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Hack   /hæk/   Listen
Hack

noun
1.
One who works hard at boring tasks.  Synonyms: drudge, hacker.
2.
A politician who belongs to a small clique that controls a political party for private rather than public ends.  Synonyms: machine politician, political hack, ward-heeler.
3.
A mediocre and disdained writer.  Synonyms: hack writer, literary hack.
4.
A tool (as a hoe or pick or mattock) used for breaking up the surface of the soil.
5.
A car driven by a person whose job is to take passengers where they want to go in exchange for money.  Synonyms: cab, taxi, taxicab.
6.
An old or over-worked horse.  Synonyms: jade, nag, plug.
7.
A horse kept for hire.
8.
A saddle horse used for transportation rather than sport etc..



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"Hack" Quotes from Famous Books



... which you have come down from London, you are greeted with no clamor of bawling hack-drivers and hotel-omnibus men roaring in stentorian tones the names of their various houses. Three or four quiet serving-men in corduroy small-clothes and natty coats touch their hats to you and look in your face inquiringly. They represent the various hotels in Tenby, and at a gesture of assent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... Trappes set out to rejoin his travelling companions, who were some hours in advance of him, when, on reaching Dover he was arrested in his turn and brought hack to prison in London. Interrogated the same day, M. de Trappes frankly related what had passed, appealing to M. de Chateauneuf as to the truth of what ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the train stopped at the busy city; the close of the journey had come, but no end to her restless thoughts. While she was thus musing, she was aroused by the usual, "Have a hack? a hack, miss?" This seemed to indicate her next step. She handed her baggage check to the person who addressed her, and directed him to ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... Days after they were Married he came Home at 4 A.M. in a Sea-Going Hack and he was Saturated. Next Morning she had him up on the Carpet and wanted to know ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade

... Verdant," said Mr. Larkyns, "you may just as well get a hack, and come for a ride with me. You've kept up your ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... prudent. He cut into the profits of his books by the costly changes he was always making in his proof-sheets,—changes which the artist felt to be necessary, but against which the publishers naturally protested. In reality he wrote his books on his proof-sheets, for he would cut and hack the original version and make new insertions until he drove his printers wild. Indeed, composition never became easy to him, although under a sudden inspiration he could sometimes dash off page after page while other men slept. He had, too, his affectations; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... pass my window". "No, we didn't; but we spoke of doing it." The lady then mentioned minute details of the dress and attitudes of her relations as they passed her window, where the drive turned from the hall door through the park; but, in fact, no such journey had been made. Dr. Hack Tuke published the story of the "Arrival" of Dr. Boase at his house a quarter of an hour before he came, the people who saw him supposing him to ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... had enough for being a Canadian; but I won't stand for this." I left him with his beard still on in patches and the bare spots bleeding angrily. As I had already committed myself, I had to bear in silence his purposely clumsy handling of that hack-saw. It was terrible, and Simmons, the scoundrel, laughed ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... were cast in the same mould," cried the youth; and in fact he was very like his father—like, no doubt, as a noble hunter is like a worn-out hack—as marble is like limestone—as a cedar is like a fir-tree. Both were remarkably tall, had thick hair, dark eyes, and strongly aquiline noses, exactly of the same shape; but the cheerful brightness which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... wilderness, containing only here and there a small cottage. In 1800 it had eight thousand inhahitants. The "Father of his country" laid the cornerstone of the capitol (1793). The part of this District on the Virginia side of the Potomac was (1846) ceded hack to ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... Long rows of desk and bench; the former stain'd And streak'd with blots and trickles of dried ink, Lumbered with maps and slates and well-thumb'd books, And carved with rude initials; while the knife Has hack'd and sliced the latter. In the midst Stands the dread throne whence breathes supreme command, And in a lock'd recess well known, is laid The dread regalia, gifted with a charm Potent to the rebellious. When the bell Tinkles the school hour, inward streams the crowd, And bending ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... As a hack, Nell was unreliable. You could n't reckon with certainty on getting her to start. All depended on the humour she was in and the direction you wished to take—mostly the direction. If towards the grass-paddock or the dam, she was off helter-skelter. If it was n't, she'd go on strike—put ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... Mr. Stacey, who promptly pulled out his penknife, and began to hack away at a stout stem on ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil

... the worst of them able to outchat a hundred of the best picked gossips. And yet their condition would be much better were they only full of words and not so given to scolding that they most obstinately hack and hew one another about a matter of nothing and make such a sputter about terms and words till they have quite lost the sense. And yet they are so happy in the good opinion of themselves that ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus

... a street stood a hack to which was hitched a big black, and the rusty-looking individual who held the reins was anxious for immediate service. "Right this way, gents!" he yelled, as he noted the signs of a chase. "I'll catch Bill Durnell's team ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... and literary hack, Whetstone, who wrote a poetical memoir of George Gascoigne after his death, entitles it a remembrance of "the well employed life and godly end" of his hero. It is not necessary to dispute that Gascoigne's ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... purpose of exchange with a railroad company for a portion of its right of way, required for widening a highway;[646] land by a railway for a spur track;[647] establishment by a municipality of a public hack stand upon the driveway maintained by a railroad upon its own terminal grounds to afford ingress and egress to its patrons.[648] Likewise, damages for which compensation must be paid are sustained by an upper riparian proprietor by reason of the ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... the southern slopes of the hill on the left across a tract of rough ground to the marshes on the right. The forest, choked with bushes and clumps of rank ferns, was within a few yards of the barricade, and there was scarcely time to hack away the intervening thickets. Three cannon were planted to sweep the road that descended through the pines, and another was dragged up to the ridge of the hill. The defeated party began to come in; first, scared fugitives both white and red, then, gangs of men bringing the wounded; and ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... scene that day at Warrener when, towards noon, two carriages drove out from town and, entering the east gate, rolled over towards the guard-house. The soldiers clustered about the barrack porches and stared at the occupants. In the first—a livery hack from town—were two sheriff's officers, while cowering on the back seat, his hat pulled down over his eyes, was poor old Clancy, to whom clung faithful little Kate. In the rear carriage—Major Waldron's—were Mr. Hayne, the major, and a civilian whom some of ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... angry fowler, by name Arjunaka, bound the serpent with a string and brought it before Gautami. He then said to her,—This wretched serpent has been the cause of thy son's death, O blessed lady. Tell me quickly how this wretch is to be destroyed. Shall I throw it into the fire or shall I hack it into pieces? This infamous destroyer of a child does not deserve ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... was their God also. The manna and quails were ordinary provisions of Providence, rendered miraculous by certain laws and qualities annexed to them in the particular instance. The passage of the Red Sea was effected by a strong wind, which, we are told, drove hack the waters; and so on. But then, again, the death of the first-born was purely miraculous. Hence, then, both Jews and Egyptians might take occasion to learn, that it was one and the same God who interfered specially, and who ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... I will open to thieves like ye, My limbs ye shall hew and hack. Awake, Sir John! awake and flee; These blood-hounds are on ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... regards this verse. They have made faith vastly inferior to love because of Paul's assertion that love is greater than faith and greater than hope. As usual, their mad reason blindly seizes upon the literal expression. They hack a piece out of it and the remainder they ignore. Thus they fail to understand Paul's meaning; they do not perceive that the sense of Paul concerning the greatness of love is expressed both in the text and the context. For surely it cannot be disputed that the apostle is here referring ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... says she is, and that the hack is nothing at all. By the way, Hilda, if your husband won't spare you to go down to the Rectory, why don't you have that child here on a visit? Nothing in the world would do her so much good as a sight of ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... north of the town, the battle opened on Saturday, May 15, 1915, in the south, against the Russian front between Novemiasto and Sambor. Here the Austro-German troops were thrown against Hussakow and Krukenice to hack their way through trenches and barbed-wire entanglements in order to reach the Przemysl-Lemberg railway and thereby complete the circle. "At the cost of enormous sacrifices the enemy succeeded in capturing the trenches of our ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... coquetting with the little beauty, while one of our boats pulled up to it, and threw a lariat over a glittering peak that flamed in the sun like a torch. Then we drew in the slack and made fast, while a half dozen of our men mounted the slippery mass, armed with ropes and axes, and began to hack off big chunks, which were in due season ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... the first news you will hear will be that of my sad and pitiful death, caused by your absence, but, be that as it may, you are the only living person I will obey, and I prefer rather to obey you and die, than live for ever and disobey you. My body is yours. Cut it, hack it, do what ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... The hack came in sight over the rise of ground, with Simpson driving furiously, as he always did when he saw people. Louise threw her arms round her friend again. "Let me go back and stay with you, Sue! Or, come home with me, you and Miss Northwick. We shall all be so glad to have you, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... flower grows in the field, without travail or effort. He worked harder than ever at Jonathan's drawings those days—hot lazy days they were, too—to earn release a half-hour earlier; and he swallowed his dinners more hastily than was wise. Then, when no hack work for Dick Holden was to be done, he sat at his easel sketching until the clock struck an hour—more often two—after midnight. Esther's aunt was a model landlady and had nothing to say about extravagance ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller

... opportunity for further escape was right before them. For here were half a dozen trucks stacked high with hay, and each covered with a tarpaulin. To cast off one end of the tarpaulin, to burrow a hole in the hay, to tread their way into the stacks, and to hack a space sufficient to accommodate their bodies was no great difficulty, and though, in the midst of their work, the train started, it made the job all the easier; for then, throwing discretion to the wind, they tossed what hay was superabundant overboard, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... Monsieur, I must go hack to the Casino and look after Fritz! 'E is a child—quite a child as regards money." Madame Wachner sighed heavily. "No, no, you go 'ome to bed in the ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... continued to hack away with our knives at the lanyards, and presently, after what appeared to have been a terribly protracted interval, but which was probably not more than a couple of minutes, the last lanyard parted with a twang, and the next instant, with a crash heard even through ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... went out with the rest of the passengers. There was a great crowd of hackmen on the platform, all clamorously shouting together to the passengers, offering their carriages and calling out the names of the several hotels. Stuyvesant observed that those before him who wished for a hack would quietly speak to one of these men, give him their baggage tickets and then ask him to show them his carriage. Stuyvesant accordingly did the same. He spoke to a man who was standing there with a whip in his hand and asking every body if they ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott

... position denotes her wide supremacy in the world over distant peoples and nations; the second, the close relationship that she sustained to the civil power. That beast carried her in royal state. The civil powers of Europe have usually lent themselves as a caparisoned hack for this great whore to ride upon and have considered themselves highly honored thereby. This beast was full of the names of blasphemy, which were the same as the blasphemous assumptions of the Papacy, as explained in chapter XIII, showing that he agreed perfectly ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... very prevalent belief that a snake can never die till the sun is down. Cut or hack it as you will, it will never die till sunset. This idea has evidently its source in the amazing vitality common ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various

... "Miss Hack-butt," he said, slowly. "I saw her the other day, and what he can see in her ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... these: "Y-mynce it, smyte them on gobbets, hew them on gobbets, chop on gobbets, hew small, dyce them, skern them to dyce, kerf it to dyce, grind all to dust, smyte on peces, parcel-hem; hew small on morselyen, hack them small, cut them on culpons." Great amounts of spices were used, even perfumes; and as there was no preservation of meat by ice, perhaps the spices and ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... I was ready for the word before it was given me; I took the children by the hands, who both cried, for they were frightened, but both stopped when they got on shore; a colored man carried the little one, I led the other by the hand. We walked down the street till we got to a hack; nobody forced me away; nobody pulled me, and nobody led me; I went away of my own free will; I always wished to be free and meant to be free when I came North; I hardly expected it in Philadelphia, but I thought ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... twinkled. "I know what you're thinking, Peter," he chuckled. "You are thinking that it is funny Mrs. Meadow Lark didn't go straight hack to our nest when she seemed so anxious about it. I would have you to know that she is too clever to do anything so foolish as that. She knows well enough that somebody might see her and so find our secret. She has walked there from the place where you saw her ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... half-score of wagons and chaises and carryalls,—the horses already beginning the forenoon's work of stamping and whisking the flies. More were coming. Hiram Beers had "hitched up," and brought two loads with his new hack; and now, having secured the team, he stood with a few admiring young fellows about him, remarking on the people ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... the chain and the shoes in his left, and he flew far away to a mill, and the mill went, "klipp klapp, klipp klapp, klipp klapp," and in the mill sat twenty miller's men hewing a stone, and cutting, hick hack, hick hack, hick hack, and the mill went klipp klapp, klipp klapp, klipp klapp. Then the bird went and sat on a lime-tree which stood in front of ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... dressed all in green Here am I, little jumping Joan Here goes my lord Here sits the Lord Mayor Here's Sulky Sue Here we go round the mulberry bush Hey, diddle, diddle! Hey diddle dinkety poppety pet Hey, my kitten, my kitten Hick-a-more, Hack-a-more Hickery, dickery, 6 and 7 Hickety, pickety, my black hen Hickory, dickory, dock! High diddle doubt, my candle's out Higher than a house, higher than a tree Hot-cross Buns! How many days has my baby to play? How many miles is it to Babylon? Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Hush-a-bye, baby ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)

... interest. As soon as they saw Mr. Thornton, they set up a yell,—to call it not human is nothing,—it was as the demoniac desire of some terrible wild beast for the food that is withheld from his ravening. Even he drew hack for a moment, dismayed at the intensity of hatred ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... criticism on plays and pictures, social etceteras, the minor morals, the miscellaneous incidents of daily life. It is true that Hazlitt was only for a short time in the straitest shafts, the most galling traces, of periodical hack-work. His practice was rather that of George Warrington, who worked till he had filled his purse, and then lay idle till he had emptied it. He used (an indulgence agreeable in the mouth, but bitter in ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... their own land? Did not the Romans carry conquests all over Europe? And the Spaniard here, who has been driven out for his cruelty and rapacity. The world question is a great tree at which many nations have a hack, and some of them get only the unripe fruit as the branches fall. But the fruit matures slowly, and some one will gather it in the end, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... was too clumsy to understand the transition, and too much of a child to be shy of the light himself. He hung hack, lonely, and pondered, uncomprehending, over the new condition ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... the place warm" for General Rufus King, a personal friend of Seward, to whom the place was promised whenever he should be tired of fighting, or qualified by glory for future political contests. Randall was a mere party hack; he knew nothing of diplomacy or good manners, or of any language but Western American. I took for him the house on the Pincian now known as the House of the Four Winds, a magnificent situation for the summer. He saw the sights, generally in a carriage, with a paper of fruit on the front seat ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... hack!' objected another of the gentlemen. 'Nothing is worse in poetry than mediocrity, and he certainly does not go ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... and the girls is talkin', an' Pie-face Hurd he's calling names. He said I was a nigger!" His blue eyes and white hair belied the accusation, but his voice rose to a scream at the indignity. Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby marched the deposed monitor hack to the room to restore order, explaining volubly that it was quite as wicked a crime to call a boy Pie-face as for that boy to call one ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... Eton and Oxford, was presented at Court by his grandfather, and came hack to Ireland at twenty-two, to idle away his time till the old lord should die. Till this occurred, he could neither call himself the master of the place, nor touch the rents. In the meantime, the lawsuits were dropped, both parties having seriously injured their resources, without either ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... deck-hands, ordered by a burly mate, leaped to the stage and began, with half as many others who ran ashore on it, to heave it aboard. But a sharp "avast" stopped them, and four or five cabin-boys gambolled out on it ashore. A smart hack came whirling up in its own white shell dust, and a fledgling dandy of seventeen sprang down from the seat of his choice by the driver before the vehicle could stop or the white jackets strip ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... saying he preferred that of Washington—a far greater man; that he wrote bitter words against that combination of princes, who desired to put down freedom in France; that he said the titled spurred and the wealthy switched England and Scotland like two hack-horses; and that all the high places of the land, instead of being filled by genius and talent, were occupied, as were the high-places of Israel, with idols of wood or of stone. But all this and more had been done and said before by thousands in this land, whose love of their country was ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... The King Brandagoras of Latangor, With Anguisant of Erin, Morganore, And Lot of Orkney. Then, before a voice As dreadful as the shout of one who sees To one who sins, and deems himself alone And all the world asleep, they swerved and brake Flying, and Arthur call'd to stay the brands That hack'd among the flyers, "Ho! they yield!" So like a painted battle the war stood Silenced, the living quiet as the dead, And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord. He laugh'd upon his warrior whom he loved And honor'd most. "Thou dost not doubt ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... the hotel keeper and the station agent had all been poor boys like myself. They started with nothing but their hands to labor with. They had worked hard and saved a part of their wages, and this had given them "a start." The hotel keeper had been a hack driver. He slept in the haymow of a livery stable. He had to meet the train that came at two o'clock in the morning. No other man was willing to have his sleep broken at such an hour. He hated to lose the ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... and grocer, there are, in the latter, tea merchants, cigar-dealers, dealers in mourning goods (in London childbed-linen warehouses) etc., and hotels for all the different classes of travelers. There can be a distinct class of porters, hack-men etc., only where commerce is very active.(368) And even in cities like Paris, where the costly industries that minister to luxury, that of the jeweler, for instance, admit of only a limited division of labor, this effect ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... steeple of the meeting-house. He leaped out of the cab almost before the engine had stopped, and beamed upon everybody on the platform,—even upon Mr. Dodd, who chanced to be there. In a twinkling the young man is in Mr. Sherman's hack, and Mr. Sherman galloping his horse down Brampton Street, the young man with his head out of the window, smiling; grinning would be a better word. Here are the iron mastiffs, and they seem to be grinning, too. The young man flings open the carriage door and leaps out, and the door is almost ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... a hawklike face Read from a list each rider's place. Sitting astride his pommely hack, He ordered them up or sent them back; He bade them heed that they jump their nags Over every jump between ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield

... ol' man wud give a wink to th' clock an' go out into th' kitchen. We spint most iv our time in th' kitchen while th' preliminaries was bein' arranged. Th' coortship I think wint on be a complete system iv signals long befure Marconi come into th' wurruld, but wan night th' wealthy heiress come hack fr'm th' parlor an' fell into a clinch with her mother, an' th' proud father yawned an' wint to bed. That was all they was to it. No wan assayed young Lotharyo Hinnissy iv th' sixth ward. If they heard he had twinty-five dollars, they'd begin f'r to make ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne

... They considered that very hazardous, on account of exposure to cold; but to stay there was less hopeful. I was taken to the boat, carried on board by two men, then carried off at Jacksonville to a hack, taken to a hotel, thence to the train. I secured a good berth in a sleeper, and got through without the least trouble. I improved, every mile of the way; but as soon as I got home I went down again, and was extremely low ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... forms being often unknown, these were approximately conjectured from their occupations. The character and costume of an archer, or of a spear-man, were ascribed to such as roamed through Hades, to pierce the dead with arrows or with javelins. Those who prowled around souls to cut their throats and hack them to pieces were represented as women armed with knives, carvers—donit—or else as lacerators—nokit. Some appeared in human form; others as animals—bulls or lions, rams or monkeys, serpents, fish, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... go to the aid of those who were fighting, but it would have been utter madness to have attempted to land with a detachment in the dark and try to hack a way through the jungle. They might have fired signals and had them responded to, but it would have been a helpless, bewildering piece of folly; and with pulses beating rapidly with excitement, and ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... her integrity, and went for the cab. But it was a risk, sir, which I promise not to repeat in the future. She was awaiting me on the stoop when I got back, and at once entered the hack with a command to drive immediately to Police Headquarters. I saw her as I came in just now sitting in the outer office, waiting for you. Are you ready to say ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... those flying Austrians the fear, as independently as it had come to him, left him, and he felt only a desire to hack and kill. The four Prussians flew after them, cutting and stabbing at them as they ran; and when the Prussian cavalry came thundering up, they found my young lieutenant and his three friends had captured two guns and accounted for half a score of ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... applying his knowledge. I wondered how he would die. He would be alone there, in the tangle, stumbling across creepers. The poisoned blow-pipe, from the long, polished blow-pipe, such as I had seen in the museums. He would fall on his face, among the jungle. Then the silent Indian would hack off his head with a flint, and pickle it for the Lima markets. He would never get to the Caqueta. Or perhaps he would be caught in an electric storm, an aire, as they call them, and be stricken down among the hills on his way to Chito. More probably he would ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... draw it by the bucketful and not in drops," interpreted Billington. "And now he tries to crawl off. Take thy knife to him, man; nay, get ye both your swords and hack away at each other until we see which is the better bird. 'T is long since I ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... self-poised and genuine are not insensible to the tribute of this personal consideration. My lady giving orders to her respectful servitors, and driving down the avenue in her luxurious turnout, is not at all the same person in feeling that she would be if dragged about in a dissolute-looking hack whose driver has the air of the stable. We take kindly to this transformation, and perhaps it is only the vulgar in soul who become snobbish in it. Little by little, under this genial consideration, Margaret advanced in the pleasant path of worldliness; and we heard, by the newspapers and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... already in front of the Countess's house. The weather was terrible; the wind blew with great violence; the sleety snow fell in large flakes; the lamps emitted a feeble light, the streets were deserted; from time to time a sledge, drawn by a sorry-looking hack, passed by, on the look-out for a belated passenger. Hermann was enveloped in a thick overcoat, and felt neither ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... probabilities, I really haven't," said the doctor, arching his painful brows. "It's not easy to hack a neck through even clumsily, and this was a very clean cut. It could be done with a battle-axe or an old headsman's axe, or ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... forces of the United Nations turned hack the Chinese Communist invasion-and did it without widening the area of conflict. The action of the United Nations in Korea has been a powerful deterrent to a third world war. However, the situation in Korea remains very hazardous. The outcome of the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... broke through, receiving broadsides from the two ships at either end. The rest of the squadron and the Dutch following, sailed abreast towards the boom, but being becalmed they all stuck, and were compelled to hack and cut their way through. Again a breeze sprang up, of which the Dutchman made such good use that, having hit the passage, he went in and captured the Bourbon. Meantime Admiral Hopson was in extreme danger, for the French fire-ship having fallen on board him, whereby his rigging was set on fire, ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... and deserted. A single hack rattled under his window, and Arthur could hear its lessening sound until it was lost in the sweet clangor of the bells. He lay in bed, and did not see the people in the street; but he heard the shuffling and the slouching, the dragging step and the bright, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... with lunatics. My conscience is clear; you have made a fool of me from the first moment; you have refused to hear my explanations; and now there is no power under God will make me stay here any longer; and if I cannot make my way out in a more decent fashion, I will hack your door ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... door, Phoenix," mumbled Calavius, as he rocked and swayed. "Open the door and let them enter. I am an old man. My son is dead. What matters a few years of life? I pray to the gods that the barbarians may not hack me. You shall see how easy I will make it—if they have but a sharp sword." Suddenly he sprang to his feet and grasped Marcia's arm. "They will not scourge me? Surely they will not scourge me? I am a senator and the friend of Carthage!—will ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... more certain to deliver themselves from being infested by these dangerous apparitions than to burn and hack to pieces these bodies, which served as instruments of malice, or to tear out their hearts, or to let them putrefy before they are buried, or to cut off their heads, or to pierce their ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... gravel walk, a hack drew up and stopped in front of the house. Louis Arnold sprang out. The two ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... in uniform and a plain-clothes man on duty, to prevent the entry of unauthorised persons, so I waited until we had moved to Baron's Court. Here I made careful preparations, and arranged to dress and makeup at the house of the Head-Keeper, a great ally of mine. I was met here by a hack-car ordered from the neighbouring town, and drove up to the front door armed with a nosegay the size of a cart-wheel, composed of dahlias, hollyhocks and sunflowers. I gave the hatter's name at the door, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... seldom went within the low door, but stood outside, speaking a few words, while Cummins' wife talked to him. But one morning, when the sun was shining down with the first promising warmth of spring, the woman stepped hack from the door ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... Lord Howick, and Sir Robert Peel. The first-named made a useful and practical speech; Lord Stanley an absurd one; Lord Howick was as capricious and crotchetty as on most other occasions; Sir Robert Peel repeated himself and other hack orators on the side of the protectionists. Mr. Villiers made a calm and effective reply, in which he especially directed his skill as a debater to the exposure of the fallacies of Sir Robert Peel, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... It's a cinch or I'm a sinner, He'd have taken Trix to dinner, He'd have given her the eye Of the fish about to die, And folded her, And moulded her Like dough within a pie— sallow, pallid pie— And cooked a scheme to marry her, And hired a hack to carry her To stately Harlem-by-the-Bronx, Where now the ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... innocent and innocuous weapon, but two table knives are not, for one can be used against the other so skillfully as to form a fairly good hack saw, with which prison bars may be sawed. The sawing of steel bars was the sound that the sentry had heard mingling with ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... Help with a spoon, as quickly as possible, on hot plates.——ROUND OR BUTTOCK OF BEEF is cut in the same way as fillet of veal, in the next article. It should be kept even all over. When helping the fat, observe not to hack it, but cut it smooth. A deep slice should be cut off the beef before you begin to help, as directed above for the edge-bone.——FILLET OF VEAL. In an ox, this part is round of beef. Ask whether the brown outside be liked, otherwise help the ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... precarious mode of obtaining a livelihood was better than a vicious one, and determined to try my fortune on the stage: so I ordered a hack, and drove to the office indicated. I felt a degree of comfort, when I discovered that my father was the advertising manager, although I was certain he would never recognise me. I was engaged by the agent, the bargain ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... asleep on closed carriages at the hack stand. Long lines of clumsy carts, with high wheels, rumble over the cobblestone pavements ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George

... slap on the shoulder. "I won't balk your luck. Go to Cambridge, boy; and when Tusher dies you shall have the living here, if you are not better provided by that time. We'll furnish the dining-room and buy the horses another year. I'll give thee a nag out of the stable: take any one except my hack and the bay gelding and the coach-horses; and God speed thee, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... with other plant juices and with gum, Pliny of that of flour with white clay. Both in Rome and in Athens wine was often adulterated with colours and flavouring agents, and inspectors were charged with looking after it. In England, so far hack as the reign of John (1203), a proclamation was made throughout the kingdom, enforcing the legal obligations of assize as regards bread; and in the following reign the statute (51 Hen. III. Stat. 6) entitled "the pillory ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... most of his literary years in New York. His parents, both actors, died when he was still a little child, and he was adopted by Mr. Allan, who educated him in Europe. He served as literary editor and hack writer for several journals ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... made himself a heavy and flexible whip of Dapple's headstall and reins, retired about twenty paces from his master, amidst some beeches. Don Quixote, observing him go with readiness and resolution, said, "Have a care, friend; do not hack thyself to pieces. Give one stripe time to await another. Thou shouldst not so hurry in the race that thy breath fails in the midst; go more gently to work, soft and fair goes furthest; I mean, do not give it thyself so sharply that strength fails thee before the desired number is ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... soon after its unconstitutional attack upon popular liberties in the case of Wilkes, showed itself as suddenly enamoured of them a few months later, when Timothy Brecknock, a hack writer, published his Droit le Roy, or a Digest of the Rights and Prerogatives of the Imperial Crown of Great Britain (February 1764). Timothy, like Cowell in James I.'s time, favoured extreme monarchical ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... himself would blush to perpetrate such an act of arrogance as you have done, in thus volunteering your advice to the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," of the Methodist Church. An old political party hack, who is not now, and never was, a member of any Church—an intriguing old sinner, who never even attends Church, and who, in this respect, shows that he neither fears God, respects the Christian Sabbath, nor "approves ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... look upon the superintendency of your schools as the largest, the most difficult, and most important position within the bestowal of the city. The mayor's job doesn't begin to compare with it. And then after you have so rated the position, I want you to free the man who holds it from all hack-work, from the details of business management, from anything and everything that now prevents him from making a careful, scientific, investigative study of fundamental educational problems that confront him right ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... vehicle was at the door; it was a hack conveyance which was elevated to the rank of a private carriage in honor of the occasion, but, in spite of its humble exterior, the young men would have thought themselves happy to have secured it for the last three days of the Carnival. "Excellency," cried the cicerone, seeing ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... I hope your honour won't abandon me, for I didn't know Miss Honor was under her ladyship, Mrs. Carver's favour and purtection, or I'd sooner ha' cut my tongue out clane—and I expict your honour won't turn your hack on me quite, for this is the first lies I ever was found out in since my creation; and how could I help, when it was by my master's ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... distant and infinitesimal relationship the French pretension is founded. But audacity changes to the ridiculous, when it is known that the Prince is nearer in relationship to the French Emperor than to the Prussian King, and this by three different intermarriages, which do not go hack to the twelfth century. Here is the case. His grandfather had for wife a niece of Joachim Murat,[Footnote: Antoinette, daughter of Etienne Murat, third brother of Joachim.—- Biographic Genemle, (Didot,) Tom. XXXVI. col. 984, art. MURAT, note.] King of Naples, ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... Oswald quits the ship. He is taken by hack to a well-appointed hotel near junction of Thirty-third Street and ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... too wretchedly poor to have any share whatever in the amusements of Cornelius and his set, but because every minute was important, every hour meant not only learning but meant, most emphatically, money. He thought of his poor father, grinding out the life of a literary hack in a wretched London lodging, dining Heaven knew where and generally supping not at all, saving every penny to help his son's education, hard working, honest, lacking no virtue except the virtue of all virtues—success. Then he thought how he himself had been favoured by fortune during ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... mechanical dulness marks the description and the article. Look at an article by Forbes or McGahan or Burleigh—an article wherein the words seem alive—and then run over a doleful production of some complacent hack, and the astounding range that divides the zenith of journalism from the nadir may at once be seen. The poor hack has all his little bundle of phrases tied up ready to his hand; but he has no brain left, and he cannot rearrange his verbal stock-in-trade in fresh and vivid combinations. The old, ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... said the Adjutant. 'Mulvaney's explanations are only one degree less wonderful than his performances. They say that when he was in the Black Tyrone, before he came to us, he was discovered on the banks of the Liffey trying to sell his colonel's charger to a Donegal dealer as a perfect lady's hack. ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... other keepers and jackals have been terribly lacerated for their daring. It is due to our lion to state, that he condescended to be trifled with, in the most gentle manner, and finally went home with the showman in a hack cab: ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... mover and seconder, by a perversion of their sense and expressions, that their proposition halts between the ridiculous and the dangerous. I am not one of those who start up three at a time, and fall upon and strike at him with so much eagerness, that our daggers hack one another in his sides. My honourable friend has not brought down a spirited imp of chivalry, to win the first achievement and blazon of arms on his milk-white shield in a field listed against him, nor brought out the generous offspring of lions, and said ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... (there are more Princes than policemen in Naples—the city is infested with them)—Princes who live up seven flights of stairs and don't own any principalities, will keep a carriage and go hungry; and clerks, mechanics, milliners and strumpets will go without their dinners and squander the money on a hack-ride in the Chiaja; the rag-tag and rubbish of the city stack themselves up, to the number of twenty or thirty, on a rickety little go-cart hauled by a donkey not much bigger than a cat, and they drive in the Chiaja; Dukes and bankers, in sumptuous carriages and with gorgeous drivers and footmen, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... has ended in giving us the best breed of horses in the world. Macaulay[515] remarks, "Two men whose authority on such subjects was held in great esteem, the Duke of Newcastle and Sir John Fenwick, pronounced that the meanest hack ever imported from Tangier would produce a finer progeny than could be expected from the best sire of our native breed. They would not readily have believed that a time would come when the princes and nobles of neighbouring lands would be as eager ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... that bit, Tam," said Jamie, as four of them tore at the block which lay upon his leg. "It's faur too big. Take an ax an' hack the leg off. I doot it'll be wasted anyway. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" And unable longer to endure the pain, he roared aloud in agony, and tore at the stone himself with his fingers, like an ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... chariot itself, surrounded by a mob so dense that it was with great difficulty that the six splendid dappled greys could force the cumbrous vehicle along, which, every instant, seemed to become a second Car of Juggernaut, and crush some of its adorers. More vehicles, a few horsemen, multitudes of hack cars and pedestrians, a tail of old women and little boys, followed; and so the monster procession, after winding its slow length along through the greater part of Dublin, and causing a total cessation of business in the line ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... the great city. At length, as if the beggar thought we had gone far enough to baffle pursuit, we descended upon a bustling business street, and paused at a corner; and the beggar appeared to be looking out for a hack. He permitted a dozen to pass us, however, carefully inspecting the driver of each. At last he hailed one, and we took our seats. He gave some whispered directions to the driver, and ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... his standard of money-value for works of art has never been niggardly. This sort of help, the encouragement to work, is exactly what makes progress possible to a young and independent artist; it is better for him than fortuitous exhibition triumphs—much better than the hack-work which many have to undertake, to eke out their livelihood. And the mere fact of being bought by the eminent art-critic was enough ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... off at the station, and went hack to the little house. Charity had sent the cook home and with her own hands served all the beloved dainties of my long-ago childhood, trying to coax me into forgetfulness. As you remember, Mate, dinner has always ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... a small hand on his arm, and together they descended the stairs, opened the front door, and went out into Twenty-third Street. He scarcely expected to find a hack at that hour, but there was one; and it drove them to her lodgings on Fourth Avenue, near Thirteenth Street. Spite of her paint and powder she seemed very young and very tired as she stood by the open door, looking drearily at ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... carriers have proportionably mended their speed, the post is as slow as ever. It is likewise very unsafe. The mails are generally intrusted to some idle boy without character, and mounted on a worn-out hack, and who, so far from being able to defend himself or escape from a robber, is much more likely to be in league with him." There is perhaps room for suspicion that Mr. Palmer was painting the post-boy service as black as possible, for he was then advocating ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde

... a sharp hunting knife, on the keen blade of which he immediately proceeded to cut his finger. Undaunted he continued his experiments, finding that he could hack and hew splinters of wood from the table and chairs ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... must go out, for our "house- nymph," Madlle. Pierron, my highly esteemed pupil, who has usually a French concert every Monday, intends to scramble through my hochgrafliche Litzau concerto. I also mean, for my sins, to let them give me something to hack away at, and show that I can do something too prima fista; for I am a regular greenhorn, and all I can do is to strum a little on the piano! I must now conclude, being more disposed to-day to write ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... yours. You are a public figure now and must stand in the light. Would it not be preferable, mam, to talk as lady to gentleman (I am related to the Taliaferros of Ruffin County on the distaff side) than to be badgered by some hack journalist?" ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... Honora More! but sure it ud ill become me to hear my own corree—no, no, avourneen," she exclaimed, putting hack the glass; "I can't take it this—a—way; it doesn't agree wid me; you must put a grain o' shugar an' a dhrop o' bilin' wather to it. It may do very well hard for the sarvints, but I'm not used ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... that some day he would go back and marry her. It is remarkable how a fellow sticks to his home-town girl! Through jealousies about other girls, like Ethel Harris, through the maze of a dance with actresses, he still sees the face that smiled on him across the school-room hack in ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen



Words linked to "Hack" :   fleet, slogger, axe, manage, unskilled person, author, politician, cope, motorcar, gypsy cab, cough, auto, contend, writer, grapple, politico, horse, programme, ax, Grub Street, make out, car, pol, tool, basketball game, get by, plodder, foul, rugby football, rugger, hoops, edit, program, minicab, mount, redact, machine, riding horse, automobile, saddle horse, make do, deal, basketball, political leader, rugby, Equus caballus



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