"Wriggle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which was not so tragical. A Hottentot was carried off by a lion during the night, wrapped up in his sheep-skin kaross, sleeping, as they usually do, with his face to the ground. As the lion trotted away with him, the fellow contrived to wriggle out of his kaross, and the lion went off with ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... never suffered more than when I first came here, and Therese telling everyone how amusing I was, and myself sitting as dumb as a mummy! I can talk quite beautifully now, and wriggle about like a native. I'll teach you how to shrug your shoulders, and you hold up your dress quite differently in France, and it's fashionable to be fat. Last night Therese let me have two girls for souper. They are ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... have!" said Aunt Agatha with considerable decision. "And it's not at all likely I ever shall. There are bugs and things," she added vaguely, "and snakes that wriggle about." ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... trifle from his own natural stance. A change of the position of the feet by even a couple of inches one way or the other may alter the stance altogether, and knock the player clean off his putting. In this new position he will wriggle about and feel uncomfortable. Everything is wrong. His coat is in the way, his pockets seem too full of old balls, the feel of his stockings on his legs irritates him, and he is conscious that there is a nail coming up on the inside of ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... me infinite honour then," said Paliser, who spoke better than he knew. But her visible discomfort delighted him. He saw that she wanted to wriggle out of it and, like a true sportsman, he gave her an opening in which she ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a crying child when nothing else will. Also it was true that while Lottie disliked Miss Minchin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia, who was foolishly indulgent, she rather liked Sara, little as she knew ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and honorably intended to follow the same path; to keep smiles for those above him and harsh judgments for those below him; in short, like Alfred, to wriggle his way upward. But in the depths of his being his energies were working in another direction, and they continually thrust him back where he belonged. His conflict with the street-urchins stopped of itself, it was so aimless; Pelle went in and out of their houses, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... The lights had shown him a scanty few rows of barbed wire between him and the crater; he had reckoned roughly the number of steps to it and counted as he ran, then more cautiously pushed on, feeling for the wire, found it, threw himself down, and began to wriggle desperately underneath. When he thought he was through the last, he rose; but he had miscalculated, and the first step brought his thighs in scratching contact with another wire. His heart was in his mouth, for some seconds had passed since the last light had ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... Anderson kept revolving in his mind, with satisfaction, a new plan he had evolved. The next time Jim should fall asleep he would crawl back through the aperture in the conduit wall, pry up the boards over the opening into the prison yard, wriggle out, and take his chances in getting over the wall somehow! Better even be shot by a guard than die like a rat in this unspeakable place, as he was doing, where he couldn't stand up and dared not lie down on account of the things that were forever crawling through ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... prince first," said Dora; "don't wriggle so or I can't fix you. Sometimes being made a king just happens to some one who isn't ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... to her. It would give me satisfaction to denounce the whole town to her. "Ah, I have got you!" I seemed to say to the people of Antomir. "The ghost of my mother and the whole Other World see you in all your heartlessness. You can't wriggle out of it." This was my revenge. I reveled ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... DESBOROUGH'S vivacious attack upon the Cippenham Motor Depot, it is doubtful whether anyone could have enabled the Government to wriggle out of the demand for an independent inquiry. At any rate Lord INVERFORTH was insufficiently agile. The innumerable type-written sheets which he read out laboriously may have contained a complete reply to Lord DESBOROUGH'S main allegations, even if they included no refutation of the stones of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... driving in that respect. But he did show nervous timidity at feeding with the other horses, and so Miguel cheerfully went to the urging with fork and tongue. But only the one time. Soon the colt took to burying his nose in the box along with the others, and would wriggle his tail with a vigor that seemed to tell of his gratitude at being accepted as part of the great establishment and its devices. And then another thing. With this change in his method of feeding, he soon came to reveal steadily increasing courage and independence. Oftentimes he would be the ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... enjoying his wriggle between a perception of her fun and an acknowledgment of his peccancy. She commanded him to tell her which was the glorious Valentine's day of our naval annals; the name of the hero of the day, and the name of his ship. To these questions his answers were as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... nip and tuck if we ever get out of this? You've shown yourself, from start to finish, a miserable cheat; there's no trust to be put in either your judgment or your intentions. Be still," he commanded, as she sought to wriggle out of his grasp, to avoid the direct blaze of his eyes. "I am going to do what I can for you; to see you safe through this, if I can. Not because you are anything to me, but just because you are Ben Gaynor's, and he is ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... the world gathered together and danced and capered before the frog in order to make him laugh, but all to no purpose. Then they called up the fishes to see if they could accomplish anything, but the frog preserved a solemn face until the eel began to wriggle. ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... ceaseless dread? If you knew what I have to endure! I sometimes envy you. 'Pon my honour, I sometimes wish I had married a fishmonger! Silva, indeed, is a most excellent husband. Polished! such polish as you know not of in England. He has a way—a wriggle with his shoulders in company—I cannot describe it to you; so slight! so elegant! and he is all that a woman could desire. But who could be safe in any part of the earth, my dears, while papa will go about so, and behave ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... left by that time to cover them mercifully over with the loathsome, reeking vegetable detritus which passes here for soil, and which is so fairly animate that you can see every spadeful of it writhe and wriggle as you throw it over the rotting hour-dead shell of what was a free American citizen ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... a little wriggle. "Cuckoo, you're laughing at me," she said. "I mean, have you come back to stay and cuckoo as usual and make my aunts ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... intended to have sent you Bates's article this very day. I am so glad you like it. I have been extremely much struck with it. How well he argues, and with what crushing force against the glacial doctrine. I cannot wriggle out of it: I am dumbfounded; yet I do believe that some explanation some day will appear, and I cannot give up equatorial cooling. It explains so much and harmonises with so much. When you write ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... devoted to Miss Beaubien until Alice Renwick came; then he dropped her like a hot brick. By the Eternal, Rollins, he hasn't gotten off with that old love yet, you mark my words. There's Indian blood in her veins, and a look in her eye that makes me wriggle, sometimes. I watched her last night at parade when she drove out here with that copper-faced old squaw, her mother. For all her French and Italian education and her years in New York and Paris, that girl's got a wild streak ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... deliberate. Would it not be better to keep her in ignorance? What was to be gained by revealing to her the—But Miss Thackeray was luring him on to destruction. She stood outside the door and beckoned. That in itself was ominous. Why should she wriggle a forefinger at him instead of calling out in her usual ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... says. 'Th' throuble about divoorce is it always lets out iv th' bad bargain th' wan that made it bad. If I owned a half in a payin' business with ye, I'd niver let th' sun go down on a quarrel,' he says. 'But if ye had a bad mouth I'd go into coort an' wriggle out iv th' partnership because ye'ar a cantankerous old villain that no wan cud get on with,' he says. 'If people knew they cudden't get away fr'm each other they'd settle down to life, just as I detarmined to like coal smoke whin I found th' collection wasn't big enough to put a new ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... stooping at one moment, where the bushes grew sparse; crawling in among some sheltering rocks at another, and even getting down to wriggle along like so many snakes, when not even so much as a bush offered a means of hiding from observation, in case hostile eyes happened to be turned upwards toward the hilltop at the foot of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... have known enough by that time to leave four or five men on guard close by; as it was, when the men still on board the dhow began kicking up a babel, Fred and I came running and jumping back through the marsh just in time to see a crocodile wriggle off into the water, with the corpse in his jaws feet first. Fred fired a shotted salute, but missed, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... commission would let him know when some poor sufferer was passing away and would recommend Rushton & Co. to the bereaved and distracted relatives. By these means often—after first carefully inquiring into the financial position of the stricken family—Misery would contrive to wriggle his unsavoury carcass into the house of sorrow, seeking, even in the chamber of death, to further the interests of Rushton & Co. and to earn his miserable two and a ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... to get ourselves free?" Tom demanded: "I've been trying to wriggle my hands out, but I'll admit that I can't ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... done," he said once to her. "I understand that you are not really a coward, Sarah—you have to fight an extra enemy called Fear. So when you do wrong and see a chance to escape blame and punishment and refuse to wriggle out, you are really braver than the girl who isn't afraid to say she did it. And every time you conquer Fear, Sarah, you've made the next conquest easier. You'll ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... jelly are imbedded, at regular intervals, little blackish dots; these elongate rapidly, and show symptoms of head and tail curled up in a spherical cell; the jelly is gradually absorbed for their nourishment, until on some fine morning each elongated dot gives one vigorous wriggle, and claims thenceforward all the privileges attendant on this dissolution of the union. The final privilege is often that of being suddenly snapped up by a turtle or a snake: for Nature brings forth her creatures ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... is lean, now Luck Is fat, And wise men take her as she comes: The Bowler may be sure the Bat Will share the sugarplums. So never wriggle, nor protest, Nor eye the zenith in disgust, But, Johnson, bowl your level best, And recollect, ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... out by his instructions, in anticipation of the contest on which he was embarking against you and against Daubrecq, at whose house he did the same thing. He had under his orders a sort of acrobat, an extraordinarily thin dwarf, who was able to wriggle through those apertures and who thus detected all your correspondence and all your secrets. That is what his two friends revealed to me. I at once conceived the idea of saving my elder son by making ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... the sun should set,' he answered, and began to wriggle along so fast that the girl ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... they said he'd proposed to every woman in the town of Bingham, not excepting the wooden Indian girl in front of the cigar-store, and not one of 'em but our Abby ever got a chance to name the day. Abby was as set as the everlastin' hills, and if she'd made up her mind to have a man he could n't wriggle away from her nohow in the world. It beats all how girls do run after these slick-haired, sweet-tongued, Miss Nancy kind o' fellers, that ain't but little good as beaux an' worth ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... displeasure by a kind of cold rudeness that gave a subtle insult to her smallest remark. The children were manifestly delighted. Cecilia was more or less in the position of a beetle on a pin, and theirs was the precious opportunity of seeing her wriggle. Wherefore they adopted their mother's tone, openly defied her, and ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... I believe," said Nancy, "but I don't expect ever to be, myself I don't think I could be. You might as well teach a snake not to wriggle." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... down on your stomach," said the other, "and wriggle like a snake through a hedge, or we shall leave our carcasses behind ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... they would do so, he reflected, as he felt them squirming in his arms while Mrs. Spaniel was busy trying to keep their socks on. When the curate exhorted him "to follow the innocency" of these little ones, it was disconcerting to have one of them burst into a piercing yammer, and wriggle so forcibly that it slipped quite out of its little embroidered shift and flannel band. But the actual access to the holy basin was more seemly, perhaps due to the children imagining they were going to find tadpoles there. When Mr. Poodle held them up they smiled with a vague almost bashful simplicity; ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... to slide into it;) black, glossy crickets, with their long filaments sticking out like the whips of four-horse stage-coaches; motionless, slug-like creatures, larvae, perhaps, more horrible in their pulpy stillness than even in the infernal wriggle of maturity! But no sooner is the stone turned and the wholesome light of day let upon this compressed and blinded community of creeping things, than all of them that enjoy the luxury of legs—and some of them have a good many—rush round wildly, butting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... dropped flat on the snow. Johnny followed his example and Tommy did the same. They knew that they must be close to the bear and they held their breath; for the guide, having examined his bow and arrows carefully, began to wriggle along on his stomach. Johnny and Tommy wriggled along behind him, clutching their guns. Just at the top of the ledge the guide quietly slipped an arrow out of his quiver and held it in his hand, as he slowly raised his head and peeped over. Johnny and Tommy, guns in hand, crept up beside ...
— Tommy Trots Visit to Santa Claus • Thomas Nelson Page
... wild to avenge to inflict an insult to wriggle he has failed in his duty he has been kept to his bed for the last two days I ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... Creep, crawl, wriggle, slide, clamber, scramble, clutch, climb, here jumping—actually jumping, I!—over a crevice, then drawing myself round an insuperable jut by two honest sturdy weeds—many thanks to them!—which had the consideration to be there and to plant themselves firmly in the rock; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Thus, Tim, philosophers suppose, The world consists of puppet-shows; Where petulant conceited fellows Perform the part of Punchinelloes: So at this booth which we call Dublin, Tim, thou'rt the Punch to stir up trouble in: You wriggle, fidge, and make a rout, Put all your brother puppets out, Run on in a perpetual round, To tease, perplex, disturb, confound: Intrude with monkey grin and clatter To interrupt all serious matter; Are grown ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... jump out, but it was wide enough for her to push her nose through. And by vigorous thrusting, with her triangular head as a wedge, she was able to widen the aperture, inch by inch. In less than three minutes she had broadened it far enough for her to wriggle out of the car and leap to the side of the track. There she ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... ungovernable glee instantly arose within him. Seizing the handle of the heavy hunting-whip, which still hung from his right wrist by a leather thong, he flourished it in the air, and brought it down on his charger's flank with a crack like a pistol-shot, causing the animal to wriggle its tail, toss its ponderous head, and kick up its heels, in a way ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... rose straight up in the middle of the road. Instantly the Serpent uncoiled itself from his neck, and, as it touched the damp earth, it resumed the shape of the lovely damsel. Pointing to the rock, she showed him an opening just big enough for a man to wriggle through. Passing into it, they entered a long underground passage, which led out on to a wide field, above which spread a blue sky. In the middle of the field stood a magnificent castle, built out of porphyry, with a roof of gold and with glittering battlements. ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... bread and jam, "whether it wouldn't be better for me to do it with a knife. Most of the best things have been brought off with a knife. And it would be a new emotion to get a knife into a French President and wriggle ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... taken one quick look round as if to satisfy herself she was unobserved, suddenly cast herself down, in her turn, upon the damp earth, and inserting her head beneath the prickly barricade of the holly leaves, begin to crawl and wriggle forward until she had completely disappeared under it. What in the world could ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... leaping in the air from one swinging rope to another, and springing up the bars of the cage. The little monkey jumps, catches a rope, drops to the ground, and springs at another rope. Now he is in a corner, the others have him; but no, with a dive and a wriggle he has slipped through them, and is chattering and grimacing on the other ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... We need not wriggle and twist to try to avoid admitting that the calling of the martyred Zacharias, 'the son of Barachias,' is an error of some one who confused the author of the prophetic book with the person whose murder is narrated in 2 Chronicles xxiv. We do not know who made the mistake, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... apart, and gesticulating so vehemently, with the Hebrew stamp on every line of their dark, keen faces, are blockade-runners: they bewail their captivity more loudly than their fellows; but, be sure, they will wriggle out, soonest of all, if freedom can be purchased by hard swearing or gold. The profits of a single successful venture are simply fabulous; the smugglers are frequently captured with dollars on their persons by tens of thousands: they will part readily with a share of the plunder to any accommodating ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... and away also from the lower depths. So, though the way became more and more difficult as they advanced, they continued to press on, now up, now down, at another place going on their hands and knees, and further on having to wriggle between cracks which sorely nipped the Hunter as he forced his heavy frame through. And in the end they came out on the verge of the vast vault, which appeared to fill so much of the space below; emerged on a wind-swept ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... and heard himself say, "That's all right, I don't want the stuff. Take it in to that little chap in a striped suit, in the next car,—dirty little beggar, wriggled like an eel all day. This will probably make him wriggle all night. Never ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... called for, because society is not animated, or instinct enough with life, but in the condition of some snakes which I have seen in early spring, with alternate portions of their bodies torpid and flexible, so that they could wriggle neither way. All men are partially buried in the grave of custom, and of some we see only the crown of the head above ground. Better are the physically dead, for they more lively rot. Even virtue is no ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... is the end of me," he thought in his little round head as he tried to wriggle across the road and couldn't because his back was so stiff. "Now I am an old man and I shall never see another summer. Good-bye." And Fuzzy Caterpillar rolled himself up in a gray blanket and hung himself on the end of a dried twig. "This is the last of me," he ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... fearless while haunting their nesting- places, and are not to be scared with a gun, and are often beaten down with poles and cudgels as they stoop to go under the eaves. Swifts are much infested with those pests to the genus called hippoboscoe hirundinis; and often wriggle and scratch themselves in their flight to get rid of ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... "There, don't wriggle that way or I shall stick the needle in you. To go and have a big genuine fight like that and never ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... my hands in my pockets after that last remark, and walked to the window glumly; but as I stood with my back to him, I could not help wondering if he was making faces at me, or up to any other undignified antics by way of relaxation. Did he ever wriggle with merriment when he was alone? I turned suddenly at the thought. He was calmly perusing a paper through his pince-nez, with an expression of countenance at once so benign, silly, and self-satisfied, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... married," said he, "I'll keep a hand on you, my lady, that you won't be able to wriggle away from. If you are slippery, and faith you are, why I'm tough, and so you'll find it." "Get rid of your kinks before you marry," said he. "I've no use for a wife with one eye on me, and it a dubious one, and the other one squinting into a parlour two streets off. You've got to settle down ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... David in sudden wrath. "Does he wriggle? Yes. Why? Because he suffers out of water. I've caught him to eat, and I owe it to him not to make him suffer any more than is necessary. What did that boy say to ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... crosses the clearing between here and the fort, even though it be in the night, needs to wriggle along like a snake, else will one of Thayendanega's ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... force he intended it to have. He caught himself, slipped again and went down, turning completely over the table top and falling face downward to the floor. He saw Yuma throw himself forward and he tried to wriggle out of danger, but he failed. He felt the half-breed's weight on his body, saw the knife flash in the dull light. He tried to roll over and grasp the knife in its descent, but could not, his left arm, now useless, being pinned to the floor ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of you all the same first." And kneeling down by the injured man's side, he proceeded, with Ernest Wilton's assistance, to cut away Seth's shirt, and then the end of the arrow, holding it firmly the while so that it should not wriggle about, and hurt him more than they could help, after which the barbed head was drawn out of the wound—which was just between the third and fourth ribs, and not very serious, as the ex-mate had thought— stanching the blood, and binding up the place with a silk handkerchief, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... frequent. Obviously the tactics of the snake were wearing it down. Though the lizard seemed to have lost none of its spirit, the flesh was becoming weak. While it panted, its eyes twinkled with inane ferocity, and the snake, with that peculiar fearsome, gliding movement—neither wriggle nor squirm—typical of the species, slowly edged its victim under the shadow of a tussock. There both reposed, the snake calm in craft and design, the lizard waiting for the one chance of its life. Swallowing the lizard under any circumstances seemed an impossible feat. To begin the act in ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... while he took off his coat and wrapped it around him, buttoning it like a bag over arms and all. The baby watched him knowingly, its eyes round and dark blue and shining, and gave a contented little wriggle when Bud picked it ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... wishes to get at. If there is not, and especially if anything is there which he wishes to shun, a four hundred and fifty pounder cannot crash a hole large enough for you to push him through. By such a pitiful chink as that did his Infallible Highness wriggle himself out of the range of my guns, and pursue his line ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... where his elders had failed but he would have a try, so he went to the edge of the water and spreading out his cloth on the weeds lay down on it so that his weight was distributed; in this position the weeds supported him and he managed to wriggle himself across on his face to ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... cake standing erect and solid. Gripping her harpoon, she threw herself flat on her stomach and pushing the cake before her, began to wriggle her way ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... in bows, braids, &c., three yards at least from the crown of your head; drawl, or lisp in your speech; bring out words and phrases from every living tongue with which you may happen to be slightly acquainted; boast of "the continent;" mince your gait; wriggle forward upon your toes when you walk; and swim and dip, whenever led into the atrocity of committing a quad-rille. In brief, give yourself unimaginable airs; then protest that your manners, as well as your costume, are of the newest Parisian mode—and it is ten to one ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... swayed under the weight of spread wet raincoats. Two opened umbrellas wheeled in the current of air that came around the house; the porch ran water. While Margaret was adding her own rainy-day equipment to the others, a golden brown setter, one ecstatic wriggle from nose to tail, flashed into view, and ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... she cried, and her desperate wriggle out of his hand revealed that the fright of the night had left more impression upon her ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... way. I got up and looked out on the world. I says: 'J. R., it's clear you haven't enough cash for your ambitions. But you've got a opportunity. Throw it in. Be bold. If your conscience squirms, let it squirm. If it wriggles, let it wriggle. Take the risk. Expand to large ideas.' I took it. Say, I made parties unwilling investors in me. Now, then, there they are, as delegated in you. Here's me, Julius R., monarch by purchase and election of the sovereign state of Lua. You asks, 'What next?' I says: 'This. I'll pay. I'll settle ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... as if I was wrong, for he tried it again. Another shock he got, burst himself a'most wid a most fearful yell, an' bolted. His brothers didn't seem to understand it quite. They looked after him in surprise. Then the biggest wan gave a wriggle of his curly tail, an' wint to the post as if to inquire what was the matter. When he got it on the nose the effect was surprisin'. The curl of his tail came straight out, an' it quivered for a minute all over, wid its mouth wide open. The screech ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... influence. He cannot fail to promote me for his own sake, as well as mine; and when I have once fairly got my legs in St. Stephen's, I shall soon have my hands in office: 'power,' says some one, 'is a snake that when it once finds a hole into which it can introduce its head, soon manages to wriggle in the rest of its body.'" With such meditations I endeavoured to beguile the time and cheat myself into forgetfulness of the lameness of my horse, and the dripping wetness of his rider. At last the storm began sullenly to subside: one impetuous torrent, ten-fold more violent than those that ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rest, it presently narrowed down through a slope in the roof; but just at its narrowest, when he feared he had come to the end, there came a dip in the flooring corresponding to the slope up above, and he found he could wriggle through. Once through, the passage widened and continued to widen, and the going became very rough and broken, with piles of ragged rock and deep black pitfalls ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... said, his intimate eyes watching her wriggle, with a sense of being ridiculous, on the hook of ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... him blankly. Wally gave an expressive wriggle in his chair, and Jim sat up suddenly, with a ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... doll house for little Patience, for Christmas." Lydia gave an uncomfortable wriggle. "Don't talk ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... one instant. Up he went again. But, in fact, his best chance was in going up, for he was within four yards of the top when the mishap occurred. With a sigh of relief I saw him at last throw his arm over the verge and then wriggle his body upon the ledge. A few seconds later he was lying on his stomach, with his face over the edge, looking down ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... so I put one foot on him to take his scalp—his rattles, I mean—when horrid thrills coursed through me. The uncanny thing began to wriggle and rattle with old-time vigour. I do not like to think of that simian inheritance. But, fortified by Nimrod's assurance that it was 'purely reflex neuro-ganglionic movement,' I hardened my heart and captured ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... are others I could mention who took part in this contention, And at first 'twas my intention, but at present I forbear; There's young Look-sharp, and Wriggle, who would make an angel giggle, And a young conceited Zeigel, who was seated near the door; If you could only see them, you'd laugh till you were sore, And ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... growing too fast. Mark Twain remarked about a dachshund that it seemed to want another pair of legs in the middle to prevent it sagging. Now, some lizards are so long that they cannot keep from sagging, and their progress becomes a painful wriggle. But if you must go by wriggling, then what is the use of legs to knock against stems and stones? So some lizards have discarded two of their legs and some all four. Zoologically they are not snakes, but snakes ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... for there looked as if there might be room for him to hide under it. It was hard work, for you know his long hind-legs, which he uses for jumping, were tied together. The best he could do was to crawl and wriggle and pull himself along. Just as Farmer Brown's boy started to climb the fence back into the Long Lane, his hat in his hand, Grandfather Frog reached the old board and ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... temple. But without paying the least homage to the image of the 'Lo' spirit, he simply kept his eyes fixed intently on it; for albeit made of clay, it actually seemed, nevertheless, to flutter as does a terror-stricken swan, and to wriggle as a dragon in motion. It looked like a lotus, peeping its head out of the green stream, or like the sun, pouring its rays upon the russet clouds in the early morn. Pao-yue's tears ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... shoot out a thousand serpentine heads or knots of water, which wriggle down deliberately through the air and expend themselves in mist before half the descent is over. Then a new set burst from the body and sides of the fall, with the same fortune on the remaining distance; and thus the most charming fretwork of watery nodules, each trailing ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... obesity of the chest. The organs of locomotion are something altogether different. The Cetonia-grub[4] has shown us how, with the aid of the hairs and the pad-like excrescences upon its spine, it manages to reverse the universally-accepted usage and to wriggle along on its back. The grub of the Capricorn is even more ingenious: it moves at the same time on its back and belly; instead of the useless legs of the thorax, it has a walking-apparatus almost resembling feet, which appear, contrary to every rule, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... prove it, Bumper began to gnaw at the lining of the muff, and pretty soon got his whole body under it, and then he began to kick and wriggle to get out. He felt he was being smothered alive, and he squealed aloud. The lady finally rescued him, but not until she had torn away half the ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... sneezes very incessantly and very objectionably," Molly says, thoughtfully. "I hate a man who sneezes publicly; and his sneeze is so unpleasant,—so exactly like that of a cat. A little wriggle of the entire body, and then a ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... tried to illustrate how thoughtful and generous Hogboom was he blundered into the story of the time Hoggy bet all of his money on a baseball game at Muggledorfer, and of how he walked home with his chum and carried the latter's coat and grip all the way. That made the Faculty wriggle, I can tell you. He illustrated the pluck of the deceased by telling how Hogboom, as a Freshman, dug all night alone to rescue a man imprisoned in a sewer, spurred on by his cries—though Rogers explained in his halting way, it afterward turned out that this was only the famous "sewer ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... another penny of mine will go for masses, for if my Pat has his head and shoulders out, I can safely reckon he'll soon wriggle himself away entirely, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... Bremner with a sudden burst of animation that induced the creature to wriggle and dance on its hind legs for at least a minute, "you and I shall have a jolly night together on the beacon; so ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... have found consolation in that senseless superstition, "the applause of posterity." Posterity! posterity which goes to Rome, weeps large-sized tears, carves beautiful inscriptions over the tomb of Keats; and the worm must wriggle her curtsey to it all, since the dead boy, wherever he be, has quite other gear to tend. Never a bone less dry ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... violate his conscience; he would be faithful to the traditions of his house and the memory of his father,—and so on, until the patience of Wellington and Peel was exhausted, and they told him he must sign the bill at once, or they would immediately resign. "The king could no longer wriggle off the hook," and surrendered. O'Connell was instantly re-elected, and took his seat in Parliament,—a position which he occupied for the rest of his life. George IV. was the last of the monarchs of England who attempted to rule by personal government. Henceforward the monarch's duty ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... in great haste," retorted Barnes, striving to wriggle free from her grip. "I would advise ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... answered, "one must pick them out right. But all I mean is—for I express myself with violence—that she's in a position to watch me. There's an element of suspense for me, and she can see me wriggle. But my wriggling doesn't matter," he pursued. "I can bear it. ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... some way twisted. It ached with an insistence and annoyance only second to the wound. All his most determined efforts to wriggle it straight failed lamentably. Indeed, he almost fancied that they ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... themselves on to the wealthier and younger members of the male community. They poison the air round them with sickly perfumes; they assume titles, and speak of one another as "cette chere comtesse;" their walk is something between a prance and a wriggle; they prowl about the terrace whilst the music is playing, seeking whom they may devour, or rather whom they may inveigle into paying for their devouring: and, bon Dieu! how they do gorge themselves with food and drink when some silly lad or aged roue allows himself to be bullied or wheedled ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... turtle will lie quietly at the bottom of a pond or lake, looking like an old water-soaked log with a branch—its head and neck—at one end. From the tip of the tongue the creature extrudes two small filaments of a pinkish colour which wriggle about, bearing a perfect resemblance to the small round worms of which fishes are so fond. Attracted by these, fishes swim up to grasp the squirming objects and are engulfed by the cruel mouth of the angler. Certain marine turtles ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... the insect larvas that may have lurked in it when first removed. Lay the turves out in a frame, grass side downwards, and give them a soaking with water in which a very small quantity of salt has been dissolved. This will cause the remaining bots and slugs to wriggle out, and by means of a little patient labour they can be gathered and destroyed. In January or February sow the seed rather thickly in lines along the centre of each strip of turf, and cover with ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... had been repeated several times over, it usually happened that one of the songsters who claimed to be gifted with more perspicuity than his comrades would remind them that he had seen the old squirrel wriggle under the lash of the song. And so their wretched days of starvation were often made shorter by a more or less harmless attack on the poor skipper, who might only be the instrument of a parsimonious managing owner. ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... Hal—follows the bad un's feet wheresomever they goes; it's a sap as goes slippin' thro' the dews o' the grass on the brightest mornin', an' dodges round the trees in the sweetest evenin', an' goes wriggle, wriggle across the brook jis' when you wants to enjoy yourself, jis' when you wants to stay a bit on the steppin'-stuns to enjoy the sight o' the dear little minnows a-shootin' atween the water-creases. That's what ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... That's where I quit the ways of women—yes, ma'am, and the ways of men." She stood up and walked over to the window and looked out. The dogs were sleeping in their kennels, but a chain rattled. "I've broke the wolf-pack. You've seen them wriggle on their bellies for me, haven't you? Well, my girl, do you think I can't break you?" She wheeled back and stood with her hands on her hips. It was at that moment that she seemed to fill the world. Her ruddy eyes glowed like blood. They were not quite sane. ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... was uncomplaining. She clung doggedly to the Earth man's hand when they were able to walk erect: followed swiftly and unquestioningly when they were compelled to crawl or wriggle through an almost ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... called anxiously. "Are you alive? Hurry, oh, hurry and wriggle out. The building's falling ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... wholly different eyes. My father was a short, powerful man, and though he was nearly fifty years old his hair was black and thick and coarse. At night he would rub his unshaven cheek on Sue's small cheek and tickle her. She would chuckle and wriggle as though it were fun. I used to watch this hungrily, and once I awkwardly drew close and offered my cheek to be tickled. My father at once grew as awkward as I, and he gave me a rub so rough it stung. And this wasn't ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... he and his two brown, ragged boys. Large fish and small, pink fish, blue, yellow, orange, striped fish and mottled, wriggled together, and flapped their tails in the well of the little boat. There were even too many to lie there and wriggle. The bottom of the boat was well covered with them, and, if she had not shipped waves enough to keep them cool, the boy Battista had bailed a plenty on them. Father and son hurried on shore, and Battista on board began to fling the scaly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... Since I must die On gallows high And wriggle in a noose, I'll none repine Nor weep nor whine, For where would be the use? Yet sad am I That I must die With rogues so base and small, Sly coney-catchers, Poor girdle-snatchers, That do in ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... wanted to watch them wriggle! I wanted to take them, one by one, and strip off their shams! Take that fellow Rutherford, the steel man! Or Plimpton, the coal baron, casting his eyes up to heaven, and singing psalms through his nose! The instant I laid eyes on that whining old ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... through the whole island. In an instant the gates of steel burst open, and between them stood a giant with an iron club in one hand, and in the other a chain which was fastened round the neck of a serpent. Now in all the world there was no serpent more horrible than this, for it did not wriggle along the ground as serpents generally do, but advanced erect, its head higher than a man seated on a horse, while it trailed besides a tail ten feet behind it. At the sight of the young man it lashed its tail so violently that the earth trembled as if with an earthquake, while its forky ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... getting back into her own corner with a happy little wriggle, all unconscious of Grandpapa's conspiracy with Mother Fisher in regard to ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... limitations, he contrived to wriggle along until at the beginning of his junior year he was whisked away to the hospital with scarlet fever, after which, amid sage waggings of their heads, a group of doctors congregated about his bed. He was not to be alarmed, they said. His eyes were not permanently injured. ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... burn off the down from the tips. Owing to the intensity of the heat this is difficult to accomplish. One warrior dashes wildly toward the fire and retreats; another lies as close to the ground as a frightened lizard, endeavoring to wriggle himself up to the fire; others seek to catch on their wands the sparks that fly in the air. At last one by one they all succeed in burning the downy balls from the wands. The test of endurance is very severe, the heat of the fire being ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... eel-like attribute compensated for a certain lack of pace. He was past the Donaldson's three-quarters in an instant, and running for the line, with only the back to pass, and with Clowes in hot pursuit. Another wriggle took him past the back, but it also gave Clowes time to catch him up. Clowes was a far faster runner, and he got to him just as he reached the twenty-five line. They came down together with a crash, Clowes on top, and as they fell ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... changed indeed since first the colonel, your father, presented you to me at Oxford. However, I will try." The king tried, but in vain. He was stouter than Harry, although less broadly built, and had none of the lissomness which enabled the latter to wriggle through the bars. "It is useless," he said at last. "Providence is against me. It is the will of God that I should remain here. It may be the decree of Heaven that even yet I may sit again on the throne of my ancestors. ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... With a last swift wriggle the creeping figure was at the foot of the net which shrouded Jack. The latter looked down and saw that the man was literally covered from head to foot with masses of the swarming insects. Then, with wonderful dexterity, the newcomer jerked aside the insects which ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... happen, you know! Now then—why didn't you come to us? We have a wing quite empty. But just as you like, of course. Do you lease it from HIM?—this fellow, I mean," she added, nodding towards Lebedeff. "And why does he always wriggle so?" ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the caribou barrens. There for hours at a time they hunted elusive grasshoppers, rushing helter-skelter over the dry moss, leaping up to strike at the flying game with their paws like a kitten, or snapping wildly to catch it in their mouths and coming down with a back-breaking wriggle to keep themselves from tumbling over on their heads. Then on again, with a droll expression and noses sharpened like exclamation points, to ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... in rushing into a clinch, and Tad found himself gripped in those arms of steel. Wriggle and twist as be would he could not free himself from their embrace. His adversary, on the other hand, found himself fully occupied in holding on to his slippery young antagonist, giving him neither time nor opportunity effectually to dispose of the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... fell into a sullen silence. The man was a study for me, and I observed every change in his fleeting moods. Generally his condition was that of miserable despair, which he attempted bravely to conceal. Even the boon of suicide had been denied him, for when he would wriggle into an erect position the rail of his pen was a foot above his head, so that he could not clamber over and break his skull on the stone floor beneath; and when he had tried to starve himself the attendants ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... soot out of 'is lungs an' breathin' toobs. But if Pint-o'-Bass does smoke more'n is good for 'im or any other respectable factory chimney, I'll admit the smoke 'asn't sooted up 'is intelleck none, an' 'e can wriggle 'is way out of a hole where a double-jointed snake 'ud stick. An' durin' the Retreat, when, as you knows, cigarettes in the Expeditionary Force was scarcer'n snowballs in 'ell, ole Pint-o'-Bass managed to carry on, an' wasn't never seen without 'is fag, excep' at meal-times, ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... warriors was returning. First come the Judge, tougher than rawhide, half walking and half flying, his wings spread out, 'cree-ing' to himself about bulldogs and their ways; next come Bobby, still sputtering and swearing, and behind ambled Thomas at a lively wriggle, a coy, large ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... to wriggle the child through, but he found that he must have some one to help him. Urging Robin not to move he knocked at Miss Monogue's door. She opened it, and he stepped back with an apology when he saw that some ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... suspected person can get away?" muttered the submarine boy. "Well, that's it should be. I wonder if there are any more of this strange crew—men or women spies that don't happen to have suspected so far? If there are, I don't believe they'll wriggle through the meshes of old Uncle Sam's ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... The thought, again, of the mighty revolution in human beliefs and affairs that might grow out of the same insignificant little phenomenon. A wine-glassful of clear liquid growing muddy. If we had found a wriggle, or a zigzag, or a shoot from one side to the other, in this last flask, what a scare there would have been, to be sure, in the schools of the prophets! Talk about your megatherium and your megalosaurus,—what ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... that it was almost with a feeling of relief that she beheld the door slowly—very slowly—begin to open. A little wider—a little wider—and yet a little wider; but still nothing came. Ah! Letty's heart turned to ice. Another inch, and a shadowy something slipped through and began to wriggle itself stealthily over the floor. Letty tried to divert her gaze, but could not—an irresistible, magnetic attraction kept her eyes glued to the gradually approaching horror. When within a few feet of her it halted; and again Letty felt it was listening—listening to the breathing on ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... her sake, as it were. Why, didst thou see, it was godly Mr. Henwick that held her head when he wriggled so, and old Madam Holbrook had herself helped upon a chair to see the better. I wonder how long I might wriggle, before great and godly folk would take so much notice of me? But, I suppose, that comes of being a pastor's daughter. She'll be so set up there'll be no speaking to her now. Faith! thinkest thou that Hota really had bewitched her? She gave me corn-cakes, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to him that I like to understand what is said to me. If he comes at me with unknown tongues, I shall wish him in unknown parts. I can't stand mysteries. I am a geologist, and believe that there are rocks all the way down, and that we had much better stand on them than wriggle in mere chaotic space. Good morning, Doctor. I shall come again soon; I shall keep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... Shorty?" Lorry felt the warmth of a new life, felt the little body wriggle in snug contentment. "I wouldn't advise it. Tough job." Baby Newcomb twisted in his ...
— I'll Kill You Tomorrow • Helen Huber
... network of barbed wire that it was evidently not considered necessary to place sentinels there. By throwing over their parcels first and working away the ground for more than an hour under the barbed wire, the men were able to crawl and wriggle their ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... such strange enchantment, of a beauty which not alone beguiles the senses—I speak from the standpoint of the ten-year-old—but throws wide to fancy the gate of dreams. Directly I was seated—in the body—and had had my hat taken off and been told not to wriggle, I vaulted airily over the unconscious audience, over an orchestra engaged in tuning up, and was lost in the marvelous landscape of the drop-curtain. The adventures which I had there put to shame ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... tall master, astounded. He represses a wriggle of healthful satisfaction on the part of his pupils by a significant lift of his ferule, then moves ponderously up the stairs for a personal visit to the chamber of the culprit. The maid had given true report; there was no one there. Never had he been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... scratching, scratching every hour, not each other's eyes but the History papers. I am a fish out of water.... It makes me feel growly all the time.... I can not get away from my ball and chain.... I think we'll make things snap and crackle a little.... This is the biggest swamp I ever tried to wriggle through.... We'll both put on our thinking caps and I guess get quite a lot of funnies in the reminiscences.... Now here is the publisher's screech for money.... O, to get out of this History prison!... ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... she did of his companion. At first he tried to think that he was dreaming, and for a long while he kept his eyes shut very tight to what he did not want to see, but in spite of his efforts, the truth managed to wriggle through, and then the young man gave up trying to deceive himself, and set about finding some way to get the better ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... plank like a man," continued Ebony, "hims dood eberyting like a man. An' w'en hims topple into de sea hims give sitch a most awful wriggle dat his bonds bu'sted. But hims berry sly, was Massa Zeppa—amazin' sly. I t'ought him lie on's back zif him be dead. Jest move a leetle to look like drownin', an' w'en he long way astern, he slew round, off wid de hanky fro hims eyes ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... said my father. "Your chain is locked, I see:—but no matter,—I can loosen it so that you can wriggle through." By having cut the cords, around which the chain had been passed, he had relieved the tautness, and was now able to do what he promised. He then took off my boots, and, grasping me under the arms, drew me backward out of the loosened coils as I moved them downward ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... deliver, that they have one if only they can disentangle it from the unrealities which have somehow got coiled up with it. All the odd little eccentricities in the form of service and the recent fashion of spicing sermons with unexpected swear-words are just pathetic efforts to wriggle out of the ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. As it approached, Medea tossed the contents of the gold box right down the monster's wide-open throat. Immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle—flinging his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree, and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again—the dragon fell at full length upon the ground, and ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the order of Hosea Hessel, of the blue nose. And several boys took hold of me, all together, turned me over on the bench, face upwards. Two sat on my legs, two on my arms, and one held my head, so that I should not be able to wriggle. And another placed his left forefinger and thumb at my nose. (It seemed he was left-handed.) He curled up his finger and thumb, closed his eye, and began to fillip me on the nose. And how, do you think? Each time I saw ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... audience looked, they saw the panel slide back, and first of all Hamar's head, and then his body, wriggle through the ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... creatures become conspicuous and important. The mere-cats sit listening, and wonder what the new sound in the grass means, not like wind or rain. Little lizards basking on the sand suddenly wake up and wriggle away to avoid the thing against which the shelter of a leaf will not avail them. And always in front hares and buck by the hundred stream away like the shadows of clouds over grass. Then someone looks at his watch and shouts "Halt!" and the welcome word is shouted and repeated down the line ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... gun!" he warned Trevison. "I'll blow a hole through you if you wriggle a finger!" Watching Trevison, he spoke to Braman: "You got a ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... great disappointment to me," he said, trying to look disappointed, but his back would wriggle. "This chain business—silly of us not to have known—well, well, we shall be wiser another ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... flow into, flow in, creep into, creep in, slip into, slip in, pop into, pop in, break into, break in, burst into, burst in; set foot on; ingress; burst in upon, break in upon; invade, intrude; insinuate itself; interpenetrate, penetrate; infiltrate; find one's way into, wriggle into, worm oneself into. give entrance to &c. (receive) 296; insert &c. 300. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Miss Dorothy's smile as she returned to the parlor, so she settled herself by the side of this new friend, folded her hands and let her feet dangle over the edge of the sofa. It was rather a slippery seat and in time it might be that she would have to wriggle back to a firmer place, but its nearness to Miss Dorothy was its attraction and she felt well satisfied and entirely secure when the teacher's arm encircled her and drew her closer. "I am to have one new pupil anyhow," said Miss Dorothy, smiling down. "Won't it be ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... course if that's it...! I can't guarantee what's happened since I began my pilgrimages. But I think I shall wriggle off home quietly as soon as we get to Colchester. This afternoon's business has been too feverish for me. When the policeman held up his hand as we came through Ellsworth I thought you were caught. I ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... saying all yet concealing all is that it is rich in figures. Metaphor is an enigma, wherein the thief who is plotting a stroke, the prisoner who is arranging an escape, take refuge. No idiom is more metaphorical than slang: devisser le coco (to unscrew the nut), to twist the neck; tortiller (to wriggle), to eat; etre gerbe, to be tried; a rat, a bread thief; il lansquine, it rains, a striking, ancient figure which partly bears its date about it, which assimilates long oblique lines of rain, with the dense and slanting pikes of the lancers, and which compresses ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... way of "Liberty," as most people understand that word. In the place of the rusty old manacles, the chain and shot, the iron yoke, cruel, ill-fitting, violent implements from which it was yet possible to wriggle and escape to outlawry, it may be the world will discover only a completer restriction, will develop a scheme of neat gyves, light but efficient, beautifully adaptable to the wrists and ankles, never chafing, never oppressing, slipped on and worn until ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... are you?" she said, as the four lay quiet on the table. But when she carefully put them back in the water, and they didn't wriggle or squirm a bit, she knew at ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells |
