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Hunchback   /hˈəntʃbˌæk/   Listen
Hunchback

noun
1.
An abnormal backward curve to the vertebral column.  Synonyms: humpback, kyphosis.
2.
A person whose back is hunched because of abnormal curvature of the upper spine.  Synonyms: crookback, humpback.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Hunchback" Quotes from Famous Books



... distributed infinitely varied costumes to the performers. She would take one and array him like a king, with tiara, bodyguard, and crown complete; another she dressed like a slave; one was adorned with beauty, another got up as a ridiculous hunchback; there must be all kinds in the show. Often before the procession was over she made individuals exchange characters; they could not be allowed to keep the same to the end; Croesus must double parts and appear as slave and captive; Maeandrius, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... not a girl," the hunchback cheerfully went on. "She looked out at me, then threw herself back as if she did not want me to see who she was. Perhaps because she did not wish to spare me a penny, and was ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... blue, and soared Clear to that winking drop of liquid silver, The first exquisite star. Now the half-light Tidied away the dusty litter parching Among the cobbles, veiled in the colour of distance Shabby slates and brickwork mouldering, turn'd The hunchback houses into patient things Resting; and ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... emotional temperament longer to hide its agitation. Every one of them gave or loaned her a talisman—Tempest, a bit of rabbit's foot; Anstruther, a ring that had twice saved her from drowning (at least, it had been on her finger each time); Connemora, a hunchback's tooth on a faded velvet string; Pat, a penny which happened to be of the date of her birth year (the presence of the penny was regarded by all as a most encouraging sign); Eshwell loaned her a miniature silver bug he wore on his watch chain; Burlingham's contribution was a ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... the bride was fearfully ugly, infirm, or at least hunchback, perhaps idiotic, or, at all events, of ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... suspicion that she would accept the part of a salaried comedienne in the Socialist farce. Annoyed with himself, though he knew not why, he turned his gaze from her to the man who had brought in the supper, —a hunchback, who, notwithstanding his deformity, was powerfully built, and of a countenance which, marked as it was with the drawn pathetic look of long-continued physical suffering, was undeniably handsome. His large brown eyes, like those of a faithful dog, followed every movement of Lotys ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... Forbidden Place; Hot Tears, the hunchback; the story of Behold the Servant of the Priest, told by Malicious Gossip in the cave ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... hunchback in the roof, "that Priam, the Fault Finder, is holding the strata back, but wants the relief to come on three centuries hence, that I may spit ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... a great city, just like this city of New York, a poor little hunchback. He kept a second-hand book-stall, where he made barely enough money to keep body and soul together. He was very sad at times, because he knew scarce any one, and those that he did know did not love him. He had passed a sickly, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... their firearms. Still our position was very far from an agreeable one. My uncle, who had not spoken another word, firmly kept his seat, notwithstanding the efforts of the ruffian crew to pull him off his saddle. In the meantime, the hunchback, whose task, it seemed, was to secure me, came on, fixing his fierce little eyes on my pistol, which I fancied was pointed at ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... the hunchback was at the door, with the tin tobacco-box in his hand. On this occasion, not a single word was exchanged between the two. The squalid shopman, as the customer approached, rattled something significantly inside the box, and ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... observed two harelipped men, one hunchback, and an unusual number of persons with goitre. These natives drink water by the aid of a leaf folded into an improvised cup. Eight of the upper front teeth are cut. Suicide is not known. Their only weapon at present is the spear, which they buy very cheaply from the Malays, but formerly ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... must face the other side of the dilemma, and be Robert Skill in earnest. What would Robert Skill have done? How does a gentleman dispose of a dead body, honestly come by? He remembered the inimitable story of the hunchback; reviewed its course, and dismissed it for a worthless guide. It was impossible to prop a corpse on the corner of Tottenham Court Road without arousing fatal curiosity in the bosoms of the passers-by; as for lowering it down a London chimney, ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... with which murder was done, document and money in Klanner's room ... unmarried ... lives in rear room, first floor of tenement at ... you must get the evidence ... unto Caesar!.. ship chandler's store, junk shop ... Larens, Joe Larens, the hunchback ... Clarke's agent ... another murder to cover up their tracks ... must get Clarke through Hunchback Joe ... will squeal if he sees no way of escape ... Klanner's room at once ... Klanner with Kid Greer will be at Baldy Jack's at ten ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... conceal the defect by wearing embroidered shoes; but, alas! he cannot stand in them! He ludicrously compares him to Thersites wearing the armour of Achilles, tottering at every step; leering with his little eyes under his enormous helmet, and his hunchback raising the cuirass above his shoulders. Why do you buy so many books? You have no hair, and you purchase a comb; you are blind, and you will have a grand mirror; you are deaf, and you will have fine musical ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... was that funny old hunchback, a hundred years old at least, and stone-deaf, who took care of the gondola, spending the whole day, waiting for his master, washing the trim, graceful, blue-black boat, arranging the awning with the white cords and tassels, and polishing the little brass lions ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard

... out all the places where the men had landed, and, to make a long story short, stopped at last at the door of the prison of Beaucaire. He was admitted, looked at the prisoners, and picked out as the murderer a little hunchback, who had just been brought in for a small theft. The hunchback was taken to Lyons, and he was recognised on the way by the people at all the stages where he had stopped. At Lyons he was examined in the usual manner, and ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... them were just climbing up one side of the wagon: others had mounted to the top ledge of the body: and one, standing on the further edge, was in the very act of leaping down to the ground in front of him. He was bent double, to spring, with a stoop like a hunchback, and balanced himself with one hand held ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... Julia in "The Hunchback," "Dost thou like the picture, dearest?" As a natural historian, it is our task to hew to the line, and let the chips fall ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... small and weak, and a broad face, with a cloudy complexion like the sky before a storm, surmounted by a bald forehead, brought out still further the oddity of his conformation. His face seemed as though it belonged to a hunchback whose hunch was inside of him. One singularity of that pale and sour visage confirmed the impression of an invisible gobbosity; the nose, crooked and out of shape like those of many deformed persons, turned from right to left of the face instead of dividing it down the middle. ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... story of intense power and pathos. The hero is a hunchback (Punchinello), who wins the love of a beautiful young girl. Her sudden death, due indirectly to his jealousy, and the discovery that she had never faltered in her love for him, combine to unbalance his mind. The poetic style relieves the sadness of the story, and the reader is impressed with the ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... head-clerk of Maitre Latournelle, a notary at Havre in 1829. Born about 1804. The natural son of a Swedish sailor and a Demoiselle Jacmin of Honfleur. A hunchback. A type of intelligence and devotion. Entirely subservient to Modeste Mignon, whom he loved without hope; he aided, by many adroit methods, to bring about her marriage with Ernest de la Briere. Butscha decided that this union would make the young ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... a hunchback, who is present as a familiar clown or merrymaker, and dances and laughs to please the company, at the same time snapping his fingers. Two other illustrations of this action, the middle finger in one leaving ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... at him with mouth and eyes open. The other was neither tall nor red-faced, nor had he hair about his mouth, and, indeed, he had very little upon his head. He was very diminutive, and looked like a jorobado (hunchback); but, valgame Dios! such eyes, like wild cats', so sharp and full of malice. He spoke as good Spanish as I myself do, and yet he was no Spaniard. A Spaniard never looked like that man. He was dressed in a zamarra, with much silver and embroidery, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... to raise a monument to the memory of Beatrice immediately in front of the high altar, where her remains were buried. The sculptor whom he chose for this work was Cristoforo Solari, called Il Gobbo, or the hunchback, a surname which he had inherited from his father, who seems to have been deformed. The Solari were a race of sculptors, many of whom had been employed at the Certosa, while Cristoforo, who had settled in Venice about 1490, was recalled ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... to Democrates was all but a hunchback. His bare arms were grotesquely tattooed, clear sign that he was a Thracian. His eyes twinkled keenly, uneasily, as in token of an almost sinister intelligence. What he whispered to Democrates escaped the rest, but the latter began ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... his disagreeable freight and his uncongenial companions as soon as possible, he elbowed his way along the crowded sidewalk, looking for some of the neighbour boys. Mr. Wheeler was standing on the Farmer's Bank corner, towering a head above the throng, chaffing with a little hunchback who was setting up a shell-game. To avoid his father, Claude turned and went in to his brother's store. The two big show windows were full of country children, their mothers standing behind them to watch the parade. Bayliss was seated in the little glass cage where he did his writing and ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... frontiers of Tartary. He would have caused that hypocritical young prig Harry to make an experiment,—with the aid of a temporary building in the garden and a dummy,—demonstrating that you couldn't let a choked hunchback down an Eastern chimney with a cord, and leave him upright on the hearth ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... the armed escort made a circle round her with drawn knives; her camel knelt; a Persian carpet was laid across the quasi-clean stones; then Mustapha the Ethiopian made a sign, upon which Ameena, the little hunchback woman who loved her mistress more than her life and who had been transported with joy when she had laid the first-born, the son, in the ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... hip and his stabbing ray splashed full on the hunchback's chest—but harmlessly. That lustrous garment was an insulating armor; the traitorous guard should have been shriveled to a cinder at the contact. Antazzo laughed evilly as his own weapons loosed strange ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent

... figure at the waist, but loose from the shoulders down, and buttoned from throat to feet in front, with small buttons, like a cassock. From one of the upper buttonholes dangled a thin gold chain, supporting a bunch of small charms against the evil eye, a little coral horn, a tiny silver hunchback, a miniature gilt bell, and two or three coins of gold and silver, besides an Egyptian scarabee in a gold setting. The woman remained ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... dark-complexioned female clerk, with eyes shining calmly in her face, which had been slightly reddened by the cold, sat on her high wooden chair, quietly writing, apparently unruffled by the continuous rattle which came from the hunchback ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... happy idea of the wedding night in the water-closet is repeated from the tale of Nur-al-Din Ali Hasan (vol. i. 221), and the mishap of the Hunchback bridegroom. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... Sunday evening, and this little man had accompanied his parents to the cafe. The Caffe Greco at Siena is a most delightful institution; you get a capital demi-tasse for three sous, and an excellent ice for eight, and while you consume these easy luxuries you may buy from a little hunchback the local weekly periodical, the Vita Nuova, for three centimes (the two centimes left from your sou, if you are under the spell of this magical frugality, will do to give the waiter). My young friend was sitting on his father's knee and helping himself to the half of a strawberry-ice ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... would have given me happiness, but what is the use to speak of it? The hunchback, too, would be glad to get rid of his hump, but he cannot, because hump-backed he came from his mother's womb. My hump was caused by the abnormal state of civilization that brought me into the world. But straight or crooked, I must love, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz



Words linked to "Hunchback" :   cripple, crookback, spinal curvature



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