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Dirty trick   /dˈərti trɪk/   Listen
Dirty trick

noun
1.
An unkind or aggressive trick.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Dirty trick" Quotes from Famous Books



... arrangement to my father he said that he wanted Capi and that we could not have him. I wondered if they were going to make my dog do some dirty trick. From my look my ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot

... fairly and unashamed. "I do," she said, "It's an animal passion for the purpose of populating the earth. And if you ask me, I think it is rather a dirty trick on the ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... things except in the paternal habit of swearing. Once, when an attempt by the Opposition to snatch a victory in a thin House had been foiled, Harcourt said savagely across the table: "So that d——d dirty trick has failed!" Hicks Beach sprang up to ask the Speaker if such language were Parliamentary. Speaker Gully was too discreet to have heard the words. Dilke remembered being in company with Harcourt and Mrs. Procter, amongst several more. ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... belong to any ship, but I made the passage across in a French smuggling lugger, the Lucille. I suppose I ought to feel indebted to them, for they brought me across without asking for any passage-money; but they have played me a dirty trick here, for they have handed me over to the authorities, as far as I can understand the matter, as a man-of-war sailor they have ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... have men in your tops only in general actions and duels atween ships of the line," he was saying in slow and painful voice, very querulous. "In all my fifty years' experience o sea fightin, I never see sich a thing afoor, never! Dirty trick I ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... right here that you were responsible for it all. The Kid wasn't capable of inventing such a dirty trick on a decent girl. He was sufficiently drunk to be influenced by you, and, but for Curly's timely interference, you would doubtless have had your rotten way. I tell you the trouble, whatever trouble happens in this camp, is trouble which you are directly or indirectly responsible ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... but what you're right. It WAS kind of a dirty trick—workin' a stole car off onto you. Why didn't he pick some sucker on the outside? Don't line up with Kenner, somehow. Well, I guess mebby Smilin' Lou can see us out uh this hole all right—only I don't like that car-stealin' charge. Mebby ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower

... not always hard up. I've struck oil since leaving America. Heaps of money! Eh, what!" he continued, offering Clifton an expensive cigar. "You wouldn't have thought it, would you, when you left me stranded in Mexico? That was a nice dirty trick you played me! Come and have a drain, old man, to drink Miss Lily's health and show there's no ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... inquire; but in the Guards' club-house it meant this: that Scoutbush had not an enemy in the world, because he deserved none; that he lent, and borrowed not; gave, and asked not again; envied not; hustled not; slandered not; never bore malice, never said a cruel word, never played a dirty trick, would hear a fellow's troubles out to the end, and if he could not counsel, at least would not laugh at them, and at all times and in all places lived and let live, and was accordingly a general favourite. His morality ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... began to spit birdshot, and started an inquest simultaneously. Jimmy raged. He swore some enemy had secured the bag and mined the feast; but the boys who knew him laughed until it seemed the Thread Man must suspect. He indignantly declared it was a dirty trick. By the light of the fire he knelt and tried to free one of the sandwiches from its sprinkling of birdshot, so that it would be fit for poor Jimmy, who had worked so hard to lead them there and tree the coon. For the first time ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... yarn. That is, it goes a good way back, clean to the old Squire's time—no such a Squire as Pettijohn, forename James, mind ye—but a good, high-sprung, old-fashioned gentleman; with high-up English blood in his veins, an' a reg'lar English temper to balance the blood. Never did a dirty trick in his life nor an unjust one—except to his own and only son. That was Monty's father, poor little stutterin' shaver! Well, along of his late years the old Squire had bad feelin's in his head, suffered terr'ble agony, an' hardly knowed what he did do or say. He got a notion ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... any assistance?" "No, thank you," was promptly returned, although there was little doubt that all hands would have subscribed towards a tow into port, in case the treacherous weather should, after all, play us a dirty trick. But it looked as if our troubles were over. No hitch occurred in our steady progress, slow though it necessarily was, and as morning lifted the heavy veil from the face of the land, we arrived at our pretty little haven, and quietly came to an anchor. The ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... kind of letter to write to excuse a dirty trick, Sam. It's got the true, rotten, swell twang ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke

... spies tell us that another very great nation has developed this beam we've been demonstrating to all the world. So did we. And we couldn't use it, but they would! If they didn't use it against us, they'd use it for any sort of emergency dirty trick. So we made up this invasion to persuade every country on earth to arm itself against this particular weapon. Nothing less than monsters in space would justify arming, in the eyes of some politicians! Of course, they'll arm against ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... "I'm just dreaming up a nice, dirty trick," he admitted. "Tried something like it once before, on a smaller scale. It worked." He ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole

... ounds! you cowardly furrin rascal, haven't you had your belly-full of fighting yet, that you must be after murthering a wounded man that way? By the powers of Moll Kelly, but you won't serve Pat Kallahan that dirty trick again anyhow.' ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... for his own unseemliness. He suddenly recalled how he had once in the past been asked, "Why do you hate so and so, so much?" And he had answered them, with his shameless impudence, "I'll tell you. He has done me no harm. But I played him a dirty trick, and ever since I ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... and I still am. And yet, ever since I've heard about this war—I don't know. I feel uneasy. Hang it! Germany had no business hogging across Belgium as she did. It was a dirty trick, just like the one, by Jove, Von Minden tried to play on me! Gustav, another German, take notice, tried to ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... became a working man I saw only the seamy side of the life of our town, and every day made fresh discoveries which brought me to despair. My fellow townsmen, both those of whom I had had a low opinion before, and those whom I had thought fairly decent, now seemed to me base, cruel, and up to any dirty trick. We poor people were tricked and cheated in the accounts, kept waiting for hours in cold passages or in the kitchen, and we were insulted and uncivilly treated. In the autumn I had to paper the library and ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... bad to destroy your belief, my lad, but I feel sure that mate of yours is playing you a dirty trick. He is a miserable coward, and hiding away. The lad has turned ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... cabman, "and if I had I wouldn't give it you. I played a dirty trick on you and a dirtier one still when I took your half sov, I did, seeing that I ought to have known that you ere just an obfusticated youngster and no bilk as I called you to them flunkeys. What you said made me ashamed, though I wouldn't own it before the flunkeys. ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... do hope you aren't going to get—er—"boiled" again tonight, Priscilla. (Enter PRISCILLA, infinitely radiant, infinitely beautiful, with a bottle of vermouth in one hand and a jug of gin in the other.) PRISCILLA: Auntie, that was a dirty trick to hide the vermouth. Hello Miles—shoot ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart

... door, and looked him full in the face. "No, she isn't dead," he said; "I wish to God she were." Then he struck him hard on the shoulder. "David," he said harshly, "be a man; they've played a damned dirty trick on you. Yesterday she married Blair Maitland.... Take it like a man, and be thankful you are rid of her." He wheeled about and stood with his back to his niece's lover. He had guided the inevitable sword, but he could not witness the agony of the wound. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... put up the money for any of them musical comedies—he just trails. Of course he's got a lot of influence, and he's always Johnny-on-the-Spot to turn any dirty trick that they want. There are four or five rich men in town who are there with the bank-roll, providing he engages women who ain't so very particular about the location of their residence, and who don't hear a curfew ring at 11:30 ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter

... fie!' cried the cleanly Rat, quite shocked at the sight. 'What a nasty dirty trick!—why don't you use ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... And the enraged Bailie lost all self-control as he read the legend on the board. "A low, mean, dirty trick, a deliberately planned fraud. It's perfectly iniquitous, in fact, juist—juist damnable! Bankrupt—who is bankrupt? Is't me?" And the veins on the Bailie's neck swelled visibly. "Tea at elevenpence-halfpenny! I never had such trash in my shop. Three shillings is the lowest, and I never recommended ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... So he tried to pass himself off as dead? What a rascal! And he reckoned on me to collect the insurance-money and send it to him? As if I should be capable of such a low, dirty trick!... You don't ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... which he suggested he belonged. The origin of this delicious lament over a venerable and more courteous past by so flagrant a type of modernity, was a statement that Sir William Harcourt had played the dirty trick of putting down a notice to suspend the twelve o'clock rule at a shorter notice than usual. The suspension of the twelve o'clock rule simply means that the Tories shall not be allowed to obstruct by the mere fact that the House is compelled automatically to close at midnight under the existing rules. ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... fool as to make that bet with Jeff Hall. All the fellows were talking about it. "They was asking me what kind of a horse you've got—and I wouldn't put it past Jeff and his bunch to pull some kind of a dirty trick on you," he complained. "Bud, on the square, I like you a whole lot. You seem kinda innocent, in some ways, and in other ways you don't. I wish you'd tell me just one thing, so I can sleep comfortable. Have you got some scheme of your own? Or ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... eagerly. "The last quarrel we had was about a mark on his neck. He wuz a spunky little one. You couldn't make him cry. His devil of a daddy used to stick pins in him and laugh because he wouldn't cry. The last dirty trick he tried was what ended it all. He pushed a live cigar agin his little neck until I smelled it burnin' in the next room. I knocked him down with a chair, drove him from the house and told him I'd kill him if he ever put his foot ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... begins to doubt whether he really means ever to tackle that job. But one day he stops Cloete at the door, with his downcast eyes: What about that employment you wished to give me? he asks. . . You see, he had played some more than usual dirty trick on the woman and expected awful ructions presently; and to be fired out for sure. Cloete very pleased. George had been prevaricating to him such a lot that he really thought the thing was as well as settled. And he says: Yes. It's time I introduced you to my friend. Just ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... took his hand from his gun and peered over the ledge. The man was gone. It was a dirty trick he had played. He half wished he had not done it. And yet, the Jap girl had laughed. She knew what the man was. She had been close enough to have stopped him, had she thought it right. She had not done so. ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell

... old woman! what a charming little girl! Not at all the prude, and so obliging! Eh! where is the old woman? Ah! I am undone! And the old man, where is he? Hi! old woman! old woman! Ah! but this is a dirty trick! Artemuxia! she has tricked me, that's what the little old woman has done! Get clean out of my sight, you cursed quiver! (Picks it up and throws it across the stage.) Ha! you are well named quiver, for you have made me quiver indeed.[647] ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... to go away for a day or two on business. Meet me at the boat train for Havre on Wednesday." She went to the Gare St. Lazare on Wednesday to find that the boat train had gone on Tuesday. Un sale tour—eh? Did ever anyone hear of such a dirty trick? And later she learned that her berth was occupied by a little modiste of the Place de la Madeleine with whom he ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke



Words linked to "Dirty trick" :   prank, put-on, antic, joke, trick, caper



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