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Mastiff   /mˈæstəf/   Listen
Mastiff

noun
(pl. mastiffs. mastives is irregular and unusual)
1.
An old breed of powerful deep-chested smooth-coated dog used chiefly as a watchdog and guard dog.



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"Mastiff" Quotes from Famous Books



... the cabin, whining and snuffing the air as if they yearned for human blood. They were gaunt, fierce-looking creatures, and in the winter-time their hunger made them so bold that they would come up to the door and scratch against it. The barking of her mastiff would soon drive the cowardly beasts away but only a few rods, to the edge of the clearing where, sitting on their haunches, they frequently watched the house all night, galloping away into the woods ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... Holland, which gained him much popularity in that country, and caused him to find great favor in their High Mightinesses, the lords and states general, and also of the honorable West India Company. He was a short, square, brawny old gentleman, with a double chin, a mastiff mouth, and a broad copper nose, which was supposed in those days to have acquired its fiery hue from the constant neighborhood of his tobacco pipe. * * * As chief mate and favorite companion, the ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... of the South bridge is a huge mastiff, sauntering down the middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in his pockets; he is old, gray, brindled, as big as a little Highland bull, and has the Shakespearian dewlaps shaking as ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff-bitch, From her kennel beneath the rock Maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud; Some say, she sees my ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... nothing to say in the matter, and I am no more like him than a white chick is like a mastiff. But it might be so, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... praise might yield returns, 65 And a handsome word or two give help, Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns And the puppy pack of poodles yelp. What, not a word for Stefano there, Of brow once prominent and starry, 70 Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair For ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... and fine genius to the composition of his papers. Dogs he loves with an enthusiasm to be found nowhere else in canine literature. He knows intimately all a cur means when he winks his eye or wags his tail, so that the whole barking race,—terrier, mastiff, spaniel, and the rest,—finds in him an affectionate and interested friend. His genial motto seems to run thus—"I cannot understand that morality which excludes animals from human sympathy, or releases man from the debt and obligation he owes ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... cyclone passes over, a wind dies away, we replace the broken mass, we check the leak, we extinguish the fire; but what is to be done with this enormous bronze beast? How can it be subdued? You can reason with a mastiff, take a bull by surprise, fascinate a snake, frighten a tiger, mollify a lion; but there is no resource with the monster known as a loosened gun. You cannot kill it,—it is already dead; and yet it lives. It breathes a sinister life bestowed ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... him little. He had been able to anticipate most of their attacks and they had resulted in little harm to himself. They had left him unperturbed, unharmed—like the attacks of an excitable poodle upon a giant, contemptuous mastiff. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... praises for the performance; Figaro gave a picture of an immense mastiff running away with the General's horse ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... a great evil and breach of their privileges, and thought that by his fault Valencia would be lost, even as Toledo had been. This tribute so sorely aggrieved the people, that it became as it were a bye word in the city, Give the barley. They say there was a great mastiff, with whom they killed beef in the shambles, who, whenever he heard, 'Give the barley,'began to bark and growl: upon which a Trobador said, Thanks be to God, we have many in the town ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... mastiff dog picked up a favorite lap dog in the upper part of the city last week, and ran off with it. He was pursued by a mob, and after a severe chase, the terrified pet was recovered and ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various

... heard that you were playing tricks on us unlettered hinds, that, instead of souls, there was nothing but crabs making a row under the carpet." "Oh, thou hell-hound! cursed knave!" cried the confessor, "but, proceed, mastiff." "And that it was a wire that turned the image of St. Peter, and that it was along a wire the Holy Ghost descended from the roodloft upon the priest." "Thou heir of hell!" cried the shriver, "Ho there, torturers, take ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... Partlet having got into the back yard cannot get out again. She is in a Quandary, for she fears the dogs will bite her—though their chains are not long enough. Keeper, the mastiff, is a noble fellow, and would not hurt women or children; neither would Nero, the bull-dog; he would rather face a lion or a wild ox: whilst Snap, the terrier, barks and snarls in the company ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner

... not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... judging that it would be very difficult to catch him, sent a large Mastiff after him, one that had won first prize in all the dog races. Pinocchio ran fast and the Dog ran faster. At so much noise, the people hung out of the windows or gathered in the street, anxious to see the end ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini

... hearty thanks that my friend did not see fit to give this book to his infant as a plaything, nor use it as an ash-tray for his burning cigar, nor as a teething-ring for his mastiff. ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... water, except by digging. There were various trees, and among these the tree producing dragon's-blood. We saw no fruit-trees, nor so much as the track of any animal, except one footstep of a beast, which seemed the size of a large mastiff. There were a few land-birds, but none bigger than a black-bird, and scarcely any sea-fowl; neither did the sea afford any fish, except tortoises and manatees,[201] both of which are in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... I'm thinking of a retired forest-ranger at Cherey, where we were last month, who went about the streets of the town spying everywhere to rout out some civilian of military age, and he smelled out the dodgers like a mastiff. Behold him pulling up in front of a sturdy goodwife that had a mustache, and he only sees her mustache, so he bullyrags her—'Why aren't ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... the gunner, stepping forward; and they caught sight of the animal, a huge mastiff, bounding towards them. Dick held his drawn cutlass ready in his hand, and as the creature sprang up to seize him by the throat, with one sweep of his weapon he laid it dead at his feet, with its head almost severed from ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... strong, and fierce-looking dog, very ugly, being of a breed between mastiff and bulldog, who at this moment entered through the glass door, and posting directly to the rug, snuffed the fresh flowers scattered there. He seemed to scorn them as food; but probably thinking their velvety petals might be convenient as litter, he was turning round preparatory ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... at the noble-looking young fellow with the vindictive ferocity of an enraged bull, who feels a disposition to injure you, but is restrained by terror; or, which is quite as appropriate, a cowardly but vindictive mastiff, who eyes you askance, growls, shows his teeth, but has not the ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... The mastiff bowled at village door, The oaks were shattered on the green; Woe was the hour, for nevermore That hapless Countess e'er ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... "I was thinking what a terrible end Curly and the old vessel came to. Poor Jake, he was a fine, swaggering fellow; a smart sailor, and as brave as a Turkish Bashi-Bazouk. He was very wayward at times, but always faithful as a mastiff dog to me. His apparent disregard for breaking the Sabbath grieved me, and when I rebuked him for it he frequently took me in a sort of humorous way as though it were a good joke to talk to him of religion. But he had periods of despondency and remorse which brought ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... fear, as, pronouncing the usual salutation of, 'I wish thee a good morrow, friend,' he indicated, by turning his palfrey close to one side of the path, a wish to glide past us with as little trouble as possible—just as a traveller would choose to pass a mastiff of whose peaceable intentions he is ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... have been a division of employment among them; for some hunted beeves merely for the hide, and others hunted the wild hogs to salt and sell their flesh. But their habits and appearance were the same. The beef-hunters had many dogs, of the old mastiff-breed imported from Spain, to assist in running down their game, with one or two hounds in each pack, who were taught to announce and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... said I. "And please be good, Mr. George, and then the angels will fetch you, and perhaps me, and Mamma, and perhaps Ayah, and perhaps Bustle, and perhaps Clive." Bustle was Mr. Abercrombie's dog, and Clive was a mastiff, the dog of the regiment, and a ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... case of many of these and other examples, wild forms still occur which seem to be like the ancestral stock from which the domesticated forms have been produced. All the varied forms of dogs—from mastiff to toy-terrier, and from greyhound to dachshund and bulldog—find their prototypes in wild carnivora like the wolf and jackal. In Asia and Malaysia the jungle fowl still lives, while its domesticated descendants have altered under human direction ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... Douglas' thin scheme to attach his fortunes to the chariot of the great but misguided Jackson? Why had Douglas leaped to the defense of Jackson in this community, like a fice coming to the aid of a mastiff? Why, if not to get a bone for his own hungry stomach? Everything in the way of a taunt, a slur, a degrading image, a mockery of youth's ambition, an attack upon obscurity trying to rise, were thrown by Wyatt at Douglas. All ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... Jennifer who spoke first. "'Twas meant for me," he said; and his voice had the warning of a mastiff's ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... dogs, that requires no explanation. Was there ever a time or place in which a dog grudged his sprightly and disinterested service, or failed to do his best when called upon? These French dogs, whom the mildest English mastiff would have looked upon, or rather would have shut his eyes at, as a lot of curs below contempt, were as full of fine ardour for their cause and country as any noble hound that ever sate like a statue on a ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... hand—which was broad and brawny enough to have grasped threescore or a hundred. "I will remember you on my return,"—exclaimed I, as the carriage drove off. He gave me a most sceptical shake of the head, as he retreated into his little tenement, like a mastiff ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... their democratic canine sympathies, and look upon him with something of that indifferent calm with which yonder officer eyes the road-mender in the ditch below him. He loses even the characteristics of species. The common cur and mastiff look alike in harness. The burden levels all distinctions. I have said that he was generally sincere in his efforts. I recall but one instance to the contrary. I remember a young colley who first attracted my attention by his persistent barking. Whether ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... mixture of Dakota French and French Dakota, when summarily kicked out. That night, late as twelve o'clock, Mrs. Ray, aroused by the infantile demands of the fourth of the olive branches, and further disturbed by the suspicious growlings and challenge of old Tonto, Blake's veteran mastiff, peeped from the second story window and plainly saw two forms in soldier overcoats at the back fence, and wondered what the sentries found about Blake's quarters to require so much attention. Then she became aware of ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... taught him to lie, a huge black dog, with an unusually ferocious expression of countenance, though from his coat he had evidently much of the Newfoundland breed in him, but his face showed that he had also much of that of the mastiff ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... occupation of the country. He leaned upon his other elbow with a hollow groan; and the Chief of Farms was so afraid to speak that he trembled horribly in spite of his thick shoulders and his big red eyeballs. His face, which was as snub-nosed as a mastiff's, was surmounted by a net woven of threads of bark. He wore a waist-belt of hairy leopard's skin, wherein ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion, that amorphous crag-like face; the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces, needing only to be blown; the mastiff-mouth, accurately closed:—I have not traced as much of silent Berserkir-rage, that I remember of, in any other man. "I guess I should not like to be your nigger!"— Webster is not loquacious, but he is pertinent, conclusive; a dignified, perfectly bred man, though not ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... bitter did he seem, with wings Buoyant outstretch'd, and feet of nimblest tread. His shoulder, proudly eminent and sharp, Was with a sinner charged; by either haunch He held him, the foot's sinew griping fast. * * * * * Him dashing down, o'er the rough rock he turn'd; Nor ever after thief a mastiff loosed Sped with like eager haste. That other sank, And forthwith writhing to the surface rose. But those dark demons, shrouded by the bridge, Cried—Here the hallow'd visage saves not: here Is other swimming than in Serchio's wave, Wherefore, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... prowling wolf, whose shaggy skin (So strict the watch of dogs had been) Hid little but his bones, Once met a mastiff dog astray. A prouder, fatter, sleeker Tray, No human mortal owns. Sir Wolf in famish'd plight, Would fain have made a ration Upon his fat relation; But then he first must fight; And well the dog seem'd able To save ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... slowly until darkness came, but never saw so much as a light that might guide us. And presently we let the dogs loose, thinking that they would go homewards. But a greyhound is not like a mastiff, and they hung round us, careless, or helpless, in ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler

... dozen men had rushed into the room at the noise of the struggle, and strove vainly to tear the Russian from his hold. But he hung on with the tenacity of a mastiff. There was a ringing in Foyle's ear and a red blur before his eyes. With a superhuman effort he got his elbow under the Russian's chin and ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... scrubbiest cur in all the pack Can set the mastiff on your back. I own, his madness is a jest, If that were all. But he's possest Incarnate with a thousand imps, To work whose ends his madness pimps; Who o'er each string and wire preside, Fill every pipe, each motion guide; Directing every vice we find In Scripture to the devil assign'd; Sent ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... Tray, an old Mastiff bred at Dunstable, Under his Master, a most special constable, Instead of killing Reynard in a fury, Seized him for legal trial by a Jury; But Juries—AEsop was a sheriff then— Consisted of twelve Brutes ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... your greyhound, your mongrel, your mastiff, your levrier, your spaniel, your kennets, terriers, butchers' dogs, bloodhounds, dunghill-dogs, trundle-tails, prick-eared curs, small ladies' puppies, raches,[88] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... Napoleon missed his tackle, and the full shock came on Dickson. He aimed at what he thought was the enemy's throat, found only an arm, and was shaken off as a mastiff might shake off a toy terrier. He made another clutch, fell, and in falling caught his opponent's leg so that he brought him down. The man was immensely agile, for he was up in a second and something hot and bright blew into Dickson's face. The pistol ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... came the sharp, staccato yelp of a hound at field. Yes; the dogs were out, and already they were at work, ranging in great semicircles, alert with the joy of the chase. There was Blazer, with his tawny muzzle, and behind him Fangs, the great, black bitch, half mastiff and half bloodhound, the saliva dripping from her jaws as she ran. Constans drew a deep breath as he watched them. Already they were nearing the pavilion; in a few seconds at the farthest they would be giving tongue upon the striking of his scent. He must decide ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... of irrepressible tendencies to suicide. But this would be precipitate. Agreeably to one of Mr. White's judicial placita, which I make no apology for citing twice, 'no man who has preserved all his senses will doubt for a moment that "to exist a mastiff or a mule" is absolutely the same as "to be a mastiff or a mule."' Declining to admit their identity, I have not preserved all my senses; and, accordingly—though it may be in me the very superfetation of lunacy—I ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... Alan, my companion mimicked, with a good deal of humour, the flattering, conciliating tone of the tenant's address, and the hypocritical melancholy of the Laird's reply. His grandfather, he said, had, while he spoke, his eye fixed on the rental-book, as if it were a mastiff-dog that he was afraid would spring ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... Mirabeau's face is pictured as "rough-hewn, seamed, carbuncled." In describing Daniel Webster, Carlyle speaks of "the tanned complexion, that amorphous crag-like face; the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be blown, the mastiff-mouth, accurately closed." He formed many new compound words after the German fashion, such as "mischief-joy"; and when he pleased, he coined new words, like ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... estimates of human character. Stuart, with his almost brilliant vitality of charm, had after a quarrel turned his back on her. Eben Tollman, who masked a diffident nature behind a semblance of cold reserve, was unendingly considerate and no more asked reward than a faithful mastiff might have asked it. It contented him to anticipate all her wishes and to invent small ways of easing her misery. He did not even seek to force his society and satisfied himself with such crumbs of conversation ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... shirt, for he had been one of the witnesses, and he was firmly planted on his bowed legs, his long arms hanging down by his sides; his little red eyes were fixed on Zorzi's face, his ugly jaw was set like a mastiff's, and his extraordinary face seemed cut in two by a ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... law held sacred, that, while they are performing, those that would destroy the very being of it may have time to do their business or escape. He bends all his forces against those that are above him, and, like a free-born English mastiff, plays always at the head. He gathers his party as fanatics do a church, and admits all his admirers how weak and slight soever; for he believes it is argument of wisdom enough in them to admire, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... the city before dark, we jumped a hedge fence, and stone wall, making a short cross-cut over the lordly domain of the Earl of Norfolk, and just as we were again emerging into the great road, a gamekeeper was seen approaching with a huge mastiff, who rushed ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... the finest I ever laid eyes on.... He hasn't a blemish, ma'am; and the three years of him doubled will leave him three years to his prime, ma'am.... And there's never another bull, nor a screw-tail, nor cross, be it mastiff or fox or whippet, ma'am, that can loose the holt o' thim twin jaws.... Beg pardon, ma'am, I ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... thought he chose them because he was so afraid of dogs. Benjamin looked at him, and wished Caesar was big enough to shake him. He had named the puppy Caesar on his way home from the village. There was a great mastiff over there by the same name. Benjamin had always admired this big Caesar, and now thought he would name his dog after him. It was the same principle reduced on which Benjamin himself had ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... deep-mouthed voice of a dog, and next moment a huge mastiff dashed from out of the thicket and fastened on the throat ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... papers had gone. I snatched my sabre from the table and rushed out in search of him. But the scoundrel had guessed what I would do, and had made his preparations for me. It was in the corner of the yard that I found him, a blunderbuss in his hands and a mastiff held upon a leash by his son. The two stable-hands, with pitchforks, stood upon either side, and the wife held a great lantern behind him, so as to guide ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... would walk a hundred yards out of the way rather than step upon a worm; that he would be as loth, in wantonness, to kill a spider as if he were a kinsman to King Robert, of happy memory; that in the last quarrel before his departure he fought with four butchers, to prevent their killing a poor mastiff that had misbehaved in the bull ring, and narrowly escaped the fate of the cur that he was protecting. I will grant you also, that the poor never pass the house of the wealthy armourer but they are relieved with food and ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... of saving seven Christians from death." answered the monk, beginning again to regard his mastiff with friendly looks, for at first there had been keen reproach and severe displeasure in his manner—"not to speak of the bodies that have been found by his activity, after the vital spark ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... moment Ludwig Karl's big mastiff and Fischer de Heischland's pair of wolf-hounds, with tails low, hair straight and smooth, heads advanced and ears erect, came into the ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian

... become its wolves. The presence of a human wolf is, as it were, scented by the human watch-dog, even when the dog is asleep. McKee was known instinctively as a man-wolf to the born guardians of society; Slim Hoover, himself a high type of the man-mastiff, used to say of the half-breed: "I can smell that b'ar-grease he slicks his hair with agin' the wind. He may be out o' sight an' out of mind, when somethin' tells me 'McKee's around'; then I smell b'ar-grease, ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... o'er the rough rock he turn'd, Nor ever after thief a mastiff loos'd Sped with like eager haste. That other sank And forthwith writing to the surface rose. But those dark demons, shrouded by the bridge, Cried "Here the hallow'd visage saves not: here Is other swimming than in Serchio's ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... common all over Thibet, and is a terrible depredator among the flocks, or, as Kinloch writes: "apparently preferring the slaughter of tame animals to the harder task of circumventing wild ones." The great Bhotea mastiff is chiefly employed to guard against it. According to Hodgson the chanko has a long, sharp face, with the muzzle or nude space round the nostrils produced considerably beyond the teeth, and furnished with an unusually large lateral process, by which the nostrils are much overshadowed ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... dog-fighting, bear and bull-baiting, it being a famous day for all these butcherly sports, or rather barbarous cruelties. The bulls did exceedingly well, but the Irish wolf-dog exceeded, which was a tall greyhound, a stately creature indeed, who beat a cruel mastiff. One of the bulls tossed a dog full into a lady's lap, as she sat in one of the boxes at a considerable height from the arena. Two poor dogs were killed, and so all ended with the ape on horseback, and I most heartily weary of the rude and dirty pastime, which I had not seen, ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... were not merely simple burghers who had fairly made themselves High Mightinesses, and could treat on equal terms with anointed kings, but their commonwealth carried in its bosom the germs of democracy. They even unmuzzled, at least after dark, that dreadful mastiff, the Press, whose scent is, or ought to be, so keen for wolves in sheep's clothing and for certain other animals in lions' skins. They made fun of sacred majesty, and, what was worse, managed uncommonly well without ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... lived did think of him. Our reverence is a great deal wider, if it is less intense. We have caste among us, to some extent; it is true; but there is never a collar on the American wolf-dog such as you often see on the English mastiff, notwithstanding ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... 27 The mastiff howled at village door, The oaks were shattered on the green; Woe was the hour, for never more That hapless Countess ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... Much Moreham. Her younger sister, Eileen, who spends a good deal of time with us, having no parents of her own, suggested an Old English sheep dog, explaining that it would be company for my wife when I was away from home. I coldly recommended a mastiff. ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay

... dogmatist and hypochondriac of the eighteenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghastly Club, between you and the bony, "mighty-mouthed," harsh-toned termagant and dyspeptic of the nineteenth! The growl of the English mastiff and the snarl of the Scotch terrier would make a duet which would enliven the shores of Lethe. I wish I could find our "spiritualist's" paper in the Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I hardly know what I shall find when ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Sport and Pastime; the Musick of the Dogs, the Harmony o' the Butchers, to see, a Mastiff tear a Bull by the Throat, the Bull once wounded, goring o'er the Ground, cants a fat Woman higher than the Monument—I love Reality in my Diversions; but at a Play-House I never laugh'd but once, and that was at a most agreeable Noise the Footmen ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... grew angry, and caught Theseus round the neck, and shook him as a mastiff shakes a rat; but he could not shake him ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... Saturday. Sir Henry Wriothesley matched seven of his dogs against the seven best of the Duke's, that they should the longer hold to the bear once they were on him, and most of the young gentlemen wagered for Sir Henry's dogs that he had bred from a mastiff out of Portugal. ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... half-breeds are best, too. But I do wish," regretfully, "that they could all be the same sort of half-breeds—to make them more uniform as to size and style. With Kid and Spot part pointer, Irish and Rover part setter, Jack McMillan verging on the mastiff, and all the rest of them part something else, don't you think it looks the least little bit as if we had picked them up ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... cordiality were about as effective as the demeanour of a crusty mastiff encountering another of his kind well within sweep of his owner's lash. His jealous soul had noted the glance exchanged between his cousin and Laurence Stanninghame—the responsive glance which for a brief second would not be disguised; the great and deep-reaching ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... race-horse," said Caesar. "Her name was Loadstar. She didn't win much, but I thought a lot of her. And that—oh, that's a mastiff I had: he was magnificent, but such a brute I had to kill him. He went for one of the stable boys and I hardly got him off in time. I've got the marks now of his claws: he never bit me. We used to ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... arch of the South Bridge, is a huge mastiff, sauntering down the middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in his pockets; he is old, brindled, as big as a little Highland bull, and has the Shakespearean dewlaps shaking as ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... and tabor sound, No noontide-bell invites the country round: 190 Tenants with sighs the smokeless towers survey, And turn the unwilling steeds another way: Benighted wanderers, the forest o'er, Curse the saved candle, and unopening door; While the gaunt mastiff growling at the gate, Affrights the beggar whom ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... necessary then that he should have bowels for the poor, so he can secure for his family the odd trick. Or should some show of respect, for what is termed with ignorant ostentation an Englishman's birth-right, be expedient to bubble the gruff mastiff that he has to lead by the nose, he can make an empty show, very safely, by giving his single voice, and suffering his light squadron to file off to the other side. And when a question of humanity is agitated, he may dip a sop ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... dog used for coursing the kangaroo is generally a cross between the greyhound and the mastiff or sheep-dog; but in a climate like New South Wales they have, to use the common phrase, too much lumber about them. The true bred greyhound is the most useful dog: he has more wind; he ascends the hills with more ease; and will run double the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... pounds a year. I might have spent it all in satisfying Janet's wishes for riding-whips, knives, pencil-cases, cairngorm buttons, and dogs. A large part of the money went that way. She was always getting notice of fine dogs for sale. I bought a mastiff for her, a brown retriever, and a little terrier. She was permitted to keep the terrier at home, but I had to take care of the mastiff and retriever. When Janet came to look at them she called them by their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Pisa in the autumn of 1821, consisted, inter caetera, of nine horses, a monkey, a bull-dog, and a mastiff, two cats, three pea-fowls, and ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... Rab, the great mastiff, claims first place in our minds, dog though he is; but James and Ailie are such lovable beings that ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... distant hall-door opened, and a light figure stepped out for a moment on to the door-step to pat the great mastiff that lay sleeping on the mat. The apparition, the caress, and the vanishing occupied scarcely half a minute, and when it was past Mr Armstrong was only ten paces nearer the house than he had ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff, which From her kennel beneath the rock Maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; 10 Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud; Some say, ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... bred in Chihuahua, in northern Mexico, and the great Danes or mastiffs of northern Europe, is, perhaps, the greatest which has ever been attained in any mammal. In some cases the larger individuals belonging to the mastiff breed probably weigh nearly thirty times as much as their smaller kinsmen. Great as are these variations, they are only in form and bulk. They involve none of those curious changes in the number of bones of the skeleton which we may trace among the domesticated pigeons. We therefore ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... suspended From the tough yew-bow, at Hastings bended, With wreaths of bright holly and ivy bound, Were perches for falcons that shrilly screamed, While their look with the lightning of anger gleamed, As they chided the fawning of mastiff and hound, That crouched at the feet of each peasant guest, And asked, with their ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper

... Mecklenburg relates the following curious incident which happened at an inn at which he was staying. After dinner, the landlord placed on the floor a large dish of soup, and then gave a loud whistle. At once there came into the room a mastiff, a fine Angora cat, an old raven, and a remarkably large rat, with a bell about its neck. These four animals went to the dish, and without disturbing one another, fed together. After they had eaten, the dog, cat, and rat lay before the fire, and the ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown

... terrier, which accompanied him when he sang, and actually succeeded in following the prolonged notes of the human voice with a certain approximation to unison. Dr. Higgins, a musician, claimed that his large mastiff could sing to the accompaniment of ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... from the gate, which fell to with a loud crash. It was all up now. Out rushed the dog, barking fiercely, and off rushed Harry simultaneously. And naturally enough, too. It is not pleasant to be mauled by a huge mastiff. ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly

... prophets! Does the old lady intend to marry me? What can there be in this very lazy and selfish personage who bears my name, to excite so romantic an affection? Well, Raphael Aben-Ezra, thou hast one more friend in the world beside Bran the mastiff; and therefore one more trouble—seeing that friends always expect a due return of affection and good offices and what not. I wonder whether the old lady has been getting into a scrape kidnapping, and wants my patronage to help her out of it.... Three-quarters of a mile ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... and public feeling ran so high against the offender that people would permit dead dogs to lie on their property until the fragrance was deafening rather than employ him; and the municipal authorities suffered one bloated old mastiff to utter itself from a public square in so clamorous an exhalation that passing strangers supposed themselves to be in the vicinity of a saw-mill. My father was indeed unpopular. During these dark days the family's sole dependence was on ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... to you, sir, for the restoration of the badge of our family, I cannot but marvel that you have nowhere established your own crest, whilk is, I believe, a mastiff, anciently called a talbot; as the poet ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... matters, was timid as a rabbit. He had never travelled farther than Trouville or Ostend, and when he indicated a chair, and when these two sat down to talk to each other, the mastiff-man felt instinctively the presence of the rabbit-man, and was at a loss ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... are too timid; we shall soon teach them to hop with grace. As for these awkward maudlin rabbits, I fear we cannot do any thing with them; and these ill-bred creatures, Mrs. Sow's progeny, we cannot attempt to teach.' A sturdy mastiff, who had followed the group of gazers, now barked furiously; dispersed the poultry, pushed Mrs. Sow and her family into the mud; and, spite of Farmer Killwell, drove the ass and her foals out of the farm-yard. A little girl, who was witness to the hubbub, exclaimed, 'Ah! this is excellent! ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown

... breakfast, I went to seek my favorite in the poultry yard; plenty of hens were there, but no Yarico. The gate was open, and, as I concluded she had sought the forbidden copse, I proceeded there, accompanied by the yard mastiff; a noble fellow, steady and sagacious as ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... he never said that he had not drunk beer with the Hill-man, for he liked the credit that such reports gave him with the other folk. And so, like a half savage mastiff, faithful to death to his master, but to him alone, he went his sullen way and lived his sullen life within the castle walls, half respected, half feared by the other inmates, for it was dangerous trifling ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle

... adjacent buildings into the compounds. Every household is in a constant state of alertness, of defense. Broken glass covers the tops of the walls, and in the courtyards Mongolian watch-dogs guard the premises, huge, fierce, long-haired creatures, like a woolly mastiff. Through the day they are chained, but at night they are unloosed. Oh, there is not only style but excitement in living in a native house in Peking! We have looked at a good many Chinese houses, but can't quite make up our minds about renting one. If we decide ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte

... thou mastiff, get you all gone, And let my soul sleep. [Aside to Balthazar] There's gold, ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker

... stepped back as a third person entered. He was wearing a rich suit of some long-departed period, and, with his furrowed face and deep-set eyes, he rather resembled an elderly mastiff, though he did not convey the same impression of profound wisdom. He gazed round the room as though he himself were as bewildered as its other occupants, who were speechless with amazement. Then his eye fell on Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson, and he hesitated no longer, but, ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... looked up as the boys approached. All of them seemed to be grinning, as though amused. But while the big man really looked somewhat as a mastiff might appear to a little terrier, his two companions had a sneer on their dark, evil faces that gave Thad ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... to obey the big fellow surprised us by quietly arising; and, when cushions had been arranged in a shaded place above, he laid on them as obediently as a docile mastiff. Monsieur, very much in his element, became ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... her head, and declared that her brother knew better than to let any bishop put him into leading-strings. By and by there was a great outcry among the children, and Edmund Tudor and Edward of York were fighting like a pair of mastiff-puppies because Edward had laughed at King Harry for minding what an old shaveling said. Edward, though the younger, was much the stronger, and was decidedly getting the best of it, when he was dragged off and sent into seclusion with his tutor for ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... gain the vicinity of the residence without being observed, as it was now growing darker, but he was not yet halfway through the cornfield when the deep baying of a mastiff burst upon his ear, coming nearer ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele

... remained as if paralysed by the sudden bound of the cat-like creature, which stood as high as a mastiff dog, but beautifully soft-looking and rounded in its form, its ears erect, eyes dilated, and motionless, all but that long ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... the Bishop. His house, as I have said stood between us and the Cathedral. It was a benign house, like a sleepy mastiff, and seemed to tolerate with lazy indifference the presence of its two narrow, high-backed neighbours, which with their cold, unblinking windows, ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... muskets, powder and balls were ominously abundant; seed-corn, rice, sugar-cane, vegetables, etc., were not forgotten; cattle, sheep, goats, swine, and fowls for stocking the new provinces, provided for future needs; and a breed of mastiff dogs, originally intended, perhaps, as watch-dogs only, but which became in a short time the dreaded destroyers of natives. Finally, Pope Alexander VI, of infamous memory, drew a line across the map of the world, from pole to pole,[4] and assigned all the undiscovered lands west of it ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... feuds, ignorance, temerity; she wills, but does not; her East is one black storm-cloud, that never bursts; her utmost fight is a defiance; she showers reproaches, where she should rain down blows. She stands a mastiff baying at the moon." ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... a place among no fewer than twenty-seven other competitors, ranging all the way from a queer little hairless terrier from Brazil, to a huge, badly cow-hocked animal, of perhaps two hundred pounds in weight, said to combine St. Bernard and mastiff blood in his veins. ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... came in sight of land, my dog repeatedly placed his fore feet upon the rail and sniffed the wind blowing from the coast. His inhalations were long and earnest, like those of a tobacco smoking Comanche. In her previous voyage the Wright carried a mastiff answering to the name of Rover. The colonel said that whenever they approached land, though long before it was in sight, Rover would put his paws on the bulwarks and direct his nose toward the shore. His demonstrations were invariably accurate, and showed him to possess the instinct of ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... growl and a bound, and straight at the foremost attacker flew Argos, Mamercus's great British mastiff, who had silently slipped on to the scene. The assailant fell with the dog's fangs in his throat. Again the gladiators recoiled, and before they could return to the charge, back into the peristylium rushed Drusus, escaped from Cappadox, with that ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... of waters. It was to be low water about two o'clock, and we resolved to dine upon the sands. But all the morning the children were out playing on the threshold of old Neptune's palace; for in his quieter mood he will, like a fierce mastiff, let children do with him what they will. I gave myself a whole holiday—sometimes the most precious part of my life both for myself and those for whom I labour—and wandered about on the shore, now passing the children, and assailed with a volley of cries and entreaties to look at this ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... been only one or two of these hideous brutes, an attack from them would have been dangerous enough—far more so than an encounter with hyenas or fierce mastiff dogs, for the mandrill is more than a match for either. But what was our dismay on perceiving that the brutes were in great numbers—in fact a whole flock or tribe was on the ground, and advancing towards us from all sides. Turn which way we would, their eyes were gleaming upon us, and their ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... was low and closely kept, and Frank, bundling his comrade over it, threw himself across and looked round. The dog was within ten yards of them, and Frank saw that the alarm was well founded. The dog was a large crossbred animal, between a mastiff and a bulldog. Its hair was rough and bristling. It came along with its head down and foam churning from its mouth. Frank looked the other way and gave a cry. Yet twenty yards off, in the middle of the ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... sleepy night. Ever and anon, the querulous voice of the woman, keeping watch by the lifeless clay, which she had laid in decent order upon its humble pallet, in the Gull's Nest, floated over the cliffs, and died away on the bosom of the waters. At times, Roupall would growl and fret as a chained mastiff; but the anxiety of the Skipper had so increased, that he ceased moving, and stood on the bold brow of the crag, like a black monument ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... pocket-glass every few minutes—and very fair complexion, with little positive expression of character in his features. His nose was pointed; his chin, projected and covered with innumerable little pimples, gave an irregular and mastiff-shaped mouth a peculiar expression. He wore a very highly-polished and high-heeled pair of boots, and a broad-brimmed, silk-smooth hat. He seemed very anxious to display the beauty of two diamond rings that glittered upon his delicate little fingers, made more conspicuous by the wristbands ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... last. One of the Landfield men gets hold of the ball, and runs down hard along the touch-line. Forrester is the quarter-back that side, and gallant as the Fourth Form boy is, his big opponent runs over him as a mastiff runs over ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... and extortioners in order to raise the sum, remained, without a penny in the world, awaiting her lord in a poor lodging in the town, without a carpet to sit upon, but proud as the Queen of Sheba and brave as a mastiff who defends the property of his master. Seeing this great distress the seneschal went delicately to request this lady's daughter to be the godmother of the said Egyptian, in order that he might have the right of assisting the Lady of Azay. And, in fact, he kept a heavy ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... he is as decided, but more temperate. He says that the French heroic verse "runs with more activity than strength.[57] Their language is not strung with sinews like our English; it has the nimbleness of a greyhound, but not the bulk and body of a mastiff. Our men and our verses overbear them by their weight, and pondere, non numero, is the British motto. The French have set up purity for the standard of their language, and a masculine vigor is that of ours. Like their tongue ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... was, he loved the weakest one best; and, therefore, little Kitty was never without a friend and protector. Ever since a certain day in the summer, when she had fallen into the stream, and had been carried home insensible by Bouncer, Kitty had loved the huge mastiff dearly, and nightly added to her simple prayer, "Please, God, ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge

... The mastiff is the best of all guards; it is more pure instinct with him to guard his master's property than it is with any other breed. He is honest through and through, and as a rule he is gentle ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... into Holland. Let the States get others to serve their mercenary turn, for me they shall not have." Upon giving up the government, he caused a medal to be struck in his own honour. The device was a flock of sheep watched by an English mastiff. Two mottoes—"non gregem aed ingratos," and "invitus desero"—expressed his opinion of Dutch ingratitude and his own fidelity. The Hollanders, on their part, struck several medals to commemorate the same event, some of which were not destitute ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the deck and shook himself like a great mastiff, and resolved to devote himself, heart and soul, from that moment, to the work in which he ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... plunged violently; and it was with difficulty the coachman could prevent the carriage from being overturned. It was soon observed by the coachman and guard, by the light of the lamps, that the animal which had seized the horse was a huge lioness. A large mastiff dog came up and attacked her fiercely, on which she quitted the horse, and turned upon him. The dog fled, but was pursued and killed by the lioness, within about forty yards of the place. It appears that the ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various



Words linked to "Mastiff" :   working dog



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