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Thud   Listen
verb
Thud  v. i. & v. t.  To make, or strike so as to make, a dull sound, or thud. "Hardly the softest thudding of velvety pads." "The waves break into spray, dash and rumble and thud below your feet."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thud" Quotes from Famous Books



... the fire-place burned in two and fell with a soft thud on the ashes; a lean hound crept stealthily to the boy's side and thrust a cold muzzle against his ragged jacket; in the cupboard a mouse rustled over the rude dishes and among the scanty ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright

... to the floor with a thud of amazement that reverberated indignation. "Well upon my word!" gasped she. Then, recovering her book—and more—"Why what a kindly gentleman he ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... with a dull thud, though I didn't know why. My joyousness changed to what storybook writers describe as a "foreboding of disaster"; but when I have it, it's generally connected with a lecture from Mother, so I know it only as a sneaky, "I haven't ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... his head doubtfully. And at that moment the quiet air split to a piercing, horrid neigh of a terrified horse. Prolonged to a screech, it broke and ended. Then followed snorts of fright, pound and crack and thud of hoofs, and crash of brush; then a gathering thumping, crashing roar, split ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... felt the butt jar upon his shoulder. Still, as is almost invariably the case with a man whose whole force of will is concentrated on holding the little sight on a living mark, he heard no detonation. He recognized, however, the unmistakable thud of the bullet smashing through soft flesh, and that was what ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... on. The wind tore the sails to shreds. The sailors cast the anchor. With a thud it went into the sea, and for ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman

... sharp thud from behind had been followed instantly by the shattering of a ground-floor window ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... gone down with a thud, but as he said himself, his "dander" was aroused, and no little things like this could be allowed ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas

... was finished, Mr. Harby went away. At the far end of the room she heard the whistle and the thud of the cane. Her heart stood still within her. She could not bear it, no, she could not bear it when the boy was beaten. It made her sick. She felt that she must go out of this school, this torture-place. And she hated the schoolmaster, thoroughly ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... his girl. The whole table would take it up, every man doing his best to insult and enrage the victim. It was all fun until some fellow's temper broke under the strain. Then a rush, and a few wild swings that missed. Then the thud of a blow that connected, and the fight was over. These men had arms with the strength of a horse's leg, and as soon as their "kick" struck solid flesh, the man hit was knocked out. He wouldn't be back for supper, but the rest of us would, ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... the spray from a sea struck the wall of the house. Captain Lynch looked at his watch. It was four o'clock. He put on a coat of pilot cloth, unhooked the barometer, and stowed it away in a capacious pocket. Again a sea struck the house, with a heavy thud, and the light building tilted, twisted, quarter around on its foundation, and sank down, its floor at ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... went over the lines, and more than once there was a battle in mid-air above where Ned, Bob and Jerry were on duty. Once a Hun plane came down in flames, so near they could hear the thud as ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young

... happening Columbus, sick at heart, was slowly plodding on the road to France. But he only went a little way on his long journey. For just as he was entering a narrow pass not far from Granada, where the mountains towered above him, he heard the thud of ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... the sniping zone, and could continually hear the crack of a Hun rifle, and the resulting thud of a bullet striking the mud or the sandbags, first one side then the other. The communication trenches seemed interminable, and, as we neared the front line, the mud got deeper and parts of the trench ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... von Ruhle sprang forward with the agility of a panther. The imitation Malacca cane descended with a dull thud upon the lad's head, and like a felled ox Vernon fell ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... picnickers farther down the creek, the rustle of the yellow beech-leaves as they whispered of the time to go, and how they would drift down like little brown boats to the stream and glide away to the end. Now and then a nut would fall with a tiny crisp thud, and a squirrel would whisk from a limb overhead. They were very quiet, and let the beauty of the spot sink deep into their souls. Then at last Julia Cloud took up her ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... and, raising her head, there came into the far-away gloom of her eyes a quick sparkle like a flash of black lightning. She made another and entirely supplementary scoop, and then she stopped, and let the tin utensil fall into the barrel with a gentle thud. ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... one, armed likewise, stood behind him. A war chief raised his arms and yelled, and forty clubs were raised in air. Then the great war drum, or tombe, boomed out the knell of death. There was a sickening, crashing thud, and twenty Navajos fell to earth with crushed skulls, each cabeza having been whacked simultaneously, right and left, fore and aft, by two stone clubs in the hands of a pair ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... folds of her scarf around her shoulders, her eyes fixed on vacancy, her thoughts wandering. Did she not hear the violins of her ball, which reached their ears in the intervals of silence, like bursts of savage irony, with the heavy thud of the dancers shaking the floors? An iron hand, falling upon her, aroused her abruptly from her torpor. Risler had taken her by the arm, and, leading her before ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... begun, but in his second stride tripped over a heavy body hidden in the shadows, and pitched headlong. Falling, he was conscious of a flashing thing that sped past his cheek, immediately above his shoulder. There followed an echoing thud ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... this voyage?" He spoke deliberate, grammatical English—he despised the American rendering of the language—but there was an indescribably foreign quality in his voice,—a something muted; and though he aspirated his "th's" with such conscientious thoroughness, there was always the thud of a "d" in them. Poppas stood before me in a short, tightly buttoned grey coat and cap, exactly the colour of his greyish skin and hair and waxed moustache; a monocle on a very wide black ribbon dangled over his chest. As to his age, I could not offer ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... me. For there was a thud and a faint crash repeated again and again, and though I could not see, I felt certain that the fire had attracted some deer-like creature, which had gone bounding off, till all was silent again, when I crept back, ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn

... sudden commotion behind him, a swift rush of feet, a muffled thud, and a gasping, agonized grunt. The next instant the huge acetelyne lamp that lighted the room fell to the floor with a crash and the ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... a start. Something had flown in through the open midmost window, and fallen with a thud on the floor a few yards from ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... him three minutes to push up the lower sash. He managed to open it some ten inches, and then, as a protest against this interference with its gradual decay, the sash-cord broke. He heard with a jump of the heart the weight thud down behind the woodwork: then, as he groped hastily behind him for a brick, to prop the sash, it came down with a run, and closed its descent with a jar that shook out two of its bottle panes to drop into the water that rushed below. ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... was hard packed against his face and he thought his lungs would burst. But he was making progress. Now, he dared back off a trifle and take a long breath of air from the burrow he had made. Then a sound stirred him to renewed effort. It was the thud and jar of an impact. The tiger, having made his first leap, had missed. How many more times would he do this? The boy once more jamming his head against the snow renewed his swimming motions. Again he was ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell

... air was filled with the twilight sounds of the farm—the lowing of cattle, the bleating of calves at the cowpens, the bleat of sheep from the woods, and the nicker of horses in the barn. Through it all, Crittenden could hear the nervous thud of Raincrow's hoofs announcing rain—for that was the way the horse got his name, being as black as a crow and, as Bob claimed, always knowing when falling weather was at hand and speaking his prophecy by stamping in his stall. He could hear Basil noisily making his way to ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.

... always felt so proud of, but sickly looking skin and bones. Raising my arm to the level of my eyes I discovered that it was shriveled, and ghastly to behold, and it fell back to my side with a sickening thud for the want of strength to remain erect. It seemed as if a great fiery furnace was located within me and that I was fairly burning alive. Ten thousand different pains were shooting back and forth in every part of my body, but the most excruciating ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... the chateau. The air was full of mingled sounds, as, for example, the singing of the soldiers in the distance, which sounds like the droning of bees far away and always heralds an advance of troops; the rhythmic shuffling of feet, the thud of horses' hoofs, the chugging of autos which carry the superior officers, and the heavy wheels of the gun carriages with their clanking chains. Their order, equipment and ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

... to be an age to the terrified young woman crouching there in such utter fright, the vehicle stopped short with a sharp thud and a lurch forward that would have thrown Sally upon her face, had not her companion ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... the shadows of the narrow lane, and they heard the heavy thud of its hoofs as it ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... the question pro and con, unable to decide whether or not to warn Babe, a stifled exclamation and the thud of a heavy body against the door told him that it had been answered for him. Wide-eyed, breathless, his nerves at a tension, his heart pounding in his breast, he interpreted the sounds which followed as correctly as if he had been ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... commenced to excavate from this very hard porphyry rock in search of a subterranean vault, into which had been poured, as was supposed, the ill-gotten gain of all the pirates, from Captain Kidd down to the last outlaw of the ocean. Twenty-seven years the sound of the hammer and the drill and the thud of blasting-powder echoed through the leafy forests, and then all ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... inside the room, than Peter began hurriedly to close the shutter, when we heard the report of a gun, and a bullet with a loud thud struck it. Fortunately the wood was thick, or one of us might have been shot. Peter, quick as lightning, closed the shutter ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... strangely because of this splendour of fulfilment, could make no instant answer. And she asked again, but using mine old love-name, and with a sureness in her far voice. And still I was so strangely dumb, and the blood to thud peculiar in mine ears; and this to pass; ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... Cohan, gettin' red, white and blue by turns, and he pawed the air, gaspin' for breath like a fat piano mover. Before he can get set for a comeback, they's a loud crash outside the door, followed by the well known dull thud. In another minute Kid Scanlan walks in, draggin' somethin' after him by the back of ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer

... strength and caught it back with a desperate grip. Half fallen backward in the struggle he made a wild pass in the air. He heard a crashing noise that seemed to rend his own soul apart. Then the thud of a heavy body as it fell. And then, heaven and earth seemed to stand still for one awful minute as, feeling no further resistance, he raised himself and looked down upon his friend, William Hapgood. Inert ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... had flowed now it ebbed, leaving him trembling, shaking, that strange sharp pain cutting his brain, his heart seeming to leap into his head, to beat there like a drum, and to fall back with heavy thud into his chest again. He stood waiting for calm. He was humiliated, desperately, shamefully. He could not go on here; he must leave the place. Leave it? Be driven away by that scoundrel? Never! He would face them all and show them that he was above ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... Cuchulain,[FN104] and slept, when a cry rang out; And in fear he heard from the north-land come ringing that terrible shout: He fell, as he woke from his slumber, with the thud of a weight, to the ground, From his couch on that side of the castle that the rising sun first found. He left his arms in the castle, as the lawns round its walls he sought, But his wife, who followed behind him, apparel and arms to him brought: Then he saw his harnessed chariot, ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... considerable caution. At times we narrowly escaped grazing small icebergs, that might have disabled us had we come in collision with them. As it was, many an ice-cake that looked harmless enough, being very low in the water, struck us with a thud that was startling; or passed under our old-fashioned side-wheels, splintering the paddles and causing our hearts to leap within us. A disabled wheel meant a tedious delay in a latitude where the resources are ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... his balance after being almost knocked over in this humiliating way, and the horrible, as it were, sodden, thud of the blow in the face had scarcely died away in the room when he seized Shatov by the shoulders with both hands, but at once, almost at the same instant, pulled both hands away and clasped them behind his back. He did not speak, but ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... mountain. After Joanne had blown out her candle the silence of the night seemed to grow deeper about him. The hobbled horses had wandered several hundred yards away, and only now and then could he hear the thud of a hoof, or the clank of a steel shoe on rock. He believed that it was impossible for any one to approach without ears and eyes giving him warning, and he felt a distinct shock when Donald MacDonald suddenly appeared ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... stood in knots, and gazed with approval at the efforts of Kay's and Blackburn's juniors to wipe each other off the face of the earth. The air was full of shrill battle-cries, varied now and then by a smack or a thud, as some young but strenuous fist found a billet. The fortune of war seemed to be distributed equally so far, and the combatants were just ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... Stover himself was quite undecided. Was he a coward, or was he not? Would his legs go back on him, or would he stand his ground, knowing that the stinging ball might strike anywhere—on the tender wrist bones, shattering the point of the elbow, or landing with a deadly thud right over his temple, which he remembered was an absolutely ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... the room with a heavy thud. She shut her eyes tight and prayed harder. The object of her fear was a long gray boot, which had been thrown in at the window and had fallen harmlessly by her side. It was followed in an instant by its mate, equally ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... room. She heard the bell, she heard the steps in the hall, and the emphatic thud of the supporting cane. She had risen from her chair and was leaning against the piano, pressing her left hand against the violent beating of her heart. The door opened and the Colonel entered, standing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... thud, thud,—the man with the silver bridle rode, heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right, now left, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards ahead of him, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... sound of yelling and cheering and shouting. It was from the pirate sloop. The pirates were rushing about upon her decks. They had pulled the cannon back, and, through the grunting sound of the groans about him, the lieutenant could distinctly hear the thud and punch of the rammers, and he knew they ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... took up the thud-thud of the drums, the heads of the squatting men moved in a slow swing from side to side. Tau's hand closed about Dane's wrist and the younger man looked around, startled, to see that the medic's eyes were alight, that he was watching ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North

... went back to Julie and Auersperg. Their faces were turned toward him now and he could see that it was the prince who talked and that Julie listened, saying but little. The thud of hoofs on the road into the valley came to him and Pappenheim, on his great black horse, galloped into view. But he pulled to a walk when he saw the two on the terrace, and John smiled to himself in grim irony. Pappenheim also loved the ground upon which the young Julie walked. ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... moving. Instinctively he felt that by traveling away from the hole he would get away from danger. This was the best thing that could have happened to him, for a little later a porcupine came wandering along, chattering to itself in its foolish, good-humored way, and fell with a fat thud into the hole. Had Baree remained, he would have been so full of quills that ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... that it was only sleep that took me, glad or sorry, glad or sorry?" His thoughts seemed to arrange themselves in a metrical accompaniment to the steady thud of his footsteps, and he hardly sought an answer to his question. It was ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... bestowed Sandy and me on our horse, I lit my pipe. When the first blast of smoke shot out through the bars of my helmet, all those people broke for the woods, and Sandy went over backwards and struck the ground with a dull thud. They thought I was one of those fire-belching dragons they had heard so much about from knights and other professional liars. I had infinite trouble to persuade those people to venture back within explaining distance. Then ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... with a dull thud upon the cushioned divan. Then, having lain there listening awhile, he pressed the button of his torch, and, standing up, crept across the room in the direction of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... sped Blair. Up ran Joel and Kingdon. The line blocked desperately. A streak of brown flew by, and a moment later Joel heard the thud as the full-back's shoe struck the ball. Then down the field he sped, through the great gap made by the Yates forwards. The Harwell ends were well under the kick and stood waiting grimly beside the Yates ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... before he could see Bryda. Everything was against him, for a heavy rain was falling, and there was no chance of Bryda coming out for a Sunday walk. But he went boldly up the steps before Mr Lambert's house and gave a heavy thud on ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall

... backwards and fall, with a queer grotesque movement, head over heels down the stone steps. The dull thud her body made as she fell on the half landing echoed up and down the bare well of ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... good living, sprawled about, but made a very poor fight. Shiny-pate and two or three of his men would seize one of the kicking old fellows, and either push him or pull him to the edge of the rafters, whence he would fall with a dull thud on the floor, when he was generally too much stunned to make any more resistance, but even if he did he was soon overpowered, bitten, and dragged out ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... no answer, but rode on in silence. Night was now upon them, and all was still except the thud of the galloping hoofs ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline

... occasion. Bartlett's right leg became twisted around his with a steel-like grip that speedily convinced the younger man he would have to give way or a bone would break. He gave way accordingly, and the next thing he knew he came down on his back with a thud that seemed to ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... inarticulate cry, then a light thud upon the floor—so light it might have been some clothes ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... the broken boughs which took its weight, and with a single movement, so active is one in such necessities, I flung myself beneath it. As I did so, I heard the trunk of the elephant descend with a mighty thud on the back of my poor horse, and the next instant I was almost in darkness, for the horse, whose back was broken, fell over across the tree under which I lay ensconced. But he did not stop there long. In ten seconds more the bull had wound his trunk about my dead nag's neck, and, with a ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard

... great smashing and snapping of undergrowth and fallen branches as they drove in among the birches. Then the team stopped, and Hawtrey, who sprang down, floundered noisily among the undergrowth, while another thud of hoofs and rattle of wheels grew louder behind them up the trail. In a minute or two he came ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... bang, a scuffle, and then a dull thud; but the first to follow was only in time to see eight finger-tips clinging for a moment outside to the ledge of one of the narrow windows, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... by a simple but ingenious means, which afterward transpired, had mixed a quantity of gunpowder with the smithy-slack or fine cinders of Henry's forge. The moment the forge was hot, the powder ignited with a tremendous thud, a huge mass of flame rushed out, driving the coals with it, like shot from a gun; Henry, scorched, blackened, and blinded, was swept, as by a flaming wind, against the opposite wall; then, yelling, and stark ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... this uncultured and moneyless man, who dominated the clans of San Francisco simply by right of his manhood. He was not without a sort of eloquence of his own. He spoke right to the point, and his words fell like the thud of a shillalah; or rang like the clash of steel. He dealt with the rough elements of politics in an exciting and turbulent period of California politics, and was more of a border chief than an Ivanhoe in his modes of warfare. He reached the United States Senate, and ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... pain for the first time crossed his face, but he uttered no sound. At that moment the kaishaku, who, still crouching by his side, had been keenly watching his every movement, sprang to his feet, poised his sword for a second in the air; there was a flash, a heavy, ugly thud, a crashing fall; with one blow the head had been severed ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... from their wards to the concert-room. Being built of wood and corrugated iron, the corridor is an echoing cave of noises. It echoes the tramp of feet—and army-pattern boots were not soled for silence. It echoes the thud-thud of crutches. It echoes the slurred rumble of wheeled chairs and stretcher-trollies. But, above all, at half-past four on concert days it echoes happy talk ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... breathless, menacing. There was a muttering roar from the bleachers, hoarsely pleading, commanding—"Block-that-kick! Block-that-kick! BLOCK-THAT-KICK!" The kneeling quarter back opened his muddy hands; the muddied oval came sailing lazily into them.... There was the gentle thud of Gridley's toe against the leather, and then—unbelievably, unbearably, it was an accomplished fact, a finished thing. Gridley had executed his place kick. They were scored on. It stood there on the board, glaring white letters ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... had left me I was on the upper deck and looking out to sea. I saw all at once the wash of a torpedo, indicated by a snake-like churn of the surface of the water. It may have been about thirty feet away. And then came a thud." ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... much inclined that, way" agreed Anne ruefully. "When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part IS glorious as long as it lasts . . . it's like soaring through a sunset. I think it almost pays ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... accompaniment. It was a steady stream of din, from which the ear picked out first one thread and then another; there was the intermittent snorting, panting, and seething of the steam engines, the suck and thud of their pistons, the dull beat on the air as the spokes of the great driving-wheels came round, a note the leather straps made as they ran tighter and looser, and a fretful tumult from the dynamos; and over all, sometimes inaudible, as the ear tired of it, and then ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... a sudden crashing thud at the back of the room. Honey Hoke had fallen out of his chair. Now he lay on the floor, his legs drawn up and the back of his frowsy head resting against a rung of the chair in which still sat the ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... enough he hurled the stone at the wolves, and a dull thud, followed by a shrill, dog-like howl of pain, told him that he had countered on the rib plate of one of the nasty brutes. Then he let out a wild yell, and three of the wolves turned ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... after meat, while Turlough Wolf remained watching. It was wearing well on to midnight when the old man woke them all, and Brian went to the walls to hear a thud of hoofs and a murmur of men coming across the wind to him. He sent off men to loose the loaded guns on the outer walls at random, and then suddenly flung lighted cressets ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... throughout the silent house. At last the two bodies, each quite rigid and as straight as an arrow, slowly bent over towards each other, the sticks came crashing down for the last time on to the two heads with a thud as of enormous mallets falling upon oaken beams, and the pair lay prone upon the ground. At that instant appeared in all its vividness the suggestion that the two artists had gradually driven into the imagination of the spectators: "We are about to ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... breath and listened. For a moment all was still, uncannily still. He could hear the tops of the trees groaning in the slight breeze that had sprung up, and far away the distant roar of a train. Then a queer thing happened. He heard a quiet thud, as if somebody had jumped from a height on to grass, and ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... his little wrist. He had meant to shoot—for that he had saved every stray penny from his sales of hogs and cider, of watermelons and chinkapins; for that he had bought the gun and rammed the powder home. Even when the thud of footsteps beat down the sunny road strewn with brown honeyshucks, he had felt neither fear nor hesitation as he crouched amid the underbrush. Rather there was a rare exhilaration, warm blood in his brain ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... The "thud" of the arrow, as it struck the door, had drawn the attention of the lion. Of course, none of them saw him, but his angry growl told them that it was so. He did not show himself, however, and was ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... Russian had missed. The lion took no notice whatever of the fact that a bullet had just missed him, but crouched again for the emission of another roar, when the click of the hammer again sounded, immediately followed by the loud thud of the bullet, and the roar ended in a savage snarl as the great beast lurched forward on to his head, and with a single convulsive extension of his body lay quiet and still. At the same instant the thud of another bullet was heard, and the lioness was seen to twitch her head slightly, ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... coneys are scared by the thud of hoofs, And their white scuts flash at their vanishing heels, And ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... attempts to interfere and stop the proceedings, and when at length, for the third time, a thud and a shout of laughter announced that still another victim had fallen into the trap, he rose in wrath, and ordered Gull to leave ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... crouched there, waiting, waiting, waiting, for the coming of the man he hated. During five of these he listened to the sounds of Holton's downward progress, brought to his keen ear on the soft breezes of the young night. There came the crackling of a twig, the thud, thud, thud of a dislodged stone bounding down the slope, the rustle of leaves as the old man shuffled through a pocket of them gathered in the lea of some protruding rock by vagrant winds. Then all was still. He did not guess that Holton ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... impelled by irrational instinct, like the fate-driven lemmings of Norway, to cross the sea. And all around, weird in the conflicting lights, hurried gnome-like figures mountainously laden, and in the confusion of sounds could be heard the slither and thud of trunks being conveyed to the hold. At last the tail of the packed wedge disappeared on board and the gangway was clear. I went to the aft gangway to Jaffery and the porter. Neither of us ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... and settles down slowly. It takes it a long time to make up its mind to come to the bait. In the pit, the man can hear the sound of the eagle coming. When the bird settles on the ground, it does not alight on the bait, but at one side of it, striking the ground with a thud—heavily. The man never mistakes anything else for that sound. The eagle walks toward the bait, and all the other birds fly away. It walks on to the roof; and, through the crevices that have been left between the sticks, the man can see in which direction the bird's head is. He carefully pushes ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... long, with rests for the arrows, and tiny cherry-wood arrows, bone-tipped, and feathered red, blue, and white, and smilingly, but quite unobtrusively, ask you to try your skill or luck at a target hanging in front of a square drum, flanked by red cushions. A click, a boom, or a hardly audible "thud," indicate the result. Nearly all the archers were grown-up men, and many of them spend hours at a time ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... convenience, had been equipped with an extension bell which rang simultaneously in O'Hagan's quarters. When Maitland was not at home the janitor-valet, so warned, would answer the calls. And now, in the still intervals, the heavy thud of unhurried feet could be heard upon the staircase. O'Hagan was coming to answer; and taking his time about it. It seemed an age before the rattle of pass-key in latch announced him; and another ere, all unconscious of the figure supine on the divan against the further study wall, the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... veranda, entered the wide hall, swung to the left, crossed the living-room, approached the window, and fell out, head first. There was something deeply impressive in the silence and swiftness of his action, something deliriously stimulating to the spectators in the thud of his small body on the unyielding wood. A long sigh of happiness was exhaled by the group of children. Certainly this was a new duty—a strange one, but worthy, no doubt, since it emanated from Fraulein, and beyond question interesting ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... commotion beyond the thicket, one sound running off among the trees, while the other, the greater sound, first made a brittle crash, then a ponderous thud as of a large object falling ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... and embarrassing. ARPACHSHAD slowly relieved himself of the burden of the three sods, dropped them on the ground with a disproportionate thud, and, producing a large pocket-handkerchief, whose variegated and brilliant colours were, happily, dimmed by a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various

... note of that remark, and during the game the Harvard captain had occasion to remember it also, when in one of the plays Camp tackled him, and the two went to the ground with a heavy thud. As the Harvard captain gradually came to, he remarked to one of his ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... bedside and held her mother's dead hand in hers, as if she were lying ill instead of dead. Attracted by the lighted candles, a big, winged insect had entered through the open window and was flying about the room, dashing against the wall at every moment with a faint thud. It disturbed Jeanne, and she looked up to see where it was, but she could only see its shadow moving over the ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... hells that batter a coastal town, Or grimly die in a hail of shells when the walls come crashing down. And many a pink-white baby girl, the queen of her home to-day, Shall see the wings of the tempest whirl the mist of our dawn away — Shall live to shudder and stop her ears to the thud of the distant gun, And know the sorrow that has no tears when a battle is lost and won, — As a mother or wife in the years to come, will kneel, wild-eyed and white, And pray to God in her darkened home for the "men in ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... a few moments it was almost impossible to follow his spasmodic movements as he strove to rid himself of his rider. The end came quickly. With a twisting heave of his whole body he shot the Arab over his head, who landed with a dull thud and lay still, while the men who had been holding the colt dashed in and secured him before he was aware of his liberty. Diana looked towards the fallen man; a little crowd were gathered around him, and her heart beat faster as she ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... from them, whether well marked or ill defined, are to be stopped just as day breaks; not too early, so that, in case the line of nets be in the neighbourhood of covert to be searched for game, (10) the animal may not be scared at hearing the thud close by. (11) If, on the contrary, there should be a wide gap between the two points, there is less to hinder making the net lines clear and clean quite early, so that nothing may cling to them. The keeper must fix the forked props slantwise, ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... a ghost can walk right through a door?" asked Laura, and Violet bounced in the bed and came down with a thud. ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler

... red mud fell full on the front of my spotless white jacket, another struck in the water close by the side of the boat. The wounded crocodile had sprung into the air from his tail up, and dropped back into his wallow with a resounding thud. In another instant he was off the slippery bank and within the ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... circumstances is concealed, makes him conform. At length the hour arrives. He observes the darting puffs of smoke in the distance. He listens to the sounds that are in the air. Perhaps he hears something strike with a thud and sees a soldier near him collapse like a shot pheasant. He realises that it may be his turn next. Fear grips ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill

... the sound of heavy footfalls, and a thud as a rifle-butt descended to the earth again. Brown moved the lamp, and its beams fell on a rifleman who stood close beside him at attention—like a jinnee formed ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... their approach. The two men in red stopped on either side of this door. Howard and Graham passed in, and Graham, glancing back, saw the white-robed Council still standing in a close group and looking at him. Then the door closed behind him with a heavy thud, and for the first time since his awakening he was in silence. The floor, even, was noiseless ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... simultaneous report, and the Count de Volaski leaped into the air and fell down, with a heavy thud, upon his face! ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... watched a gun-team take the sharp curve, which was also a sharp slope. The impression of superb, dangerous physical power was tremendous. The distended nostrils of horses, the gliding of their muscles under the glossy skin, the muffled thud of their hoofs in the loose soil, the grimacing of the men as they used spur and thong, the fierce straining of straps and chains, the creaking, the grinding, and finally the swaying of the 90-millimetre gun, coddled and polished, as it swung helplessly forward, stern first, and its long ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... steady beat of the rain they heard a noise which was half scratch, half thud. Under Rupert's hand the ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... no doubt about their being after us. The two galloping figures were pointed straight at us and were soon close enough to show that they were Indians. We stood like posts and awaited them. Thud, thud—ta-thud, thud—on they charged at a furious pace directly at us. They were five hundred ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson

... it was, anger and indignation gave me extra strength and I scrambled inside with nothing more serious happening than a bruised head. But that man! He pushed in back of me and, not knowing the nice little ways of jerkies, was pitched forward to the floor with an awful thud. But after a second or so he pulled himself up on his seat, which was opposite mine, and there we two sat in silence and in darkness. I noticed the next morning that there was a big bruise on one side of his face, at the sight of which ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... of foam extending for miles. So much does the boat romp and dance, however, that most passengers forsake the deck and retire inelegantly below. When a man lies in a stuffy cabin wishing himself wedged into it to prevent the perpetual rolling to this side and to that, and hearing the desperate thud of the Minch flinging itself against the port-hole, a series of vivid panoramic pictures pass before his mental eye. Home appears so lovely and reposeful: faces of friends on shore arise, transfigured by the glow ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... There came the thud of a very heavy body colliding with a wall, and another blood-curdling scream of rage—then the thunder of what might have been an avalanche as part of a near-by wall collapsed, and a brute as big as ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... thus at about 11 A.M., and the hours that followed were truly the most dreadful I have ever spent. Each moment the ship came down with a sickening thud which shook her from stem to stern, and each thud seemed to show more plainly that, strong as was her build, she could not long survive such ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... ropes gave out a creaking sound, and there came a little thud—the last. Beauchene, supported by a relative, looked on with dim, vacant eyes. Constance, who had had the bitter courage to come, and had now wept all the tears in her body, almost fainted. She was carried away, driven back to her home, which would now forever be empty, like ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... with a jerk by the soft thud of little hoofs on the prairie, for Felix was beating it back toward Willer Bend, with a speed that astonished his late rider. Whitey started after him instinctively, but he soon realized that that was useless, and he stood and watched, while Felix became a blurred spot in the distance. Whitey ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... in a blur of motion. He felt his rifle thud against his shoulder, knowing he had fired, but not hearing the explosion. And the mastodon was almost on top of him, bearing down like some mighty and remorseless ...
— Project Mastodon • Clifford Donald Simak

... street I find the rhythm of my marching feet Throbs into verses (though the rhyme may balk.) I think the sonneteers were walking men: The form is dour and rigid, like a clamp, But with the swing of legs the tramp, tramp, tramp Of syllables begins to thud, and then— Lo! while you seek a rhyme for hook or crook Vanished your shabby coat, and you are kith To all great walk-and-singers—Meredith, And Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and Rupert Brooke! Free verse is poor for walking, but a sonnet— O marvellous ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley

... himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by his cousin's sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to Wilhelmina Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and dropped with a thud ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... streams of water were forced through the ports into the confined space which was occupied by the little party. For a time they were in imminent danger, for the vessel dragged anchor to the edge of the shoal, and with a heavy thud the yacht struck on the bottom. All hopes of ever returning to Newbern were lost, when the changing tide swung the boat off into deeper water, where she rode out the ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... again our weapons crashed together, now above my head, now to right, or left, sometimes rattling in quick succession, sometimes with pauses between strokes, pauses filled in with the sound of heavy breathing and the ceaseless thud of feet upon the sward. I was already bruised in half-a-dozen places, my right hand and arm felt numb, and with a shooting pain in the shoulder, that grew more acute with every movement; my breath also was beginning to labor. Yet still Black ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... the Durotriges, or the travelling engineer of Britain's united tribes, must for ever remain time's secret; his form cannot be realized, nor his countenance, nor the tongue that he spoke, when he set down his foot with a thud and ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... himself for the swing, grasped the hooks, and then, with good momentum, landed in the hammock. There was a swish, a distinct thud, and young Potter rolled out upon the deck with a gasp of amazement. Turning as quickly as he could, he looked up and saw the hammock swinging in its proper place. It was physical labor for us to keep from howling with glee at the expression on his face. He glanced sheepishly about to see if his ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... thud on the deck, followed by a sharp gasp, and the boy sat staring before him, considering, apparently, whether it were necessary or not to cry in order to relieve his feelings. Finding that it was not, he swallowed his heart with an effort, got up, ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... thud echoed along the rocky walls, and the outer light was cut off by the falling of the great stone. In a moment Milo stood beside her and, taking her hand in his, led her along the utterly invisible floor until she stood before a massive door. Her ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... of clenched fists to his chest as though his heart were burning inside him and he were trying to tear it out; then he brought them down with a noisy thud upon his temples. "Recontracordons! God of God of God of Gods!" he groaned in a voice of agony that terrified Rosario. "Holy Christ of the Grao!" He staggered a few steps across the room, like a drunken man, and threw himself ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... leaps out. At the highest point upon the roof stands a dark figure in a desperate strait, the hands making frantic gestures, the arms swinging wildly—and then the body shoots off into frightful space, plunging upon the pavement with a revolting thud. The man's arm strikes a bystander as he darts down. The crowd shudders, sways, and utters a low murmur of pity and horror. The faint-hearted lookers-on hide their faces. One ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... full of her own plans that she had forgotten to tell John's mother that she intended to keep them secret till she had all her preparations made. The next morning when she heard the thud of some one stepping down from a chair, and her husband say: "There you are! How do you happen to be taking the curtains down at this time of the week?" she realized as she had never done before ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... knife. In another second of time he would have driven the blade through me; but that second was all I now required. Straight from my waist, and from under my poncho, I fired. His knife fell ringing on to the floor; he swerved, then fell back, coming to the ground with a heavy thud. Over his falling body I leaped, and almost before he had touched the ground was several yards away, then, wheeling round, I found the other two men rushing ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... with the morning paper. The morning following the receipt of the letter she acted as usual, and shortly after, the Whytes were startled by hearing a loud cry coming from her room, followed by a heavy thud, as if something had fallen. A vague terror seized them, and in an instant both rushed to her room and, flinging open the door, they were horrified to find their darling child stretched on the floor with the paper clenched in her hand. They gently raised ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... his arm, and heard a heavy thud at his side. It was a ripe Durian which had fallen from an immense height and missed him by ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... In Woodly Street a huge missile went clean through the roof of a house, shot past the heads of a lady and gentleman seated on the stoep, fell on a soft patch in front of the door, and burst with a deafening thud five feet under ground. With the aid of a pick and shovel the fragments were exhumed and pieced together in the presence of the pallid spectators; and had the next shell fallen on or near the same spot (as sometimes happened) the results would have been more calamitous. Many persons had an idea ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... doesn't matter which—do you turn red all over? Do you have creeps all down your back? And do you feel it just here?" The child clapped her yellow claw to Miss Quincey's heart. "You do, you do, Miss Quincey; I can see it go thump, I can feel it go thud!" ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair

... and seemed to stand still. Jim could not have locked more terrible if he were really a murderer. He opened his coat. Then he flung a black object upon the table and it fell with a soft, heavy, sodden thud. It was a leather belt ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... twilight was rising in the east when she found herself again looking out upon the water, the stone still clutched tightly. She gazed at the river, then at the stone, and again at the river. The stone dropped with a thud at her feet. The savage in her had not abated in the least; only her body was terribly worn and wearied and the robe, muddied and torn, enveloped her like a veil of ice. Above her the lonely yellow sky; below her the sickly river; all about her silence which held a thousand menaces. Which ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... himself to the saddle, swept off his hat to the girl, who stood with the lantern light upon her in the doorway, smiling but flushed, and shook his bridle. Then there was a jingle that was lost in the thud of hoofs, and the men vanished into the shadowy prairie. Half an hour later the homestead was once more dark and silent; but three men sent out by Grant were riding at a reckless gallop across the great dusky levels, and breakfast was not finished when those ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... clear of the willows and swung out into mid-stream. The thud of the oars and the splash could be heard on the other bank and shouts came: "Quicker! Quicker!" After another ten minutes the barge bumped heavily ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... the ground adjacent sloped upward gently and gradually. While running along the edge of the stream to the fording place, one of my feet caught on the end of a dead root projecting from the lower edge of the bank, and I pitched forward, and nearly fell. At the very instant of my stumble,—"thud" into the clay bank right opposite where I would have been, if standing, went a bullet fired by a Confederate skirmisher. He probably had taken deliberate aim at me, and on seeing me almost fall headlong, doubtless gave himself credit for another Yankee sent to "the happy ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... stumbled backward. Momentarily his knees gripped the low embrasure. Then his feet flipped upward, convulsively, so that John Bulmer saw the man's spurs glitter and twitch in the moonlight, and John Bulmer heard a snapping and crackling and swishing among the poplars, and heard the heavy, unvibrant thud of Cazaio's body upon ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... the thunderous racket of heavy wings as the flock burst into flight, clattering away through leafy obscurity; but under the uproar of shot and clapping wings sounded the thud and splash of something heavy crashing earthward; and the Indian, springing from root to tussock, vanished ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... so strange and unearthly that his blood turned to ice and his hair rose straight on end. Rushing footsteps mingled with peculiar soft patterings; agonized human screams coupled with the growls and snappings of an animal; a heavy thud; gurgles; and ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... the kid in its mother's milk, leading men into a snare through their kindliest feelings. Some dull sense of this added to utter dismay, and made them struggle and strain to get to all the outlets save that in which a fight was now going on; the swish of heavy whips, the thud of bludgeons, the groans, the growls of wounded or infuriated men, coming with terrible distinctness through the darkness to the quickened ear ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell



Words linked to "Thud" :   clunk, hit, impinge on, scraunch, thump, sound, scranch, thumping, crunch, go



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