Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Cur   /kər/   Listen
Cur

noun
1.
An inferior dog or one of mixed breed.  Synonyms: mongrel, mutt.
2.
A cowardly and despicable person.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Cur" Quotes from Famous Books



... fishes. A nice French loaf, and a delicious salmon in the suburbs of green peas—who wouldn't be a politician about that time? I have run for office—and at least half a dozen times. But, bless you, I never caught it. Some big, burly, brainless cur of a fellow was always ahead of me. Very queer in politics—the less the head the more one gets ahead. A head is little or nothing; but face, cheek, assurance—such is much; is every thing. What are politics but audacity? what professions of public good ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various

... publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with diverse stolne and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors, that expos'd them: even those are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them. Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: And what he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare

... same effect. 'As where (before) we were abus'd with diuerse stolne and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of incurious impostors that expos'd them: even those are now offer'd to your view cur'd and perfect in their limbes, and all the rest absolute in their numbers as he conceived them.' There is no doubt that the whole volume was printed from the acting versions in the possession of the manager of the company with which Shakespeare had been associated. But ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... cur, I have paid my debt to you!" and saying which, he kicked his fallen foe. Then he turned on his heels and said, as a ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... up!" Frank cried at last. "I'll bet these canyon walls never looked down on such a rotten little cur as you are in all their history. You gambling, indecent little gutter snipe, isn't there a clean spot ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... Dora alone, with strange perversity, persisted in ignoring his bad habits, his vulgar manners, his uselessness, his ugliness, and his impudence, and set me at defiance when I objected to him, by pressing him in her beautiful arms—happy cur that he was!—and laying her soft cheek against his villainous bristles, till in very disgust and jealousy I ceased to complain, and learned to submit quietly to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... cur!" he said, shaking the man until he resembled a manikin on wires. "Had you been sober last night, I'd have thrown you into the sea. Honorless dog! You wrote to Miss Chetwood. You insulted her, too. If you wish to die, speak to ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... he said; "I have done wrong, I have broken bounds, I am a cur. My gun ought to go to you, but when you take it away from me, you take all that I have in the world. The last shot which my mother's son will fire shall be through my own head.... What would you have? I did as you ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... Braxton Wyatt," he said, "an' I reckon he wuz the meanest, ornierest cur that ever lived. He liked to live on dirt, the dirtier the place he could find the better; he'd rather steal his food than get it honestly; he wuz sech a coward that he wuz afeard o' a rabbit, but ef your back wuz turned to him he'd nip you ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... doubt I should have struck him, too, if I had been in your place. I like you for standing up to him so bravely, and that's the reason I took your part, independently of my always trying to stop his bullying. Slodgers is a cur at heart, and I dare say you would lick him in the end if you could hold out long enough, although I wouldn't advise you to tackle him until you know how to use your fists better, if I am not by! I think ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... he ground out through his clenched teeth, "you know you can't bring out your gun. I know you. You poor cur! You thought you'd sell me up to the other side! I know your ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... corner, she met Abruptly, the horns of a cow That mooed, while the cur, At her heels, turned from her, And aimed at Miss Vain ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould

... where that he lay, They went to make the same assay.* *trial, experiment And when the queen it understood, And how the medicine was good, She pray'd that she might have the grains, To relieve him from the pains Which she and he had both endur'd. And to him went, and so him cur'd, That, within a little space, Lusty and fresh alive he was, And in good heal, and whole of speech, And laugh'd, and said, *"Gramercy, leach!"* *"Great thanks, For which the joy throughout the town my physician!"* So great was, that the belles' soun' Affray'd the people ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... you cur of a Mick," were, expurgated of unprintable blasphemy, the exact words of the semi-savage lord of the frontier, "but by the God that made us both I'll get you before another moon, dash dash you, and when I do I'll cut out your blackguard heart and eat it." Then bounding ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... of ages to come. As Ross looked at the new-created realistic image of her, he was amazed. "Why, I've always disliked her!" he cried. "I've been lying to myself. I am too low for words," he groaned. "Was there ever such a sneaking cur?" Yes, many a one, full as unconscious of his own qualities as he himself had been until that moment; nor could he find consolation in the fact that he had company, plenty of company, and it of the world's most ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... alia causa, cur attenuatae sint legiones,' says Vegetius. 'Magnus in illis labor est militandi, graviora arma, sera munera, severior disciplila. Quod vitantes plerique, in auxiliis festinant militiae sacramenta percipere, ubi et minor sudor, et maturiora sunt premia.' ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... was ready to squall at the sight of a cur, and run valorously away from a casually approaching cow; the field close beside it, where I rolled about in summer among the hay; the brook in which, despite of maid and mother, I waded by the hour; the garden where ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... English People are rendered provoking by his extraordinary language concerning his opponents. 'Numskull,' 'beast,' 'fool,' 'puppy,' 'knave,' 'ass,' 'mongrel-cur,' are but a few of the epithets employed. This is doubtless mere matter of pleading, a rule of the forum where controversies between scholars are conducted; but for that very reason it makes the pamphlets as provoking to an ordinary reader as an old bill ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... this time hath overslipp'd her thought, That she with painted images hath spent; Being from the feeling of her own grief brought By deep surmise of others' detriment: Losing her woes in shows of discontent. It easeth some, though none it ever cur'd, To think ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... if I did? A man as knows the use of an oar, may be trusted with one, even in a church, or an abbey. When your honour comes to hear what the dishes was, as Sir Wycherly's cook had never heard on, you'll think it as great a cur'osity as I do myself. If I had just leave to name 'em over, I think as both you gentlemen would look ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... a very odd way," said the other, "and a very bad way, to my taste and fancy. Look here, Flambeau, this Quinton—God receive his soul!—was perhaps a bit of a cur in some ways, but he really was an artist, with the pencil as well as the pen. His handwriting, though hard to read, was bold and beautiful. I can't prove what I say; I can't prove anything. But I tell you with the full force of conviction that he could never have cut ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... Surely you are not surprised? I have learned what love is these last few days, have learned what a real man is like. I know you to be what he called you, a cur and a coward. I should never have learned this but for you, and I am grateful, very grateful. It is useless to swear and to threaten me with your fists. You dare not strike me, because, were you to injure me, you would lose your money. You have tried to degrade me, and you have ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... discover not a way to sadness, Nearer than I have in me, our two sorrows Work like two eager Hawks, who shall get highest; How shall I lessen thine? for mine I fear Is easier known than cur'd. ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... windows broken, the shutters half shut, the way to the hall-door steps blocked up. They were forced to go round through the yards. Coach-houses and stables, grand ranges, now all dilapidated. Only one yelping cur in the great kennel. The back-door being ajar, the general pushed it open, and they went in, and on to the great kitchen, where they found in the midst of wood smoke one little old woman, whom they nearly scared out of her remaining senses. She ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... to their Conduct, and an Advantage to their Fame; But no discerning Judgment will consider it as ill Nature, in one Writer, to mark the Faults of another. A general Practice of that Kind wou'd be the highest Service to poetry. No Disease can be cur'd, till its Nature is examin'd; and the first likely Step towards correcting our Errors, is resolving to learn impartially, that we have ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill

... Laverick remarked. "He hasn't the nerve. He'll probably get drunk and blow his brains out. He's a broken-spirited cur, ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and carefully patrolled night and day by bands of dogs who recognize the limits of their domain and severely resent intrusion. In front of the Hungarian Crown a large dog, aided by a small yellow cur and a black spaniel mainly made up of ears and tail, maintained order. The afternoon quiet was generally disturbed about four o'clock by the advent of a strange canine, who, with that expression of extreme ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... he had misjudged Charnock in one respect, but saw that he had not. The fellow was a cur and would not have married Sadie if he had known about Helen's money. ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... Gladstonians who think Home Rule heralds the millennium, and who babble of brotherly love, should note the neat speech of good Father Haynes, who said, "We would, if we could, pelt them not only with dynamite, but with the lightnings of heaven and the fires of hell, till every British bulldog, whelp, and cur would be pulverised and made top-dressing for the soil." This is the feeling of the priests, and the people are under the priestly thumb. That this is so is proved by recent events in Dublin. None ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... won't be so very heavy if you take that course, and we will look after you when it is over. You, E., have been brought into this state through your miserable vices, drink, or whatever they may be. Cure yourself of the vices—we'll show you how—don't crown them by cutting your throat like a cur. You, F., have been afflicted with great sorrows. Well, those sorrows have some purpose and some meaning. There's always a dawn beyond the night; wait for that dawn; it will ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard

... and walked toward the stone station. The treacherous cur came running after me. "There's a side door," he whispered; "step in there behind the partition and take a look at her. She'll be done directly: she never stays more than fifteen minutes. Then you can use the telegraph at your ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... her in Philadelphia—at the station. She had smallpox. It was from her I got it. I was a coward—a cur. I left her to save myself. The money I had brought from home was nearly all gone. Ask her ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... thing about Ian, even though he is sometimes passionate and stubborn, and will probably have lots of trouble with himself by and by, there isn't a drop of sneaky cur blood in him, which is the only trait that need make a ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... Here, they know me as The Lodger. Will you have that? or will you have an appropriate nick-name? I come of a mixed breed; and I'm likely, after what has happened to me, to turn out a worthless fellow. Call me The Cur. Oh, you needn't start! that's as accurate a description of me as any other. What's ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins

... snapping eyes; there was a pitiless, contemptuous, murderous set to the lips and jaw; a fearful significance in the slowly-raising pistol hand and the pointing finger of the other. Limp as a wet rag, cowering like a lashed cur, terrified into speechlessness, Gleason dropped into the ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... must not give your mind to believe those things; people will say anything. The Character is here reckoned admirable, but most of the facts are trifles. It was first printed privately here; and then some bold cur ventured to do it publicly, and sold two thousand in two days: who the author is must remain uncertain. Do you pretend to know, impudence? How durst you think so? Pox on your Parliaments: the Archbishop has told ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... is true," I replied. "Is it any wonder, then, that I hate the Tresidders, is it any wonder that I should thrash them as I would thrash a yelping, biting cur?" ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... cast a single glance at the direction in which the three chiefs had disappeared, and then began to retrace his own steps. It was his purpose to arouse Albert and flee at once to a less dangerous region. But the fate of Dick and his brother rested at that moment with a mean, mangy, mongrel cur, such as have always been a part of Indian villages, a cur that had wandered farther from the village than usual that night upon some ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... husks and potatoe parings. He fared as people usually do, who from vanity assume a station they are not qualified to fill. In the gutter he would have lived in unnoticed enjoyment. On the walk he got kicked by every passenger and bitten by every cur, till hungry and bruised he was glad to return to his proper ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various

... and, therefore, insolent magisterial cur, who has recently made himself an object of unenviable notoriety, by asserting that "the Irish would swear anything," has shown himself to be as stupid as he is malignant. Would, for instance, the most hard-mouthed Irishman in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... not!" returned Gabriel. "When first I saw him some boys were misusing him and he seemed to be but a brown cur with a dingy, matted coat; and I could wish that he had turned out to be of no account, for the look in his eyes took hold upon my heart; but I rubbed him well in the brook, and now see the full, feathery tail and silky ears. He is a ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... incomparable! my perfect!—What are you doing? Frisking beside that ugly black cur! He's no companion for a dog of your breeding and degree. Away, you vulgar-looking brute." And running across the road, she seized hold of a pedlar's dog, who was having a great game of romps ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... bishop's cur of late Disclosed rebellions 'gainst the State; So frogs croaked Pharaoh to repentance, And lice delayed the fatal sentence: And Heaven can rain you at pleasure, By Gage, as soon as by a Caesar. Yet did our hero in these ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... why? there wasn't nothin' to be seen. It was 'orrid dark, I can tell ye. Jist one or two stars a-shinin', like half-a-dozen farden dips in a great church; they only made darkness wisible. I began to feel all over a cur'ous sort o' peculiar unaccountableness, which it ain't easy to explain, but is most oncommon disagreeable to feel. It wos very still, too—desperate still. The beatin' o' my own heart sounded quite loud, and I heer'd the tickin' o' my watch goin' like the click of a ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... This is his trick!" growled Seaman Kellogg hoarsely. "Many a time I've heard him brag that he'd get even for the punishments that were put upon him. And now he has gone and done it—-the worse than cur!" ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... in the Church of St. Bartholomew a candle of wax, value one penny, saying therewith five Paternosters, five Ave Marys, and five Credos. On the following Friday he was to offer a candle of the same price before the crucifix, standing barefooted, and one before the image of cur Lady of Grace. This penance accomplished he appeared again at the court and compounded for absolution, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... essential, though it added to the danger of the enterprise. By sheer good fortune, however, they blundered against the life-boat. A dog barked, and Elsie had a thrilling struggle with Joey, who was furious that this unlooked-for insolence should go unanswered. The sleepless cur who yelped ashore speedily subsided, but it appeared to be an age before Suarez moved again. He knew, better than his companions, how ready the Indians were to note such sentinel challenges. Had the alarm continued, ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... some farmer or other found his flock reduced in this way, until the whole neighbourhood was roused to excited indignation against the whole dog tribe. Suspicion fell in turn upon almost every poor cur of the neighbourhood, and many a poor canine innocent was done to death, some by drowning, others by poison, and more by shooting; until it seemed as if all the sheep and dogs of the countryside ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... Madam Tracy say if she knew it was her own son?" she soliloquized. "He is a young cur, but ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger

... will give it you for nothing. You are an infamous cur, my friend. Your name is Charles Blondet; you were steward in the household of De Langeac; twice have you bought the betrayal of the viscount, and never have you paid the money—it is shameful! You owe eighty thousand francs to one ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac

... the fierceness of these hunting bands from settlers and hunters; and once a friend of mine, an old backwoodsman, had a narrow escape from them. He had a dog, Grip, a big brindled cur, of whose prowess in killing "varmints" he was always bragging, calling him the best "lucififer" dog in all Canada. Lucififer, by the way, is a local name for the lynx on the upper St. John, where Grip and his ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long

... herding and all deeds of craftsmanship: and above these are men whom they call masters and lords who do nought, nay not so much as smithy their own edge-weapons, but linger out their days in their dwellings and out of their dwellings, lying about in the sun or the hall-cinders, like cur-dogs who have fallen away ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... "What a snarling, cross-bred cur you are! I should judge your own family will be the first to thank me for putting you under lock and key. Hell to live ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... mean about skipping out, Paul?" Bobolink exclaimed. "Oh! I hope now, you won't do anything like that. I'd feel dreadfully mean to sneak away. Always did hate to see a cur dog do that, with his tail ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... vanity came uppermost. As he neared the Red Lion he stopped suddenly, and the darkness seemed on fire against his cheeks. He would have to face curious eyes, he reflected. It was from the Red Lion he and Aird had started so grandly in the autumn. It would never do to come slinking back like a whipped cur; he must carry it off bravely in case the usual busybodies should be gathered round the bar. So with his coat flapping lordly on either side of him, his hands deep in his trousers pockets, and his hat on the back of his head, he drove at the swing-doors with an outshot chest, and entered ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... bound to champion every fighting cur who is getting the worst of it," said Mr. Cuthbert. "What has become of Mr. Farrant's favorite? I suppose he is fussing over it instead of studying ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... flames, We praise, we bless, we magnify your names. The slave is he that serves not; his the crime And shame, who hails not as the crown of Time That House wherein the all-envious world acclaims Such glory that the reflex of it shames All crowns bestowed of men for prose or rhyme. The serf, the cur, the sycophant is he Who feels no cringing motion twitch his knee When from a height too high for Shakespeare nods The wearer of a higher than Milton's crown. Stoop, Chaucer, stoop: Keats, Shelley, Burns, bow down: These have no part with ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... the Commandments," observed Lansing, "any ass can shatter them with his hind heels, so why should he? If he must be an ass, let him be an original ass—not a cur." ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... contemplating the doctrines of the Academy and the Portico, even as they appear in the transparent splendour of Cicero's incomparable diction, we have been tempted to mutter with the surly centurion in Persius, "Cur quis non prandeat hoc est?" What is the highest good, whether pain be an evil, whether all things be fated, whether we can be certain of anything, whether we can be certain that we are certain of nothing, whether a wise man can be unhappy, whether all departures from right ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... cur'ous an' strange-like," said the sailor slowly. "I'd no idee you mermaids were like ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum

... to marry him? What do you mean?" he said, not without irritation, and avoiding her gaze. "It is no affair of mine. I don't like the man, if that's what you mean. He is acting like—well, like the cur that he is, in putting on the screw as he is doing; but, of course, that is the way out of it, and the only way, and ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness To be diseas'd, ere that there was true needing. Thus policy in love, to anticipate The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd, And brought to medicine a healthful state Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd; But thence I learn and find the lesson true, Drugs poison him that so fell sick ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... of accounting for it. It sometimes seems as if the mere sight of happiness or success in others is the signal for its breaking out. As we have said, its two leading motives are cowardice and jealousy. Just as the cur will wait till the big dog has passed by, and then, slinking up behind, give a surreptitious snap at his heels, so the sneak, instead of standing face to face with his rival, and instead of entering into fair competition with him, creeps up unobserved ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... countenance, a pen behind his ear, and recommending his constrained customers in honeyed tones to be patient and orderly. Behind the substantial counter which was an impregnable fortification, was his popular son, Master Joseph; a short, ill-favoured cur, with a spirit of vulgar oppression and malicious mischief stamped on his visage. His black, greasy lank hair, his pug nose, his coarse red face, and his projecting tusks, contrasted with the mild and lengthened countenance of ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... Hobinall our pastor whilere, That once in a quarter our fleeces did sheer; To please us, his cur he kept under clog, And was ever after both shepherd and dog; For oblation to Pan, his custom was thus, He first gave a trifle, then offered up us; And through his false worship such power he did gain, As kept him on the mountain, and us on ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... Mytton!" he screamed, his voice shrill with passion. "Out of the way, I say; I will crop his ears, the cur!" ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... a cur," he said. And his voice shook a little. "I don't wonder you won't speak to me. But there are some things that can't be left unsaid. I'm going down now, at once, to tell ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... on: "hit's fa'r fer one as 'tis fer t'other; y'u can't fight a man fa'r 'n' squar' who'll shoot you in the back; a pore man can't fight money in the couhts; 'n' thar hain't no witnesses in the lorrel but leaves; 'n' dead men don't hev much to say. I know it all. Hit's cur'us, but it act'-ally looks like lots o' decent young folks hev got usen to the idee-thar's so much of it goin' on, 'n' thar's so much talk 'bout killin' 'n' layin' out in the lorrel. Reckon folks 'll git to ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.

... outside was a fiasco; the evening banquet was indefinitely postponed. Wimp had won; Grodman felt like a whipped cur. ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill

... anticipated, the captain came round a little a few hours after his insulting attack upon me. I think his temper frightened him when it had reference to me. Like others of his breed, he was a bit of a cur at the bottom. My character was a trifle beyond him; and he was ignorant enough to hate and fear what he could not understand. Be this as it may, he made some rough attempts at a rude kind of politeness when I went below to get some grog, and condescended to say that when I had been ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... only just time for a start and a response, 'M. Arture! And is it yourself?' before a howl of vituperation was heard—of abuse of all the ancestry of the cur of an infidel slave, the father of tardiness—and a savage-looking man appeared, brandishing a cudgel, with which he was about to belabour his unfortunate slave, when he was arrested by astonishment, and perhaps terror, at the goodly company of Marabouts. ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... this: I used t' work fer this party off 'n' on,—this party whose name I ain't a-mentionin'. He wuz in pol'tics too. Likewise run a quarry an' s'm'other things t' num'rous t' mention. 'Twas in the quarry I worked, mostly erbout 'lection time. Cur'ous, ain't it, whut good pay a feller'll git fer light work erbout 'lection time? Wall, this year I ain't hed proper treatment. This party 'lows money is tight, an' he's filled his quarry up with dagoes, damned dagoes." He paused ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... it's because)—Ver. 89. It must be observed that these words, commencing with "Sane, quia vero," in the original, are said by Phaedria not in answer to the words of Thais immediately preceding, but to her previous question, "Cur non recta introibas?" "Why didn't you come into the house at once?" and that they are spoken ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... cur yapped its agony of fear; the nearest hundred and odd mangy monsters of the gutter took up the chorus; within five seconds of the start there was the Puncher's mascot racing after one abominable scavenger, and after him in just as hot pursuit there raced the whole street-cleaning force of Adra—tongues ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... released me and springing on the curate, seized him by the collar. "Why, you unhanged cur? Why? Or better, say it's not true—say something, else by the Lord I'll kill ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... so sure of that, my fine cur,' said the man, taking hold of the cudgel he had brought with him, and ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... whoever disputes the right of the Romish Church to act entirely as she may, is a heretic. In this way he treated as contemptuously as he could the obscure German, whose theses, that 'bite like a cur,' as he expressed it, he only wished to dismiss with ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... excited by the stranger's appearance, there were only two dissenting voices. One was that of an impertinent cur, which, after snuffing at the heels of the glistening figure, put its tail between its legs, and skulked into its master's back-yard, vociferating an execrable howl. The other dissentient was a young child, who squalled at the fullest stretch of his lungs, and babbled some unintelligible nonsense ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... pasteboard boxes, long and flat, square and oblong, each bearing weird and cryptic pencilings on one end; cryptic, that, is to anyone except Mrs. Brewster and you who have owned an attic. Thus "H's Fshg Tckl" jabberwocked one long slim box. Another stunned you with "Cur Ted Slpg Pch." A cabalistic third hid its contents under "Slp Cov Pinky Rm." To say nothing of such curt yet intriguing fragments as "Blk Nt Drs" and "Sun Par Val." Once you had the code key they translated themselves simply enough into such homely items ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... to recount my reasons," he replied calmly, as he put her arms away. "But I might point out the snarling cur, Siptah, for one, and a few other ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... lordship rarely let the opportunity pass without exhibiting his own precise knowledge of that language. "My lords," said the Scottish advocate, Crosbie, at the bar of the House of Lords, "I have the honour to appear before your lordships as counsel for the Cur[)a]tors."—"Ugh," groaned the Westminster-Oxford law lord, softening his reproof by an allusion to his Scottish nationality, "Cur[a]tors, Mr. Crosbie, Cur[a]tors: I wish our countrymen would pay a little more attention to prosody."—"My lord," replied Mr. Crosbie, with delightful readiness ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... in this sweet night, which stirred in one such sentiment, that ghoulish cur was like the omnivorousness of Nature. And it came to me, how wonderful and queer was a world which embraced within it, not only this red gloating dog, fresh from his feast on the decaying flesh of lamb, but all those hundreds ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... thought you had only to deal with some helpless creature you could bully. Stir your fat carcass, you ugly cur! I'm in a hurry." ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... when he mixed it with Sharkey. Now the rag-chewing has begun over again, and Bob is doing the lordly contempt act just as Jeems did before the late unpleasantness. He has "retired"—wants Corbett to "go get er repertashun"—says "Corbett quit in the last go like er cowardly cur." It will take time to work the thing up, to resuscitate the old excitement, to set fools to betting wildly on their favorite; but when the pippin's ripe it will be pulled. There's not the slightest reason for ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... heard. He is making wigs for the actors. He is now our master, and does what he pleases with us. He is a good man himself, but his wife is Russian—and what a cur! She is robbing the people—simply awful! But here is the prison. Shall I drive up to the front? I think they don't admit ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... guiltless in the matter. It was that cur Atlee made the mischief. In a moment of weak trustfulness, I sent him over to Wales to assist my uncle in his correspondence. He, of course, got to know Lady Maude Bickerstaffe—by what arts he ingratiated himself into her confidence, I cannot say. Indeed, I had trusted ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... Urban Grandier shows how dangerous it was in the days of superstition to incur the displeasure of powerful men, and how easily the charge of necromancy could be used for the purpose of "removing" an obnoxious person. Grandier was cur of the Church of St. Peter at Loudun and canon of the Church of the Holy Cross. He was a pleasant companion, agreeable in conversation, and much admired by the fair sex. Indeed he wrote a book, Contra Caelibatum Clericorum, in which he strongly advocated the marriage of the clergy, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... has recorded some unforgettable types of those poor and notable lives, at once so humble and so lofty. He has described the village cur and the country doctor. But how we should have loved to encounter in his gallery, among so many living portraits, a picture of the university life of fifty years ago; and above all a picture of the small schoolmaster ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... knowledge of this matter, further than your belief resting upon the demeanour of this hound towards the Marquis of Montserrat. Surely the word of a knight and a prince should bear him out against the barking of a cur?" ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... "Three animals reach their worth in a year: a sheep, a cat, and a cur. This is a complement of the legal hamlet; nine buildings, one plough, one kiln, one churn, and one cat, one cock, one bull, ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... like giving a mongrel cur a court trial for sheep-killing! This perverted infant simply needs—dingbats!" He shouted the last word. He twisted the radical off his feet, stooped, and laid the victim across a knee that was as solid as a tree-trunk, and with the flat of a broad hand ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... together. I have no doubt he did; but since the woman had no business there, and if my theory were right, was concealed in Parrish's chambers at the time, she could not have seen you, except in the way I explained to her. Poor soul! I feel rather a cur for trapping her, but you were in a tight hole, Wigan, and I had to get ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... on, with absurd little Satan running in a circle about him. On the way they met the "funeral dog," who glanced inquiringly at Satan, shied from the mastiff, and trotted on. On the next block the old drunkard's yellow cur ran across the street, and after interchanging the compliments of the season, ran back after his staggering master. As they approached the railroad track a strange dog joined them, to whom Hugo paid no attention. At the crossing another new acquaintance bounded toward them. This one—a half-breed ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... nobody could be more civil and obsequious than the inhabitants of the village. They would take off their hats, and make the humblest bows you ever saw. If the children were rude, they were pretty certain to get their ears boxed; and as for the dogs, if a single cur in the pack presumed to yelp, his master instantly beat him with a club, and tied him up without any supper. This would have been all very well, only it proved that the villagers cared much about the ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... "You cur, you've squealed on me!" With his uninjured left hand he caught the other in his Oriental death grip, with all his consummate skill. Astonished at the sudden move, Shirley rose to his feet. But he ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... cried Max, with difficulty gulping down the lump that rose in his throat. What a cur he felt—he, the owner in the sight of these men, helpless to influence in the slightest degree the affairs of the great works called by his name. "But, lads—to my shame I say it—I am helpless. I am but just come from demanding of Monsieur ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... pipes after supper. "Two years ago I took a natcherlist out for a month, an' he was so tickled he said 'e'd send me a bunch o' books about bears an' wild things. He did! I read 'em. I laughed at first, an' then I got mad an' made a fire of 'em. Bears is cur'ous. There's a mighty lot of interestin' things to say about 'em without making a fool o' yo'rself. There ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood

... though he was without the power to make them continue in that shape for a longer period than that between sun and sun. He could make a wolf-dog step into the form of a handsome hunter; he could clothe an old cur with the skin of a very wise powwow. After his charm was spoken over a spaniel sneaking with his tail between his legs, you would see, in his stead, a white man doing the very same mean act of cowardice, with his ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... to hear me. I repeat the expression, and plainly in his own native tongue. I call him a cur of an Irishman." ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... adjective for us that expresses the midnight caterwaul—"ghastful." Bartholomew probably suffered from those two minor curses of humanity—the amorous cat and the wandering cur. But he has preserved for us a noble eulogy of the dog, and has a reference to the tale of the dog of Montargis, the standing example of canine ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele

... companies which you will, and ought to keep, where such conversations would be misplaced and ill-timed; your own good sense must distinguish the company and the time. You must trifle only with triflers; and be serious only with the serious, but dance to those who pipe. 'Cur in theatrum Cato severs venisti?' was justly said to an old man: how much more so would it be to one of your age? From the moment that you are dressed and go out, pocket all your knowledge with ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... Indian stoicism. He saw through the cracks in his hut the Indian fires, yet burning and smoking, and the dim figures still passing and repassing. There was also the faint hum to tell him that savage life did not yet sleep, and now and then a mongrel cur barked. But all things end in time, and after a while these noises ceased; even the cure barked no more, and the smoking ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... "He's a cur, Job!" he said strongly. "A snake in the grass! An oily scoundrel! I don't know how I know it, but I know it! A square man would have punched me the way I talked ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... Since the walks of life he trod He never wagged an unkind tale abroad, He never snubbed a nameless cur because Without a friend or credit card ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... "He's a cur'us boy," thought the good man. "Seems to have no more notion of religion than a Choctaw or a Hottentot. An yet he's been livin' in a Christian community all his life. I'm afeared he takes ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger

... see her. I'm going to tell her that I was a cur to write what I did to her the day I sailed. I—" He stopped short near the door, and faced his friend. His hands ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... "The cur!" he muttered, as he hurried forward, leaping over fallen blocks and fragments which showed still the ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... temptation it was for the muscular policeman to swing around and shake the miserable wretch as one would a cur! ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... there, to show whose head is hit, The bad would sentence and the good acquit. In sparing everybody none you spare: Rebukes most personal are least unfair. To fire at random if you still prefer, And swear at Dog but never kick a cur, Permit me yet one ultimate appeal To something that you understand and feel: Let thrift and vanity your heart persuade— You might be read if you would learn ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... butt into my affairs. He's a sneaking cur. I won't stand for it. I'll get even with him. I'll tell Miss Douglas about his family. She'll never look at him again after that. ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... 'creator', 'spectator', 'testator', 'coadjutor', 'assessor', to which in Walton's honour must be added 'Piscator' and 'Venator'. On 'curator' he who decides does so at his peril. On one occasion Eldon from the Bench corrected Erskine for saying 'c['u]r[)a]tor'. 'Cur[a]tor, Mr. Erskine, cur[a]tor.' 'I am glad', was the reply, 'to be set right by so eminent a sen[a]tor and so eloquent an or[a]tor as your Lordship.' Neither eminent lawyer knew much about it, but each was so far right that he stuck to ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt

... predictions of Burke were therefore justified. That once mighty intellect expended its last flickering powers in undignified gibes at the expense of Pitt and his regicide peace. Fate denied to him the privilege of seeing Malmesbury again expelled from France and whipped back "like a cur to his kennel." The great Irishman passed away, amidst inconceivable gloom, in his 68th year, at Beaconsfield (8th July 1797). In the view of Windham and other extreme Royalists, Burke was wholly right, and Pitt's weakness was the cause ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... bad song—in fact, the worst of all my songs—why, I dare say it wouldn't be a bad idea to sing it. By-the-bye, Talbot, you ought to learn to sing—at least, to hum tunes. I'll teach you how to whistle, if you like. I wonder if this Spanish cur likes music. I'll sing you a song, if you like, and I'll bet ten cents you never ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... replied Tom, in the most wretched tone he could assume; "I mean that my cousin loves another fellow, an Englishman, who has not a single penny which he can call his own, a wretched cur, a beggarly fortune-hunter. I fancy I can see him. He is one of those fellows who walk bearing all their fortunes on their backs. He was dressed in faultless evening dress; light kid gloves, patent leather boots, and a tall silk hat." (This was all false.) "If I am not mistaken, this fellow has ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel

... noble character in itself; disdain of many pleasures, a chief part of what is commonly called wisdom; disdain of the inevitable end, that finest trait of mankind; scorn of men's opinions, another element of virtue; and at the back of all, a conscience just like yours and mine, whining like a cur, swindling like a thimble-rigger, but still pointing (there or thereabout) to some conventional standard. Here were a cabinet portrait to which Hawthorne perhaps had done justice; and yet not Hawthorne either, for he was mildly minded, and it lay not in him to create ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... whom thou seest transformed by vice. The violent despoiler of other men's goods, enflamed with covetousness, surely resembles a wolf. A bold and restless spirit, ever wrangling in law-courts, is like some yelping cur. The secret schemer, taking pleasure in fraud and stealth, is own brother to the fox. The passionate man, phrenzied with rage, we might believe to be animated with the soul of a lion. The coward and runaway, afraid where ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius

... was ten thousand times too good to be his wife-torturing her with his cruelties, degrading her with his infidelities, subjecting her to the domination of his paramour, and finally striking her in the face like a coward and a cur. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... mighty cur'ous. A'most everyone goes somewhere by train nowadays—there's such a sight o' cheap 'scursions. I know a man wot got up i' the middle o' night, 'e did, an' more fool 'e!— an' off 'e goes by train down to seaside for the day—'e'd never seen the sea ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... a doll's sulky with a tiddy little pony no bigger than a dog. If I had children like that I'd give 'em all the chances goin' of breaking their neck, as they wouldn't be worth savin' for anythink but sausage meat. Well, this cur still kep' on at his larks, so soon as I got the team on the level,—it was at Sapling Sidin', runnin' into Ti-tree creek; I could hear the creek gurgling above the sound of the rain, and the white froth on the water I can see ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... husband should learn what happened in my room to-night, he would kill that man. What encouragement could I have given him? Innocence is never on its guard—but, [Drawing up.] the last I remember before I fell unconscious, he was crouching before me like a whipped cur! [Starts as she looks out of the window.] There is Mr. Thornton now—Ah! [Angrily.] No,—I must control my own indignation. I must keep him and Colonel Haverill from meeting before we leave Charleston. Edward Thornton would shoot my husband down without remorse. But poor Frank! ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... weight. Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear, From morn to eve his solitary task. Shaggy and lean and shrewd, with pointed ears And tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur, His dog attends him. Close behind his heel Now creeps he slow, and now with many a frisk, Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout; Then shakes his powdered coat and barks for joy. Heedless of all his pranks the sturdy churl ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... thou call to thy god on behalf of a tyrant and a coward," she said excitedly; "thou shouldst have seen that man cowering at my feet like a beaten dog. I could have spurned him with my foot, as I would a cur." ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... size, and encouraged by the nods and winks of the wooers who sat near, Irus was only too ready to take up the challenge. "Hark to the old starveling cur!" he shouted. "How glib of tongue he is, like any scolding hag! Get thee to thy fists then, since thou wilt have it so, and I will knock all thy teeth out, if thou hast any left"; and he thrust Odysseus with ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell

... with you, you little cur!' broke out Sir Henry, with a shout of laughter, and giving Alphonse a good kick which sent him flying off with a ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... usuries, and I have borne it with a patient shrug, for sufferance is the badge of all our tribe; and then you have called me unbeliever, cutthroat dog, and spit upon my Jewish garments, and spurned at me with your foot, as if I was a cur. Well, then, it now appears you need my help, and you come to me and say, 'Shylock, lend me moneys.' Has a dog money? Is it possible a cur should lend three thousand ducats? Shall I bend low and say, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... deaden This pain; then Roger and I will start. I wonder, has he such a lumpish, leaden, Aching thing, in place of a heart? He is sad sometimes, and would weep, if he could, No doubt, remembering things that were,— A virtuous kennel, with plenty of food, And himself a sober, respectable cur. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... language o'er, Bawd, hussy, drunkard, slattern, whore; On all the sex she vents her fury, Tries and condemns without a jury. At once the torrent of her words Alarmed cat, monkey, dogs, and birds: All join their forces to confound her; Puss spits, the monkey chatters round her; 30 The yelping cur her heels assaults; The magpie blabs out all her faults; Poll, in the uproar, from his cage, With this rebuke out-screamed her rage: 'A parrot is for talking prized, But prattling women are despised. She who attacks another's honour, Draws every living ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... I a cur last night?" cried Will eagerly. "Mike said there was a storm coming on, and that we'd better run in. Didn't I say, 'let's stop and shake out the fish,' as we ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... a common cur, though very uncommon to us, a black and white short-haired mongrel that we named "Watch." We always gave him a pan of milk in the evening just before we knelt in family worship, while daylight still ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... hysterics, however, there was no trace of a tear in her twinkling black eyes, although her fat little husband, who ambled meekly in her train, betrayed signs of great emotion, his red face all swollen from crying, and otherwise looking like a whipped cur. ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... preserve appearances. People in Rome will talk about this,—that we removed Lygia as a hostage. While they are talking, she will remain in Caesar's palace. Afterward she will be removed quietly to thy house, and that will be the end. Bronzebeard is a cowardly cur. He knows that his power is unlimited, and still he tries to give specious appearances to every act. Hast thou recovered to the degree of being able to philosophize a little? More than once have I thought, Why does crime, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz



Words linked to "Cur" :   mongrel, pie-dog, Canis familiaris, coward, pariah dog, mutt, pye-dog, caitiff, feist, fice, domestic dog, dog



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com