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Thorn   Listen
noun
Thorn  n.  
1.
A hard and sharp-pointed projection from a woody stem; usually, a branch so transformed; a spine.
2.
(Bot.) Any shrub or small tree which bears thorns; especially, any species of the genus Crataegus, as the hawthorn, whitethorn, cockspur thorn.
3.
Fig.: That which pricks or annoys as a thorn; anything troublesome; trouble; care. "There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me." "The guilt of empire, all its thorns and cares, Be only mine."
4.
The name of the Anglo-Saxon letter. It was used to represent both of the sounds of English th, as in thin, then. So called because it was the initial letter of thorn, a spine.
Thorn apple (Bot.), Jamestown weed.
Thorn broom (Bot.), a shrub that produces thorns.
Thorn hedge, a hedge of thorn-bearing trees or bushes.
Thorn devil. (Zool.) See Moloch, 2.
Thorn hopper (Zool.), a tree hopper (Thelia crataegi) which lives on the thorn bush, apple tree, and allied trees.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thorn" Quotes from Famous Books



... especially as the United States had suffered an alarming decrease of specie, and as no one save a few individuals, inspired solely by cupidity, had asked for a new bank. Spencer, however, relied principally in his attack upon affidavits of Obadiah German, the Republican leader of the Assembly, and Stephen Thorn of the same body, charging that Senator Ebenezer Purdy, the father of the measure, had offered them large rewards for their votes, German having Purdy's admission that he had become convinced of the propriety of incorporating the bank after a confidential conference ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... district of Memel. Napoleon demands the Polish provinces of Prussia for the new kingdom of Poland to be organized; but your majesty is to keep Pomerelia and the districts of Kulm, Elbing, and Marienwerder. The district of the Netze, as well as the canal of Bromberg and Thorn, will be taken from Prussia; Dantzic, with its surroundings, is to be constituted a free—I believe, a free German city, under the joint protection of Saxony and Prussia. Russia is to cede the island of Corfu to France. This is Napoleon's 'ultimatum,'" said Alexander, laying the ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... growing thick and strong, and it was full of flowers, as the cowslip and the oxlip, and the chequered daffodil, and the wild tulip: the black-thorn was well-nigh done blooming, but the hawthorn was in bud, and in some places growing white. It was a fair morning, warm and cloudless, but the night had been misty, and the haze still hung about the meadows of the Dale where they were wettest, and the grass and its ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... fight for Ireland better in London than in Dublin. And again, the Irishman in England can make havoc in his turn; he can harry the English, he can spite, and irritate and triumph and get his own back in a thousand ways. Living in England he would be a thorn in ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair

... their juices. The smell of the sagebrush is such that very few animals will touch it. Other plants are protected by thorns. In fact, the drier the region, the more thorny are its plants. A little shrub called the crucifixion thorn has no leaves at all, nothing but long, sharp spines. Besides the straight thorns there are curved and also barbed ones, for every conceivable form is represented among the ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks

... a topographical suffix denotes a wild uncultivated tract of hilly or common land, more often than not quite bare of trees. The great expanse of Radnor Forest is well known to the writer and not even a thorn bush comes to the mind in picturing its ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... before, when the race began, That first of the jumps had maimed a man; His horse, the Turk, had been killed and buried There in the ditch by horse-hoofs herried; And over the poor Turk's bones at pace Now, every year, there goes the race, And many a man makes doctor's work At the thorn-bound ditch that hides the Turk, And every man as he rides that course Thinks, there, of the Turk, ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield

... She, and her son too, must have been a thorn in the flesh of the Masseys. They were all rigid Puritans I understand, especially ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... Alice!" Lady Arthur said. "That reaping-machine does its work very well, but it will be a long time before it gathers a crust of poetry about it: stopping to clear a stone out of its way is different from a lad and a lass on the harvest-rig, the one stopping to take a thorn out of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... and somebody else named Krassin was Commissar of Commissars for the Com-Pubs. Newspapers were printing flat pictures in three colors only, and deploring the high cost of stereoscopic plates. And ... Thorn Hard was a high-level flier ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... same pale yellow wash, their front gardens descending to the high-road in parallel lines, their back gardens (which are somewhat longer) climbing to a little wood of secular elms, traditionally asserted to be the remnant of a mighty forest. The party hedge is heightened by a thick screen of white-thorn on which the buds were just showing pink when I took up my lodging in the left-hand cottage (the 10th of May by my diary); and at the end of it are two small arbours, set back to back, their dilapidated sides and ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... yard, where the whole troop squatted down on the ground. The teaching of Mrs. Bullimore did not make much impression upon little John, except a slight fact which she accidentally told him, and which took such firm hold of his imagination that he remembered it all his life. There was a white-thorn tree in the school-yard, of rather large size, and the ancient schoolmistress told John that she herself, when young, had planted the tree, having carried the root from the fields in her pocket. The story struck the boy as something marvellous; it was to him a sort of revelation ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... iron chains, took a seat with the driver; a little drizzling rain; the button trees[31] again; apples more plentiful; the drive beautiful along the river (Delaware), high hills on each side; the woods a little tinted; some thorn hedges; a good many walnut trees. Had coffee and pancakes, paid 30 cents. The land generally better cleared and the houses more substantially built. Passed a funeral of a woman who burned herself to death yesterday by smoking. A long range of stabling shut up, and the hotel changed into a private ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood

... Austria was forced, when peace was concluded, to yield Venetia to Italy retaining only a small part of its former possessions on the Adriatic so as not to be cut off entirely from a maritime outlet. This small remnant of its former Italian possessions, however, proved to be a thorn in the body politic of the Dual Monarchy. The inhabitants of this province were preponderately Italian in language and Italian in feeling and ever since the formation of the kingdom of Italy a strong propaganda was carried on with the object of finally accomplishing ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... dirtied carpets, torn sofa-covers, squealing brats, cross husbands, would ever discompose either of you. You ought never to marry a good-tempered man, it would be mingling honey with sugar, like sticking white roses upon a black-thorn cudgel. With this very picturesque metaphor I close my letter. Good-bye, and ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... a little bit of all right," and taking his hand, led him down the slope and posted him in the shadow of a thorn-bush. ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... selected the finest rose in his bunch and handed it to him, moving off toward the door leading into the hall as he did so. Colin lifted his head and grasped the rose rudely. As his big hand closed upon it, a thorn that hid under the white petals pierced deep into the ball of his thumb. In an instant the sleeping demon of insanity awoke. With eyes blazing and frame trembling with fury, he sprang to his feet, seized the knife, and with a hoarse, inarticulate ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... by the jerk of his fall. He opened the single blade it contained at once, and went back to the hedge to cut a stick. As he walked along the hedge, he thought the briar was too prickly to cut, and the thorn was too hard, and the ash was too big, and the willow had no knob, and the elder smelt so strong, and the sapling oak was across the ditch, and out of reach, and the maple had such rough bark. So he wandered along a great way through ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... later he lay in a dead sleep, motionless as a stone image, while the man who dragged him from his hell rested upon two chairs and grimly reviewed the problem which he had created for himself. There was no denying the fact that young Guy had been a thorn in his side almost ever since his arrival in the country. The pity of it was that he possessed such qualities as should have lifted him far above the crowd. He had courage, he had resource. Upon occasion he was even brilliant. But ever the fatal handicap existed that had pulled ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... never told her, unless perhaps he had told some tale against him, and made him the butt of a great joke. Well, if he had she had cared enough to defend him and help him out without ever giving away the fact that she knew. But here, too, lay a thorn to disturb him. Why had Ruth Macdonald not told him the plain truth if she knew? Was she trying to shield Harry Wainwright? Could she really care for that ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill

... foregoing conduct on the part of the post master will have shown already that Ursula, poor and resigned, was destined to be a thorn in the side of the rich Minoret. The bustle attending the settlement of an estate, the sale of the property, the going and coming necessitated by such unusual business, his discussions with his wife about the most trifling details, the purchase of the doctor's house, where ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... wealth may be invested. We need that One to be an undying and perpetual possession. There is One to whom our love can ever cleave, and fear none of the sorrows or imperfections that make earthward-turned love a rose with many a thorn, One for whom it is pure gain to lose ourselves, One who is plainly the only worthy recipient of the whole love and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... thorns enough!" Patricia laughed. "Mamma says I'm selfish and careless and, oh, I don't know what! So, you see, they scratch her. What's your thorn, David?" ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd

... Good water," he continued, pointing to the slight tracts of grass which had sprung up where a stream rising among the rocks was losing itself in the dry soil, but which looked brighter and greener as it was nearer to the kopje, which was fairly furnished with thorn-bush and ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... neighb'ring woods, and trust themselves to night. The speedy horse all passages belay, And spur their smoking steeds to cross their way, And watch each entrance of the winding wood. Black was the forest: thick with beech it stood, Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn; Few paths of human feet, or tracks of beasts, were worn. The darkness of the shades, his heavy prey, And fear, misled the younger from his way. But Nisus hit the turns with happier haste, And, thoughtless of his friend, the ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... next, with dirges due in sad array Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 115 Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various

... foreign rule; its strength was exhausted, and its leaders and priesthood were scattered and bankrupt. Elam was now almost the only civilised kingdom of western Asia which remained independent. It was, moreover, a perpetual thorn in the side of the Assyrians. It was always ready to give the same help to the disaffected in Babylonia that Egypt was to the rebels in Palestine, with the difference that whereas the Egyptians were an unwarlike race, the Elamites ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... them—his mothers and sisters!" Bessie dramatized an excess of anguish. "Oh, Mary, that is the very thorn I have been trying not to press my heart against; and does your hand commend it to my embrace? His folks! Yes, they would be folks; and what folks! I think I am getting a realizing sense. Wait! Don't speak don't move, Molly!" Bessie dropped her chin into her hand, and stared straight forward, gripping ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... reason, yet it was soon a sufficient and at last an overwhelming reason, against returning to the East. The pertinacity of the attacks made on me, and on all who dared to hold by me in a certain connexion, showed that I could no longer be anything but a thorn in the side of my friends abroad; nay, I was unable to predict how they themselves might change towards me. The idea of a Christian Church propagating Christianity while divided against itself was ridiculous. Never indeed had I had the most ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... have leisure now on shipboard to set tie that question of atomic pitches, which is still a thorn in my ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... habitation, not one woman, not one decent tavern; and in those days I was young, strong, hot-headed, giddy, and foolish. The only distraction I could possibly find was in the windows of the passenger trains, and in the vile vodka which the Jews drugged with thorn-apple. Sometimes there would be a glimpse of a woman's head at a carriage window, and one would stand like a statue without breathing and stare at it until the train turned into an almost invisible speck; or one would drink all one could of the loathsome vodka till one was stupefied ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... chimney smokes so. Mr. Percombe, you look as unnatural out of your shop as a canary in a thorn-hedge. Surely you have not come out ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... pins and needles, yarn and thread, that have taken the place of the wilder thorn and fibre; all kinds of small hardware; looking-glasses in lacquered frames; beads of sorts, cowries and reels of cotton; pots of odorous pomatum and shea-butter nuts; feathers of the plantain-bird ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... good answer," said Quarles. "Now, here are the letters. This one is dated eighteen months ago, postmark Liverpool, written at Thorn's Hotel, Liverpool. 'Dear Jack,—Back again like the proverbial bad penny. Health first class; luck medium. Pocket full enough to have a rollick with you. Shall be with you the day after to-morrow.—Yours, ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... he hesitated; then, hardening himself, he plunged the sword into her heart and a great moan was heard, and the fire disappeared, and only a withered rose-tree stood before him. Then he heard the voice say that he must pierce his own heart with a thorn from the tree and let the blood fall upon its roots. This he did, and as he did so he felt the sharpness of Death, as though the last dreadful moment had come; but as the drops of blood fell on the roots the beautiful maiden with veiled eyes, whom ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... seat in the Senate (1793) he offended Hamilton, and aroused the hostility of the friends of the secretary by a call for information as to the condition of the Treasury. As member of Congress in 1796 he questioned Hamilton's policy, and during Adams's entire administration was a perpetual thorn in the sides of Hamilton's successors in the department. The day after his election, February 18, 1801, Mr. Jefferson communicated to Mr. Gallatin the names of the gentlemen he had already determined upon for ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... the Gascoignes of another age. Lord Christobel had shown on more than one occasion that all ranks, even the highest, were equal in the eye of the law as administered by him. He was the scourge of truckling magistrates, and a thorn in the side of those petty tyrants whom our peculiar system allows to flourish in rural districts in ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... close to the sting, The rose is fenced by the thorn, Shall we leave to others their gathering, And turn from clustering fruits that cling To the garden wall in scorn? Albeit those purple grapes hang high, Like the fox in the ancient tale, Let us pause and try, ere we pass them by, Though we, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... revives just in time, is lifted on to his saddle-bow, and "they need swift steeds that follow" the fugitive pair. The sleeping beauty, who is thrown into so long a swoon by the prick of the fairy thorn, is another very old example, while "Snow-white," in her glass coffin, in the German nursery ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... little fawn, thy foster-child, Poor helpless orphan! it remembers well How with a mother's tenderness and love Thou didst protect it, and with grains of rice From thine own hand didst daily nourish it; And, ever and anon, when some sharp thorn Had pierced its mouth, how gently thou didst tend The bleeding wound, and pour in healing balm. The grateful nursling clings to its protectress, Mutely imploring leave ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... not unacquainted with fallen gentlemen, "beach-combers," "remittance men," and vagrants who had known better days, and there had been something winning in this vagrant's smile, and, moreover, he had reported that thorn in his flesh, the consular ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... morning Colonel Quinnox and a company of soldiers, riding from the city gates toward the north in response to a call for help from honest herders who reported attacks and robberies of an alarming nature, came upon the stiff, foot-sore, thorn-scratched Mr. Hobbs, not far from the walls of the town. The Colonel was not long in grasping the substance of Hobbs's revelations. He rode off at once for the Witch's hovel, sending Hobbs with a small, instructed escort to the Castle, where Baron ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... not seen Sara for a day or two, she was hastily summoned to their usual trysting-place, a spot by the river-side, where the two gardens met, and where an over-arching thorn-tree made a complete bower. Therein Sara stood, looking so pale and serious, ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... the cup of the volcanic plain, and another half-hour or so to climb the edge on the farther side. Once there, however, the view was a very fine one. Before us was a long steep slope of grassy plain, broken here and there by clumps of trees mostly of the thorn tribe. At the bottom of this gentle slope, some nine or ten miles away, we could make out a dim sea of marsh, over which the foul vapours hung like smoke about a city. It was easy going for the bearers down the slopes, and by midday we had reached the borders of the dismal swamp. Here we halted ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... a species of Eucalyptus. Among the various kinds of fishes which abound in these latitudes is the thorn-back skate, one of which, even after cleaning, weighed ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... through the bush with his rod and a few troutlings, dry-shod and immaculate in a jacket that fitted him like a uniform, and Ida went back to camp with him. She fancied, however, that her father or Weston, who sat still and filled his pipe again, would have come back with a heavy fish, or at least thorn-rent and dripping wet. ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... heaped The pieces of his armour in one place, All to be there against a sudden need; Then dozed awhile herself, but overtoiled By that day's grief and travel, evermore Seemed catching at a rootless thorn, and then Went slipping down horrible precipices, And strongly striking out her limbs awoke; Then thought she heard the wild Earl at the door, With all his rout of random followers, Sound on a dreadful trumpet, summoning her; Which was the red cock ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... bore the blush of May, Down towards the dark December Pass'd like the thorn-tree's bloom ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... slashed for the ease of his feet; his stockings of green yarn had been much worn, were darned at the knees, and without feet; and an old grey steeple-crowned hat, without band or lining, with a crooked thorn stick, completed the royal habiliments. The six brothers attended him with arms; two kept in advance, two followed behind, and one walked on each side. He had not gone far before he complained to Humphrey of the heavy jolting pace of the horse. ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... crook-beaked shrike His back may spike And pierce him with a thorn; The humble bee A tramp is he And there is none ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various

... the Master, "If thou break off a twig from one of these plants, the thoughts thou hast will all be cut short." Then I stretched my hand a little forward and plucked a branchlet from a great thorn-bush, and its trunk cried out, "Why dost thou rend me?" When it had become dark with blood it began again to cry, "Why dost thou tear me? hast thou not any spirit of pity? Men we were, and now we are become stocks; truly thy hand ought ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... had a faint resemblance to the heads of the drivers we had seen used on the links. Any elaborate splicing operations were out of the question, so we agreed that we must bore a hole in the centre of the head. The shaft sticks that we chose and trimmed were made of good thorn, white or black, and when we had prepared them to our satisfaction we put the poker in the fire and made it red hot, then bored a hole with it through the head, and tightened the shaft with wedges until the club was complete. With this ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... de bark offen de thorn tree and bile it with turpentine for de toothache. She used herbs for de medicine and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... Wort reappeared in a sort of furtive hurry. She gave a timid, sidelong glance at the doctor, and then addressed Bessie. Mr. Carnegie had his eye upon her: she was the thorn in his professional flesh. She meddled with his patients—a pious woman for whom other people's souls and internal complaints supplied the excitement absent from her own condition and favorite literature. She had some superfluous income and much unoccupied ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... be sure!" said Tam relieved. "A' thocht maybe the Kaiser had sent me droogged seegairs—A'm an awfu' thorn in the puir laddie's side. Ye may laugh, Mister Carter, but A' reca' a case wheer a bonnie detective wi' the same name as ye'sel', though A' doot if he wis related to ye, was foiled by the machinations o' Ferdie the Foorger at the moment ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace

... him, mounted his horse and continued his journey. He rode on and on until he came to another jungle, and there he saw a tiger who had a thorn in his foot, and was roaring loudly from ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs

... The driver turned in the saddle to see if there were any chance of capturing the revolver and ending the ride. Dick roused, struck him over the head with the butt, and stormed himself wide awake. Somebody hidden in a clump of camel-thorn shouted as the camel toiled up rising ground. A shot was fired, and the silence shut down again, bringing the desire to sleep. Dick could think no longer. He was too tired and stiff and cramped to do more than nod uneasily from time ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... maid-of-honour), yet there was a tinge of Jacobitism about her, such as made her extremely dislike to hear Prince Charles Edward called the young Pretender, as many loyal people did in those days, and made her fond of telling of the thorn- tree in my lord's park in Scotland, which had been planted by bonny Queen Mary herself, and before which every guest in the Castle of Monkshaven was expected to stand bare-headed, out of respect to the memory and misfortunes of the ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... the mynas perked and pricked, The seven sisters chattered in the thorn, The pied fish-tiger hung above the pool, The egrets stalked among the buffaloes, The kites sailed circles in the golden air; About the painted temple peacocks flew. ARNOLD, The Light ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar

... the name of Montluc meant absolutely nothing to him, it was not the same with the direct and brutal allusion which his interlocutor had made to the war of 1859. It is always a thorn in the flesh of those of our neighbors from beyond the Alps who do not love us. The pride of the Garibaldian was not far behind the generosity of the former zouave. With an abruptness equal to that of Montfanon, he ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... characteristic feature is its beak, the upper mandible having two sharp processes and a sharp hooked point. It cannot fly away to any distance with the bird it kills, nor hold it in its claws to feed upon it. It usually impales its victim upon a thorn, or thrusts it in the fork of a limb. For the most part, however, its food seems to consist of insects,—spiders, grasshoppers, beetles, etc. It is the assassin of the small birds, whom it often destroys in pure wantonness, or merely to sup on their brains, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... right to deliver from hell all she could carry, and carried away multitudes clinging with worn fingers to the hem of her dress; and it was she who endured dumbness for a year because of the little thorn of enchantment the fairies had thrust into her tongue; and it was a lock of her hair, coiled in a little carved box, which gave so great a light that men threshed by it from sundown to sunrise, and awoke so great a wonder that kings spent years in wandering or fell before unknown armies in ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats

... and fair, They knew I could have for the asking, and so they went on with their fun, Till the "Senior Partner" gave a cough, and then all their mirth was done. But I asked from Heaven though I know the way is mingled flower and thorn, That not one from partner to porter may bear all I have borne. So Jasper thinks I am sad; how the wintry winds whistle to-night! Heaven grant no poor woman or children are out in this sleety blight. I cannot read this eve; what ails me? "Chronicle," "Tribune" and "Times," Lie looking coaxingly ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins

... by deep and broad ditches; a few pollard willows, so old that the trunk was, in some, riven asunder, whilst in others nothing but the mere shell remained, together with here and there a stunted thorn, alone relieving the monotony of ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford

... the pallid moon, Vi'let-wing'd Zephyr fann'd each opening flower, And brush'd from fragrant cups the limpid shower; A distant huntsman fill'd his cheerful horn, The vivid dew hung trembling on the thorn, And mists, like creeping rocks, arose to meet the morn. Huge giant shadows spread along the plain, Or shot from towering rocks o'er half the main, There to the slumbering bark the gentle tide Stole soft, and faintly beat against its side; Such is that sound, which fond designs convey, ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe

... every point of their respective faiths, and when they would either make the dervish turn Mohammedan, by producing conviction in his mind, or they would become Christians, if his arguments prevailed. To this he immediately assented; but we determined beforehand, amongst ourselves, that such a thorn in the side of our Ullemah should no longer exist in Persia, and that the overwhelming truth of our belief should not be left to the chances of vain words and uplifted voices, but show itself in the zeal and numbers of its adherents. Accordingly every turbaned head, and every beard that wagged, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... Mrs. Mary Hickman, at least she had him in her possession and reaped the benefit of his hire and enjoyed the leisure and ease thereof while he toiled. For some time prior to his leaving, this had been a thorn in his side, hard to bear; so when an opening presented itself by which he thought he could better his condition, he was ready to try the experiment. He, however, felt that, while she would not have him to look to for support, she would not be without ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... I have been several times to the Capitol, I have somehow missed seeing the Palazzo dei Conservatori, containing the famous wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus, in bronze, said to have been struck by lightning (of which it bears all the marks) the day Julius Caesar was killed; the boy picking the thorn from his foot; the statue of the first Brutus; the geese of the Capitol (which are more like ducks); and the Fasti Consulares. It just occurred to me in time, and I went there yesterday morning. After dinner ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... the teeth of the shark. Armlets of small white shells were worn by the men above the elbow-joint. Some pierced their ears with a thorn, and wore a small flower for an earring; but this was not very common. A long comb, made from the stem of the cocoa-nut leaflet, was a common ornament of the women, and worn in the hair behind the ear. For a looking-glass, they sometimes used ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... dear Honora, that the rhododendrons will not exhaust themselves; at this moment yours opposite the library window are in the most beautiful profuse blow you can conceive, and at the end of my garden indescribably beautiful, and scarlet thorn beside. The peony tree has happily survived its removal, and is covered ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... tell you. Look, there is a quiet place in yon corner under the thorn-trees by that piece of water. See, they are leaving off work: I will go for a can of beer, and then, pray, let me ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... next day such certain signs of land were seen that the most faint-hearted took courage. The men had already noticed great flocks of land-birds flying toward the west, as if to guide them. Now some of the men on one vessel saw a branch of a thorn-bush float by. It was plain that it had not long been broken off from the bush, and it was full of ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery

... was asked by a man who knew more than any one else, and he knew very well what the answer would be. We should suspect a man of insanity who looked for grapes on a thorn bush. And yet we see numbers of both men and women looking for happiness and comfort in the Public House, and judging from their appearance afterwards, we feel sure they went for grapes and found ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... three watercolour paintings, "Spring," "The Banjo Player," and "Windsor Castle," for five shillings; a tiny fender, half-a-crown; a toilet set, five shillings; another very small square-topped table, three and sixpence. Whenever I bid for anything, Whitehall thrust his black-thorn up into the air, and presently I found him doing so on my behalf when I had no intention of buying. I narrowly escaped having to give fourteen and sixpence for a stuffed macaw in a ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... full sorely my skin though these briers may rend, Yet they keep off the dogs, and my life will defend: For the sake of the good, then, let evil be borne— For each sweet has its bitter, each bramble its thorn." ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... death from us has torn, We did not think so soon to part; An anxious care now sinks the thorn Still deeper ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... it finds every rose has a thorn, comes back loaded with honey from his rambles, and why should not other tourists ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... best of the situation, I remove my quarters from the cold and draughty bala-khana to the stable, and send the shagird-chapar out in quest of camel-thorn, bread, eggs, and pomegranates, thinking thus to obtain the luxury of a bit of fire and something to eat in comparative seclusion. This vain hope proves that I have not even yet become thoroughly acquainted with the Persians. No sooner does ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... its after-pang; the most beautiful rose its latent thorn. So, too, I see, is it with those who undertake to narrate facts. This day marks the loss of another shipmate, from one of those suddenly awful deaths to which the sailor is, above all other men, perhaps, ever ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... why love you Earl Godwin? He hath changed sides from party to party, and in each change won lordships and lands. He is ambitious and grasping, ye all allow; for the ballads sung in your streets liken him to the thorn and the bramble, at which the sheep leaves his wool. He is haughty and overbearing. Tell me, O Saxon, frank Saxon, why you love Godwin the Earl? Fain would I know; for, please the saints (and you and your Earl so permitting), I mean to live ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... cherish, while yet the taper glows, And the fresh flow'ret pluck ere it close; Why are we fond of toil and care? Why choose the rankling thorn to wear? ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... he with some slight embarrassment. "Stop at Ryan's," mentioning a low tavern on the borders of the reservation, which was a terrible thorn in the side of all the missionary's efforts. "Stop a minute light my pipe, but no drink one drop," he added with great earnestness; "but they ask me ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... Government sunk, that Lucchesini actually signed a convention at Charlottenburg (November 16), surrendering to Napoleon, in return for an armistice, the entire list of uncaptured fortresses, including Dantzig and Thorn on the Lower Vistula, Breslau, with the rest of the untouched defences of Silesia, Warsaw and Praga in Prussian Poland, and Colberg ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... exercises." Even when women ventured to hold formal religious meetings there was at first little or no protest. According to Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, when Anne Hutchinson, that creator of religious strife and thorn in the side of the Elders, conducted assemblies for women only, there was even praise for the innovation. It was only when this leader criticised the clergy that silence was demanded. "Mrs. Hutchinson thought ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... Against this thorn in the side of the realm the new emperor sent his ablest commander, and a fierce campaign ensued, in which the brigand band stubbornly fought for life and license. In the end they suffered a crushing defeat, and for the time ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... — N. sharpness &c. adj.; acuity, acumination[obs3]; spinosity[obs3]. point, spike, spine, spicule[Biol], spiculum[obs3]; needle, hypodermic needle, tack, nail, pin; prick, prickle; spur, rowel, barb; spit, cusp; horn, antler; snag; tag thorn, bristle; Adam's needle[obs3], bear grass [U.S.], tine, yucca. nib, tooth, tusk; spoke, cog, ratchet. crag, crest, arete[Fr], cone peak, sugar loaf, pike, aiguille[obs3]; spire, pyramid, steeple. beard, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... incessantly about the ship, and was full of curiosity, wanting to hear and see everything, and made herself hated exceedingly. Her husband was a decent man, and for his sake many held their tongues; but had he not been there, it would have gone hard with her. This woman was a thorn in the eyes of us all.' His delight was great, when she was left behind at Rhodes, having strayed away to some church outside the town. 'Except her husband, no one was sorry.' But their peace was short-lived, ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... with respect to the fieldfare (turdus pilaris) which I think is particular enough; this bird, though it sits on trees in the daytime, and procures the greatest part of its food from white-thorn hedges, yea, moreover, builds on very high trees, as may be seen by the fauna suecica; yet always appears with us to roost on the ground. They are seen to come in flocks just before it is dark, and to settle and nestle among the heath on our forest. And besides, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... frieze mantle, the thieves knew what lances were good for, and whether swords had edges or no. There were some three hundred of their best bonnets, besides that of their chief, Donald Cormac, left on the moor of Thorn and in Rochinroy Wood; and as many were gibbeted at Houghmanstares, which has still the name from the hangman work that was done there. This is the way men deal with thieves in my country; and if gentler methods will succeed better with these Earish knaves, do not blame Douglas for speaking his ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... was shelled by the British fleet, April 25, 1916, the city sustaining one of the longest and heaviest bombardments which it had suffered since its capture by the Germans. As a convenient base for submarines it was a particularly troublesome thorn to the Allies, and the bombardment was directed mainly at buildings suspected of being submarine workshops, and the harbor defenses. Several vessels were sunk and much damage wrought, the German batteries at Heyst, Blankenberghe, and ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... a visitor in the night, as evidenced by a scrawled warning, on a dirty piece of paper, fastened to a stubby tree by a long, sharp thorn. ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... to him, and since the trail there was narrow and thorn-hedged, she strode on ahead of him. Jerry was content, for through the midsummer woods, still dewy with morning freshness, he could follow no lovelier guide, and Jerry could be silent as ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... "Perfect. 'Dwight, Thorn—', no, 'Thorndyke, Lawton and Dwight.' I'm too excited—convicts must feel like that when they tunnel a hole and get out. It will be our real, ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... fables true, If true, here only, and of delicious taste: Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks Grazing the tender herb, were interposed, Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap Of some irriguous valley spread her store, Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose: Another side, umbrageous grots and caves Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps Luxuriant; mean while murmuring waters fall Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake, That to the fringed bank ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... above the dead quarry workings of Foggintor. Underneath him opened a cavity with sides two hundred feet high. Its peaks and precipices fell, here by rough, giant steps, here stark and sheer over broad faces of granite, where only weeds and saplings of mountain ash and thorn could find a foothold. The bottom was one vast litter of stone and fern, where foxgloves nodded above the masses of debris and wild things made their homes. Water fell over many a granite shelf and in the desolation lay ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... I sit like Philomel all day (but not singing) with my breast against this thorn of a Desk, with the only hope that some Pulmonary affliction may relieve me. Vide Lord Palmerston's report of the Clerks in the war office (Debates, this morning's Times) by which it appears in 20 years, as many Clerks ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... followed, or its consequences. It is sufficient for the proper development of our tale to say that they met at an island in North More named Solskiel, where a pitched battle was fought, and gained by Harald. The two kings were slain, but Solve Klofe escaped, and afterwards proved a great thorn in Harald's side, plundering in North More, killing many of the King's men, pillaging some places, burning others, and generally making great ravage wherever he went; so that, what with keeping him and similar turbulent characters in check, and establishing law and order in the districts of ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... wretchedness, Aurelia's youthful spirits had begun to revive, and the novel scenes to awaken interest. The Glastonbury thorn was the first thing she really looked at. The Abbey was to her only an old Gothic melancholy ruin, not worthy of a glance, but the breezy air of the Cheddar Hills, the lovely cliffs, and the charm of the open country, with its strange islands of hills dotted about, raised her spirits, as she ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bring a blush to the seasoned cheek of Don Francesco himself who, unaware of her condition at one particular moment, politely ventured to enquire why she always wore black and was told that she was in mourning, as everybody ought to mourn, for his lost innocence. Being an Englishwoman, she was a thorn in the side of her moral ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... Past marshes went the painted canoes; they swam the singing shallows; they glided under shading willow; they sped by wild grape-vine and spreading elm. The stream was embroidered with a thousand grasses, dying daisies, paling goldenrod, berry bushes, and wild-rose thorn. A thousand elusive perfumes rose to greet them, a thousand changing scenes. October, in all her gorgeous furbelows, sat upon her throne. The Chevalier never uttered a word, but studied madame's half-turned ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... moist place, or near water, for he is rather proud of himself as a swimmer. He has a handsome coat, and gets a new one two, three, four, or five times in a season, if his growth require it. When the new coat is quite hard and fit for use under the old, he strips the old one off among the thorn-bushes. He and his lady hybernate. The lady leaves her sixteen or twenty eggs, all glued together, for the sun to vivify. The snake's tongue, as we have said, is forked, the jaws dilatable; he prefers frogs for his dinner, but is satisfied with mice, or little birds, or lizards. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... I want to give up every thing, every thought, every affection, in short, my whole self, to my offered Saviour. Then would His kingdom come, and His will be done. Instead of the thorn would come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier the myrtle-tree. How precious, how holy, how peaceful, that kingdom! Oh! if I may yet hope; if mercy is left, I beseech Thee, hear and behold me, and bring me "out of the miry clay, and set ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... then dropped safely. No one seemed to be about upon this side of the house. He dodged low, and skimmed swiftly across the yard to the low fence. It was an easy matter to vault this, for a terror urged him such as lifts the gazelle over the thorn bush when the lion pursues. A crash through the dew-drenched weeds on the roadside, a clutching, slippery rush up the grassy side of the levee to the footpath at ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... my ordinary, when no other passage of Scripture attracts my particular attention. This is the third morning I have opened the New Testament on the 14th chapter of John, and have fed delightfully on the first three verses. There is at all times a thorn in my heart, keeping me in continual remembrance of my vile, ungrateful backslidings, so that I eat my sweetest morsels with bitter herbs. It was particularly painful to me this morning; nevertheless; the Lord God, merciful and gracious, ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... modern to its finger-tips, was all but complete and perfect now. Only Miss Quincey remained. St. Sidwell's in the weeding time had not been a bed of roses for Miss Cursiter, and Miss Quincey, blameless but incompetent, was a thorn in her side, a thorn that stuck. Impossible to remove Miss Quincey quickly, she was so very blameless and ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair

... man, he set off gallantly on his new commission. After waiting a time, which in our state of suspense might almost be called a period, he leisurely returned, significantly saying, that neither man nor beast could pass that way! rubbing his thorn-smitten cheek. Now came the use of the syllogism, in its simplest form. "If the right road must be A, B, or C, and A and B were wrong, then C must be right." Under this conviction, we marched boldly on, without ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... as soon as April bringeth Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, While late bare earth proud of her clothing springeth, Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making; And mournfully bewailing, Her throat in tunes expresseth, While grief her heart oppresseth, For Tereus' force ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various

... finds still sleeping, and lies down again beside them. Presently they all awake and rouse Mak, who still pretends to sleep. He, after some talk, goes home, and the shepherds go off to seek and count their sheep, agreeing to meet again at the "crooked thorn." ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... morning floods The purple east with light, When the zephyr sweeps from a thousand buds The pearly tears of night. There's joy when the lark exulting springs To pour his matin lay, From the blossomed thorn when the blackbird sings, And the merry month ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie

... hear in woodlands dim Their unarticulated hymn, Now walk through rippling waves of wheat, Now sink in mats of clover sweet, Or see before us from the lawn The lark go up to greet the dawn! All birds that love the English sky Throng round my path when she is by: The blackbird from a neighboring thorn With music brims the cup of morn, And in a thick, melodious rain The mavis pours her mellow strain! But only when my Katie's voice Makes all the listening woods rejoice, I hear—with cheeks that flush and pale— The ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... deny it.—The writers of the first four, or of the first seven centuries, have an authority, just as the scholiasts and ancient commentators have: some of them, and in some points, are of weight singly; the agreement of many of thorn has much weight; the agreement of almost all of them would have great weight. In this sense, I acknowledge their authority; and it would be against all sound principles of criticism to deny it. But if, by authority, is meant a decisive authority, a judgment which ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... words they were, for they came straight from a rock not a quarter of a mile from Yew Nook, but only to be reached, on account of its precipitous character, by a round-about path. Thither she steered, defying wind and snow; guided by here a thorn-tree, there an old, doddered oak, which had not quite lest their identity under the whelming mask of snow. Now and then she stopped to listen; but never a word or sound heard she, till right from where the copse-wood grew thick and tangled at the base of the rock, ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell

... were the dishes, And long and curved were the spoons of thorn-wood. The way to Kau was like a whetstone, And straight as an arrow. (So) the officers trod it, And the common people looked on it. When I look back and think of it, My tears run down ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... may not intermeddle with the joy of authorship. Spoken praise carries off the rose and puts a thorn in its place. One of our famous novelists, whom we will call Brown, happened to catch sight in a strange city of the sign, "Autographs of distinguished authors for sale," He thought to himself he would test his own market value, and accordingly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... upon her most secret lair in a dense thicket of thorn-myrtle and wild smilax, a little bower she had made, where was hidden a horrible-looking image formed of the rough pieces of saw-palmetto grubbed up by old Bartolo from his garden. She must have dragged these fragments thither one by one, and with infinite ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... the Divine gifts of a keener conscience and a more loving heart than his fellows, there inevitably comes with such gifts the obligation of suffering for them. Every degree in which love stands above her brethren means pain and shame to love though as yet she bear no thorn or nail in her flesh. This spiritual distress Jeremiah felt for the people long before he shared with them the physical penalties of their sins. Just there—in his keener conscience, in his hot shame for sins ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... few trout, when just as I was coming in this direction I caught sight of your nephew, the gray-hound. He slipped cautiously into the garden, and after remaining there for a few minutes, came out again. Meanwhile I perceived that the young nobleman was watching him from amongst the thorn-bushes by the side of the ditch; but what was my astonishment when I saw that my good old friend Charles Hawermann was following them on the hill-side. I brought up the rear, and so we all went on in single file quite ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... itself could totally extinguish. No Filipino, at that period, dreamed of absolute independence, but the few who had been taught by their masters to hope for equal laws, agitated for their promulgation and became a thorn in the side of the Monastic Orders. Only as their eyes were spontaneously opened to liberty by the Spaniards themselves did they ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... felt his heart oppressed with a new and more bitter emotion. The company thought him happy in exclusive possession of the lovely girl's society—his side was pierced with a cruel, rankling thorn. ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... had always been a thorn in the old man's flesh. Horse-racing, gambling, theatres, and music-halls were, in the old pork-butcher's eyes, so many deadly sins which his son committed every day of his life, and all the Fitzwilliam Place household could testify ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... for the status of those creatures that have hands! We covet hands as eagerly as you covet riches. There is no acquisition that is more valuable than the acquisition of hands. Behold, O Brahmana, I cannot extract this thorn that has entered my body, or crush these insects and worms that are biting and afflicting me greatly! They that have bestowed upon them two hands with ten fingers, succeed in throwing away or crushing the worms (by scratching) ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... herself perceives. Oft hath the poet's magic tongue The rose's fair luxuriance sung; And long the Muses, heavenly maids, Have reared it in their tuneful shades. When, at the early glance of morn, It sleeps upon the glittering thorn, 'Tis sweet to dare the tangled fence To cull the timid floweret thence, And wipe with tender hand away The tear that on its blushes lay! 'Tis sweet to hold the infant stems, Yet dropping with Aurora's gems, And fresh inhale the spicy sighs That from ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... whip!" sounds from the elms; "Whip! quip!" Redwing thrushes threaten with the "whip" those who advance towards them; they spend much of the day in the elm-tops. Thick tussocks of old grass are conspicuous at the skirt of a hedge; half green, half grey, they contrast with the bare thorn. From behind one of these tussocks a hare starts, his black-tipped ears erect, his long hinder limbs throwing him almost like a grasshopper over the sward—no creature looks so handsome or startling, and it is always a pleasant surprise to see him. Pheasant or partridge do not surprise in the ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... above the height of a shrub; but its trunk is rather thick for its height. This shrub is in great esteem among the Natches; but I never could learn for what reason. Its leaf resembles that of the black thorn; and its wood while it is green is not very hard. Its prickles are at least two inches long, and are very hard and piercing; within half an inch of their root two other small prickles grow out from them so as to form a cross. The whole trunk is covered {231} with these prickles, so that you ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... narrower; the tops of the hills on the north exhibits some scattered pine and cedar, on the south the pine has not yet commenced, though there is some cedar on the sides of the hills and in the little ravines. The chokecherry, the wild hysop, sage, fleshy-leafed thorn, and particularly the aromatic herb on which the antelope and hare feed, are to be found on the plains and hills. The soil of the hills has now altered its texture considerably: their bases, like that of the river plains, is as usual a rich, black loam, while from the middle to the summits they ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... between two cakes of floating ice that jammed my nose out of its former perfect contour. In Yucatan I tumbled into a hedge of poisoned cactus and had to operate on myself—quickly, too—to save my life. Wild with pain, I slashed my face to get the poisoned tips of thorn out of the flesh. Parts of my body are like my face, but fortunately I can cover them. It was bad surgery. On another I could have operated without leaving a scar, but I was frantic with pain. Don't stare at that big eye, sir; it's glass. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne

... public at all times and seasons, having to do, as it were, the work of two rather than one. No, the wonderful thing was that Joan suddenly realised that her terror of Mrs. Sampson—a terror that had always been a real thorn in her flesh—was completely gone. It was as though a charm, an Abracadabra, had been whispered over Mrs. Sampson and she had been changed immediately into a rabbit. It had never been Mrs. Sampson's fault that she was alarming ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... Mr. Houghton—nay, the very way she addressed herself to him—"What do you think, Mr. Houghton?"—then there seemed to be assumed an immediacy of correspondence between the two, and an unquestioned priority in their unison, his and hers, which was a cruel thorn in Miss Frost's outspoken breast. This sort of secret intimacy and secret exulting in having, really, the chief power, was most repugnant to the white-haired woman. Not that there was, in fact, any secrecy, or any form of unwarranted correspondence ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... all seasons, but autumn offers some charming variations. The brilliant scarlet berries of the mountain ash or red thorn mingled with the deep, rich green of feathery asparagus, make a delicious color symphony most appropriate to ...
— Vaughan's Vegetable Cook Book (4th edition) - How to Cook and Use Rarer Vegetables and Herbs • Anonymous

... or level downs, and flocks Grazing the tender herb, were interpos'd, Or palmy hillock, or the flow'ry lap Of some irriguous valley spread her store, Flowers of all hues, and without thorn the rose. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... the Sierras de los Organos, or Organ Mountains, from which he swept down at frequent intervals, first upon one town in the neighbourhood and then upon another, harassing and cutting up the Spanish garrisons in them, and generally making of himself a thorn in the flesh of Weyler. The spot in which he had established himself was distant only some ten miles, as the crow flies, from the hacienda Montijo; and he had no sooner made himself comfortable in his new quarters than he surprised and slightly discomposed ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... the voice of peace shall speak, Nor placid zephyr fan their fever'd cheek; Sleep ne'er shall seal their hot and blood-stain'd eye, But conscious visions ever haunt them nigh; Grandeur to them a faded flower shall be, Wealth but a thorn, and power a fruitless tree; And, as they near the tomb, with panting breast, Shrink from the dread ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... the fighting monk for his master!' Sir Henry said, laughing. 'Truly he must have been a good pupil, if he has come out of it without having his head broken, a dozen times. The friar is a thorn in the abbot's flesh, and more than once I have had to beg him off, or he would have been sent to the monastery of Saint John, which is a place of punishment for refractory monks. But in truth he ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... clinching of his fist, a knitting of his brows, and a gathering blackness in his eyes as he listened while Katy, rousing partially from her lethargy, talked of the days when she was a little girl, and Morris had built the playhouse for her by the brook, where the thorn apples grew and the waters fell ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... your old friend Dangerfield, I hear, who is the thorn in our pillow now. He hath first feigned to discover a Covenanting plot against His Majesty; and then turned it into a Popish one. There has been much foolish talk about a meal-tub, and papers hidden in it, and such-like: and ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... day, Count Bernard of Senlis (who boasted himself a forty-second grandson or something of Charlemagne) quarrelled with King Louis IV of France. To spite him, Bernard adopted the baby son of William Longsword, Duke of Normandy, killed in battle; for Normandy was a "thorn in the eye" of France. Thanks to Bernard's help Normandy gained in riches and importance. By the time William, son of Robert the Devil and Arlette of Falaise, appeared on the scene, the dukedom was a power in the world, and William was able to dare ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... tore her hands breaking off little faggots of tall dry weed stems, a very few bits of wild thorn and fragments of a plum thicket in the nearest shallow coulee. She ran to her hillock, stooped and broke a dozen matches, knowing too little of fire-making in the wind. But at last she caught a wisp of dry grass, a few ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... glow of satisfaction possessed her. She felt she had not failed, that she had, in truth, done very well. But later, when Mary Warner rose to deliver the Valedictory, Phoebe felt her own efforts shrink into littleness. The dark-eyed beautiful Mary was a sad thorn in the flesh for the fair girl who knew she was always overshadowed by the brilliant, queenly brunette. Involuntarily the country girl looked at David Eby—he was listening intently to Mary; his eyes never seemed to ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... May. The roads were dry. The thorn trees had thatched their shapely roofs with vivid green. The maple leaves were bigger than a squirrel's foot, which meant as well, I knew, that the trout were jumping. The robins had returned. I had entered my seventeenth year and the work of the ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... had never appeared in this parlour was the captain's wife. That had been a thorn in Abramka's flesh. He had spent days and nights going over in his mind how he could rid this lady of the, in his opinion, wretched habit of ordering her clothes from Moscow. For this ball, however, as she herself had ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various



Words linked to "Thorn" :   spikelet, thorn apple, aculeus, Christ thorn, thorny, Mysore thorn, sticker, spine, thorn-tipped, pricker, bother, runic letter, fire thorn, irritant, parsley-leaved thorn, rune



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