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Hanker   /hˈæŋkər/   Listen
Hanker

verb
(past & past part. hankered; pres. part. hankering)
1.
Desire strongly or persistently.  Synonyms: long, yearn.



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"Hanker" Quotes from Famous Books



... you cowmen're gettin' pretty swell," remarked one. "They tell me yuh kinder hanker after photygrafts of yerselves. ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... no corn, and, of course, no corn-spirits. These remarks, I trust, are not undiscriminating, and naturally I yield the bull Dionysus and the pig Demeter to the corn-spirit, vice totem, superseded. But I do hanker after the Arcadian bear as, at least, a possible survival of totemism. The Scottish school inspector removed a picture of Behemoth, as a fabulous animal, from the wall of a school room. But, not being sure of the natural ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... Josiah, I don't hanker after the responsibility for good or evil that ort to hang onto ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... affection for the land of dreams—as yet, at least, not far enough in the journey of science to have lost sight of the old two-topped hill." And again: "I am essentially unpoetical in character, habits and ways of thinking; and nothing but the desperate hanker for distinction so common to the young gentlemen at the university ever set me upon rhyming. If I had possessed the conviction that I could by any means become an important or great dramatic writer, I would have never swerved from the path to reputation; but seeing that others who had devoted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... will operate as a barrier against every escape into the ways whereby men get to fortune. But having once tasted praise, you will continue to sigh for it: you will perhaps never again get a publisher to bring forth a poem, but you will hanker round the purlieus of the Muses, scribble for periodicals, fall at last into a bookseller's drudge. Profits will be so precarious and uncertain, that to avoid debt may be impossible; then, you who now seem so ingenuous and so proud, will sink deeper ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... States. The Tagalas are cock fighters and live on the lowlands. They eat rice chiefly, but are fond of ducks and chickens, and they have an incredibly acute sense of smell, not a bad taste in food, and do not hanker ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... this, however, Liberty knew little and cared less. The solitude appealed to her sense of freedom; she did not "hanker" after a society she had never known. At the end of the first week, when the doctor communicated to her briefly, by letter, the convincing proofs of the death of her father and his entombment beneath the sunken cliff, she accepted the fact without comment ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... your queries: 'Is the alligator fond of his grandmother? Does he devour his children? Does he hanker after little niggers? Is he wholly depraved and given up to the sins of the flesh, or hath he some social and playful qualities? And, lastly, what are his habits of life?' You have given me quite too long a text, Sir: the more especially as I think, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... nothing but piracy, and we had better be shot at than lose such goods as we carry fresh shipped, and in prime condition. Come and see them, all with Cheeseman's brand, the celebrated Cheeseman of Springhaven—name guarantees the quality. But one thing, mind you—no use to hanker after them unless you come ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... a dandy, Moustache curled and sandy, Just the thing for parties, Who, so trim and handy, Knows not where his heart is, Whether with your banker, Or for you it hanker, Why, then take the dude; Naught ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... decent for about two weeks of her wages. They don't care much about getting married unless they can strike some fellow with an automobile who can buy them better clothes than they can buy themselves. What they hanker for is a flat or boarding-house where they won't have any housekeeping to do. Housekeeping! Their notions of housekeeping don't go beyond boiling an egg on a gas range and opening up a sofa to sleep on. You're an educated woman, ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... he'd vind That Poll would soon leaeve him behind. To turn things off! oh! she's too quick To be a-caught by ev'ry trick. Woone day our Jimmy stole down steaeirs On merry Polly unaweaeres, The while her nimble tongue did run A-tellen, all alive wi' fun, To sister Anne, how Simon Heaere Did hanker after her at feaeir. "He left," cried Polly, "cousin Jeaene, An' kept wi' us all down the leaene, An' which way ever we did leaed He vollow'd over hill an' meaed; An' wi' his head o' shaggy heaeir, An' sleek brown cwoat that he do weaere, An' collar ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... spoze the opium eater and cocaine fiend hanker after the fool paradise these drugs take 'em into, but that's no sign that they ort ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... I hanker for a statement that is practical and dry (Being sated with sensation in excess, With the vespertinal rumour and the matutinal lie Which adorn the lucubrations of the Press), Then I turn me to the columns where there's nothing to attract, ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley

... it out! My situation's certainly absurd enough. What I really hanker for is to be a painter; and of portraits, on the whole, I think. That's the abject, crude, ridiculous fact. In this out-of-the-way corner, at the dead of night, in lowered tones, I venture to disclose it to you. Isn't ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... White," Bill Brown told St. Vincent. "Welse thinks he's pioneering in that direction, but Borg could give him cards and spades on it and then win out. He's been over the ground years ago. Yes, strange sort of a chap. Wouldn't hanker to be bunk-mates ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... ones, from father, from mother, from kinsfolk, and from friends. We didn't realize what was happening. What things happen in this world of ours! Nowadays people are double-faced and sly, crafty, and cunning. He fairly befogged Gordey Karpych with this and that in his old age, and he began to hanker after his wealth. They have engaged our lovely beauty to a disgusting old man. Now she is sitting there, my darling, broken-hearted! Oh, I'm ready to die! After I have brought you up and nursed you, and carried you in my arms! I cared for you like a little bird—in cotton ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... churchyard graves.'" Constantia blushed so deeply that he knew he had offended her. She had for him something of the pathos of old dance music—its stately sweetness, its measured rhythms. After drinking a cup of tea he drifted to the instrument—flies do not hanker after honey as strongly as do pianists in the presence of an open keyboard. A tactful silence ensued. He began playing, and, as if exasperated at the challenge implied by her refusal, he played in his old ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... may regard as unfit for companionship. Through inability to obtain persons of the opposite sex, or fear of relatives, or fear of death and imprisonment, women remain, of themselves, within the restraints prescribed for them. They are exceedingly restless, for they always hanker after new companions. In consequence of their nature being unintelligible, they are incapable of being kept in obedience by affectionate treatment. Their disposition is such that they are incapable of being restrained when bent upon transgression. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... numbness of anguish, when a blow had fallen, and I could not even suffer. That is the only thing which I dread—not death, nor silence, but only the obliteration of feeling and love." That was a wonderful saying, full of life and energy. She did not wish to recall the old days, nor hanker after them with an unsatisfied pain; and I saw that an immortal spirit dwelt in that frail body, like a bird in an ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... he lent me five thousand again; but that 's purely between him and me. And I shall have spent it long before you can even begin to take steps to recover it." He paused a moment and then added, "If you still hanker after your notes, I should recommend you to find your friend and ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... a-comin' round again, And they ain't no man a-livin' any tickleder'n me, Fer the way I hanker after wortermelons is a sin— Which is the why and wharefore, as you can ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley

... thought," he said to me at last, "to go light-heartedly away—and yet I can do even that! I have heard something, I can hardly say what, which tells me to go forward, not to hanker, not to look back—and which tells me best of all that it would be almost like treachery to wish the Father back again. It is better so! I say this," he went on, "not with resignation, not with a mild desire to make the ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... down again I wouldn't much hanker for," Aleck put in. "I seen how you and Skyrider come ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... would strongly put forth themselves within me, in wicked thoughts and desires, which I did not regard before; my desires also for heaven and life began to fail. I found also, that whereas before my soul was full of longing after God, now my heart began to hanker after every foolish vanity; yea, my heart would not be moved to mind that that was good; it began to be careless, both of my soul and heaven; it would now continually hang back, both to, and in every duty; and was as a clog on the leg of a bird ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... not hanker after white women, and the normal Native woman is not, as a rule, anxious to mate with a white man, but this normal disposition is apt to be disturbed by the familiarity which is bred by the close contact that occurs in towns and other centres. It is not, therefore, safe to deny the possibility that ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen

... working as described, suffices for cutting out a bed of four feet of solid peat. When the excavation is to be made deeper, a sixth man, the "Hanker," is needful for economical work; and with his help the cutting may be extended down to nine and a half feet; i. e. through eight feet of solid peat. The cutting is carried down at first, four feet as before, but the peats are carried 50 feet further, in order ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson

... leave Sam alone. "I wonder where our friend the ex-cook is to-night?" he inquired facetiously of the company. "Boiling his own pot at the Point, I suppose. He don't seem to hanker much for the society of men. That's as it should be. Men and ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... dubious as to whether his invitation might mean drinks, man fashion, or luncheon. But as at that moment we reached the chief New York residence of well-born ice cream soda, for which I always hanker, in spite of snow and slush, much to Evan's disgust, I relieved the situation by plunging in, saying that I was even more thirsty in winter than in summer. Whereat Miss Lavinia shivered, but cheerfully resigned ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... London, and who shall say that the sight is pleasant? We do not see the earth revolving; and the trees and other vegetables that are put forth by it come up so slowly that there is no fun in watching them. One is apt to lose patience with the good earth, and to hanker after a sight of those multitudinous fires whereover it is, after all, but a thin and comparatively recent crust. Water, when we get it in the form of a river, is pleasant to watch for a minute or so, after which period the regularity ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... godless Scribes and Pharisees of old, who must have signs and wonders before they would believe. So it is: the commonest things are as wonderful, more wonderful, than the uncommon; and yet, people will hanker after the uncommon, as if they belonged to God more immediately ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy, or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter. Sometimes we get a good man and worth the price, but we are ready to take him anyway, whether he be ripe or rotten, whether he be clean and decent, or merely a basket of noble and sacred and long-descended ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... him," said the Duchess of Richmond, laughing; "and the more difficult it is to bring down these heads, so much the more impatiently will he hanker after it. The king hates them both, and he will thank us, if we change his ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... upon the boy, "put out right now fur Bently's store at the settlemint, an' tell them sneaks ez hang round thar ter sarch round thar own houses fur harnts, ef they hanker ter see enny harnts. Ef they hev got the insurance ter kem hyar, they'll see wusser sights 'n enny harnts. Tell 'em I ain't a-goin' ter 'low no man ter cross my doorstep ez don't show Old Daddy the right medjure o' respec'. They'd better ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... puzzle and torture poor human nature? Return to your former condition of reasoning and reasonable skepticism,— aye, even atheism if you will, for the materialists are right, ... you cannot prove a God or the possibility of any purely spiritual life. Why thus hanker after a phantom loveliness? Fame—fame! Win fame! ... that is enough for you in this world, ... and as for a next world, who believes in it?—and who, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... money to keep me there two days and bring me home. Then the war came. And now Tim thinks I've been around the world. He's jealous, for he has never been past Harrisburg; but I've really gone around a little circle. I've seen just enough of flying fishes to hanker after Mandalay, just enough of Spaniards to long for a sight of Spain. But they've shipped me home and here I am anchored. Here I shall stay until that surplus materializes; and you know in our country we have neither coal nor oil ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... think of it, that their efforts did not project me right across the continent and out at Zanzibar. That this brilliant affair did not come off is owing to my own lack of enterprise; for I did not want to go across the continent, and I do not hanker after Zanzibar, but only to go puddling about obscure districts in West Africa after raw ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... to worse, plunging deeper and deeper into every wickedness that Satan could suggest, or flesh hanker after—until I seemed to lose all sense of ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Truth! Never again let me hanker after the false paradise of Illusion. If I must walk alone, let me at least tread your path. Let the drum-beats of ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... At times I wonder at my own good fortune. I had my fears that she would hanker after fine things and grand folk, but it is not so. She went with the boy to Wilton two months agone to visit the Countess of Pembroke, who holds her in a wonderful affection. The boy is her godson, and ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... it is a good case. The very last thing I would do is to claim to be fully equipped for the understanding of all mysteries. My difficulty is that while there are two explanations of a thing—a transcendental one and a material one—I hanker after the material one. But it isn't because I want to disbelieve the transcendental one. It is because I want to believe it so much, that I feel that I must exclude all possibility of its being ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... That in the lieu of drawing on his banker, Where his assets were waxing rather few, He had brought his spending to a handsome anchor,— Replied, 'that she was glad to see him through Those pleasures after which wild youth will hanker; As the sole sign of man's being in his senses Is, learning to ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... your Arthur Hendersons and Sidney Webbs in England, and to all other people like yourself who want incompatible things. The peasantry are individualists, but they support us. We have, in some degree, to thank Kolchak and Denikin for that. They are in favor of the Soviet Government, but hanker after Free Trade, not understanding that the two things are self-contradictory. Of course, if they were a united political force they could swamp us, but they are disunited both in their interests and ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... sly old spider who sucks us fellows pretty dry, and then don't care what becomes of us. Well, it don't amount to much, but it's life—the only taste of it that chaps like us are likely to get. And people may talk as much as they like; boys, and men too, will like it, and take to it, and hanker after it, as long as the world lasts. There's danger in it, and misery, and death often enough comes of it, but what of that? If a man wants a swim on the seashore he won't stand all day on the beach because he may be drowned or snapped up by a shark, or knocked against a ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... Mrs. Possum wasn't within hearing, and Jimmy Skunk chuckled. "Seems to me, Brer Skunk, yo' might better do your aigg hunting on the Green Meadows and leave the Green Forest to me," continued Unc' Billy. "That would be no mo' than fair. Yo' know Ah never did hanker fo' to get far away from trees, but yo' don't mind. Besides there are mo' aiggs for yo' to find on the Green Meadows than there are fo' me to find in the Green Forest. A right smart lot of birds make their nests on the ground there. ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess

... by this consecration! The greatest of all torments harassing him, the conflicting beliefs and opinions among men, the unreliability of these beliefs and opinions, and the unequal character of men's abilities—all these things make him hanker after art. We cannot be happy so long as everything about us suffers and causes suffering; we cannot be moral so long as the course of human events is determined by violence, treachery, and injustice; we cannot even be wise, so long as the whole of mankind ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... a Civil Servant woo the panegyrics of Society, And hanker after posthumous applause, It MAY happen that possession of a prodigal variety Of talents will invalidate his cause. He must learn to put a tether on his cerebral agility, And focus all his energies of aim On ONE isolated idol, or the Curse of Versatility Will drag him ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... thirsting hanker! O this burning, burning canker' Driving Peace and Hope to shipwreck— Without rudder, without anchor, On ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... of the utmost nicety of feeling, the fact that he found himself rubbing shoulders with anything but nice companions did not prevent him from preserving intact his innate love of what was decent and seemly, or from cherishing the instinct which led him to hanker after office fittings of lacquered wood, with neatness and orderliness everywhere. Nor did he at any time permit a foul word to creep into his speech, and would feel hurt even if in the speech of others there occurred a scornful reference to anything which pertained to rank and dignity. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... mankind, and the like, whereof no man thinks except through a morbidness of disposition; with thoughts like these do the most ambitious most torment themselves, when they despair of gaining the distinctions they hanker after, and in thus giving vent to their anger would fain appear wise. Wherefore it is certain that those, who cry out the loudest against the misuse of honour and the vanity of the world, are those who most greedily covet it. This is not peculiar to the ambitious, ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza

... saying he oughtn't to put his best foot foremost," he agreed. "We'd all do that, if we only knew how. And I'm not saying he ought to tell on himself, or that anybody's got any business getting under his guard. I don't hanker to know anybody's faults, or to find out what they've got up their sleeves besides their elbows, unless I have to. Why, I'd as soon ask a fellow to take off his patent leathers to prove he hadn't got bunions, or to unbutton his collar, so ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... thousand varying shades and degrees of this pretension, from the truly fashionable people who hanker after the exclusives, or seventh heaven of high life, down to the courier out of place, who, in a pot-house, retails Debrett by heart, and talks of lords, and dukes, and earls, as of his particular acquaintance, and how and where he met ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... they care to see me?" Chia Chen laughed. "Why, here's the end of the year drawing nigh again; so if they don't hanker after my presents, they must long ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... see, doctor, I don't hanker after seeing the Prince, as you might say; and then, between you and me, you're more reasonable, and know when the butter's ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... Moore's taking the old "Red Fox March," and giving it a new immortality as "Let Erin remember the days of old," while poor Emmett sprang up and cried, "Oh, that I had twenty thousand Irishmen marching to that tune!" So it is, even to this day, and let those who hanker after poetic fame take note of it; not a poem which is now really living but has gained its immortality by virtue ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... existence; life is—the predicament of the body previous to death; morality is the enlightened selfishness of the greatest number; civilization is the compromises men make with one another in order to get the most they can out of the world; wisdom is acknowledgment of these propositions; folly is to hanker after what may lie beyond the sphere of sense. The supporter of these doctrines by no means permits himself to be regarded as a rampant and dogmatic atheist; he is simply the modest and humble doubter of what he cannot prove. He even ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... no need for the remedy which Mr. Williams and other Protectionists are anxious to foist upon the country. But though that conclusion will be sufficiently obvious to most minds, there are among us hypochondriacal persons who never think that they are quite well, and these unfortunates will still hanker after some patent medicine to cure their imaginary ills. It is worth while, therefore, briefly to point out how utterly unsuited to our alleged ailments, even if they existed, is the ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox

... the prince then. But you won't see many princes if you stay in Ireland, I fancy: they don't hanker after the soil." ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... see no more, I reckon. Hell! I don't hanker after eny myself. Howsumever, it's whut he seed an' heerd, Cap, thet sounds mighty queer ter me. He sez thar wus mor'n fifty bucks in thet party, an' that ol' Black Hawk wus thar hisself, a leadin' 'em'—he done ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... "And they who hanker after an earldom'll be varry like to pick up some good things on t' road to it. When ta can't mak' t' wind suit thee, turn round ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... into other people's hearts and homes and lives is one of the primeval instincts. In that curiosity all the sciences are rooted; and it is a scientific impulse that makes us hanker to get back of faces into brains, to push through words into thoughts, and to ferret out of silences ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... resembling runs! Like any George, James quarrels with his sons. Faith! I believe, could he his crown resume, He'd hanker for his herenhausen, Rome." ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... actual hearing of the divorce suit. It had been a wild, oddly worded appeal to him to take her back, not—as Maud had at once perceived on reading the letter—because she was sorry for the terrible thing she had done, but simply because she was beginning to hanker after her children. Maud had described the letter as shameless and unwomanly in the extreme, and even William, who had never judged his pretty young sister-in-law as severely as his wife had always done, had observed sadly that Flossy ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... last, Three sets of rafters from the streets, I strayed upon a mildewed, rat-run room, With the two Dancers, horrible and obscene, Guarding the door: and there, in a bedroom-set, Behind a fence of faded crimson cords, With an aspect of frills And dimities and dishonoured privacy That made you hanker and hesitate to look, A Woman with her litter of Babes—all slain, All in their nightgowns, all with Painted Eyes Staring—still staring; so that I turned and ran As for my neck, but in the street Took breath. The same, it seemed, And yet ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... to see how it's done once more before playing," parried Evan, who was in reality beginning to hanker after the game. It would, he figured, be almost as much fun looking on as ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen

... niece and her happiness, and I can't honestly say that Doria wouldn't be a good husband, though good husbands are rare everywhere and never rarer than in Italy, I believe. He might change his mind after they'd been wed a year and hanker for his ambitions again and money to carry them out. Jenny will have plenty some day, for there's poor Bob's money sooner or late, I suppose, and there'll be mine and her Uncle Albert's so far as I know. ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... food, winter-game being scarce, that he had to shoot and eat crows. Someone asked him afterwards whether they were nice, and he replied that he 'didn't kinder hanker arter 'em.'" ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... in the drift, Ben to the chimla lug, [In, chimney-corner] I grudge a wee the great-folk's gift, That live sae bien an' snug; [comfortable] I tent less, and want less [value] Their roomy fire-side; But hanker and canker ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... s'pose any of us really hanker after growin' old; sometimes I kinder hate to; and so ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... what I so well know?" interrupts he hoarsely, with bent head and averted eyes. "You seldom spare me. You are angered, and for what? Because you still hanker after a man who flung you away,—you, for whose slightest wish I would risk my all. For a mere chimera, a fancy, a fear only half developed, he ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... which fadeth and vadeth while fair report endureth unto infinity. O dear my son, be not deceived by a woman immodest of speech lest her snares waylay thee[FN22] and in her springes thou become a prey and thou die by ignominious death. O dear my son, hanker not after a woman adulterated by art, such as clothes and cosmetics, who is of nature bold and immodest, and beware lest thou obey her and give her aught that is not thine and entrust to her even that which is in thy hand, for she will robe thee in sin and Allah shall become wroth with ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... whisper, filling the night with a stir of life. But here—here in a great city, a ghost-like policeman, or a poor straggling wretch who has no home but the street, is all that you see. Indeed, coming home before daybreak isn't a thing I hanker to do ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... fact, Stuart's men, though excellent at making raids, capturing waggons and stores, and cutting off communications, seem to have no idea of charging infantry under any circumstances. Unlike the cavalry with Bragg's army, they wear swords, but seem to have little idea of using them—they hanker after their carbines and revolvers. They constantly ride with their swords between their left leg and the saddle, which has a very funny appearance; but their horses are generally good, and they ride well. The infantry and artillery of this army don't seem to ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... verse or twa o' rhyme, In hamely, westlin jingle. While frosty winds blaw in the drift, Ben to the chimla lug, I grudge a wee the great-folk's gift, That live sae bien an' snug: I tent less, and want less Their roomy fire-side; But hanker, and canker, To see their ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... Edith were in town for a few days' shopping, and of course they meant to see Eleanor. "I'll go to the dressmaker's," Edith had told her mother, "and then I'll corral Maurice, and we'll drop in on Mrs. Newbolt, and then I'll meet you at Eleanor's. I don't hanker for a long call on Eleanor." Edith's ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... to hanker for the rumble and grumble of the busy mill, and the solemn murmur of the millstones and the machinery are music to me. More so than the solemn murmur of the proprietor used to be when he came in at an ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... hanker for a change from novels in which the hero and heroine dally over-long in falling in love you will get it by reading The Fur-Bringers (HODDER AND STOUGHTON). No time is wasted upon preliminaries, not a minute; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various

... wise answer. "Is there ever a woman born that don't think 'bout it? Women ain't made that way. There ain't one so ugly nor poor, nor dumb, that don't hanker about it sometimes, even if she knows ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers

... all creatures desire, and for which he had so often longed, thus fell to his share, the Abbe Birotteau, like the rest of the world, found it difficult, even for a priest, to live without something to hanker for. Consequently, for the last eighteen months he had replaced his two satisfied passions by an ardent longing for a canonry. The title of Canon had become to him very much what a peerage is to a plebeian minister. The prospect ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... jug sent home empty, with the sad news that 'the cow was not come home, and it was too late to look for her to breakfast now.' Once, I remember, the good woman told us that she had overslept herself, and that the cow had come and gone again, 'not liking, I expect, to hanker about by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various

... he finally admitted, with a half grin; "that's Thunder Mounting about twenty mile ahead o' ye. None o' us fellers keers a heap 'bout headin' that-a-way. Twice I've been 'bliged to explore the canyons thar, arter lost cattle; but I never did hanker 'bout the job. It's a good place to keep ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson

... good-hearted fellow," said the Deacon, "but I don't know as I hanker to be the man that's pulling that skiff. But then,—that may be simply and solely because I prefer a ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin

... seems to be less talkative than usual. And less audible," he added. "Whenever he bobs up in Ophir he makes it a rule to hang out in this camp, mainly because one of our crusherman on the night shift is an old friend of his. But he's a crusty old curmudgeon, and I never hanker much to have him around. He's up in the head of the mill with Joe Bosley now. Come on, Merriwell, and I'll show you and your friends where ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish

... despatched to the Close, to gruffly inquire where the cottage boys were, and what they had been doing, for Bevis was known to hanker after their company, to go catching loach under the stones in the stream that crossed the road, and creeping under the arch of the bridge, and taking the moor-hens' eggs from the banks of the ponds where ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... yourself, with what a sting we read Plato's "Atlantic" and the conclusion of the "Iliad," and how we hanker and gape after the rest of the tale, as when some beautiful temple or theatre is shut up. But now the informing of ourselves with the truth herself is a thing so delectable and lovely as if our very life and being were for the sake of knowing. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... see, pokin' his shovel in all aroun'. Now, ef the boys want me to leave, they kin say so, an' I'll go. 'Tain't the easiest claim in the world to work, runnin' this camp ain't, an' I'll never hanker to be chief nowhar else; but seein' I've stuck to the boys, an' seen 'em through from the fust, 'twouldn't be ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... sights that meet thine eyes? canst thou behold aught greater or nobler than the Sun, Moon, and Stars; than the outspread Earth and Sea? If indeed thous apprehendest Him who administers the universe, if thou bearest Him about within thee, canst thou still hanker after mere fragments of stone and fine rock? When thou art about to bid farewell to the Sun and Moon itself, wilt thou sit down and cry like a child? Why, what didst thou hear, what didst thou learn? why didst thou write thyself down a philosopher, when thou mightest ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... know whether it is that I am built wrong, but I never did seem to hanker after tombstones myself. I know that the proper thing to do, when you get to a village or town, is to rush off to the churchyard, and enjoy the graves; but it is a recreation that I always deny myself. I take no interest in creeping round dim and chilly churches behind wheezy old ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... rich men it telleth, and strange is the story How they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide; And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory Has been but a burden ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... known, dear Love, that the first gentleman was a gardener and that all men hanker after that blissful state of Adam whose only toil was to care for the world's early-blooming flowers. But what was our first great parent ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... addition, appeal to our intellectual curiosity. To the English dramatist the whole story would be tabu; but if the Continental man had got some striking situations out of it, the Briton's soul would hanker after those situations. So he would make the mother a maiden aunt, and give us the familiar spectacle of the aged spinster languishing for matrimony, as incarnated for the nonce in the person of her niece's lover. Miss Sophie Larkin would play the part, and it would be ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... nothing, promise nothing. I seem to have recovered my balance. I think no more about my bodily complaints, and my nerves no longer sting and thrill. The day is hardly long enough for all I have to do. It may be that when the novelty of the experiment in education wears off, I shall begin to hanker after authorship again. Alec will have to go to school in a year or two, I suppose; but it shall be a day-school at first, if I can find one. As to the question of a public school, I am much exercised. Of course there are nightmare ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... bend over and kiss him. When she found that he was dead, she just cried as if her heart was breaking. Well, that was a new thing to me. I can eat with colored people, walk, talk, and fight with them, but kissing them is something I don't hanker after." ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... y'self? Shet your trap, Tige! Tige thought you was all greasers, and he ain't made up his mind yet whether he likes 'em mixed—whites and greasers. I dunno's I blame 'im, either. We ain't either of us had much call to hanker after the dark meat. T'other day a bunch come boilin' up outa the dim distance like they was sent fur and didn't have much time to git here. Tied their tongues into hard knots tryin' to tell me somethin' I didn't have time to listen to, and looked like they wanted ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... of Misrule, in stentorian tones. "Those words are not allowed in this my Court. Ha, maiden, dost desire the dungeon for thine? Dost hanker after prison fare? Fie! Get to thy place and ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... clear and reasonable. Me and your father want you, maybe for different reasons, maybe not. You ain't the common sort, and we know you can help us. If you was like most women, him and me wouldn't have no compunctions about cutting, and leaving you to ways what you seem to hanker after. But he's actually pining for a sight of you, and even knowing what I do about you, I can't give you up! That's the plain situation as far as you're concerned, and you can take it for what it's ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... "I may hanker after a sight of Fletcher and his two cronies, Colson and Ropes," returned Obed with dry humor, "but we can't have everything in this world, and I'll try to rub along with ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger

... have we hanker'd To gather thy flowers and thy fruits? The roses are wither'd, and canker'd The lilies, and barren the roots Of the fig-tree, the vine, the wild olive, Sharp thorns and sad thistles that yield Fierce harvest—so WE live, and SO live The perishing ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... wrecks which these other pilots have made?" But the study of human nature tells us, and all experience, that men are unable to fathom their own desires, and fail to govern themselves by the wisdom which is at their fingers' ends. The retiring Prime-minister cannot but hanker after the seals and the ribbons and the titles of office, even though his soul be able to rise above considerations of emolument, and there will creep into a man's mind an idea that, though reform of abuses from other sources may be impossible, if he were there once more ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... all reasonable and right," says I. "Plenty of work, and the kind you hanker after; no ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... any Disappointment, when every new Amour pleases them, and they all hanker after the Lovers ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding

... glad enough to wash my hands on't," said Israel. "I shall hanker arter the critter some, but he's a-gettin' too big to be handy; 'n' it's one comfort abaout critters, you ken get rid on 'em somehaow when they're more plague than profit. But folks has got to be let alone, excep' the Lord takes 'em; an' He don't ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... that would appeal to a lot of men," Jim Farland said, "but it isn't the right bait to use if you are eager to catch me. I have all the business I want. I can make a living for myself and my small family, and we do not hanker after riches. A larger business would make me a human machine, and I'd rather just drift along and be an ordinary good husband and father. I'd rather be running a little, third-rate detective agency as I am, making just enough to get along, and have a lot of friends. I wouldn't throw down a friend ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong

... civil service reform, got hold of it! Of course, it would be all right to work in the platform some stuff about the tariff and sound money and the Philippines, as no platform seems to be complete without them, but they wouldn't count. The people would read only the first plank and then hanker for election day to come to put the Democratic ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt

... sheet of water without form. So held the chiefs. Then Diomede brake in storm. Ever the first he was to fling his spear Into the press of battle; dread his cheer, Like the long howling of a wolf at eve Or clamour of the sea-birds when they grieve And hanker the out-scouring of the net Hidden behind the darkness and the wet Of tempest-ridden nights. "Princes," he cried, "What say ye to this wooer of his bride, For whom it seems ten nations and their best Have fought ten years to bring her back to ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... first took ter handlin' yo' for ole Doc McPherson, I kinder hated ter take my eyes off yo' fearin' yo' might slip out, but Gawd! yo' can grapple fo' yo' self now and—I plain hanker ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock



Words linked to "Hanker" :   ache, desire, languish, pine, yen, want



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