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Lurch   /lərtʃ/   Listen
Lurch

verb
(past & past part. lurched; pres. part. lurching)
1.
Walk as if unable to control one's movements.  Synonyms: careen, keel, reel, stagger, swag.
2.
Move abruptly.  Synonyms: pitch, shift.
3.
Move slowly and unsteadily.
4.
Loiter about, with no apparent aim.  Synonym: prowl.
5.
Defeat by a lurch.  Synonym: skunk.



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"Lurch" Quotes from Famous Books



... some exercise," panted Aunt Nancy, as she reclined for an instant in my lap, where a lurch of the ship had deposited her; "so I'm takin' a little walk." She was still walking when Jessica and I retreated ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... during their idle hours was determination to acquire skill and alertness there can be no doubt. Invariably the game began in a particular way. One of the pair striding round the post—apparently oblivious of its existence—would lurch against it as a man inspired with rum might treat a lamp-post intent on getting in his way. Leering at the post for a second, the bird would march round again to shoulder it roughly a second time. Then a queer look of simulated petulance ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... riches deceitfull riches, and they may truely be compared to deceitfull friends who speake faire, and promise much, but perform nothing, and so leave those in the lurch that most relyed on them: so is it with the wealth, honours, and pleasures of this world, which miserably delude men, and make them put great confidence in them, but when death threatens, and distresse lays hold upon them, they prove like the reeds of Egipt that peirce instead ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... seem to matter, for all grew dull again. Dyke had kept on nodding forward, and was jerked up again, but only for him to begin nodding again. Soon after he made a lurch to the left, and Breezy ceased cantering, and gave himself a hitch. Then followed a lurch to the right, and the cob gave himself another hitch to keep his master upon his back, progressing afterwards at a steady ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... After lurch Delphine ran upstairs to see her husband for a few minutes, and then returned to me in her little sitting-room. He was tired, she said, and hoped to sleep until tea. She had not told him of my visit; he was so listless and apathetic that it worried him to talk, or to have people talk to him. ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... she of him before she had come out to India and become Stella Ballantyne? Had they been in love? If not why had Thresk gone to Chitipur? Why had he missed his boat and left all his clients over there in England in the lurch? If so, why hadn't they married—the idiots? Oh, how she wanted to know all the answers to all these questions! And what he proposed to do now! And she would know nothing unless she was frank herself. She had read ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason

... leave me in the lurch. Be back in exactly twenty minutes, and I'll be on the job—and we'll make it some job. But, don't let the folks see you standing around, or they'll think I've been up to some game. Her old man will start some shooting. ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... straining against the opposing football line that held like a stone-wall—or as firmly as the headboard of your bed? Or voluntarily recall the movement of the boat when you cried inwardly, "It's all up with me!" The perilous lurch of a train, the sudden sinking of an elevator, or the unexpected toppling of a rocking-chair ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... possible, he had read in one of the books, and the statement pacified him. He had read all kinds of theological books, had easily and trustfully given himself up to the echo of words heard in childhood, but it had not gone deeper. Now that they ought to prove their worth, they left him in the lurch. He turned over the pages, he read and prayed and sought, and found nothing to relieve his need. Discouraged, he pushed the books away from him, and some of them fell over the edge of the table on ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... was soon apparent. No sooner had the folds of canvas expanded to the wind than the Susan Jane heeled over with a lurch as if she were going to capsize, bringing her bow so much round that her jib shivered, causing several ominous creaks and cracks aloft ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... verification in the sense in which the word has usually been employed heretofore. The tendency to take as true what is useful or serviceable has not been abandoned. That Professor James does not really leave his Turk in the lurch becomes clear to any one who will read his book attentively and note his reasons for taking the various pragmatic attitudes which he does take. See, for example, his pragmatic argument for "free-will." The doctrine is simply assumed as a doctrine ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... didn't say what it was she regretted; and Lanyard, standing with bared head in the driving mist, touched her fingers coolly, repeated his farewells, and gave the driver both money and instructions, and watched the cab lurch away before he approached ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... stopped with a rumble, a creak, and a lurch, and the men began to unharness the animals. Albert awoke with a start and sat up in ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... line a mighty heave but the fly flew too low and caught him in the back. It must have stuck in a little, for Pud gave a lurch forward and, in spite of Joe's frantic efforts with his paddle, ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton

... young gentleman, who took his arm kindly and walked with him several blocks. As they walked he told "Dodd" that he was on his way to attend a revival meeting, and asked him to go along. Just then "Dodd" "took a bicker," and in the lurch, he knocked a book out from under the arm of his companion. It ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... thing he had never heard before—a splitting, cracking roar—something that was almost like thunder and yet unlike it; and he saw his mother lurch where she stood and crumple down all at once on ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... libel Upon tha church, Which booAth athin an, tower an all, athout Look'd like a well-dressed maid in pride about; Tha walls rejAcic'd wi' texts took vrom tha Bible. Bit vor all that, thAc left en in tha lurch; I bag your pardon. I mean, of Acll tha expense thAc ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings

... Grey Hat stood glaring at him. Then, muttering something about "a mistake," he started to lurch towards the police car. As the officers turned shamefacedly to follow their chief, Jonah's ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... of it, where the branches and foliage quite concealed her. 'Open your sack, Mr Fox, open your sack,' cried the cat to him, but the dogs had already seized him, and were holding him fast. 'Ah, Mr Fox,' cried the cat. 'You with your hundred arts are left in the lurch! Had you been able to climb like me, you would not have ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... had failed, with a movement like the sudden lurch of a ship, Atene thrust at Ayesha, proposing to hurl her to destruction in the depths beneath. Lo! her outstretched arms went past her although Ayesha never seemed to stir. Yes it was Atene who would ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... train pulled out, she stood on the rear platform, looking, looking. She was very still. All motion, all expression seemed centered in the steady gaze which dwindled away from him, became vague ... featureless ... vanished in a lurch ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... in the lurch at an awkward moment: hence genius, where real life is concerned, is more or less unpractical—its behaviour often reminds ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... bad for little Tadcaster. While the vessel was on the starboard tack, the side kept him snug; but, when they wore her, of course he had no leeboard to keep him in. The ship gave a lee-lurch, and shot him clean out of his bunk into ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... the days of good Queen Bess,— Or p'raps a bit before,— And now these here three sailors bold Went cruising on the shore. A lurch to starboard, one to port, Now forrard, boys, go we, With a haul and a "Ho!" and a "That's your ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... year. He could not name the men who had refused to play the game—for no one had ever heard of them. But it was so evident what would happen in this case! His friends would cast him off; his own client would get his price—whatever it was—and then leave him in the lurch, and laugh at him! "If you can't make up your mind to play the game," cried Oliver, frantically, "at least you can give it up! There are plenty of other ways of getting a living—if you'll let me, I'll take care of you myself, rather than have ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... and tails held high. But one wheeled suddenly and came galloping toward them, stopped when he was quite close, ducked and went thundering past to the head of the field. Lorraine gave a sharp little scream and set down the stretcher with a lurch, staring after the ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... and the word jerked out of her, and my arms jerked nearly out of me. In the dark the wagon had hit something that felt like nothing but a boulder in the middle of my decent road. The wagon stopped dead, with an up-ending lurch, and nothing holding it to the horses but the reins. Why on earth they held I don't know. For with one almighty bound my two young horses tried to get away from me,—and they would have, if the reins had not been new ones. As it was I had a minute's ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... Mr. William Condor was getting too d——d stuck up, and that he'd yank him out of his office if he didn't mind his eye. That's you, Condor; so I advise you to look out. It's easy enough to manage Jim, if you take care. He'll go as gently as a well-broke filly; but if he once takes a lurch—if he thinks you're too 'proud' or 'big,' it's all up with you. So mind ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... And to cutting up Bishops I strongly object. We've a small, fractious prelate whom well we could spare, Who has just the same decimal worth, to a hair, And, not to leave Ireland too much in the lurch. We'll let her have Exeter, sole, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... see for yourself, Herr Heppner," he said. "I am not the sort of fellow to leave you in the lurch like that." ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... days passed without any incident worth re- cording, then on the 29th, the wind shifted to the north, and it became necessary to brace the yards, trim the sails, and take a starboard tack. This made the ship lurch very much on one side, and as Curtis felt that she was laboring far too heavily, he clewed up the top-gallants, prudently reckoning that, under the circumstances, caution was far more impor- tant ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... encountering and surmounting fresh hindrances at frequent intervals. After a standstill of unusually long duration in a particularly deep drift the compartment in which Abbleway was sitting gave a huge jerk and a lurch, and then seemed to remain stationary; it undoubtedly was not moving, and yet he could hear the puffing of the engine and the slow rumbling and jolting of wheels. The puffing and rumbling grew fainter, as though it were dying away ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... car, swaying, swinging, clutching; hemmed in by frantic, home-going New York, nose to nose, eye to eye, tooth to tooth. Round Sara Juke's slim waist lay Charley Chubb's saving arm, and with each lurch they laughed ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... had these bits of rope-yarn on my wrists long enough? I'm not used, you see, to walking the deck without the use of my hands; and a heavy lurch, as like as not, would send me slap into the lee scuppers—sailor though I be. Besides, I won't jump overboard without leave, you may rely upon that. Neither will I attempt, single-handed, to fight your whole crew, so you needn't ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... "it was not allowed for servants to marry: it complicates things too much. Besides, she was sure to make a bad choice, and that is not pleasant. Men are sordid creatures. They come courting when a woman has money, squeeze it out of her, and then leave her in the lurch. She had seen too many cases of that and was not inclined to do the same."—She did not tell him of her own unfortunate experience: her future husband had left her when he found that she was giving all ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... a sudden lurch; once more a mighty green cliff of water came rushing up, bearing its tide of dead and debris; again Frohman started to say the speech that was to be his valedictory. He had hardly repeated the first three words—"Why fear death?"—when the group ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... depart from his slow walk, made a most astonishing departure; for, taking his driver unawares, he suddenly started after the flying white steed, breaking into a lumbering gallop, that set plumes nodding, curtains flapping, and glasses rattling, and made the huge unwieldly vehicle lurch and bob about in a way to threaten ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... the track. Almost before he realized it the car lurched at the bend. Casey felt the off-side wheels leave the rail, heard the scream of the inside wheels grinding hard. But for his grip on the wheel he would have been thrown. The wind whistled in his ears. With a sudden lurch the car seemed to rise. Casey thought it had jumped the track. But it banged back, righted ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... are painted window-panes. If one looks from the square into the church, Dusk and dimness are his gains— Sir Philistine is left in the lurch. The sight, so seen, may well enrage him, Nor any ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald

... and commanded our whole cavalcade to stop, and to bring forth fire and tobacco, while he coolly sat down and smoked his pipe. It was such an inimitably natural way of showing off, that we all stopped to admire the acting, and, though he had left us previously in the lurch, we all liked Shobo, a fine specimen of that wonderful people, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... At the first lurch my trunk tipped over, and all the bottles on the wash-stand bounded across to the bed, and most of them struck me on the head. It frightened me so that I shrieked, and Jimmie came running down to see ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... you are! calm as a philosopher, usually, wise as a judge, possessed in full measure of the very Ware moderation and wisdom, and yet every now and then taking some tremendous lurch—against England or for Kossuth! I go far enough, go a good way, please to observe,—but to go to war, that would I not, if I could help it. Fighting won't prepare men for voting. Peaceful progress, I believe, is the only thing that can carry on the world to a fitness for self-government. ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... more of warmth than he had ever exhibited before, when he bade me good night. He has gone on deck, while I am cowering in my state-room, unable to seek rest, and striving to write, though the storm is howling louder and louder, and every lurch of the ship flings the book from ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... useless. No doubt many of them entertained the views that Brant long afterwards openly expressed to Sir John Johnson. "In the first place," said the great Mohawk, "the Indians were engaged in a war to assist the English—then left in the lurch at the peace, to fight alone until they could make peace for themselves. After repeatedly defeating the armies of the United States, so that they sent Commissioners to endeavor to get peace, the Indians were so advised as prevented ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... the lugger, then Harry felt her give a sudden lurch. There was a wild cry and the next moment she went down stern first. She was so nearly even with the water when she sank, that there was less downward suck than Harry had expected, and striking out with his ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... out by Rosendo, his eyes popping, and his mouth choked with uncomplimentary opinion regarding mountain travel in the tropics. Once, seizing a slender vine to aid him in climbing, he gave a sudden lurch and swung out unexpectedly over the gorge, hundreds of feet deep. Again Rosendo, who by this time had learned to keep one eye on the ground and the other on the irresponsible Harris, rescued him ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... increased. One side of the sloop was hove high out of the sea. It was all the girl could do to hold herself upright, and Mrs. Nairn had fallen against and was only supported by the coaming to leeward. Then the wind was suddenly cut off and the sloop rose with a bewildering lurch, as the tall iron hull to weather forged by, hurling off the sea. She passed, and while Vane called out something and Carroll scrambled forward, the sloop swayed violently down again. Everything in her creaked; the floorings sloped away beneath Evelyn's ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... of the Briggs brand could last no longer, the plebe gave an expected lurch sideways, falling flat, upsetting the bucket and causing much of the water flow along his own ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock

... saving us pounds and pounds at this moment. Where should I get such a model for my Fairy Queen, I should like to know? It ought to be a great picture—a great picture, Aunt Susannah, if I can only work it out. And where should I be if she left me in the lurch? No—no; we won't forget the bundle of sticks. I'll to the maul-stick, and you and Aunt Jemima shall be as cross as two sticks; and as for Nina, with her bright eyes, and her pleasant voice, and her merry ways, I don't know what sort of a stick we should ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... as dead already—but I can save you," and snatching the girl up he ran to the foot of the companion. The water was already pouring down, but he struggled up against it, and managed to reach the deck; but before he could cross to the side the vessel gave a sudden lurch and went down. He was carried under with the suck, but by desperate efforts he gained the surface just as his breath was spent. For a moment or two he was unable to speak, but he was none the less ready to act. Looking round he ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... perfectly insensible. The remainder, who could only drink what was left, became more and more riotous, and a general sack of all purple property was imminent. Mr. Allen was at the "Cross Keys," but George was at home, and as he watched the scene he saw the mob take a kind of lurch and sway along the street which led to Mr. Broad's. He thought he heard Mr. Broad's name, and in an instant he had buttoned-up his coat, taken the heaviest stick he could find, and was off. He had ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... tales of the war unwaged as yet, And the victory never won, and bade me never forget, While I walked on, still unhappy, by the home of the dark-striped perch. Till at last, with a flash of light and a rattle and side-long lurch, I woke up dazed and witless, till my sorrow awoke again, And the grey of the morn was upon us as we sped through the poplar plain, By the brimming streams and the houses with their grey roofs warped and bent, And the horseless plough in the furrow, and things fair and innocent. And there sat my ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris

... is the only invincible general.[113] For men in battle will leave in the lurch clansmen and friends, aye, and parents and sons, but what warrior ever broke through or charged through lover and love, seeing that even when there is no necessity lovers frequently display their bravery and contempt of life. As Thero the Thessalian, who put his left hand on a wall, and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... ... who left him in the lurch, for he was not the most ardent; in those nocturnal sports between two sheets, which so please women, he possessed but little merit. Get you gone, you are but an old fool. But you, young man, just consider a little what this temperance means and the delights ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... walk Leweezy to th' church, An fowk wink'd an dropt monny a hint, Aw knew tha'd nooan leav me i'th lurch, For a dowdy like her wi a squint. An Ellen at lives at th' yard end, May simper an innocent look, But aw think shoo'll ha' farther to fend, Befoor shoo's ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... over long blue ocean ridges, down into long blue ocean gullies; on to lands so new, and yet so old, where above the sunny glow of the southern skies blazed the shining names of Ballarat! and Bendigo! The deck seemed to lurch, and the fossicker fell forward against the face of the drive. The shock recalled him, and he ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... a slight lurch, throwing them together. Over her shoulder, he saw his father and Yves Jacquemont exchanging grins. Then they had to break it up while he shook hands with Fawzi and Judge Ledue and the others, and by the time that was over, the barge was letting down in front of the stand at the end ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper

... a stone, giving the car a swerving lurch which was as instantly corrected—with a second lurch—by its pilot. The effect was not tranquilizing; the shock swept the last confusion ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram

... said within herself: Can it be, that what Babhru is to me, that I am to another, and that of every pair of lovers, one only loves? And what then will be my fate, if I follow him in spite of all, only to discover, that just as I left Babhru in the lurch, so I myself shall be abandoned, it may be, for some other woman's sake? And at the thought, she shuddered, and grew cold all over, and turned suddenly paler ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown

... the wheel, the skipper plunged into the forecastle. It was a desperate intention. He was back in a moment, singed and gasping. But in that interval he had made out that the forecastle stove, in some violent lurch of the schooner, had broken loose, and had been bandied about, distributing red coals in every part. He had made out, moreover, that the situation of the schooner was infinitely perilous, if not, indeed, quite beyond hope. The forecastle was all ablaze. ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... that I'm going to retire and leave you in the lurch. No. I'm looking ahead, for you as well as for me. What's the newest thing in science? Foods! Specific foods, to build up the system. That's the big thing of the future here in America. We're a tired nation, a nerve-wracked nation, a brain-fagged nation. Suppose a man could say to the public, 'Get ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... forgotten that Isaiah gives free choice to the king. Hitzig says: "Without knowing it, Isaiah here plays a very dangerous game. For if Ahaz had accepted his proposition, Jehovah would [Pg 41] probably have left His servant in the lurch, and he would have begun to doubt of his God and of himself." In these words, at all events, it is conceded that the prophets themselves would not be what people in modern times would have them to be. If such was their position towards ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... return the conductor gave them slips. Then he picked his lantern from the overhead rack whither he had tossed it, slung it on his left arm, and sauntered on down the aisle punching tickets. Behind him followed Jimmy. When he came to the door he swung across the platform with the easy lurch of the trainman, and entered the other car, where he took the tickets of the two women and the boy. One sitting in the second car would have been unable to guess from the bearing or manner of the two officials that anything ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... me to church, And often am I blamed Because I leave him in the lurch As soon as text is named; I leave the church in sermon-time And slink away to Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... he shouting?" asked Myra, as the mare's hoofs struck and slid on the cobbles and the cart seemed to spring forward beneath her. She clutched her brother as they swayed past mooring-posts, barrels, coils of rope, and with a wild lurch around the tollman's house at the quay-head, breasted the steep village street. "What's he shouting?" she ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... had yet to climb, and at the undulating peaks that stood like an army of sentinels guarding us on every side, I forgot I was in the land of Nevada. I had drifted into an Arabian Night reverie, and not till the forty horse-power winged horse suddenly lost its equilibrium and gave a most ungainly lurch, not till then did I redescend to earth. While the incapacitated horse partook of first aid to the injured, I got out and gathered some of the prettiest little flowers I have ever seen; all the more marvelous because nature takes care of them in some mysterious way which we cannot understand, ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... of heat against his face told him that coals were still glowing under the ashes, yet he might be able to creep through. It was worth a trial: the smoke in the cabin was still almost unbearable. His muscles were more at his command now; with a great lurch he sprang up and thrust head and shoulders ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... the godly old chaplain left him in a lurch; The sword I forsook for the sake of the church; He risked the soul, and I ventur'd the body,— then I prov'd false to ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... until at last slumber or stupefaction settled so heavily upon his senses that he became incapable of guiding his horse; and the weary animal, checked by the unconscious rider, or stopping of his own accord to browse the green cane-leaves along the path, the Piankeshaw suddenly took a lurch wider than usual, and fell, like a log, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... White-boys! What would my friend the Castle say if it knew it?—divil resave the line ever it would correspond with me again. Get me my pistols, I say—a case for each pocket, and the blunderbush under my arm—then come on, M'Donough, as the play says, and blazes to him who runs last." Here he gave a lurch a little to the one side, after which he placed himself in something intended for a military attitude, and drawing his hand down his whiskers, he inflated himself as if about to give the word of command, "Soldiers, ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... be, Cap'n!" he bellowed, "studden sails set an' drawing, tho' obleeged to haul my wind, d'ye see, on account o' this here spar o' mine a-running foul o' the furrers." Having said the which, he advanced again with a heave to port and a lurch to starboard very like a ship in a heavy sea; this peculiarity of gait was explained as he hove into full view, for then Barnabas saw that his left leg was gone from the knee and had been replaced by a ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... and designs of all the sovereigns who were engaged in it, it is enough to say that England made a blundering alliance with Spain, and got stupidly taken in by that country; which made its own terms with France when it could and left England in the lurch. SIR EDWARD HOWARD, a bold admiral, son of the Earl of Surrey, distinguished himself by his bravery against the French in this business; but, unfortunately, he was more brave than wise, for, skimming into the French harbour of Brest with only a few ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... cumbrous vehicle gave a terrific lurch, which sent the unsuspecting Jeanne flying into Mme. la Duchesse's lap and threw Crystal with equal violence against her father's knees. There was much cracking of whips, loud calls and louder oaths from coachman and postillions, much ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... to expect that he should succeed the first time. Let me see; this is the fourteenth. These clocks run fourteen days, and, therefore, you may expect him again about the twenty-eighth. For myself, I think you are giving him an immense deal of unnecessary trouble, and that if he left you in the lurch it would only serve you right; but you have the world with you, I'm told. A girl is supposed to tell a man two fibs before she may ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... here,' you write, 'flight.' Impossible. I cannot leave my wife in the lurch, in poverty, along with everything else. It is out of the question, and we must take life lightly, otherwise we are poor and lost. Light-heartedness is our best possession. All is fate; it was not so to be. And would you have ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... seat, more than suspected of dangerous levity, had relapsed into silence since the heavy man in the middle seat had taken to regarding the ceiling with ostentatious resignation, and the thin female beside him had averted her respectable bonnet. An occasional lurch of the coach brought down a fringe of raindrops from its eaves that filmed the windows and shut out the sodden prospect already darkening into night. There had been a momentary relief in their hurried dash through Summit Springs, and the spectacle of ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... the moon was low on the opposite side of the stack, the stars were hidden, and there was a dull red glow among the heavy clouds of the eastern horizon like the reflection of a distant fire, while an owl hooted close by from a tree and then flew with a lurch across the meadow, evidently to the destruction of some small creature, for a squeal accompanied the swoop. A mysterious thing, this flight of the owl: the wings did not flap, there was no sound, merely the consciousness of ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... water, with a magenta parasol studiously lowered in our direction throughout her slow progress, as if that were the magnetic needle and we the fixed pole. Seaton at once lost all nerve in his riding. At the next lurch of the old mare's heels he toppled over into the grass, and I slid off the sleek broad back to join him where he stood, rubbing his shoulder and sourly watching the rather pompous figure till it ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... on them. But there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning, These he fills up by suppositions, which may be as reasonably denied as granted. A sceptical reader, therefore, like myself, is left in the lurch. I acknowledge, however, he makes more use of fact, than any other writer on a theory of the earth. But I give one answer to all these theorists. That is as follows. They all suppose the earth a created existence. They must suppose ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... merciless ropes, she tries passionately to reach her little mouth to his. A stream of fire rushes through his brain—maddening frenzy of regret, furious clinging to escaping life!—Their lips have met, but the sinking craft is full, and, with a sudden lurch, falls beneath the eddies.... A last roll of the drums, and the pinioned bodies of these lovers of a few seconds are silently swirling under the ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... grand!" said the White Linen Nurse. Before the odd little smile in the Senior Surgeon's eyes her white forehead puckered all up with perplexity. Then with her mind still thoroughly unawakened, her heart began suddenly to pitch and lurch like a frightened horse whose rider has not even remotely sensed as yet the approach of an unwonted footfall. "What—did—you—say?" she repeated worriedly. "Just exactly what was it that you said? I guess—maybe—I ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... was distorted with terror. Her hands took hold upon me with the instinctive clutch of an infant. The chaise gave a flying lurch, which took the feet from under me and tumbled us anyhow upon the seat. And almost in the same moment the head of Bellamy appeared in the window which Missy had left free ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... — N. obliquity, inclination, slope, slant, crookedness &c adj.; slopeness^; leaning &c v.; bevel, tilt; bias, list, twist, swag, cant, lurch; distortion &c 243; bend &c (curve) 245; tower of Pisa. acclivity, rise, ascent, gradient, khudd^, rising ground, hill, bank, declivity, downhill, dip, fall, devexity^; gentle slope, rapid slope, easy ascent, easy ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... what you'd do. And a man isn't to be left in the lurch altogether because he's a rascal. Would you have a murderer hanged without some one to ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... for the Persian king!" he was laughing, when a second skiff, rounding the trireme in an opposite direction, collided abruptly. A lurch, a few splinters was all the hurt, but as the boats parted Themistocles rose from his seat in ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... 'ear? Why, thee 'st left out the best part o' Snooks' life; he were keepin company wi' a gal and left her in t' lurch: but I 'ope thee 'st shown up ur carater well in other ways—he be the worst man as ever lived in this ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... the first gun at it by saying that its length was to enable one end of it to remain at home while the other end went with me, so that neither of us should get lost. This is an allusion to a habit which I and my property have of finding ourselves individually and collectively left in the lurch. After this initial shot, everybody considered himself at liberty to let off his rusty old blunderbuss, and there was a constant peppering. But my veil never lowered its colors nor curtailed its resources. Alas! what ridicule and contumely failed to effect, destiny accomplished. Softness ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my honour precise: I, I, I 20 myself sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of 25 your honour! You ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... attention, he told Anderson to take the lines from him. In attempting to obey the Captain's order, Anderson lost his footing and fell out of the wagon. The Captain now sprang forward, put his foot on the brake to lock the wheels, when a sudden lurch of the wagon caused him to lose his balance, and he fell headlong on the prairie. Fortunately, he alighted near a deep gully, where the water had cut out the bank, and, rolling himself into it, he looked out and saw Anderson ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... blown out a tire. Striking the high places, crowding on the speed, holding to a straight-away course like a merciless fate, the horseman heard an air cushion go, felt the lurch and lameness of the car, and steadied it back upon its road. He did not retreat by so much as a hair the lever advancing his spark. He did not budge the gas control, but left it still wide open. If all of his tires should blow out together he would not halt his ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... one side as I spoke, and he caught me by the arm. I thought there had been talk enough, and gave a sudden lurch, and tore my arm free. "Hold on here!" he shouted, and tried to stop me again; but I sprang through the crowd towards the box-office. There were more than a hundred civilians in or about the lobby, and not more ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... was suddenly a seething mass of confusion. The pilots distributed spacesuits and helped passengers into them while the cabin continued to sway and lurch. Fear-crazed passengers ran aimlessly in circles. Some fainted and others were shocked ...
— No Hiding Place • Richard R. Smith

... this opportunity is lost, and I am left in the lurch without a portrait, I must have recourse to my own tongue, which, for all its stammering, may do well enough to state some truths that are tolerably self-evident. I assure you then, dear reader, that you can by no means make a fricassee of these tales which I here present to you, for they ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... eyes!" he commanded. After a long time, feeling that they must be near the bottom, Naye{COMBINING BREVE}nayezgani opened his eyes, but the sight made him dizzy, and he almost fell out of the basket. Bat became angry at this, for the lurch almost threw him from the rock. At last, however, they reached ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... can't leave you in the lurch that way, my dear fellow. Besides it would break Agnes all up. We must do something. I think either one of those coats would go perfectly well; but if you're so particular about your personal appearance, there's only one thing left. We must get this drawer open. ...
— Evening Dress - Farce • W. D. Howells

... moment the ship gave a violent lurch, and the two fell, and, locked in each others embrace, rolled over to leeward; the skipper, who was unguarded in his astonishment, followed Langley's former wake over the table, which, yielding to the impulse, fetched away, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... longer, and, if not supplied, I shall be obliged to abandon the work. I have not money enough to pay my sailors, joiners, carpenters, and other mechanics, from week to week, and they will all leave me in the lurch, if I leave them unpaid. I have no resource but to rely on your Majesty. Otherwise the enterprise ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... secure a portion of his property, or, rather, nobody will suspect him of attempting it. He is bound in honor to me [oh, Hiram! honor!] to protect his daughter. Such was really the agreement, that is, by implication, when we became engaged. It won't be honest if he leaves me in the lurch. He need not think that he can do that, though. Twelve thousand dollars! Why, it will scarcely board the old folks in any decent place; and who does he think is going to marry his daughter at that rate?' * ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... fourth to his own devices—and that, too, was quite in keeping with the type of human vultures they were. They kept firing at Bud, and once he felt Sunfish wince and leap forward as if a spur had raked him. Bud shot again, and thought he saw one horseman lurch backward. But he could not be sure—they were going at a terrific pace now, and Sunfish was leaving them farther and farther behind. They were outclassed, hopelessly out of pistol range, and they must have known it, for ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... it jerked the boat around suddenly with such force that the stern of it broke through a weak place in the bank, and before the captain could turn off his battery the mules had dashed around the other side of the toll-collector's cabin, and then, making a lurch to the left, they fell over the bank themselves, the line scraping the cabin, the collector, three children and a colored man over with them. By the time the line was cut and the sufferers rescued the mules were drowned and all the water in the canal had gone out through the break. ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... for my fellows since Great Barr. About you and me there are men like that. There is nothing to distinguish them. They show no signs of greatness. They have common talk. They have coarse ways. They walk with an ugly lurch. Their eyes are not eager. They are not polite. Their clothes are dirty. They live in cheap houses on cheap food. They call you "sir." They are the great unwashed, the mutable many, the common people. The common people! Greatness ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... repeated its wordless invitation. Dorothy drew closer, cast a defiant glance behind her, and then set one small foot firmly on the bottom of the uncertain craft. The responsive lurch was so unexpected that she went over in a heap, luckily landing in the bottom of the canoe, instead of in Snake River. She sat up, feeling a little frightened, and under the necessity of ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... boat's head towards the shore, but it was swept quickly round again; she redoubled her exertions, tugging frantically at her helpless oars. She only succeeded in getting the boat into the trough of the sea, where, after a lurch that threatened to capsize it, it providentially swung around on its short keel and began to drift stern on. She was almost abreast of the battery now; she could hear the fitful notes of a bugle that seemed blown and scattered above her head; she even thought she could see some men in blue uniforms ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... tried to effect an alliance with Austria and Italy, and Archduke Albert was actually in Paris to conclude the military negotiations.[B] These probably were going on, as the French General Lebrun was in Vienna on the same errand. Both countries left France in the lurch so soon as the first Prussian flag flew victoriously on the heights of the Geisberg. A statesman less biassed than Napoleon would have foreseen this, since neither Austria nor Italy had sufficient interests at stake to meddle in such a ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... agreement that we had made with France and Russia was an obvious one; when three countries were at war on the same side, one of them could not honourably make special terms for itself and leave the others in the lurch. As to mediation, I was favourable to it in principle, but the real question was: On what terms could the war be ended? If the United States could devise anything that would bring this war to an end ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... thinks it quite natural that if you put the idea into my head, I should be uneasy about my money; but I swear to you that he has it in his own hands, and that he had meant to keep it. He is just the man to abscond with all the money and leave us in the lurch, the scoundrel! He knows quite well that I will not dishonor the name I bear by bringing him into a court of law. His position is strong and weak at the same time. If we drive him to despair, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... gave a great throb as the shadow of the vessel fell across the boat; but still he saw nothing till Dexie bent forward to give the strong pull to the oar that would give her freedom or death. The boat answered the touch and gave a sideward lurch that sent it broadside against the vessel, and Hugh woke as from a trance. One upward glance, and he sprang forward to thrust the boat aside and keep her off. But as he turned his back Dexie sprang up, and it was but the work of an instant to slip the revolver into her pocket, and as the boat ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... This there was no great difficulty in doing; for the smack flew round steadily enough, and upon an even keel—only swaying to and fro, with the immense sweeps and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in my new position, when we gave a wild lurch to starboard, and rushed headlong into the abyss. I muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... been a very rough sea, for the hammock rolled and pitched, until it seemed as if the little voyagers would surely be thrown overboard, so violently did the steamer lurch. ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks

... them more grief than even the thought that he was to be sent away from them for so many years. Poor Mary also went to see him. He shocked her by the way he spoke of those who had tried him, and at James Grey for leaving him in the lurch. Mary was thankful to find that James's name had not once been mentioned during the trial, and that he was not suspected of having been mixed up in the matter. In vain she spoke of religion to her brother. He turned a deaf ear to all she said. ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... flushed with anger. "No, if the dirty dogs wish to leave us in the lurch without notice, they will not ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... cold water splashing into your boots, while an unfeeling sailor gruffly asks "why in thunder you can't git out o' the way?" Springing hastily aside, you break your shins over a spar which seems to have been put there on purpose, and get up only to be instantly thrown down again by a lee lurch of the ship, amid the derisive laughter of the deck watch. Meanwhile a shower of half-melted snow insinuates itself into your eyes, and up your sleeves, and down the back of your neck; and all this, joined to the agonizing thought that it ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... my friend! who own a Church, And would not leave your mother in the lurch! But when a Liberal asks me what I think— Scared by the blood and soot of Cobbett's ink, And Jeffrey's glairy phlegm and Connor's foam, In search of some safe parable I roam— An emblem ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... the death of Tiglath-pileser the Syro-Palestinian kingdoms rebelled en masse, Samaria also was seized with the delirium of patriotic fanaticism (Isaiah xxviii.). Relying upon the help of Seve, king of Ethiopia and Egypt, Hosea ventured on a revolt from Assyria. But the Egyptians left him in the lurch as soon as Shalmaneser IV., Tiglath-pileser's successor, invaded his territory. Before his capital had fallen, Hosea himself fell into the hands of the Assyrians. Samaria offered a desperate resistance, and succumbed only to Sargon, Shalmaneser's successor (72I). Energetic measures ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... Mr. Hoopdriver was up, and after one terrific lurch of the machine, the heathkeeper dropped out of earshot. Mr. Hoopdriver would have liked to look back at his enemy, but he usually twisted round and upset if he tried that. He had to imagine the indignant heath-keeper telling the carter all about it. He tried ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... knew a week ago. Colonel Schuyler is in love with her and will marry her if she does not play the coquette with him. He has been to her house and her father already holds his head higher as he paces up and down the street. I am left in the lurch, and if I had not foreseen this end to my hopes, might have been a very miserable man to-night. For I was near obtaining the object of my heart, as I know from her own lips, though the words were not intended for my ears. You see I was ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... to see you, Lord Lindfield," she said. "I am delighted. I am only just home, you know—or perhaps you don't, for why should you? Do leave your acquaintance in the lurch, now you have found a friend—it would have been prettier of you, by the way, to have said two friends—and join us. Alice dear, carry Lord Lindfield off under your cloak to the ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

... observations. Few of the watch got much sleep, because of the perpetual bracing; and all the while the ship rolling and sending, in the long, glassy ocean swell, unsteadied by the empty sails, which swung out with one lurch as though full, and then slapped back all together against the masts, with a swing and a jerk and a thud that made every spar tremble, and the vessel herself quiver in unison. Nor were we alone. Frequently two or three American ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... slackened. She stood quite still, staring out to where the Sunderbunds lay hidden under mist; then she put one bare foot upon the lower rail, and swinging herself up, sat sideways, leaning far over; in such a position that the slightest lurch of the ship would have sent her ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... days dragged by and no word came from the bridge cuddy, restlessness began to grow amongst us. Rumor succeeded rumor, each story wilder and more incredible than the rest. Then just as the tension had mounted to fever pitch, there came the sickening lurch and grinding vibration ...
— The Long Voyage • Carl Richard Jacobi

... quick lurch forward he clutches at the sword dangling by Uraga's side. Its hilt is in his grasp, and in an instant he has drawn the blade ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... corner into Knight Street there was Arlo Weeks, Junior, just ahead of her. Arlo Junior, the cause of the morning's trouble! Arlo Junior, the cause of Olga's leaving the Days in the lurch! More, Arlo Junior, who was the spring of Janice Day's deeper trouble, for if it had not been for that mischievous wight, Olga Cedarstrom could not have run ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... Jones, yet in this particular instance he had imposed upon her as well as upon the rest; so entirely had the devil stood his friend. And, indeed, I look upon the vulgar observation, "That the devil often deserts his friends, and leaves them in the lurch," to be a great abuse on that gentleman's character. Perhaps he may sometimes desert those who are only his cup acquaintance; or who, at most, are but half his; but he generally stands by those who are thoroughly his servants, and helps them ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... be loved, as she, with her cunning intuition, guessed him to love and be loved, so long there was little likelihood that Messer Simone would win the girl's hand and his wager, and leave her, Vittoria, very patently in the lurch. She reasoned rightly that such a maid as Beatrice would not yield her love while her lover lived, and she hoped that Messer Folco, for all he liked to play the Roman father, was in his heart over fond of his daughter ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... all around with the young Frenchmen, and a few moments later announced that they must be on their way. The Frenchmen escorted them to their car, which was now ready and waiting for them, and, as Hal sent it forward with a lurch, they sped the lads on ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... never do that," said Val in the rare tone of decision which in him was final. "After all these years I could never leave Bernard in the lurch. I owe him ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... light line, it was a long one, and the slack of it was now in the water, so that Dickory had to pull hard upon it before he could grasp enough of it to pass around his body. He had scarcely done this, and had made a knot in it, before a lurch of the brig brought a strain on the rope, and ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... I was turning to go home, a groom rode past in mufti, leading a loose horse with a lady's saddle on it. The animal gave a clumsy lurch; and the man, jerking it violently by the head, bumped it into my ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... rabbit, too; And here it was his habit to Go hunting with his courtiers in the keen pursuit of stags. But the charger that he rode So mercurially strode That the prince on one occasion left the others in the lurch, And the falling darkness found him, With no vassals left around him, Near a building like an abbey, Or a shabby Ruined church. His Highness said: "I'll ring the bell And stay till morning in it!" (He Took Hobson's choice, for no hotel ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... Nance was both surprised and amused when her companion, who had spoken so soberly, began to stumble and waver by her side with the most airy divagations. Sometimes he would get so close to her that she must edge away; and at others lurch clear out of the track and plough among deep heather. His courtesy and gravity meanwhile remained unaltered. He asked her how far they had to go; whether the way lay all upon the moorland, and when he learned they ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... tiller, and only just in time, for Lynton's grasp upon it gave out, and with a lurch forward he fell upon his face, which was, however, saved from injury, for he had clasped his hands upon it, and now lay in the bottom of the boat, hysterically sobbing ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... had already shut off the motor for the spiral, and turning it on, I knew, would not help me in the least. Suddenly I remembered the pilot who fainted. I let go of everything, and with a sickening feeling I looked down at the up-rushing ground. At that instant I felt the machine give a lurch and right itself. I grabbed the controls, turned on the motor, and resumed my line of flight only two hundred feet in the air. All this happened in a few seconds, but my helplessness seemed to have lasted for hours. I had had a very close call—not as close ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... And then, for their revival's sake, Lo! he's an enormous cake, With a sugar on the top, Seen before in many a shop, Where the boys could gaze forever, They think the cake so very clever. Then, some morning, in the lurch Leaving romps, he goes to church, Looking very grave and thankful, After which he's just as prankful. Now a saint, and now a sinner, But, above all, he's a dinner; He's a dinner, where you see Everybody's family; Beef, and pudding, and mince-pies, And little boys with laughing ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... grindstone of conscious helplessness will sharpen the dullest wit. The swerving lurch of the 1010 around the next curve set Halkett clutching for hand-holds, and the injector lever fell within his grasp. What he did not know about the working parts of a modern locomotive was very considerable; but he did know that an injector, half opened, will waste water ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... something unintelligible. They were what he fully expected to behold as soon as the southeaster ceased to whip the Gulf,—the Bluebird and the Blackbird, Jack MacRae's two salmon carriers. They were walking up to Squitty in eight-knot boots. Through his glass Gower watched them lift and fall, lurch and yaw, running with short bursts of speed on the crest of a wave, laboring heavily in the trough, plowing steadily up through uneasy waters to take the salmon that should go to feed the hungry machines at ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... Only man she was ever "real sweet on" was a teamster. When she was selling in the perfumes at five a week he used to take her to the picnics of the Social Dozen Pleasure Club. They would practice the Denver Lurch on Professor DeVere's dancing platform. At midnight he would give her a joy-ride home in his employer's delivery wagon. He still drives that wagon. She is in charge of suits and costumes and has several assistant buyers under her. She has bought a cottage for her father, who is an ingrain weaver ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... of a light spring; the boat gave a slight lurch, and then, gliding off into the mysterious darkness of the great river, was lost to sight of shore in the wreaths ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... be supplied ad libitum, and whenever he chose. How was he to put an end to it, otherwise than by throwing up the game, and going back to London? That now would be gross ill-usage to the Conservatives of Percycross, who by such a step would be left in the lurch without a candidate. And then was it to be expected that he should live for a week with Mr. Trigger, with no other relief than that which would be afforded by Messrs. Pile, Spiveycomb, and Co. Everything about him was reeking of tobacco. And then, when he sat down to breakfast ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... forth, ye lass and trousered kid, From prisoned mischief raise the lid, And lift it good and high. Leave grave old Wisdom in the lurch, Set Folly on a lofty perch, Nor fear the awesome rod of birch ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... the results, glowing with 'truth' for the inventors, seem pathetically personal and artificial to bystanders. Which is as much as to say that the purely theoretic criterion of truth can leave us in the lurch as easily as any other criterion, and that the absolutists, for all their pretensions, are 'in the same boat' concretely with those whom ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... on, however, and we saw no signs of its abating. The rigging was found to be ill-fitted, and greatly strained; and on the third day of the blow, about five in the afternoon, our mizzen-mast, in a heavy lurch to windward, went by the board. For an hour or more, we tried in vain to get rid of it, on account of the prodigious rolling of the ship, and, before we had succeeded, the carpenter came aft and announced four feet water ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie

... cried the lieutenant. "No, sir. What! Do you want to leave me in the lurch?" Then, knowing from old experience the jealous motive which animated the lad who was left out of the commission, the officer clapped the midshipman on one shoulder warmly. "No, no, Roberts; I can't spare you. ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... the footlights with a sailor's lurch and hitch.> Both Leaders: The Queen of Sheba had four ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay

... say, 'Why will you do any thing? why won't you keep quiet? what business had you to think of any such plan at all?' But I cannot leave a number of poor fellows in the lurch. I am bound to do my best for a great number of people both in Oxford and elsewhere. If I did not act, others would ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... from what might have proved a serious accident. I meet a buffalo araba carrying a long projecting stick of timber; the sleepy buffaloes pay no heed to the bicycle until I arrive opposite their heads, when they - give a sudden lurch side wise, swinging the stick of timber across my path; fortunately the road happens to be of good-width, and by a very quick swerve I avoid a collision, but the tail end of the timber just brushes the rear wheel as I wheel past. Soon after noon I roll into Erzeroum, or rather, up to the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... away from him and before he could stop her she had got to the door and slid it open. He woke up in time to lurch after her and he got his shoulder into the door-opening before she ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton

... you were coming here, and I made up my mind that I would let bygones be bygones and act squarely by you. As I said, I'm not a bit sorry that I married; no, indeed!—you've seen Lady Angleford—but I don't want to leave you in the lurch. I don't want you to suffer more than—than can be helped. I've been thinking the matter over, and I'll tell you what I'll do. Have some ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice



Words linked to "Lurch" :   hang around, locomote, linger, rock, tilt, defeat, overcome, travel, ship, cards, loiter, lallygag, lurk, loaf, sway, footle, card game, motility, walk, move, mill around, mill about, lounge, mess about, lollygag, tarry, movement, get the better of, licking, motion, go, gait



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