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Donkey   /dˈɑŋki/  /dˈɔŋki/   Listen
Donkey

noun
(pl. donkeys)
1.
The symbol of the Democratic Party; introduced in cartoons by Thomas Nast in 1874.
2.
Domestic beast of burden descended from the African wild ass; patient but stubborn.  Synonyms: domestic ass, Equus asinus.



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"Donkey" Quotes from Famous Books



... a queer twist of his under lip; and when Tom Jones, like a big donkey, went across the street to Jim Clancy's house, and began the whole thing over again, Pop wanted to know why that boy's cold was like the paper he held in his hand. We all gave it up, and Pop said because it was periodical. Ma and the girls ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... after a time Frank came to the conclusion that Fred Triddelfitz was in love with Louisa, dogged her footsteps, and wanted to be revenged on her for some reason only known to himself. It was a ridiculous affair altogether, but still when he remembered that Fred Triddelfitz was as full of tricks as a donkey's hide of gray hair, and that he might easily do something that would be of great annoyance to Louisa, Frank determined to keep watch, and not to let Fred out of his sight when he went ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... grandmother's house?" "Right away," said their father. And when they had reached the mountains he told them: "Wait here. I will drive into the village ahead of you, and tell grandmother that you are coming." And then he drove off with the donkey-cart. They waited and waited, but their father did not come. At last they decided that their father would not come back to fetch them, and that he had left them alone in the mountains. So they went further and further into the hills seeking a shelter for the night. Then they ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... hotel court-yard I heard the sound of Pablo's mouth-organ, and with this much laughter and some talk in English; and as I fairly caught sight of the merrymakers, I heard said, in most execrable Spanish, "Here's a medio for another tune, my boy; and if you'll make the donkey dance again to it, I'll ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... The donkey retreated, backing, step by step: and as Gunner Sobey stared a white blaze on the animal's face grew more ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... I could not find a word to express how much I loved her, I came out with, "Come and kiss me, you dear little donkey!" How she laughed! and how I laughed! You may be sure she told her papa the moment he came home, that now she was a dear little donkey, as well as a precious old toad. Does your mamma ever call you funny ...
— Baby Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... 'all hands to stations!' sometimes three and four times in a watch. Owners ain't overlib'ral in matter of crew nowadays. Think because there's a donkey-engine on deck and a riggin' to hoist your big sails, ye don't re'lly need men for'ard ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... you doing, sir, on monsieur's back? Have you taken him for a horse? Or a donkey? Off, sir, this moment, and make your humble apologies ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... I never heard of Balaam. He wasn't the man who fetches dead pheasants in the donkey-cart, was he? If so, I've seen him make the ass talk—with a thick stick. No? Well, never mind, I daresay I should not understand about him if you told me. Now ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... turned them, and also the kneading-room, oven, and store-room. Small bakeries may have had only hand-mills, like the one with which we saw the peasant in the Moretum grinding his corn; but the donkey was from quite early times associated with the business, as we know from the fact that at the festival of Vesta, the patron deity of all bakers, they were decorated ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... said Honeybird, "in a wee donkey carriage an' a furry cloak; but I'm feared she's got nuthin' with her, 'cause I walked ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick

... "castles in the air," built by the kindly hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happiness that, like the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the donkey's nose, seems always just within our reach, if only we will gallop fast enough, that makes us run so eagerly along the road ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome

... barren. The sides of the hills were covered with tall weeds, yellow from the blazing sun. Sometimes they met a mountaineer, either on foot or mounted on a little horse, or astride a donkey about as big as a dog. They all carried a loaded rifle slung across their backs, old rusty weapons, but redoubtable ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... had fallen across a ravine. But considering its size, the dragging power of a panther is much more remarkable, and it seems to carry off a bullock as easily as a tiger does. On one occasion a panther killed a donkey close to my bungalow, and carried it off, and had even attempted to jump up the bank of an old ditch with it, which was five or six feet high, but had failed in the attempt and abandoned the carcase. But why the panther did not ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... of the donkey mind lies in adopting a course inversely as the arguments urged, which, well considered, requires as great a mental force as the direct ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... Times Correspondent, U.S., we learned, last week, that somebody who had been "a Bull," was now "a Bear." What next will he be?—A donkey? Or did he begin with this, and will he ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various

... been many years in Africa, this was the first and the last ostrich that I have ever bagged. It was a very fine male, and the two thighs and legs were a very fair load for a strong donkey. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... recipients of grace in consequence of devotion at this particular chapel. The flight is conducted as leisurely as flights into Egypt invariably are, but has with it a something, I know not what—perhaps it is the donkey—which always reminds me of Hampstead Heath ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... he then strolled down to the Piazza Navona, where, while walking around, Caper suddenly stumbled over the smallest and most comical specimen of a donkey he had ever seen. The man who owned him, and who had brought in a load of vegetables on the donkey's back, offered to sell him very cheap. The temptation was great, and our animal artist bought him at once for five scudi, alias dollars; but with the understanding that the countryman ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... wooden ware, passed him; then a donkey bearing a pair of panniers filled with crockery or glass; then a sled driven over the bare cobblestones (the runners kept greased with a dripping oil rag so that it might run easily); and then, perhaps, a showy but clumsy family carriage, drawn by the brownest of Flanders horses, ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... thought the prospect a charming one; Mrs. Moss because life had been dull for her during the year she had taken charge of the old house; the little girls had heard rumors of various pets who were coming, and Ben, learning that a boy and a donkey were among them, resolved that nothing but the arrival of his father should tear him from this now ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various

... lugubrious galop, and a couple of valses and a quick-step Polka, which evidently owe their origin to the genius of the Conductor, the entertainment offered by Torsington-on-Sea must be further sought for from a donkey-chair, the donkey attached to which has many a long year ago lost what it ever possessed in the shape of "spirit," a cast-off Nigger Minstrel, with a concertina that is somewhat out of order, and a lovely "public-house" tenor, who ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various

... victims—Basil Dashwood let him into this, wonderfully painted and in a dress even more beautiful than Miriam's, that of a young dandy under Charles the Second: if you were not in the business you were one kind of donkey and if you were in the business you were another kind. Peter noted with a certain chagrin that Gabriel Nash had failed; he preferred to base his annoyance on that ground when the girl, after the remark just quoted from Dashwood, laughing and saying that at any rate the thing ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... a wax taper as big as himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an acquaintance that stood near him, poking him with his elbow; 'you couldn't pay for it, if you sold all your things at auction.' 'Hold your tongue, you donkey!' said the fellow,—but softly, so that Saint Christopher should not hear him,—'do you think I'm in earnest? If I once get my foot on dry ground, catch me giving him so ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... chooses but a few With power of pleasing to imbue; Where wisely leave it we, the mass, Unlike a certain fabled Ass, That thought to gain his master's blessing By jumping on him and caressing. "What!" said the Donkey in his heart; "Ought it to be that Puppy's part To lead his useless life In full companionship With master and his wife, While I must bear the whip? What doth the Cur a kiss to draw Forsooth, he only gives his paw! If that is all there needs to please, I'll do ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... "not if you do learn it. But many people never get so far, or only when too late. I shall be glad to hear that you are mistress of it and have given up reforming politics. The Spaniards have a proverb that smells of the stable, but applies to people like you and me: The man who washes his donkey's head, loses time ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... when he arrived, "it ain't me that knows when it's going to rain, it's my donkey. When it's going to be fair weather, he always carries his ears forward, so. When it's going to rain, he puts ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... tints, and drawn by a cow or a bullock that will trot almost as fast as a horse. All vehicles, however, are now called "gherrys" in India, no matter where they come from nor how they are built—the chariot of the viceroy as well as the little donkey cart of the ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... up in his coat and swooned, and came to and directed for four hours till Peroo, from the top of the crane, reported "All's well," and the plate swung home. There was no one like Peroo, serang, to lash, and guy, and hold to control the donkey-engines, to hoist a fallen locomotive craftily out of the borrow-pit into which it had tumbled; to strip, and dive, if need be, to see how the concrete blocks round the piers stood the scouring of Mother ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... And even as she frantically said this, Sally knew that she herself must control the situation. Thus early in her life she had learnt that for a girl of her type men, whatever her desire for any other state, must always be employed under her direction. Toby would obey. He might do the donkey-work; but in fact Sally must lead. It was her fate, the fate of the girl with her own ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... was attracted by a Moor who was riding along the street, sitting side-wise as was the wont of Algerines of the trading-class. What struck Foster particularly about this man and his donkey was that the latter was trotting very fast, although it was a very small animal, and the man on its back a very large one. He also observed that the donkey tossed its head and put back its ears as if it were suffering pain. ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... and rolls provided, and then smoked. The doctor lit a cigar. The red curtains over the port-holes shut out the fierce sun, leaving the cabin cool and dim. The shouting of the lightermen and officers mingled with the roar and scuttle of the donkey-engine. And O'Malley knew perfectly well that while the other moved about carelessly, playing with books and papers on his desk, he was all the time keeping him under ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... I feel in my bones that something is going to happen up there"—he pointed to the distant mountains, then added—"to me, at least. I feel as though I were about to bid myself good-by—if you know what I mean. I hope that donkey of ours isn't a psychic donkey, or, if he is, that he'll listen to reason and be content with his escorts ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... was mounted on a donkey, headed for the top, after having been informed by a guide that "the man and the beautiful lady" ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... lair, lay wagon loads of bones of the creatures, girls, women, men, boys, cows, and occasionally a donkey, which it ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... horses and donkeys and rode up to Cloud's Rest to see the glorious view over the whole Yosemite range. Our horses picked their way most carefully over the stones and water puddles. J. had a donkey who pretended that he was weak in all his four legs. When he went up the mountain his fore legs stumbled at every moment, inviting J. to get off and lead him, and when he came down the mountain his back legs gave way and he sat down, so that J. could not help getting off. The result ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... his lack of teeth probably—for he very good-naturedly set himself to work preparing supper for me. After a slice of cold ham, and a warm punch, to which my chilled condition gave a grateful flavor, I went to bed in a distant chamber in a most amiable mood, feeling satisfied that Jones was a donkey to bother himself ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... a poor little donkey on wheels. It had never wagged its tail, or tossed its head, or said, "Hee-haw!" or tasted a tender thistle. It always went about, anywhere that anyone pulled it, on four wooden wheels, carrying a foolish knight, who wore a large cocked hat and a long cloak, because ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford

... the Golden Vale, with the best part of the county town itself. Tipperary is a great butter centre. The people are ever driving to the butter factory, which seemed to be worked in the Brittany way. Donkey-carts driven by women, and bearing barrels of milk, abound on the Limerick Road. The land is so rich, grand meadows, and heavy dairy-ground, that the place prospered abundantly, and was by commercial men reckoned an excellent ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... a great villain, as I have reason to know; still, I think I can," she answered, "while the cabbage is in front of the donkey's nose—I mean until he has got all the money. Also, he has committed himself by taking some on account. But before we go further, the question is—does this lady play?" ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... Fortune standing before him, and emptying her gilded horns of plenty at his feet in the person of Madame Cardinal. He had always had a liking for the woman, and had promised her for a year past the necessary sum to buy a donkey and a little cart, so that she could carry on her business on a large scale, and go from Paris to the suburbs. Madame Cardinal, widow of a porter in the corn-market, had an only daughter, whose beauty Cerizet had heard of from some of the mother's cronies. Olympe Cardinal was about ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... another two-legged donkey passed by pushing another cart—or rather, holding it back, for he was coming slowly down the hill. Another Heir of all the ages—another Imperialist—a degraded, brutalized wretch, clad in filthy, stinking rags, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... and the avenues leading to it, are thronged with carts of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions, from the heavy lumbering waggon, with its four stout horses, to the jingling costermonger's cart, with its consumptive donkey. The pavement is already strewed with decayed cabbage-leaves, broken hay-bands, and all the indescribable litter of a vegetable market; men are shouting, carts backing, horses neighing, boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen expatiating on the excellence of their pastry, and donkeys braying. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... sugar-canes," though the article was black and blue. The water-carrier, with a full skin slung over his shoulder, shouted: "God's gift, limpid water!" A long bearded Copt cried: "O figs; O believers, figs!" and so on. When the crowd is dense in the narrow streets lined by the bazars, the donkey-boy shouts: "O woman, to the left!" or if some peddler of goods be in the way, he or she is designated by the article on sale, as: "O oranges, to the right!" or "O eggs, out of the way!" This, which sounds so odd, is meant in good faith, and answers the desired purpose. No one calls out in Arabic, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... Pedro's the Spanish for Pete," said Jerry, remembering a story he had read about a Spanish donkey. ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson

... 1901 the Kumhar was ranked with the impure castes, but his status is not really so low. Sir D. Ibbetson said of him: "He is a true village menial; his social standing is very low, far below that of the Lohar and not much above the Chamar. His association with that impure beast, the donkey, the animal sacred to Sitala, the smallpox goddess, pollutes him and also his readiness to carry manure and sweepings." As already seen there are in the Central Provinces Sungaria and Gadheria subcastes which keep donkeys ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... buffoon that travesties the travesty? Who is that old cripple alighted from his donkey-cart, who dispenses doggrel and grimaces in all the glory of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... noise!" he shouted; and the donkey stopped kicking the metal sheet and turned its head to look with surprise at the shaggy man. He switched the next donkey, and made him stop, and then the next, so that gradually the rattling of heels ceased and the awful noise subsided. The donkeys stood in a group ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... of opinion and speech in Persia, and six hundred years ago the poets Khayyam and Hafiz took full advantage of this in expressing their contempt for the 'meddling Moullas.' Not very long ago the donkey-boys in one of the great towns would on occasion reflect the popular feeling by the shout 'Br-r-r-o akhoond!' (Go on, priest!) when they saw a Moulla pattering along on his riding donkey. Biro is Persian for 'go on,' and, rolled and rattled ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon

... water of the little singing stream, though bitter winds had blown and all-enveloping sand had swirled about the palms which surrounded Jill's beautiful home in the oasis, of which the reins were gradually slipping into fingers skilled in driving anything from a four-in-hand to a donkey in a cart. ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... of a donkey braying in your face, denotes that you are about to be publicly insulted by a lewd and ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... slowly along the tow-path, advancing with difficulty. It was a woman dragging a donkey. The stubborn, stiff-jointed beast occasionally stretched out a leg in answer to its companion's efforts, and it proceeded thus, with outstretched neck and ears lying flat, so slowly that one could not tell when it would ever be ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... cocked hats, who found no occasion to exhibit their stern official side to the noisy, laughing, but well-behaved crowd. After strolling for awhile among the carts and people, Wilhelm had caught sight of a large and handsome donkey, had gone up to him and stroked him, and said a variety of friendly things ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... it is condensed, collected in a bottom chamber, and drawn off through the cock, B. A distiller of this size would make about thirty gallons of fresh water per day. Very frequently a distiller, such as is shown in the sketch, is mounted separately, and placed near the winch or donkey boiler, which supplies it with steam, the lower part, F, being then used as a filter. The diameter of E is from 15 in. to 18 in., the outer casing being either iron or copper. Another form of distiller is one like the above, but larger, and having a small ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... daily shows in Constantinople. The little bell of the donkey leading its string of laden camels through the narrow streets might be heard any hour, and the Shaykh in charge was almost invariably an Arab. So the Princess had seen many of the desert-born, and was familiar with their peculiarities; never, however, had chance brought a nobler specimen ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... he held each day, 'Neath humble roof of rushes green; And on a donkey riding gay, Through all his kingdom might be seen: A happy soul, and thinking well, His only guard was—sooth to tell— His dog! Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various

... good many years the basis of society has been the dollar. Only a few years ago all literary men were ostracized because they had no money; neither did they have a reading public. If any man produced a book he had to find a patron—some titled donkey, some lauded lubber, in whose honor he could print a few well-turned lies on the fly-leaf. If you wish to know the degradation of literature, read the dedication written by Lord Bacon to James I., in which he puts him beyond all kings, living and dead—beyond Caesar and Marcus ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... as impossible to lay down a hard-and-fast rule as to the age at which a girl may be allowed to mount a pony or donkey, as it is to control the spirits and daring of a foxhound puppy. Those who possess the sporting instinct and the desire to emulate the example of their hunting parents or friends, should certainly be encouraged and taught to ride as soon as they manifest ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... edge, but the rounded top of the native iron passes beneath the soil and breaks it up like the wave produced by the ram-bow of a vessel. The plough, when complete, does not exceed forty pounds in weight, and it is conveniently carried, together with the labourer, upon the same donkey, when travelling from a distance to the morning's work. European settlers in Cyprus should be cautious before superseding the native plough by the massive European pattern; there are certain soils ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... politics, I call that," he commented. And then he told of stopping in a so-called Republican wigwam at State and Sixteenth streets—a great, cheaply erected, unpainted wooden shack with seats, and of hearing himself bitterly denounced by the reigning orator. "I was tempted once to ask that donkey a few questions," he added, "but ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... our grateful eyes a small, rude synthesis of the great English social order. Passing out upon the highroad, we came to the common browsing-patch, the "village green" of the tales of our youth. Nothing was wanting; the shaggy, mouse-colored donkey, nosing the turf with his mild and huge proboscis, the geese, the old woman—the old woman, in person, with her red cloak and black bonnet, frilled about the face and double-frilled beside her decent, placid cheeks—the towering plowman with ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... shouted the man with the flower-laden donkey-cart; but it was Mary, his daughter, who did most of the selling. She stood on the edge of the pavement, a plant in each hand, and smiled at the passers-by, and few could resist the pretty picture she made. They would stop and admire the flowers even if they could ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... rightly the cause of her petulance, I was at first disposed to resent it; but, reflecting that a maiden is no more responsible for her tongue than a donkey for his heels in this season of life (but both must be for ever a-flying out at some one when parted from the object of their affections), I held my peace; and so we walked on in sullen silence for a space; then, turning suddenly upon me, she cries ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... wanted everything for his three francs—butter, meat, early fruit and early vegetables—and if she ventured to make an observation, if she hinted that you could not have everything in the market for three francs, he flew into a temper and treated her as a useless, wasteful woman, a confounded donkey whom the tradespeople were robbing. Moreover, he was always ready to threaten that he would take lodgings somewhere else. At the end of a month on certain mornings he had forgotten to deposit the three francs on the chest of drawers, and she had ventured to ask for ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... brother was telling me the other day, that he well remembered going with his brother in a hack to Smithfield, buying a young donkey there, and bringing it home with them in the coach; his brother laughing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various

... search. The story goes also that within men's memory two wandering sailors—Americanos, perhaps, but gringos of some sort for certain—talked over a gambling, good-for-nothing mozo, and the three stole a donkey to carry for them a bundle of dry sticks, a water-skin, and provisions enough to last a few days. Thus accompanied, and with revolvers at their belts, they had started to chop their way with machetes through the thorny scrub on the neck ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... perceived, the next offer was to lay by the box till it could be purchased, and the answer was, "Oh, well, if you will be so good as to do that." On quarter-day, before seven in the morning, the Princess appeared on her donkey ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... enjoying its midday siesta. But the striped brute only uttered a startled "Wough! Wough!" like a big dog and dashed away through the undergrowth. Another time they disturbed a red bear feeding on the carcase of a strange beast that seemed a mixture of goat, donkey and deer—Tashi called it a serao. And at a lower elevation they blundered on two black bears—not flesh-eaters these, yet more dangerous—grubbing for roots, and on another occasion saw one climbing a tree in ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... me to the little cottage where he lived by the Brathey, when Charles Lloyd and he were school-companions. Mrs. Nicholson, of Ambleside, told me of a donkey-race which they had from the market-cross to the end of the village and back, and how Hartley came in last, and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... the world, Muriel, and you know that quite well. I was a little donkey. I had only just put my hair up and I thought it a fine thing to be engaged. Not that that lasted long. Dear old Jim soon repented, and I don't ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... boyish folly, or madness it might well be termed, in venturing, with none to help, and nothing to compel me, into that accursed valley. Once let me get out, thinks I, and if ever I get in again, without being cast in by neck and by crop, I will give our new-born donkey leave to set up ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... not open, but smoke was coming up thick and fast all around it. A half-dozen men were around a donkey-engine that stood a little forward of the hatch, and others were pulling at hose. The captain was rushing here and there, giving orders. I did not hear anything he said. No one said anything to us. Rectus asked one ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton

... pleased. He said horse, because he did not want to ride a donkey, and he had never seen any one ride ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit

... can draw in this neighbourhood; but in London the loads are bigger and the vehicles heavier; while in more hilly parts (as you may see any day in the West Country) two horses are put before a cart and load which the London carter would deem hardly too much for a costermonger's donkey. ...
— Progress and History • Various

... and simple, priest and laic, merchant and artisan, lady and peasant-girl, some hopeful of ransom, others despairing ever to be free again. The old and feeble were set to sell water; laden with chains, they led a donkey about the streets and doled out water from the skin upon his back; and an evil day it was when the poor captive did not bring home to his master the stipulated sum. Others took the bread to the bake-house and fetched it back in haste, for the Moors love hot loaves. Some cleaned the house, ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... men and women played games such as pinning on the donkey's tail, going to Jerusalem, menagerie, and various other parlor games. In former days, these social gatherings played some games that called for kissing by the young ladies and gentlemen, but Miss Nermal had opposed such games so vigorously ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs

... "What is Buddha?" "You are Hwui Chao," replied the master. The same question was put to Sheu Shan (Shu-zan), Chi Man (Chi-mon), and Teu Tsz (To-shi), the first of whom answered: "A bride mounts on a donkey and her mother-in-law drives it;" and the second: "He goes barefooted, his sandals being worn out;" while the third rose from his chair and stood still without saying a word. Chwen Hih (Fu-kiu) explains ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... yards from the chateaux a group of pretty children chasing a poor donkey around a little island attracted ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... the girl was willing enough to spend half an hour or more in speech with me. Of course, I fell in love with her, like the donkey that I was, and worshipped the rotting boards of the Skull and Spectacles because she was pleased to walk upon them. Her speech was all of strange lands, and it fed my frenzy as dry wood feeds a ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... company of territorial infantry who had been eight days in the trenches and were now to have two days of repose at the rear. Plodding along the same road was a refugee mother and several little children in a donkey cart; behind the cart, attached by a rope, trundled a baby buggy with the youngest child inside. The buggy suddenly struck a rut in the road and overturned, spilling the baby into the mud. Terrible wails arose, and the soldiers stiffened to attention. Then, seeing the accident, the entire ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... claimed, at the club, the other day, that you were the biggest donkey in existence, and I denied it. I was wrong, old man, I was wrong, and I apologize. ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs

... horrible sort of humanity about them. Hovering among these carcases was every kind of water-side plunderer, pulling the horns out, getting the hides off, chopping the hoofs with poleaxes, etc. etc., attended by no end of donkey carts, and spectral horses with scraggy necks, galloping wildly up and down as if there were something maddening in the stench. I never beheld ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... they wear large slippers, in which they shuffle along with a gait very little less awkward than the toddle of a cramp-footed lady in China. If they are ungraceful on foot, matters are not much better when they ride. Sitting astride a donkey (for they do not use side-saddles), a Turkish lady is about as comical an object as you could wish to behold, though I have no doubt she is quite unconscious of looking anything but dignified, as she presses on to ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... for returning good for evil Miss Barton had a donkey, and this donkey, whose proper abode was the paddock, sometimes broke bounds, and regaled itself on the plants in the young gentlemen's gardens, in a manner highly provoking to those who had any taste ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... really revealed Stevenson as the narrator, his path lay clear before him. But even his friends were then divided in opinion; some preferring his essays, and his two books of sentimental travel, "An Inland Voyage" (1878) and "Travels with a Donkey" (1879). These were, indeed, admirable in style, humour, description, and incident, but the creative imagination in the stories of Villon's night and of the Sieur de Maletroit's door, the painting of character, the romance, the vividness, were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... obliged to allude to a woman in conversation, you must use the word "ajellak Allah," "May God elevate you" above the contamination of this subject! You would be expected to use the same expression in referring to a donkey, a dog, a shoe, a swine or anything vile. It is somewhat like the Irish expression, "Saving your presence, sir," when alluding to ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... Malise blew like a miasma and cramped him like a church-pew: then Adventure beaconed from far off, and his heart leapt to greet the light. He left at dawn, and alone. Roy, his page, had begged as hard as he dared for pillion or a donkey. He was his master's only friend, but Prosper's temper needed no props. "Roy," said he, "what I do I will do alone, nor will I imperil any man's bread. The bread of my brother Malise may be a trifle ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... donkey-engine was started, forward. A small cable was run through a block, and, fastened by their halters around their horns, one after the other the steers, now bellowing in great terror, their eyes popping for fear—were hoisted up in the air, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... succumb absurdly to the blandishments of the old-time male politicians, and so enroll themselves in the great political parties. A woman who joins one of these parties simply becomes an imitation man, which is to say, a donkey. Thereafter she is nothing but an obscure cog in an ancient and creaking machine, the sole intelligible purpose of which is to maintain a horde of scoundrels in public office. Her vote is instantly set off by the vote of some sister who joins the other camorra. Parenthetically, I may add that ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... shepherdesses as though she had invented them. And yet she saw them every day, and they may be seen still by any wanderer in those lanes, and at every turn, Fanchons, Maries, Nanons, as she described them, tending their flock of from five to a dozen sheep, or a few geese, a goat and a donkey, all day long between the tall hedgerows, or on the common, spinning the while, or possibly dreaming. A certain refinement of cast distinguishes the type. Eugene Delacroix, in a letter describing a village festival at Nohant, remarks that if positive beauty ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... Willie? Tha seems to say a lot, but tha goes round it. Tha'rt like a donkey on a gin. Tha ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence

... Between the thickets the boggy ground was everywhere covered with great tussocks of last year's dead and faded marsh grass—a wet, rough, lonely place where a lover of solitude need have no fear of being intruded on by a being of his own species, or even a wandering moorland donkey. On arriving at the pond I was surprised and delighted to find half the surface covered with a thick growth of bog-bean just coming into flower. The quaint three-lobed leaves, shaped like a grebe's foot, ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... have been chiefly known to us since the time of our taking occupation of Aden, whither many of them resort with their wives and families to carry on trade, or do the more menial services of porterage and donkey-driving. They are at once easily recognised by the overland traveller by their singular appearance and boisterous manner, as well as by their cheating and lying propensities, for which they are peculiarly notorious; indeed, success in fraud is more agreeable ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... example, was his own miller. There are still standing the mills, with the upper stone—a hollow cylinder with a pinched waist—capable of revolving upon the under stone and letting the flour drop into the rim below. Into the holes in the middle of the upper or "donkey" stone, and across the top, were fixed wooden bars, which were either pushed by men or drawn by asses yoked to them. The oven is still in place, and, charred as they are, we are quite familiar with the round flat loaves shaped and divided like a large "cross" bun. The dough was kneaded ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... often employed against me, whereas humor is always an ally. It never points an impertinent finger into my defects. Humorous persons do not sit like explosives on a fuse. They are safe and easy comrades. But a wit's tongue is as sharp as a donkey driver's stick. I may gallop the faster for its prodding, yet the touch behind is too ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... for, all unseen by them, a company of ministering angels wait upon them. A tall one in the rear takes care of the donkey. Another little creature peeps from the thicket beside Mary. Four more circle overhead among the branches of the trees, borne upon little clouds which they have brought with them from the upper regions. Their wind-blown ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... unchanged. A garden of quite a good many yards lay behind the house; it contained no potatoes or anything useful, only long, very green grass, and a may tree, and a witch dancing. The extraordinary music to which she was dancing was partly the braying of a neighbouring donkey, and partly her own erratic singing. She danced, as you may imagine, in a very far from grown-up way, rather like a baby that has thought of a new funny way of annoying its Nana; and she sang, too, like a child that inadvertently bursts into ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson

... the tail again; exactly the same story is told by the Chinese Pliny, Ma Twan-lin. Marco's statements as to size do not surpass those of the admirable Kampfer: "In size they so much surpass the common sheep that it is not unusual to see them as tall as a donkey, whilst all are much more than three feet; and as to the tail I shall not exceed the truth, though I may exceed belief, if I say that it sometimes reaches 40 lbs. in weight." Captain Hutton was assured by an Afghan sheep-master that tails had occurred in his flocks weighing 12 Tabriz ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... the donkey, turn in and be our guest! Your donkey—Vesta's darling—is weary; let him rest. In every tree the locusts their shrilling still renew, And cool beneath the brambles the lizard lies perdu. So test our summer-tankards, deep ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... old Swiss, and the donkey's bray died off into a sobbing moan. As this was ended, the old man jodelled again, apparently without result; but soon after there was a snort, and a peculiar-looking animal came trotting down from the mountain, whisking its long tail from ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... re-examined as to the minutest details of the matter. The whole country-side was placarded with huge bills, offering 100 pounds reward for the capture of the criminal dead or alive. While the vigilance of the watchers was such that in a single week they bagged a donkey, an old woman, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... again my Lord Cardinal's fool was a privileged person, and no one laid a hand on him, though his blood being up, he would, spite of his gay attire, have enjoyed a fight on equal terms. His quadruped donkey was brought up to him amid general applause, but when he looked round for Ambrose, the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... Forward was a rusted-out donkey engine, which we took to pieces and put together again. It was no mean job, for all the running parts had to be cleaned smooth, and with the exception of a rudimentary knowledge on the part of Pulz and Perdosa, we were ignorant. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... once more and hired himself to a cattle-keeper, who gave him a donkey for his trouble. Although Jack was very strong, he found some difficulty in hoisting the donkey on his shoulders, but at last he accomplished it and began walking slowly home with his prize. Now it happened that in the course of ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... happy as a king may be, rode a young man on a May morning, singing to himself a wailing, winding chant in the minor which, as it had no end, may well have had no beginning. He only paused in it to look before him between his donkey's ears; and then—"Arre, burra, hijo de perra!"—he would drive his heels into the animal's rump. In a few minutes the song went spearing aloft again .... ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... approaching. And peering forward through the folds of the curtains, she beheld, amidst a slowly-advancing crowd, a meanly clad, simple looking country youth wearing a ragged broad-brim, and mounted on an unsightly, donkey-like beast, whose long tail and mane were stuck full of briers, and whose hair, lying in every direction, seemed besmeared with mange and dirt; all combining to give both horse and rider a most ungainly and poverty-struck appearance. The fellow was trying to peddle apples, which he ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... her head between her arms, and sobbed as if her heart would break. What a precious triple donkey I had made of myself! But I was about to break my record. I went over and put my ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... most novel and interesting sights which attracts the traveller's attention when he first arrives in Egypt is the syce running before the horses as they go through the narrow, closely packed streets. How the crowd scatters, and the donkey-boys hustle their meek property out of the way as one of those runners comes bounding along, shouting, in the strange Arabic tongue, "Clear the way!" The sun shines upon his velvet vest, glittering with its spangled trimmings, the breeze fills the large floating ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... together for a walk in the jungle, and there found a washerman's Donkey that had strayed away from its owner, and a great big kettle (such as washermen boil clothes in), which the Donkey ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... compliments which were paid me, and over those who whispered round me, without paying them to me. And you are proud of them, you make a parade of them, you take them out for drives in your break in the Bois de Boulogne, and you give them donkey rides at Montmorency. You take them to theatrical matinees so that you may be seen in the midst of them, so that people may say: 'What a kind father,' and that it may ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... further delay we began to scramble up the steep embankment, and clamber over the stone-wall of the bridge into the road. My mind was full of other things, but I remember still the number of people assembled on the bridge, and how a man was standing up in his donkey-cart to view the scene. It was Saturday, and there were quantities of village school-boys sitting astride on the low wall, or perched on adjacent hurdles, evidently enjoying the spectacle, jostling, bawling, eating oranges, and throwing the ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... landing, and as they drove to the hotel on the Grand Square, Kitty fairly gave herself up to staring about the streets. Here came a file of tall camels laden with merchandise, stalking along with silent tread; there rode a fat Turk on a very small donkey; then followed several ladies riding upon donkeys, and each wearing the invariable street costume of Egyptian ladies—a black silk mantle, with a white muslin face-veil which conceals all the features except the eyes. Kitty admired the Syce men running before the carriages to clear the way, and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... winter moon was walking the untroubled sea. Long ruled lines of silver showed where a ripple of the rising tide was turning over the mud-banks. The wind had dropped, and in the intense stillness they could hear a donkey cropping the frosty grass many yards away. A faint beating, like that of a muffled drum, came ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... impunity, I was tempted one day to follow up a most romantic glen in search of a sketch, when I came upon a remarkably handsome peasant girl, driving a donkey before her loaded with wood. My sudden appearance on the narrow path made the animal shy against a projecting piece of rock, off which he rebounded to the edge of the path, which, giving way, precipitated him and his load down the ravine. He was brought up unhurt against a bush ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... He was a donkey, and we called him Rough. He belonged to Gerald and me. We didn't keep him for his useful qualities, and we certainly didn't keep him for his moral qualities; and I don't know what we did keep him for, ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... broad, and so filled with vehicles of all kinds that he could not see the hedges. The noise and crowd and dust were very great; and to Melchior all seemed delightfully exciting. There was every sort of conveyance, from the grandest coach to the humblest donkey-cart; and they seemed to have enough to do to escape being run over. Among all the gay people there were many whom he knew; and a very nice thing it seemed to be to drive among all the grandees, and to show his handsome face at the window, ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... call it. He was to bring the deed of sale of the mill out with him for Holmes. The next day it was to be signed. Holmes saw him at last lumbering across the prairie, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. Summer or winter, he contrived to be always hot. There was a cart drawn by an old donkey coming along beside him. Knowles was talking to the driver. The old man clapped his hands as stage-coachmen do, and drew in long draughts of air, as if there were keen life and promise in every breath. They came up at last, the cart empty, and drying for the day's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... acumen, Herr Maimon," he said. "Of course you still suffer from the Talmudic method or rather want of method. But you have a real insight into metaphysical problems. And yet you have only read Wolff! You are evidently not a Chamor nose Sefarim (a donkey bearing books)." He used the Hebrew proverb to make the young Pole feel at home, and a half smile hovered around his sensitive lips. Even his German took on a winning touch of jargon in vocabulary and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... It is exasperating when a sister can't enter into the spirit of the thing better than that. Who ever heard of a sentry being told, on challenging, 'not to be a donkey'? 'My orders are to fire on all ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... door of the tavern was standing a negro, who, at sight of Ralph, respectfully removed his cap with one hand, while the other arm leaned on the neck of a donkey about three feet high, which had borne the stalwart fellow, as such animals ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... die of laughing," exclaimed Ben, pausing out of breath, and sitting down on a stone, "what a donkey he is, to be sure, to think there are such things as ghosts. I'd like to be by ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... manner. He who would know the beauties of the hills must become acquainted with them personally and on foot. Anyone can enjoy the lazy luxury of the cozy precincts of an upholstered, porter-served car. He may travel horseback or donkey-back, if he cares to visit only where such sure-footed animals can go. However, when I want to see the stately things among the unchiseled palaces and temples where Nature pays homage in the courts of the Divine Architect, ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan

... possible if the predicate is not incompatible with the subject, as that Socrates sits; and absolutely impossible when the predicate is altogether incompatible with the subject, as, for instance, that a man is a donkey. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... hasty breakfast in the kitchen. The early hour at which hounds then met may account for this; and probably the custom began, if it did not end, when they were boys; for they hunted at an early age, in a scrambling sort of way, upon any pony or donkey that they could procure, or, in default of such luxuries, on foot. I have been told that Sir Francis Austen, when seven years old, bought on his own account, it must be supposed with his father's permission, a pony ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh

... difficulty—creatures of one kind or another do not lie abed late. Our Sabine Farm was surrounded by others and there was a neighborhood hymn to the dawn that it took us some time to really enjoy—if we ever did. Sopranos—roosters; altos—pigeons, and ducks; tenors—goats; bassos—cows, and one donkey. There was nothing missing to make a full, rich volume of sound. Of course there is no place where it is so difficult to get a long, refreshing night's sleep as ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... Washerman. There is no such person as a washerwoman amongst the Hindoos. Men do the washing in India, and their manner of doing it is very different from the English mode. Instead of using wash-tubs, etcetera, etcetera, as an English washerwoman does, the Indian washerman loads a donkey or two with the dirty clothes, takes them to a tank of good clean water, and there, in the open air, he performs all his purifying operations. Close to the water's edge there is placed a sloping piece of wood, or a large flat ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson

... white, a goodly band Of cows and calves came nigh; And Mr. Donkey said that he Would cowslips ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot

... generally who fall in love at first sight have been in love before. At least such was Romeo's case. And certainly it was not Alec's. Yet I must confess, if he had talked stupidly before, he talked worse now; and at length went home with the conviction that he had made a great donkey ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... "Donkey!" ejaculated Debby, innocently completing his sentence for him. "So we are. I had forgotten. I'll take one packet, please, Miss Babbs; and I'd like lupins, please, they ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... so very new, And, no doubt, has been told to you, But Donkey went to school to play, And now he ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood

... by a hedge of woodbines. Opening a gate at one corner of the garden he led the way to a large shed, which stood partly behind the cottage, which he said was his stable; thereupon he dismounted and led his donkey into the shed, which was without stalls, but had a long rack and manger. On one side he tied his donkey, after taking off her caparisons, and I followed his example, tying my horse at the other side with a rope halter ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow



Words linked to "Donkey" :   genus Equus, moke, emblem, Equus, allegory, burro, ass



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