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Thoroughbred   /θˈəroʊbrˈɛd/   Listen
Thoroughbred

noun
1.
A well-bred person.
2.
A racehorse belonging to a breed that originated from a cross between Arabian stallions and English mares.
3.
A pedigreed animal of unmixed lineage; used especially of horses.  Synonyms: pureblood, purebred.



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"Thoroughbred" Quotes from Famous Books



... to be duped by no intrigue because you hold the threads of all within your fingers; to see through all partitions; to penetrate all secrets, search all hearts, all consciences,—these are the things you fear! And yet you were not afraid to go and wallow in a Thuillier bog; you, a thoroughbred, allowed yourself to be harnessed to a hackney-coach, to the ignoble business of electing that ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... zone of the town's main street—and in the darkness, headed toward New York, Jimmie Dale, his nonchalance gone now, leaned forward over the wheel, and the big sixty horse-power car leaped into its stride like a thoroughbred at the touch of the spur, and tore onward at dare-devil speed through ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... is all feminine gameness, Trusting her insights, ardent for living; She would be weeping with me and be laughing, A thoroughbred, ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... to take defeat gracefully: defeat seldom came. "Never let even a pawn be taken," he gave me, a small boy, as a rule for the game. Even in little things he liked thoroughness,—a capacity for painstaking which is, I think, characteristic of the "thoroughbred." ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How

... he said, "a clean shot, a thoroughbred. I ask no better comrade than you. I never again shall have such ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers

... mystification equal to his own, by his sister across the table. No one, reflected Edith, could image Mary Vertrees the sort of girl who would "really flirt" with married men—she was obviously the "opposite of all that." Edith defined her as a "thoroughbred," a "nice girl"; and the look given to Roscoe was astounding. Roscoe's wife saw it, too, and she was another whom it puzzled—though not because ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

... exercise that I had indulged in, together with the self-evident truth that the Lord had blessed me with a constitution that a young bull might envy, had all conspired to make me a young giant in strength, and as a result I was as full of animal spirits as is an unbroken thoroughbred colt, and ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... man's temerity in acquiring them. Finally he had lost one foot in a mowing machine, and the accident destroyed his further usefulness to the extent of inducing him to abandon the farm and move into town. Here he endeavored to find something to do to eke out his meagre income; so he raised "thoroughbred Plymouth Rocks," selling eggs for hatching to the farmers; doctored sick horses and pastured them in the lot back of his barn, the rear end of which was devoted to "watermelons in season"; sold subscription books to farmers who came to the mill or the village store; was elected "road commissioner" ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... the discipline which had tamed the unwarlike population of the fields and cities might not answer in camps. To fling people by scores out of a boat, and, when they catch hold of it, to chop off their fingers with a hatchet, is undoubtedly a very agreeable pastime for a thoroughbred Jacobin, when the sufferers are, as at Nantes, old confessors, young girls, or women with child. But such sport might prove a little dangerous if tried upon grim ranks of grenadiers, marked with the scars of Hondschoote, and singed ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... fictitious origin. The Master of Ravenswood attitudinises a little too much with his Spanish cloak and his slouched hat; but we feel really sorry for him when he disappears in the Kelpie's Flow. And when Scott has to do with his own peasants, with the thoroughbred Presbyterian Scotchman, he can bring intense tragic interest from his homely materials. Douce Davie Deans, distracted between his religious principles and his desire of saving his daughter's life, and seeking relief even in the midst of his agonies by that admirable burst of spiritual ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... re-read the paragraph. "Miss Daisy Bankshire ... more than usually lovely..." Yes; she was lovely. He had often seen her photograph in the papers—seen her represented in every conceivable attitude of the mundane game: fondling her prize bull-dog, taking a fence on her thoroughbred, dancing a gavotte, all patches and plumes, or fingering a guitar, all tulle and lilies; and once he had caught a glimpse of her at the theatre. Hearing that Ronald was going to a fashionable first-night ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... night of Edith's ordeal. Even Trix was a little nervous—only a little—is not perfect self-possession the normal state of American young ladydom? Lady Helena was quite pale in her anxiety. The girl was handsome beyond dispute, thoroughbred as a young countess, despite her birth and bringing up in a New England town and Yankee boarding-house, with pride enough for a princess of forty quarterings, but how would she come forth from the fiery furnace of all those pitiless eyes, sharpened to points to watch for gaucheries and solecisms ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... all means," said Gildart, "if you have a respectable horse. I love to ride, not only on the 'bursting tide,' but on the back of a thoroughbred, if he's not too tough in the mouth, and don't ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... ordinary newspaper correspondent, who imagines that a letter to the 'Times' is the ultimate remedy for all the evils to which flesh is heir. Dickens's early novels, said Fitzjames, represented an avatar of 'chaff'; and gave with unsurpassable vivacity the genuine fun of a thoroughbred cockney typified by Sam Weller. Sam Weller is delightful in his place; but he is simply impertinent when he fancies that his shrewd mother wit entitles him to speak with authority upon great questions of constitutional reform and national policy. Dickens's later assaults upon the 'Circumlocution ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... was the best trainer out here, and he used to take two years to get a horse to his satisfaction. For school horses, you must have thoroughbreds, because their appearance is half their success. We had a New Zealand thoroughbred that had raced, and was turning out a splendid school horse, and he got burnt after costing a year's training. That's the luck of the game, you know. You keep at it year after year, and sometimes they die, and sometimes they get crippled—it's ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... who had become greatly interested in the youth and had made him a frequent companion, giving him the inestimable advantage of familiar intercourse with a thoroughbred gentleman of varied accomplishments, in 1748 sent this sixteen-year-old lad to survey his vast estates in the unexplored lands at the base of the Alleghany Mountains. During this rough expedition young Washington was exposed to the hostilities of unfriendly ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... members of this last set is the daughter-in-law of a Missouri senator and a very pretty woman. Another of this set is the woman who was voted the best dressed woman at the horse show in a newspaper scheme. Her father is a millionaire doctor and her husband is a thoroughbred. It cannot be said even of this set, however, that it is fast in the immoral sense in which that word usually is employed. It is gay and the women are only unfortunate in having nothing to do and in dispelling weariness by silly and flashy ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... corker!" Macloud broke out. "Look at the poise of the head, and ease of carriage, and the way she puts down her feet!—that's the way to tell a woman. God! Croyden, she's thoroughbred!" ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott

... "By what means could I go straight to Zeus?" Then he made himself very slender little ladders and so clambered up towards heaven; but he soon came hurtling down again and broke his head. Yesterday, to our misfortune, he went out and brought us back this thoroughbred, but from where I know not, this great beetle, whose groom he has forced me to become. He himself caresses it as though it were a horse, saying, "Oh! my little Pegasus,(1) my noble aerial steed, may your wings soon bear me straight to Zeus!" But what is my master doing? ...
— Peace • Aristophanes

... or gives 10,000 francs does not receive them to bury them; that would be against the hypothesis. He uses them to pay for goods, or to discharge debts. In the first case, trade is encouraged. Will any one pretend to say that it gains more by Mondor's purchase of a thoroughbred horse for 10,000 francs than by the purchase of 10,000 francs' worth of stuffs by Aristus or his friend? For if this sum serves to pay a debt, a third person appears, viz., the creditor, who will certainly employ them ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... D. Williams, of Lexington, Kentucky, who, more than any other American, is entitled to speak upon coursing, and especially upon coursing large game. Col. Williams, like a true son of Kentucky, has bred his own thoroughbred horses and thoroughbred hounds for many years; and during a series of long hunting trips extending over nearly a quarter of a century he has tried his pack on almost every game animal to be found among the foot-hills of the ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... seat by her side; the mechanic cranked and jumped to his place. The motor snorted, trembling like a thoroughbred about to run a race, then subsiding with a sonorous purr swept sedately out into the deserted street, swung round a corner into Broadway, settled its tires into the grooves of the car-tracks and ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... his pocket. The girl, thoroughbred, looked him straight in the face, pale, meeting what she felt to be the great moment of ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... he chooses, and the most difficult to get hold of, is the thoroughbred colonial. Being able to read and write does not, however, keep him from being as brutal as Coupeau, and, except from a muscular point of view, he is often by no means a promising specimen of colonization. It is from this section ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... on, as I did my best. "But it was no smiling matter out there. No one does smile after the first week; your sense of humour is the first thing the cure eradicates. There was a hunting man at my hotel, getting his weight down to ride a special thoroughbred, and no doubt a cheery dog at home; but, poor devil, he hadn't much chance of good cheer there! Miles and miles on his poor feet before breakfast; mud-poultices all the morning; and not the semblance of a drink all day, except some ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... inserted, for the purpose, in their own street doors. There were beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spotted barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. As it would have been hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a handle, so it would have been no easy task to mention any human ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... you know—about my stable, on account of Blue Blazes. Course, it's foolish, but I guess the old fellow had a tough time of it when he was young, same as I did; and now—well, he just suits me, Blue Blazes does. I'd rather ride or drive him than any thoroughbred in this country; and, by jinks, I'm bound he gets whatever he wants, even if I have to lug in a lot of red-headed men from ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... displaying his new thoroughbred in the box stall, and of dogs and motor boats; and Merle and the other boy spoke in a strange jargon of their prep school, where you could smoke if you had the consent of your parents. Merle talked largely of his ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... a thoroughbred and it was head up and run as she saw in a second, so she smiled up at him and said in a perfectly ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... Miss Dent. I know any number of fellows who are doing the same thing. We can't all be officers; a few of us must take orders. Out in the hunting field, we say it is the thoroughbred dog who answers to call ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... For what thoroughbred member of the equestrian order does not know that next—and even that not always—to the ladies of his family and, possibly, the key of his cellar, an Englishman's stable is sacrosanct? Dispose of anything he owns rather than his horses. To attempt touching them is, indeed, to ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... quarters he himself went in to the Merchant and told him all that had befallen him and gave him the book containing the story of Sayf al-Muluk and Badi'a al-Jamal, when Hasan joyed with exceeding joy at the sight and bestowed on him all the clothes he had on and gave him ten thoroughbred horses and the like number of camels and mules and three negro chattels and two white slaves. Then Hasan took the book and copied out the story plainly in his own hand; after which he presented himself before the King and said ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... the same undeniable authority) was as warm as the sun itself, with this great advantage over the sun, that it was always in nice order to look at. Add to the foregoing that she carried her head as upright as a dart, in a dashing, spirited, thoroughbred way—that she had a clear voice, with a ring of the right metal in it, and a smile that began very prettily in her eyes before it got to her lips—and there behold the portrait of her, to the best of my ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... had an idea of taking it and giving it to Sylvia, but they wouldn't have that either,—are just fixing up the old house a bit, and going to summer at the farm, while the old lady will keep on selling eggs the same as ever. Not but what she's a thoroughbred all right, though in a cheap stable. I was down at Vivvy's the day she came to call on Sylvia! Just as quiet and cool, except that her hands in the openwork silk mits shook, as if her son was a duke. I thought there would be a lively ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... windmill, littered around with empty shot- gun shells. He had put up a good fight. But no trace could we find of the two Italian labourers, nor of the house-keeper and her husband. Not a live thing remained. The calves, the colts, all the fancy poultry and thoroughbred stock, everything, was gone. The kitchen and the fireplaces, where the mob had cooked, were a mess, while many camp-fires outside bore witness to the large number that had fed and spent the night. What they had not eaten they had carried away. ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London

... any signs of life from the after suite. Then I heard the door pushed back, and saw a head come out, a head with dark tendrils of hair at the white neck's nape, and two curls at the temple, and as clean and thoroughbred a sweep of jaw and chin as the bows of the Belle Helene herself. She did not look at me, but studiously gazed across the river, pretended to yawn, idly looked back to see if she were followed; as she knew she was ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... a special appeal for a Mission Vessel by the next mail. We cannot get on without one. Vessels built for freight are to the "Southern Cross" as a cart-horse to a thoroughbred steed, and we must have some vessel which can do the work quickly among the multitude of the isles, and many other reasons there are which we seamen only perhaps can judge fully, which make it quite essential to the carrying on this peculiar ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... traces." Said Al-Abbas, "And what hath Al-Akil done with King Zuhayr?" They replied. "He engaged for himself that he would bring the King every year a thousand dinars and a thousand she-camels, besides a thousand head of thoroughbred steeds and two hundred black slaves and fifty hand-maids; but it hath reached the king that Al-Akil purposeth to give naught of this; wherefore he is minded to go to him. So hasten thou with us, ere the King be wroth with thee and with us." Then said Al-Abbas to them, "O youths, sit by ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse, Cambridge, England, 1905. A standard work, though many of its conclusions are disputed, especially by Lady Wentworth in her Thoroughbred Racing Stock and ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... world to tell you, too. I had my adventures yesterday as well as you. Who do you think called upon me after you set out? You'll never guess, so I may as well tell you at once; it was—but you shall hear how it happened. I was just pulling my boots on to try a young bay thoroughbred, that Reynolds thinks might make a steeple-chaser—he's got some rare bones about him, I must say. Well, I was just in the very act of pulling on my boots, when Shrimp makes his appearance, and squeaking out, 'Here's a gent, as vonts to see you, sir, partic'lar,' ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... whelps at a birth. They rushed clamorously into the presence of the Lioness and demanded of her the settlement of the dispute. "And you," they said, "how many sons have you at a birth?" The Lioness laughed at them, and said: "Why! I have only one; but that one is altogether a thoroughbred Lion." ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... the ferry-house were inexorably shut against them when at last Maitland brought the big machine to a tremulous and panting halt, like that of an over-driven thoroughbred. And though they perforce endured a wait of fully fifteen minutes, neither found aught worth saying; or else the words wherewith fitly to clothe their thoughts were denied them. The girl seemed very weary, and sat with head drooping ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... plantations, where black slaves and indentured servants labored, and from their coastwise and overseas trade. Their battles with forest and red man were long past. They had leisure for diversions such as the chase, the breeding and racing of thoroughbred horses, the dance, high play with dice and card, cockfighting, the gallantry of love, and the skill of the rapier. Law and politics drew ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... name—determined to seek out this man. He locked up his precious stones in iron chests, delivered his palaces, vineyards, ships and servants into the keeping of his steward, gave his women to the protection of the gods, and gathered his slaves round him. He rode out of the town on a thoroughbred steed, he wore soft, bright-coloured garments adorned with gold and jewels, his scimitar at his side, and waving feathers of rare birds in his hat. A troop of servants accompanied him, and by his side rode Moors on African camels, holding a canopy over him to protect him from the sun, ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... might have been noble as well as free. There is something so petty in our resumed bondage. Figure to yourself a thoroughbred horse that had kicked off the traces, and stood free upon the open plain with arched neck and lifted nostrils, sniffing the morning air! and behold he creeps back to his harness, and makes himself again a slave! We had done with the Stuarts, at the cost of a tragedy, and in ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... there, and there are some excellent herds of dairy cattle, though the scarcity of reliable labor makes this form of farming hazardous. The cattle tick is being conquered, and more beef is being produced. Thoroughbred ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson

... Gavin, smiling at the man's new ardor for battle. "It would be a pleasant little brush—if it weren't for your sister. Miss Standish has seen about enough of that sort of thing for one night. If she weren't a thoroughbred, with the nerves of a thoroughbred and the pluck as well, she'd be a wreck, from what has happened already. More of it might be seriously bad ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... his rider endeavored to thrust him by, within half a dozen lengths of the winning post, the incarnate nightmare turned squarely about and fixed upon him a portentous stare—delivering at the same time a grimace of such prodigious ghastliness that the poor thoroughbred, with an almost human scream of terror, wheeled about, and tore away to the rear with the speed of the wind, leaving the colonel an easy winner in twenty minutes and ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... with his ugly face and his long lean limbs, seemed as some other species of animal, or a Derby winner let loose among a pen of prize hackneys and cobs. Many of them are splendid of their kind, but it is perfectly absurd to pretend they look thoroughbred. One would not expect it of animals, with their mixed ancestry, so why of ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn

... in a bitch. A thoroughbred fox terrier bitch strayed and was discovered a day or two later with her right foreleg broken. The limb was set under chloroform with the help of Roentgen rays, and the dog made a good recovery. Several weeks later she gave birth to a puppy with a ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... grasp of that magnetic ardor, produced by an influx of the nervous fluid, which lights a brazier in the midriff of ambitious men and lovers intent on high emprise, Popinot, so gentle and tranquil usually, pawed the earth like a thoroughbred before the race, when he came down into ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... first time young Monkey saw thoroughbred horses. They were a revelation to the lad. He stood and gaped ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... which he began in 1577, he came down upon the Spanish-American settlements like a storm from the sea. He attacked towns, carried off treasure, captured merchant-vessels,—and in fact showed himself to be a thoroughbred and accomplished ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... the cousins were rivals. Sir Charles's favorite horse was a magnificent thoroughbred, who was seldom far off at the finish: over good ground Richard's cocktail had no chance with him; but sometimes, if toward the close of the run they came to stiff fallows and strong fences, the great strength of the inferior animal, and that prudent reserve of his powers ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... black dog, typical in nearly every respect, except colour, of the black Newfoundland. There is no appearance of cross-breeding in Landseer's dog; on the contrary, he reveals all the characteristics of a thoroughbred. Seventy years ago, therefore, the white and black variety may be fairly considered to have been established, and it is worthy of mention here that "Idstone" quoted an article written in 1819 stating ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... "Miss Della Wetherby has asked me to give her and her sister a 'character,' which I am very glad to do. I have known the Wetherby girls from babyhood. They come from a fine old family, and are thoroughbred gentlewomen. You need not fear on ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... question always troubles me. It is embarrassing. Imagine saying to a young lady who likes to ride thoroughbred hunters across fields and over ditches and fences: "I should like a handsome horse, one that will cause me to appear to advantage, one that looks spirited but ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... no," he answered. "I'll come. There is no use in being sentimental about the place going out of our family, and these Morristons are quite the right sort of people to have it. A splendidly thoroughbred ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William

... came tearing down with a spirited bay, a magnificent stepper. As he drew along so that Bert could catch a glimpse of the mare's neck, he thrilled with delight. There was the thoroughbred's lacing of veins; the proud fling of her knees and the swell of her neck showed that she was far from doing her best. There was a wild light in ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... beauty I want," said Wild Bill, pointing to a black horse, full sixteen hands high, and evidently a thoroughbred. "Name your price, and he is ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline

... and I are up, and find it is not over; a small thoroughbred, white bull-terrier, is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled with. They are hard at it; the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his pastoral enemy fighting wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and a great ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... in silver leaves. Old Mr. Bell not unfrequently joined in these excursions. His white hair, and long silky white beard, formed a picturesque variety in the group; while all recognized at a glance the thoroughbred aristocrat in his haughty bearing, his stern mouth, his cold, turquoise eyes, and the clenching expression of his hand. Mrs. King seemed to have produced upon him the effect Gerald had predicted. No youthful ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... fast enough for me, so I gave the throttle another jerk, and whew! how those big drivers did fly around! I shut her off quickly, gave her a little sand, and started again. This time she took the rail beautifully, walking away like a thoroughbred. ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... joy, and strength of young life; could have felt so royal, mounted on a half-broken, roughly- groomed western colt (for that's what the "steed" really was), with few fine points and no pedigree to speak of—what must the glorious exercise have been to that great little Queen, re-enthroned on thoroughbred, "highly-groomed," ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... agony was her pitiful effort to take her medicine like a lady. It was terrific how hard it was for one of a wildcat heritage and habit to keep the caterwaul back and the claws muffled. The self-duel nearly wrecked Zada, but she won it. She was not thoroughbred, but she had tried to be thoroughgoing. She was evidently not a success as a self-made lady. She kept ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... a genuine pride in the prosperity of the republic. As for beauty, the world, surely, in this later time, had flowered here —flowered with something of Aspasia's grace and something of the haughty coldness of Agrippina. And yet it was American. Here and there in the boxes was a thoroughbred portrait by Copley—the long shapely neck, the sloping shoulders, the drooping eyelids, even to the gown in which the great-grandmother danced with ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... straight throat and the curving neck; it was in her graceful attitude; it was everywhere. 'No doubt,' the ghosts might have said, 'there are more beautiful women in England than this one, but surely there is none more like a thoroughbred and a Derby winner!' ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... moving here and there over the ground, his head bent and his attention fixed. Scanlon chuckled as he watched him, and marveled at the similarity between the movements of his friend and those of a thoroughbred hound. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre

... her last preparations for the ball. The old habit was so strong upon her that unconsciously she gave a little swing of the hips to throw her skirt out—to show herself to the greatest advantage in the perfect dress. There was a tiny suggestion of the thoroughbred horse in the paddock—as there always is in the attitude of some young persons, though they would not be grateful were one to tell them of it—a certain bridling, a sleek step, and a lamentably obvious search for the eye of admiration. Fitz opened the door for ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... driving through the grounds late the following afternoon we were met by a tall girl, who was accompanied by two thoroughbred retrievers. ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade

... chair in the place, daughter of the old couple; and her brother lay extended on a bed made of indescribable things in one portion of the cabin, where the tiles in the roof showed no openings to the sky. His wife, a thoroughbred Gipsy, sat nursing a baby—their first-born—on the edge of the bed. The wood walls were covered with old clothes, sacking, and a variety of odd things, fastened in their places by wooden skewers, and adorned with a few pots and pans used in ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... doubt that Washington, like most healthy boys, got into a good deal of mischief, and it is not at all impossible that he injured fruit-trees and confessed that he had done so. It may be accepted as certain that he rode and mastered many unbroken thoroughbred colts, and it is possible that one of them burst a blood-vessel in the process and died, and that the boy promptly told his mother of the accident. But this is the utmost credit which these two anecdotes can claim. Even so much as this cannot be said of certain other improving ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... house of lords, with a dull gravity, began its business. The proceedings were important, from the announcement made and the explanation given by the Duke of Newcastle, the minister of war. His bearing was gentlemanly, and there was an air of conciliation about it which bespoke the thoroughbred gentleman. His voice was low, and his manner in speaking ungainly; an awkward and finicking gesture with the right hand below the table, to which he advanced when speaking, gave an idea of pettiness of thought, which his manner in other respects aided. The Earls ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... an old woman who lived at first in the kitchen of "the other house" and afterward on the home farm. Tall and thin, with big, thoroughbred eyes, and long, straight hair, like a witch, turning gray, she was rather terrifying, but more than anything else she ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy

... poor little memoir. I show you our daily lives, more than the "great events" of history. That is the way the brave Butler and his South Carolinians amused themselves—and the figure of this soldier is worth placing amid my group of "paladins." He was brave—none was braver; thoroughbred—I never saw a man more so. His sword had flashed at Fleetwood, and in a hundred other fights; and it was going to flash ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... feelings? My name, mine engrafted on the innocent offspring of the thoroughbred Funks, evermore to be by them and their heirs handed down to posterity! How I rejoice at that circumstance, and the intelligence I have so happily received about the wretched situation you speak of. Fancy, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... power and goodness Jamie could believe anything, and though he opened his eyes wide at his sister's story, his face grew radiant with joy, as just at that moment he caught sight of Lord Dundale trotting slowly down the lane on his beautiful thoroughbred bay mare. In a moment he was over the fence, in the road, in the very path of the rider, crying out in an agony of entreaty, "Stop, stop, my lord! our Rab is dead; ye maun ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood

... quiet enough. But if you want to hunt next winter, you must let me mount you." His glance rested on her slim, boyish contours. "I've a little thoroughbred mare up at Heronsmere—Redwing, she's called—who ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... who saw in her "devil take me!" the finest thoroughbred in Norway. Again there were those who would "by all the powers!" have given their hope of salvation for—I dare not say for what. But there were also those who thought of the times of chivalry and saw in their mind's eye the token ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... there. A real thoroughbred manufacturer will get the better of two or three hundred weavers in the time it takes you to turn round—swallow 'em up, and not leave as much as a bone. He's got four stomachs like a cow, and teeth like a wolf. That's nothing to him ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... incorrigible Strachan. "Bailie Beerie is a brick, and I won't hear a word against him. But, O Fred! if you only knew what you missed last night! Such a splendid woman—by Jove, sir, a thoroughbred angel. A bust like one of Titian's beauties, and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... the crowd rapidly subsided. Carker spoke to them calmly, explaining that the two young men who had brought his speech to such a sudden termination were his bosom comrades of old times, even thought they might not be thoroughbred socialists. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... dictated by the youthful despot, aided and abetted by his father. The sacred rites of 'what isn't done' were established, and the mother gradually found herself in the position of an outsider—a privileged outsider, it is true, yet little more than the breeder of a thoroughbred, admitted to the paddock to watch his horse ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... mahstah," said the old man, with a certain solemnity of tone. "I done heard old Mahstah Jean Larue swear that if folks are reckoned as horses are, Retta'd be counted a thoroughbred, 'cause far back as they can count theah wan't no scrub stock ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... lineage. Could it be that Richard was Mr. Gwynn's secretary? This looked in no wise probable; he went about too much at lordly ease for that. In the end, the notion obtained that Richard must be a needy dependent of Mr. Gwynn, and his perfect clothes and the thoroughbred horse he rode were pointed to as evidences of that gentleman's generosity. Indeed, Mr. Gwynn was much ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... many miles out of his way and had argued for a good while, and had finally paid a good many dollars to get the dog that sniffed and wagged at Helen May. The dog was a thoroughbred Airedale and had been taught from its puppyhood to herd goats and fight all intruders upon his flock and to hate Mexicans wherever he met them. He had learned to do both very thoroughly, hence the argument and the dollars necessary before Starr ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... and then agreed unconditionally. "As you say, Mr. Dwyer," he returned. "I've heard of you for a thoroughbred sport. I know you'll do what you say you'll do; and as for me I'll do what you say and just as you say, and it's a very pretty piece of work ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... Sophists; moreover the smallest matter—as you will fully appreciate—acquires an importance all the greater in proportion as the thing is perfect, of which it forms a part. If you slit the ear of a cart-horse, what does it signify? but suppose the same thing were to happen to a thoroughbred horse, a charger that you ride on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... shoulders of the "halfback," and the lean hips of a runner were his, and he had earned them in four years on his varsity football and track teams. The girl beside him, half a head shorter, tripped along with the easy action of a thoroughbred. Both bore the name of Marvin, yet there ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... the air towards the crested neck. One missed its mark, but the other fell, true as a gun-shot over the small, thoroughbred head. It was Jacky's rope which had found its mark. A hitch round the horn of her saddle, and her horse threw himself back with her forefeet braced, and faced the captive. Then the rope tightened with a jerk which taxed its rawhide ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... disgusted people with political economy; and would disgust them with parliamentary reform, if it could associate itself in public opinion with the cause[106]. This was indeed to turn the tables. The half-hearted disciple was insulting the thoroughbred teacher who had borne the heat and burthen of the day, and from whom he had learned his own doctrine. Upon this and other impertinences—the assertion, for example, that Utilitarians were as incapable of ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... watching one day came upon one of the large Ephemera (the Browndrake), an insect ten times as large as the spider, but after many points (for the setting of the spider before it springs is very similar in manner to that of a thoroughbred pointer [17]), in which it kept varying its position, apparently to gain some advantage, it gave up the attempt, discretion proving the better part ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett

... left the Yellowstone, asked me to carry him some important despatches from General Sheridan, and although I objected, he insisted on my performing this duty, saying that it would only detain me a few hours longer; as an extra inducement, he offered me the use of his own thoroughbred horse, which was on the boat. I finally consented to go, and was soon speeding over the rough and hilly country toward Powder River, and I delivered the despatches to General Terry the same evening. General Whistler's horse, though a good animal, was not used to such hard ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... rushing beast of a horse;" but, before he could explain his errand, the hunter, who was nearly quite thoroughbred and a magnificent animal, dashed on, evidently determined to gain, without delay, some ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... Olisippo is the modern Lisbon. This tradition about the mares of the region is repeated by Virgil (Geo. III, 272) by Columella (VI, 27) and by Pliny (VIII, 67). Professor Ridgeway in The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse describes it as "an aetiological myth to explain the swiftness of horses" for the fleetest horses came out of the West; thus Pegasus was born at the springs of the ocean, and there is the passage in Homer (Iliad, ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... comment: "It is like tying together the legs of a thoroughbred, so that it is unable to gallop." One would naturally think of "the ruler" in this passage as being at home, and trying to direct the movements of his army from a distance. But the commentators understand just the reverse, and quote the saying of T'ai Kung: "A kingdom should not be governed ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu

... goes straight to business—enquires, examines, pronounces, prescribes—and then, if any time is left for light discourse, discusses the rival merits of "Rugger" and "Soccer," speculates on the result of the Hospital Cup Tie, or observes that the British Thoroughbred is not deteriorating when he can win with so much on his back; pronounces that the Opera last night was ripping, or that some much-praised play is undiluted rot. Not thus did Dr. Parker Peps regale Mrs. Dombey, or Sir Tumley Snuffim soothe the ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... himself, as he ran down the road toward a little brook he remembered having crossed, a few hundred yards to southward. "Nerve, indeed! Not one complaint about her own injuries! Not a word of lamentation! If this isn't a thoroughbred, whoever or whatever she ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... threads, till lost in the immensity of the distance. At mid-day we descended the valley, and reached a hovel, where an officer and three soldiers were posted to examine passports. One of these men was a thoroughbred Pampas Indian: he was kept much for the same purpose as a bloodhound, to track out any person who might pass by secretly, either on foot or horseback. Some years ago a passenger endeavoured to escape detection ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... not. I've a sick headache. Can't you see the arteries throbbing under the almost hairless skin of my temples—the transparent, bluish skin that denotes a thoroughbred? It's atrocious! The veins on my forehead are like writhing vipers, and I don't know what gnome forges in my brain! Oh, be quiet! Or at least speak so low that the coursing of my agitated blood may drown the sound of ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette

... the largest bear in captivity and a thoroughbred Californian Grizzly. No naturalist needs a second glance at him to classify him as Ursus Horribilis. He stands four feet high at the shoulder, measures three feet across the chest, 12 inches between the ears and 18 ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... was a fine Kentucky thoroughbred, but for the kind of work at hand I had full confidence in my mount. Whenever Custer was not looking I slyly spurred the mule ahead, and when he would start forward I would rein him in and pat him by way of ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)

... it seemed that there was some chance, though we wondered the policeman could have let Pincher go when he saw he didn't want to, but he said it wasn't his business. And now we asked every one if they'd seen a lad and a thoroughbred fox-terrier with a ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... patient. They are not so patient as they seem; they must be hypocrites! A cruder, simpler people like the Germans feel indignation, not unmixed perhaps with envy, when they hear the quiet voice and see the white lips of the thoroughbred Englishman who is angry. It is not manly or honest, they think, to be angry without getting red in the face. They certainly feel pride in their own honesty when they give explosive vent to their emotions. They have not learned the elements of ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh

... come down, with his feet bunched, on the opposite side of the stream. The next instant he was up and over the hill, and had stopped panting in the very centre of the pack that were snarling and snapping around the fox. And then Travers showed that he was a thoroughbred, even though he could not ride, for he hastily fumbled for his cigar-case, and when the field came pounding up over the bridge and around the hill, they saw him seated nonchalantly on his saddle, puffing critically ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... did it, old top. I'm merely pointing out that it's possible she did. Point of fact your friend made a hit with me. I'd say she's a game little thoroughbred." ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... very young," I said. "A thoroughbred Persian does not learn to speak English like a university man, and to quote German proverbs, in a residence of a few years; unless, indeed, he possess the secret by which the initiated absorb knowledge without effort, and assimilate it without ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford



Words linked to "Thoroughbred" :   thoroughbred race, brute, secretariat, race horse, Count Fleet, grownup, creature, Gallant Fox, thoroughbred racing, pedigree, pureblood, purebred, War Admiral, pedigreed, animate being, animal, racehorse, bangtail, adult, Affirmed, citation, assault, Omaha, beast, Seattle Slew, fauna, Whirlaway, Sir Barton



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