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Pinch   /pɪntʃ/   Listen
Pinch

noun
1.
A painful or straitened circumstance.
2.
An injury resulting from getting some body part squeezed.
3.
A slight but appreciable amount.  Synonyms: hint, jot, mite, soupcon, speck, tinge, touch.
4.
A sudden unforeseen crisis (usually involving danger) that requires immediate action.  Synonyms: emergency, exigency.
5.
A small sharp bite or snip.  Synonym: nip.
6.
A squeeze with the fingers.  Synonym: tweak.
7.
The act of apprehending (especially apprehending a criminal).  Synonyms: apprehension, arrest, catch, collar, taking into custody.



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"Pinch" Quotes from Famous Books



... Margaret wrote off straight, without shilly-shallying. I've had a great mind to do it myself. And we'll keep him snug, depend upon it. There's only Martha in the house that would not do a good deal to save him on a pinch; and I've been thinking she might go and see her mother just at that very time. She's been saying once or twice she should like to go, for her mother has had a stroke since she came here, only she didn't ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... and temper, he had been in a score of fights and had come off them, if not unscathed, at least victorious. He was notoriously a lucky digger, but his earnings went as fast as they were made, and he was always ready to open his belt and give a bountiful pinch of dust to any mate ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... bottle of wine before him. The old smith sat opposite to him, while the two young men stood among a lot of others round the little table, and Annot bustled in and out of the room, now going close enough up to her lover to enable him. to pinch her elbow unseen by her father, and then leaning against the dresser, and listening ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... I love to hear you say that! To be well again! To read letters!" she murmured, "and to write them!" And I saw the delicate hand falter up to pinch the precious packet awaiting that happy hour. I did not like to discuss her father with her, so took this opportunity to turn the conversation aside into safer channels. But we had not proceeded far before Mr. Grey returned and, taking his stand at ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... not so. She knows that there is a silent letter in front of the "r," which doesn't do anything, but likes to be there. Obviously, if nobody is going to take any notice of this extra letter, it doesn't much matter what it is. Margery happened to want to make a "k" just then; at a pinch it could be as silent as a "w." You will please, therefore, regard the "k" ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... Foxes, had a wooden rattle which he claimed could be heard for seven miles—eight miles and a quarter at a pinch. The Tigers, with Bert Winton at their head, had some kind of an original contrivance which simulated the roar of their ferocious namesake. The Church Mice, from down the Hudson, with Brent Gaylong as their scoutmaster, ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... was far from happy. What he had gained in peace of mind he had lost in self-conceit. His resentment against the pinch of circumstance was deepening ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... look at, but with mischief enough to fill a six-fut man to bu'stin'—an' there 'ee was, clean an' jolly, larnin' his lessons like a good un—an' no sham neither, cos 'e'd got a good spice o' the mischief left, as was pretty clear from the way 'ee gave a sly pinch or pull o' the hair now an' again to the boys next him, an' drawed monkey-faces on his slate. But that spider, I wos told, could do figurin' like one o'clock, an' ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... a moment he forgot his aim in remembering himself. Afterward, in thinking matters over, he offered a pinch of incense at ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... o' mine this morning about not bein' a millionaire and my face needin' to be fed. I thought afterward 'that's no talk for a gen'leman to use before a lady.' Well, I may not be a millionaire at present, but I can see my way to feedin' our t'ree faces and not feel the pinch." ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... inspection uniform, and every button shining. With eyes to the front and hands down their sides they looked absurdly like wax figures waiting to be "wound up," and I did want so much to tell the little son of General Phillips to pinch one and make him jump. He would have done it, too, and then put all the blame upon ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... now complete. M. de R. tries to make it rise, to send it into another room. The body is stopped in its journey by the ceiling and the walls. M. de R. tells Mayo to stretch towards him the astral right hand, and he pinches it; Mayo feels the pinch." ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... careful and don't push him too quickly up that pinch by Flea Creek, or he might drop dead with you. He's so ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... How the cunning rogue had contrived to get at the secret is more than we dare tell. Sure enough he had it; and as certain too that another should be privy to the fact—to wit, Edward Kelly the seer. Dodge was a fitting tool for this intriguer, and well able to help him out at a pinch. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... camera) to his Royal Highness the Duke of Modena'; and behind the waiter in walked Pantaleone himself. He had changed his clothes from top to toe. He had on a black frock coat, reddish with long wear, and a white pique waistcoat, upon which a pinch-beck chain meandered playfully; a heavy cornelian seal hung low down on to his narrow black trousers. In his right hand he carried a black beaver hat, in his left two stout chamois gloves; he had tied his cravat in a taller and broader bow than ever, and had stuck into ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... every gale; Far hence are banish'd vapours, spleen, and tears, Tea, scandal, ivory teeth, and languid airs; No pug, nor favourite Cupid there enjoys 20 The balmy kiss for which poor Thyrsis dies; Form'd to delight, they use no foreign arms, No torturing whalebones pinch them into charms; No conscious blushes there their cheeks inflame, For those who feel no guilt can know no shame; Unfaded still their former charms they show, Around them pleasures wait, and joys for ever new. But cruel virgins meet severer fates; Expell'd and exiled from the blissful ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... word, as though a dozen augers were being turned at once into his very skull; this done, they would fill his brain with bugs and worms to eat it out, when their gnawing would instantly commence. These spirits would pinch and pound him, twitch him up and throw him down, yell and blaspheme, and use the most obscene language that mortals can conceive; they would declare that they were Christ in one breath, and devils in the next; they would tie him head to foot for a long time together in a most ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... my dearest friend," said Lionel. "For my sake, don't. Oh, if you knew how it pains me to see you suffering in that way! I think more of you in the matter than even of George; I do indeed." And Sir Lionel contrived to give a little pinch to the top of one of Miss Baker's fingers—not, however, without being observed by the ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... know it, I suppose. It ain't fair!" cried Letitia; "it ain't fair! Why should Matilda have all the good that comes to anybody? Here this child can have everything she wants; and you and I, and Maria, have to work and work and pinch and pinch, and ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner

... neglect in the "Head Landlord." One visit, or act, even of nominal kindness, for him, will at any time produce more attachment and gratitude among them, than a whole life spent in good offices by an agent. Like Sterne's French Beggar, they would prefer a pinch of snuff from the one, to a guinea from the other. The agent only renders them a favor, but the Head Landlord ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... grave wisdom of the stupid, and the extraordinary energy and persistence which perpetuates them. He never could learn a lesson, but he could, and did, pinch the boy next to him into adept prompting, and would intimidate any one into doing his sums. Indeed, the man of whom he was the promise had no need for ordinary learning. The lighter accomplishments of life ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... then the fashionable place at which the wits gathered, as Jonson had in the tavern. He was given the most honored seat, in summer by the window, in winter by the fire. And although he was not a great talker like Jonson, the young wits crowded around him, eager for the honor of a word or a pinch ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... been fluctuations. He added that he was no speculator; that hitherto he had avoided having to do with stocks of any sort, but in the present case he really felt something like being tempted. "Pray," in conclusion, "do you think that upon a pinch anything could be transacted on board here with the transfer-agent? Are you ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... this round of certifying and reasoning, the shoe still continues to pinch, and the first Judge again appears before the public to help the defect. Altho' he signed Thompson's statement in which he is careful to make use of the language employed by it, and the epithet personal when he speaks of Mr. ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector

... shall get into some confounded scrape if I stay here much longer, and so will my young friend Mr. Worrendorf, who has made me his confidant: but mum's the word! (Seeing the KING, who is in the act of taking snuff.) Ah, use snuff, my old boy?—Odd!—Thank you for a pinch. (Takes a pinch sans ceremonie, and without the King's consent. FREDERICK shuts the box angrily. WEDGEWOOD starts back in astonishment.—Aside.) Wonder who the old-fashioned brown jug can be! I'll take him by the handle and pour him out, and see ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... bestowed by officers, as "Sackville Street," "The Albany," and "Burlington Arcade" denote. "Pinch-Gut" and "Crab-Crawl" speak for themselves. So does "Vermin Villa." Other localities, again, have obviously been labelled by persons endowed with a nice gift of irony. "Sanctuary Wood" is the last place on earth where any one would dream of taking sanctuary; while "Lovers' Walk," ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)

... seats are placed back to back (hence the name, which is a corruption of dos-a-dos), and which is furnished with a square top to keep off the sun. It is drawn by one (or two) of the sturdy little horses bred in the island. At a pinch these vehicles will hold four, but two is enough. Ordinarily the driver sits in front, and the "fare" in the more luxurious seat behind. Thus weighted the country-breds go at a very smart pace; nor is there any complaint to be made ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... which was hanging over the chimney glass, and put it between the candles, into the plate, which she filled with clean water, as she had no holy water. But, after a moment's rapid reflection, she threw a pinch of salt into the water, no doubt, thinking she was performing some sort of act of consecration by doing that, and when she had finished, she remained standing motionless, and the medical man, who had been helping her, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... Upon the Major he held a strong hold, and this was a puzzle to the neighbors. Their characters stood at fantastic and whimsical variance; one never in debt, the other never out of debt; one clamped by honor, the other feeling not its restraining pinch. But together they would ride abroad, laughing along the road. To Mrs. Cranceford old Gid was a pest. With the shrewd digs of a woman, the blood-letting side stabs of her sex, she had often shown her disapproval of the strong favor in which the Major held him; she vowed that her husband ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... north to south the colonies were almost a unit in rejecting English and foreign goods, and in relying on home manufactures. From importations of more than a million and a quarter pounds, two-thirds fell clean away,[28] and the merchants of England felt the pinch. There was but one thing to do, and England grudgingly did it. The withdrawal of the troops from Boston was acquiesced in, and the revenue acts, the cause of all the trouble, were repealed, except for a duty still maintained ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... hand over his balding head. His eyes saw the bottle and asked me a question. I threw some of the Pinch Bottle over ice and handed it to him, ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett

... out of the hotel, George gave my arm a quiet pinch which served to direct my attention to an elderly gentleman who, was just alighting from a taxicab at the kerb. He moved heavily and with some appearance of pain, but from the crowd collected on the sidewalk many of whom nudged ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... to small a payne, 2510 Drag downe this body to proud Erebus, Through black Cocytus and infernall Styx, Lethean waues, and fiers of Phlegeton, Boyle me or burne, teare my hatefull flesh, Deuoure, consume, pull, pinch, plague, paine this hart, Hell craues her right, and heere the furyes stand, And all the hell-hounds compasse me a round Each seeking for a parte of this same prey, Alasse this body is leane, thin, pale and wan, Nor can it all your hungery mouthes suffice, 2520 O tis ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous

... said on the occasion, turning around in vexation and taking a pinch of snuff, "why, I have seen him carrying printing paper ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... himself useful in small ways. Also Mr. Doobman had a secret vice; he took snuff, and for the sake of discipline he did not want this dreadful fact to become known. Therefore he would wait until everybody's back was turned before he took a pinch of snuff; and Peter learned this, and would ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... cannot have arctic and tropical plants growing together in it, except by the forcing system, which is a mighty narrow piece of business. You can't make a village or a parish or a family think alike, yet you suppose that you can make a world pinch its beliefs or pad them to a single pattern! Why, the very life of an ecclesiastical organization is a life of induction, a state of perpetually disturbed equilibrium kept up by another charged body in the neighborhood. If the two bodies touch and share their respective ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... her tranquilly enough as he spoke. In truth, he was not unhappy at the moment. It is not during but after the parting interview that the pinch comes. She answered him only with her deeply attentive look, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various

... dozen of them, clear-eyed, iron-muscled, quick-footed to the last man of them. For wherever Packard pay was taken it went into the pockets of just such as these, purposeful, self-reliant, men's men who could be counted on in a pinch and who, that they might be held in the service which required such as they, were paid a better wage than other ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... bonnes fortunes; ever he sighed for 'booze and the blowens,' but 'booze and the blowens' he could only purchase with the sovereigns his honest calling denied him. There was no resource but thievery and embezzlement, sins which led sometimes to falsehood or incendiarism, and at a pinch to the graver enterprise of murder. But Bruneau was not one to boggle at trifles. Women he would encounter—young or old, dark or fair, ugly or beautiful, it was all one to him—and the fools who withheld him riches must ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... fondly. "I do hope you won't find it too much of a pinch, David. The worst of it is, you will be with people who have heaps of money, and I'm afraid you'll hate to ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... Mr. Dale, with a long sigh, straightened up in his chair. He lifted his white fluted china tea-cup, which had queer little chintz-like bunches of flowers over it and a worn gilt handle, and took a pinch of tea from the caddy; then, pouring some boiling water over it, he set it on the ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... business, Gerald; and a nice scrape I should get in if it were found out that I had solemnized the marriage of a young lady under age without the consent of her father, and that father a powerful nobleman. However, I am not the man to fail you at a pinch, and if matters are well managed there is not much risk of its being found out that I had a hand in it until I am well away, and once in Ireland no one is likely to make any great fuss over my having united a runaway pair in Spain. Besides, if you and the young lady have made up your ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... God! I'm ruined! They're taking my gold! They're after my pot! Oh, oh, Apollo, help me, save me! Shoot your arrows through them, the treasure thieves, if you've ever helped a man in such a pinch before! But I must rush in before they ruin me ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... regard the hosts of glittering stars as a conflagration that has been simultaneously lighted up in the heavens. The enormous (to our ideas) thermal energy of the stars resembles the scintillation of iron dust in a jar of oxygen when a pinch of the dust is thrown in. Although some particles be burnt up before others become alight, and some linger yet a little longer than the others, in our day's work the scintillation of the iron dust is the work of a single instant, and so in the long night of eternity the scintillation ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... whispered Desiree, with a quick pinch on his arm, "take the Grafin upstairs to the drawing-room and give her wine. You are ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... let the women work too hard. I never see such a tired wore-out set of women. It puts me in mind ev the time wen the black fellers made the gins do all the work. Why, on Bruggabrong the women never had to do no outside work, only on a great pinch wen all the men were away at a fire or a muster. Down here they do everything. They do all the milkin', and pig-feedin', and poddy-rarin'. It makes me feel fit to retch. I don't know whether it's because the men is crawlers or whether it's ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... heart grew cold, and my courage ran down; I pinch'd my finger—I tried not to scream— I felt like a creature about to drown, And I cried aloud 'It MUST be a dream!' I angrily spoke,—and I spoke out loud; I knew 'twas a dream and nothing in it; I spurn'd the ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart

... Mother, we're in luck to-day! You'd never guess who's goin' to take me on. Lame Andre, he's goin' to give Pierre the sack, and says he'll have me for a time or two to try. Says I'm strong in the shoulders, and he guesses I can do him more good than Pierre. I should think I easy could too, a pinch-faced whipper-snapper ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall

... grumbling," said their father, "I shall pinch your ears and tails." So the little squirrels said no more, but I am sorry to say they did not pay much heed to their wise old mother's counsels; for whenever they were alone, all their talk was how to run away, and go abroad to see ...
— In The Forest • Catharine Parr Traill

... back against the walls, the general's blacks were had up from the negro quarters with blaring horns and shrill fiddles to play for the quality. Alas! the horns and fiddles sound no more, the merry, grinning players are but a pinch of dust like their betters, their haughty master but a scorned memory where once he reigned so royally, while the modish guests who frisked it so gayly in satin and velvet have long, long ago shaken the powder out of their locks, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... to pick berries, or to untie the bright hair-ribbons of the Blue-eyed Girl or the shoe-laces of the Brown-eyed Boy. And once in a long, long while, when some stupid child or Grown-Up, who did not know how to be civil to a crow, used him roughly, his beak became a weapon with which to pinch and to strike until his enemy was black and blue. For Corbie learned, as every sturdy person must, in some way or other, how to protect ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch

... it to take the horse. Or I can let you keep him, and sue you for damages. In either case, the one who is beaten will have the costs to pay," Jack insisted, turning the screw again where he saw it pinch. ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... doing and undergoing. He was no sentimentalist, to pay himself with fine feelings whether for mean action or slack inaction. He had an insatiable zest for all experiences, not the pleasurable only, but including the more harsh and biting—those that bring home to a man the pinch and sting of existence as it is realised by the disinherited of the world, and excluding only what he thought the prim, the conventional, the dead-alive, and the cut-and-dry. On occasion the experimentalist and man of adventure in him would enter into special ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a certain daily paper in England towards which I feel very much as Tom Pinch felt towards Mr. Pecksniff immediately after he had found him out. The war upon Dickens was part of the general war on all democrats, about the eighties and nineties, which ushered in the brazen plutocracy of to-day. ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton

... down his rod on the grassy bank and felt for his snuff-box. As he helped himself to a pinch he slyly regarded the faces of his companions; and his own, contracting its muscles to take the dose, seemed to twist itself in a ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... recovering from his surprise at the arrest, stepped up to the sheriff. "Where do I come in?" he asked. "You can't pinch Red without me. I was with him that time the guy croaked out on the Mojave. Red didn't kill him. They let us go once. What you doin' pinchin' us again? ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... the Island. Harlan learned from the old man that the sourdough hotcake, or flapjack is as typical of Alaska as the glacier. The wilderness man carries, always, a little can filled with a batter of it; with this he starts the leavening of his bread, or, with the addition of a pinch of soda he fries it in the form of flapjacks. So typical a feature of Alaska is the sourdough pot that the old timer in the North is called ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... the North was gaining a huge superiority to the South; that the people were slowly consolidating; that when the free-labour interest did finally concentrate, it would carry every Northern interest with it, and, when the pinch came, no Northern party or statesman could or would help them do their will. They carefully sifted all offers of aid from such quarters, and having used every Northern interest and institution and party till it was squeezed dry of all its black blood, they ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... at the Gouden-Leuw, which a Frenchman would call the Lion d'Or, and an Anglo-Saxon the Golden Lion. It was a most excellent hotel in the Breestraat, and it possessed what was called a garage, in reality a cubby-hole which, on a pinch, might accommodate two automobiles, if they ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... take me if he does not—confesses that he is Spiegelberg. Fire and fury! I was on the point of giving myself up to a magistrate rather than have my fair fame marred by such a poltroon; however, within three months he was hanged. I was obliged to stuff a right good pinch of snuff into my nose as some time afterwards I was passing the gibbet and saw the pseudo-Spiegelberg parading there in all his glory; and, while Spiegelberg's representative is dangling by the neck, the real Spiegelberg very quietly ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... to-morrow; and so, if a measure of value, it must not equal one thousand at ten o'clock, and equal zero at three. But the precious metals do possess this uniformity; they are not scarce, as diamonds are, so that a pinch of them might measure the value of a city; nor are they as plenty as blackberries, so that a wagon-load could scarcely buy a fat goose for dinner. They cannot be washed away like a piece of soap, nor wear out like a bit of wampum, nor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... together with a loud noise. Aquareine did not stir; she only smiled. Both Zog and the creature that had attacked her seemed much surprised to find she was unhurt. "Again!" cried Zog, and again the Yell-Maker's claw shot out and tried to pinch the queen's pretty ear. But the magic of the fairy mermaid was proof against this sea-rascal's strength and swiftness, nor could he touch any part of Aquareine, although he tried again and again, roaring with anger ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum

... the bed, crushed the clipping into her palm, and went out stealthily into the immaculate kitchen. As if she were being spied upon, she went cautiously to the stove, lifted a lid, and dropped the clipping in where the wood blazed the brightest. She watched it flare and become nothing—not even a pinch of ashes; the clipping was not very large. When it was gone, she put the lid back and went tiptoeing to the ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... make you a pitcher, missie," said the good-natured man, and with the same kind of clay, just rounding it a bit and giving a cunning little pinch to form the spout, he made ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... this instance, however, it did not answer my expectations. Instead of benefitting the trachea, it produced a sympathetic affection of the stomach and diaphragm, and the oesophagus formed the medium of communication between the patient and myself. Having taken a pinch of snuff, I was about to give my other infallible remedy a fair trial, when the patient opened his eyes. But, gracious heaven! what eyes! The visual orb was swoln, blood-shot, troubled and intolerably dull. At the same moment, some incoherent expressions fell from the unfortunate gentleman. After ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various

... charcoal burning near the window. Keep the door shut, and open it only when you have need for something. Give him a portion of this medicine every half hour. Do not lean over him—remember that his breath is a fatal poison. Put a pinch of these powdered spices into the fire every few minutes. Pour this perfume over your handkerchief, and put it over your mouth and nose whenever you approach the bed. He is in a stupor now, poor lad, and I fear that his chance ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... she replied, dashing a pinch of "seasonin" into the peas, "when I git so old I can't do but one thing at a time, I'll try to die as ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... irresistible sergeant-major were the ruin of the girl. One Sunday, when M. Gaufre, as usual, recited vespers at St. Sulpice, he found that for the first time in his life he had forgotten his snuff-box. The holy offices were unbearable to this hypocritical person unless frequently broken by a good pinch of snuff. Instead of waiting for the final benediction and then going to take his usual walk, he left his church warden's stall and returned unexpectedly to the Rue Servandoni, where he surprised Berenice in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... get over the door-step, so very lame was he. But he managed to spare a hand for one moment from one of his crutches, the instant after; for Emily, who was half frightened out of her wits and half inclined to burst into uncontrollable laughter, felt a "pinch" on her arm which ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... discovered came to him through his tail. Yes, Sir, it came to him through his tail. Farmer Brown's boy pinched it. It was rather a mean thing to do, but Farmer Brown's boy was curious. He wanted to see what Unc' Billy would do. And he didn't pinch very hard, not hard enough to really hurt. Farmer Brown's boy is too good-hearted to hurt any one if he ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess

... with all sorts of amulets, I should shrink from the enterprise. But the famous weapon with which Luther drove away the Evil One is at my side, potent as evil, I hope, so long as a pen can be put into it,—and Saint Dunstan's friend is in the corner, ready, at a pinch, for service; and having shut out all those spirits which so sorely tempted Saint Anthony, and locked my door to dark eyes and blue eyes and dark hair and blonde hair, I may hope to get ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... himself vigorously, "how dare you pinch me so, cavaliere? I shall be black and blue. Why should not I sleep? ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... it by a hair's breadth, and smashing the glass behind. In vain Mrs. Hanson tried to make the peace by saying that Byron did not mean the missile for Lord Portsmouth. "But I 'did' mean it!" he reiterated; "I will teach a fool of an earl to pinch another noble's ear."] ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... a box of portulac a bloomin' befo' the house," he said to Judith. "I'm pretty nigh scairt ter be gittin' so many blessings ter onct. Sometimes I kinder pinch myself ter see if I ain't daid an' ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... quite blank, you see," said Cleek serenely. "For one so clever in other things, you should have been more careful. A little pinch of powder in the punch at dinner-time—just that—and on the first night, too! It was so easy afterward to get into your room, remove the real paper, and wrap the candle in a blank piece ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... for himself, has a material as well as an immaterial world with which he must be concerned. To transpose Bagehot's profound little saying,—Each man dines in a room apart, but we all go down to dinner together. And though Holbein knew the pinch of narrow means, he had no lack of good cheer as well as austere food ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... said somebody else, "then there was Petit Gaillard, who thought himself a pinch of snuff, and was truly distressed because he could not take himself between ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... will be at an end, and the burden of flesh accomplished. But you hear it expressed in terms that will astonish Baron Rothschild, what is the progress in liquidation which we make for each particular century. A billion of centuries pays off a quantity equal to a pinch of snuff. Despair seizes a man in contemplating a single coupon, no bigger than a visiting card, of such a stock as this; and behold we have to keep on paying away until the total granite is reduced to a level ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... hands and face: I suppose you could not furnish me with a little soap and water." "As much water as you please," said I, "but if you want soap, I must go and trouble the young gentlewoman for some." "By no means," said the postillion, "water will do at a pinch." "Follow me," said I; and leading him to the pond of the frogs and newts, I said, "This is my ewer; you are welcome to part of it—the water is so soft that it is scarcely necessary to add soap to it;" ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... of fashion, statues of marble and fair flesh, he must have them all. He collected, without any taste whatever, costly paintings, rare objects; he bought without love, girls who were not wholly mercenary. At a pinch he found them, taking pleasure in parading in his coupe, around the lake or at the races, some recruit in vice, and in watching the crowd that at once eagerly surrounded her, simply because she had been the mistress of the fat Molina. He had in his ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... poor nose dis long time? How him feel, spose now again?" he inquired, with a deferential grin. "Young massa ebber able take a pinch of good snuff? He! he! missy berry heavy den? Missy no learn to dance ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... gentleman, and haven't you a right to say what you plaze; and what am I but a poor boy, earning his bread. Just the way it is all through the world; some has everything they want and more besides, and others hasn't a stitch to their backs, or maybe a pinch of tobacco to ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... its errand, and where the creature fell, there we sat down and feasted beside a fire kindled by rubbing two sticks together. According to their wont the Indians ate ravenously, and when the meal was ended began to smoke, each warrior first throwing into the air, as thank-offering to Kiwassa, a pinch of tobacco. They all stared at the fire around which we sat, and the silence was unbroken. One by one, as the pipes were smoked, they laid themselves down upon the brown leaves and went to sleep, only our ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... him, pinch him, black and blue; Saucy mortals must not view What the Queen of Stars is doing, Nor pry into ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... would certainly pinch you if you were wearing them," said Calvert, grimly. "But you are not. Suppose you were? Better wear even Marlitt's shoes than hop about the world barefoot. You are a singularly sensitive young man. I come up-town to offer you Warrington's ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... which the beginner cannot be told too often, and which I repeat here, as it has much to do with the success of many of the above plants. Do not fail to pinch back seedlings and cuttings during their early stages of growth, to induce the formation of stocky, well-branched plants. This must be the foundation of ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... little, my dear fellow," said the elderly scribe, taking a pinch of snuff. "What is your name, and ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... till I was about ten years old, and then times began to get pretty close; mother didn't have any money, and we had to pinch to get along, but she was always good ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... dress at all had not seemed clear to Rebecca until a month before. Then, in company with Emma Jane, she visited the Perkins attic, found piece after piece of white butter-muslin or cheesecloth, and decided that, at a pinch, it would do. The "rich blacksmith's daughter" cast the thought of dotted Swiss behind her, and elected to follow Rebecca in cheesecloth as she had in higher matters; straightway devising costumes that included such drawing of threads, such ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Gammer's witches. Poor luck it is the lubberfolk aren't after the girl in truth; a slattern maid she is, her hearth unswept and house-door always open and the cream ever a-chill. The brownie-folk, I promise you, Will, pinch black ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin

... is not learning, grace nor gear, Nor easy meat and drink, But bitter pinch of pain and ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling

... night on my rheumatiz;" and continuing, as he descended the well-worn stairs, "de boss just give me a little of de w'iskey bitters-w'iskey bitters mighty good for de rheumatiz. Maybe when dey warm me up good, I won't feel so stiff, and de cold won't pinch so dreadful. Umph! umph! umph! ward number two comes fust," and clutching the bundle of papers more tightly, and gathering again the folds of the well-worn gray blanket around him, the old carrier struck out, as briskly as the cold and his ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... shoe begins to pinch. I am glad to perceive that those for whom it was made are beginning to feel and cry aloud. Just as I anticipated, the law seems to be the part which binds most. Men who are most without conscience are generally most restive in view ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... a miner, dirty and disheveled, came in ragged clothes to gamble or drink away the contents of a pouch of "dust." It was at first received suspiciously. Barkeepers took "a pinch for a drink," meaning what they could grasp with their fingers, and one huge-fisted man estimated that this method netted ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... tobacconist, was on the table, under examination, and, hesitating to answer—"Lundy, Lundy," said Curran, "that's a poser—a devil of a pinch." ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... boat passing us on the lower river, while four others sat with guns in their hands; besides these are the Marquis de Serrato and the Capuchin priest, making a total of eighteen, all of whom we must reckon upon as being fighting men at a pinch." ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... the Emperor, spilling a pinch of snuff over the front of his white jacket. 'There is some sense in what you say, for no one makes so good a servant as the man who has had a thorough fright. But I am ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... look. It is massive and costly to the eye. It is much larger than a letter, unless, perhaps, one carries on a correspondence with a giant from Brobdingnag. You turn it round and round with sad premonition. The very writing is coldly impersonal without the pinch of a more human hand. It practices a chill anonymity as if it contains a warrant for a hanging. At first you hope it may be merely an announcement from your tailor, inasmuch as commerce patterns its advertisements on these social forms. I am told ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... there's boys along where you be!" Nancy flashed an admiring glance at the girl. "I always did admire bright hair like yours, an' a pinch o' freckles is more takin' than a dimple—if ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston

... passed between the wind and the hound, father, and it makes him uneasy; or, perhaps, he too is dreaming. I had a pup of my own, in Kentuck, that would start upon a long chase from a deep sleep; and all upon the fancy of some dream. Go to him, and pinch his ear, that the beast may feel the life ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... he renewed that moment, and began to cherish the sense of an injury done him by the poor helpless thing. He did not pinch it, only because he dared not, lest it should cry. When he heard Clare fall on the coals, and then heard him call up from the depth of the cellar, he was greatly tempted to turn with it to the other end of the house, and throw it in the pool, then make for the wall and the fields, leaving Clare to ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... friend! No earthly use! And yet it is not a premeditated reflection, put in "for art's sake." It is the poetry of the pinch of Fate; it is the human revenge we take upon the insulting ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... a half ounces of semolina in three-quarters of a pint of milk until it is cooked, take the saucepan from the fire, add a little sugar and a very small pinch of salt; then stir in two well-beaten eggs; butter a small mould or basin well, pour in the mixture, cover the top with buttered paper, and steam the pudding for an hour either by putting it into a steamer or into a saucepan with boiling water half way up the basin ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various

... at a house of country, ancient with the trees cut like some peacocks, and I demand—"What you call these trees?" "Box, Sir," he tell me. "Devil is in the box," I say at myself. "But, never mind; we shall see." So I myself refreshed with a pinch of snuff and offer him, and he take very polite, and remark upon an instant—"That is a very handsome ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... plea, or, perhaps, to see whether he had got the attesting witness to prove some signature. But when we had got past all that I used to find that he had prepared his evidence with reference to what was the pinch of the case of what was likely to be finally the doubtful point in the mind of court or jury with infinite sagacity and skill. I have rarely known a better judge of the effect of evidence on the mind of ordinary juries. He took his clients into his affection ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... "they obsess you, they warp your judgment. Can you think of nothing in the world but boots? Look, we come to the gem of the exhibition—a velvet jacket! A jacket like this confers an air of greatness, one could not feel the pinch of poverty in such a jacket. It is, I confess, a little white at the elbows, but such high lights are very effective. And observe the texture—as soft as a ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... so; but when they was alive, if you was to pinch one of those fellows, the other fellow would sing out. If you was to black the eye of the left-hand chap, the right-hand chap wouldn't have been able to see for a week. When either of 'em fetched the other a clip, he knocked himself down. Labor and ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... not anything. If you choose a husband, or even a shoe, by their appearance, both may pinch you, my dear. Judah is of good stock. Of a good tree you ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... cure again, Snakes to charm and lure again— He'll be hurt by his own blade, By his serpents disobeyed, By his clumsiness bewrayed,' By the people mocked to scorn— So 'tis not with juggler born! Pinch of dust or withered flower, Chance-flung fruit or borrowed staff, Serve his need and shore his power, Bind the spell, or loose the laugh! ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... it off," cried L. W. in disgust, "we know you're bad—you've told us before. And as for Andrew McBain, you'd better not crowd him too far; he'll fight, on a pinch, himself." ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... howl and sent up a sudden shrill note of triumph. In a moment Paul was in a ring of ghastly old faces, in every one of which snapped a pair of cruel black eyes. Then the old women began to push him about, to pinch him, and to strike him, ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... seeing Robert pleased. He said Robert had a pure white soul, just like you, only I wasn't to tell him, because for him the Way ordained that he must find it out for himself. And today before lunch again, the Guru went down in the kitchen, and my cook told me he only took a pinch of pepper and a tomato and a little bit of mutton fat and a sardine and a bit of cheese, and he brought up a dish that you never saw equalled. Delicious! I shouldn't a bit wonder if Robert began breathing-exercises soon. There is one that makes you lean and ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... a wealthy widower, or a young woman married to a very old fellow. Now, do look round; I'll drop in again to-morrow;" and with a farewell pinch of snuff, she ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... under the vine on the housetop Habib muttered, too, and twitched a little. It was as if the arid months had got in under his skin and peeled off the coverings of his nerves. The girl's eyes widened with a gradual, phlegmatic wonder of pain under the pinch of his blue fingers on her arms. His face was ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... the next day was equally fair, so that it seemed an imprudence not to make sure of Aigues-Mortes. Nimes itself could wait; at a pinch, I could attend to Nimes in the rain. It was my belief that Aigues-Mortes was a little gem, and it is natural to desire that gems should have an opportunity to sparkle. This is an excursion of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... coming; said he ought really to be home, he felt so badly; had been so wretched, etc.; but he had waited so long, if he was going to do anything with me, it must be done now. Then he would draw a few whistles, pinch up his face and screw his mouth around in a way that convinced me he had no axe to grind. No one but a philanthropist would go out to see a ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... those two suffering images at the door is too mournful to be borne. I am dizzy with looking at these stalking figures. I don't believe they're real. I wish the house would take fire. I want an earthquake. I wish some one would pinch the President, or ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... be—surprised if I do. Oh, Miss Barb, I thank you just the same; but my father, Miss Barb, gave it to me, as a canon of chivalry, never to make a money bargain with a lady that you can't make with a bank. If I'm not man enough to get out of this pinch without—oh, pshaw!" ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... Exeter Street to St. Ann's Gate at the east side of the close. Fielding, whose grandfather was a canon of the Cathedral, is said to have lived in a house on the south side of the gate. Dickens was acquainted with Salisbury, but not until after he had made it the scene of Tom Pinch's remarkable characterization—"a very desperate sort of place; an exceedingly wild and dissipated city." It must not be forgotten that Salisbury is the "Melchester" of the Wessex Novels and that Trollope made the ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... also in good condition. My food and fuel supplies were ample for forty days, and by the gradual utilization of the dogs themselves for reserve food, might be made to last for fifty days if it came to a pinch. ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... an expression, which revealed all the pleasure which men feel who are accustomed to ride a hobby, overspread the lawyer's countenance. He pulled up the collar of his shirt with an air, took out his snuffbox, opened it, and offered me a pinch; on my refusing, he took a large one. He was happy! A man who has no hobby does not know all the good to be got out of life. A hobby is the happy medium between a passion and a monomania. At this moment I understood the whole bearing of Sterne's charming ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac

... time I must record here, because of the lasting impression made upon my religious life. Our family, like all others of peasant rank in the land, were plunged into deep distress, and felt the pinch severely, through the failure of the potato, the badness of other crops, and the ransom-price of food. Our father had gone off with work to Hawick, and would return next evening with money and supplies; but meantime the meal barrel ran low, and our dear mother, too proud and too sensitive ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... to him the Puritan founding of New England. As a body they had a worth, a sincerity, a true ring which could not fail of fine records. That knowledge helped him, in the difficult task of setting South Australia on its feet. His policy of severe economy made shoes pinch, but he held on, ever ready with the courteous word for those who ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne

... masks called "Britannia's Honor" and "London's Tempe" it must suffice to say that the former contains a notable specimen of cockney or canine French which may serve to relieve the conscientious reader's weariness, and the latter a comic song of blacksmiths at work which may pass muster at a pinch as a tolerably quaint and lively piece of rough and ready fancy. But Jonson for the court and Middleton for the city were far better craftsmen in this line than ever was Dekker ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... background if you want to," he said. "Believe me, I'm perfectly willing to take all the credit for pulling off this pinch." ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... like an aspen leaf, as she lay for a few moments unable to cry or move. Suddenly she believed that she was dreaming, and that the instrument which had burst through her window was a nightmare or a guillotine, and she made dreadful efforts to pinch herself awake without success. Next moment a man's head, looking very grim in the light of a bull's-eye lamp, appeared at the top of the guillotine. So far this was in keeping with her idea; but when the ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... made of zinc upon an iron framework, and would contain four people upon a pinch, but would easily convey three across a river. I had arranged it upon two stout bamboos so adjusted that four men should have carried it with ease. The natives demanded eight, but I at ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... cleansing the house and its implements with peculiar care. In Shropshire, for instance, "the pewter and brazen vessels had to be made so bright that the maids could see to put their caps on in them—otherwise the fairies would pinch them, but if all was perfect, the worker would find a coin in her shoe." Again in Shropshire special care was taken to put away any suds or "back-lee" for washing purposes, and no spinning might be done during the Twelve Days.{46} It was said elsewhere that if ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... "Yep; a pinch of chicken feed and wot felt like about four one-bone bills." The highwayman's accent was both ominous and contemptuous. "Say, wotcher mean drillin' round dis town in some kinder funny riggin' wit'out no plunder on you? I gotta right to belt you one ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... Japan during the night a long, plaintive kind of whistle, which, upon inquiry, I found proceeded from blind men or women, called shampooers, who are employed to rub or pinch those suffering from pain, and who cure restlessness by the same means. It is a favorite cure of the Japanese, and some foreigners tell us they have employed it with success. I suppose, this climate being productive of rheumatism and kindred pains, the people are prone to fly to anything ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... Jeanne was sewing in the kitchen when Toinette, sitting in the arm-chair by the extinct fire, fished out of her pocket the little olive-wood box with the pansies and forget-me-nots on the lid, and took a long pinch of snuff. She did it with somewhat of an air which ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... urging with pretended indifference that, "That flax's dead ripe now an' if it shatters out on th' ground you kin blame yourself," adding with grim humour, "There's nothin' like th' sound of money t' bring folks t' their senses. It's good as a pinch of pepper under th' nose of ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... return again; we have written and revised the laws both human and divine and we are afraid of our catechisms; we suffer thirty years without murmuring and imagine that we are struggling; finally suffering becomes the stronger, we send a pinch of powder into the sanctuary of intelligence, and a flower pierces the ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... (afterwards Lord Melbourne) and his brother George, and Byron. Lady Hester Stanhope ('Memoirs', vol. i. pp. 280-283) knew him well. She describes him "riding in Bond Street, with his bridle between his fore-finger and thumb, as if he held a pinch of snuff;" gives many instances of his audacious effrontery, and yet concludes that "the man was no fool," and that she "should like to see ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... did not deceive her woman's wits. He was not getting the lecture he anticipated, and this was his way of showing that he was not embarrassed by her kindness. The morning sunlight was pitilessly frank in its exposure of the grim pinch of poverty in the mean little room, but the woman was unconscious of these things; what she saw was that Jim, the reckless, Jim, the dare-devil terror of the country, Jim, who had married and settled with her into home-keeping respectability, Jim, ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... old man, who received a bottle of lotion. The third applicant wanted a charm to make herself beautiful. She was desired to wash herself once a day in cold spring water, into which she was to put a pinch of a powder with which the witch furnished her. While doing so, she was to ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... allowed—Dicere quiz puduit, scribere jussit amor—why should it not be so in self-love too? For if it be wisdom to conceal our imperfections, what is it to discover our virtues? It is not likely that Nature gave men great parts upon such terms as the fairies used to give money, to pinch and leave them if they speak of it. They say—Praise is but the shadow of virtue, and sure that virtue is very foolish that is afraid ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... to Ostend and procure a rabbit; honestly if possible, but procure it. Pinch its scut or bite its ears, and when it exclaims, "Miauw!" it is not a genuine rabbit, but a grimalkin in disguise. Some cats are very deceitful at heart. Bring your rabbit home, and then send to the nearest livery stables and borrow a curry-comb, then proceed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various

... Late that night, while the house slept, we had another talk in my room, when she went all the way with me as to its being beyond doubt that I had seen exactly what I had seen. To hold her perfectly in the pinch of that, I found I had only to ask her how, if I had "made it up," I came to be able to give, of each of the persons appearing to me, a picture disclosing, to the last detail, their special marks—a ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... whatsoever must belong; the motor currents of the world run through the like of it; it is on the line connecting real events with real events. That unsharable feeling which each one of us has of the pinch of his individual destiny as he privately feels it rolling out on fortune's wheel may be disparaged for its egotism, may be sneered at as unscientific, but it is the one thing that fills up the measure of our concrete actuality, and any would-be existent that should lack such a feeling, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... washed their hands, one by one, enter the room where the tablet is exposed, and advance half-way up to the tablet, facing it; producing incense wrapped in paper from their bosoms, they hold it in their left hands, and, taking a pinch with the right hand, they place the packet in their left sleeve. If the table on which the tablet is placed be high, the person offering incense half raises himself from his crouching position; if the table be low, he remains crouching to burn the incense, after which he takes three steps ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... said. "If some patrol comes along now we'll have plenty of cover, at least. This belt is a hundred miles wide, maybe a little more. Good hunting there. Plenty of desert hogs, as fat and as round as a ball of bovine butter. I can knock 'em over with a rock, and you can use your neuro, in a pinch." ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl

... my limb, desired him to examine it. The leech gazed intently from me to Toby, and then proceeded to business. After diligently observing the ailing member, he commenced manipulating it; and on the supposition probably that the complaint had deprived the leg of all sensation, began to pinch and hammer it in such a manner that I absolutely roared with pain. Thinking that I was as capable of making an application of thumps and pinches to the part as any one else, I endeavoured to resist this species of medical treatment. But it was not so easy a matter to get out of the clutches ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... father. How absurd you are! You know very well mother would hate the idea of me earning money. Hate it! But I mean to earn some. Surely it's much better to bring more money in than to pinch and scrape. I loathe pinching ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... nae will to the wark, but he had stood by Dougal in battle and broil, and he wad not fail him at this pinch; so doun the carles sat ower a stoup of brandy, and Hutcheon, who was something of a clerk, would have read a chapter of the Bible; but Dougal would hear naething but a blaud of Davie Lindsay, whilk was ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various

... Gerd van Riebeek said. "That is the body of a sapient being. There's the man who killed her. Go ahead, Lieutenant, make your pinch." ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... He took a pinch of sugar from the bowl and sprinkled it on Scotty's head as an offering to the gods, then bowed like a high ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... of ten hours, and the reflection that I should have to spend the time partly in the church and partly on the dark and rat-haunted staircase, without being able to take a pinch of snuff for fear of being obliged to blow my nose, did not tend to enliven the prospect; however, the hope of the great reward made it easy to be borne. But at one o'clock I heard a slight noise, and looking up saw a hand appear through the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... our hearts are stronger; three days, and aid must come from Bordeaux. The traitors are captives, and we know to whom to trust; for ye, of English birth, and ye, my countrymen, who made in so boldly to the rescue, ye will not fail at this pinch, and see a brave and noble Knight yielded to a ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... life in school was a time of unmixed happiness to her, but the holidays had to be faced and contact with the man whom she could only strive not to hate. His opium smoking habits increased, and the pinch of poverty was felt in the home from which he was able to steal so cunningly every article of value which might be exchanged for money and spent on ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... crevices may be well filled up with a cement made in the following manner: In a large iron spoon place a lump of beeswax about the size of a walnut, a pinch of the pigments mentioned on page 5, according to the colour required, a piece of common rosin the size of a nut, and a piece of tallow as large as a pea; melt, and it is ready for use. Some add a little shellac, but much will make it very brittle. A similar substance to the above can be bought ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead

... a curious story in the Vaugirard house," said the Brother Director, refreshing himself with a pinch of snuff, "which made the more impression upon me that I once knew intimately one of the persons in it. Martin Delette was my schoolmate at Pfalsbourg in the old days. A fine, studious lad he was, too. He took orders and went to the north, where he lived for many years ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... he. "You're the same good man in a pinch, and you shall have your reward. I've got a thousand pounds' worth if I've got a penn'oth. It's all in my pockets. And here's something else I found in this locker; very decent port and some cigars, meant for poor dear Danby's business friends. Take a pull, and you shall light up presently. ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... what I purpose to do. There is a line which will take me direct to the Milvian bridge, where I mean to have a bathe, and then a lunch at the restaurant across the water. Its proprietor is something of a brigand; so am I, at a pinch. It is "honour among thieves," or "diamond cut ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas



Words linked to "Pinch" :   hurt, capture, cut back, catch, snuff, fold, seizure, small indefinite quantity, small indefinite amount, harm, grip, clipping, crisis, flute, bite, sneak, turn up, clip, chomp, difficulty, fold up, lop, goose, squeezing, dress, crop, irritate, swipe, steal, tail, snip, trim, trauma, gaining control, prune, injury



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