarfs and garters tied cross, and his ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... was pleasant to him as he wore His careless surcoat, glanced some missive o'er, Propped on his truncheon in the public way. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... in a great measure, the wisdom, moderation, and simplicity of their ancient manners; so much so, that those who were entrusted with the command of the troops of the Republic in battle, were wont to resume the shepherd's staff, when they laid down the truncheon, and, like the Roman Dictators, to retire to complete equality with their fellow citizens, from the eminence to which their talents, and the call of their country had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various

... a print of John, the first Lord Byron, engraved from a painting in the collection of Lord Delaware; in which he is pourtrayed in armour, with a truncheon in the left hand, and the right arm bare to above the elbow. Can this have suggested to Lord Byron the idea of describing "Alp the renegade" as fighting with "the white arm bare," ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various

... "This is no game. Stand there, by the area gate, and if anyone should run out, knock him down with your truncheon. Do ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... and strait sleeves which they wore. The servants in comedy, below the dress with strait sleeves, had a short cassock with half-sleeves. That the characters might be distinguished (a difficulty in this respect arising from the size of the theatres) parasites carried a short truncheon; the rural deities, shepherds, and peasants, the crook; heralds and ambassadors, the caduceus; kings, a long, straight sceptre; heroes, a club, etc. The tunic of tragic actors descended to the heels, and was called ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... self-distrust which becomes one whose fault, or whose misfortune it is, that he simply cannot believe,—Mr. Jowett assumes throughout, the insolent air of intellectual superiority; the tone of one at whose bidding Theology must absolutely 'keep moving.' A truncheon and a number on his collar, alone seem wanting. The menacing voice, and authoritative air, are certainly not ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... carriage. In his ordinary dress, he wore a black coat, instead of the cloak now used, a doublet of crimson satin of which the sleeves were seen, and black breeches reaching from the waist to the feet. He is represented in his portrait as carrying a truncheon in his right hand, while the left rests on the guard of his sword, which hangs ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... a few years ago, by the innovation of a new kind of knocker, without any face at all, composed of a wreath depending from a hand or small truncheon. A little trouble and attention, however, enabled us to overcome this difficulty, and to reconcile the new system to our favourite theory. You will invariably find this knocker on the doors of cold and formal people, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... brutes—trying to take away the poor man's food! And as for that CROWN PRINCE, when you get 'im, just you 'it 'im right over the 'ead with your truncheon!" ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various

... which alluded obviously to the former scene betwixt himself and Sir Arthur, the philosopher lost the slender remnant of patience he had left, and being of violent passions, heaved up the truncheon of the broken mattock to discharge it upon the old man's head. The blow would in all probability have been fatal, had not he at whom it was aimed exclaimed in a stern and firm voice, "Shame to ye, man!do ye think Heaven or earth will suffer ye to murder an auld man that might ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... connections,—for Pope John XXII. had given his niece to him in marriage,—"he committed homicides, entertained evil-doers and murderers, countenanced robbers, and rose against the king. He killed, with the man's own truncheon, one of the king's servants who was wearing the royal livery according to the custom of the royal servants. When his misdeeds were known, he was summoned for trial to Paris; and he went thither surrounded by a stately ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... and there may be some meaning in it," said Will, plucking Patch's cap from his head and elevating it on his truncheon. "Here is an emblem of the Cardinal of York," he cried, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... incredible exertions to approach the leader of the procession, whose morion, distinguished by its lofty plumes, and right hand holding his truncheon, or leading-staff, was all he could see, on account of the crowd of officers and armed men around him. At length his exertions prevailed, and he came within three yards of the Constable, who was then in a small circle which had been with difficulty kept ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... sword, and truncheon; thy own coronation robes (for thou hast brought the whole property man's wardrobe with thee, enough to sink a navy); the judge's ermine; the coxcomb's wig; the snuff-box a la Foppington—all must overboard, he ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... where he sat gnawing at a piece of meat and moved grandly toward the disputatious group. They parted at his approach, but a single member continued the debate against even the bearded giant. The bearded one plucked the glittering truncheon from his belt. The disputatious one gasped in fear and flung himself desperately forward. But the bearded man kept the truncheon pointed steadily.... The man who assailed him staggered, reached close enough to strike a single blow, and collapsed. The bearded man pointed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... know what Marco knew or what The Rat knew. Some common lad had got himself locked up in a house, and some one would have to go to the landlord and get a key from him. He had no intention of laying himself open to the law by breaking into a private house with his truncheon, as The Rat expected him ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett



Words linked to "Truncheon" :   club, nightstick, billy



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com