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Dirk   Listen
adjective
Dirk  adj.  Dark. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dirk" Quotes from Famous Books



... this period is thus described by one of his adherents: "The Prince was at this time bare-footed, had an old black kilt-coat on, philabeg and waistcoat, a dirty shirt, and a long red beard, a gun in his hand, and a pistol and dirk by his side." ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea

... her if she said a single word," said Gerty, undauntedly. "I showed her Pa De Marsan's old dirk-knife and told her I'd stick it into her if she didn't hush. She was just such a 'fraid-cat she believed me. She might have known I didn't mean nothin'. Now she can have 'em and be a lady. She was always tallkin' about bein' a lady, and that put it ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... saber, broadsword, cutlass, falchion^, scimitar, cimeter^, brand, whinyard, bilbo, glaive^, glave^, rapier, skean, Toledo, Ferrara, tuck, claymore, adaga^, baselard^, Lochaber ax, skean dhu^, creese^, kris, dagger, dirk, banger^, poniard, stiletto, stylet^, dudgeon, bayonet; sword-bayonet, sword-stick; side arms, foil, blade, steel; ax, bill; pole-ax, battle-ax; gisarme^, halberd, partisan, tomahawk, bowie knife^; ataghan^, attaghan^, yataghan^; yatacban^; assagai, assegai^; good sword, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... are your staves and switches For men of gentle birth? Your mask and dirk for riches? Your chains for wit ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... agone. The last he could hear of him was that about a week before a boy had spied him sitting on a rock in the Baillies' Barn with his pipes in his lap. Searching the cottage, he found that his broadsword and dirk, with all his poor ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... masters are contained in this palace of art, which is 158 feet long, 63 feet wide, and 22 feet high. Here are examples of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, de Mytens, Tintoretto, Teniers, Snyders, Bassano, Wyck, de Vos, Greffier, Francks, Berghem, Zucchero, Wootton, Breughel, Dirk Maas, Netscher, Gagnacci, Gerard Honthorst, Van der Meulen, Rigaud, Vandyke, Holbein, Kneller, Lely, Dahl, M. Shee, Knapton, West, Jansen, Verelst; in fact not only in the picture-gallery, but in all parts of the Abbey are scattered treasures of art and vertu. Among ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard

... expensive electric drive. There had been much interest manifested in the installation of the modern motor, and Quin, with his natural love of machinery, had rejoiced that his duties as shipping clerk required him to be present at the unpacking. He and Dirk, the foreman, never tired of discussing the perfection of each particular feature. But a few days after the departure of the installation foreman, the new motor burnt out, necessitating the shutting down of the factory ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... Stamboul, and the beggar, and the street-merchant with large tray of water-melons, sweetmeats, raisins, sherbet, and the bear-shewer, and the Barbary organ, and the night-watchman who evermore cried 'Fire!' with his long lantern, two pistols, dirk, and wooden javelin. Strange how all that old life has come back to my fancy now, pretty vividly, and for the first time, though I have been here several times lately. I have gone out to those plains beyond the walls with their view of rather barren mountain-peaks, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... not know—or even ask myself—why they did not frighten me, but they did not. Suddenly I seemed to know that they were brave men and had been doing some brave, hard thing. Here and there among them I caught sight of a broken and stained sword, or a dirk with only a hilt left. They were all pale, but their wild faces were joyous and triumphant. I saw ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... beautiful—holding up his hands, and repeating the words "Beautiful, beautiful! they are all beautiful together! There is Bana beautiful! his box is beautiful! and his medicine beautiful!"—and, saying this, led us in to see his women, who at my request were grouped in war apparel—viz., a dirk fastened to the waist by many strings of coloured beads. There were from fifty to sixty women present, all very lady-like, but none of them pretty. Kaggao then informed me the king had told all his Wakungu he would keep me as his guest ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... underneath which was partially displayed a handsome vest and ruffled shirt. About his waist passed a broad wampum belt, in which were confined a brace of silver mounted pistols, another pair of less finish and value, a silver handled dirk, a scalping knife and tomahawk, on whose blades could be seen traces of blood. Around his neck was a neatly tied cravat, and dangling in front of his vest a gold chain, which connected with a watch hid in a pocket of his breeches, whence depended a ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... works, yet cannot work, Yodels, but cannot yodel right, Such as, unhelp'd, with rusty dirk, I vow that I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... please," said the middy, presenting his cocked hat to the captain, "I did draw my dirk to kill him, but you ran away so fast that I couldn't ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... days, when his father was alive, and as yet no cares had visited his home. He was surrounded by the comforts which wealth can give. He was preparing, as he had long hoped to do, for sea, with the expectation of being placed as a midshipman on the quarter-deck. His uniform with brass buttons, his dirk and gold-laced hat, lay on a table before him, with a bright quadrant and spy-glass; and there was his sea-chest ready to be filled with his new wardrobe, and all sorts of little comforts which a fond mother and sisters were likely to have ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston

... Dirk's brows contracted. "It wasn't a fight, sir," he said shortly. "I've never fought Jack in my life. He did an infernal thing, and I made him ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... in a sort of undress nautical uniform, in which the fashion of no people in particular was very studiously consulted. Notwithstanding the apparent calm that reigned on all around them, each of these individuals bore a short straight dirk at his girdle; and, as one of them bent over the side of the vessel, the handle of a little pistol was discovered through an opening in the folds of his professional frock. There were, however, no other immediate signs of distrust, whence an observer might infer that this armed precaution was more ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... like these are for the most part villains of all nations and dyes; picked up in the lawless ports of the Spanish Main, and among the savages of the islands. Like galley-slaves, they are only to be governed by scourges and chains. Their officers go among them with dirk and pistol—concealed, but ready ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... by side without word or look passing between them. The man is tall and handsome, armed in the close-knit ring-mail shirt of the Dane, with gemmed sword hilt and golden mountings to scabbard and dirk, and his steel helm and iron-gray hair seem the same colour in the shadowless light of the dull sky overhead. One would set his age ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler

... overpowered and thrown on the ground. The youth, who had just fired his piece into the bosom of a tory, seeing his father's danger, flew to his aid, and with the butt of his gun knocked out the brains of the officer, at the very instant he was lifting his dirk for ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... imperious as in the American ships. They are divided into three (I think) probationary classes of "volunteers," instead of being at once advanced to a warrant. Nor will you fail to remark, when you see an English cutter officered by one of those volunteers, that the boy does not so strut and slap his dirk-hilt with a Bobadil air, and anticipatingly feel of the place where his warlike whiskers are going to be, and sputter out oaths so at the men, as is too often the case with the little boys wearing best-bower anchors on their ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... to be their only chance; and the impetuous Terence had already unsheathed his midshipman's dirk, with the design of burying it in the ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... and the coroner's jury, who were called to examine the body, found on it thirteen deep stabs, made as if by a sharp dirk or poniard, and the appearance of a heavy blow on the left temple, which had fractured the skull, but not broken the skin. The body was cold, and appeared to ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... Morgan—when the work was done, a shot was fired: and in the twinkling of an eye up sprang the sea-fencible; and he cried aloud, as I do now, Farewell! Sir Morgan Walladmor!" And so saying the stranger threw open his cloak, discovering underneath a dirk and a brace of pistols; and at the same time, with an impressive gesture, he raised his cap from ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... I am at this moment ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow,[57]who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian bandit, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African. My Highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, I have gravely removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which I cannot command, in case of spring-tide paroxysms. My best compliments to ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... do me a pleasure," replied Henry; "and that you may remember your promise, I will bestow on you this dirk. Look—if you hold it truly, and can strike between the mail hood and the collar of your enemy, the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... "Tony Dirk put the triple-whammy on him. Gimmicked up the random-choice selector in the Regent's office. Herr von James is discoursing on the subjects of Medicine, Astronomy, and Psychology—that is if Dirk knows ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... the west coast of Australia one is struck by the large number of Dutch names which are jotted down the coast. There is Hoog Island, Diemen's Bay, Houtman's Abrolhos, De Wit land, and the Archipelago of Nuyts, besides Dirk Hartog's Island and Cape Leeuwin. To the extreme north we find the Gulf of Carpentaria, and to the extreme south the island which used to be called Van Diemen's Land. It is not altogether to be wondered at that almost to the middle of this century the land we now call Australia was ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs

... care was, however, unavailing to prevent assaults. The most serious instance of this kind was the act of an Irish ruffian, who so far forgot the traditions and sufferings of his own people as to cast himself upon Drayton with a huge dirk and cut off a piece of his ear.[6] For a few moments all the horrors incident to riot and bloodshed were in evidence. The air was filled with the screams of terrorized women and children and the curses and threats ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... dignified with the name of village, we saw a number of Greeks waiting the return of Otho: each wore a gaily coloured kerchief on the head; an embroidered jacket; a shawl encircling the waist; red greaves; a dirk; and a long gun, ornamented with gold, slung over the shoulder. Their wild fearless demeanour struck me as more characteristic of the freebooter, than the soldier of a regular government. Yet seldom have I seen more elegant graceful figures than were possessed by these mountain robbers, whose ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... and confusion prevailed; and two gentlemen, who, as I afterwards learned, were officers belonging to a Spanish vessel then in port, fell into a dispute and got into a fight, during which one of them stabbed the other with a dirk-knife, inflicting ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson

... remind us of the nineteenth century; and, as we looked out upon the river in the morning sunlight, we could almost fancy that the centuries between us and that ever-to-be-famous June morning of 1215 had been drawn aside, and that we, English yeomen's sons in homespun cloth, with dirk at belt, were waiting there to witness the writing of that stupendous page of history, the meaning whereof was to be translated to the common people some four hundred and odd years later by one Oliver Cromwell, who ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... to the barbarous instincts of society in the degree by which his punishment is made severe. It aims to transform prisons into comfortable asylums, where those who have been so unfortunate as to burn somebody's house, or steal somebody's horse, or insert a dirk under somebody's waistcoat, may retire and repent of their little follies, and in the mean time get better food and lodging than they were ever able to steal. Punishment—retribution—these are words which make them shudder. Nothing in their view is proper but such treatment of the criminal, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... fearing in advance some unfortunate adventure for Bonne—the more so as the constable was as ready to brandish his broadsword as a priest to bestow benedictions—the said queen, as sharp as a dirk, said one day, while coming out from vespers, to her cousin, who was taking the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... fiend among the meres and fens. Conrad of Marpurg, the brutal Director of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, burnt them at his wicked will, extirpating, it may be, heresy, but not the spirit of the race. That, crushed down and seemingly enslaved, during the middle age, under Count Dirk and his descendants, still lived; destined at last to conquer. They were a people who had determined to see for themselves and act for themselves in the universe in which they found themselves; and, moreover (a necessary ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... him. A little way from the mouth of the cave the roof became elevated, but on advancing, an obstacle obstructed his progress. He soon perceived that, whatever it might be, the object was a living one, but unwilling to strike at a venture with his dirk, he stooped down, and discovered a goat and her kid lying on the ground. The animal was evidently in great pain, and feeling her body and limbs, he ascertained that one of her legs had been fractured. ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... thought it shameful and ungrateful to have no son available, my father was glad to have the boy's profession fixed, and he himself was rejoiced to escape from the miseries he knew only too well, and ready to believe that uniform and dirk would make a man of him at once, with all his terrors left behind. Perhaps the chief drawback was that the ladies WOULD say, 'What a darling!' affording Griff endless opportunities for the good-humoured mockery by which he concealed his own secret regrets. Did ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... loose boots, of the thickest untanned leather, that reached considerably above his knees, and from frequent immersion in the tide had assumed a deep brown hue. His hat was conical, and only distinguished by a small dirk glittering in the band, which he carried there as a place of safety from contact with ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... Sam Venners," said Joe, sharply. "If so be as Dirk said he'd come, be it half-a-hunder' years, he'll stan' to 't. I knowed Dirk. Many's the clam we toed out o' th' inlet yonner. He's not the sort to hang round, gnawin' out the old folk's meat-pot, as some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... mild and Christian terms:—"The Church is upon your neck. Do you want to be free? Then trample the Church, the priest, and the Bible under your feet."—The last day's proceeding closed by a row in the gallery, owing to a fight, in which a dirk had been drawn; and then the Convention adjourned till the ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... the star county of the star district, the autocrat, like Caesar, had a fainting fit and left the Democrats, explaining for the rest of the campaign that Republican eyes had seen a big dirk under his coat; and Jason never rested until with his own eyes he had seen the man who had begun to possess his brain like an evil dream. And he did see him and heard him defend his law as better than the old one, and declare that never again ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... scones, or rolls, in his pocket for dinner, and ridden over to the Eildon Hills. He had seen a rainbow touch one of them, and there he hoped he would find the treasure that always lies at the tail of the rainbow. But he got very soon tired of digging for it with his little dirk, or dagger. It blunted the dagger, and he found nothing. Perhaps he had not marked quite the right place, he thought. But he looked at the teeth of the sheep, and they were yellow; so he had no doubt that there ...
— The Gold Of Fairnilee • Andrew Lang

... chair and approached him, paper in hand. I think for a few moments the idea of personal danger possessed him, and the vision of a concealed dirk or pistol swam before his eyes, which he shielded with his hand, while he placed a chair between us; and, truth to say, there was murder in my heart, and in my eyes as well, I suppose, even if the mistrust ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... fastened, and thus his whole waistcoat was thrown open so as to show a tobacco-stained shirt bosom. The Missourian whom I had noticed at table said that this was done so that the wearer of the vest could reach his dirk handily. But Mobley was the last man I should have suspected of carrying a dirk, or if he did packing the gumption to ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... therefore, not very well qualified to come to a decision. Suddenly I recollected a visit paid to us by Tom Welby, an old schoolfellow, after his first trip to sea, and what a jolly life I thought he must lead as he described his adventures, and how fine a fellow he looked as he strutted about with his dirk at his side, the white patch on his collar, and the cockade in his hat. I decided at once. "If you wish it, father, I'm ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... up, laid one hand upon his dirk, and strutted up to Ram, looking "as big as a small ossifer," as Dirty Dick said afterwards; and gave him a smart slap on the shoulder as he was ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... consul-general to this empire, to act as agent for him at that port, until my appointment be ratified and confirmed by the States General, of which he informs me there is no doubt, I proceeded hither in the Snell Zee Post, Dirk Morris, master; and after being becalmed off (Affernie) Cape de Geer, I arrived here the third morning after my departure from Mogodor. I sent my horses by land; and on our 59 approach to the shore, I discovered ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... uniform at once, sir," observed Mr Selby; "most young gentlemen do." Jack thought it would be very nice, as his best clothes were already shabby; so in an incredibly short space of time he found himself exactly fitted in his naval habiliments with a dirk by his side, and a gold-lace cap. He did not like to wear them in the street, "lest he should appear conspicuous," he observed to a schoolfellow, so he did not put them on till he was ready to start in the morning by the coach up to London. He had got leave ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... placed a pistol in his belt, disclosing in this movement, which opened his doublet a little, the fine rings of a coat of mail, destined to protect him from the first dagger-thrust of an assassin. After which he took a Scotch dirk in his left hand, and then turning to Athos, "Are you ready, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... I have never been on a ship where the crew of the old "Essex" was represented, but that I found them to be the best swordsmen on board. They had been so thoroughly trained as boarders, that every man was prepared for such an emergency, with his cutlass as sharp as a razor, a dirk made by the ship's armorer out of a ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... Holbeins and Duerers, say; a haloed lot Of praying saints, madonnas: these, perchance, 'Mid wine-stained purples, mothed; an old romance; A crucifix and rosary; inlaid Arms, Saracen-elaborate; a strayed Niello of Byzantium; rich work, In bronze, of Florence: here a murderous dirk, There holy patens. So.—My ancestor, The first De Herancour, esteemed by far This ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein

... into her drawing room, and regaled them with her best wines, and made her servants attend upon them with unusual deference and ceremony. Their appearance was altogether horrible, they wore leather aprons, which were sprinkled all over with blood, they had large horse pistols in their belts, and a dirk and sabre by their sides. Their looks were full of ferocity, and they spoke a harsh dissonant patois language. Over their cups, they talked about the bloody business of that day's occupation, in the course of which they drew ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... bad job, intoirely!" he answered. "We was all havin' a little game of cards together, and to make the game lively we was stakin' our gims. Dirk got claned out at last—lost every stone of his share—and then he jumped up and swore that Price had been chatin' him. Price knocked him down for sayin' it; but he jumped up again—wid his mouth all bleedin' from Jack's blow—and, in a wink, before anny of us knew what he was ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... Even he has grown shyer of using his tongue than he once was. Have you not heard the tale? Tintoretto was told Aretino Meant to make him the subject of one of his merry effusions; And with his naked dirk he went carefully over his person, Promising, if the poet made free with him in his verses, He would immortalize my satirical friend with that pencil. Doubtless the tale is not true. Aretino says nothing about it; Always ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... of my own name pricked me up to listen sharply with my one good ear. You must bear in mind, Rector, that I could not see them, and durst not get up to peep over the quarter-rail, for fear of scaring them. But I was wearing a short hanger, like a middy's dirk—the one I always carry in ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... said the mother-in-law, as the cooper re-entered the apartment, "to send the innocent lad after an armed man, when ye ken Mr. Balderstone aye wears a rapier, and whiles a dirk into the bargain." ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... of men came rushing down Eighth Avenue, opposite Lamartine Hall, cheering and shouting, led by a man waving a sword cane. As he swung it above his head it parted, disclosing a long dirk. The police immediately advanced and swept the street. Eighth Avenue was cleared from Thirtieth Street to Twenty-eighth Street, and the police formed several deep, leaving only room enough for the cars ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... me shelter, I have shed a man's blood in a fray; Oh swear that you will not betray me, By your dirk, by the dear light of day!" And the prayer in his kindness he answered, But aghast heard the voices that cried; "Your cousin lies slain! Can a stranger Have passed ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... magnificent spectacle. The yellow leather of the doublets worn by Junker von Warmond, Colonel Mulder, and Captain Allertssohn, the colored silk scarfs that adorned them, and the scarlet coat of brave Dirk Smaling contrasted admirably with the deep black robes of Pastor Verstroot, the burgomaster, the city clerk, and their associates! The violet of the commissioner's dress and the dark hues of the fur-bordered surcoats worn by the elder Herr Van der Does and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... profusion of brass buttons, and fitting him with exquisite tightness, showed off a figure unrivalled for slim symmetry. His feet were covered with peaked buskins of buff leather, and a belt round his slender waist, of the same material, held his knife, his tobacco-pipe and pouch, and his long shining dirk; which, though the adventurous youth had as yet only employed it to fashion wicket-bails, or to cut bread-and-cheese, he was now quite ready to use against the enemy. His personal attractions were enhanced by a neat white hat, flung carelessly ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... at the dinner hour, he waited patiently five minutes: at the tenth minute, he felt a desire to throw the napkin in his face: at the twelfth he hoped some great calamity would befall him: at the fifteenth, he would not be able to restrain himself from stabbing him several times with a dirk. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... high Headlong fall'n break through, and lie With their prey in piteous wise, And no film on their dead eyes. Matted branches grind and crash, Into darkness dives the flash, Stabs, a dread gold dirk of fire, Loads the lift with splinters dire. Then a pause i' the deadly feud— ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... and as Jones came up again Means dealt him one crushing blow that sent him full length upon the ground. Nothing but the leaves saved him from a most terrible fall. Jones sprang to his feet more angry than ever at being whipped by one whom he regarded as a boy, and drew a long dirk-knife. But he was blind with rage, and Bud dodged the knife, and this time gave Pete a blow on the nose which marred the homeliness of that feature and doubled the fellow up against a ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... to see the pictures. There were two schools of Dortrecht. Jacob Geritee Cuyp (1575); Albert Cuyp (1605), Ferdinand Bol (1611), Nicolas Maas (1632), and Schalken (1643) belonged to the former; Arend de Gelder, Arnold Houbraken, Dirk Stoop, and Ary Scheffer are of the latter. Sunshine and glow were the characteristics of the first school, grayness and sobriety of the second. But there are few good pictures at Dort now, and some of the best works of Cuyp are to be found in our National Gallery, [London] executed ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... five huge cutting-in spades, a heavy knife from the galley, and a revolver of doubtful effectiveness were divided among them. The crew took the spades, Charlie the knife, and Wilbur the revolver. Moran had her own knife, a haftless dirk, such as is affected by all Norwegians, whether landsmen or sailors. They were examining this armament and Moran was suggesting a plan of attack, when Hoang, the leader of the beach-combers, and one other Chinaman appeared some little distance below them on the beach. ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... his own recklessness. He refused to be taken alive; and said that other attempts to take him had been made, and he was determined that he would not be taken. When taken he was nearly naked—had a large dirk or knife and a heavy club. He was at first, (when those who were in pursuit of him found it absolutely necessary,) shot at with small shot, with the intention of merely crippling him. He was shot at several times, and at last he was so disabled as to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... an' a dirk, An' a beard like besom bristles, He was an elder o' the kirk And he hated kists o' whistles! Hech mon! The pawky duke! An' doon on kists o' whistles! They're a' reid-heidit fowk up North Wi' ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie

... once more to greet him, the light flashed from her face and her eyes, as if her heart had been a fountain of rosy flame. Beauchamp was magnificent, the rather quiet tartan of his clan being lighted up with all the silver and jewels of which the dress admits. In the hilt of his dirk, in his brooch, and for buttons, he wore a set of old family topazes, instead of the commoner cairngorm, so that as he entered he flashed golden light from the dark green cloud of his tartan. Not observing Alec, he advanced to Kate ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... blow, but the sight of his brother triumphantly splashing through the shallows aroused him. He arose, and seizing the first stone that came to hand hurled it after Laurence, swearing fraternally that he would smite him in the brisket with a dirk as soon as he caught him for that dastard blow. The first stone flew wide, though the splash caused the mule to shy into deeper water, to the damping of his rider's legs. But the second, being better aimed, took the animal fairly on the rump, and, fetching up on a fly-galled spot, ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... with Field. We came to a barricade. A very pretty girl guarded it with a sword. She sternly demanded the parole or countersign. I caught hold of her and kissed her, and showed my pistols. She laughed. As I was armed with dirk and pistols, wore a sash, and was unmistakably a Latin Quarter etudiant, as shown by long hair, rakish cap on one side, red neck-tie, and single eyeglass, I was everywhere treated as a man and brother, friend and equal, warrior, and—by the girls—almost like a first-cousin. Field shared the glory, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... lest the influence of the Castle be too strong for the delegates. They could not resist it nor turn their backs upon it, since, unlike other ancient fortresses, it is but a stone's throw from the front windows of all the hotels. They might mean never so well, but they would end by buying dirk hat-pins and claymore brooches for their wives, their daughters would all run after the kilted regiment and marry as many of the pipers as asked them, and before night they would all be shouting ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... as an earthquake. The Highlanders, in twos and threes, swarmed into the houses and ordered their unwilling hosts to prepare them a meal. That it was war I was engaged in was, for the first time, brought clearly home to me when I saw a fearsome Highlander, with claymore, dirk, and loaded musket, posted at each end of the village. A touch of ordinary human nature was, however, added, when the children, fearless and happy in their ignorance, sidled up to the sentries and stared at them as eagerly as if they had been war-painted Indians ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... on their arrival at Portsmouth, went to the "Blue Posts,"—not an aristocratic hotel, certainly, but one resorted to in those days by the junior officers of the service. Willy felt very proud of his new uniform, and could not help handling his dirk as he sat by Harry Shafto's side in the coffee-room. Several midshipmen and masters' assistants came in. Two or three who took their seats at the same table asked Willy to what ship he belonged. "To the 'Ranger'," he answered proudly; "and a ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... carrying off all the women they could find. On arriving at the post they rushed in, their naked bodies blackened and painted after the manner of warriors bent on shedding blood; each carrying a gun and dirk in ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... post-office in those parts. And so she did meet him, and told him all about it. And Allister said nothing much then. But next day he came striding up to the cottage, at dinner-time, with his claymore (gladius major) at one side, his dirk at the other, and his little skene dubh (black knife) in his stocking. And he was grand to see—such a big strong gentleman I And he came striding up to the cottage where the shepherd was ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... hands and kilt smeared with blood. He said that he had killed a man in a quarrel and that men were after him in order to slay him. He asked for shelter. Inverawe promised to conceal him. The man said, 'Swear it on your dirk,' and Inverawe did so. He hid the man in a secret room in his castle. Soon after there was a knocking at his gate, and two ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan

... their road to the little borough-town were preceded by Niel Blane, the town-piper, mounted on his white galloway, armed with his dirk and broadsword, and bearing a chanter streaming with as many ribbons as would deck out six country belles for a fair or preaching. Niel, a clean, tight, well-timbered, long-winded fellow, had gained the official situation of town-piper of—by his merit, with all the emoluments thereof; namely, the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... was not in that prayer she put up just now, she is a grand actress also. This is a beastly trade of ours, hunting down and trapping the unwary. Sometimes I feel no better than a sleuth-hound, and that girl's eyes went through and through me a while ago like a two-edged dirk." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... goods emerged a customs-house officer, a dark green, dusty figure, of military erectness. He barred the way for Chelkash, standing before him in a challenging attitude, his left hand clutching the hilt of his dirk, while with his right he tried to seize ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... ruffians. At the age of fifteen he entered a counting-room, when his quick mercurial temperament soon rendered him expert at its minor functions. Three years had hardly elapsed when, in a moment of passion, he drew his dirk, (a weapon he always carried) and, in making a plunge at his antagonist, inflicted a wound in the breast of a near friend. The wound was deep, and proved fatal. For this he was arraigned before a jury, tried ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... skilled in cutting out bullets, arrow heads, and other missiles with which warriors were wounded. I myself have done much of this, using a common dirk ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo

... studiously selected from his wardrobe such portions of it as had been the gift of his uncle, all of which he carefully excluded from among the contents of the little portmanteau which readily comprised the residue. His travelling-dress was quickly adjusted; and not omitting a fine pair of pistols and a dirk, which, at that period, were held in the south and southwest legitimate companions, he found few other cares for arrangement. One token alone of Edith—a small miniature linked with his own, taken a few ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... lieutenant had left the city. He came almost to believe that the officer had spoken the truth, when distrust again assailed him on finding in the barracks a second document almost identical with the first, except that it contained the words, "Second warning," and the dirk had been driven half its length into the lid of the desk. At first he thought it was the same parchment and dagger, but the different wording showed him that at least the former was not the same. He called Gottlieb, and demanded to know who had been allowed to pass the ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... you do as I do. I mean to get hold of a cutlass and pistols. I'm not going to risk my valuable life with nothing to preserve it but a ridiculous dirk. Don't you be downhearted and think that the expedition is ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... men who traveled on it had the same spirit too. They were Bavarians—all new troops, and nearly all young fellows. Their accouterments were bright and their uniforms almost unsoiled, and I saw that each man carried in his right boot top the long, ugly-looking dirk-knife that the Bavarian foot-soldier fancies. The Germans always showed heat when they found a big service clasp-knife hung about a captured Englishman's neck on a lanyard, calling it a barbarous weapon because of the length of the blade and long sharp brad-awl which folded into a ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... out declarations. The women go about with the guilty look of plotters in their worried eyes. If one of them fails to slip something in without paying duty on it she will be disappointed for life. All women are natural enemies to all excise men. Dirk, the Smuggler, was ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... Dirk, the Hottentot, had brought his flock home already, and stood at the kraal door with his ragged yellow trousers. The fat old Boer put his stick across the door, and let Jannita's goats jump over, one by one. He counted them. When the last jumped over: "Have you been to sleep today?" he said; "there ...
— Dream Life and Real Life • Olive Schreiner

... the very first he disliked Captain Reid. He was second lieutenant in the ship—the Orion—in which Frederick sailed the very first time. Poor little fellow, how well he looked in his midshipman's dress, with his dirk in his hand, cutting open all the newspapers with it as if it were a paper-knife! But this Mr. Reid, as he was then, seemed to take a dislike to Frederick from the very beginning. And then—stay! these are the letters he wrote on board the Russell. When he was appointed ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Dirk Hartog, in command of the Endragt, while on his way from Holland to the East Indies, put into what Dampier afterward called Shark's Bay, and on an island, which now bears his name, deposited a tin plate with an inscription recording his arrival, and dated October ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... officer with new respect. He had always been inclined to think of the Frontier Guards as a gang of scientifically illiterate dirk-and-pistol bravos. He fiddled for a while with instruments on the panel; an automatic computer figured the distance to the planet, the boat's velocity, and the time needed ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper

... armed, with every man his drawn dirk in his hand, Sir John turned pale. Murray, with the unfolded banner of Mar in his grasp, and Ker by his side, stood at ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... cried Kirkpatrick; "I'll mak sicker"—or sure: and, so saying, hurried back into the church, and slew not only the wounded man, but his uncle, Sir Robert Comyn, who tried to defend him. The "bloody dirk" and the words "mak sicker" were adopted as crest and motto by the Kirkpatrick family. Strange instance of barbarism, that the dastardly, sacrilegious murder of a helpless man on the steps of the altar should be regarded as an achievement worthy ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... containing the animal called the Banded-Wallaby. (Grk. lagows, a hare, and strophos, a band or zone.) Its colour is a greyish-brown, with black and white bands, its distinguishing characteristic. It is sometimes called the Banded-Kangaroo, and is found at Dirk Hartog's Island, and on one or two islands in Shark's Bay, and in West Australia. For its interesting habits see ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... village of Scheveningen, Dirk Hogan by name. All the country around knows of his exploits; and when I met with him myself I saw such things as I should have thought impossible, had my ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... townsmen among those who beheld the scene but they sheepishly stood in their tracks and were afraid to punish the insolent pirate with his dirk and pistols. He was much taller and heavier than Jack Cockrell, the lad of seventeen, who came of gentlefolk and was unused to brawls with weapons. But the youngster hesitated no more than an instant, although his own pistol ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... altar, the kaishaku crouching on his left hand side. One of the three attendant officers then came forward, bearing a stand of the kind used in the temple for offerings, on which, wrapped in paper, lay the wakizashi, the short sword or dirk of the Japanese, nine inches and a half in length, with a point and an edge as sharp as a razor's. This he handed, prostrating himself, to the condemned man, who received it reverently, raising it to his head with both hands, and placed ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... flocked arround us in great numbers tho treated us with much rispect. we gave two medals of the small size to their two principal Cheifs who were pointed out to us by our Chopunnish fellow traveller and were acknowledged by the nation. we exposed a few old clothes my dirk and Capt. C's swoard to barter for horses but were unsuccessfull these articles constitute at present our principal stock in trade. the Pish-quit-pahs insisted much on our remaining with them all night, but sudry reasons conspired to urge our noncomplyance with their wishes. ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... do nae mair, Lang bowstrings o' their yellow hair Let Hieland lasses spin, laddie. Charlie's bonnet's down, laddie, Kilt yer plaid and scour the heather; Charlie's bonnet's down, laddie, Draw yer dirk and rin. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs! Oh, shiver my soul," he cried, "if I ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... gave the signal for the onset; and a deadly, a savage onset it was. Swords were shivered to the hilt. Men, who had done each other no wrong, who had never met before, grasped each other by the throat—the Highland dirk and the Border knife were drawn. Men plunged them into each other—they fell together—they rolled, the one over the other, in the struggles and the agonies of death. The wounded strewed the ground—they strove to crawl from the strife of their comrades. The dead lay upon the dying, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... eloquent in his silence, and Mr. Bartoline Saddle-tree and his prudent helpmate, and Porteous swinging in the wind, and Madge Wildfire, full of finery and madness, and her ghastly mother.—Again, there is Meg Merrilies, standing on her rock, stretched on her bier with "her head to the east," and Dirk Hatterick (equal to Shakspeare's Master Barnardine), and Glossin, the soul of an attorney, and Dandy Dinmont, with his terrier-pack and his pony Dumple, and the fiery Colonel Mannering, and the modish old counsellor Pleydell, and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... be a lass, she shall wear a golden ring; And if it be a lad, he shall fight for his king: With his dirk and his hat and his little jacket blue He shall walk the quarter-deck as his daddie ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... were taken for eyes, a position rectified by Walckenaer as above and by Kirby in his Bridgewater Treatise where he gives a copy of the French figure of this singular spider—Two Crustacea, one (Ocypode convexus) from Dirk Hatterick's and the other (Pagurus clibanarius) from Shark Bay, are all the Annulose animals described or figured as coming from New Holland, from the pitiable ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... teeth, carrying each from one revolver to three, and a few bowie-knives, in anticipation of there being a general row on inauguration morning, if not an open attempt to assassinate the President. One man whom I could name actually carried four revolvers and a dirk, without knowing any more about the use of either than a child of ten years might have done. There was danger of a collision, of course, growing out of the very fact that everybody went down armed. I was one of the very few who could ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... kissed him again and again, just as she used to do when she was a little girl. Indeed, just then she evidently had forgotten her own age and his, and probably thought of him just as she did when he came home a young midshipman the first time from sea, proud of his dirk and uniform, and full of the scenes he had witnessed and the wonders of the foreign lands he had visited. He patted me on the head very kindly, and told me he hoped I would some day be as good a seaman as my father. Then he told his sisters that he had been making interest to ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... bonnet with a long rich feather across it. There were two children with her, a girl of Meg's age, and a boy about as big as Robin, dressed like a little Highlander, with a kilt of many colours, and a silver-mounted pouch, and a dirk, which he was brandishing about before his mother, who looked on, laughing fondly and proudly at her boy. Meg gazed, too, until she heard Robin sob, and turning quickly to him, she saw the tears rolling quickly down his sorrowful face. 'Nobody ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton

... exhibiting to a number of gentlemen, who happened to be collected together in a druggist's store, some weapons which he claimed to have taken from Captain Pate in Kansas. Among them was a two-edged dirk, with a blade about eight inches long, and he remarked that if he had a lot of those things to attach to poles about six feet long, they would be a capital weapon of defense for the settlers of Kansas.... When he came to ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... kind, and rose repeatedly for the purpose of resuming his work at the gangway. Fortunately he was so far overcome by intoxication as to be easily restrained by the less bloodthirsty of the party, among whom was a line-manager, who went by the name of Dirk Peters. This man was the son of an Indian squaw of the tribe of Upsarokas, who live among the fastnesses of the Black Hills, near the source of the Missouri. His father was a fur-trader, I believe, or at least connected in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... Oig could prevent her, which, indeed, could only have been by positive violence, so hasty and peremptory were her proceedings, she had drawn from his side the dirk which lodged in the folds of his plaid, and held it up, exclaiming, although the weapon gleamed clear and bright in the sun, "Blood, blood—Saxon blood again. Robin Oig M'Combich, go not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various

... mouth of a cave, and furnished him with an abundant store of provisions. The fugitive crept in at a low aperture, dragging his stores along. When he reached a wider and loftier expanse he found some obstacle before him. He drew his dirk, but unwilling to strike, lest he might take the life of a companion in seclusion, he stooped down, and discovered a goat with her kid stretched on the ground. He soon perceived that the animal was in great pain, and feeling her body and limbs, ascertained that her leg ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... political value, but it revives as in a magic mirror somewhat dim, certain scenes of actual human life. Now and again the mist breaks, and real passionate faces, gestures of living men and women, are beheld in the clear- obscure. We see Lochgarry throw his dirk after his son, and pronounce his curse. We mark Pickle furtively scribbling after midnight in French inns. We note Charles hiding in the alcove of a lady's chamber in a convent. We admire the 'rich anger' of his Polish mistress, and the sullen rage of Lord ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... sword and dirk has, Ilka ane as proud's a Turk is; There's the Grants o' Tullochgorum, Wi' their pipers gaun before 'em; Proud the mithers are that bore 'em. Feedle, faddle, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... growled the boatman and tossed a fiery dram down his gullet. But fair fight in the accepted sense of the phrase was farthest from his intention. Quick as a flash, he drew from his belt a dirk, and would have stabbed his antagonist, had not a bystander seized his uplifted arm, while another wrenched the weapon from his grasp. The ruffian's comrades hurried their dangerous leader from the inn, and guided his ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... happened that in 1616 the Eendragt stumbled on Australia opposite Shark's Bay. Her captain, Dirk Hartog, landed on the long island which lies as a natural breakwater between the bay and the ocean, and erected a metal plate to record his visit; and Dirk Hartog Island is the name it bears to this day. The plate ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... the ground game was pouring out of the undergrowth and dispersing in all directions. Once a boar ran past, grumbling as he went, turning a wicked and resentful eye on the placid gentleman in green who sat on the ground, but who felt for his long dirk as he saw the fury on the brute's face and the foam on the tusks. But the pig thought discretion was best, and hurried on complaining. More than one troop of deer flew past, the does gathered round their lord to protect him, all swerving together like a string of geese as they ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... gigantic savages rushed upon our hero, shrieking with rage and brandishing their huge clubs. Ned stood his ground fearlessly, his back to a banana tree. With a sweep of his cutlass he severed the head of the leading savage from his body, while with a back stroke of his dirk he stabbed another to the heart. But resistance against such odds was vain. By sheer weight of numbers, Ned was borne to the ground. His arms were then pinioned with stout ropes made of the fibres of the boobooda tree. With shrieks of exultation the savages dragged ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock

... kick and protest, the body wriggles and twists; and that is all. They have no weapons capable of contending with the assassin's dagger. I should like to see the huntress grappling with an imposing adversary, one as crafty as herself, an expert layer of ambushes and, like her, bearing a poisoned dirk. I should like to see the bandit armed with her stiletto confronted by another bandit equally familiar with the use of that weapon. Is such a duel possible? Yes, it is quite possible and even quite common. On the one hand we have the Pompili, the protagonists ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... of your friend now? What do you say to this honest and worthy young man, who, on the very night of the crime, leaves a wedding where he would have had a good time, to go and buy a hammer, a chisel, and a dirk—everything, in short, used in the murder and the ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau

... would do. It's said a' body jumped back frae him in a sudden dread, except poor Angus, the other piper, wha was busy tuning up for 'The Bonny House.' Weel, Angus had got no farther in the tune than the first skirl when Lauchlan louped at him, and ripped up the startled crittur's pipes wi' his dirk. The pipes gae a roar o' agony like a stuck swine, and fell gasping on the floor. What happened next was that Lauchlan wi' his dirk handy for onybody that micht try to stop him, marched once round the table, playing 'The Campbells are Coming,' and then straucht out o' the Spittal, ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... slighter than those of our people; and if the cheeks of the young women were dark, they had regular features and brilliant eyes, and finely formed hands. There is spirit, also, in this class, for one of them has since been pointed out to me in the streets, as having drawn a dirk upon a young officer who presumed upon some ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... excited that he went up stairs for his plaid and dirk, and dressed himself up in them, apologising that he could not appear in the full grab of old Gaul, in honor of his new-found relative, as his daughter had cut up his old kilt for 'trews for the barnies' during his absence from home. Then they took to more toddy and singing Scotch songs, till at ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... she had just heard at the door, Cecily did not the less tranquilly continue her undressing; she drew from her corsage, where it was placed like a busk, a dirk, five or six inches long, in a case of black shagreen, with a handle of black ebony fastened with silver, a very simple handle, but perfectly handy, not ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... save a tattered Pair of scarce decent trowsers—went to work, And in the fire his recent rags they scattered, And dressed him, for the present, like a Turk, Or Greek—that is, although it not much mattered, Omitting turban, slippers, pistol, dirk,— They furnished him, entire, except some stitches, With a clean shirt, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... insulted. Away with the braggart!" the Laconians were clamouring. The Athenians answered in kind. Already a dark sailor was drawing a dirk. Everything promised broken heads, and perhaps blood, when Leonidas and his friend,—by laying about them with their staves,—won their way to the front. The king dashed his staff upon the shoulder of a strapping ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... is that we should only carry a beggarly little dirk," said Bob Roberts to himself, as he tried to look sneeringly at the young ensign before him; for the latter came across the deck with rather a swaggering stride, and stood ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... Spanish bull-fighter who seemed to be the husband of the woman pa sat on, and he wanted pa's blood, but the old circus manager took him away to save pa from trouble, and he glared back at pa, and I think he will stab pa with a dirk knife. ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck

... legends were considered to be connected with the tree, and the duration of the family of Hay was said to be united with its existence. It was believed that a sprig of the mistletoe cut by a Hay on Allhallowmas eve, with a new dirk, and after surrounding the tree three times sunwise, and pronouncing a certain spell, was a sure charm against all glamour or witchery, and an infallible guard in the day of battle. A spray gathered ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... a misobliging word She'll dirk her neighbour o'er the board. If any ask her of her drift, Forsooth, her nainself lives ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... justice there is the dirk and claymore. But the young lady seems revived now. Do you take supper? I'll send ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... damsel's bosom, like its emblem, the miniature which hangs without, is apt to be engrossed by a single image, a new visitor began to make his appearance under the roof of Wolfert Webber. This was Dirk Waldron, the only son of a poor widow, but who could boast of more fathers than any lad in the province; for his mother had had four husbands, and this only child, so that though born in her last ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... Then what the men whispered the women spoke aloud; and so, more quickly than the tarie is borne, word went to a man of the MacDonalds who loved the Duart maiden. Not like a lover to his tryst did he come. In the handle of his dirk the rich stones sparkled as they rose and fell with the rise and fall of the maiden's white bosom. She prayed to die in his arms; for it was not Duart that she loved, but him. She died, and they snooded her ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... might laugh at us, as at grasshoppers trusting in the strength of their arms, and thus shame our honoured lord; but we could not halt in our deed of vengeance. Having taken counsel together last night, we have escorted my Lord Kotsuke-no-Suke hither to your tomb. This dirk, by which our honoured lord set great store last year, and entrusted to our care, we now bring back. If your noble spirit be now present before this tomb, we pray you, as a [297] sign, to take the dirk, and, striking the ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... law's "swate-lukin' roifle," and was as cheerful as if a wedding was in progress. Finally, Timotheus got the fowling piece and the Squire looked to the priming of his pistols. Mr. Nash, of course, had both revolver and dirk knife concealed somewhere about his person. Then Mr. Errol conducted family prayers, the children were sent to bed, the ladies briefly informed of the situation, and the garrison bidden a more than usually ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... talking about. But most of them don't. They get the thing second hand. They're chock full of loyalty to superiors and systems and governments, just from habit... I've worked with my hands, and I've fought for a half loaf of bread with a dirk knife, and I know all the dirty, rotten things of life by direct contact. So when I disagree with the demands of the men who build my vessels I know why I'm disagreeing. And I usually do disagree ... because if they've got guts enough ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... the manner of the Turks; the beard of his upper lip being very long—was richly dressed—armed with a machete and knife on one side, and a pair of pistols on the other; besides which, he wore a dirk within his vest. After examining our papers, which had been accidentally saved by Capt. Hilton, he took out of a net purse, two doubloons, and presented them to the master fisherman in presence of all hands. This, we at first supposed to be intended as some compensation for the injury done, by ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins

... something wet and warm trickling from his forehead into his left eye. Three men were at him. Bill McKay was one of them and Pierre Benoist another. McKay fought with a clubbed musket, and the French sailor held a dirk in one hand and an empty pistol in the other. The third prodded about in the background with a cutlass. He seemed to be of ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... besmeared with blood, who, in a breathless voice, begged for asylum. He went on to say that he had killed a man in a fray, and that the pursuers were at his heels. Campbell promised to shelter him. 'Swear on your dirk!' said the stranger; and Campbell swore. He then led him to a secret recess in the depths of ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... lull in the tales and the old fellow, to urge on the flagging spirits, brandished his dirk and pledged it to ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster

... when two other men suddenly appeared through a door at the left, and the three surrounded him, one leveling a revolver at his head, another at his breast, and the third pointing a dirk at his side, all indulging in an indiscriminate volley of oaths and threats. Said his grey-haired guide (who afterwards proved to be John P. Chester, Elsie's master, the same who had enacted to me the role of the sympathetic physician), "If you stir or speak one word we'll kill you. Go into ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... Cutlass and dirk were plied; Fettered and blind, one after one, Plunged down the vessel's side. The sabre smote above, Beneath, the lean shark lay, Waiting with wide and bloody jaw His quick ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... with the position.) However, every one who compares this Journal with that of Tasman's will be as good a judge as I am; but it is necessary to observe that I do not take the Situation of Vandiemen's from the Printed Charts, but from the extract of Tasman's Journal, published by Dirk Rembrantse. At Noon we were in the Latitude of 37 degrees 50 minutes and Longitude of 210 degrees 29 minutes West. The extreams of the Land extending from North-West to East-North-East, a remarkable point, bore North 20 degrees East, distant 4 ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... [A.D. 84], somewhere near Inverness, is described in minute and picturesque detail by Tacitus, who was present. He shows us the slopes of the Grampians alive with the Highland host, some on foot, some in chariots, armed with claymore, dirk, and targe as in later ages. He puts into the mouth of the leader, Galgacus, an eloquent summary of the motives which did really actuate them, and he reports the exhortation to close the fifty years of British warfare with ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... twisting round in the darkness and reaching blindly for the haft of his dirk. "Nom de ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... Dirk Wessels, recorder, Jan Wendal, Jan Jansen Bleeker, Claes Ripse, David Schuyler, Albert Ryckman, aldermen, Killian Van Rensselaer, justice, Captain Marte Gerritse, justice, Captain Gerrit Teunisse, Dirk Teunisse, justices, Lieutenant Robert Saunders, John ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... awa' frae Scotia's mountains, Far frae a' that 's dear to dwall, Mak's my e'en twa gushin' fountains, Dings a dirk in my puir saul. Braes o' breckan, hills o' heather, Howms whare rows the gowden wave, Blissful scenes, fareweel for ever! I ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... been laughing as raucously as a jackal—and so they had passed him by. The event which had spelled tragedy for him; robbed him of sleep and withered his robust appetite had not even lingered overnight in her memory. The dirk was in Stuart Farquaharson's breast, but it was yet to be twisted. Pride forbade his shaking Johnny Reb into a wild pace until he was out of sight. The funereal grandeur of his measured tread must not be broken, and so he heard with painful distinctness the next remark ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... died loving me and me only." The young girl made a gesture of rage. "I understand you, Fernand; you would be revenged on him because I do not love you; you would cross your Catalan knife with his dirk. What end would that answer? To lose you my friendship if he were conquered, and see that friendship changed into hate if you were victor. Believe me, to seek a quarrel with a man is a bad method of pleasing the woman who loves that man. No, Fernand, you will not thus give way ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... hole that led into their realm, and went boldly down. There in the Underworld he found the child, and thus the robbers were forced to take their own again instead. In a more detailed narrative from Islay, the father arms himself with a Bible, a dirk, and a crowing cock, and having found the hill where the "Good People" had their abode open, and filled with the lights and sounds of festival, he approached and stuck the dirk into the threshold. The object of ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... for it, just come along," said Dusenberry; and reaching his hand over to Dunn, took the handcuffs from him and attempted to put them on Manuel's wrists. The poor fellow struggled and begged for more than ten minutes, and was wellnigh overpowering them, when Dusenberry drew a long dirk-knife from his bosom, and holding it in a threatening attitude at his breast, uttered one of those fierce yells such as are common to slave-hunters, whose business it is to hunt and run down runaway niggers with bloodhounds. "Submit, ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... adversary's claws and teeth with redoubled vengeance. Many years ago, Colonel Duff, in India, was laid low by the stroke of a Bengal tiger. On coming to himself, he found the animal standing over him. Recollecting that he had his dirk by his side, he drew it out of the case, in the most cautious manner possible, and by one happy thrust quite through the heart, he laid the tiger dead ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... of the contest was apparent. With a mingled yell of rage and contempt, his sword brandished above his head and his dirk between his teeth, the enormous bandit rushed upon his intrepid opponent. De Vaux seemed scarce more than a stripling, but he stood his ground and faced his hitherto invincible assailant. 'Mong Dieu,' cried De Smythe, ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... said one. "That yellow-haired party has got him by the throat; I saw her looking at him most uncommon sharp, when she was telling that biggest story of hers, about the serpent that swallowed. Dirk he thinks he's been swallowed by one of 'em; he feels it choking ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden



Words linked to "Dirk" :   sticker



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