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Claw   Listen
verb
Claw  v. t.  (past & past part. clawed; pres. part. clawing)  
1.
To pull, tear, or scratch with, or as with, claws or nails.
2.
To relieve from some uneasy sensation, as by scratching; to tickle; hence, to flatter; to court. (Obs.) "Rich men they claw, soothe up, and flatter; the poor they contemn and despise."
3.
To rail at; to scold. (Obs.) "In the aforesaid preamble, the king fairly claweth the great monasteries, wherein, saith he, religion, thanks be to God, is right well kept and observed; though he claweth them soon after in another acceptation."
Claw me,
Claw thee
, stand by me and I will stand by you; an old proverb.
To claw away, to scold or revile. "The jade Fortune is to be clawed away for it, if you should lose it."
To claw (one) on the back, to tickle; to express approbation. (Obs.)
To claw (one) on the gall, to find fault with; to vex. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Claw" Quotes from Famous Books



... hard enough for the gallant Shake-bag of Sir John Boaster; although Sir John Boasters famous Shake-bag, but three weeks before, had fought against that incomparable Game-Cock of Squire Owls-eg, and claw'd him ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... the grip and had felt it before; no claw of desert beast was firmer or more unrelenting. Young Hortensius felt his whole body give way, his very bones crack beneath that mighty grip. His head, overheated with wine, fell back against the cushions of his couch, ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... reproduce Josephine's description exactly), which had been discarded at the time we began housekeeping as too old-fashioned and peculiar. Of equal import was a disreputable-looking mahogany desk with brass handles and claw feet which had belonged to my great-grandmother before it was banished to the garret within a month after our wedding ceremony, on the plea that none of the drawers would work. They don't still, for that matter. A cumbersome, stately Dutch clock ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... in a circle, with their eyes turning towards us—as if they were waiting for us to die to come and eat us. One big fellow left his place in the circle and waddled up to my feet and examined my boots. First with one claw and then with the other he took a taste of my boot. He went away obviously disgusted: one could almost see him shake ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... there? Why, I set him up with a box of his own, directly above the Robinson-Jones box—you can always get one for a single performance if you are willing to pay for it—and with a fair expanse of shirt-front, a claw-hammer and a crush hat almost any man who has any style to him at all these days can pass for a gentleman. All he had to do was to go to the opera-house, present his ticket, walk in and await the signal. ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs

... a crab fights," said Cousin Tom. "And sometimes two big crabs will fight so hard that one pulls a claw off the other. You have caught a ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope

... to find Mr. Andrew Larkspur alone, and disengaged. He was a little, sandy-haired man, of some sixty years of age, spare and wizened, with a sharp nose, like a beak, and thin, long arms, ending in large, claw-like hands, that were like the talons of a bird of prey. Altogether, Mr. Lark spur had very much of the aspect of an elderly vulture which had undergone partial transformation ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... a new idea. He broke off a piece of the cookie and held it in his claw while he ate it; and seeing his success Twinkle followed his example, and after a few attempts found she could eat very ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum

... The ship is in a category, and he will be an impudent scoundrel who denies it; but worse categories than this have been reasoned out of countenance. All head-sail is not a convenient show of cloth to claw off a lee-shore with; but I still hope to escape the misfortune of laying eyes on ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... he must have died, although he managed to claw off of it, with confessing of his wickedness, and striking to his Maker. All of us was frightened so, there was no laugh among us, till we come to talk over it afterward. There the thundering rascal ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... down to floor level with a look of surprise. Weaving a pattern about his legs, purring loudly, Sindbad was offering an unusually fervent welcome of his own. The Ranger went down on one knee, his hand out for Sindbad's inquiring sniff. Then the cat butted that dark palm, batted at it playfully with claw-sheathed paw. ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North

... being closed, a pin on the under edge of lid goes into the hole, L, Fig. 3, and presses the end of the lever down in such a way as to raise the claw end of it from D. The thick dotted lines, F, F, F, Fig. 2, show position of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various

... and the faithful dog strained all of his energies to overtake the chase, and when he again got within a few yards of it, up went a claw, and we could hear the powerful blow that descended upon the dog's head, and sent him rolling over and over again, and this time a slight yelp told that ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... rests upon a skull, his right hand holds an instrument which deserves a passing comment. It is a trephine, a surgical implement for cutting round pieces out of broken skulls, so as to get at the fragments which have been driven in, and lift them up. It has a handle like that of a gimlet, with a claw like a hammer, to lift with, I suppose, which last contrivance I do not see figured in my books. But the point I refer to is this: the old instrument, the trepan, had a handle like a wimble, what we call a brace or bit-stock. The trephine is not mentioned at ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... comfortably as could be before the gale. The trysail was got up from below, bent, halliards and sheets hooked on, and, in short, made all ready for setting, and I returned aft to Ryan's side, having to claw my way to him along the rail in preference to creeping along the deck upon all fours, which seemed to be the only alternative method of making headway against the wind. The sea was by this time getting up, and the air was full of spume and scud-water, caught ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... shock it must be to the colonial ghosts when they stumble in the dark over great claw feet, cold even as their own; the feet of monstrous hollow things, white and awesome as themselves—the things ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... finest fight of her experience. Regarding her mate's good looks she had more than satisfied herself; here was her opportunity to judge of his prowess, in a world wherein all questions are submitted to the arbitrament of tooth and claw in physical combat. And keenly the handsome dingo judged; watchfully she weighed the varying chances of the fray; not a single movement in all the dazzling swiftness of that fight but received her studious and calculating attention, her expert appraisement of its ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... now turned her amber eyes, And view'd poor Streak with glad surprise, Then caught him with her claw; Now o'er her head she whirls him round, Then dashes him against the ground, Or strikes ...
— Surprising Stories about the Mouse and Her Sons, and the Funny Pigs. - With Laughable Colored Engravings • Unknown

... friend Delorme walked across the stage in the fourth act, and though there was nothing in the situation nor in the text of the play to warrant it, I broke into tremendous applause, from which I desisted only at the scowl of an usher—an object in a celluloid collar and a claw-hammer coat. My solitary ovation to Master Delorme was an involuntary and, I think, pardonable protest against the male costume of our ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... of blue chiffon which he tied in an artistic bow round Narcisse's neck, whereat Blanquette laughed heartily; and when Narcisse bolted beneath a flower-stall and growling dispossessed himself of the adornment, and set to with tooth and claw to rend it into fragments, she threw herself on a bench convulsed with mirth. As Paragot had spent fifty centimes on the chiffon I thought this hilarity exceedingly ill-natured; but when another and a larger dog came up to see what Narcisse was doing and in half a minute was whirling ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... I mout a know'd they kudn't a killed him—not all the wolves on the parairies! Why thur ain't the scratch o' a claw on him! Whar did he come from anyhow? ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... three switches and tightly sewn up in burlap.—One big fellow is selected for the bear. He has a school bag tightly strapped on his back, and in that a toy balloon fully blown up. This is his heart. On his neck is a bear-claw necklace of wooden beads and ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... that means he asked ever so many questions. And he lived in Africa, and he filled all Africa with his 'satiable curtiosities. He asked his tall aunt, the Ostrich, why her tail-feathers grew just so, and his tall aunt the Ostrich spanked him with her hard, hard claw. He asked his tall uncle, the Giraffe, what made his skin spotty, and his tall uncle, the Giraffe, spanked him with his hard, hard hoof. And still he was full of 'satiable curtiosity! He asked his broad aunt, ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... of anger swept the Cardinal that he appeared twice his real size. Like a flaming brand of vengeance he struck that Limberlost upstart, and sent him rolling to earth, a mass of battered feathers. With beak and claw he made his attack, and when he so utterly demolished his rival that he hopped away trembling, with dishevelled plumage stained with his own blood, the Cardinal remembered his little love and hastened back, ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter

... land-crab—which we might call the cocoa-nut crab, as we owed such a store to it. Being unable to break the shell of the nut, of which they are very fond, they climb the tree, and break them off, in the unripe state. They then descend to enjoy their feast, which they obtain by inserting their claw through the small holes in the end, and abstracting the contents. They sometimes find them broken by the fall, when they can ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... that wove the woof and warp of their wakes in bright, scaly tartans and plaids underneath where the Lady reclined; this charming balcony—exquisite retreat—has been cut away by Vandalic innovations. Ay, that claw-footed old gallery is no longer in fashion; in Commodore's eyes, is no ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... to feed him and his wife with mealies. Master must have risen off his wrong side that morning, for, instead of amiably accepting his breakfast, he made a sudden and furious rush at his benefactor. Hobson's horse wheeled round and bolted,—no wonder, with the claw of an ostrich acting as a spur on his flank! The horse was so frightened that he fairly ran away. Master ran after him, and, being much fleeter, kept on kicking his legs and flanks, so that they were soon covered with blood, and ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne

... gainsaid, and led the way upstairs to a sitting-room with a bay window overlooking the windings of the Torridge, which was crammed with quaint carved furniture of all sorts. There were buffets, cabinets, secretaries, delightful old claw-footed tables and sofas, and chairs whose backs and arms were a mass of griffins and heraldic emblems. Old oak was the specialty of the landlady of this New Inn, it seemed, as blue china was of the other. For years she had ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge

... heard quick, rasping footsteps, then, that were not those of the dog. And something seemed to catch the dog in mid-air, as it leaped. It was hurled howling to the deck. For a moment it struggled furiously, as if an invisible claw had pinned it down. Then it escaped, and ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson

... their writings; and if they does not get money when they wants it, they bristles up and cries, 'not treated like a gentleman, by God!' Yet, after all, they've a deal of kindness in 'em, if you knows how to manage 'em—augh! but, cat-kindness, paw today, claw to-morrow. And then they always marries young, the poor things, and have a power of children, and live on the fame and forten they are to get one of these days; for, my eye! they be ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of famish'd shark the maw, Worse than snake's tooth, or tiger's claw, The gambler's fish{7} spits from its maw ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... Rumi and were dancing around him frantically trying to get a chance to aid him. He was struck by the incongruity of a civilized being descended from simian ancestors and a civilized being descended from feline ancestors fighting fang and claw while a bunch of misplaced ...
— Narakan Rifles, About Face! • Jan Smith

... soon filled, like the hive of some insect, with a network of variously slanting lines and the thick and thin strokes of letters. The eager pressure of the boy writer soon crumpled its leaves; and then the edges got frayed, and twisted up claw-like as if to hold fast the writing within, till at last, down what river Baitarani[17] I know not, its pages were swept away by merciful oblivion. Anyhow they escaped the pangs of a passage through the printing press and need fear ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... nostrils of his big three-angled nose dilated, the scream of an eagle rang in his voice, his huge ugly hand held the crook of his cane with the clutch of a tiger, his tongue flew with the hiss of an adder, and his big deformed foot seemed to grip the floor as the claw of a beast. ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... rather claw-like little hand for Nan to shake, and the unexpectedly tense and energetic grip of it was somewhat surprising. She was a small, dark creature with bright, restless brown eyes set in a somewhat sallow face—its sallowness the result ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... would come back to his old ways, to his old scorn of priests in general, of churches, of oppression, of everything that Marzio hated. He might marry Lucia then, and be welcome. After all, he was a finer fellow for the pretty girl than Gasparo Carnesecchi, with his claw fingers and his vinegar salad. That was only a farce, that proposal about the lawyer—the real thing was to get rid of Paolo. There could be no healthy liberty of thought in the house while this fellow was sneaking in and ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... has got to be learned; there isn't any getting around it. A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows that, if you didn't know the shape of a shore perfectly, you would claw away from every bunch of timber, because you would take the black shadow of it for a solid cape; and, you see, you would be getting scared to death every fifteen minutes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all the time when you ought to be within fifty ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... "Does suffering entitle a man to be regarded as divine? If so, so also am I a God. Look at me!" He stretched out his long, thin arms with their claw-like hands, thrusting forward his great savage head that the bony, wizened throat seemed hardly strong enough to bear. "Wealth, honour, happiness: I had them once. I had wife, children and a home. Now I creep an outcast, keeping to the shadows, and the children in the ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... boat stopped at the pier, which extends a quarter of a mile from the shore, putting one in mind of a long crab's claw stuck out for "shake hands" by old Neptune; and I jumped into the cars and was bounced and rattled along to Long Branch. As it was Saturday afternoon, a great crowd of people were going there with me, and, deary me! when I came to the Mansion House, there wasn't any room left for ...
— Neighbor Nelly Socks - Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow

... family has an old place to keep these things in, furnished with claw-footed chairs and black mahogany tables, and tall bevel-edged mirrors, and stately upright ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... an unnecessary trouble, but only enough off the end where the three eyelets are, to enable it to get at the inside. Having pierced the proper eye with one of its legs it rotates the nut round it until the hole is large enough to admit the point of its great claw, with which it continues the work. This remarkable creature also climbs the palm-trees, but not to gather nuts; that is certain, for its habits have been closely watched and it has been ascertained that it feeds only on fallen nuts. Possibly ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... immobility, at the same time trying to get the big Smith & Wesson free. The shoulder-holster, he found, was badly torn, though made of the heaviest skirting-leather, and the spring which retained the weapon in place had been wrenched and bent until he needed both hands to draw. The eight-inch slashing-claw of the nighthound's right intermediary limb had raked him; only the instinctive motion of throwing up his arm, and the fact that he wore the revolver in a shoulder-holster, ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper

... cruel tabby cats, high out of reach of naughty small boys with their sling-shots, and now everything was ready for these small carpenters to begin their building. No hammer and nails were needed, claw and bill were all the tools they used, and yet what beautiful ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin

... world save her, and begs that he may be sent away to the steppes along the Volga, to live a free kazak life, where he may lay his "turbulent head" on a Mussulman's spear (in the fights with the Tatars of Kazan is what is meant), where the vultures may claw out his tearful eyes, and his gray bones be washed by the rain, and his wretched dust, without burial, may be scattered to the four quarters of the compass. Tzar Ivan Vasilievitch laughs, advises him to send gifts to his Alyona, and celebrate the wedding. The lifeguardsman ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... but fulfilled, found the taste of awakening bitter on his lips. He counted his years of toil and cursed as he viewed his shrunken hands, claw-like, scarred, crippled. ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... Ring Tailed Panther. It suits me, because I fit an' I fight till they get me down, then I curl my tail an' I take another round. Once in New Orleans I met a fellow who said he was half horse, half alligator, that he could either claw to death the best man living, stamp him to pieces or eat him alive. I invited him to do any one of these things or all three of ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Bradwardine of Bradwardine and Tully-Veolan," retorted the other, in huge disdain, "that I will make a muir cock of the man that refuses my toast, whether he be a crop-eared English Whig wi' a black ribband at his lug, or ane wha deserts his friends to claw favour wi' the rats ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... purrs No less when Soo-Ti barks and stirs. She blinks and blinks and lets you share Her bowl of milk, her fav'rite chair. For you she hides her cruel claw And taps you with a velvet paw; And, mastered by your lordly air, For you is meek and debonair. Even should you growl her hair stays flat: Be sure she thinks you half a cat. But you're a Dog and know your job: Oft have I seen you hob-a-nob, And grandly gracious to unbend With a Great ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann

... the "public"—the Lambs. The Lambs! Such a herd, timid, innocent, feeble, as much out of place in La Salle Street as a puppy in a cage of panthers; the Lambs, whom Bull and Bear did not so much as condescend to notice, but who, in their mutual struggle of horn and claw, they crushed to death by the mere rolling of ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... within him.—"Dost not remember, that I lay on Edgehill-field all night, bleeding like a bullock from five several wounds, and wore my armour within six weeks? and you talk to me of the few drops of blood that follow such a scratch as a cat's claw might have made!" ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... seems to have survived in a more or less vague and unconscious form in mediaeval Europe. "In the tenth century," according to Dufour (Histoire de la Prostitution, vol. VI., p. 11), "shoes a la poulaine, with a claw or beak, pursued for more than four centuries by the anathemas of popes and the invectives of preachers, were always regarded by mediaeval casuists as the most abominable emblems of immodesty. At a first glance ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... mollified in consequence. A cat of huge growth sat on his shoulder purring, and occasionally, with a deft paw, capturing a morsel in the air. To a cat he might be likened himself, as he lolled at the head of his table, dealing out attentions and innuendoes, and using the velvet and the claw indifferently. And both Huish and the captain fell progressively under the charm of his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... together. The court-house, one church, warehouses, stores, and hotels were converted into hospitals. Row after row of beds filled every ward. Upon them lay wrecks of humanity, pale as the dead, with sunken eyes, hollow cheeks and temples, long, claw-like hands. Oh, those poor, weak, nerveless hands used to seem to me more pitiful than all; and when I remembered all they had achieved and how they had lost their firm, sinewy proportions, their strong grasp, my heart swelled ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... Fajardo, judge, being at Jaraicejo, laid his claw upon four Gitanos, and having nothing, as it appears, to accuse them of, except being Gitanos, put them to the torture, and made them accuse themselves, which they did; for, on the first appeal which was made to the rack, they confessed ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... that miracle of ingenuity rather than research, his brightly emblazoned coat-of-arms; whose infinitude of charges and quarterings do honour to the inventive genius of the Herald's Office, and are enough to make the Rouge Dragon of three centuries ago claw out the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... manfrapi. Clarify klarigi. Clarion milita trumpeto. Clarionet klarneto. Clasp (buckle) buko. Clasp preno. Clasp preni. Class klaso. Class ordigi. Classify ordigi. Clatter bruegado. Claw ungego. Clay argilo. Clean purigi. Clean pura. Clean (boots, etc.) senkotigi. Cleanliness pureco. Cleanse purigi. Clear klara. Clear (mental) malkonfuza. Clearness klareco. Cleave (split) fendi. Cleaver fendilo. Cleft fendo. Clemency malsevereco. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... yellow face moved, not a tremor of the slanting eyelids showed surprise. The right hand, holding a bit of tow, mechanically continued polishing the brass around the port-hole, but the left—long, thin, and with claw-like nails, shot stealthily forward ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice

... stepping lightly out of the fireplace. "Now sit astride of my back and take hold of Lefty's right claw." ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs

... was really ill. He was lying in his frock of thick brown woollen, and the cowl of it was drawn over his head. He seemed to be suffering from cold, and his teeth were audibly chattering in his head; and his thin, thin claw- like hands shook as they clutched his crucifix. His face was lividly pale, and his eyes gleamed out from under the cowl with a ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... way to success is to forget that there is such a word as failure. Now I'll tell you my plan. The Princess, as you know, or as you very likely don't know, is devoted to curious animals of all kinds. I will change you into a white mouse with a gold claw, and will offer you to the Princess for sale. She has never seen or heard of such a creature as a white mouse with a gold claw before, and will be sure to buy you. Then it will be your fault if matters don't go smoothly with you. You have only to keep your ears open ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... consist in a bit of old wood hung around their necks, or a stone, or a bone, or a beak or claw of a bird, or else a leather strap tied round their ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... of woman's wakeness in ye. Oh, my cat-o'-cats! let any man throw her from him, which way he will, she's on her legs and at him again, tooth and claw. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... the figure of his chum, now lying prostrate on the floor of the cavern with the head extending outward, was being drawn away from him by the claw which still ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... beer-pots and spittoons and new long pipes, Might turn a caravansery's, wherein You found Noureddin Ali, loftily drunk, And that fair Persian, bathed in tears, You'd not have given away For all the diamonds in the Vale Perilous You had that dark and disleaved afternoon Escaped on a roc's claw, Disguised like Sindbad—but in Christmas beef! And all the blissful while The schoolboy satchel at your hip Was such a bulse of gems as should amaze Grey-whiskered chapmen drawn From over Caspian: yea, the Chief Jewellers Of Tartary and the ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... Claw-footed bronze legs on triangular base, consisting of three molded cylindrical supports, connected by cross-bars. Near the top the legs take on a greyhound design, with a three-armed brace connecting ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius

... the little fish and picked up a few of them for his breakfast as he drove the rest away. As Dick sculled easily with one hand, he kept an eye upon Pedro, and obeyed the signals of his hand, to go to the right, the left, or stop, as sponges were seen. Then from time to time the long pole with the claw at the end was lowered to the bottom and a sponge ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... and, when they had assembled, he proclaimed aloud, that each one might take of the earthly gifts such as he liked best. A very strange confusion immediately arose. Some chose a foot, some a wing, some a tail, and some a claw. Those who selected tails or claws were changed into animals, and ran off; the others assumed the form of birds, and flew away. Waupee chose a white hawk's feather. His wife and son followed his example, when each one became a white hawk. Pleased with his transformation, and new vitality, the chief ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... flavor, and more deadly than the male to one who has a natural diathesis to poisoning by varos. Many whites cannot eat them. Some lose appetite at their looks, their likeness to a gigantic thousand-leg. Others find that the varo rests uneasy within them, as though each claw or tooth of the comb grasped a vital part of their anatomy. I think varos excellent when wrapped in hotu leaves, and grilled as a lobster. I take the beastie in my fingers and suck out the meat. Amateurs must keep their ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... of some dull tool. "Goose-grass" at least fills the imagination with the picture of a bird. But "robin-run-the-hedge" is better, for it is an image of wild adventure. It will be a pity if the tradition of picturesque names for flowers is allowed to die. The kidney-vetch, a long yellow claw of a flower that looks withered even at birth, may not deserve a prettier name, but at least it is possible to give it an ugly name with more interesting associations. "Staunch" is an older name that reminds us that the flower was, a few generations ago, used to staunch ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... and dig for all I was worth. No chance of finding blue dirt down there! But I kept on. And to-day when my pick hit what felt like a soft rock—I looked and saw the gleam of gold!... You ought to have seen me claw out that nugget! I whooped and brought everybody around. The rest was a parade.... Now I'm embarrassed by riches. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... creature, which looked as if nature had begun an insect and then changed her mind and finished it off like a crab. This thing, with the ferocious claw-like nose and chin, was a female Rhinoceros beetle, so the owner explained. The male beetle appeared to be a harmless, mild concern of much smaller size, and with no warlike appendages whatever. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... emanated from the brutally coarse expressions of a Human. My name is Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus. Besides, even if my front feet can expand, they can also contract; see! as narrow and refined as a bird's claw. Observe, too, that my hind feet are narrow, and like a seal's fin, though it has been ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley

... Dr. Belknap, in his History of New Hampshire, says, that when full grown, they often exceed five hundred pounds weight. The cod are from seventy to eighty pounds. Mackarel often exceed four, and lobsters sometimes thirty-five pounds weight. I have preserved a claw of one of the latter, which weighed thirty pounds: this I shall bring home with me, lest my friends should think that, in this particular, I take too liberal an advantage of the traveller's privilege, which I assure you I do not, when I ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest

... the light of the dimly burning lantern I saw a thousand-leg, reddish brown and ten inches long, halting perhaps for breath midway between my knee and waist. It seemed indeed to have a thousand legs, and each separate foot made impresses of terror on my mind, while each toe and claw clutched my bare flesh ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... the first artists in Paris who secured a set of these rare plates. The witch's sabbaths and the modern version of them, prostitution and its symbolism, filled the brain of Goya. He always shocks any but robust nerves with his hybrid creatures red in claw and foaming at mouth as they fight in midair, hideous and unnamable phantoms of the dark. His owls are theologians. The females he often shows make us turn aside our head and shudder. With implacable fidelity he displayed the reverse of war's ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... crabs which have their posterior legs placed almost on their backs, for the purpose of adhering to the under side of rocks), is very remarkable from the structure of its hind pair of legs. The penultimate joint, instead of terminating in a simple claw, ends in three bristle-like appendages of dissimilar lengths — the longest equalling that of the entire leg. These claws are very thin, and are serrated with the finest teeth, directed backwards: their curved extremities are flattened, and on this part five most minute cups are placed which ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... as he took his richly earned money, checked the rising fears of the guests by repeated proclamations that there was plenty of time, and that he would give them due warning before the train started. Those who had flocked out of the cars, to prey with beak and claw, as the vulture-like fashion is, upon everything in reach, remained to eat like Christians; and even a poor, scantily-Englished Frenchman, who wasted half his time in trying to ask how long the cars stopped and in looking at his watch, made a good ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... savages. They do not eat men, they crunch them; or, magicians that they are, they transform them into oysters and swallow them. The Caribbeans leave only the bones, they leave only the shell. Such are our morals. We do not devour, we gnaw; we do not exterminate, we claw." ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... in the dusty eyes. The lips chant inaudibly. The warped shrunken body straightens like a tree. And he curses... With uplifted arms and perished fingers, Claw-like, clutching... So centuries ago The old men cursed Acosta, When they, prophetic, heard upon their sepulchres Those feet that may not halt nor turn aside ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... inflict painful wounds on the dog or other enemy that ventures to attack him. In case of danger, he curls himself up into a ball, and defies any one to come near. Not only does he possess the coat of prickles with which he defends himself, but he also has a large perforated claw or spur on each hind foot through which pours an ill-smelling liquid, and these also aid in protecting him. There are several varieties of porcupines which inhabit Asia, Africa, Southern ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... her hands, claw-like in their tenseness, went slowly to her temples. Her head drooped slightly forward, and a great shudder ran through her body. The coroner started forward, ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... to prevent the ship from weathering them, provided time was taken by the forelock. The Rancocus was a good, weatherly ship, nor was there sufficient sea on to make it at all difficult for her to claw off a lee shore. Desperate indeed is the situation of the vessel that has rocks or sands under her lee, with the gale blowing in her teeth, and heavy seas sending her bodily, and surely, however slowly, on the very ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... begun to claw at him; blearing the wondrous deep-set dark eyes and silvering the classic muzzle and broadening the shapely skull and stiffening the sweepingly free gait; dulling the sharp ears or doing any of the other ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... but she ought to know that if she is miserable they will never be happy. That's the nature of women—they take the form for the essence, and that's what she is doing now. I should think her guardian angel must have quitted her when she agreed to a marriage which may tear her heart out like a claw.' ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... I will have a wedding, too, dear little fish, I too; but no ecclesiastics will be at that wedding. The black crow will caw, instead of the pope, over me; the smooth field will be my dwelling; the dark blue clouds my roof-tree. The eagle will claw out my brown eyes: the rain will wash the Cossack's bones, and the whirlwinds will dry them. But what am I? Of whom, to whom, am I complaining? 'T is plain, God willed it so. If I am to be lost, then so be it!" and he went straight to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... belonging to Masulipatam arrived from Mokha, by which we had news of the Lion being at Mokha, having a small frigate or bark in her company. The same day the Bee arrived from Narsipore-pete, with provisions for the fleet. The 19th, the Dragon's Claw came from Narsipore-pete[272] almost laden with rice and paddy.[273] On Thursday the 9th December, Mr Ball, Mr Methwould, and the other merchants who were to remain in the country, went ashore in the afternoon. In the morning of Friday the 10th, we left the road of Masulipatam, and anchored ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... Master, Heavier for my team their load, And my eyes with snow o'er plastered Can no longer see the road! Lost all trace of our direction, Sir, what now? The goblins draw Us already round in circles, Pull the sledge with evil claw! ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

... his heart, thinking of his feast. He seizes the nearest sleeper, crushes his "bone case" with a bite, tears him limb from limb, and swallows him. Then he creeps to the couch of Beowulf and stretches out a claw, only to find it clutched in a grip of steel. A sudden terror strikes the monster's heart. He roars, struggles, tries to jerk his arm free; but Beowulf leaps to his feet and grapples his enemy bare handed. ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... over the mob of the great vulgar. And that fellow—that reverend old shark who would eat any one of his Christian brethren, if they were only sent up to him disguised as a turbot—the divine old lobster, for his thin red nose is a perfect claw—the divine old lobster couldn't tell me whether there was a God or not. Curse him, not he; but hold, I must not be too severe upon him: his god is his belly, and mine was my ambition. Oh, oh! what is this—what does it all mean? What has happened to me? Oh, I am ill, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... others less noble. Our modern repugnance to the vulture as feeding on carcasses was probably not felt by the singer of this song. What he brings into view are the characteristics common to the eagle and the vulture; superb strength in beak and claw, keenness of vision almost incredible, magnificent sweep of pinion and power of rapid, unwearied flight. And these characteristics, we may say, have their analogues in the divine nature, and the emblem not unfitly shadows forth one aspect of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... animal's rugged and misshapen figure and deformed limbs. As an artistic finish to a marvellous piece of mummery, in one of the crude green claws is carried a fragment of coral, green with the mould of the sea. It and the claw are indistinguishable until, in the faintest spasm of fright, the crab abandons the coral, and shrinking within itself becomes inanimate—as steadfast a patch of weeds as any other of the reef. Recovering slowly from ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... seemed to be lighted by her terrible eyes, and from her robe one lean hand crept, half curved as though to claw. It seemed as if at any instant she might scream and clutch him and something must be done forthwith. Jim returned her gaze soberly, but not defiantly, and there was no fear in his eyes. For a moment she paused, a curious questioning showing ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... grew strong, they forgot their words and made liars of themselves. Oh, they are wicked knaves! A Pale-face is a panther. When a-hungered, you can hear him whining in the bushes like a strayed infant; but when you come within his leap, beware of tooth and claw!" ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... nature is based on almost scientific observation of natural phenomena. Unlike Wordsworth, Tennyson does not regard nature as a manifestation of the divine spirit of love. He sees her more from the new scientific point of view, as "red in tooth and claw with rapine." The hero of ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... cunning, with slanted rat's eyes. Ornate head-dress and stiffly inlaid robes denoted him to be the High Priest. He held a claw-like hand high. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... who find us in this place, Have you pity in your breast; Let us in our last embrace, Under earth sun-hallowed rest. Night's a claw upon my brain: Oh, to see ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... out of every bristle on his unkempt head; it shone in the unhealthy gloss of his battered hat; it wallowed on the stock that clung around his dirty neck; it glistened in the grease on his dingy clothes; it starved on his thin, claw-like hands; it flourished in the grime imbedded under his nails; it creaked in his worn-out, down-trodden shoes. Men, as he shambled by on the streets, unconsciously muttered, "Beast!" women, shrinking from him, whispered, "Beast!" between the heart-throbs the terror of his presence ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong

... return for his visit, called on him three times, I think, and I left my card on Mrs. Lever. But he never came again—he had seen enough of us, he could put down in his private diary that we had neither claw nor tail; and there an end, properly enough. In fact, he lives a different life from ours: he in the ballroom and we in the cave, nothing could be more different; and perhaps there are not many subjects of common ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... bustle, smoke, grimy figures, and stern commands, while down in the engine and boiler rooms the sixteen furnaces were belching out fire and smoke, and the firemen standing in front of them, like so many gladiators, tugged away with devil's-claw and slice-bar, inducing by their exertions more and more intense combustion and heat. The noise of the cracking, roaring fires, escaping steam, and the loud and labored pulsations of the engines, together with the roar of battle above and the thud and vibration of the huge masses of ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.

... heard the bull voice of a Hun officer hic-coughing gutturals, and they were on him. He had no time to send up an S.O.S. rocket, and his machine-gun jammed. In a minute they were all mixed up, at it tooth and claw as merry as a Galway election, the big Bosch officer, throwing off a hymn of hate, the life and soul of the party. He came for Patrick with an automatic, and Patrick thought all was up; and so it would have been but for Goldilocks, who materialized suddenly out of nowhere, deftly tripped up his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various

... of life. It is a primitive sport and as such it stirs up in the human breast the primordial emotions of men. The sense of danger, the bodily exhaustion, the ancestral blood lust, the harkening bay of the hounds, the awe of deep-shadowed forests, and the return to an almost hand-to-claw contest with the beast, call upon a latent manhood that is fast disappearing in ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... a neighbouring bush. 'I thought I should only be in the way if I kept close to you. But I longed to lend a claw in such good ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit

... Richie, "I could weel forget that your honour was a lord, but then I behoved to forget that I am a lord's man, and that's not so easy. But, however," he added, assisting his description with the thumb and the two forefingers of his right hand, thrust out after the fashion of a bird's claw, while the little finger and ring-finger were closed upon the palm, "to the Court I went, and my friend that promised me a sight of his Majesty's most gracious presence, was as gude as his word, and carried ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... against the dogs. Although they had as much to eat as they wanted, and although they knew they were not allowed to try to get in — or possibly this prohibition was just the incentive — they were always casting longing eyes in that direction, and the number of claw-marks in the wall spoke eloquently of what went on when we were not looking. Snuppesen, in particular, could not keep herself away from that wall, and she was extremely light and agile, so that she had the best chance. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... staff officers came and went, afoot, on horseback and in automobiles; and through an open window we caught a glimpse of a splendid-looking general, sitting booted and sword-belted at a table in the Prince de Caraman-Chimay's library, with hunting trophies—skin and horn and claw—looking down at him from the high-paneled oak wainscotings, and spick-and-span aides waiting to take his ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... force and sweep as to take me off my prudent feet. My own faithful terrier, which had dogged my heels for three years, seemed a member of the family, and reasonably satisfied my dog needs. That Jane should wish a terrier of some sort to tug at her skirts and claw her lace was no more than natural, and I was quite willing to buy a blue blood and think nothing of the $20 or $30 which it might cost. We canvassed the list of terriers,—bull, Boston, fox, Irish, Skye, Scotch, Airedale, and all,—and had ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... God was love indeed And love Creation's final law— Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... know a place, down in the Eastern States, that was called Scratch and Claw, and a ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... our paper, and so we stand there and grumble. Now and then one of us stumps up the narrow hallway to the second story where the Democrat makes its lair, and looks on with an abused air while two young lady compositors claw around the bottom of the boxes for enough type to set the last items, and the foreman stuffs the forms of the last two pages with old boiler plate, medicine ads and anything that will fill. There isn't any reason for the Democrat being late any more than there is for the ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch

... loses a claw, he does not mind it; in fact, he rather likes it, as it provides him with an extra meal. All he does is to sit right down and bite it off to the next perfect joint, eating the fragments of flesh with much relish. In a week's time a new claw ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... neck over to look at it where it lay, with the action of a mother bird. They examined with minute interest the details of the curious little creature: its tiny finger-nails, fine and sharp, and its small queer fist doubled so tight, and closing on one's finger like a canary's claw on a perch; the absurdity of its foot, the absurdity of its toes, the ridiculous inadequacy of its legs and arms to the work ordinarily expected of legs and arms, made them laugh. They could not tell yet whether its eyes would be black like Marcia's, or blue like ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... to step on the cat's tail. He knew by experience that a cat is apt to claw anybody well who ventures on such a caper; but the little Goody laughed out, and stepping on it herself, ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... shape, in size about the twentieth part of an inch. On the longest point or angle, was a black thread-like point, from a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch in length; on this stem was either hooks, barbs, or a glutinous matter, that firmly adhered to each foot or claw of the bee, rendering it useless as far as climbing the sides of the hive was concerned. I found also among bees clustered outside of full hives, this ornament attached, but to them it appeared ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... and it amounted to nothing. It was in the same battle. A pigeon became so frightened by the smoke and racket that it flew hither and thither, and finally perched on my shoulder. While there a musket ball struck its claw at the junction of the toes with the leg, and entered my shoulder. The resistance it met was so tough that it saved my shoulder from being shattered; except for that, the hurt must have proved serious, but it did not bother me ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... sweeping gestures of a hand which suggested a prehensile, well-inked claw, welcomed him in an outburst of oratory, iridescent with adjectives which gushed from him like a volume of water from a fire-plug, that made Crowheart's jaw drop. While Symes may have felt that the editor was going it rather strong when he compared ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... with anger against Love, and against him whom they desire, and against themselves. This mood, as was later seen, was Elliot's, for her heart was like a wild bird trapped, that turns with bill and claw on him who comes to set it free. Moreover, I have since deemed that her passion of faith in the Maid made war on her love for me; one breast being scantly great enough to contain these two affections, and her pride taking, against ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... freshness, it indicated to his mind how near he was to the chance of obtaining and adding another pound or so of valuable fur to his stock on hand. To him, this small event, or one like it, as for instance, a fresh footprint, with its neatly defined claw-tracks, as moulded in the moistened earth or sand, was of a greater importance than the wonderful and striking workmanship exhibited in a dam; for, the latter might be old and deserted, whereas, the former ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... not love to pluck the quills, With which I make pens, out of a lion's claw. The King! Should I be bitter 'gainst the King, I shall have scurvy ballads made of me, Sung to the hanging tune. I ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker

... seeking his advice on literature and life. He rejoins in that wonderful strain of epicurean stoicism of which he alone possessed the secret: and so the letters go on. Sometimes one just catches the glimpse of a claw beneath the soft pad, a grimace under the smile of elegance; and one remembers with a shock that, after all, one is reading the correspondence of ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... all is; but let us penetrate beneath the canopy of leaves and the cottage roof. Ah, what suffering of man or beast they hide, where on the one hand the wolf, the fox, the wild cat, the hawk, the stoat, and all the birds and beasts of prey tear their victims, and nature's hand is like a claw, red with blood—and on the other, beneath the cottage roofs, many a bed-ridden sufferer lies groaning with painful disease, many children mourn their sires, many widows and orphans feel that the light is withdrawn from the world, so far as they ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... furious brute; He's ready to rend you with tooth and with claw. Tho' 'tis incredible, Anything edible Disappears suddenly into his maw: Into his cavernous inner interior Vanishes ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... "For he did claw at himself, and leap about over the ice like a playful puppy, save from the way he growled and squealed it was plain it was not play but pain. Never did I see ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London

... Toby's claw-like hands came up and closed upon his wrist. "Wish I could, sir," he whispered with lips that quivered. "Haven't had much of ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... a beech, was stroke to death, his clothes stinking with a sulphurous stench, being about the age of twenty years or thereabouts, at Mereden House." The Dorking fowls all have the peculiarity of an extra claw on each foot, being white and speckled, and a Roman origin being claimed for the breed, which is most delicate in flavor and commands a high price. On the southern outskirts of the town is Deepdene, a mansion surrounded by magnificent ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... he, proudly, "a lobster! A lobster, Ernest! Where is Fritz! Take care it does not bite you, Francis!" They all crowded round in astonishment. "Yes," added he, triumphantly, "here is the impertinent claw that seized me; but I ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... word 'clutcht' for a long time 'sticks strangely' in Crispinus' throat; it is only thrown up with the greatest difficulty. In Hamlet (act v. sc. i, in the second verse of the grave-digger's song) we hear, 'Hath claw'd me in his clutch. In the original song, which is here travestied, the words are, 'Hath claw'd me ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... transforms him first and foremost. The power is 'to every one that believeth.' It is power in its most universal sweep. Rome's Empire was wellnigh ubiquitous, but, blessed be God, the dove of Christ flies farther than the Roman eagle with beak and claw ready for rapine, and wherever there are men here is a Gospel for them. The limitation is no limitation of its universality. It is no limitation of the claim of a medicine to be a panacea that it will only do good to the man who swallows it. And that is the only limitation ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... considered her answer gravely. In one skeleton claw it fumbled a rod and with this it now traced certain symbols in the dust before Varta's webbed feet. When it had done, the girl stooped and altered two of the lines with a swift stroke from one of her talons. The creature of the Chasm nodded its ...
— The Gifts of Asti • Andre Alice Norton

... has always intimidated me by its fire of helplessness and futility playing against some resolve of mine which I could not, on account of my masculine understanding of the requirements of circumstances, allow to melt, she reached up one hand like a little nervous claw of ivory, and caught me by the sleeve and pulled me down to a stool by her side. Then she looked at me, and such love and even adoration were in her face as I never saw surpassed in it, even when she regarded her granddaughter ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... knocked the pistol away with one paw, while he stuck the claws of the other into the flesh of his antagonist, and rolled with him on the ground. Glass managed to reach his knife, and plunged it several times into the bear, while the latter, with tooth and claw, tore his flesh. At last, blinded with blood and exhaustion, the knife fell from the trapper's hand, and he became insensible. His companion, who thought his turn would come next, did not even think of reloading his rifle, and fled to the camp, where ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... there Love vanished, yet I entered! Night And Doubt mocked at the dwindling light: Strange claw-like hands flung me their shadowy hate. I clomb the dreadful stairways of desire Between a thousand eyes and wings of fire And knocked upon ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... no malicious whisper, that did not thrive with rank luxuriance in that mean atmosphere, which, at the same time, starved up every great and high-minded wish. There was no circumstance so minute that calumny could not insert into it a venomous claw. Mr Kenrick was one of the most exemplary, generous, and pure-minded of men; his only fault was quickness of temper. His noble character, his conciliatory manners, his cultivated mind, his Christian forbearance, were all ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... ridges that made islands of themselves, in what are now known as the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians. Now, at last, the great waves of the sea and the resistless storms had something to play with, and they pounced down upon the land as with tooth and claw. They rubbed and pounded, raged and smashed for a thousand years, and then another thousand, and still another, while Mother Earth uneasily thrust forth her rocky children out of the ocean into the light of day. Surprised at such treatment by the storms and seas, the ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... captured in the steamer Nevada, forty-five miles from the Navigators, with wings measuring, when extended, nearly five feet across. These are formed of a jet black membrane, and have a highly polished claw at the extremity of each. The feet consist of five polished black claws, with which the bat hangs on, head downward, to the forest trees. His body is about twice the size of that of a very large rat, black and furry underneath, and with red foxy fur ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... provisions for five days, set out through the forest northwards towards the marshes. For some hours he moved through the gloom of the forest, and when he emerged from it the sun was above the horizon shining on pools of water in the waste land. Presently he saw the claw-marks of Tharagavverug deep in the soil, and the track of his tail between them like a furrow in a field. Then Leothric followed the tracks till he heard the bronze heart of Tharagavverug before ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... himself, is one of the highest ambitions of an Indian brave; for if he is thus decorated, his courage and superior strength are acknowledged by his whole tribe. An Indian will sell his horses, his blankets, everything he possesses, but nothing can induce him to part with his bear-claw necklace, which marks him as an invincible warrior. To obtain this coveted prize Indians will run the most extreme risks. Are the enormous foot-prints of a grizzly discovered in the vicinity of the camp, the men all ...
— Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... that were emblazoned on the panel were peculiar; I remember especially one device—it was the figure of a stork, painted in carmine, upon what the heralds call a "field or." The bird was standing upon one leg, and in the other claw held a stone. This is, I believe, the emblem of vigilance. Its oddity struck me, and remained impressed upon my memory. There were supporters besides, but I forget what they were. The courtly manners of these people, the style of their servants, the elegance of their traveling ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... Claw afterwards, and it is a beautiful thing, but it was not a bit like Simpson's. Simpson must have started badly, and I think he used too much rope. After about twenty minutes there was hardly any of ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne

... himself fighting for his life. Boone was crazed now—with the heat and with his own failure. He bit and tore at Larry with strong claw-like fingers and lashed out with his feet. He balled his fists and hammered air like a windmill, arms flailing, striking flesh often enough to ...
— A Place in the Sun • C.H. Thames

... still open behind him; and to hold out a little. It will be better if he do,—especially for poor Karl Albert and his poor Bavaria! Khevenhuller has also detached through the Tyrol a General von Barenklau (BEAR'S-CLAW, much heard of henceforth in these Wars), who has 12,000 regulars; and much Hussar-folk under bloody Mentzel:-across the Tyrol, we say; to fall in upon Bavaria and Munchen itself; which they are too like doing with effect. Ought not Karl ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... giantess could rip up with her claw the tiny bandit who ruins her home; she could crunch her with her mandibles, run her through with her stiletto. She does nothing of the sort, but leaves the robber in peace, to sit quite close, motionless, with her red ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... front of it dipped with a violence that drove Vaniman and Britt against the end. Up came the front and the rear sagged. Then the van went bumping and swaying over uneven ground. The claw-clash of the branches of trees against the sides informed Vaniman that the men had driven ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... add the yolk of the egg, cook a moment longer, add the lobster, and turn out to cool. When cold, form into cutlet shaped croquettes, dip in egg, roll in bread crumbs, and fry in deep hot fat. Put a small claw in the end of each cutlet to represent the bone. Serve with these either cream sauce or ...
— Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with - Refreshments for all Social Affairs • Mrs. S. T. Rorer

... Cap'n mentally put it, a "sashay." There was way enough on her to hold her into the wind, but the waves and the tides lugged her slowly sideways and backward. And yet, with their present sea-room Cap'n Sproul hoped that he might claw off ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... was in a better position than she is, sir," he observed; "but we are doing all that men can do to claw off shore, and if we had had our topmasts, there would have been no difficulty about the matter. She makes fearful leeway, and there is an ugly reef ahead, which I do not altogether like; but I have been in as bad a case before and escaped, and ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston

... continued to advance, his long arms and claw-like fingers assisting him up the steeper places. Again he stopped and appeared to be swearing at his men for not coming faster. He was now within range. I could not help looking on one side to watch Mr Hooker as he stood perfectly ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... the spring-board they had a certain kind of a way of jumping, they called it the tiger spring, and nobody could get the hang of it. Some organization they had, that's what Mr. Ellsworth said. Every one of those fellows had a tiger claw hung around his neck. Oh, boy, that was ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... a single hair out of her head. She screamed and tried to claw him, then fought for the hair. Bork was immovable. He held her off easily with one hand while the fingers of the other danced in the air. He spoke what seemed to be a name, though it bore no resemblance to ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey

... words were uttered was at a Christmas party, given to the men, about 1300 in number, employed at the iron works of Messrs. Hawks, Crawshay, and Co., at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These works were founded in 1754 by William Hawks, a blacksmith, whose principal trade consisted in making claw-hammers for joiners. He became a thriving man, and eventually a large manufacturer of bar-iron. Partners joined him, and in the course of the changes wrought by time, one of the Crawshays, in 1842, became a principal ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... lifted his head And speech knew, and the company of speech, And from his alien presence wild beasts fled And birds flew wary from his arrow's reach, And cattle trampling the long meadow weed Did sentry in the wind's path set; when each Horn, hoof, claw, sting and sinew against man Was turned, ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman



Words linked to "Claw" :   scratch, bear claw, common devil's claw, make, claw-shaped, assault, nipper, claw hammer, anchor, assail, tenterhook, grappling hook, prehend, claw hatchet, unguis, devil's claw, hook, sand devil's claw, mechanical device, lash out, grapnel, chela, crustacean, extremity, cat's-claw, attack, ground tackle, round, grappling iron, pothook, scrape, talon, bird's foot



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