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Tat   Listen
noun
Tat  n.  Gunny cloth made from the fiber of the Corchorus olitorius, or jute. (India)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tat" Quotes from Famous Books



... Mannering and the cadie. Mannering could not help admiring the determined stride with which the stranger who preceded them divided the press, shouldering from him, by the mere weight and impetus of his motion, both drunk and sober passengers. "He'll be a Teviotdale tup tat ane," said the chairman, "tat's for keeping ta crown o' ta causeway tat gate—he'll no gang far or he'll get somebody to bell ta cat ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... Dan's ear, and another spurted up the chalk dust a few feet ahead of Dennis, and as the vicious rat-tat of the machine-gun farther down the trench opened, they found themselves at the edge of a deep crump-hole, into ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... sacred vessels, the tympanum, and the cymbals. The formula of an Attis initiate was "I have eaten from the tympanum, I have drunk from the cymbals." As I have remarked above, the food thus partaken of was a Food of Life—"Die Attis-Diener in der Tat eine magische Speise des Lebens aus ihren Kult-Geraten ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... says: 'Ah, so I thought when I was your age.' It is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: My venerable sir, so I shall most probably think when I am yours.' And yet the one is as good as the other: pass for pass, tit for tat, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a whisper.] Rat-tat, says the postman! [Catching hold of ROPER and swinging him round.] ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet 115 Thet follered once an' now are quiet,— White feet ez snowdrops innercent, Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, Whose comin' ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... his breath, and, in a mechanical fashion, began to build little castles with the draughts. He was just about to add to an already swaying structure when a thundering rat-tat- tat at the door dispersed the draughts to the four corners of the room. The servant opened the door, and the next moment ushered in Mrs. ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... directly he started sweeping we would be down like a flash, and wait till Fritz quit. Fat would be in a shell hole almost as soon as the first shot was fired, and would laugh at Bink looking for a hole to hide in. Bink would get sore; all you could hear was the rat-tat-tat of the machine gun and in between "Tee hee, tee hee" from Fat as he lay and watched Bink crawling around looking for a hole. Some of the boys would lie in the hole and wave their legs in the air hoping to get a bullet through them so that they could get back to "Blighty," ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien

... made several journeys of exploration into the interior of the continent. In the course of one of my rambles amid a dense mass of tropical foliage, I suddenly found myself face to face with a gigantic stone Sphinx, which I at once recognized and identified. It was Tat-Nuada, an Atlantean deity, elaborately described in one of the burned books. Much excited, I set to work, and, after clearing the base of the idol of fungi and other vegetable growth adhering to it, discovered a superscription in Atlantean dialect ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... his corner and thought: "She is pretty; so much the better. Tit for tat, my comrade. But if they begin again to annoy me with you, it will get somewhat ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... us, his ferocity springing from the instinct of a lower civilisation—as when a farm-dog leaps upon us in the road—our first instinct is to fall back and meet him on the ground of his own savagery, to give him an exact tit for his tat. But can you not see that, as we do this, and in proportion as we do it, we allow him to impose himself on us and relinquish our main advantage? It is idle to practise a higher moral code, if we abandon it hurriedly as soon as it is ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... arrives and we listen to the artillery of both sides and for the rat-tat-tat of the Bolo machine guns when our forces move on the bridgehead. We hurry on. The battle is joined. Pine woods roar and reverberate with roar. By taking a nearer blazed trail we may come out to the railway somewhere ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... himself to another slice of beef, "you are in the wrong box—planted in Queer Street, as we say in London; for if you care a d—n about my daughter's respectability, you will never muzzle her father on suspicion of theft—and so there's tit for tat, my ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... there in a rat-tat-tat in the dead of night which rouses the imagination and fills the mind with suggestions which we had rather not harbour when in the dark and alone? Deborah Scoville was not superstitious, but she had keen senses and mercurial spirits and was ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... good, I fear I made but an indifferent bad ploughboy when walking, and found a difficulty in dealing with my hands, not knowing how ploughboys are wont to carry them. So I came round in front of the house, and gave a rat-tat on the door, while my pulse beat as loud inside of me as ever did the knocker without. The sound ran round the building, and backwards among the walks, and all was silent as before. I waited a minute, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat! The machine-gun opened with two short bursts just as the Brandenburgers reached the foot of the staircase, while the Frenchmen manning the loopholes opened a furious fire, which first checked the rush of the enemy and then drove the survivors ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... Corps. Its C.O. has been boasting that it's en tat de partir, and Bayley's going to take him at his word and have a kit-inspection this afternoon in the Park. I must tell their drill-hall. Look over yonder between that brewery ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... aus der Menge, 65 Der Vlker flutendem Gedrnge, Gelocket von der Spiele Pracht, Den schwarzen Tter kenntlich macht? Sind's Ruber, die ihn feig erschlagen? Tat's neidisch ein verborgner Feind? 70 Nur Helios vermag's zu sagen, Der ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various

... got a long story for tell dat night On poor leetle Rose Elmire, An' she say she 's sorry about de fight We 're doin' so well down here— But it 's not our fault an' we can't help dat, De law she is made for all, So our duty is wait for de rat-tat-tat Of drum an' ...
— The Voyageur and Other Poems • William Henry Drummond

... stand this sort of treatment—I won't. I have a pull over you. Ah! I'm not such a fool, after all, perhaps, as you thought. I have it, and hang me, but I'll make use of it! You have blasted my life, and thought it good fun, no doubt. I'll see if I can't give tit-for-tat and spoil your little game, my haughty lady, with your white face and your cursed high-handed airs. Yet, how I loved them—how I loved them! Must I never see a woman again without that queenly beauty coming between me and my share of happiness? What right had you to destroy my whole future? ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... — N. retaliation, reprisal, retort, payback; counter-stroke, counter-blast, counterplot, counter-project; retribution, lex talionis[Lat]; reciprocation &c. (reciprocity) 12. tit for tat, give and take, blow for blow, quid pro quo, a Roland for an Oliver, measure for measure, diamond cut diamond, the biter bit, a game at which two can play; reproof valiant, retort courteous. recrimination &c. (accusation) 938; revenge &c. 919; compensation &c. 30; reaction ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... oozing upon the snow. Patrick Carr and Samuel Caldwell, who also had come to put out a fire, were dying, and six others were wounded. The soldiers were reloading their guns, preparing for another volley. Robert heard the rat-a-tat of a drum, and saw the Twenty-Ninth Regiment march into the street from Pudding Lane, the front rank kneeling, the rear rank standing, with guns loaded, bayonets fixed, and ready ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... sometimes disturbed the serenity of the Norwegian can readily be conjectured, especially when it is considered that the average Northman is by no means indisposed to have a little brush with his neighbor now and then. But in such an event the Germans usually gave tit for tat, and that with a vengeance. On one occasion they killed a bishop in the presence of the king; at various other times they burned monasteries over the heads of the inmates; and frequently they sheltered criminals, or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... automated and efficient system, mainly buried cables domestic: nationwide cellular telephone system; buried cable international: 3 channels leased on TAT-6 coaxial submarine ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... the Saracens, was accompanied by two 'steeds,' some writers say 'pages,' named Roland and Oliver, who were so excellent and so equally matched, that the equality became proverbial—'I'll give you a Roland for your Oliver' being, the same as the vulgar saying, 'I'll give you tit for tat,' i.e. 'I'll give you the same (whether in a good or bad ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 39. Saturday, July 27, 1850 • Various

... 'Precisely what made me consider the thing so fair and easy. There is no obligation on either side. You have money, and Miss Madeline has beauty and worth. She has youth, you have money. She has not money, you have not youth. Tit for tat, quits, a match of Heaven's ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... Richard, who was of the Episcopal Church, for the celebration of Christmas; for many of his persuasion, at that time, regarded "Thanksgiving" pretty much as the Highlander, in Scott's novel, did "ta little government Sunday, tat tey call ta Fast." He was a well-to-do farmer, at a place within easy reach of the town in which we lived, and where very few were at all rich, even according to the former moderate standard of wealth, and most people were poor, or at least depended on their daily labor for their daily bread. ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... my chilt, Jeannie; but young Malcolm and old Tuncan hasn't made teir prayers yet, and you know fery well tat she won't sell pefore she's made her prayers. Tell your mother tat she'll pe bringin' ta blackin' when she comes to ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... the man in the moon, Coming back too soon From the famous town of Norwich, Caught up the dish, Said, "It's just what I wish To hold my cold plum-porridge!" Gave the cow a rat-tat, Flung water on the cat, And sent him away like a rocket. Said, "O Moon there you are!" Got into her car, And went off with the spoon in ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... escape by the door which opened on the stairs; but, alas! it was locked on the outside, and it was evident, from the soliloquy of Mr Bristles, that their retreat was cut off through the front room. A knock—the well-known rat, tat, tat, of the owner of the mansion—now completed their perplexity; and, in a moment more, they heard the steps of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... still more deeply, as after a pause, he replied: "Or excommunication and a fitting punishment will fall upon you and the vagabond doctor. Tit for tat. We have grown tender-hearted, and it is long since a Jew has been burned ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... a buck, you would not break mine, I warrant, unless it were tit for tat," said my grandfather; thereby putting me to more confusion than Dolly, who laughed with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... time. And 'tis you killed my father, who was a soldier of the first Emperor, not to speak of my youngest son, Francois, whom you killed last month near Exreux. I owed this to you, and I've paid you back. 'Tis tit for tat!" ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... been given, with the wilds of Canada for the scene. The young Highlander was said to be dirking pigs, while the father was keeping guard. "Phat's keeping out the licht, fayther?" shouts the son.—"If ta tail preaks, tou 'lt fine tat," ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... of Uji, in the province of Yamashiro, there lived, about six hundred years ago, a young samurai named It[o] Tat['e]waki Norisuk['e], whose ancestors were of the H['e][:i]k['e] clan. It[o] was of handsome person and amiable character, a good scholar and apt at arms. But his family were poor; and he had no patron ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... A sharp rat-a-tat-tat had reverberated through the house. While she spoke, it was repeated. Her over-strung nerves gave way. As Tabs rose, she clung to him beseechingly. "Don't let him in. I'm not ready for him. Don't let him in. Go outside and send ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... yet longed to do it, for she felt as if she had received a box on the ear, and involuntarily put her hand up to it. The touch of an ear-ring consoled her, and suggested a way of returning tit for tat ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... leafy level, he finds his way, and blazes a path. Not all trees are worthy of the axe. Miles of lesser timber remain untouched. A Maine forest after a lumber-campaign is like France after a coup d'tat: the bourgeoisie are prosperous as ever, but the great men ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... law of tit-for-tat! And I will persevere till I have attained my end, unless you should become extremely ugly.—I shall succeed; and I will tell you why," he went on, resuming his attitude, and looking at Madame Hulot. "You will not ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... there was a loud rat-tat at the front door, and Jack Glover hastened into the hall to answer. But it was not the policeman he had expected. It was a girl in a big sable coat, muffled up to her eyes. She pushed past Jack, crossed the hall, and ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... "That's tit for tat," said Dink, "but it wuz a mighty close call fer me. When the bullet whizzed past my ear I thought ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa

... had been defeated upon the Militia Bill ("my tit-for-tat with John Russell," as Palmerston called it), the victors were very unlikely to hold office for long. In spite of Disraeli's praise of Free Trade during the General Election, a right-about surprising and disconcerting to his colleagues, ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... won't mention even at this late day. I will not turn state's evidence notwithstanding the Statute of Limitations has run, as N.V. Creede advises me, against any one but Dick McGill—and the reason for my exposing him is merely tit for tat. Ma Fewkes could not unclasp the hands; but she produced ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... kiss toward the window and started down the path. She was just going to open the gate when she heard a "rat-tat-tat" ...
— The Wreck • Anonymous

... discussion has taken a personal nature, in which I am not disposed to indulge. I don't think that anything will be gained by such accusations and comparisons. It strikes me that the last speaker is trying to give tit for tat because his candidate lost at the last election; but I am one of those who believe that criminations and recriminations avail nothing, and I move that we ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... would frequently drop in to dinner with us, and of an evening he had the run of the smoking room. After ten p.m. the 'open sesame' to our door was a rattle on the letter box and Louis' fancy for the mysterious was whetted by this admittance by secret sign, and we liked his special rat-a-tat for it was the forerunner of an ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton

... light and of darkness, between the gods and the 'spirits,' asuras, i.e., evil spirits. Many tales begin with the formula: 'The gods and evil spirits, both born of the Father-god' (Cat. Br. I. 2. 4. 8). Weber thinks that this implies close acquaintance with Persian worship, a sort of tit-for-tat; for the Hindu would in that case call the holy spirit, ahura, of the Persian a devil, just as the Persian makes an evil spirit, daeva, out of the Hindu god, deva. But the relations between Hindu and Persian in this period ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... du Hautoy will settle his property on Francoise, you shall sign a deed of partnership with Sechard in two days. I shall not be married for a week after the contract is signed, so we shall both be within the terms of our little agreement, tit for tat. To-night, however, we must keep a close watch over Lucien and Mme. la Comtesse du Chatelet, for the whole business lies in that. . . . If Lucien hopes to succeed through the Countess' ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... formed a small group in the north of the present province of Shansi, north of the city of Tat'ungfu, and they were about to develop their small state. They were primarily of Turkish origin, but had absorbed many tribes of the older Hsiung-nu and the Hsien-pi. In considering the ethnical relationships of ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... the stain of race is not the only one that money makes white as snow. So the old gentleman one day remarked to some friends who drank wine with him, that he would geeve one ten tousant tollare, begare, to te man tat maree his oltest daughtare, Mathilde. Eh bien, te man must vary surelee pe w'ite and re-spect-ah-ble. Of course this confidential remark soon spread abroad, as it was meant to spread abroad. It came to ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... most famous of the twelve paladins of Charlemagne. To give a "Roland for an Oliver" is to give tit for tat, to give another as good ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... never completed, being interrupted by a thundering rat-tat-tat at the front door, followed by a pealing at the bell, which indicated that the visitor was manfully following the printed injunction to "Ring also." The door was opened and a man's voice was heard in the hall-a loud, confident voice, at the sound of which Mr. Chalk, with one ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... next move will be," I commented, when the avenger had gone, not too stricken in spirit. "It begins to look as though the enemy would stick at little, and we can't go on giving tit for tat." ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... contrary to the current terminology and meaning of the philosophy of our day. Some of his great constructive books were written as far back as 1888, and have remained, almost until our own day, in a large measure unnoticed. [p.19] The Einheit des Geisteslebens in Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit is a case in point. It is one of his greatest books, and its value was not seen until the last few years. But the philosophy of the present day in Germany is tending more and more in the direction of Eucken's. Writers such as ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones

... but that won't do now. 'Tit for tat,' Mr Boatswain, and hang all favours," replied Gascoigne, who was steering the boat, having been sent on shore for the others. "In bow—rowed of all." The boat was laid alongside—the relentless Gascoigne caught ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... "hants" or "conjurin'". It seems Sid Scott was a "mean nigger", [HW: and] everyone was afraid of [HW: him]. He was cut in two by the saw mill and after his funeral whenever anyone pass his house at night that could hear his "hant" going "rat-a-tat-tat-bang, bang, bang" like ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... columns of their valuable journal? This is the drift of the fault found with Thackeray. He is not Fenelon, he is not Dickens, he is not Scott; he is not poetical, he is not ideal, he is not humane; he is not Tit, he is not Tat, complain the eminent Dabs and Tabs. Of course he is not, because he is Thackeray—a man who describes what he sees, motives as well as appearances—a man who believes that character is better than talent—that there is a worldly weakness superior to worldly ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... husband, for that he did what he did in his shop, and God hath retaliated upon him in this world.' And it is related that the goldsmith, when his wife told him how the water-carrier had used her, said, 'Tit for tat! If I had done more, the water-carrier had done more.' And this became a current byword ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... "Tit for tat!" There broke from Lord Theign, in his solitude, with the young man out of earshot, that vague ironic comment; which only served his turn, none the less, till, bethinking himself, he had gone back to the piece of furniture used for his late ...
— The Outcry • Henry James

... made tat tree fall on me?" he exclaimed, endeavoring to crawl from beneath what he supposed to be the trunk of an immense oak which he had noticed towering above him. This belief was further strengthened by a glimpse which he caught of a heavy ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis

... Rat-a-tat-tat! Jack hardly comprehended what this new noise meant when it grew in volume. Then a horseman rode into the yard at ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... amazed at my industry. I played as heartily as I worked, but I studied with a will, too, and passed a score of mates. That was easy enough, for home study was never dreamed of by most of them, and leisure hours in school were passed in marking "tit-tat-to" upon slates or eating apples under the friendly shelter of ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... live-long day, like cats which seek and cultivate their pleasure. The days when they came home in a rage, it was on her that they vented it. Go it! hammer away at the animal! She had a good back; it made them all the better friends when they yelled together. And it never did for her to give them tit-for-tat. In the beginning, whenever one of them yelled at her, she would appeal to the other, but this seldom worked. Coupeau had a foul mouth and called her horrible things. Lantier chose his insults carefully, but they ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... thinking of taking my native, the man I hired just after I got here. He is a very good fellow, and made himself very useful, while I was ill. I picked up a tat for him, yesterday, for a few rupees. I know that your man would do very well for us both but, sometimes, when you make a village your headquarters and ride to visit others from it, I may not feel well enough to go with you; and then he ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty

... remark was another "Pshaw!" But Mrs. Peck went on: "When you've lived opposite to people like that for a long time you feel as if you had some rights in them—tit for tat! But she didn't take it up today; she didn't speak to me. She knows who I am as well as she knows her ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James

... for all you've done,' he muttered to himself, as he lay curled up in the black shadow like a noisome reptile. 'Tit for tat, my lady!-tit ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... he ish tet. Dey say he ish oud mid his het, und tat looksh mighty pad. But one ting ish ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... he declares, the receipt of his friend's "heart- engendered lines" of congratulation. "No grocer's apprentice, after his first month's permitted riot, was ever sicker of figs and raisins than I of hearing about the Remorse. The endless rat-a-tat-tat at our black-and-blue bruised doors, and my three master-fiends, proof-sheets, letters, and—worse than these—invitations to large dinners, which I cannot refuse without offence and imputation of pride, etc., oppress me so much that ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... did not visit the Priory that day, but on the morrow, after lunch, I took my heavy stick and strode up the gravel path and gave a very important rat-a-tat-tat at the great oak door. The servant who answered my summons informed me, much to my disappointment, that both Mr. Johnson and his son had gone to Liverpool the previous day, the former to see the latter off. Something of importance, the servant thought, ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... little missionary to the foreigner, Susan. I suppose you wanted to stay at home and tat socks while Bobbie and I dined and wined—not," was the very unappreciative answer that was made to her by ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... groaning and moaning, which gradually increased in volume and pitch until presently it became a high, penetrating, blood-curdling screech. This continued for perhaps half an hour, the drum beats never ceasing their monotonous rat-tat-tat. ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace

... given me tit for tat, friend, and slain me with my own weapon. Let us say no more now, but go to bed, and to-morrow who knows but we come ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... speaks of this charter as settling the true meaning of the corresponding clause of Magna Carta, on the principle tat laws and charters on the same subject are to be construed with reference to each other. See 3 Christin's ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... pointed to the box. There was a sound that seemed to come from inside. Something made a rat, tat, tat on the cover of ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope

... under the signature, the unnecessary rat-tat of the visitor, the extravagant angle of the hat in bowing, the extreme unction in the voice, the business man's importance, the strut of the cock, the swagger of the bad actor, the long hair of the poet, the Salvation bonnet, the blue shirt of the Socialist: against all these, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... play at that game" was often in my mouth, when men of Protestant sentiments appealed to the Articles, Homilies, and Reformers, in the sense that if they had a right to speak loud I had both the liberty and the means of giving them tit for tat. I thought that the Anglican Church had been tyrannised over by a Party, and I aimed at bringing into effect the promise contained in the motto to the Lyra: "They shall know the difference now." I only asked to be allowed to show them ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... Meshech Little, hesitatingly, as if his logic didn't convince himself. "They wuz gonter lick us. They'd a had us licked by this time. It's tit for tat." ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... under them when we heard the Lewises giving the recall signal. A good gunner gets so he can play a tune on a Lewis, and the device is frequently used for signals. This time he thumped out the old one—"All policemen have big feet." Rat-a-tat-tat—tat, tat. ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes

... "Tit for tat," exclaimed. Bumpus; "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. After this we'll call it off, fellows, remember. It was give and take, and now the ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter

... my ole man, an' husband an' wife am me. Hit didn't turn out bad as I s'posed it would, bress tat ar son-in-law ob mine, but I keeps a tinkin' it all ober, an' I'se 'jected, I is; an' dar's no use ob shoutin' glory wen you doan feel glory." Then she told the whole story, which kept Ella on pins and needles, for, while she felt an honest ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... brought a constant shower of balls around it. In vain he shifted his position. The lump still appeared, and the balls still flew around it, until the Dutchman, losing all patience, raised his head above the gunnel, and in a tone of querulous remonstrance, called out, "Oh, now I git tat nonsense, tere,—will you!" Not a shot was ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... looking at his watch sometimes, and humming tunes, and playing rat-a-tat-tat upon the table. He says he don't mind waiting ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... wise actions in the present moment, and saying wise and beautiful things for all time, a great indispensable is—to see that the house that his spirit has received to dwell in be worthy the wants and capabilities of its noble occupant. Hence—Rat-tat-ta-tat! ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... why you should sigh about that," answered Colonel Faversham. "I mean to be kind to you as long as I live, and I hope that will be a good many years yet. But there's nothing like tit for tat, you know, Bridget. Come, now, my darling, I want you to be ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb

... study-table. It was evening, and the slant beams of the setting sun shot their golden arrows through the healthy purple clusters of lilacs that veiled the windows. There had been a shower that filled them with drops of rain, which every now and then tattooed, with a slender rat-tat, on the window-sill, as a breeze would shake the leaves and bear in perfume on its wings. Sweet, fragrance-laden airs tripped stirringly to and fro about the study-table, making gentle confusions, fluttering papers on moral ability, agitating treatises on the great end of creation, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... fourteenth, and the postman's rat-a-tat Made two hearts in Slocum Pocum beat a feverish pit-pat Thomas and Thomasina each in turn rushed doorwards and Snatched their respective missives from the post's extended hand; And the postman, wicked rascal, slowly winked the other eye, And said: ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells

... pocket, off to the House until three or four in the morning; then home to a hot supper for two or three hours more, to talk over what was to be done next day:—and wine, and wine. Scarcely up next morning, when 'tat-tat-tat,' twenty or thirty people one after another, and the horses walking before the door from two till sunset, waiting for him. It was enough to kill a ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... tat! Surprised, Gombauld turned his eyes towards the door. Nobody ever disturbed him while he was at work; it was one of the unwritten laws. "Come in!" he called. The door, which was ajar, swung open, revealing, ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... gun "rat-tat-tat-tated" close to us, and three rockets, like a flight of startled birds, rose suddenly together on ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... Sunset Teeda sagayoong[113]. Sunshine Teeda tettee. Sunrise Teeda agayoong. Swallowing Noonootoosha. Sweet Amasa. ——- wine A'mazac'kkee[114]. ——- potatoes Moo, or Moondee. Swim, to Weejoong. Swimming Weejee. Sword Tat'chee. A flight of stone steps Keesiee. A single step Coodammee. To stick a thing in the ground Tateeing. Table, round Madooee. Tail of a bird Dzoo. Take off the hat, to Hasseeoong.[115] Tattoo marks on the right arm ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall

... much charge last night when Dan got sick," said Felix maliciously. Felicity had told him at tea that night he was getting fatter than ever. This was his tit-for-tat. "You were pretty glad to leave it ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... supplicating voice, not even noticing the tit-for-tat of the young man, "consider economy, and later we may be able ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... afternoon, about our social duties, and rural leadership and community spirit and lots of things. They told us not to spend our time out of school tatting and making eyelet embroidery, when there were neighborhoods to be awakened and citizens to be made. That suits me fine, for I can't tat anyway. One of the girls tried to show me, but gave it up after three or four tries. She said some could learn, and some couldn't. It ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... and all peoples. There is nothing peculiarly racial or local in them. The ennobling lessons of these Scriptures are as practical for the modern world as they were for the Indo-Aryans of the earliest Vedic age. Their teachings are summed up in two Maha-Vakyam or "great sayings":—Tat twam asi (That thou art) and Aham Brahmasmi (I am Brahman). This oneness of Soul and God lies at the very root of all Vedic thought, and it is this dominant ideal of the unity of all life and the oneness of Truth ...
— The Upanishads • Swami Paramananda

... the fir bush in the pasture stood an old apple tree, all alone by itself. On a dead branch was Ya-rup the Flicker. He was using the hard shell of the dead branch for a drum. "Rat, a tat, tat," he went faster and faster, till the beats ran into one long resounding roll. Then he stopped and screamed, "Kee-yer, kee-yer!" Perhaps he meant, "Well done! good boy! ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix

... were startled by a loud knocking on the door: rat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, ratta, tatta, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various

... white bed with a green quilt and a picture of the Nativaty and one of Windsor Castle on the walls. The sun was shining over all these things as Mr Salteena opened his sleepy eyes. Just then there was rat tat on the door. Come in called Mr Salteena and in came Edward Procurio ballancing a tray very cleverly. He looked most elegant with his shiny black hair and pale yellow face and half shut eyes. He smiled in a very mystearious ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford

... suppose Mrs. Mig knew," said Desire, demurely. "She never began at the bottom of anything. She only finishes off. She buys pattern worsted work, and fills it in. That's what she's doing now, when she don't tat; a great bunch of white lilies, grounding it with olive. It's lovely; but I'd rather have made the lilies. She'll give it to mother, and then Glossy will come and spend the winter with us. Mrs. Mig is going to Nassau with a sick friend; she's awfully useful—for little overseeings ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... was cowardly. Lord Palmerston's approval of this outrage, without the knowledge of either the Queen or Lord John Russell, procured him his dismissal from the cabinet. Two months later, however, Palmerston 'gave Russell his tit-for-tat,' defeating him over a ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous

... Forest he found Drummer the Woodpecker making a great racket on the hollow limb of an old chestnut. Sammy sat down near by and listened. "My, that's fine! I wish I could do that. You must be practising," said Sammy at the end of a long rat-a-tat-tat. ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess

... Rat-a-tat-tat at the first dim hint of dawn went the chamberlain's knuckles upon the door. To Nick it seemed scarce midnight yet, so sound ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... branches of the fir-trees, Canada sparrows fluting their clear call from the tree tops, flycatchers darting and tumbling in their zig-zag, erratic flights, and sometimes a big golden-wing woodpecker running up and down a tall, dead trunk which stood close by, and rat-tat-tat-tatting in a most businesslike and determined manner. But the Child was not, as a rule, so interested in birds as in the four-footed kindreds. Just now, however, a bird came on the scene which interested him extremely. ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... A rat-tat-tat-tat ensued, and the Earl of Harcourt was announced. When he had paid his compliments to Mrs. Cholmondeley, speaking of the lady from whose house he was ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... familiar enough for "using bad grammar," which the book-keeper very likely did; but the explanation may be more remote. "Like a ghost from the tomb" though not "quoted" is, of course, his beloved Shelley's ("The Cloud"). "Biped knock" merely "double"—the peculiar rat-tat which postmen have mostly forgotten or not learnt—perhaps regarding it as a badge of slavery like "tips." The Fatal Dowry—attributed to (Field and) Massinger, and spoilt by Rowe into his nevertheless ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... and he had to show that they supported his views. Hence his interpretation often seems forced and perverse. The most extraordinary instance of this is his explanation of the celebrated phrase in the Chandogya Upanishad Sa atma tat tvam asi. He reads Sa atma atat tvam asi and considers that it means "You are not that God. Why be so conceited as to suppose that you are?"[598] Monotheistic texts have often received a mystical and pantheistic interpretation. ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... Ricciarelli, the first man, was to be in dialogue with her.(623) Her fevers grow so high, that the audience caught them, and hissed her more than once: she herself once turned and hissed again—Tit pro tat geminat phoy d'achamiesmeyn—among the treaties which a secretary of state has negotiated this summer, he has contracted for a succedaneum to the Mingotti. In short, there is a woman hired to sing when the other shall be- ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... been similarly robbed, they have a clear right to Malevole, the chief character in The Malcontent. 'Why not Malevole in folio with us, as Jeronimo in decimo sexto with them? They taught us a name for our play: we call it: "One for Another."' (That is to say, we give them 'Tit for Tat.') ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... Again the rat-tat-tat upon the panel, more peremptory than before. Stanley forced a laugh. "Danger! Why, of course not. Just a business talk. But go back and look after the girl. I don't want her coming out here while I've visitors." ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... lying! you are lying!' When he shakes her, interrupts her while she is speaking, and says such hard things to her that at last she flies into a rage, has enough of it, becomes hard and mad, and thinks of nothing but of giving him tit for tat and of paying him out in his own coin; does not care a straw about destroying his happiness, sends everything to the devil, and talks a lot of bosh which she certainly does not believe. And then, because there is nothing so stupid and so obstinate in the whole world as lovers, neither ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... fell, avenging outrage. Seas, even when calmest, were to become terrible, and men's heart-beats, a bit sluggish with the fatty degeneration of a sluggard peace, to quicken and then to throb with the rat-a-tat-tat, the rat-a-tat-tat of the most peremptory, the most reverberating call to arms in the ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... he, 'I've got a word or two to say to you. I ain't kickin' at your givin' me tit for tat, or tryin' to. Turn about's fair play, if you can call the turn. But it's against my principles to allow anybody to beat me on a business deal. Do you suppose,' he says, 'that I'd have paid your robber's prices ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... grand tit-for-tat going through all nature. Why, sir, the pleasures of the far South, to a man of art and enterprise like you, far exceed this poor, plain region. Take the roof off slavery and the blacks have rather the best of it; the whites would think ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... Rat-a-tat-tat. Swaths of dead and dying men rolled in the dust, and, as wheat falls under the reaper's blade, the mob melted away in lines and by battalions. Within thirty seconds the whole terrain was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... the Highlands they were so rude, As leave them neither clothes nor food, Then burnt their houses to conclude; 'T was tit for tat. How can her nainsell e'er be good, To think ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... the village the reflections of star-shells threw weird lights on half-ruined houses; an occasional shell screamed overhead, to burst with a dull, echoing sound within the shattered walls of former cottages; and one could hear the rat-tat-tat of machine-guns. These had a nasty habit of spraying the village with indirect fire, and it was, as always, a relief to enter the recesses of Wood Street without having any one hit. This communication trench dipped into the earth ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing

... cut short by the entrance of Mr. Galloway. Unconscious of the rebellious feelings of his clerk, he passed through the office to his own room, Roland's rat-tat-to having ceased at his appearance. To find Roland drumming the floor with his feet was nothing unusual—rather moderate for him; Mr. Galloway had found him doing it with his head. Two or three minutes elapsed, and Mr. ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... The rat-tat-tat of gunfire suddenly ceased. Jack could no longer cover the spot where the two Huns were hiding behind the tree-trunks, and consequently it would be a sheer waste of ammunition to ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... every detail of poor Constant's end. The hours dragged slowly and wretchedly on toward the misty dawn. I was racked with suspense. Was I to be disappointed after all? At last the welcome sound came—the rat-tat-tat of murder. The echoes of that knock are yet in my ear. 'Come over and kill him!' I put my night-capped head out of the window and told her to wait for me. I dressed hurriedly, took my razor, and went across ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill

... tat day!" sharply bolted out M'Nab, "and was spoken since tat day by a bigger nation tan England ever was, or ever will be! ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... killing the cat and tying its tail to the fence to see him kick before he died. He and Bob and a lot of the fellows all together in Smith's field, I think he said. Bob knew Smith. And the way they played tit-tat-too on the window pane on All Hallows' Eve, and they got caught that night too." (At Barking, where my uncles lived as children, there is a field called Smith's field, but my Uncle does not remember the cat incident.) "Aunt Anne wants to know ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage

... as the Woodcutter Chief was sitting in his house, the postman came to the door—Rat-tat. The footman brought in a letter, and the Woodcutter Chief opened it. He read it through, and laughed. Then he waved it in the air, and said, "Let them come." As he waved the letter in the air, all the snuff fell out of it upon his nose. The Woodcutter gave a ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke

... billiards, but they do now. Look at that little villain, Richards. He has just cleared the table, and done it with all the coolness of a professional marker. The young scoundrel ought to have been in bed two hours ago, for I hear that tat of his is really a good one. Not that it will make any difference to him. That sort of boy would play billiards till the first bugle sounds in the morning, and have a wash and turn out as fresh as paint, but it won't last, Doolan, not in ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... Lady Clifford who spoke. There was a brittle, intensely Gallic intonation about the query with its upward inflection, reminding one somehow of a postman's knock, a sort of rat-tat-tat. ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... very minute, "Rat-tat-tat" sounded Grannie's stick on the woodwork of the room where ...
— THE JAPANESE TWINS • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... sound! The grey-headed woodpecker tapping the hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now. See! that thing rests on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines. A most malicious wag, that fellow. Rat-tat! So man's seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here now's the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoy of ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... has a perfect passion for it, and everybody laughs at her for it; but she can't help it, she always was so from a child, and supposes she always shall be,—with remote and minute particulars. And she ends by saying that perhaps he does not like people to tat, or knit, or embroider, or whatever. And he says, oh, yes, he does; what could make her think such a thing? but for his part he likes boating rather better, or if you're in the woods camping. Then she lets ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... there was a cry from beyond the gates, followed by the rat-tat-tat of a drum, and one of those perpetually arriving 'processions' came filing down the platform and across the bridge. I was in no haste to accost Miss Jenrys at the very entrance, and possibly in the face of one or more of my ever-present brethren of the watchful eye, and so, while she waited ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... of the fighting Earthmen farther up the valley, no longer menaced by the futile fliers, had come down to help their weaponless brethren. Wat's voice was shrill in the land, yelling, exhorting, screaming. A familiar rat-a-tat-a-tat came down the wind. The submachine gun was spitting steel-jacketed death. Where was Joan? ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... 'but they calls me "Tat" for short, because I used to hang about outside Tattersall's and run errands. I picked up most of my education there. There ain't many of 'em as can teach me anything.' He broke off short in his confidences at the sound of a heavy shuffling footstep on the stairs. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... began to whisper awe-stricken questions to each other; and at last John the Piper could not restrain his curiosity. "What in ta name of Kott is tat sort of Kallic?" he asked, with some look of fear ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... with Mr. Chrome, who had a new flag, walked out upon the parade-ground. The musicians struck up Yankee-Doodle. How it stirred the hearts of everybody,—the sharp, shrill notes of the fife,—the roll, the rattle, and the rat-a-tat-tat of the drum, and the clanging of the bell, and the sight of that flag, its crimson folds and fadeless stars waving in the evening breeze! Never had it looked so beautiful. The little boys swung their caps and cheered, the women waved their handkerchiefs, and the men hurrahed ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... of the Porte-Cocher at the Hotel d'Hollande had not received their morning opening, when a tremendous loud, long, protracted rat-tat-tat-tat-tan, sounded like thunder throughout the extensive square, and brought numerous nightcapped heads to the windows, to see whether the hotel was on fire, or another revolution had broken out. The maitre d'hotel screamed, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... continual remembrancer. But Mrs. Moggs never exulted over his defeat; and, though once compelled to harshness, continued to be to Montezuma a most excellent wife. The shop looks lively now—and the bell to the door is removed; for Moggs, with his rat-tat-tat, is ever at his post, doing admired execution on the dilapidated boots and shoes. The Moggses prosper, and all through the efficacy of a bucket of cold water. We should not wonder if, in the end, the Moggs family were to become ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... first night at my new billet, about 2 a.m., by the rat-a-tat of a kettle-drum, and two dreary notes continuously repeated by a bugle. It was the alarm for a fire at a farmhouse about half a mile from town. Our men from the hospital helped to get most of the ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith



Words linked to "Tat" :   handicraft, create from raw stuff, sleaze, create from raw material, tastelessness, tit-tat-toe, rat-a-tat-tat, tatting, projective technique, projective device, tackiness, Nguyen Tat Thanh, knot, rat-tat, Thematic Apperception Test



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