"Pun" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... play on words Odysseus makes, the pun on [Greek text], in fact, is not noticed. The idyll of Nausicaa, however, is very gracefully translated, and there is a great deal that is delightful in the Circe episode. For simplicity of diction this is also ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... pursue with surprising ardour, and at which they will stake everything they possess. It is a destructive kind of gambling, requiring no accessories but the ten fingers, which are always—I intend no pun- -at hand. Two men play together. One calls a number—say the extreme one, ten. He marks what portion of it he pleases by throwing out three, or four, or five fingers; and his adversary has, in the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... favourite pastime of the courtly and accomplished. It was an age more favourable, upon the whole, to vigour of intellect than the present, in which a dread of being thought pedantic dispirits and flattens the energies of original minds. But independently of this, I have no hesitation in saying that a pun, if it be congruous with the feeling of the scene, is not only allowable in the dramatic dialogue, but oftentimes one of the most ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... repeat this story freely among themselves, being, no doubt, amused by the Lamb-like pun, but also enjoying the malicious pleasure of hinting that it might have been as well for their art education if the advice of the gentle humorist had been followed. Anyone who wants to know what kind of an artist F. ...
— Samuel Butler: A Sketch • Henry Festing Jones
... he testified to a keen recollection of his Viennese experiences and the double dealing (no pun intended) of the Austrian shopkeeper just at the present epoch in the national finance system ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... pun," Jean groaned. "He couldn't stand up very long at first. But I saw he had talent. I gladly learned the skill of holding him upright in a relaxed manner so that he could express himself on paper. In no time at all, he had written what was to be his first, ...
— Droozle • Frank Banta
... No chance rhyme or pun, bad, good, or indifferent, was let slip, however much taking it up might interrupt ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... dead roses, a glance at a pun, A toss of old powder, a glint of the sun, They meet in the volume that ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... first but a rebus, the last but a dean. A dean's but a parson: and what is a rebus? A thing never known to the Muses or Phoebus. The corruption of verse; for, when all is done, It is but a paraphrase made on a pun. But a genius like hers no subject can stifle, It shows and discovers itself through a trifle. By reading this trifle, I quickly began To find her a great wit, but the dean a small man. Rich ladies will furnish their garrets with stuff, Which others for mantuas ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... been well for the writer of the above-mentioned leaderette had he referred to the ninth of ELIA's Popular Fallacies, and been thereby reminded how "a pun is a pistol let off at the ear; and not a feather to tickle the intellect." The Baron is prepared to admit that the lesson to be learned from this delightful Essay of CHARLES LAMB's is, that a pun once let off, has fizzled off, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... of being funny is grown old-fashioned," said Cutter. "Fifty or sixty years ago, a hundred years ago, when a man wanted to be very bitingly sarcastic, he would compose a criticism upon his enemy which was only a long string of abominable puns; each pun was printed in italics. That was thought to ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... of others. A mixture of conceit and drollery, and hugely wrapped up in self, he is by no means a commonplace buffoon, but stands firm in his sufficiency of original stock. His elaborate nonsense, his grasping at a pun without catching it, yet feeling just as grand as if he did, is both ludicrous and natural. His jokes to be sure are mostly failures; nevertheless they are laughable, because he dreams not but they succeed. The poverty of his wit is thus ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... 'when I left th' Five Towns fifty-two years sin' to go weaving i' Derbyshire wi' my mother's brother, tay were ten shilling a pun'. Us had it when us were sick—which wasna' often. We worked too hard for be sick. Hafe past five i' th' morning till eight of a night, and then Saturday afternoon walk ten mile to Glossop with a week's work on ye' back, and home again wi' ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... a pun, unconscious of what the outer world calls such things, but quite conscious of its humor. "Thought I was a b'ar," she chuckled. "Well, I certainly ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... that Legrand is frankly a symbolist. We side with Mauclair in not trying to pin this etcher down to any particular formula. He is anything he happens to will at the moment, symbolist, poet, and also shockingly frank at times. Take the plate with a pun for a title, Le paing quotidien ("paing" is slang for "poing," a blow from the fist, and may also mean the daily bread). A masculine brute is with clinched fist about to give his unfortunate partner her daily drubbing. He is well dressed. His silk hat ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... your aunt, 'there is an advertisement in the Charlottetown Enterprise for a Persian cat, and I answered it. Fatima is really quite a charge, you know—and so apt to die and be a dead loss,'—did your aunt mean a pun, girls?—'and so, although I am considerably attached to her, I have decided to ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... in vol. i. 238, where I have noted the punning "Sabr" patience or aloes. I quote Torrens: the Templar, however, utterly abolishes the pun in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... shouldering the odium of unpopular acts. [Sidenote: May, 1521] When the Duke of Buckingham was executed for the crime of standing next in succession to the throne, Wolsey was blamed; many people thought, as it was put in a pun attributed to Charles V, that "it was a pity so noble a buck should have been slain by such a hound." Wolsey lost the support of the nobles by the pride that delighted to humble them, and of the commons by the avarice that accumulated a corrupt ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... are colourless, and in these days we are deboshed with colour; but then they are so luminously limpid and serene, they are so sprightly and graceful and gay! In the gallantry they affect there is a something at once exquisite and paternal. If they pun, 'tis with an air: even thus might Chesterfield have stooped to folly. And then, how clean the English, how light yet vigorous the touch, the manner how elegant and how staid! There is wit in them, and that so genial and unassuming that as like as not it gets leave to beam on unperceived. There ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... stammered a little man beside him, and everybody laughed, especially the genial man, who cried out, "Charley Lamb, Charley Lamb, you'll never alter. You would make a pun if you were hanged ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... certainly intended as a pun upon the names of two news-venders or corranto-coiners of the day. Nathaniel Butter, the publisher of "The certain Newes of this present Week," lived at the Pyde-Bull, St. Austin's-gate, and was the proprietor of several of the intelligencers, from 1622 to about ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... been listening to the dialogue, looked aghast, and evinced a strong inclination to ask a question, but was checked by a look from his wife. Mr. Wisbottle laughed, and said Tomkins had made a pun; and Tomkins laughed too, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... marmalade graced the dialogue incessantly; but the amazed audience could not indorse this rural festival. Jinny, amid the pigs, horses, tea, cucumbers and marmalade, talked in Mr. Zangwill's best style—a style replete with wordplay or pun—but her setting killed her, and she ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... is an inexhaustible source of amusing varieties. There are many ways of bringing about this interference, I mean of bracketing in the same expression two independent meanings that apparently tally. The least reputable of these ways is the pun. In the pun, the same sentence appears to offer two independent meanings, but it is only an appearance; in reality there are two different sentences made up of different words, but claiming to be one and the same because both have the same sound. We pass from the pun, ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... instructor. If you can look as if you'd lost all your friends and bitten your tongue you'll make a big hit with him. He doesn't know a joke even when it's labelled and can't stand any flippancy. I made a pun in class once; I've forgotten what it was, but it was a bright and scintillant little effort; and Uncle Sim told me I'd end on the gallows. He's never forgotten that and still views me ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... don't understand what you're talking about!" he says. "But I fancy it's a pun of some sort! Very well, then, what did the ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... which was an imitation, however humble, of 'The glory to God on high,' &c., as sung by the angels who hovered over the fields of Bethlehem on the morning of our Saviour's nativity." It is true, indeed, that our modern angels, the waits of 1897, have hovered about, and they may (without a pun) be styled angels (of darkness), not only on account of the watch they keep a nights, but on account of those spirit-uous propensities, for the attainment of which, principally, some have supposed, we are indebted to them for their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... Tish seldom makes a pun, which she herself has said is the lowest form of humor. The dig at my figure was unkind, also, and unworthy of her. I turned and ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Girls aren't worth a damn.... Thirty to one off Bill Short—he'd have laid it. I remember seeing the price quoted in all the papers. Thirty to one taken and hoffered. If you had told me all yer knowed I might 'ave gone 'alf a quid—fifteen pun to 'alf a quid! as much as I'd earn in three months slaving eight and ten hours a day, paint-pot on 'and about them blooming engines. Well, there's no use crying over what's done—sich a chance won't come again, but something else may. What are they going to do with ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... better witticisms to the jest-books than Sir Thomas More. Like all legal wits, he enjoyed a pun, as Sir Thomas Manners, the mushroom Earl of Rutland discovered, when he winced under the cutting reproof of his insolence, conveyed in the translation of 'Honores mutant mores'—Honors change manners. But though he would condescend to play ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... alternative but experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to him who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained. But, with the cipher now before us, all difficulty is removed by the signature. The pun upon the word 'Kidd' is appreciable in no other language than the English. But for this consideration I should have begun my attempts with the Spanish and French, as the tongues in which a secret of this kind would ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... healthy man that would stick to the less vigorous. Bodily depression almost always involves mental depression; our "blues" usually have an organic basis. It was not a superstition that evolved our word "melancholy" from the Greek "black (i.e., disordered) liver" nor is it a mere pun or paradox to say that whether life is worth living depends ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... killed. This interpretation was probably the result of a confusion with the old legend of the fight between Horus and Set, the rulers of the two kingdoms of Egypt. The possibility also suggests itself that a pun made by some priestly jester may have been the real factor that led to this mingling of two originally separate stories. In the "Destruction of Mankind" the story runs, according to Budge,[195] that Re, referring to his enemies, said: ma-ten set uar er set, ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... Constantino inconstantiam... execrarentur, (Sidonius Apollinaris, l. v. epist. 9, p. 139, edit. secund. Sirmond.) Yet Sidonius might be tempted, by so fair a pun, to stigmatize a prince ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... noticed you when you first began to work for Stephens and Jarrott. So did my sister-in-law, but I noticed you first. We've often spoken of you, especially after we knew your name was Strange. It seemed to us so strange. That's a pun, isn't it? I often make them. We both thought you were like what Henry—that's Mr. Jarrott's oldest son—might have grown to, if he had been spared to us. We've had a great deal of sorrow—Oh, a great deal! It's weaned my sister-in-law away from the world altogether. She's ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... 68 deg.. The mosquitoes were most tormenting; as was well expressed by one of the men outside my tent, who remarked to his companion, "That the more you punishes 'em, the more they brings you to the scratch:" a tolerable pun for one of "the fancy," of which class we had rather too many in the party. The horses, although tethered and close spancelled, could not be secured, even thus. Some had broken away and strayed during the ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... of unknown origin, signifies some question or statement in which some hidden and fanciful resemblance is involved, the answer often depending upon a pun; an enigma is a dark saying; a paradox is a true statement that at first appears absurd or contradictory; a problem is something thrown out for solution; puzzle (from oppose) referred originally to the intricate arguments by which disputants ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... pun on this word. It is never done in really good sporting society. But you can make a few remarks, here and there, about the comparative merits of twelve-bore and sixteen-bore. Choose a good opening for telling your story of the man who ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... Academy, should be the leaven, the yeast, to work upon our great metropolis; not merely the flower, but the self-raising flour"—a pause for appreciation of the pun—"the self-raising flour [loud laughter, easily yielded and unnecessarily prolonged] that is to lift yourselves, and the city with you, from the abyss of no-art, and from the still deeper abyss of false art. That's where we're groping; that's where we're floundering. I declare, when I was elbowing ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... their old-time pun upon the foreman's name. He got to his feet and approached. "It does me good," he said, extending ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... fellow," said Michael. "Nor yet to no one else—and you'll give yourself up to hell flames av you don't keep the blessed oath to the last day of your life. Now let him kiss it, Pat. I wouldn't be in his shoes for a ten-pun note if he breaks ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... Swineherd at all, but is a play upon the name of Bishop Bloet,—the horn being intended to suggest "Blow it!" It seems hardly possible to credit the mediaeval wit with no keener sense of humour than to perpetrate such a far-fetched pun. ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... only thing I have against Griswold," declared Jack. "He will pun in the most reckless manner at all times. Some of his jokes are not what they are cracked ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... the game they dare not bite. Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve,[8] familiar toad. Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, In pun, or politics, or tales, or lies. Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies. His wit all see-saw, between that and this, Now high, now low, now make up, now miss, And he himself one vile antithesis. Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head, or the corrupted ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... his "Hear hims!" proud, too, of his vote, And lost virginity of oratory, Proud of his learning (just enough to quote), He revelled in his Ciceronian glory: With memory excellent to get by rote, With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story, Graced with some merit, and with more effrontery,[mq] "His country's pride," he came down to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... a feeling of pained regret, a fellow-wanderer by our side telling us how he had once lost "fi-pun-note"—and about two-thirds of the city unemployed on the wharf looking for that half-sovereign. Well, we hope that some poor devil found it; although, to tell the truth, we would then have by far preferred ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... he had said one of those things which funny people say, and he would never have done that on purpose. I assured him that I knew he had said it accidentally, but it stopped us talking about Ward, because, when you hate puns, it is most discomforting to make one suddenly. I made a pun once—I can still remember it, because if I had performed this feat intentionally I should have deserved all I got. What I did get was a dig in the ribs from Collier and the remark, "You are a wag," and then I had to repeat it to his three cousins, ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... a grizzly," explained Harry, "a grizzly bear you know. Dad says he's the biggest he's ever seen and he seems to bear—excuse the pun, please—he seems to bear a charmed life. All the boys on the ranch are crazy to get a shot at him, but they've never ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... vulgar pronounce Anas) "al- Wujud"Delight of existing things, of being, of the world. Uns wa jud is the normal punlove-intimacy and liberality; and the caranomasia (which cannot well be rendered in English) re-appears again and again. The story is throughout one of love; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... There is a pun in the fourth line which suggests more than even a free translation can express. War['e] means "I," or "mine," or "one's own," etc., according to circumstances; and war['e] m['e] (written separately) might be rendered "its own eyes." ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... a smart Paris frock to land in, and meet "Larry": also hat. She looked a dream, and felt one. Every woman did her best in the clothes line (I don't mean a pun), but Mrs. Shuster transcended us all. You can't think what she was like in one of the new-fashioned dresses, and a close-winged hat with a long stick-out thing behind exactly the shape and size of a setting hen. You may ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... pun here cannot be kept. The word (in Greek), Paean, resembles (that for) to strike; hence the word, as recalling the blows and wounds of the war, seems of ill ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... corners of her mouth of late, that I am unusually out of favor with her. This evening, Ernest, coming home quite late, found me lolling back in my chair, idling, after a hard day's work with my little cousins, and Martha sewing nervously away at the rate of ten knots an hour, which is the first pun I ever made. ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... feast and ordered the steward to bring his wife. He denied that he had one, but brought her at last, and while every one else was talking gaily at the feast she was silent. The king observed it and asked the cause of her silence, and she answered with a pun on her own name, "Vineyard I was, and Vineyard I am. I was loved and no longer am. I know not for what reason the Vineyard has lost its season." Her husband, who heard this, replied, "Vineyard thou wast, and Vineyard thou art: the Vineyard lost its season, for the lion's claw." The king, who understood ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... first preparing for United Planets employment and then in working for the organization, Ronny Bronston had never been in the Octagon Building. He'd seen photographs, Tri-Di broadcasts and he'd heard several thousand jokes on various levels from pun to obscenity about getting around in the building, but he'd never been there. For that matter, he'd never been in Greater Washington before, other than a long ago tourist trip. Population Statistics, his department, had its main offices ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... and, for that matter, a certain kind of triolet can be written by the ream. But to put the eight lines together in such a way that the refrain comes in freshly each time, is often a day's work. In a much lighter vein it is permissible to pun in the repeated lines so that the last repetition comes in with ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... by making a pun about its all being Greek to me, but I shan't." He returned to Page ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... you mean to say the pun-question is not clearly settled in your minds? Let me lay down the law upon the subject. Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide—that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... incorporated in Public Statutes, Chapter 115, Section 2, with the fol- lowing important restrictions: In accordance with Statutes of 1883, Chapter 268, any officer, agent, or servant of any corporation or association, who confers, or authorizes [15] to be conferred, any diploma or degree, shall be pun- ished by a fine not less than five hundred dollars and not more ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... the time set, the girls tapped for admission, for there was no denying the drawing qualities of Mary's wares. The pun was common property in ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... cardinal at Alcala de Henares, and acknowledging that his own reign had received both benefit and glory from it. The people of Alcala punningly said, the church of Toledo had never had a bishop of greater edification than Ximenes; and Erasmus, in a letter to his friend Vergara, perpetrates a Greek pun on the classic name of Alcala, intimating the highest opinion of the state of science there. The reclining statue of Ximenes, beautifully carved in alabaster, now ornaments his sepulchre in ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... then haunted her, till she found him playing with Gorgon in the road; and from that to her bewilderment twenty-four hours later, when he had called the dog Zola. She had reproved the enormity of the syncopated pun, but Dick had insisted that Zola fitted an animal whose expression was always ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... Steve. Jack's no ordinary rip-roaring, hell-raisin' miner. He knows what's what. That's why we call him Crumbs—because he's fine bred. Pun, see. Fine ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... more task ticked off from their memorandum book, and count up the list of summits visible from the Goernergrat without being penetrated with any keen sense of sublimity. And there are mountaineers who are capable of making a pun on the top of Mont Blanc—and capable of nothing more. Still I venture to deny that even punning is incompatible with poetry, or that those who make the pun can have no deeper feeling in their bosoms which they are perhaps too ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... just got it. I'm not going home." (He lived eight miles off, near Axe.) "I've got to go to a Church meeting at Red Cow, and I'm sleeping there. John's Ernest is calling here for me presently. I don't fancy driving over them moors with near a thousand pun in my pocket—and colliers out on strike—not at my age, missis! If you don't know what Red Cow is, I reckon I do. It's your money. Put it in a drawer and say nowt, and I'll fetch it to-morrow. What'll happen to it, think ye, seeing as it hasn't got legs?" ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... indeed. He would, provided the opportunity remained with him. But it would not, for I would have had judgment enough to take some strychnine first and say my smart thing afterward. The fair record of my life has been tarnished by just one pun. My father overheard that, and he hunted me over four or five townships seeking to take my life. If I had been full-grown, of course he would have been right; but, child as I was, I could not know how wicked a ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... of that one priest draggling up, poor devil, through the wet grass to the deserted altar with his solitary goose under his arm, he would have had every goose in Antioch—forgive my stealing a pun from Aristophanes—running open-mouthed to worship any god known or unknown—and to ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... writer, dry; those who knew his writings will feel that he seldom could have taken in a joke or issued a pun. Maseres was the fourth wrangler of 1752, and first Chancellor's medallist (or highest in classics); his second was Porteus[459] (afterward Bishop of London). Waring[460] came five years after him: he could not get Maseres through ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... concludes with the following paragraph, in which he affirms that he knew the woman Maldonada, which may be taken as proof that she was among the few that survived the first disastrous settlement and lived on to more fortunate times: his pious pun on her name would be lost in a translation:—"De esta manera quedo libre la que ofrecieron a las fieras: la cual mujer yo la conoci, y la llamaban la Maldonada, que mas bien se le podia llamar la BIENDONADA; ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... facsimile of one of the epistolary efforts of that "baby-faced" Caroline beauty who was accustomed to sign herself "L duchesse de Portsmout." It is better still in the letter from Walpole to General Conway in chap. xl. of The Virginians, which is perfect, even to the indifferent pun of sleepy (and overrated) George Selwyn. But the crown and top of these pastiches is certainly the delightful paper, which pretends to be No. 341 of the Spectator for All Fools' Day, 1712, in which Colonel Esmond treats "Mistress ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... ditch, then, Captain. Five pun' fine for you, when we gets there. Hold on inside, old gentleman. Kuck, kuck, Bob, you was a hunter once. It ain't more than fifty feet ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Earnshaw, one of the Sixth, had brought her guitar, and struck the strings every now and then as an earnest of the music she intended to bring from it later on. Everybody was in a jolly mood, and inclined to laugh at any pun, however feeble. Mrs. Arnold, always bright and animated, surpassed herself, and waxed so amusing that the circle grew almost hysterical. The Wood-gatherers, whose office it was to mix the cocoa, supplied cup after cup, and refilled the kettle so often ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... appear before the British Government. My father was a little boy at that time, and my grandfather and my great- grandfather were both living then, and both held the first royal rank among the Ottawas. My grandfather was then a sub-chief and my great- grandfather was a war chief, whose name was Pun-go-wish: And several other chiefs of the tribe I could mention who existed at that time, but this is ample evidence that the historian was mistaken in asserting that there was no known Ottawa chief existing at the time of ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... which shaft took immensely, as proved by the loud guffaws and low chuckles that echoed through the beautiful forest whose branches shaded us from the August sun. His reputation as a wit of the first water was firmly established, and every pun and jest thereafter succeeding was crowned by the halo of this ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... here alluded to, presents us with a double pun. The word Verres is the name of a man, and also signifies a boar pig, as we read in Horace, Verris obliquum meditantis ictum. Lib. iii. ode 22. The word jus is likewise of twofold meaning, importing law and sauce, or broth; tepidumque ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... Julian laugh immoderately, both from his aunt's notion of the universal autocracy of her will, and from her obvious bewilderment at the technical word "Trials," which had betrayed her unconsciously into a pun, which, of all things, she abhorred. However, he wrote back politely—explained what he meant by "Trials"—begged to be excused for a neglect of her wishes, which was inevitable—and reiterated his promise of joining his brothers, as early as was ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... young dog "all of himself," do you? Why, it was clever! He trots about a briefless little barrister, a scribbler, devilish clever and impudent, who does his farces for him. Tenby 's the fellow's name, and it's the only thing I haven't heard him pun on. Puns are the smallpox of the language;—we're cursed with an epidemic. By gad, the next time I meet him I 'll roar out for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... tell me, ye who thoughtless ask Exhausted nature for a threefold task, In wit or pathos if one share remains, A safe investment for an ounce of brains! Hard is the job to launch the desperate pun, A pun-job dangerous as the Indian one. Turned by the current of some stronger wit Back from the object that you mean to hit, Like the strange missile which the Australian throws, Your verbal boomerang slaps you on the nose. One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt, One ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... for the purposes of study, our friend Scrope Davies was asked what progress Brummell had made in French ... he responded, 'that Brummell had been stopped, like Buonaparte in Russia, by the Elements.' I have put this pun into Beppo, which is 'a fair exchange and no robbery;' for Scrope made his fortune at several dinners (as he owned himself), by repeating occasionally, as his own, some of the buffooneries with which I had encountered ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... against laughing at Mr Gazebee's pun. "Why, his beard descends to his ankles, and he is obliged to tie it in a bag at night, because his feet get entangled in it when ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... make my fortune out of it. If you like, you can offer the pun on reasonable terms to ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... and made his fortune thereby. He manufactured a mourning snuff-box, of black shagreen, whose lid was ornamented with a portrait of the queen. He called his boxes "La consolation, dans le chagrin,"[Footnote: "Mbmoires de Madame de Campan" vol. i., p. 91.] and his portrait and pun became so popular, that in less than a week he had sold a hundred thousand of these boxes.[Footnote: This word "chagrin," signifies not only grief, but also that preparation of leather, which, in English, is ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... nugatory. Such are the three chief points of the impending problem, which Ulysses has to meet and does meet with astonishing skill and foresight; the Cyclops is blinded, is made helpless by drink, and is befooled by a pun. ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... A roar of pun-protesting groans filled the cavern, and as several of the boys arose in attitudes of vengeance, the punster made a dive for the exit and disappeared beyond the blanket portiere. None of the protestors followed. They did not feel like engaging in any ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... alone,—all alone. Don't you ever feel as if you should like to have been a pillar-saint in the days when faith was as strong as lye (spelt with a y), instead of being as weak as dish-water? (Jerry is looking over my shoulder, and says this pun is too bad to send, and a disgrace to the University—but never mind.) I often feel as if I should like to roost on a pillar a hundred feet high,—yes, and have it soaped from top to bottom. Wouldn't it be fun to look down ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... note, which he ridiculed in a pun, Luther published a short and pungent reply in Latin and German. He was particularly indignant that this occasion should have been seized to tax his sermon with false doctrine, since the wish he there expressed did not contain, as even his enemies must admit, anything ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... "A pun, Umph? he makes puns, does he? funny boy, funny boy, I daresay. How does the Doctor like that, though? Make puns to him, he'd punish you, Umph? Stupid things puns—made one myself then, though—just like me. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... than the rings of the wind-pipe, and then it was vigorously thrust back again by the impulse of gravity into the region of his heart, and gladdened it with hidden mirth in its dark centre. The Dominie loved a pun; whether it was let off in English, Greek, or Latin. The last two were made by nobody but himself, and not being understood, were, of course, relished by himself alone. But his love of a pun was a serious attachment: he loved ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the wild cattle of Chillingham exist in Italy, and that it has been doubted whether our British wild cattle are descendants of an aboriginal race, or were imported by ecclesiastics from Italy. But this seems unlikely, because they were not so easily brought over as the Pope's bulls (the pun is quite unavoidable), and were undoubtedly inhabitants of our ancient forests at a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... to the public the gross affront to decency which has been perpetrated, and the further affronts which are being planned. This appears to be a scheme for making a moving picture 'star'; this 'Carpenter'—note the silly pun—is to become the latest sensation in million dollar movie dolls, and the American public is to be invited to pay money to witness a story of sacred things played by a real ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... the bravest, the most modest, and, perhaps, the handsomest man in our corps; but you have not got a single rupee. You ask me for Julia, and you do not possess even an anna!"—(Here the old rogue grinned, as if he had made a capital pun).—"No, no," said he, waxing good-natured; "Gagy, my boy, it is nonsense! Julia, love, retire with your mamma; this silly young gentleman will remain and ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a man who'll smile and joke When with misfortune crowned; Who'll pun beneath a pauper's yoke, And as he breaks his daily ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... no comedy to Jane,—her blind Garth at the piano, his dear beautiful head bent over the keys, his fingers feeling for that pathetic little notch, to be made by herself, below middle C. She loathed this individual who could make a pun on the subject of Garth's blindness, and, in the back of her mind, Tommy seemed to join the duchess, flapping up and down on his perch and shrieking: "Kick ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... enlivened by illuminating figures of rhetoric and by humor, or rendered impressive by the striking way in which they express thought, e.g. "The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion." A pun, digression, or out-of-the-way allusion may occasionally provoke readers, but onlookers have frequently noticed that few wrinkle their brows while reading his critical essays, and that a pleased expression, such as photographers ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... third is its slowness in taking a jest. Should you happen to venture on one, It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed: And it always looks grave at a pun. ...
— The Hunting of the Snark - an Agony, in Eight Fits • Lewis Carroll
... eleven famous champions in succession and then fights King Gunter and Hagen together. 5: 8 A.M. 6: Walter is the son of Alp-har (from Alp, elf, and hari, army). 7: The medieval canis molossus was a mastiff or bull-dog. 8: A pun on Hagen's name, ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... lad of ambition. His first session was as bare of interest and soul as a barn without the roof. He alternated like a pendulum between Simon Square and the Greek and Latin class-rooms. He even took the noted Professor Lauchland seriously, whereupon the latter promptly made a Greek pun upon his name, by which he was called in the class whenever the students could remember it. There was great work done in that class-room—in the manufacture of paper darts. Ebenezer took no part in such frivolities, but laboured at the acquisition ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... continued. "His name— if I have got it right—is William. Anyhow, that is the nearest I can get to it. His other name, if any, I must leave you to extract from him yourself. It may be Berkshire that he talks, but it sounds more like barking. Please excuse the pun; but I have just been talking to him for half an hour, trying to make him understand that I want him to go home, and maybe, as a result, I am feeling a little hysterical. Anything more rural I cannot ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... Mr. Harding Browning's "Evelyn Hope". He said that he knew a Mrs. Walter Hope in Marion, but that he was not sure her first name was Evelyn. As I knew that Mr. Harding liked a good pun, I remarked facetiously that "hope springs eternal", meaning that probably there were in existence several ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... natural objects—they are not beautiful really and in themselves, because they are mere conceits; the analogies in them are fortuitous, depending not on the nature of the things themselves, but on the private fancy of the writer, having no more real and logical coherence than a conundrum or a pun; in plain English, untrue, only allowable to Juliets or Othellos; while their self-possession, almost their reason, is in temporary abeyance under the influence of joy or sorrow. Every one must feel the exquisite fitness of Juliet's "Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds," ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Queen's College, Oxford. On the feast of the Circumcision the bursar gives to every member a needle and thread, adding the injunction, "Take this and be thrifty." It is said, I know not with what truth, that it is to commemorate the name of the founder, Robert Egglesfield—by the visible pun, aiguille ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... neutrality between us, I expected to see him bow to me curtly, turn on his heel and leave the room. Indeed, considering his state of mind the night before, I should hardly have been surprised if he had thrown Hedda at my head. (This is not a pun. I detest them.) But instead, when he heard me move he glanced over at me ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... fireplaces jus' lak at de big house. Marster didn't have many Niggers, but us had plenty somepin' t'eat. He had a big gyarden whar he raised mos' evvything: corn, 'taters, cabbages, peas, onions, collard greens, and lots of pun'kins. When de mens plowed up de 'taters us chillun had to go 'long and put 'em in baskets. De bestes' times was hog killin' times. Us chillun wukked den. Dey hung up de hogs all night and nex' day us cut 'em, put 'em down in salt, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... the East," had been spreading the story of the life and love of Christ. And here, in this year of grace 635, in the city of Chang-an, and in all the region about the Yellow River, the good priest Thomas the Nestorian, whom the Chinese called O-lo-pun—the nearest approach they could give to his strange Syriac name—had his Christian mission-house, and was zealously bringing to the knowledge of a great and enlightened people the still greater and more helpful light ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... and more bitter. The Dominican Father Caccini preached a sermon from the text, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" and this wretched pun upon the great astronomer's name ushered in sharper weapons; for, before Caccini ended, he insisted that "geometry is of the devil," and that "mathematicians should be banished as the authors of all heresies." The Church authorities gave ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... that we have a practical pun now naturalised in our language, in the word "tandem." Are any of your correspondents acquainted ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 24. Saturday, April 13. 1850 • Various
... breede; Yet were they bred of Somers-heat, they say, In sweetest season, when each flower and weede The earth did fresh aray; So fresh they seem'd as day, 70 Even as their brydale day, which was not long: Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song. [Ver. 67—Somers-heat. A pun on the name of the Ladies ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... Grunthi-jee,' said the Subadar-Major, 'you and I grow too old to care for the Kahar-ki-nautch—the Bearer's dance.' He named one of the sauciest of the old-time nautches, and smiled at his own pun. Then he turned to his nephew. 'When I was a lad and came back to my village on leave, I waited the convenient hour, and, the elders giving permission, I spoke of ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... the b—y sans culotte" returned the captain, putting himself in a better humor with his own pun. "But did you see nothing ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the Devil, attired in the usual guise considered appropriate to the Prince of Darkness, who scourged both horse and rider with a whip of fog-tails, causing them to scamper about the lists in great trepidation, to the immense delight of the spectators. The practical pun upon Simon Renard's name embodied in the fox-tail, with the allusion to the effect of the manifold squibs perpetrated by that most bitter and lively enemy upon Granvelle, were understood and relished by the multitude. Nothing could be more hearty than the blows bestowed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... pasture before the Warren stables, as we shall neither see lights nor hear noises, if it isn't the blowing of our own noses. That's what I say, and I've said it many a time; but there's nobody 'ull ventur a ten-pun' note on their ghos'es as they make ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... and unfold the intricacies of sciences at home, are led by novelty; which not only supplies ornament to beauty or to grandeur, but adds agreeable surprise to the point of the epigram, and to the double meaning of the pun, and is courted ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... ruin of all these puns; the gentlemen will hate me; I must learn to ignore their conundrums until they answer them themselves, and to wait patiently for the pun instead of catching it and laughing before it is half-spoken. Why can't I do as the others do? There was Mr. Van Ingen with his constant stream of them, that I anticipated several times. He said to me, "If I were asked what town in Louisiana I would rather be in this ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... gobble up the hull of Canada; but 'stead of that, they lost the hull State of Michigan an' their great General Hull into the bargain," and he chuckled over his play upon words, after the manner of a man who has uttered a successful pun. ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... doubt a pun was intended. For Bermudas tobacco Nares quotes from Clitus's Whimz., p. 135, "Where being furnished with tinder, match, and a portion of decayed Bermoodus they smoke ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... beer and other vices, is the peculiar prerogative of men, I suppose. But you need not be afraid. I read PUNCHINELLO sometimes, and it is a terrible warning to people who are tempted to pun. I could give you frightful instances of the appalling depth to which the men who make puns in PUNCHINELLO ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... This atrocious pun turned the laugh against the learned James, and then, the telegram to News and News having been dispatched, they all went ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... hast been to Philadelphia, where all the streets rhyme, and every corner is a pun upon the next. May ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... encumbrance. By a slight stress laid on the difference of usage the unshapeliness may be done away with, and a new grace found where none was sought. Addison and Landor accuse Milton, with reason, of too great a fondness for the pun, yet surely there is something to please the mind, as well as the ear, in the description ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... Next time it will be one in the mouth.—Yes, boys," he continued, drawing himself up, "I do mean to hit hard, and let the Principal and the masters see that we are not going to have favouritism here. Indian prince, indeed! Yah! who's he? Why, I could sell him for a ten-pun note, stock and lock and bag and baggage, to Madame Tussaud's. That's about all he's fit for. Dressed up to imitate an English gentleman! Look at him! His clothes don't fit, even if they are made ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... Prick and prayse ( praise of excellence) Princkocke Proclamation that the gentry should reside at their mansions in the country Proculus Prologue spoken by a woman Protest, affected use of the word (See Dyce's Shakespeare Glossary.) Puckfist Puerelis Puisne Puisnes of the Inne Pumpion Pun[to] reversos ( back-handed strokes in fencing) Push Putt a girdle ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... as much as to say, the tough old knight hath a habit of swearing," said the keeper, grinning at a pun, which has been repeated since his time; "but who can help it? it comes of use and wont. Were you now, in your bodily self, to light suddenly on a Maypole, with all the blithe morris-dancers prancing around it to the merry pipe and tabor, with bells jingling, ribands fluttering, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... found this identical brass plate at an old bookshop in Cheapside. The plate read: "Mrs. Dickens' Establishment." The man who kept the place advertised himself as a "Bibliopole." He offered to sell me the plate for one pun ten; but I did not purchase, for I knew where I could get its mate with a deal more verdigris—all ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... me," said Ed laughing, "and if I don't give our war whoop you may be sure this is not me—I am still on the Robinson ranch—there, that was an unpremeditated pun; I mean the old Robinson Crusoe and I forgot that he was great-grandfather to the present ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... twenty uv the best, lidy, jus' to mike a start—an' I doan' wanter part wiv yer 'and-writin' niver. So jes' yer send two rustlers, wot means notes, of ten pun each, rigistered, to W. 'ickle spelt wiv a haitch, 2 H'apple Blossom Row, Coving Gardin, afore this toime ter-morrer. An' jes yer remember that h'as long as yer lives I've got yer bit of 'andwritin.' I ain't goin' ter use it, but some dye it might come in 'andy. 'Ardly loikly as 'ow yer'd ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... Lawes business is fairly settled at last! "Lawes Deo," as the Claimant might have said. But the pun will be stale, as you doubtless have already made all possible epigrams ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... laughter, that one is afraid lest they should injure themselves. Even when a jest misses fire completely, so that it is no jest at all, but only a jocular intention, they laugh just as heartily. Leave out the point of your story, get the word wrong on the duplicity of which the pun that was to excite hilarity depended, and they still honor your abortive attempt with the most ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... being accustomed to the work, knew the danger, and kept a sharp look-out on their own account. Soon several shots told that the slaughter had begun, but each hunter was quickly separated from the other, and none knew aught of the success of the rest until the pun was over. ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne |
