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Bluff   Listen
noun
Bluff  n.  
1.
A high, steep bank, as by a river or the sea, or beside a ravine or plain; a cliff with a broad face. "Beach, bluff, and wave, adieu."
2.
An act of bluffing; an expression of self-confidence for the purpose of intimidation; braggadocio; as, that is only bluff, or a bluff.
3.
A game at cards; poker. (U.S.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bluff" Quotes from Famous Books



... and the case of poor Ben set forth in strong colors, several, who would not dream of going themselves, were busy in talking it up to others, who, they thought, might be tempted to accept it; and, at length, a Boston boy, a harum-scarum lad, a great favorite, Harry May, whom we called Harry Bluff, and who did not care what country or ship he was in, if he had clothes enough and money enough,— partly from pity for Ben, and partly from the thought he should have "cruising money'' for the rest of his stay,— came forward, and offered to go and "sling ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... air-shaft—that's about all there is to it. Twenty minutes before time for him to come home from work she straightens up the house, fixes her rat so it won't show, and gets out a lot of sewing for a ten-minute bluff. ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... from the Redmen on the bluff slackened and grew silent. The ammunition was exhausted. There was a movement in the group of braves. Crazy Horse and Bald Coyote turned to Four Hair-Brushes, who sat his steed Atalanta, last winner of the last Grand National, ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... speak of his capacity as a general, but at a time like this how they appoint a decrepit, blind old man, positively blind? A fine idea to have a blind general! He can't see anything. To play blindman's bluff? He ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... ape-man held his heavy spear; but he had no intention of pitting his puny weapon against seven lions; yet he stood there growling and roaring and the lions did likewise. It was purely an exhibition of jungle bluff. Each was trying to frighten off the other. Neither wished to turn back and give way, nor did either at first desire to precipitate an encounter. The lions were fed sufficiently so as not to be goaded by pangs of hunger and as for Tarzan he seldom ate the meat of the carnivores; ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and away she went down stream, rolling as if scudding in a gale, and, for a moment, under no command whatever. There lay another danger ahead, or it would be better to say astern, for the brig was drifting stern foremost; and that was in an eddy under a bluff, which bluff lies at an angle in the reach, where it is no uncommon thing for craft to be cast ashore, after they have passed all the more imposing and more visible dangers above. It was in escaping this danger, and in recovering the command of his vessel, that ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... road, a prey to very great disturbance of mind. The patience—humbleness even—of Betts's manner struck a pang to the young man's heart. The farm director was generally a man of bluff, outspoken address, quick-tempered, and not at all accustomed to mince his words. What Newbury perceived was a man only half persuaded by his own position; determined to cling to it, yet unable to justify it, because, in truth, the ideas put up against him ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... be around again," said the captain in his bluff, cheery way; "Ma'amselle Labesse has crossed with me many times, and though she usually succumbs for two or three days, she is a good sailor after that. She is passionately fond of music, too, and when she is about again you young people must ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... do not," was the vigorous reply. "I think they have been playing a huge game of bluff on us. That's why I am so worried about this trip. I wouldn't mind betting you the best dinner you ever ate at Delmonico's or at your English Savoy that that box with the broken seals they all got so excited about doesn't contain a ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... cave hermitages and halls. The caves are in a wooded and rugged ravine about 3 1/2 m. from the village. Along the bottom of the ravine runs the river Wagura, a mountain stream, which forces its way into the valley over a bluff on the east, and forms in its descent a beautiful waterfall, or rather series of waterfalls, 200 ft. high, the sound of which must have been constantly audible to the dwellers in the caves. These are about thirty in number, excavated ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Hudson's Bay Company was astounded to find the French at Rupert's River. Now he knew what had allured the Indians from the bay, but he hardly relished finding foreigners in possession of his own fort. The situation required delicate tact. Governor Bayly was a bluff tradesman with an insular dislike of Frenchmen and Catholics common in England at a time when bigoted fanaticism ran riot. King Charles was on friendly terms with France. Therefore, the Jesuit's passport must ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... miles were made in distance. When le Bourdon again landed, which he did shortly before the sun set, he calculated his distance from the mouth of the Kalamazoo to be rather more than a hundred miles. His principal object was to ascend a bluff and to take a look at the coast, in order to examine it for canoes. This his glass enabled him to do with some accuracy, and when he rejoined the party, he was rejoiced to have it in his power to report that the coast was clear. After refreshing themselves, the canoes were again brought together, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... warring in that relentless spirit, no one who is blessed with the ordinary amount of reasoning power looks for mercy even if it be promised. And Uncle Billy Rhodes did well to run his bluff down there in the willows ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... drew his breath in and puffed it out between his sentences, in his bluff way; but his eyes were kind, as he sat looking at the young girl over ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... up in a rough school. It would take all night to name half the jobs he's had a hand in, mostly of a shady nature, in every quarter of the seven seas: gun running, pearl poaching, what not—even a little slaving, I suspect, in his early days. He's a pompous old bluff in repose, but nobody's fool, and a bad actor when his mad is up. He tells me he fell in with the Delorme a long time ago, while acting as personal escort for a fugitive South American potentate who crossed the borders ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... of pretty Digby runs close to the water. The bluff is crowned by a grassy sward and a row of well-grown trees, with a driveway between these and the buildings on ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... is itself suggestive of rich romance and reminiscent of bold adventure. The smugglers, the pirates, the wreckers, and the Spanish mariners knew every bluff and headland perfectly. And, however the world beyond may have changed, these tiny hamlets have triumphantly defied the teeth of time. They know no alteration. The brogue of the people is strange but rhythmic, and, though pleasant to hear, very hard for ordinary ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... a very dangerous game, seldom worth the risk, and it involves, even for its occasional success, a very just estimate of your opponents. Remember that you cannot bluff even ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel

... Beryl had listened so intently to her mother's glowing descriptions of the beauty and elegance of her old home "Elm Bluff," that she soon began to identify the land-marks along the road, alter passing the cemetery, where so many generations of Darringtons slept in one corner, enclosed by a lofty iron railing; exclusive in death as in life; jealously guarded and locked from contact ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... ready: the nurse, the doctor, the undertaker, all bought, the certificate all ready but the date! Let him get wind of this business, and you mark my words, Uncle Masterman will die in two days and be buried in a week. But see here, Johnny; what Michael can do, I can do. If he plays a game of bluff, so can I. If his father is to live for ever, by God, so ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... came in and found them together. He felt at once the antagonism in the atmosphere, something radical and insuperable, and he bit his lip. But he affected a bluff manner. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... call having an extra bed in your room roughing it, Parkins?' said a bluff person opposite. 'Look here, I shall come down and occupy it for a bit; it'll be ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James

... planned before ever he came down here. That's a cinch. The fishing was all a bluff. The four of them had the hold-up arranged weeks ago. They've gone into a hole and drawn it ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... has not yet been determined; but it may possibly belong to the glacial period. Natchez is about 80 miles in a straight line south of Vicksburg, on the same left bank of the Mississippi. Here there is a bluff, the upper 60 feet of which consists of a continuous portion of the same calcareous loam as at Vicksburg, equally resembling the Rhenish loess in mineral character and in being sometimes barren of fossils, ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... found which contains 783/4 per cent, of silica, and l73/4 per cent, of alumina; from this clay is made the delicate, translucent eggshell ware, without the addition of any other matter. From an adjoining bluff a clay is taken which has 50 per cent, of silica, and 38 per cent, of alumina; from this the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... that met me from all points, because all who are to be convinced that these are the true ways in health culture will begin at once to enlighten their ailing friends, and will, therefore, encounter the same opposition. "Sir, you have not had enough opposition," said bluff, old Samuel Johnson. There will be no need to complain of any lack of this kind in the efforts to render suffering friends the only aid possible, that will be in persistent efforts ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... Contributions on the Public, if he does not cut himself short by Murder. Tom Tipple, a guzzling soaking Sot, who is always too drunk to stand himself, or to make others stand. A Cart is absolutely necessary for him. Robin of Bagshot, alias Gorgon, alias Bluff Bob, alias Carbuncle, ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay

... the position of attention is "chest lifted; and arched." There should be a stretch upward at the waist. The position should give the impression of a man as proud of himself as he can be. This is a bluff which works, not only by making a good first impression on others, but by causing the man himself to ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... anything of moment done, but a humble servant of yours ... had the greatest share in't.... Well, would you think it, in all this time ... that rascally Gazette never so much as once mentioned me? Not once, by the wars! Took no more notice of Noll Bluff than if he had not been in the land of the living."—Congreve, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... Gata, Carthagena. Cape Palos—all were gone. The sea was rolling over the southern extent of the peninsula, so that the yacht advanced to the latitude of Seville before it sighted any land at all, and then, not shores such as the shores of Andalusia, but a bluff and precipitous cliff, in its geological features resembling exactly the stern and barren rock that she had coasted beyond the site of Malta. Here the sea made a decided indentation on the coast; it ran up in an acute-angled triangle till its apex ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... began a bitter attack on the attitude of President Wilson. Colonel —— listened, and when the outburst was done, said: "Very well! Then I, too, will speak frankly. I have known President Wilson for many years. He is a very strong man, physically and morally. You can neither frighten him nor bluff him—" ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... did not think it safe to stand into it. From the Friars the land trenches away about N. by E. four leagues: We had smooth water, and kept in shore, having regular soundings from twenty to fifteen fathoms water. At half-past six we hauled round a high bluff point, the rocks whereof were like so many fluted pillars, and had ten fathoms water, fine sand, within half a mile of the shore. At seven, being abreast of a fine bay, and having little wind, we came-to, with the small bower, in twenty-four ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... just as well have made it grow upon the banks of a river, upon some pretty bluff, where it might have seen the boats pass; or, better still, upon the mall in some garrison village, where it could have had the pleasure of listening twice a week to military music. But, no! it was written in the book of fate that this unlucky sycamore should ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... come down over the Ridge from Warren County with him, he had his joke with me about my herb-basket and a-setting up opposition to him. It's in our blood. My own cousin Seliny Lue Lovell down at the Bluff follows the calling just the same as I do. I say the Lord were good to me to give me the love of it and a father and a husband and now a son to ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... replied; "but when Kovner went to work and painted the house and fixed the plumbing he called your bluff, Glaubmann; so the only thing to do is to ask ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass

... hunt for Tom," said the bluff farmer. "I know he must be somewhere around. Don't you worry so," for he could see that Nellie had ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield

... Mr Button long to reach the hill-top, and there she was, beating up for the island. Bluff-bowed and squab, the figure of an old Dutch woman, and telling of her trade a league off. It was just after the rains, the sky was not yet quite clear of clouds; you could see showers away at sea, and the ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... with the hunters. Presently the pain left my hips, or, more properly speaking, my feet got so sore from the constant walking over sharp rocks that my mind was diverted in that direction solely. While resting on the top of a high bluff overlooking the lakes, I heard a faint "halloo," which seemed to come on the wind from an immense distance. I called "Sam's" attention to it, and he immediately dropped behind a rock, out of the wind, until it was repeated ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... "Oh, that's all bluff," replied the journalist easily. "We never turn loose on anything but the surface of things. Why, if any one started in really to muckrake this old respectable burg, the smell would drive most of our ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... however, be morose and absent-minded in a party of which Cora Grimsby and Jennie Stone were the moving spirits. It was a gay crowd that crossed the harbor in the Stazy to land at a roughly built dock under the high bluff of the ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson

... I don't reckon anybody kin tell the distance o' the stars; they only put up a bluff on that. They ain't no ackshall way o' gittin' distance onless you lay a tape measure, er somethin' like it on the ground. These here surveyors all does it; I had 'em go ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... descending floods, toward the rushing torrents—drenched to the skin, on she passed toward the railroad to the well remembered foot-log, only to find the waters rushing along high above and beyond the place where it had been. Then she thought of the great bluff rising to the west of her home and extending southward toward the railroad track, and she determined to ascend it and reach the bridge over this barrier to the waters. Need I recount how she struggled on and up through the thick oak undergrowth, that, being storm-laden drooped and made more ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... Ladysmith and Colenso and awaited the coming of Botha. A force of cavalry was observed coming out of the besieged city, and it was apparent that they could readily cut off Botha from the other Boers. Blake determined to make a bold bluff by scattering his small force over the hills and attacking the enemy from different directions. The men were ordered to fire as rapidly as possible in order to impress the British cavalry with a false idea of the size of the force. The seventy-five ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas

... bills with a fifty on the outside. I held the money up where everybody could see it and I carried on scandalous when the bookmakers wouldn't take it, I'd have carried on a lot worse if one of them children of Israel had called my bluff. And then I got so mad because they wouldn't let me bet on 'Lisha that they thought I'd lost interest in Jeremiah.... I've heard that Jeremiah wasn't played. He was played all over the ring, two dollars at a time and it was my money that played ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan

... spanned the stream, and thence bore away northward like the tines of a pitchfork, the one to the right going over the hills a three days' march to the Indian agencies up along the "Wakpa Schicha," the other leading more to the west around a rugged shoulder of bluff, and then stretching away due north for the head-waters of the Niobrara and the shelter of the jagged flanks of Rawhide Butte. Only in shadowy clusters up and down the stream was there anywhere sign ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... help feeling deeply moved as the newly reunited Collinses left the laboratory together. Even the bluff deputy, O'Connor, was touched by it and under the circumstances did what seemed to him his higher duty with a tact of which I had believed him scarcely capable. Whatever the ethics of the case, he left it entirely to Dr. ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... district kadi, a venerable-looking and genial old gentleman whose acquaintance we had made in an official visit on the previous day, as he was then the acting caimacam (mayor). His house was situated in a neighboring valley in the shadow of a towering bluff. We were ushered into the selamluek, or guest apartment, in company with an Armenian friend who had been educated as a doctor in America, and who had consented to act as ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... cheer, the bluff old boy; and, forgetting all our quarrel in the thought of the long-bow and arrows, we trooped at his horse's tail to the open space, and doffed our coats ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... Owen in his bluff, cheery way when they had retired to the study for coffee and cigars, "I am in a difficulty, I must ask you some questions that may embarrass ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... 'good' family. He was liberal, frank, amiably autocratic in his home, apt to be peppery with inferiors who missed the line of perfect respect, candid and reasonable with equals or superiors. For his boy he reserved a store of manly affection, seldom expressing itself save in bluff fashion; his sister he patronised with much kindness, though he despised her judgment. One had now and then a feeling that his material circumstances aided greatly in making him the genial man he was, that with beef and ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... large pine-trees on the right bank of the river. During the afternoon the temperature had fallen below zero; a keen wind blew along-the frozen river, and the dogs and men were glad to clamber up the steep clayey bank into the thick shelter of the pine bluff', amidst whose dark-green recesses a huge fire was quickly alight. While here we sit in the ruddy blaze: of immense dry pine logs it will be well to say a few words on dogs ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... is the red fort, built on a bluff, and commanding a harbour beautiful to look upon, with its wooded island, its sharp high points, its sombre swamps covered with lacing mangroves, but locked from all the world but that which can come in sailing ships, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... bluff and gruff man, was a deal more tender-hearted than he was willing to admit. The death of his daughter broke the heart of Old Noll—he could not live without her. So passed away Oliver Cromwell in his sixtieth year. The very human side of his nature was shown in his supposing that his son Richard ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... without self confidence, lacks the truthfulness of the strong, his voice does not resound and compel, he dances and fidgets, grins and is grave in the same instant. If the men's attitude be sullen, he tries to be bluff and hearty, "my-boys" them, claps them heartily on the shoulder, or lapses into whining and gushing. It is all of worse than no avail with these undeceivable readers of character. It is a curious effect of the working of esprit de ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... weary the reader, we tracked the marauders, and came across them at earliest dawn the following morning, cooking their dog-stew under the shelter of a high bluff, with the stolen horses picketed near, in a ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... dense growth of leather-leaved bushes and low, scrubby China-berry, sea-grape, and Jamaica-apple trees. The highest part of the Key is occupied by the city, and the highest part of the city is the low bluff on its western side, where the slender shaft of the lighthouse stands at a height of fifteen or eighteen feet above the level of tide-water. Owing to its geographical position in a semi-tropical sea, just north of the Gulf Stream and within the zone of the northeast trade-winds, ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... world who have sipped all the pleasures the city has to give. Masters of the art of entering a drawing-room, the Parisians crowd seaward to get the sure foot of the mussel-gatherer upon the slimy granite of a bluff Norman headland; they bring their taste with them, and they get heartiness in the bracing air. The salon of the casino, at the height of the season, is said to show at once the most animated and diverting assemblage of Somebodies to ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... until success should have crowned his efforts. He turned back into the interior, into the country of the Chickasaws, marched diagonally over the present State of Mississippi to its northwest corner, and crossed the Mississippi River near the lowest Chickasaw Bluff. From this point the general direction of the Spanish progress was southwest, through what is now Arkansas, past the site of Little Rock, till at last a river which seems to have been the Washita was reached. Down this stream de Soto and his decimated force floated—two hundred ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... cafes, but the greater part staid little whitewashed summer-dwellings with green verandas and occasional roof-balconies; set down irregularly, without street or system, along the sunny slopes of the bluff. Murray's Handbook for 1848 gives it passing notice, and disrespectfully styles it the dullest place upon earth for one having no resources of friends upon the spot. But in the modern edition of forty years ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... that had been planted in fat, loamy ground, to look at him. There was a healthy, liberal, lazy life for you! Yet the winter sky looked gray and dumb when he passed the window, and the fire-light broke fiercest against his bluff figure going to and fro. No matter; something there that would have warmed your heart to him: something genial, careless, big-natured, from the loose red hair to the indolent, portly stride. "Who knows? A comfortable, true-hearted, merry clergyman,—a jolly farmer, with open ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... "'Bachelor Bluff' is bright, witty, keen, deep, sober, philosophical, amusing, instructive, philanthropic—in short, what is not ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous

... few minutes the whistle was heard, and the conductor entered the building. Receiving his instructions, he returned, and immediately on engine, tender, and platform appeared the trainmen, with their rifles covering the group on the bluff. Sinclair put ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various

... that there will be one here in a day or two if we need it," said Browne with a sly grin. "That's the bluff we've worked." He looked around for his wife, and, finding that she had gone inside, politely waved his hand to ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... to occupy a station at the mouth of the St. Peters, on the Mississippi, have established themselves there, and those who were ordered to the mouth of the Yellow Stone, on the Missouri, have ascended that river to the Council Bluff, where they will remain until the next spring, when they will proceed to the place of their destination. I have the satisfaction to state that this measure has been executed in amity with the Indian tribes, and that it promises to produce, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe

... be. The difficulty does not lie with them, but with the women who have a few weeks' or months' training, who blossom out into full uniform and call themselves Sister Rose, or Sister Mabel, and are taken at their own valuation by a large section of the public, and manage through influence or bluff to get posts that should only be held by trained nurses, and generally end by bringing shame ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan

... pleased she was to see me! and Jimmy and his father and mother were just as glad. There was famous "clam chowder" for tea, and such great big blackberries, that we really had to make two bites of them! not to mention the quantities of other good things; and after tea we strolled out on the bluff, which overlooks the ocean. There are three pretty little summer houses before the Mansion House, and in one of these we took our seats. Gipsey had come scampering up to me in delighted recognition as we left ...
— Neighbor Nelly Socks - Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow

... probably, of the flocks of sheep the natives foolishly turned off the island,—brought us to the spot. We passed occasional water-holes, that reminded us also of the West, and a few cattle. Two or three lonely farm-houses loomed up in the distance, like ships at sea. We halted our rattle-trap on a bluff covered with thick green turf. On the edge of this bluff, forty feet above the beach, is Siasconset, looking southward over the ocean,—no land between it and Porto Rico. It is only a fishing village; but if there were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... shadowing the strange girl, had kept well in under the shadow of the bluff, and could not have been seen; and when he saw the man confront the girl, he moved rapidly forward, and gained a point near enough to overhear the talk ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"

... father? The child can't live. It is one of the worst cases of croup I have had this year, why didn't you send for me sooner? Where is his father? It is now just twelve o'clock, time for all respectable men to be in the house," said the bluff but kind hearted family doctor looking tenderly upon Jeanette's little boy who lay gasping for breath in ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... harbors: Bluefields, Corinto, El Bluff, Puerto Cabezas, Puerto Sandino, Rama, San ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... good to me, Roy Pell." The miser sank back on the grass, while Roy hurried to the edge of the bluff and making a trumpet of his hands, ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... run them down, and would throw them into great bustle and alarm, but the next flash would show her far off, always sailing against the wind. Sometimes, in quiet moonlight nights, she would be seen under some high bluff of the Highlands; all in deep shadow, excepting her top-sails glittering in the moonbeams; by the time, however, that the voyagers reached the place no ship was to be seen; and when they had passed on for some distance and looked back, behold! there she was again with her top-sails ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers

... the end of the year, La Touche received orders to join Mr McDonald, a factor, with several other men, to assist in establishing a fort on one of the streams which run into the Fraser River. The spot selected was on a high bluff, with the river flowing at its base. The fort was of a simple construction. It was surrounded by a palisade of stout timbers, fixed deeply in the ground, and united by cross-bars, further strengthened by buttresses, and loop-holed ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston

... guy in the act of pulling a chair over the spot. He said he was replacing the chair where he found it. I've been wondering whether he wasn't actually covering up the spot himself. When we caught him in the act, maybe he just decided to bluff it out." ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne

... squire's bluff florid face was pinched with anxiety, and worn with the effort of being deaf to the footsteps of fate as he said these words which ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... who came to the mill or the village store; was elected "road commissioner" and bossed the neighbors when they had to work out their poll-tax, and turned his hand to any other affairs that offered a penny's recompense. The "real estate business" was what Seth Davis labeled "a blobbering bluff," for no property had changed hands in the neighborhood in a score of years, except the lot back of the mill, which was traded for a yoke of oxen, and the Wegg farm, which had been sold without ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... until the time of bluff King Hal that lace became an article of fashion, when during the life of the last of his unfortunate queens he permits "the importation of all manner of gold and silver fringes, or otherwise, with all new 'gentillesses' of what facyion or value, for the pleasure ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes

... McGuire, with a flash of his old asperity, "nobody can't bluff me. You never ast me. You made your spiel, and you t'rowed me out, and I let it go at dat. And, say, friend, dis chasin' cows is outer sight. Dis is de whitest bunch of sports I ever travelled with. You'll let me stay, won't ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... games, from tag and jumping rope, to blindman's bluff and hide-and-seek. Snap was made to do a number of tricks, much to the amusement of the teachers and children. Danny Rugg, and some of the older boys, got up a small baseball game, and then Danny, with one or two chums, went off in a deeper part of the woods. Bert heard one of the boys ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope

... had been progressing for some time before the captain's arrival. In front of the bluff of rock blazed a fire made of birch and maple, and on a spit before this a huge piece of venison was roasting. A hideous old woman, with eyes like a rattlesnake, and draggled hair coloured like the moss upon an aged fir, stood by the spit, ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... fifty years, off and on—ever since, in fact, the press-masters of bluff King Hal denuded the Dorset coast of fishermen and drove the starving women of that region to sea in quest of food [Footnote: State Papers Domestic, Henry VIII.: Lord Russell to the Privy Council, 22 Aug. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... never have to re-live the horrors of the next hour. In spite of my bluff and hearty ways, in times of trouble I am as reticent as a clam. I was determined to hide my agony and anxiety from the well-meaning people of the Moose Hotel. I hurried to the railway station to send a telegram to the Professor's address in Brooklyn, but found the place closed. ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... various camps of Wise's Legion, Jackson's and Huger's divisions, and others of the rebel forces; while riverwards his eye could easily reach, with the aid of the glass and when the smoke of the field did not arise too thickly, the famed Drury's Bluff and the redoubtable Fort Darling itself, still frowning defiance ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... read Miss Mason's letter for the third time, and again the cold touch of fear assailed her. She took a camp stool and sat by the edge of the bluff for a long time, watching the water. Then she went indoors ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... came to breakfast this morning Rob was capering over another victory—Ball's Bluff. He would read me, "We pitched the Yankees over the bluff," and ask me in the next breath to go to the theater this evening. I turned on the poor fellow: "Don't tell me about your victories. You vowed by all your idols that the blockade would be raised by October ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... my way quickly back to Barbara with the poor spoils of my expedition. I rounded the bluff of cliff that protected her hiding-place. Again I stood amazed, asking if fortune had more tricks in her bag for me. The recess was empty. But a moment later I was reassured; a voice called to me, and I saw her some thirty yards away, down on the sea-beach. I set down pasty and ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... there shaking his head like a toy in a window. People tried to get past him in all the ways people try to get through life, in the ways that Saint Peter must grow very tired of at the gate of heaven—bluff, whine, bribery, ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... ..." he blustered. He was trying to run a bluff, to find out whether we were on the right quarter-section or whether, like ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... dare interfere! I want the gown, but I know she'll come down,—if she doesn't, I'll make a bluff at going. Then if she sticks to her price, I'll ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch

... John Bull as a national type; but it shows great reserve in the use of him, and now continually resorts to Britannia as a substitute. Is not this because our old friend John is now only a survival, a tradition of the past? The bluff, stout, honest, red-faced, irascible rural person—of whom the photographs of John Bright remind us—has really been supplanted by a more modern, thinner, nervous, intellectual, astute type. For English ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... enough to of lasted." The imputation sobered Little Joe and he shrugged his massive shoulders significantly. Shorty's laugh was shrill with contempt. "Oh, you're big enough," he sneered. "But what does beef count agin a lightning flash?" He grew reminiscent. "I seen him bluff ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... (Leaning her parasol against bench, and stepping up to him in very business-like manner.) Very well, then. I accept your challenge. You can't bluff me out. I believe that ALL men lie when they talk to women, and I am under the impression that you are no exception. Keep your ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... drew up in the squalid station, where the branch line to Haifa meets the main Hedjaz railway and the two together touch a mean town at a tangent; for a French officer in uniform boarded the train and stalked down the corridors staring hard at everyone. He asked me for a passport, which was sheer bluff, so I asked him in turn for his own authority. He smiled and produced a rubber stamp, saying that if I wished to visit Beirut or Aleppo I must ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... all right," said Miller, "but it was a woman's idea of a bluff, and it didn't go. She told us that before we urged her brother on to fight, we should have found out that he has spent the last five years in Paris, and that he's the gilt-edged pistol-shot of the salle d'armes in the Rue Scribe, that he can ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... he found sufficient under-brush, aided by the darkness of the night, to conceal himself from view. Hardly had he taken up this position when the noises suddenly became very distinct. The Indians, while following the trail, had made a turn round a bluff and were almost beneath him. Now the hunter felt his situation to be most precarious, for, should his mule bray, as these animals are apt to do when others are approaching, his own life would have to pay the forfeit; but, to prevent this, Armador held the mule's nostrils firmly with his hands ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... chapel and look carefully about him, he will soon perceive something to remind him of his distant home, and of the Province of which that home is the capital. Several feet above his head, on the inner wall, he will notice a medallian portrait in bold relief, by Flaxman, of a bluff, hearty, good-humoured-looking English gentleman, apparently in the prime of life, and attired in the dress of a Lieutenant-General. His hair, which is pretty closely cut, is rather inclined to curl—evidently would curl if it were ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... trouble is, if he's on to the game, it's just what he'll expect. But I've been thinking how we may be able to bluff—make him think it was his guilty conscience tricked him to imagine our interest in his movements. You know I'm giving a dinner to-morrow ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... him. "Very well, captain. I'll call your bluff, come along." He turned on his heel ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... bluff on the other side of the cove from Captain's Hill, Jimmy suddenly dropped his side of the basket of clams. "Hi!" he exclaimed. "Why can't we go up into the light-house, now Mr. Flint ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... I tell you, I've botched it all up! And just for want of money enough to buy an automobile! Brains never took a doctor anywhere—nothing but money and bluff!" ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... Creek. It was late in the afternoon. The Boy was passing on his way home from a point farther up the stream. Not more than twelve, but tall and strong for his age, he came along the rough path at the foot of the bluff with the easy movement and grace of a young deer. He checked a moment when he saw the Doctor, as a creature of the forest would pause at first sight of a human being. Then he came on again, his manner and bearing showing frank interest, and the clear, sunny face of him flushing a bit ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... route, at last reached Philadelphia in safety, and were welcomed by kind and sympathizing friends. Mrs. Grier's patriotism was of the active kind, and she was very soon employed among the sick and wounded soldiers who reached Philadelphia after Bull Run and Ball's Bluff, or who were left by the regiments hurrying to the front at the hospitals of the Volunteer and Cooper Shop Refreshment Saloons. With the establishment of the larger hospitals in January, 1862, Mrs. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... hearties!" called the bluff, cheerful voice of Captain Spark. "Heave up the anchor, brace around the yards, for we've got a good wind, a free ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster

... division. Each of these French generals has a striking individuality of his own which I wish I could fix upon paper. Their only common point is that each seems to be a rare good soldier. The corps general is Athos with a touch of d'Artagnan. He is well over six feet high, bluff, jovial, with huge, up-curling moustache, and a voice that would rally a regiment. It is a grand figure which should have been done by Van Dyck with lace collar, hand on sword, and arm akimbo. Jovial and laughing was he, but a stern and hard soldier was lurking behind the smiles. His ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle

... called their bluff. They thought we'd have a case of nerves when we saw them come rushing towards us. But we've seen those fellows' backs too often to be afraid of ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall

... and started back. He knew nothing about boats; but the bay was very smooth, it was yet early, and he got across in due time. As he neared the island he saw her, in her white dress, standing on the bluff, and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... prevailed upon the others forward to insist upon it. Well, you know the feeling of an officer up against mutiny. No matter what the provocation, he must put the mutiny down; so, when the men came aft, they found me with the mate, and dead against them. We called their bluff, drove them forward at the muzzles of our guns, and promised them relief from all work except handling sail if they would take the ship to Queenstown. They agreed, because they could not do anything else, and the mutiny was over. But my conscience bothered me later on; for if I had joined them, ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... is most frequently described is that known as the Basket trick, which is in my opinion the chef d'oeuvre of the Indian Jadoo-wallah. It is a wonderful bluff usually wonderfully shewn. ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson

... Albufera, a strange concentration of poverty and degradation, housing in wretched shanties a people that lives among the reeds and mud of the lake marshes, fishing in the murky, shallow waters from black, bluff-bowed boats that look like coffins. On these ashen, weather-beaten features indigence was drawn in its most ghastly outlines. Every eye was aglow with the wild gleam of fever; and the odors that came from clothes, here, had not the vigorous pungency ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... garden will be, all nicely fenced to keep out the cattle; and over there, under the trees, will be the chicken-house, with big white hens swaggerin' in and out of it and down the ravine there will be the pig-pasture, and forninst us will be acres and acres of wheat, and be hind the bluff there will be the oat-field. I ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... a walk around to the rear if you want to," answered Slugger's father. "I'll see if I can't bluff those fellows into letting us ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer

... links were being joined together in the chain of evidence against O'Reilly, the man who had followed Angel into the Limited—the man against whom Clo had presently to try her wits. What concerned her most was that her first attempt at bluff had failed. Something in Peterson's manner forced her to believe that he had indeed served out his full sentence, and for the moment had nothing to fear from the police. Clodagh hid her disappointment with ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... tactics for keeping discipline; tricks which they conceive as profoundly hidden from their underlings, and which are intimately known and discussed by those underlings.... There are the bosses who "bluff," those who lie, those who give good-fellowship or grave courtesy in lieu of wages. None of these was Mr. Wilkins. He was dully honest and clumsily paternal. But he was a roarer, a grumbler; he bawled and ordained, in order to encourage industry ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... memory. But as the sun dipped towards the sea, we passed out of the narrow gateway. On our left lay the plain of Troy, backed by the blue range of Mount Ida. The tamulus of Patroclus crowned a low bluff looking on the sea. On the right appeared the long, irregular island of Imbros, and the peaks of misty Samothrace over and beyond it. Tenedos was before us. The red flush of sunset tinged the grand Homeric landscape, and lingered and lingered on the summit of Ida, as if loth ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... without contradiction of the Apostle's statement is confirmed by his use of the word 'Christian,' which had by no means come into general employment when he spoke; and in itself indicates that he knew a good deal about the people who were so named. Mark the contrast, for instance, between him and the bluff Roman official at his side. To Festus, Paul's talking about a dead man's having risen, and a risen Jew becoming a light to all nations, was such utter nonsense that, with characteristic Roman contempt for men with ideas, he breaks ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... haze, And suddenly the sun shot flaming forth; To southward lay "Katawa", with the sand peaks all ablaze, And the flushed fields of Glen Lomond lay to north. Now westward winds the bridle-path that leads to Lindisfarm, And yonder looms the double-headed Bluff; From the far side of the first hill, when the skies are clear and calm, You can see Sylvester's woolshed fair enough. Five miles we used to call it from our homestead to the place Where the big tree spans the roadway like an arch; 'Twas here we ran the dingo down that gave us such a chase ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... the way he had several years before when he had bluffed his way into a gigantic pot during a Washington poker game, with only a pair of fours to work with. At the last moment, his bluff had been called. ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett

... "You needn't try to bluff me," said Bagley. "I've been on to your game for a good while. You can fool some of the people, but you can't fool me. I'm too old a ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... high bluff, and at the time of our arrival was nearly inaccessible. The heavy rain which had been falling for many hours would have made any steep ascent difficult, but unfortunately a new road had been recently marked out, which beguiled us into its almost bottomless mud, from the firmer footing ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... while before this occurrence I had directed my party to proceed to the village, as I had discovered a smoke ascending from a hollow in the bluff, and wished to go alone to the place from whence the smoke proceeded, to see who was there. I approached the spot, and when I came in view of the fire, I saw an old man sitting in sorrow beneath a mat which he had stretched over him. At any other time I would ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk

... we're going to get you out on parole and make an honest, upright citizen of you. We're going to get you a nice job',—and so on and so forth. Well, before he knows it, he's out and has to put up a bluff of workin' for a livin'. Course, he just has to go to stealin' again. It makes him sore when he thinks of the good, honest life he was leadin' up there in the pen, with nothin' to worry about, satisfactory hours, plenty to eat, and practically divorced from his ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon

... looked extremely picturesque in the pale moonlight, with the grand sandstone bluff of the island of Balhalla standing out boldly in the foreground against the starlit sky; but the coast-line seemed still more beautiful in the bright morning sunshine. The brilliant light was relieved by some heavy thunder-clouds fringing the Bay of Sandakan and hanging in ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... Master of the House. Far from it. He, with the family, was pleased when the Master of the House returned from a long cruise and proceeded immediately to make himself very much at home. For the Master of the House was a captain in the navy, and as hearty, bluff, and good-natured as ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... called Mungo Murray, whose name would seem to show that he was of Scottish birth. The most familiar example of whipping-boy is mentioned by Fuller in his "Church History." His name was Barnaby Fitzpatrick, and the prince whose punishments he bore was Edward, son of bluff King Hal, who was afterwards Edward VI., the boy-king ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... demand no championship from her sons. On an occasion in History, our bluff British monarch, our Eighth Royal Harry, almost went there. And long ere the periodical in which this exposure will appear, had sprung into being, Tattlesnivel had unfurled that standard which yet waves upon her battlements. The standard alluded to, is THE TATTLESNIVEL BLEATER, containing ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens

... morning gown," and with him his confidential clerk Bartlett (the Taggart of Lavengro). Sir Richard was at first enthusiastic and cordial, but when he learned from William Taylor's letter that Borrow had come up to earn his livelihood by authorship, his manner underwent a marked change. The bluff, hearty expression gave place to "a sinister glance," and Borrow found that within that loose morning gown there was a ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... rocky bluff on the coast of Lanai there is a cave whose only entrance is through the vortex of a whirlpool. Its floor gradually rises from the water, and is the home of crabs, polypi, sting-rays, and other noisome creatures of the deep, who find here ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... the age of twenty-five, took Alice Warren for his wife. He had been in the army—fought through from Bull's Bluff to Richmond—had come out with a captain's commission. He had come from the army with but little money; but he had a good trade, a stout pair of hands, and had borrowed no trouble for the future. Alice had saved up ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... smacked rather of a threat," said Will. "Suppose we call the bluff, and keep him waiting. What do you say if we go and dine at ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... did find out this. There is some secret about the child's parentage. I have spoken with two people who know it, and one of them warned me that in keeping the child we were interfering in a greater matter than we had any idea of. Of course it might have been a bluff, but I fancy that ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... plain enough in a view of London to which Maitland affixes the date about 1560 (the second year of Elizabeth), so we may perhaps safely put it down as early as Edward VI. or Henry VIII. Indeed, if a certain scrap of history is correct—i.e., that bluff King Hal once threatened, if a certain Bill did not pass the Commons a little quicker, to fix the heads of several refractory M.P.s on the top of Temple Bar—we must suppose the old City toll-gate to be as old as ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... hour's ride from the Plaza there is a high bluff with the ocean breaking uninterruptedly along its rocky beach. There are several cottages on the sands, which look as if they had recently been cast up by a heavy sea. The cultivated patch behind each tenement is fenced in by bamboos, broken spars, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... valley, at least those which are obvious outliers of the Patkaye range, are characterised by conical peaks, and there is a bluff rock of good elevation to ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... bluff speaker, with a chuckle, and he thrust his hand into his pocket. "There you are; there's a shilling for you to get some cider. I dare say you know where better than I can tell you. No, ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... and not far from the bluff, a vigorous rivulet started from beneath the half-bared roots of a monster beech, and fell over an outcropping boulder into a pool so clear that sand on its bottom, worked mysteriously into a pattern by the action of the water, ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... after practice was over, instead of joining in the little stream that eddied back to the academy grounds, he struck off to where a long straggling row of cedars and firs marked the course of the river. Once there he found himself standing on a bluff with the broad, placid stream stretching away to the north and south at his feet. The bank was some twenty feet high and covered sparsely with grass and weeds; and a few feet below him a granite bowlder stuck its lichened head outward from the cliff, forming an inviting seat from which ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... in!" came in a loud, bluff, rather rich voice; and the next minute Archie was face to face with the fine-looking, white-haired, florid Major in command of the infantry detachment stationed at Campong Dang in support of Her Majesty's Resident, Sir Charles Dallas, whose duty it was to instruct the Malay ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... pleasure to all parties. The knight was pleased with the manners of the merchant, who, owing to his visit to Italy, had little of the formal gravity of his craft, while there was a heartiness and straightforwardness in his speech that well suited the bluff knight. The ladies were no less pleased with each other, and Dame Agatha found herself, to her surprise, chatting with her visitors on terms of equality, and discoursing on dress and fashion, the doings of the Court and life in the city, as if she had known ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... King George was and had been essentially a sailor Prince; that he had in his younger days been open-handed, free, and possessed of a certain natural and bluff and pleasant geniality which was, however, quite different from the urbane, charming, courtly geniality of King Edward; that something of this characteristic had disappeared from public view after the death of his brother, the Duke of Clarence, and his own assumption of public duties ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... could they use the paddles. It was out on one bank with a tow-line over the shoulders stumbling over the rocks, forcing a way through the underbrush, slipping at times and falling into the water, wading often up to the knees and waist; and then, when an insurmountable bluff was encountered, it was into the canoe, out paddles, and a wild and losing dash across the current to the other bank, in paddles, over the side, and out tow-line again. It was exhausting work. Antonsen toiled like the giant he was, uncomplaining, persistent, but driven to his utmost ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... and a series of knolls jutting down to the stream, which, with frequent sharp curves and crooks, wound its way among them. On turning one of these sharp points, my eyes suddenly encountered a sight that made my heart jump. On a high, open, and almost bare bluff, directly before me, and not fifteen rods distant, stood two tremendous moose, as unconcernedly as a pair of oxen chewing their cuds, or dozing in a pasture. The last was unusually large, the biggest a monster, appearing, to my wide-opened eyes, with his eight or nine foot height, and ten or eleven ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... from force of habit on having it scamped. Then he was almost happy, because he felt that he was doing someone down. If there were an architect superintending the work, Misery would square him or bluff him. If it were not possible to do either, at least he had a try; and in the intervals of watching, driving and bullying the hands, his vulture eye was ever on the look out for fresh jobs. His long red nose was thrust ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... to him, "Well, why don't you move?" as though we were playing checkers instead of the game of life. He made no reply, but the spell was broken. I believe that both sides had been bluffing. In attempting to use my kodak while continuing the bluff, I brought matters to a focus. "What a picture you fellows will make," I said aloud, as my right hand slowly worked the kodak out of the case which hung under my left arm. Still keeping up a steady fire of looks, I brought the kodak in front of ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... transport them. Two flags of truce were sent to the enemy, but the officer who bore them did not return. Colonel Scott then fixed a white handkerchief on the end of his sword, and, accompanied by Captains Totten and Gibson, passed under the river bluff and started to ascend the heights. They were met by Indians, who fired on them and rushed with tomahawks to assault them. A British officer happily arrived and conducted them to the quarters of General Sheaffe, and Colonel ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... we did not move camp, but leaving the twenty men detailed for camp duty in charge of the camp and stock, I took my entire scout force to escort Gen. Crook to Black canyon. When we came to where the trail started down the bluff, he asked me how far I had been down. I told him about a mile, but did not let him know that Lieut. Jackson was with me at the time, knowing that the General wanted the glory of being the first officer to investigate and ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan

... luxuriously as the next of delights to having her beside him.—She wrote of; 'Thoughts that are bare dark outlines, coloured by some odd passion of the soul, like towers of a distant city seen in the funeral waste of day.'—His bluff English anti-poetic training would have caused him to shrug at the stuff coming from another pen: he might condescendingly have criticized it, with a sneer embalmed in humour. The words were hers; she had written them; almost by a sort of anticipation, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... is a bluff game, intended to deceive me," said Vernon, showing symptoms of anger. "I can assure you that it ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... they were by their heavy oil skins, their progress was slow, although the water barely reached their knees. The Three Brothers was bumping when they reached her and clambered on board over the bluff sides, sticky with salt ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman



Words linked to "Bluff" :   scare, Pine Bluff, sheer, bold, deceit, bluffer, cards, frighten, bluffness, pretense, card game, call one's bluff, deception, bank, steep, bluff out, blindman's bluff, dissimulation, four flush, dissembling, feigning, pretence, go, move, fright, affright, direct



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