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Maul   /mɔl/   Listen
Maul

noun
(Written also mall)
1.
A heavy long-handled hammer used to drive stakes or wedges.  Synonyms: sledge, sledgehammer.



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"Maul" Quotes from Famous Books



... day long, break his pipe with his teeth and maul his crew. After he had sworn by every known term at everything that came his way he would rid himself of his remaining anger on the fish and lobsters, which he pulled from the nets and threw into the ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... delicately and reverently, for once the bloom is off, the joke mysteriously shrivels and vanishes. Translators are the sworn enemies of jokes; the exigencies of their deplorable trade cause them to maul the poor little things about while they are putting them into new clothes, and the result is death, or at the least an appearance of vacuous senescence. But jokes are only the crystallization of ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... bruise a person, but it means more often merely to handle something carelessly and roughly. Literally it means "to hit with a hammer," and comes from maul or mall, the name of a certain very heavy kind of hammer; so that when a child is told not to "maul" a book, it is literally being told not to hit it with ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... requires of high heaven, far more than the commendably timid, a doughty husband. She had him; otherwise would that puzzled old world, which beheld her step out of the ranks to challenge it, and could not blast her personal reputation, have commissioned a paw to maul her character, perhaps instructing the gossips to murmur of her parentage. Nesta Victoria Fenellan had the husband who would have the world respectful to any brave woman. This one ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... shape was human. It had the head and shoulders of a man, and a torso that could twist with muscular purpose, and massive hands that could maul and maim. It threw the hapless man from it with a sudden convulsive contraction of its entire bulk. I had never seen a human being move in quite that way, but even as its violence flared its manlike ...
— The Man the Martians Made • Frank Belknap Long

... was nor will be half-read, Who first sung Arthur, then sung Alfred; Praised great Eliza in God's anger, Till all true Englishmen cried, 'Hang her!'— Maul'd human wit in one thick satire; Next in three books spoil'd human nature: Undid Creation at a jerk, And of Redemption made damn'd work. Then took his Muse at once, and dipt her Full in the middle of the Scripture. What wonders ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... California presented a spike of gold; Nevada one of silver; Arizona one of combined iron, gold and silver; and the Pacific Union Express Company, a silver maul. At twelve noon at a given signal, Governor Stanford on the South side of the rail and Vice-President Durant on the north, struck the spikes driving ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey

... Nick did Baldoon's posterior right deride, And, as first substitute, did seize the bride; Whate'er he to his mistress did or said, He threw the bridegroom from the nuptial bed, Into the chimney did so his rival maul, His bruised bones ne'er were cured ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... think of anything while lying on my back on the hearth, with baby Blount trying to pull my hair out by the roots and cutting a stubborn tooth on my nose. He was a delightful, pitiless, young rascal and would leave anything and anybody to maul ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... Donaldum ducibus. Ex Scotis adversae partis vir nobilis Alexander Ogilvy Angusiae vice-comes singulari iustitia ac probitate praeditus, Jacobus Strimger Comestabulis Deidoni magno animo vir ac insigni virtute, et ad posteros clarus, Alexander Irrvein a Drum ob praecipuum robur conspicuus, Robertus Maul a Pammoir, Thomas Moravus, Wilhelmus Abernethi a Salthon, Alexander Strathon a Loucenstoun, Robertus Davidstoun Aberdoniae praefectus; hi omnes equites aurati cum multis aliis nobilibus eo praelio occubere. Donaldus victoriam hostibus prorsus concedens, tota nocte quanta ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... laughs, and sings the rarest songs, and Shorthose, he has so maul'd the Red Deer pies, made such an ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont

... didn't it was just too bad for my back. So's dere would be work for me to do during the bad days of winter dey built a pen under a shed and dey would lay a cloth on de ground covering the ground in the pen and wid small mesh wire on top of de pen on which de wheat was laid and wid a wooden maul I would pounder out wheat all day long, even though dey could have thrashed it as dey did ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... said of Abe: "He could strike, with a maul, a heavier blow than any other man. He could sink an ax deeper into wood than any ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... can be raised from so pitiful a machine, where we see the success of the battle from the very beginning of it? unless that as we are Christians, we are glad that we have gotten God on our side to maul our enemies when we cannot do the work ourselves. For if the poet had given the faithful more courage, which had cost him nothing, or at least have made them exceed the Turks in number, he might have gained the victory ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... Age, I am not equal to contend—that's poz— With the Parochial Fathers on the rampage. Ah me, these Vestry vultures on the pounce! They scare me, skin me, bully me, and bilk me. Soon of my flesh they'll scarce have left an ounce, They so persistently maul, mulct, and milk me. Once in five years they send me papers blue, And papers white, and likewise papers yellow; They "want to know, you know," indeed they do. First the "First Clerk," a devil of a fellow! Challenges me to up and tell him all About gross value, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various

... to order. De sicretary please note who is prisint. De firs' business whut come' before de convintion am: whut we gwine do to a li'l' black boy whut stip' on de king an' maul' all ober de king an' treat' de ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... was like a maul, to the back of his head, and, rubbing his neck with great seriousness, began to mutter. But he must rescue "his light." She herself had said that his turn had come. He will try all he can. But ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... so at his peril. Breadalbane promised to cut off the retreat of the fugitives on one side, Mac Callum More on another. It was fortunate, the Secretary wrote, that it was winter. This was the time to maul the wretches. The nights were so long, the mountain tops so cold and stormy, that even the hardiest men could not long bear exposure to the open air without a roof or a spark of fire. That the women and the children could find shelter in the desert was quite impossible. While he wrote ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the hands, or pounded and worked in a box. Handfuls or shovelfuls of the material are thrown forcibly upon the earth, the operator being careful not to walk upon the work. The clay is smoothed by means of a spade or maul, and ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... just think of it! I've stood, With brains and honesty, some five-and-twenty Long years as champion of all that's good, And taken on the mazzard thwacks a-plenty. Yet now whose praises do the people bawl? Those of the fellows whom I live to maul! ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... way, I tell you!" declared Ruth. "I am not going to let anybody maul my story and put it over as ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson

... trick in brick or stone That this young man hadn't seen or known; Nor there wasn't a tool from trowel to maul But this young man could use 'em all! Then up and spoke the plumbyers bold, Which was laying the pipes for the hot and cold: 'Since you with us have made so free, Will you kindly say what ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... a night foray was merely to maul some distant neighbor's dog, and notwithstanding vengeful threats, there seemed no reason to fear that the Bingo breed would die out. One man even avowed that he had seen a prairie wolf accompanied by three young ones which resembled the mother, excepting that they were very large ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton

... still clutched the painted casse-tete with which he had aimed a silently murderous blow at the Sagamore. Grey-Feather drew the death-maul from the dead warrior's grasp, and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... ye be, ye scamps!" he bellowed as he made threatening gestures with the gun. "Don't ye try to run away, er I'll gie ye somethin' ye'll never furgit. Maul my prize dawg, will ye, and on my own private groun's? I got the law back o' me, and ye'll pay damages er go to ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... atmosphere and rains, the groove presented a comparatively fresh appearance, and even the slight markings made by the tool that cut them were quite distinct. When I removed the overlying rock, and found a grooved maul in a protected spot, the groove was generally as fresh as though it had been made but a few months before. The compact nature of the stone of which these hammers are made, and their ability to resist the action of weather and moisture, prove conclusively ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... better," replied his patron smiling. "My portrait, which I began to paint yesterday, will be finished here. Hand me the mirror, the maul-stick, and the colors." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... were of two sorts: one quite heavy, almost like a sledge-hammer or maul, and with a short handle; the other much lighter, and with a longer, more limber handle. This last was used by men in war as a mace or war club, while the heavier hammer was used by women as an axe to break up fallen trees for firewood; as a hammer to drive tent-pins into the ground, to kill disabled ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell

... was instantly 'put in ward' under the charge of the Earl of Dunfermline. But, on the day after Sprot was hanged, namely on August 13, Baillie was set free, on bail of 10,000 marks to appear before the Privy Council if called upon. Three of Sprot's other victims, Maul, Crockett, and William Galloway, were set free on their personal recognisances, but Mossman and Matthew Logan were kept in prison, and Chirnside was not out of danger of the law for several years, as we learn from the Privy Council ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang

... met him on your road hither, when he was in the hands of some base fellows that had a mind to maul him—do you remember such a matter?' and Aunt Golding saying how she remembered it very well, Harry went on to say that the man, having noted Andrew's willingness to serve him, had ever since 'had a concern on his mind for the good youth,'—that was his phrase,—and had ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling

... days in mills, and hot days masting. Trucking on dust-dry deckings smooth like ice, And hunts in mighty wool-racks after mice; Mornings with buckwheat when the fields did blanch With White Leghorns come from the chicken ranch; Days near the spring upon the sunburnt hill, Plying the maul or gripping tight the drill; Delights of work most real, delights that change The headache life of towns to rapture strange Not known by townsmen, nor imagined; health That puts new glory upon mental wealth And makes the poor man rich. But that ends, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... door, which was not locked as usual, and went in. But the moment he did so he stood rooted to the spot. Upon an easel, the glorious rays of the morning sun falling upon it, was a splendid picture, Rose in all the pride of her beauty and charms, and life size. The maul-stick lying on the table, and the wet colours of the palette, showed that some one had been at work on the picture quite recently. "O Rose, Rose!—By Heaven!" sighed Frederick. Reinhold, who had entered behind him unperceived, clapped him on the shoulder and asked, smiling, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... 'ead groom, Mr. Martin, wiv blood on 'is mug and one peeper in mourning a-wrastling wiv two coves, and our 'ead groom, Standish, wiv another of 'em. Jest as we run up, down goes Mr. Martin, but—afore they could maul 'im wiv their trotters, there's m'lud wiv 'is fists an' me wiv a pitchfork as 'appened to lie 'andy. And very lively it were, sir, for a minute or two. Then off goes a barker and off go the coves, and there's m'lud 'olding ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... these men had also heard the rector say, "I will strike you dead at my feet!" They further testified that the rector was very quick-tempered, and that when angered he did not hesitate to strike out with whatever came into his hand. He had struck a former hand once with a heavy maul. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... of sympathy that prompted this delay prevented the aspirants from pressing their claims. Once, in the lodge room, a young member eager for a regular run opened the question, but saw his mistake when the older members began to hiss like geese, while the Worthy Master smote the table with his maul. Henry saw the La Salle cross the turn-table and back into the round-house, and while he "looked her over," examining every link and pin, each lever and link-lifter, the others hurried away; for it was Christmas Eve, and nobody cared to say ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman

... matter. As a reward I set him to elevating the beam across the top of the door leading to the kitchen—quite an easy job. He only had to put in a few hours of patient overhead sawing and split out the chunks with wedges and a maul. ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... the stripling in battle array, And both sides determined to fight and to maul: Death rattled his jawbones to see such a fray, And glory personified laugh'd at them all. Here he fail'd,—hence he fled, with a few for his sake, And leap'd into a cockle-shell floating hard by; It sail'd to an isle in the midst of the lake, Where they mock'd fallen ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield

... for one good hour. My team sleeps where it stands; An' Poole 'as tossed the spade away to talk with both 'is 'ands; An' Smith 'as dropped the maul 'e 'ad. Then I looks round to see Doreen quite close. She smiles at us. "Winnin' ...
— Digger Smith • C. J. Dennis

... by his taunts and his jeers to reach a swifter end, he was mistaken in that hope. No fire was kindled at their stakes, no sudden stroke of death maul or tomahawk followed his words. The Nakonkirhirinons had keener tortures, torments of a finer fibre than mere physical suffering, and the Bois-Brules' liquor had stirred ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... overthrown, or curved exposures where parallel rocks, as talcose schist, usually vertical, are bent and fractured, as if by a maul like force, battering them from above. The strata are oftentimes tumbled over upon a cliff-side like a row of books, and rest upon heaps of fragments broken away by the strain upon the bottom layers, or crushed ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... giving me the tacks he put on board bags of biscuits and a large quantity of smoked venison. He declared that my bread, which was ordinary sea-biscuits and easily broken, was not nutritious as his, which was so hard that I could break it only with a stout blow from a maul. Then he gave me, from his own sloop, a compass which was certainly better than mine, and offered to unbend her mainsail for me if I would accept it Last of all, this large-hearted man brought out a bottle of Fuegian gold-dust from a place where it had been cached and begged me ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... there—an imported girl with fixings on— philandering with a croquet maul and amusing herself by watching my style of encouraging the ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... love your Cousin Paull. Is it because he's twice as small As you, just right for you to maul? Because he won't fight back, or bawl? Because when he is pushed he'll fall? And, where most kids would howl and squall, He takes it, nor puts in a call For mother? Am I warm at all? Is this why you love ...
— Bib Ballads • Ring W. Lardner

... they reported to the captain, the mate carrying the two-headed maul and the young man bearing an armful ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... my hero in other ways. He looked like a fat man and his fiddling was only middling, therefore, notwithstanding his prowess with the axe and the maul, he remained subordinate to David, and though they never came to a test of strength we were perfectly sure that David was the finer man. His supple grace and his unconquerable pride made him ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... owners I will say good—cording to situation of time. Every year when Massa and Missus gone mountains, they call up obersheer (overseer) and say, 'Don't treat them anyway severe. Don't beat them. Don't maul them.' (Mr. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... what strange waters Binkley had caught her in his seine. She smiled at him, and they raised glasses and drank of the wine that boiled when it was cold. Binkley had abandoned art and was prating of the unusual spring catch of shad. Miss Elise arranged the palette-and-maul-stick tie pin of Mr. Vandyke. A Philistine at some distant table was maundering volubly either about Jerome or Gerome. A famous actress was discoursing excitably about monogrammed hosiery. A hose clerk from a department store was loudly proclaiming his opinions ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... such points, which is liable to produce derailment and serious accident. Spike mauls should weigh not less than nine nor more than ten pounds, and should be on straight handles, not less than 3 ft. long. After considerable use, the face of the maul will become somewhat rounded, and when this takes place it should be sent to the shop to be redressed. The last blow on the spike should be only sufficiently hard to cause its throat to fit snugly on the rail; a harder blow will often fracture the spike in such a manner as to cause ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... understand me, go to the heights or water-shore; The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves a key: The maul, the oar, the ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... spring tooth, and flat), a steel land-roller, two wheelbarrows, an iron scraper, fly nets and other stable equipment, shovels, spades, hay forks, posthole tools, a hand seeder, a chest of tools, stock-pails, milk-pails and pans, axes, hatchets, saws of various kinds, a maul and wedges, six kegs of nails, and three lanterns. The total amount was $488; but as I received five per cent discount, I paid only $464. The goods, except the wagons and harnesses, were to go by freight to Exeter. Polly was to buy the necessary furnishings for the men's house, the only stipulation ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... for a newspaper office, my boy," said Jasper at length. "How you will cut into the coming poet, and maul the fledgling of the prose writer! Well, ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney

... in the process why the chute Section hands at Base wore that harried look. The mass of slithering, incompressible white-and-yellow ribbon and its shrouds resisted him like a live thing; in the end Johnny managed to bat and maul the obstreperous stuff down the length of the tank. Even so, it filled it to within a couple of inches of ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor

... and extravagant as the expression of sorrow appears to be, everything is regulated by certain definite rules; and a woman who did not thus maul herself when she ought to do so would be severely punished, or even killed, by her brother. Similarly with the men, it is only those who stand in certain relationships to the deceased who must cut and ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... slayn the one They maul'd them cruelly Then hang them owr the drawbridge, That a' the ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

... about, and his hands fell on a club-like maul which fishermen use for stunning the large fish they catch. There was nothing else near in the shape of a weapon. He passed the maul to Bart, and clutched one of the shoes as a club ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... bawson[315], peace, Seest not this fatal engine of my wrath? Villain, I'll maul thee for thine old offences, And grind thy bones to powder with this pestle! You, when I had no weapons to defend me, Could beat me out of doors; but now prepare: Make thyself ready, for thou shalt not 'scape. Thus doth the great revengeful ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... lodges seem to have been excavated without the aid of other tools than a rough maul or a piece of stone held in the hand, and such a tool is well adapted to the work, since a blow on the surface of the rock is sufficient to bring off large slabs. Notwithstanding the rude tools and methods, however, some of ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff

... in Alexandria in Egypt. My name was Balthazar. Nothing very remarkable happened to me till the year of the memorable tumult in which the Jews of that city are reported in history to have massacred more Christians than at that time dwelt in it. Indeed, the truth is, they did maul the dogs pretty handsomely; but I myself was not present, for as all our people were ordered to be armed, I took that opportunity of selling two swords, which probably I might otherwise never have disposed of, they being extremely old and rusty; so that, having no weapon left, I did not ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... the enemy had been made out to be frigates, as it was thought probable were their consorts astern; and even though they might fail to capture the Thisbe, they might knock away her masts and spars, and so maul her that she would be compelled to succumb to the line-of-battle ship ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... whether from these baetyli our ancestors derived the word beetle, which denotes a wooden maul or hammer for driving wedges. Its head is about a foot long, flat at each end, and the rest round; so that it nearly resembles a pillow in shape, and the head, together with its handle, would well resemble a stone of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various

... him with their heads, and scratch him with their toe-nails, and the dogs would grab rabbits and shake them, and Pa would fall down and rabbits would run over him till you couldn't see Pa at all. Then he would raise up again and maul the animals with his club, and his clothes were so covered with rabbit hair that he looked like a big rabbit himself. He lost his hat and looked as though he was getting exhausted, and then he stopped and spit on his ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck

... work that the professional men of the day are overcome. They sit faint and fagged out on the verge of newspapers and books. Each one does the work of three, and these men sit up late nights, and choke down chunks of meat without mastication, and scold their wives through irritability, and maul innocent authors, and run the physical machinery with a liver miserably given out. The driving shaft has gone fifty times a second. They stop at no station. The steam-chest is hot and swollen. The brain and the digestion begin to smoke. Stop, ye flying quills! "Down brakes!" ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... An ax, a maul, a yoke of oxen; these are the great requisites for him who would build a rail fence through a forest. Grant Harlson made the bargain for the work, hired a yoke of oxen, as you may do in the country, and secured the right to eat plain food three times a day at the cabin ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... eighty feet, and, with a huge and desperate fish disputing every inch of the way, it becomes a seemingly endless labor. But at last Code, straining his eyes over the side, caught a glimpse of quick circles of white in the green and reached for the maul that was stuck ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... fool like an old fool," he said, when he paused at his nephew's side. "Theer's nothing as is longed for like that as can niver be got at. Good-day, lad. Tek her away and niver let anybody maul her i' that fashion again, poor thing. I'll rest ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... and hunted hard, and lived both plainly and roughly. Their cabins were roofed with clapboards, or huge shingles, split from the log with maul and wedge, and held in place by heavy stones, or by poles; the floors were made of rived puncheons, hewn smooth on one surface; the chimney was outside the hut, made of rock when possible, otherwise ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... fanatics, bigots and idiots. He must have seen that brilliant bon mot in the Chicago Inter-Ocean. Poor J. Sterling Morton. Not being born great, nor having the ability to achieve greatness, it was his misfortune to have it driven into him with a maul. And he's never gotten over it. Had Cleveland done naught else evil he would have damned himself everlastingly by pulling this intumescent jay out of a Nebraska turnip- patch to make him a cabinet clerk. I say cabinet-clerk, for the so-called secretaries of the Cleveland regime were merely stool-pigeons ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann



Words linked to "Maul" :   maul oak, sledgehammer, split, mangle, deface, injure, mauler, mutilate, cleave, disfigure, sledge, hammer, mar, blemish, rive, wound



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