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Kitten   /kˈɪtən/   Listen
Kitten

noun
1.
Young domestic cat.  Synonym: kitty.



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"Kitten" Quotes from Famous Books



... does not like animals about the house, unless they are dead and mummied." This was said with a touch of bitterness—or jealousy, I could hardly tell which. "Even my poor kitten was only allowed in the house on sufferance; and though he is the dearest and best-conducted cat in the world, he is now on a sort of parole, and is ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker

... week; and then she would try to make him eat more, though he took quite as much as was good for him, not being used to our hearty ways, especially in the mornings. Abby was as pleased with him as a child with a kitten, and it was pretty to ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... see anybody but them—Mr. Simlins wasn't up. They said he seemed better, dear—and that if I'd seen him last night I'd think he had quite a colour now: so I suppose he is better. Only I haven't got the heart of a kitten sometimes—" and a little motion of the lips warned Faith that if her mother was sparing of details it was because she ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... A cat, a kitten, and a terrier, lived together in that smith's cottage on friendly terms. They romped with each other, and with the five boys, so that the noise used sometimes to be tremendous; but it was not an unpleasant noise, because there were no sounds of discontent ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne

... Russia. However, she herself remained behind to take care of the local priest who was desperately ill. A few days later, the priest died and she was ready to follow the unit back over the border. Just before leaving she found and picked up a poor, small abandoned kitten. Tying the kitten up in her shawl and hanging it from her neck, she rode away from Rumania back to Russia. One soldier was riding back with her. At night time they arrived at a small village and for some ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff

... would not call me Squaretoes, Larkyns," said I, peevishly, for he hurt me, squeezing my neck in his tight grip, holding me out of the port as if I were a kitten, so that I could not turn my head round. "I hate nicknames. Do leave ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Adeline thinks you reproach her for leaving Colin. I told her you were too intelligent to do anything of the sort. You'll agree it's the best thing she could do for him. She's no more capable of looking after Colin than a kitten. She wants to be looked after herself, and you ought to be grateful to me for relieving ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... joy, May thy tears with soft pity for other woes flow, 55 Woes, which thy tender heart never may know, For hardships our own, God has taught us to bear, Though sympathy's soul to a friend drops a tear. Oh dear! what sentimental stuff have I written, Only fit to tear up and play with a kitten. 60 What sober reflections in the midst of this letter! Jocularity sure would have suited much better; But there are exceptions to all common rules, For this is a truth by all boys learned at schools. Now adieu my dear — [Hattie] I'm ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... houses where I had been, for we are all of us great fetchers and carriers. I played the madman, they listened to me, they laughed, they called out: How charming he is! Meanwhile Missy's book had been found under the sofa, where it had been pulled about, gnawed, torn by a puppy or a kitten. She sat down to the piano. At first she made a noise on it by herself; then I went towards her, after giving her mother a sign of approbation. The mother: "That is not bad; people have only to be in earnest, but they are not in ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... the way, monkey!" he ordered; then, catching Robert lightly by the collar, he cast him aside as easily as he might have cast a kitten. Robert staggered and fell on his knees. Unheeding him, Hildebrand went towards Perpetua. "You lithe idol of the heights," he asked, smiling, "would you not choose me ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... morning Alf rushed in, announcing with breathless haste that "Kitten had a calf." Kitten was a fawn-colored Alderney, the favorite of the barnyard, and so gentle that even Johnnie did not fear to rub her rough nose, scratch her between her horns, or bring her wisps of ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... the Master grimly watchful, Montgomery as alert as a kitten. The Master tried a sudden rush, squattering along with his awkward gait, but coming faster than one would think. The student slipped aside and avoided him. The Master stopped, grinned, and shook his head. Then he motioned with his hand as an invitation ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... lowered the kitten which she had carried clasped to her bosom. The mite was bewildered and scared. ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... B[oe]otian and Hyperborean you are! Is there anything more fragile than enjoyment? Is there anything more sensitive to injury than grace? Did you not know that? If you had not followed this poor girl, she would have cleared the barrier as gracefully as a kitten; now she is as much ashamed as though you had seen her in her petticoat." I looked once more in her direction; sure enough, she too was looking round, with a flushed face and stupid, anxious eyes. O these soulful eyes, eyes like the roe, the antelope, the gazelle, or any other ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... the ground, vistas of forests of iron pillars, on the top of which ran deafening, glittering trains, as on a tight-rope; above all that, a layer of darkness; and above the layer of darkness enormous moving images of things in electricity—a mastodon kitten playing with a ball of thread, an umbrella in a shower of rain, siphons of soda-water being emptied and filled, gigantic horses galloping at full speed, and an incredible heraldry of chewing-gum.... Sky-signs! In Europe I had always inveighed manfully against sky-signs. But ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... to have its half-dozen cats, large, little, old, and young; of divers colors, tending mostly to a dark tortoise-shell. With a whole ocean inviting to the tragic rite, I do not believe there is ever a kitten drowned in Kittery; the illimitable sea rather employs itself in supplying the fish to which "no cat's averse," but which the cats of Kittery demand to have cooked. They do not like raw fish; they say it plainly, and they prefer to have ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... assessors, come down to 'doom' every acquaintance he met—that, I have sometimes begun to sneeze on the spot, and gone home with a violent cold dating from that instant. I don't doubt he would cut his kitten's tail off if he caught her playing with it. Please tell me who taught her ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... by the apparition of any object, however insignificant, to which his happy childhood was accustomed! I think my heart was never more sharply wrung than once at Prome, in the porch of a grim old temple of Guadma;—a kitten was playing with a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... the hundredth for Liubka—began a conversation about: how had she happened upon the path of prostitution? This was a bustling young lady, pale, very pretty, ethereal; all in little light curls, with the air of a spoiled kitten and even a little pink cat's ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... said before, clipper-built, the pirate schooner could lie very close to the wind and make little leeway. We had no difficulty now in managing our sails, for Jack was heavy and powerful, while Peterkin was active as a kitten. Still, however, we were a very insufficient crew for such a vessel, and if any one had proposed to us to make such a voyage in it before we had been forced to go through so many hardships from necessity, we would have turned away with pity from the individual making such ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... "Quiet as a kitten after finding a nest of young mice. Better put your revolver in the saddle holster where it will be handy. That's where I carry mine. The lieutenant is stowing his now. Never know when the 'hardware' is going to come in handy on ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower

... of affection is such a normal and essential part of human life that it seeks to find expression at every opportunity. A warm-hearted child will lavish it on a kitten, or a rag doll; or will show it for a mongrel dog. If the kitten, or the dog is hurt, or sick, or even hungry, the girl or boy will be distressed by its trouble and want to ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... It's real romantic. That's the third deceased kitten I've seen to-night. They haven't only a two-foot tide in the Adriatic, and it stands ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various

... a rascal, and turns him adrift. The ship's company knew that long afore; for it was not a few that he had cheated, and we were all glad to see him and his traps handed down the side. Now, sir, this here fellow had a black cat—but it warn't at all like other cats. When it was a kitten, they had cut off his tail close to its starn, and his ears had been shaved off just as close to his figure-head, and the hanimal used to set up on his hind legs and fight like a rabbit. It had quite lost its natur, as it were, and looked, ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... fastened to a cart, which was drawn by a comfortable-looking donkey. Inside the cage were various animals, living on the most friendly terms with each other—a little dog, in a smart coat, playing with several small white rats, a monkey hugging a little white kitten, a white cat, which had been dyed a brilliant yellow, superintending the sports of a number of mice and dormice; and a duck, a hen, and a guinea-pig, which were conversing together in one corner of the cage. Over this motley assembly was a board which announced ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... animals are very common and very troublesome to the farmer. The skunk, which looks like a pretty black and white kitten with a bushy tail, and also the weasel, destroy all the chickens and eggs they can reach, and they are so cunning that it is hard to keep them out of the hen-house. That little pest, the gopher, we are all well acquainted with, since he gnaws the pinks and roses off ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton

... from a distance I never think of taking for a representative of the hat which I hold in my hand. This visual experience I refer to its own appropriate touch thing, and not to another. If what looks like a beefsteak could really be a fork or a mountain or a kitten indifferently,—but I must not even finish the sentence, for the words "look like" and "could really be" lose all significance when we loosen the bond between appearances and the realities to which ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... ought, do you, Dad?" said Teresa, gravely. "Do you think she ought, Mommie? That's just like her pouring her holy water over the kitten. You oughtn't to ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... from the spot where we lost sight of the mouse-eater, there were some enormous holes dug out by the tuzas,[N] the Mexican moles, so dreaded by agriculturists. This animal is about the size of a kitten; it lives in companies, and works underneath the surface of the soil in a way very dangerous to travellers, who suddenly find the ground sink under their feet. L'Encuerado, who was very fond of the flesh of the tuza, which used to be sold in the Indian markets, placed ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... from room to room—there were four rooms, parlor, kitchen, his nurse's bedroom, and his own; learned to crawl like a fly, and to jump like a frog, and to run about on all-fours almost as fast as a puppy. In fact, he was very much like a puppy or a kitten, as thoughtless and as merry—scarcely ever cross, though ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... I told Tittums. I told her she ought to be ashamed of herself, brought up in at Christian family as she was, too. I don't so much mind hearing an old cat swear, but I can't bear to see a mere kitten give way to it. It seems sad ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... people in the kitchen to which the door admitted them. An old woman with a handkerchief over her head was sitting by the window. She held a sickly-looking kitten on her knees, and whenever it jumped down and tried to limp away she stooped and lifted it back without any change of her aged, unnoticing face. Another woman, the unkempt creature that Charity had once noticed in driving by, stood leaning against the window-frame and stared at them; ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... introduce to you Before aught else, this jovial crew, To show how lightly life may glide away; With the folk here each day's a holiday. With little wit and much content, Each on his own small round intent, Like sportive kitten with its tail; While no sick-headache they bewail, And while their host will credit give, Joyous and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... passed after that without anything happening. For the first week Marie was as merry as a kitten, but as the days went by, and no sign came, she grew restless and excited. Then one morning she came into the Cafe twice as important as she had gone out the night before, and I could see by her face that her little venture was panning out successfully. She waited till we had the Cafe to ourselves, ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome

... persons like himself, persons perhaps more powerful and awful than himself. This transference of personality can scarcely be called the result of a conscious process of reasoning. Man might recognise personality everywhere, without much more thought or argument than a kitten exerts when it takes a cork or a ball for a living playmate. But consciousness must have reached a more explicit stage, when man began to ask himself what a person is, what life is, and when he arrived at the conclusion that life is a spirit. To advance from that conclusion; to explain ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... little girl was ailing you brought her a lot of pears off your own tree. Not one of 'em you didn't 'ave yourself that year, Miss Helen told me. And you brought back our kitten—the sandy and white one with black spots—when it strayed. So I was quite willing to come and meet you when so told. And knowing something of young gentlemen's peckers, owing to being in business once next door to a boys' school, I made so bold as ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit

... had a beautiful disorder. A grey kitten and a white puppy sat together on the grass, enjoying the sunshine and each other's company and pretending to be asleep; and though the kitten displayed no interest in the visitors, holding its personality of more importance than anything else, the puppy jumped up, barked, and rushed ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG

... little one had gathered in the waking part of her walk, and put them away for her carefully. One day the usual load had a marked variety in the shape of a large watermelon and three kittens. In managing all of which the little lady was assisting by bringing one kitten tail foremost under each arm. Much time was spent by the little tyrant in directing the Major as to where each article of that remarkable load was to go. If she had become, the Major's property, I think I may say that the Major had also become her property. I think that on rainy days from his ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley

... or might not have said was checked by the patter of footsteps, and a little girl tripped into view, with a small, fluffy kitten cuddled in ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... little Deb grew from a kitten into a full-sized cat. Many a weary hour was passed in her corner. At length Deb arrived at the conclusion that if she could manage to make the knocker sound a rap-a-tap-tap on the door, the noise would summon the servant, and she would ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... to live with the Doctor. He asked couldn't he sleep in the fish-pond at the bottom of the garden, if he promised not to eat the fish. When the circus-men came to take him back he got so wild and savage that he frightened them away. But to every one in the house he was always as gentle as a kitten. ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... with a little sugar and water mixed in it, and a spoon laid across, out of which he helped himself whenever he felt in the mood,—sitting on the edge of the tumbler, and dipping his long bill, and lapping with his little forked tongue like a kitten. When he found his spoon accidentally dry, he would stoop over and dip his bill in the water in the tumbler,—which caused the prophecy on the part of some of his guardians, that he would fall in some day and be drowned. ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various

... It was the most loving couple, the merriest, happiest household in the world. Never once did I breakfast at their little flat, fifth floor of a house in the Rue Taitbout, without being melted to tears. 'Eat, my kitten,' 'Drink, my lamb!' and such looks and endearments, and each so pleased with the other! One day he said to her: 'My kitten, your money does not bring you in what it ought; give me your scrip and in forty-eight hours I shall have doubled your capital.' She went softly to her cupboard and opening ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... no reference to any ulterior end; nothing from which food, fuel, or raiment can be extracted. These chasms have been scooped out, and these pillars have been reared, in the spirit in which the bird sings, or the kitten plays with the falling leaves. From such scenes we may safely infer that the plan of the Creator comprehends something more than material utility, that beauty is its own vindictator and interpreter, that sawmills were not the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various

... is always the same; but what a number of mental conditions it expresses! I had a kitten whose gambols and liveliness entertained me greatly. I understood well, when it came up to me mewing, what the sound meant; sometimes the kitten wanted to come up and sleep in my lap; at other times it was asking me to play with it. When, at my meals, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... it's farther from here," he said, shaking his head at her sadly. "When I grew up I became a ventriloquist, and at that I was very well trained by a great master. I can imitate any kind of a bird or beast." Here he mewed so like a kitten that Toto pricked up his ears and looked everywhere to see where she was. "After a time," continued Oz, "I tired of ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... very sweetly, "The thought of her should cheer, and not cloud our meeting. Her presence never brought me sorrow, nor does her remembrance. Come, dear," she added, cheerfully, taking the child's hand, "come in and rest your poor little tired self. Kate, find the white kitten for her. A prettier one you never saw in France or Cuba, Miss Carrie,—that's what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... return to nature, is, of course, in some respects, rather like the heroic desire of a kitten to return to its own tail. A tail is a simple and beautiful object, rhythmic in curve and soothing in texture; but it is certainly one of the minor but characteristic qualities of a tail that it should hang behind. It is impossible to ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... the old man, who had been of great service to the gunner at the market-tent, another iron pot, some hatchets and bills, and a piece of cloth. I also sent the queen two turkies, two geese, three Guinea hens, a cat big with kitten, some china, looking-glasses, glass-bottles, shirts, needles, thread, cloth, ribbands, pease, some small white kidney beans, called callivances, and about sixteen different sorts of garden seeds, and a shovel, besides a considerable quantity of cutlery wares, consisting of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... of the departed would be taken by a mouse that had met a violent death at the hands of the cook; or, perhaps, they would find a baby bird that had fallen from its nest before its wings were strong. But the grandest, most triumphant, most successful funeral of the Yesterdays was a kitten that had most opportunely died the very day a real grown up funeral had passed the house. What a funeral that was—with an old shoe box for a coffin, the boy's wagon draped with pieces of black cloth borrowed ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... and looked at the scolder for a moment; then, placing her watering-pot upon the floor, she darted toward the divan like a kitten that has just received a blow from its mother's paw and feels authorized to play with her. Madame de Bergenheim tried to rise at this unexpected attack; but before she could sit up, she was thrown back upon the cushions by the young girl, who seized ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... thy courage, Grilly, vain thy boast! But little creatures enterprise the most. Trembling, I've seen thee dare the kitten's paw, Nay, mix with children as they play'd at taw, Nor fear the marbles as they bounding flew; Marbles to them, but rolling rocks to ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... were just trooping up the staircase from the fields, and at this strange apparition stood still and made a lane for it to pass. Dangle's struggles were futile. The giant, if he was aware of them, heeded them no more than the kicking of a kitten, and proceeded deliberately down the stairs, past everybody, juniors, middle-boys, prefects and all, and walked with his burden out at the door. There every one ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... lovely natural things, the fig leaf and the oak leaf and the vine, you may see the lion and the ox, the dog and the snail, and man too; little fantastic children peeping out from the foliage, or blowing through musical reeds, or playing with a kitten, tiny naked creatures full of ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... said to him, and would obey him quite as readily and with as much intelligence as Rover, the house dog. If his master came into the field where he was grazing, Ned would come galloping up to meet him, and then caper round as playfully, though not, it must be owned, as gracefully, as a kitten. ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth

... Bill's. It was nothing to boast of, being a mere sacking stuffed with hay—a blanket below, and another at top; I had to beg from Jael the only pair of sheets John owned for a long time. The attic was very low and small, hardly big enough "to whip a cat round," or even a kitten—yet John gazed about it with an ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... morning at Mrs. Lake's apron-string, his arms clasped lovingly, but somewhat too tightly, round the waist of a sandy kitten, who submitted with wonderful good-humor to the well- meant strangulation, his black eyes intently fixed upon the dumplings which his foster-mother was dexterously rolling together, when a strange footstep was heard shuffling uncertainly about on the floor of the round-house ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... crawled down to the waterhole and tumbled in. I happened to be riding up with a message for mother, to borrow some soap, when I heard a little cry like a lamb's, and there was poor little Gracey struggling in the water like a drowning kitten, with her face under. Another minute or two would have finished her, but I was off the old pony and into the water like a teal flapper. I had her out in a second or two, and she gasped and cried a bit, but soon ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... he felt that if it should occur to the Bravi to exercise their 'branch of the profession' upon him, he should have no more chance of life than a kitten amongst bloodhounds. He was strong and active, no doubt, and could use most weapons fairly well, but he had neither the endurance of his terrible masters, nor their supreme skill in fencing; as for taking them unawares, they never rested without bolting their doors, and ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... not escape me, when you wrote the last letter, you were full of amorous thoughts. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, for making yourself out so good looking when you are so old. Your flirting is like a big shaggy dog playing with a little kitten. If you were only as nice and sleek as I am, I might understand it; but when I get to be a burgomaster I will shame you with the Luginsland [Editor's note: this was a Nuremberg prison], as you do the pious Zamener and me. I will have you shut ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer

... another pussy in from behind the portrait. I woke some time in the night, oh, hours after, because the moonlight was 'way across the room, and sitting in it, washing its face, was the prettiest little half-grown kitten. It was a perfect beauty, white with a plumy tail. I spoke to it very softly so as not to wake either of you, and it looked at me and purred but would not come. I watched it chase its tail for a little and then it jumped in a big chair and curled itself up to sleep. ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown

... their little sitting room after tea; the mother and her daughters engaged at needlework; the father and his eldest son, George, reading the newspapers, while Frederick, the younger, was reclining upon a sofa. An infant of a year old was sleeping in a cradle; a little kitten was nestling at its feet, and purring as if trying to soothe the dreamy ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon

... mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass doorknob, a dog-collar—but no dog—the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... spoke she moved her arm, and out from the coat peeped a kitten. It was white, with a black ...
— Clematis • Bertha B. Cobb

... and Malcolm thought she was sorry; but she was only hiding a smile: she had not yet got beyond the kitten stage of love, and was pleased ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... to her satisfaction, the raccoon returned to a deep hole in the sycamore, and hastily touched with her pointed nose each in turn of her five, blind, furry little ones. Very little they were, half-cub, half-kitten in appearance, with their long noses, long tails, and bear-like feet. They huddled luxuriously together in the warm, dry darkness of the den, and gave little squeals in response to their mother's touch. In her absence they had been voiceless, almost moveless, lest voice or motion ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... close of the day, when we were almost back at the river, the dogs killed a jaguar kitten. There was no trace of the mother. Some accident must have befallen her, and the kitten was trying to shift for herself. She was very emaciated. In her stomach were the remains of a pigeon and some tendons ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... out, helpin' my prisoner through the window and followin' after. "Police nothin'! Shoo 'em back, will you? He's as harmless as a kitten." ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... have walked a hundred feet under ordinary circumstances, but that scream brought me here on the run. Now that the excitement is over I feel weak as a kitten," ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... went into a pond after a drowning kitten, didn't I?" June asked reminiscently. "I should have loved him for that alone, ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... day. Such clouds. Swallow kicked up his heels and played about like a kitten when Hunt took him to water this morning. It's extraordinary how used the horses are getting to trenches and wire, etc. At first they were rather afraid to jump these sudden deep ditches, but now ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson

... me as weak as a kitten, sir," he said, preserving finely that air of unconsciousness as to anything but his business a helmsman should never lose. "And before I can pick up my strength that there hot fit comes along and knocks me ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... feline, Felis, tabby, puss, pussy; kitten, kitty; grimalkin (an old she cat). Associated Words: purr, mew, miaul, caterwaul, feline, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... neither piquant prettiness nor grave handsomeness, her soft littleness made people call her "Puss," and want to cuddle her as a child cuddles a kitten. If you noted Una at all, when you met her, you first noted her gentle face, her fine-textured hair of faded gold, and her rimless eye-glasses with a gold chain over her ear. These glasses made a business-like center to her face; you felt that without them she would have been too childish. ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... it hasn't all been a bore. I have had some fun, and I've met some really interesting people. I've gotten used to being married and my husband treats me kindly and gives me a good home. Sounds as if I was a kitten, doesn't it? Well, I have very much the same sort of life as a kitten, but a kitten has no imagination and it has never been in love. Sometimes I think that I can't stand it any longer. It seems to me that I'm not really living, ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson

... Harry, dhat young dhivil got out the front door one mornin' afore sunroise, all in his little noight-gown, an' wint over to the doctor's an' picked up a kitten lyin' on the kitchen door-mat, an' throwed it down dhe well. The docthor wasn't home, but the missis saw him, an' her heart was dhat tindher that she hurried out and throwed boords down for dhe poor little baste to stand on, an' let down a hoe on a sthring, an' whin ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton

... eyes was very much to the disadvantage of Maggie though a connoisseur might have seen "points" in her which had a higher promise for maturity than Lucy's natty completeness. It was like the contrast between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten. Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed; everything about her was neat,—her little round neck, with the row of coral beads; her little straight nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows, rather darker than her curls, to match hazel eyes, which looked up with ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... be traced between those eyebrows, an Evangelical might cherish some faint hope of finding her a sheep in wolf's clothing - for her frock is recklessly pretty - but as the cloud vanishes it leaves her frontal sinus as smoothly free from conviction of sin as a kitten's. ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw

... bushman's daughter is dirty yellow, like river water in flood time. Some of the other tribes are as black as the record of a first-class burglar, but they have bright black eyes, which they roll about as a kitten rolls a ball ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... Harbinger, to Grasmere-dale! [1] Say that we come, and come by this day's light; Fly upon swiftest wing round field and height, [2] But chiefly let one Cottage hear the tale; There let a mystery of joy prevail, 5 The kitten frolic, like a gamesome sprite, [3] And Rover whine, as at a second sight Of near-approaching good that shall not fail: And from that Infant's face let joy appear; Yea, let our Mary's one companion child—10 That hath her six weeks' solitude beguiled With intimations manifold ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... supper was over, Ambrose went out to see if there were any signs of the return of Stephen and the rest, he found the little maiden curled up in the gallery with her kitten in her arms. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... so generously and whole-heartedly had worn upon the girl disastrously, and—she had had warning and hadn't heeded. Until recently, it is true, Elsie's blithe buoyancy had seemed always the normal, unconscious, almost effortless efflorescence of a lovely nature, as natural as playful grace to a kitten, as simple as breathing. But once or twice back in the fall, Miss Pritchard had been startled into wondering if the sweet instrument wasn't in danger of being strained through constant playing upon it, and to be fearful ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... found it among Lemon's papers, bearing on the outside, in the Editor's handwriting, the inscription, "Dickens' only contribution to Punch!" But the alleged contribution is absolutely undiscoverable in the pages of the paper. The explanation is, in Mr. Kitten's words, that "about the time the manuscript was written, several pictorial allusions to foul water in suburban London appeared in Punch, which bear directly upon the subject of Dickens's protest, and it is surmised that the Editor, on the receipt of ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... the test of this is whether a man can write an inscription. I say "Can he name a kitten?" And by this test I am ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... me—fine, imprison, torture me as much as you like, you will find me rock!" she exclaimed, with her eyes flashing and all her little dark figure bristling with terror and resistance, for all the world like a poor little frightened kitten spluttering defiance at a ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... Then, as I steadily refused to notice him, he took to playing with the end of the rope on which the rings were fastened, which slipped on to the iron stake, as before-mentioned, and constituted our "harbour-bar;" seeming as pleased as a kitten with a ball of worsted, when he found that he could push the ring up and move it with his paws. In fact, the stake was so very short, and the ring so light, that I could see five minutes more of such play, and probably the rope would be ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous

... cubs, up to this time, had been very kitten-like in their behavior, purring and frolicking about, and only emitting occasional little growls when thrown about or disturbed by one another. But, at the sight of the fresh meat, the wild blood showed itself, and, with simultaneous springs, four little tawny ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin

... made this observation, we heard what sounded like the mew of a kitten, just under the window. We instantly jumped up, and I let down our line. ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... is because she is descended from the river Nile and a black kitten of the sacred White ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... Charlecote was right in her own case, when on coming in, the grasshopper's name and history were sought, and there followed an exhibition of the 'puss' for whom the willow had been gathered, namely a grass-green caterpillar, with a kitten's face, a curious upright head and shoulders, and two purple tails, whence on irritation two pink filaments protruded,—lashes for the ichneumons, as Honora explained. The lonely woman's interest in her quaint ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... calendaring for the Cathedral Library. His table and the floor were littered by them; a stack of the Rolls publications was on his right hand; a Dugdale's "Monasticon" lay open at a little distance; and curled upon a newspaper beside it lay a gray kitten. The kitten had that morning upset an inkstand over three sheets of the Canon's laborious handwriting. At the time he had indeed dropped her angrily by the scruff of the neck into a wastepaper basket to repent of her sins; but here she was again, and the Canon ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... barnyard there was a great noise, for the white hen had laid an egg, and wanted everybody to know it; but Mother Cat hurried on, without stopping to inquire about it, and soon dropped the kitten into the large trunk. The clothes made such a soft, comfortable bed, and the kitten was so tired after his exciting trip, that he fell asleep, and Mrs. Tabby trotted off for ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay

... not yet quite completed, and herself and her village as unknown as if they had been on the other side of the globe. She had picked up a friendless wanderer somewhere and brought it home—a small gray kitten in a forlorn and starving condition—and had fed it and comforted it and got its confidence and made it believe in her, and now it was curled up in her lap asleep, and she was knitting a coarse stocking and thinking—dreaming—about what, one ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... him, bearing on its forehead a cross of light, and he recognised the sphinx of Silsile. The monster seized him between its teeth, without hurting him, and carried him in its mouth, as a cat carries a kitten. Paphnutius was thus conveyed across many countries, crossing rivers and traversing mountains, and came at last to a desert place, covered with scowling rocks and hot cinders. The ground was rent in many places, and through these openings came a hot air. The monster gently put Paphnutius down ...
— Thais • Anatole France

... kindly—up in the corner; Bird, beast, and gold-fish are sepulchred there; Bid the black kitten march as chief mourner, Waving her tail like a plume in ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... her to him, the kitten, which had lain concealed till now in purring contentment beneath her cape, leaped to the ground ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... open and such delicate admiration, and she was too unsophisticated to conceal her delight. He smiled to himself at her evident pleasure in his words, and, with much the same feeling with which he might have cuddled a purring, affectionate kitten, he went a step farther and made love—a very shadowy, intangible sort of love, in a very indefinite ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly

... Morning Watch made a motion with an enormous freckled paw as if stroking an invisible kitten. "I ain't sayin' nothin' against 'em. Nothin' at all. What I says is, 'Wait an' see.' I ain't a bettin' man, not meself. But if anyone was to ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... one enters Venice by her mercantile shipping gate, where there are chimneys and factories and a vast system of electric wires. Not that the scene is not beautiful; Venice can no more fail to be beautiful, whatever she does, than a Persian kitten can; yet it does not compare with the Chioggia adventure, which not only is perfect visually, but, though brief, is long enough to create a mood of repose for the anticipatory traveller such as ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... intriguing symbol as a mask, a sphinx, a question mark, or their own names, if their names were such as could be pictured. There can be no objection to one's appropriation of such an emblem if one fancies it. But Lilly, Belle, Dolly and Kitten are Lillian, Isabel, Dorothy and Katherine in these days, and appropriate hall-marks are ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... five minutes later in the kitchen with a small kitten in her hand, Peg was stirring the ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... little grandchild has been breaking her heart all day over Bunch. She's a cripple, you see. Miss, and the kitten's company for her. It must have followed me to the shore this morning and gone to sleep on the nets. Matty will glad ...
— Dew Drops Vol. 37. No. 17, April 26, 1914 • Various

... homes. Nearly every ruined barn or house sheltered one or more of them and they were, as a rule, quite wild. Some, however, had been caught and tamed by the soldiers who made great pets of them. Frequently a soldier would be seen going in or out of the front line with a kitten perched contentedly on top of his pack. There was one big brindle "madame" cat who adopted our machine gun outfit when we first went in. She traveled up and down the line but never stayed anywhere except in one of the machine ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride

... and Job sprang towards Tommy, but the latter, who was lithe and active as a kitten, leaped aside and avoided him. For five minutes the furious man rushed wildly about the deck in pursuit of the boy, calling on Bunks to intercept him, but Bunks would not stir hand or foot, and Jim could not quit the helm, ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... a louder sound, not more emphatic, imperative or clear than the others; it was formless, feeble and ineffably pathetic. It was its utter incongruity which reached Dewforth through the robotic clamor, and which touched him ... a mewing, as of a kitten trapped ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler

... do though; and the other day, when my monitor opened the desk in the morning, there was a great impident kitten staring me in the face. He'd put it in there himself, I dare ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... for he had obtained a modest appointment, I sat by a little desk, where my portfolio lay open. A pen was near, which I took up, and it began to write, wildly like "Planchette" upon her board, or like a kitten clutching a ball of yarn fearfully. But doing it again—I could not say why—my mind began upon a festival in my childhood, which my mother arranged for several poor old people at Thanksgiving. I finished ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... the world is the matter with you, Nora? You are as restless as a kitten; what ails you?" ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... epigrams. It was all right, I don't doubt; at any rate, that was his fancy then, and perhaps another time he may be obstinately hilarious; however, it may be that he is growing graver, for time is a fact so long as clocks and watches continue to go, and a cat can't be a kitten always, as the old gentleman opposite said ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... it's a beautiful kitten you've got there, Mrs. Hopkins. An' it's a splendid mouser she is, I'll be bound. Does n't she look as if she'd clans the house out o'them little bastes, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... was anxiously glancing towards Dora, who was nicking the nose of a sportive kitten with the tassel ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... be extremely careful. The Lucys live in Hampstead, I believe, and Hampstead enjoys the reputation of being the most respectable suburb of London. You've no idea of the sort of people you'll have to meet there. You'll terrify them, and they, my poor Kitten, will exterminate you. You don't know ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair

... a new inmate in my house—a kitten. He was evidently lost during the emigration. Amelie says he is three months old. He arrived at her door crying with hunger the other morning. Amelie loves beasties better than humans. She took him in and fed him. But as she has ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... better have a kitten at once. Gilbert, we've got an old cat in the house, warranted safe. If John thinks it more prudent, we'll saddle her for you. A kitten might be ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger

... a sell, you know, Uncle Maje. You say, 'They're goin' to tear the schoolhouse down,' or something like that, and the other boy says, 'What fur?' and then you say, quick as you can, 'Cat-fur to make kitten britches of,' and then we all laugh and yell, and I caught Ginger Potts on it, and he got mad when we yelled and come at me, and they pushed him against me and they pushed me against him, and they said he dassent, and they said I dassent, and then it happened, only ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... except love and laughter, had all the fearlessness of ignorance; and in her extreme youth and smallness, with her eyes shining and her face heated she appeared to the matron rather like an indignant kitten. ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... conversation had become incoherent. But he continued to drink toasts. He drank Yvonne's health five times, he pledged Rowden and Gethryn and everybody else he could think of, down to Mrs Gummidge and each separate kitten, and finally pledged himself. By that time he had reached the lachrymose state. Tears, it seemed, did him good. A heart-rending sob was usually the sign of ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... much attached to the cat, which had been presented to them when a kitten by the mate's wife, acted upon the advice with so much zest that for the next two days the indignant animal was like to have been killed with kindness. On the third day, however, the parrot's cage being on the cabin table, the cat stole furtively down, and, at the pressing request of the occupant ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... three little observations are illogical. In the first place, self control is not a proof of dependability; in the second place, Dale has no more self control than a kitten in a fit; and in the third place, people are not born with self control. Is there anything else you'd like to ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... surprised to see how much Katie had managed to do before breakfast and in the interim between, exciting in Nina quite an ambition to wash dishes and "clean up." The little children had been nicely washed and dressed and were, when their mother went down, sitting on the kitchen doorstep with a kitten between them, over which, for a wonder, they were neither fretting nor quarreling. The breakfast things were all put away, the floor swept, and there was a general look of comfort which had not existed in that house for more than a week. ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... Ginger have been if you had only thought of number one? why, roasted to death! No, Jim, no! that is a selfish, heathenish saying, whoever uses it; and any man who thinks he has nothing to do but take care of number one, why, it's a pity but what he had been drowned like a puppy or a kitten, before he got his eyes open; that's what I think," said John, with a very ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell

... always did give me an acute pain. I'm for direct action, word and deed, first, last, and all the time. I repeat, you have exactly as much chance of killing Richard Seaton as a blind kitten has." ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... introduction. She led him around the room, presenting him to each new-arriving Clover Leaf. Almost was she pretty now, with the unique luminosity in her eyes that comes to a girl with her first suitor and a kitten with its ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... you to the barn, and shows you the horse and the cow. Then she lets you look out of the barn-window. There you spy the kitten. ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1875 • Various

... Mirth, the novels of Hall Caine and Marie Corelli—the operation for appendicitis upon her dollie, while very successful indeed, had left poor Flaxilocks without a scrap of sawdust in her veins, and therefore unable to play; and worst of all, her pet kitten, under the new city law making all felines public property, had grown into a regular cat and appeared only at mealtimes, and then in so disreputable a condition that he was not thought to be fit company for ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs

... extent, of himself. Exactly between the uncle and the nephew, on a low stool, sits the cat—the cat, par excellence—Mr Shirley's cat, a creature which he has always been passionately fond of since it was a kitten, and to which, after Ned's departure for California, he had devoted himself so tenderly, that he felt half-ashamed of himself, and would not like to have been asked ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... was a way with Miss Carmichael to play with the pupil's mystification. "'Be a kitten and cry mew,'" said she, her eyes snapping with the humour of it. "Why mew and not baa? Why does the family of ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin



Words linked to "Kitten" :   kitten-tails, give birth, deliver, kitty, birth, have, young mammal, bear



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