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Covert   /kˈoʊvərt/   Listen
Covert

noun
1.
A flock of coots.
2.
A covering that serves to conceal or shelter something.  Synonyms: concealment, cover, screen.  "Under cover of darkness" , "The brush provided a covert for game" , "The simplest concealment is to match perfectly the color of the background"



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"Covert" Quotes from Famous Books



... shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... restrained for a while. As it was, after hurrying on for a short distance and making sure that he was not pursued, he sprang over the fence and sneaked into the nearest clump of bushes. From this safe covert he watched Dab Kinzer's return after the lighter joints of his rod, and then even dared to crouch along the fence until he saw which house his ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... he dashed into every covert or tangle wherein a hog might lurk, but without result; there came no rush of feet, no shaking of the brown leaves, no startled grunt. All was still, save for the quick ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... rose up, straightened herself, with a bearing half proud half defiant, and looked away. Then in another minute, seeing her chance, she darted or glided from her covert, and before Hazel's indignant and pitying gaze, plunged into a gay bit of badinage with her lover who was passing near. No trace of regret or of unwillingness apparent; Josephine was playing off her usual airs with her usual reckless ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... other things, he said that nothing more surprised him than to see Englishmen, the most learned and intelligent people in the world, visiting a place like Cintra, where there was no literature, science, nor anything of utility (coisa que presta). I suspect that there was some covert satire in the last speech of the worthy priest; I was, however, Jesuit enough to appear to receive it as a high compliment, and, taking off my hat, departed ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... explicit. They broadly intimated, in a memorial to Parliament, that under the operation of the test, they would be unable to take up arms again, as they had done in 1688, for the maintenance of the Protestant succession; a covert menace of insurrection, which Swift and their other opponents did not fail to make the most of. Still farther to embarrass them, Swift got up a paper making out a much stronger case in favour of the Catholics than of "their brethren, the Dissenters," and the controversy closed, for that age, in the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... Enforst to seeke some covert nigh at hand, A shadic grove not farr away they spide, That promist ayde the tempest to withstand; Whose loftie trees, yclad with sommers pride, Did spred so broad, that heavens light did hide, Not perceable with power of any starr: ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... manifest it, and hold out the word of life to those around you.* You shall witness for him that he is the Lord, and besides him there is no Saviour—that he gathers the lambs in his arms, and carries them in his bosom—that he is to them a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest—as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. That it is he that teacheth them to profit, and leadeth them by the way that they should go, and that in due time he will perfect all that ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... triumphed: all of which was just the reason why she was forbidden, face to face with the companion of her adventure, the experiment of a test. If they balanced they balanced—she had to take that; it deprived her of every pretext for arriving, by however covert a ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... sped fleet Achilles chasing him vehemently. And as when on the mountains a hound hunteth the fawn of a deer, having started it from its covert, through glens and glades, and if it crouch to baffle him under a bush, yet scenting it out the hound runneth constantly until he find it; so Hector baffled not Peleus' fleet-footed son. Oft as he set himself to dart under the well-built walls over against ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... accused him of the blues, it was true that Maxwell's look had expressed glum depression. Now, he was smiling, and, balked of her prey, Mrs. Burke knitted briskly, contemplating other means drawing him from his covert. Her strategy had been too subtle: she would ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... in his leafy covert, wrung his hands in despair, and cursed the whole creation in the utter wretchedness of his sore distress. It seemed to him monstrous, almost iniquitous, that this woman, so pure and rigidly inflexible, should yield herself so unresistingly to ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... with such tender regard upon the bright heavens, the verdant meadows, the pure air. I know a country instinct with delights of every kind, an unknown paradise, a secluded corner of the world—where alone, unfettered and unknown, in the thick covert of the woods, amidst flowers, and streams of rippling water, you will forget all the misery that human folly has so recently allotted you. Oh! listen to me, my prince. I do not jest. I have a heart, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... There will be no more horses killed now of a Sunday in going to Boston, either by lack of bating, or by hard driving! It is whispered, that the public are indebted, for this salutary reform, to the covert exertions of a ci-devant PREACHER, who lacking the ability to lead his wakeful flock formerly, is now determined to drive all within his Circuit, into the pale of obedience, and thereby make up for former Sins of Omission. The Federalists ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipp'd of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand; Thou perjur'd, and thou simular of virtue, That art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake, That under covert and convenient seeming Hast practis'd on man's life: close pent-up guilts, Rive your concealing continents, and ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... bribes, fines, indictments, and loud-tongued avocats du roi made no impression; Philipon repaired the defeat of a fine by some fresh and furious attack upon his great enemy; if his epigrams were more covert, they were no less bitter; if he was beaten a dozen times before a jury, he had eighty or ninety victories to show in the same field of battle, and every victory and every defeat brought him new sympathy. Every one who was at Paris a few years since must recollect the famous ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of the Van Eycks' torch and fanned it by his originality, his fancy, his winged realism, until its light lit up the dim ways of Man with a clairvoyance far beyond theirs. This eye, this mind, flung its gleaming penetration into every covert of the soul and deep, deep, deep into the most shrouded, the most shuddering secrets ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... Year's Eve the moon was holding high carnival. Wrapped in a costume of silvery radiance, she was displaying her charms to the busy throng beneath with all the coquetry she could summon, to her aid, darting quick glances at youths and maidens, and by covert smiles bringing even the middle-aged man of business to her feet. The air is also influenced by her wooing, and is inclined to be less severe than some hours earlier. Floods of light are radiating King Square, giving even to its leafless trees a charm of softness and ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... repeated brusquely; and I obeyed. The wood was dense up to the very edge of the road. We led our horses into the covert, bound handkerchiefs over their eyes, and stood ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... it that, watch as I might, I failed to catch them in the act. One morning I saw the mother bird in the garden with nesting-material in her beak, but she failed to come to the honeysuckle with it while I watched from a near-by covert. At the same time robins were flying here and there with loaded beaks, and wood thrushes were going through the air trailing long strips of white paper behind them, but the catbird was an emblem of secrecy itself. She, too, brought fragments of white paper to her nest, but no one saw ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... sympathizes with Missis Rucker, once when we has a hoss thief we don't need on our hands, su'gests we rope him up to the sign over Armstrong's Noo York store. But thar's rival trade interests, an' Enright fears it'll be took invidious as a covert scheme for drawin' custom ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... crack the file of warriors bolted hither-thither, scattering like quail for covert. Captain ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... abode, To meet her Saviour and her God. She lives, to tell how blest Is the everlasting rest Of those who, in the Lamb's blood laved, Are chosen, sanctified, and saved! How fearful is their doom Who drop into the tomb Without a covert from the ire Of Him who ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... a question concerning this, addressed to His Excellency the High Commissioner, our Government received, to their great astonishment, the covert accusation that from the State of the Republic an attack on Her Majesty's Colonies was being arranged, and also a mysterious hint of coming possibilities, by which our Government were strengthened in their suspicion, that the independence of ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

... own room, Betty said with apparent carelessness but with the covert intention of dropping Helen a useful hint, "You aren't going to see Miss ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... irregular flapping of quick, blue wings. Then, like a bullet, he dived into the flashing stream immediately at Clark's feet, and emerged with diamond drops flying from his brilliant plumage and a small, silver fish curving in his sharp, serrated beak, till, a second later, he darted into the covert with his prey. The bird had dared the rapids and found that which he sought. Clark's gray eyes had seen it all, and ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... cockleshells and staves, traders with their chests full of knives and little service-books, where are they gone? They never come now to seek a lodging and good living in the Rue Saint-Antoine. But the wolves quit covert in the forests and prowl of nights in the faubourgs and ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France

... when June scatters her roses northward, and poising on wings that never weary, kisses the nectar from the waiting flowers; how bright and beautiful is the horizon of his little life! How sweet is the dream of the covert in the deep mountain gorge, to the trembling, panting deer in his flight before the hunter's horn and the yelping hounds! How dear to the heart of the weary ox is the vision of green fields and splashing waters! And down on the farm, when the cows come ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... fixed her image in his mind but given away her destination. All hope of hiding herself among the mountains was therefore gone. She would have to move on; but where? If she were but able to leave now, she might before morning find some covert from which help might be given her for further escape. But the condition of the roads, as well as her own weakness, forbade that. She needed food: she needed sleep. Of food she would find plenty, she was sure; but sleep! How could she sleep, with the promise ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... perceive. There were other places, too, that gave me the same sense—one a big dark pool in the woods, with floating water-lilies; it was there, too, that mysterious presence; and it was to be experienced also at the edge of a particular covert, a hanging wood that fell steeply from the road, where the ferns glittered with a metallic light and the flies buzzed ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... slanting on the water and ran in tapering lustre to our feet. The gilded ripple slipped and murmured below us; the bronzed leaves overhead bent carefully to veil her answer. The bird within the covert uttered an anxious note. ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... levelled. But the Vengeurs de Lutece had not much heart left; their leader had vanished; they were disorganized, they were running away; sobered and stupefied, they knew the game was up. They were quite willing all the same to shoot the bourgeois there at the wall, before bolting for covert, each to hide ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... During his covert shoots the Squire had the habit of recording his impressions in a mental note-book. He put special marks against such as missed, or shot birds behind the waist, or placed lead in them to the detriment of their market value, or broke only one leg ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Caesar's,) was in the catiline conspiracy;" a fine insinuation this, to be sneered at by his party, and yet not to be taken hold of by public justice. They would be glad now, that I, or any man, should bolt out their covert treason for them; for their loop-hole is ready, that the Caesar, here spoken of, was a private man. But the application of the text declares the author's to be another Caesar; which is so black and so infamous an aspersion, that nothing ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... the half into his bosom. This was the second time that, in the midst of the most regular and wise behaviour, his animosity had spurted out. It startled Mr. Carlyle, who observed my lord thenceforth with covert curiosity; and to me it restored the certainty that we were acting for the best in view of my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... out of the mire wherein we elect to wallow. Nevertheless, there must be and will be a serious day of reckoning for any professing priest of the Church, or so-called "servant of the Gospel", who by the least word or covert innuendo, gives us a push back into prehistoric slime and loathliness,—and that there are numbers who do so, no one can deny. Abbe Vergniaud had flung many a pebble of sarcasm at the half- sinking faith of some of his hearers ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... presence of this man who had come to her assistance with such sure and determined hand. She never had found it difficult before to thank anybody who had done her a generous turn; but here her tongue had lain as still as a hare in its covert, and her heart had gone trembling in the gratitude which it ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... waited too long, young man," cried Phillips, now advancing with a quick, leaping step from his covert. "The fact was, I felt, on seeing you getting into such close quarters, that I had better be rather particular about my aim, so as to stop him at once; besides that, I was at first a little out of breath. I had ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... From his covert Walter Skinner saw them come, each leading a horse which he had stopped to get from the islet pasture, while Fleetfoot lagged behind on a little hunting expedition of his own. The spy drew his bow and sighted. "Yea," he said to himself, "no doubt I can do it. And what is an arrow ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger

... tender green and gold, the country lay before us. Then, even as we watched from covert, our ears made acquaintance with a new and ominous sound. From an infinite distance the morning breeze from the north carried with it a deadened thumping sound, now regular as the muffled rolling of drums, now softly irregular with intervals of stillness. ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... closely pursued, thought it prudent and meet To a bramble for refuge awhile to retreat; He enter'd the covert, but entering, found That briers and thorns did on all sides abound; And that, though he was safe, yet he never could stir, But his sides they would wound, or would tear off his fur: He shrugg'd up his shoulders, but ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... victory bursts out in exulting shouts and yells wildly terrific;—the solitude is awakened, the slumbering villages are roused, and the well-known cry of Indian triumph comes back from every teeming hill; whilst the roused deer springs trembling, from his covert, and the fierce panther crouching seeks his ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... subservience than ever. It was: "Pray go first, dear Princess Rapunzelhauser! After you, Baroness!... Please, Countess, I really couldn't think of preceding you!" at every doorway, till Daphne, as she noted the elevated eyebrows and covert smiles of the others, felt too much shame for her Sovereign for ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... to say against Barnes, Colonel Newcome was only too ready to believe. He had made up his mind that that criminal ought to be punished and exposed. The lawyer's covert innuendoes, who was ready to insinuate any amount of evil against Barnes which could safely be uttered, were by no means strong enough for Thomas Newcome. "'Sharp practice! exceedingly alive to his own interests—reported violence of ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... permitted to call that afternoon in the hope that the obdurate Uncle Remus might graciously consent to see me. I found him in his office in the top story of the building, an appropriate place to avoid being run to covert by the public, but inconvenient because of the embarrassment which might result from dropping out of the window if he should have the misfortune to be cornered. To say that I was received might be throwing too much of a glamour over the situation. At least, ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... find some food, and he happened to arrive at that part of the forest where the duke was; and he and his friends were just going to eat their dinner, this royal duke being seated on the grass, under no other canopy than the shady covert of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... to frighten me. You have no kind of evidence, and the man of yesterday does not exist! All you wish is to perplex me—to enrage me, so as to enable you to make your last move, should you catch me in such a mood, but you will not; all your pains will be in vain! But why should he speak in such covert terms? I presume he must be speculating on the excitability of my nervous system. But, dear friend, that won't go down, in spite of your machinations. We will try and find out what you ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... briskly up the road to the common. Their eyes began to shine with the expectation of immediate triumph, when, thirty yards from the common's edge, in a sudden access of caution, he bolted for covert and disappeared in the gorse sixty yards away on their left. They fell noiselessly back, going as quickly as concealment permitted, to cut him off. They were successful. They caught him crossing an open space, yelled "Bang!" together; and ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... you had yourself a full view of them in our conversations and discussions. Yet from the very first my feelings were hurt by many circumstances, when, on your mooting the question of the full restoration of my position, I detected the covert hatred of some and the equivocal attachment of others. For you received no support from either in regard to my vexatious to me: but much more so was the fact that they used, before my very eyes, so to embrace, fondle, make much of, ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... high part to the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet above the village; and is divided into a sheep down, the high wood, and a long hanging wood called the Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasing park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... This covert battle was carried on in the most secret seclusion of domestic life, with closed doors. The Vicar-General, the dear Abbe Grancey, the friend of the late Archbishop, clever as he was in his capacity of the chief Father Confessor of the diocese, ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac

... the forest, o'er the vale and lawn, The well-breath'd beagle drives the flying fawn, In vain he tries the covert of the brakes, Or deep beneath the trembling thicket shakes; Sure of the vapour in the tainted dews, The certain hound his various maze pursues. Thus step by step, where'er the Trojan wheel'd, There swift Achilles compass'd ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... equalled with them in renown, Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides, And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old: Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid, Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead and ever-during dark ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... still more wonderingly, with a kind of interfusion of terror and mystery, did he love the woodlands of that forest country. To steal along the edge of the covert, with the trees knee-deep in fern, to hear the flies hum angrily within, to find the glade in spring carpeted with blue-bells—all these sights and sounds took hold of his childish heart with a deep passion that never ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... greatly furthered the establishment of civilized rule in the province conquered by Clive. He accomplished this in the face of difficulties and all dissensions in his own Council, against subtle native intrigues, against opposition open and covert of the most persistent kind. Every creature who throve out of the disorganization of India naturally worked, in the daylight or in the dark, against Hastings's efforts at organization. In 1771, when he was made ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... "Who will win?" that was the question that was ever ringing in my ears. 'Twas but a short spring that had come to Norway. Herlof Hyttefad, and many more with him, were broken on the wheel during the months that followed. None could call me to account; yet there lacked not covert threats from Denmark. What if they knew the secret? At last methought they must know; I knew not how else to understand their words. 'Twas even in that time of agony that Gyldenlove the High Steward, came hither ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen

... sought for covert kind; The blast blew on my head; And lo, with tempest and with ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan

... means The tyrant?—I obey. [Exit CALIPPUS.] And, oh! ye pow'rs, Ye ministers of Heaven, defend my father; Support his drooping age; and when anon Avenging justice shakes her crimson steel, Oh! be the grave at least a place of rest; That from his covert, in the hour of peace, Forth he may come to bless a willing people, And be your own just ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy

... the covert question; "but I should hardly have thought that Kirkby-Malhouse was a place which offered any great attractions ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and came down ... and He flew upon the wings of the winds ... He made darkness His covert, His pavilion round about Him: dark waters in the clouds ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis

... covert glances at his companion supplied no clue; P. Sybarite's face remained as uncommunicative as well-to-do relations by marriage; his shadowy, pale and wistful smile denoted, if anything, only an almost childlike pleasure in anticipation ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... and then, more than ever, he perceived the immense superiority in all lovable, all feminine points, of the elder to the younger sister; for Agnes, though brilliant and seemingly thoughtless and spirit-free as ever, let fall full many a bitter word, many a covert taunt and hidden sneer, which, with his eyes now opened as they were, he readily detected, and which Blanche, as he could discover, even through her graceful quietude, felt, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... the wet firs, and then, turning, dipped over the edge and began to wind in sharp loops down the other side of the ridge. Down we scrambled, single file, our chins on a level with the top of the passage, the close green covert above us. The "bowel" went twisting down more and more sharply into a deep ravine; and presently, at a bend, we came to a fir-thatched outlook, where a soldier stood with his back to us, his eye glued to a peep-hole in the wattled wall. Another ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... the inimitable Spencer. How or by whose interest he was made Laureat, or whether it was a title he assumed to himself, cannot be determined, neither is his principal patron any where named; but if his poem of the Crown Lawrel before mentioned has any covert meaning, he had the happiness of having the Ladies for his friends, and the countess of Surry, the lady Elizabeth Howard, and many others united their services in his favour. When on his death-bed he was charged with having children ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... can find no record in history of any such legislation, unless so far as it is contained in the doubtful tradition of the Tuscan city of Pistoia, where men are said to have been ennobled as a punishment for crime. Among us crime may often be a covert means of political prominence, but it is not the ostensible ground; nor are people habitually struck from the voting-lists for performing some rare and eminent service, such as saving human life, or reading every word of a presidential message. If a man has been President of the United States, ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... example, he had a theory that around every corner of every great city romance lurked, ready for some one to come and find it. True, he never had found it, but that, he insisted, was because he hadn't looked for it; it was there all right, waiting to be flushed, like a quail from a covert. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... seemed a strange ride. Grazing horses pranced and whistled as I went by; jack-rabbits bounded away to hide in the longer clumps of grass; a prowling wolf trotted from his covert ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey

... possibly a coat of tan covert cloth with strapped seams, but it is the startling climax which claims attention. An owl! Surely not, Mr. Payne! It may have been a parrot, for once upon a time, before the Audubon Society met with widespread recognition, women ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... as we entered; we could feel their covert antagonism. Jarvis is one of those affable, good-tempered individuals that most persons take for "easy." In some ways he may be so, but I soon realised that he was a keen judge of men and their ways, and he whispered ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton

... reach the castle, by reason of the difficulties of the way, and its mire and dirt; and though their guides served them very exactly, yet they came so nigh the castle at first, that they lost many of their men by its shot, they being in an open place without covert. This much perplexed the pirates, not knowing what course to take; for on that side, of necessity, they must make the assault: and being uncovered from head to foot, they could not advance one step without danger: besides that, the castle, both for its situation and strength, ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin

... or Norman influence appear in the words Staunton, Newnham, Newland, Ayleford, Coleford, &c.; those of a Norman stamp being apparent in St. Briavel's, Ruerdean (i.e. riviere Dean), Lea, Coverham (Covert), &c., or in the family names of Baldwin, Waldwin, Chivers, &c. To which may be added the circumstance that in most of the ancient churches adjoining the Forest there are portions of Early Norman, viz., Newnham, Staunton, English Bicknor, ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... upon the lawn it stands, So picturesque and pretty; Upreared by patient artist hands, Admired of all the city; The very arbor of my dream, A covert cool and airy, So leaf-embowered as to seem The ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... covert plans to get the fair lady out of the fort, and with this in view pressed Hurtado to pay him a visit and bring his wife with him. This the Spaniard was loath to do, for Miranda had told him of her fears, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... confounded. The chairman turned to me with a smile, in which a shade of covert annoyance was ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... France, for to him alone could the French government commit itself with the consciousness that the enormous confidences reposed in him would be honorably guarded." France, chiefly through the influence of Franklin, had given covert assistance to the colonies from the beginning of the struggle, but the French ministry hesitated to take a decisive step. Fear that the Americans would succumb, and leave France to bear the weight of British hostility, ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... very nearly resembling in flavour the common English filbert. We collected our hats full immediately, deposited them within the ravine, and returned for more. While we were busily employed in gathering these, a rustling in the bushes alarmed us, and we were upon the point of stealing back to our covert, when a large black bird of the bittern species strugglingly and slowly arose above the shrubs. I was so much startled that I could do nothing, but Peters had sufficient presence of mind to run up to it before it could make its escape, and seize it by the neck. Its struggles and screams were ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... that the severely elegant men and women on either hand watched her with a covert, chilly hostility. But there was something oddly simple in her acceptance of their attitude. Therein, no doubt, lay some of her power. She was herself. She didn't care. She was too strong. She had ruined people like that—people every ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... like a roe" (1 Cant. ii. 9). As a roe leaps and skips from bush to bush, from covert to covert, from hedge to hedge, so likewise does the Holy One—blessed be He!—pass from synagogue to synagogue, and from academy to academy, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... have given instances already. Agni says: "prop me on the propper for that is proper" (hita), etc, etc.[50] One of these examples of depraved superstition is of a more dangerous nature. The effect of the sacrifice is covert as well as overt. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... in water-pools that lay unsucked by the sun in shadowy stretches, the grim silence of the riders, and the wary eying of each covert as they passed, sent a thrill of excitement into Nick's heart too keen for any boy ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... William Yarrow, Dickinson, Thomas H. Benton, Abraham Walkowitz, Max Weber, Ben Benn, John Marin, Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, Marsden Hartley, Andrew Dasburg, William McFee, Man Ray, Walt Kuhn, John Covert, Morton Schamberg, Georgia O'Keeffe, Stuart Davis, Rex Slinkard. Added to these, the three modern photographers Alfred Stieglitz, Charles Sheeler, and Paul Strand must be included. Besides these indigenous names, shall ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... covert attack in this Epistle upon the moneyed interest represented by Walpole, and on the political corruption which he sanctioned and promoted. Yet Pope knew how to praise the great Whig statesman for his ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis

... is said to have replied to the royal bidding; and though the words were innocent enough, for the sword was part of the usual dress of a gentleman which he must necessarily resume when he laid aside the gown of the Chancellor, they were taken as conveying a covert threat. He was still determined to force on the king a peace with the States. But he looked forward to the dangers of the future with even greater anxiety than to those of the present. The Duke of York, the successor to the throne, had owned ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... John's covert glance was now for Madame Lannes. How would the matron who was cast in the antique mold of Rome take such news? But she veiled her eyes a little with her long lashes, and he could not catch ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... really harder in the day time; when, try as we might, we could not count on avoiding for our hiding place the scene of some labourer's toil or perhaps the covert of some child's play. We slept by turns with one always on guard. It was difficult indeed for the guard not to neglect his duty, so utterly weary were we. The lying position we needs must retain all day long aided that tendency, ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... lack of self-confidence. Whenever he felt sure of his social footing, his attitude toward women was bold and assured. But his social footing was a peculiarly uncertain thing for the reason that he was a Mexican. This meant that he faced in every social contact the possibility of a more or less covert prejudice against his blood, and that he faced it with an unduly proud and sensitive spirit concealed beneath a manner of aristocratic indifference. In the little southwestern town where he had lived all his life, ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson

... Following the trail farther, the hardy voyager wandered over "hills and valleys, dales and fields," through a countryside where trout, mink, otter, and muskrat swam in the brooks and pools; brant, black duck, and yellow-leg splashed in the marshes and fox, rabbit, woodcock, and partridge found covert in the thicket. Here and there was a farm, but the city, then numbering one hundred thousand persons, was far away. Then, in 1824, the first stretch of the Avenue, from Waverly Place to Thirteenth Street, was opened, and the northward march of the great thoroughfare began. Let us try ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... Robert says that you might peradventure, by the dedication of your book to me, mean a covert lecture, or sarcasm, who knows? Even if you did, the kindness of the personal address would make up for it. Who wouldn't bear both lecture and sarcasm from anyone who begins by speaking so? Therefore I am honoured and pleased and grateful all the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... it, of her brusque and ungracious reply when he had told her he was coming again to see her, of the sorry figure she had cut beside the girl he had brought, and of her fierce resentment at the girl's covert ridicule. She had shocked and disgusted Disston beyond doubt by the manner in which she had retaliated, yet she knew that in similar circumstances she would do the same again, for her first impulse nowadays was to strike back ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... had great provocation. Said I not rightly a peach-blossom? Nay, a peach rather, ripe and luscious. Watered not your mouth in that game of ball when the strain of her deep breathing and the violent turning and twisting of her lithe body burst the lacing of her corsage and half her fair bosom broke covert? What a pillow was that ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... of the race he could give the Sioux. All his arms except his knife were left behind the bush; for fleet-ness was to count in this venture. The game of life or death was a pretty one, to be enjoyed as he shot from tree to tree, or like a noiseless-hoofed deer made a long stretch of covert. He was alive through every blood drop. The dewy glory of dawn had never seemed so great. Cool as the Sioux whom he dodged, his woodsman's eye gathered all aspects of the strange forest. A detached rock, tall ...
— Marianson - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... once the coroner looked suddenly up from writing the depositions, regarding him with covert glances. Though he had all the appearance of a gentleman, yet there was about him a strange, almost imperceptible air of the adventurer. A close observer would have noticed that his clothes bore the cut of a foreign tailor—French or ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... opportunity desired by Aruns, who, from a covert in which he lay concealed, hurled a dart at the queen as, heedless of danger, she rode in pursuit of Chloreus. The weapon pierced her body ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke

... Duc d'Epernon, irritated by the persevering avoidance of M. de Soissons, and the covert sarcasms of Concini, resolved in his turn to absent himself, and to proceed to his estate at Angouleme, flattering himself that the Regent would be but too happy to recall him when she discovered how great a blank his departure must ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... latent in the heart of every man, making him a protector of every woman, however lonely or friendless she may be, recognizing her potential value to the race; protecting her against his own selfish desires, against the open and covert assaults of other men, against her own unwisdom, ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen

... not make genteel paupers of them, but let them pay a small rent and feel independent. I don't want the money, of course, and shall use it in keeping the houses tidy or helping other women in like case," said Rose, entirely ignoring her cousin's covert ridicule. ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... over the crew. They were strangely quiet, and when Trask or Locke or Marjorie came in sight, the men were full of covert looks and signals to each other with their hands for ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... quack which brought every duck out of his hiding, wide awake on the instant. At first they all bunched together at the farther side, looking straight at the bank where I lay. Probably they saw my feet, which were outside the covert as I lay full length. Then they drew gradually nearer till they were again within the fringe of water-grass. Some of them sat quite up on their tails by a vigorous use of their wings, and stretched ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... decorative purposes, the prints of Japan, the landscapes of the modern impressionists, the rugs of the East, or the blankets of the Arizona desert. Free me, then, from the reproach implied in that covert leer at my Early Sienese." Yes, we must, I think, exclude from the ranks of the true zealots all who in any plausible fashion utilise the objects of art they buy. Excess, the craving to possess what he apparently does not need, is the mark of your true collector. Now these ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather

... opposite her, quietly and respectfully, but his voice had an odd, covert sound, as if something of deeper significance were hidden beneath this story. Frau von Wallmoden looked up at him suddenly, and said, gazing ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... especially by reason of its casle. As we was wtin halfe a league of Tours by the carelesnese of the matelots and a litle pir of wind that rose we fell upon a fixt mill in the river, so that the boat ran a hazard of being broken to peices, but we wan of, only 3 or 4 dales in hir covert ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... too, inevitable ambition of young French authors; but after the failure of 'Guillery' at the Theatre Francaise and 'Gaetena' at the Odeon, renounced the theatre. Indeed, his power is in odd conceptions, in the covert laugh and humorous suggestion of the phrasing, rather than in plot or characterization. He will always be best known for the tales and novels in that thoroughly French style—clear, concise, and witty—which in 1878 elected him president of the Societe des Gens de Lettres, and in 1884 won ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... says in one of his poems addressed to his wife, "who changed the worldly air about us into divine nectar, a worthy offering to the spotless-white light of Olympus." To this loss, the poet has never reconciled himself. The sorrow finds expression in direct or covert strains in every work he has written. But its lasting monument was created soon after the child's death. A collection of poems, entitled The Grave, entirely devoted to his memory, is overflowing with an unique intensity ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... buried in his bodies dust. Thou more thy self, now thou art less confin'd, Art not concern'd in what is left behind; While we sustain the losse that thou art gone, Un-essenc'd in the separation; And he that weeps thy funerall, in one Is pious to the widdow'd nation. And under what (now) covert must I sing, Secure as if beneath a cherub's wing; When thou hast tane thy flight hence, and art nigh In place to some related hierarchie, Where a bright wreath of glories doth but set Upon thy head an equal coronet; And ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... young woman with two staring infants on her knee. In his sight, the poor picture was a more perfect work of art than any of Sir Joshua's baby-beauties, or Raphael's Madonnas, and the little story needed no better sequel than the young father's praises of his twins, the covert kiss he gave their mother when he turned as if to get a clearer light upon the face. Ashamed to show the tenderness that filled his honest heart, he hummed "Kingdom Coming," relit his cigar, and presently began to ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... "Yea, noble Queen," he answer'd, "and so late That I but come like you to see the hunt, Not join it." "Therefore wait with me," she said; "For on this little knoll, if anywhere, There is good chance that we shall hear the hounds: Here often they break covert at our feet." And while they listen'd for the distant hunt, And chiefly for the baying of Cavall, King Arthur's hound of deepest mouth, there rode Full slowly by a knight, lady, and dwarf; Whereof the dwarf lagg'd latest, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... fox-cub, and, if one cannot let slumbering morns lie, there is no jollier way of rousing them. But in our village we hunt the 8.52. Morning after morning, if you watch from a high place, you can see our bowlers and squash hats just above the hedgerows bobbing down to the covert side. That ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various

... as the views and aspects. The high part of the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet above the village, and is divided into a sheep-down, the high wood and a long hanging wood, called The Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasing, park-like spot, of about one mile by ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... their appearance, instead of tending to allay only went to confirm, his apprehensions; for, as he closely scanned the bearing and countenance of each, and marked the assured and determined look and covert smile which spoke of anticipated triumph, attended with an occasional expectant glance through the windows, he there read, with the instinctive sagacity sometimes seen in men of his cast of character, enough to convince him, with ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... in a competition, to see who is the greatest tippler, shout and sing 'Gaudeamus igitur.' That is why I don't allow students to carry violins under their top-coats to inns, under any circumstances. I break the violin in pieces, and have the top-coat cut into a covert-coat. A student with a top-coat! That's only for an army officer. Then, I cannot suffer anyone to wear sharp-pointed boots which are especially made for dancing; flat-toed boots are for honest men; no one must come to ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... and the other purple—set these fountains of perennial brightness like gems in lapis-lazuli. At a distance the same olives look hoary and soft—a veil of woven light or luminous haze. When the wind blows their branches all one way, they ripple like a sea of silver. But underneath their covert, in the shade, grey periwinkles wind among the snowy drift of allium. The narcissus sends its arrowy fragrance through the air, while, far and wide, red anemones burn like fire, with interchange of blue and lilac ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... now greatly dread stealing, as in my infancy, were I yet subject to the same inclinations. I had a proof of this at M. Malby's, when, though surrounded by a number of little things that I could easily have pilfered, and which appeared no temptation, I took it into my head to covert some white Arbois wine, some glasses of which I had drank at table, and thought delicious. It happened to be rather thick, and as I fancied myself an excellent finer of wine, I mentioned my skill, and this was accordingly trusted to my care, but in attempting to mend, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... morning, Derek and Sheila moved slowly up the Mallorings' well-swept drive. Their lips were set, as though they had spoken the last word before battle, and an old cock pheasant, running into the bushes close by, rose with a whir and skimmed out toward his covert, scared, perhaps, by something uncompromising in the footsteps ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... upon this subject must always be ruinous to morality, with all understandings that are not very powerful, i. e. with the majority, because it terminates naturally in a body of maxims a specious and covert self-interest. Whereas, when men meditate less, they are apt to act more from natural feeling, in which the natural goodness of the heart often interferes to neutralise or even to ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... the safe, snug, warm sheaf they dwelt, Till the long, cold night was gone, And softly and clear the sweet church bells Rang out on the Christmas dawn, When down from their covert, with fluttering wings, They flew to a resting-place, As the humble peasant passed slowly by, With a sorrowful, downcast face. "Homeless and friendless, alas! am I," They heard him sadly say, "For the sheriff," (he wept and wrung his hands) "Will ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann

... When arms were levied, and thy servants bidden About thee to withstand the doom of men Whose loyal angers flamed upon our side Against thee, from thy smooth-skinned she-wolf's den Her whelp and she sought covert unespied, But not from thee far off. Thou hast born them hither For refuge in this west that stands for thee Against our cause, whose very name should wither The hearts of them that hate it. Where is she? Hath she not heart to keep thy side? or thou, Dost thou think shame to stand beside her ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... addressed to friends in Jerusalem; and we were left reposing, literally reposing, on the eastern bank,—the English chatting happily; the Arabs smoking or sleeping under shade of trees; pigeons cooing among the thick covert, and a Jordan nightingale soothing us occasionally, with sometimes a hawk or an eagle darting along the sky; while the world-renowned ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... several lemons and a bottle of pickles. She took no notice whatever of the new arrival, but walked straight to her own room, and, placing her treasures upon her bed, covered them carefully with her bedclothes. At this covert act poor Mrs. Stone gasped despairingly, and, grasping Miss Preston's arm, said, in a most tragic whisper: "Marion, Marion, ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... assemblies that had brought me to comprehend the "ways that are dark and tricks that are vain," for which the average politician is "peculiar," the ruse would have succeeded. I remained at headquarters, enduring alike the open attacks of the venal press and the more covert opposition of the saloons and brothels, and, as vigilantly as I could, watched all legislative movements, taking much pains to keep the public mind excited through the columns of the Daily Oregonian and the weekly issues of the New Northwest. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... chiefs of that city. It is not impossible that he may erelong give us more trouble, as he will be assured of support from all the Affghan and Belooch tribes in his rear, who would gladly embrace the opportunity of striking a covert blow against the Feringhis; while the fidelity of the only Belooch chief who still retains his possessions in Scinde, Ali Moorad of Khyrpoor, is said to be at least doubtful. For the present, however, the British may be considered to be in undisturbed military possession of Scinde; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... mouth. He kicked her, and she, dropping it, retreated into a hedge. He then stood over the young one with a stick in his hand, not intending to kill it, but merely to see how its mother would proceed. She soon peeped from her covert, and made several feints to get at her charge, but was obliged to run into the hedge again, intimidated by the stick which the man flourished about. At last she summoned up all her resolution, and in spite of everything, after a great ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... Spring is here: now the Veronica, Our Koromiko, whitens on the cliff, The honey-sweet Manuka buds, and bursts In bloom, and the divine Convolvulus, Most fair and frail of all our forest flowers, Stars every covert, running riotous. O quiet valley, opening to the East, How far from this thy peacefulness am I! Ah me, how far! and far this stream of Life From thy clear creek fast falling ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... needless to say that Tommy Dudgeon made his perplexity a matter of prayer. He prayed and pondered, night and day; and, at length a thought came to him which seemed to point out the way of which he was in search. Might he not give "Cobbler" Horn some covert hint which would put him on the track of making the great discovery for himself? Surely some such thing, though difficult, might be done! He must indeed be cautious, and not by any means reveal his design. ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... you, I believe," said he with a covert smile, bringing out from under his cloak the mate to Fleda's fowl;—"mother said somethin' had run away with t'other one and she didn't know what to do with this one alone. Your ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... Mr. Palmer will also think so. Do you know," with a conscious laugh and forced blush, but with a covert glance at the girl, "I am becoming very much interested in that gentleman. I like the son, too, but chiefly for his father's sake. By the way, young Mr. Palmer is to be here for the ball on Monday evening; at least his ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... stranger, said something in compliment, she observed a vague, and as it were covert smile upon his countenance, which immediately and as if by sympathy conjured one to her own. The hero of the adventure, however, in a very grave tone replied to her compliment, at the same ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... frozen snow, down the valley, by field-paths, among leafless copses and wood-ends. The stream ran dark and cold, between its brambly banks; the snow lay pure and smooth on the high-sloping fields. It made a heart of whiteness in the covert, the trees all delicately outlined, the hazels weaving an intricate pattern. All perfectly and exquisitely beautiful. Sight after sight of subtle and mysterious beauty, vignette after vignette, picture after picture. If ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... which were done already; and he could not help lying and excusing himself when pressed upon points disagreeable to himself. The language of slaves is lies (I mean black slaves and white). The creature slinks away and hides with subterfuges, as a hunted animal runs to his covert at the sight of man, the tyrant and pursuer. Strange relics of feudality, and consequence of our ever-so-old social life! Our domestics (are they not men, too, and brethren?) are all hypocrites before us. They never speak ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... as theirs could be. And certain of the King's favourites wrote to Abeniaf also after the same manner, telling him that he would surely come; howbeit one of his favourites who had compassion upon the men of Valencia sent a covert message to warn them, saying, That the King of Zaragoza would build a tower in Alcudia de Tudela; the meaning of this was, that all the King said, was only to put them off. Abeniaf did not understand it, and sent to ask him what it was that he had said; but the other made him no reply. ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... such help as he could. Aware of his close connection with the local newspapers, she was glad to accept his offer to act as her press representative. She even offered to pay him, but he flatly declined, and the covert smile that accompanied the refusal ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow



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