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Pricking   Listen
Pricking

noun
1.
The act of puncturing with a small point.  Synonym: prick.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Pricking" Quotes from Famous Books



... were so conscious of their bad behaviour as to be afraid of seeing their mother; while Miss Placid, serene in her own innocence, entertained herself for some time with looking at the horse above mentioned, and afterwards with pricking it, till Dinah set her at liberty, which, seeing her good temper, she soon did, and gave her besides some pretty pictures to look at and some fruit to eat, of all which her cousins were deprived. By the next morning Jemima's temple had turned ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... of curiosity you are, my good friend!" said de Jars, leaning one elbow on the table, and twirling the points of his moustache with his hand; "but if I were to wrap my secret round the point of a dagger would you not be too much afraid of pricking your fingers ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... horse and to prick it with a pin. The horse plunged and reared and then set off at a hard gallop, which it continued in spite of its rider's efforts to stop it. When they reached the village, the Hazel-nut child left off pricking the horse, and the poor tired creature pursued its way at a snail's pace. The Hazel-nut child took advantage of this, and crept down the horse's leg; then he ran to his aunt and asked her for a comb. On the way home he met another rider, and did the return journey in exactly the ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... feet; yet always bending Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor; 175 At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears, Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses As they smelt music: so I charm'd their ears, That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns, 180 Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them I' the filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell, There dancing up to the chins, that the foul ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... those were, roaming about knee-deep in heather, catching the rare moths, chasing the squirrels that whisked up the fir stems and mocked us from their high perch, searching the hollow trees for woodpeckers' nests, eating the beech-nuts or pricking our fingers as we tried to open the husks of the Spanish chestnuts that grew by the lake! From among the bulrushes the coots sailed out at our approach, and the tiny dabchick dived so deep that we thought, "This time she must be drowned," when, lo and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... thrown into scalding water, and that in another narrative Lox dies for want of fire; in another he is pricked by thorns and stung by ants. "We must," says C. F. Keary, in his Mythology of the Eddas, "admit that the constant appearance of thorn-hedges, pricking with a sleep-thorn (Lox's thorns are his bed), in German and Norse legends, is a mythical way of expressing the idea of the ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... sacrifice of his own means he might have saved him? He sat and thought of it, but did not really resolve that anything could be done. He was wont to think in the same way of his own children, whom he neglected. His conscience had been pricking him all his life, but it hardly pricked him sharp ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... clenched, and she ground her heel down into the path as if she were grinding the insolent smile from his cruel old face. Horrible old man! Dirty, tremulous; with mumbling jaws chewing constantly; with untidy white hairs pricking out from under his brown wig; with shaking, shrivelled hands and blackened nails; this old man had fixed his melancholy eyes upon her with an amused leer. He pretended, if you please! to think that she was unworthy of his precious grandson's company—unworthy of David's little ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... with Poison—When poison is kept in the house, push two stout, sharp-pointed pins through the corks crosswise. The pricking points remind even the most careless person ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler

... the scheme was to make him lose money on his horse. If he had been timid he would have hesitated about backing Nemo for anything; but the ones who had been taunting him had reckoned well on his mettle, and they had succeeded in pricking ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... 'Lumberers,' explained Ina, pricking his ears. He would have immediately turned in a contrary direction; but the prospect of seeing a new phase of life was a strong temptation to Captain Argent, so they went forward towards a smoke that curled ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... has healed, the result being a knob of skin elevated above the level of the rest of the surface. All the tatouage in the Congo consists in raising the skin in this manner, but in each district the design is different. Simple tatooing by pricking in colours does not appear ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman

... was deserted, and on his lips was fixed a smile which resembled a pricking pin. Why had he poured out such a great handful of money for an object which to him was indifferent, the need of which he did not recognize? Why? Habit, relations, public opinion, expressed orally, and by the printed word. A comedy! Misery! He frowned, the wrinkles ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... Bourrienne, who could not see him, occupied as he was in writing upon a small table placed in the recess of a window. The First Consul saw him make his bows, himself reclining in his armchair, one of the arms of which, according to habit, he was pricking with the point of his knife. Finally he spoke. "Well, my brave fellow." The peasant turned, recognized him, and saluted anew. "Well," continued the First Consul, "has the harvest been fine this year?"—"No, with ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... rats came tumbling. Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cooking tails and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives— Followed the Piper for their lives. From street to street he piped advancing, And step for step they followed dancing, Until they came to the river Weser, Wherein all plunged and perished! —Save one who, stout as ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... working, alone. Each night I have waited for it, listened for it—longed for it, I know now. I heard the passing of its feet upon the bridge, the tapping of its hand upon the door, three times—tap, tap, tap. I felt my loins grow cold, and a pricking pain about my head; and I gripped my chair with both hands, and waited, and again there came the tapping—tap, tap, tap. I rose and slipped the bolt of the door leading to the other room, and again I waited, and again there came the tapping—tap, tap, tap. Then ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... men, to protect the sentinel. They went over in a kind of trot, using rough words and actions towards those who went with them, and, coming near the party round the sentinel, rudely pushed them aside, pricking some with their bayonets, and formed in a half-circle near the sentry-box. The sentinel now came down the steps and fell in with the file, when they were ordered to prime and load. Captain Preston almost immediately joined his men. The file ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... under this very roof as juvenals. Dost thou mind thee o' the night that we gave old Gammer Lick-the-Dish a bath in his own sack, for that he served us in a foul jerkin? By'r lay'kin, those were days! Well, well, to meet thee thus! Though, believe it or not, as thou wilt, I had such a pricking i' my thumbs but an hour gone that I was of a mind to roar you like any babe with a pin in his swaddling-bands. Thou wast my beau-peer i' those times; and we are kin by profession, moreover. How be Mistress Turnip and thy eight lads? Ha! ha! Dost remember how old Anthony Butter—him ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives

... of a giant in Isabelle's behalf. Making a prodigious effort, he suddenly increased his speed, and coming up with the two horsemen, who were a little behind the other one, quickly disposed of them, by vigorously pricking their horses' flanks with the point of his sword; for, what with fright and pain, the animals, after plunging violently, threw off all restraint and bolted—dashing off across country as if the devil were after them, and carrying ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... made upon the cross, where, for all the torment that he hanged in—of beating, nailing, and stretching out all his limbs, with the wresting of his sinews and breaking of his tender veins, and the sharp crown of thorns so pricking him into the head that his blessed blood streamed down all his face—in all these hideous pains, in all their cruel despites, yet two very devout and fervent prayers he made. One was for the pardon of those who so dispiteously put him to his pain, ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... spinal cord, no pain will be felt, whatever injury is done to the finger; and if the ends which remain in connection with the cord be pricked, the pain which arises will appear to have its seat in the finger just as distinctly as before. Nay, if the whole arm be cut off, the pain which arises from pricking the nerve stump will appear to be seated in the fingers, just as if they were still ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... for anybody who looks suspicious hanging about the Hercules Three-Oughts-One. I'll take care of rival inventors. You and Koku keep your eyes peeled for the H. & W. spies. Especially for that Andy O'Malley. I feel that he will again show up. Maybe by 'the pricking of my thumb' as Macbeth's witch ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton

... the page, though he hated crying, and was ashamed of it; he couldn't help thinking with some affection even of Spouncer, whom he used to fight and quarrel with; he would have felt at home with Spouncer, and in a condition of superiority. And then the mill, and the river, and Yap pricking up his ears, ready to obey the least sign when Tom said, "Hoigh!" would all come before him in a sort of calenture, when his fingers played absently in his pocket with his great knife and his coil of whipcord, and other ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... PRICKING A SAIL. The running a middle seam between the two seams which unite every cloth of a sail to the next adjoining. This is rarely done till the sails have been worn some time, or in the case of heavy canvas, storm-sails, &c. It ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... to help thee forward, for as soon as I saw how thy heart did despise thy degree taken in divinity, and didst study to search and know the secrets of our kingdom, then did I enter into thee, giving thee divers foul and filthy cogitations, pricking thee forward in thy intent, persuading thee thou couldst never attain to thy desire till thou hadst the help of some devil; and when thou wast delighted in this, then took I root in thee, and so firmly, that thou gavest thyself ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... pin-pricking embarrassment of the moment, he did not fail to remark that she quickly recovered the serenity which belongs to the well-bred. She was even smiling, rather ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... an early and easy triumphal termination, there came athwart his victorious path a financial guerilla, "balloony," mysterious, yet as sticky as a jelly-fish, who was destined to exert a most maleficent influence on his after-life. Fate hangs no red lights at the cross-roads of a man's career. No "pricking of his thumbs," no strange portents warned the Master of "Standard Oil" that the impudent Philadelphia swashbuckler who dared interfere with the execution of his plan to fetter the "System's" yoke to the necks of the citizens of Brooklyn ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... the things that most tormented him indeed in this recent existence was a perpetual pricking sense of the contrast between this small world of his ancestral possessions and traditions, with all its ceremonial and feudal usage, and the great rushing world outside it of action and of thought. Do what he would, he could ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... by placing discs of different metals, copper, zinc, lead, and gold, or the poles of a magnet, on the frontal and occipital parts of the patient's head. Sometimes he feels pricking or heat, giddiness, somnolence, or a sense of bodily well-being. In general, criminals show great sensibility to metals; in hysterical persons this sensibility reaches an extraordinary degree of acuteness. By applying a magnet to the nape of the neck, the sensations of such individuals become ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... and drew his revolver. The bullet would do quickly what the cold would accomplish after lingering hours of torture, yet, facing those pricking ears and the brave trust of the eyes, he was blinded by a mist and could not aim. He had to place the muzzle of the gun against the roan's temple and pull the trigger. When he turned his back he was the only living thing within the ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... made his way with his gun to the edge of the wood. His Damka—a mongrel between a yard dog and a setter—an extremely thin bitch heavy with young, trailed after her master with her wet tail between her legs, doing all she could to avoid pricking her nose. It was a dull, overcast morning. Big drops dripped from the bracken and from the trees that were wrapped in a light mist; there was a pungent smell of decay from ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... thoughts—dangerously many, as we who loved her would often say, considering that she spent herself unnecessarily upon much for which others might well have acted deputy. The sun had set early, for it was midwinter, and white points of winter stars were pricking through the frozen sky. The snow, iced over with a glistening crust, sent back pale reflections to the bars of cold green and thin rosy glows that stood for sunset, and a threatening wind began to rise, that shook down little icicles from the window ledge and made the stiff, chill branches of the ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... his companion filled a cup, and lo! the water was clear and delightful. Still more decided, when he was dying there was a mighty earthquake, and the thunders of heaven broke forth, and the spirits stood about to see him until there was no spot, say the Scriptures, in size even as the pricking of the point of the tip of a hair not pervaded with them; and he saw them, though they were invisible to his disciples; and then when the last reverence of his five hundred brethren was paid at his feet, the pyre being ready, it took fire of itself, and there was left of his body neither soot ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... to have a brisk hot fire, to hang down rather than to spit, to baste with salt and water, and one quarter of an hour to every pound of beef, tho' tender beef will require less, while old tough beef will require more roasting; pricking with a fork will determine you whether done or not; rare done is the healthiest and ...
— American Cookery - The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables • Amelia Simmons

... such a city and hid a thousand dirhems in a monastery there. After awhile, I went thither and taking the money, bound it about my middle. [Then I set out to return] and when I came to the desert, the carrying of the money was burdensome to me. Presently, I espied a horseman pricking after me; so I [waited till he came up and] said to him, "O horseman, carry this money [for me] and earn reward and recompense [from God]." "Nay," answered he; "I will not do it, for I should weary myself and weary my horse." ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... domain. Before us lay an amber- coloured, sun-scorched plain; beyond were the foot-hills, bristling with chaparral, scrub-oaks, pines and cedars; beyond these again rose the grey peaks of the Santa Lucia range, pricking the eastern horizon. Over all hung the palpitating skies, eternally and exasperatingly blue, ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... of this glade there was a paling and a stile that Olive would have to cross, and she could now hear, as she ran forward, the needles of the silver firs rustling with a pricking sound in the wind. The heavy branches stretched from either side, and Olive thought when she had passed this dernful alley she would have nothing more to fear; and she ran on blindly until she almost fell in the ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... and painted blue. This was an attention of the clerk's. He showed him many others, even to doing errands for him at Rouen; and the book of a novelist having made the mania for cactuses fashionable, Leon bought some for Madame Bovary, bringing them back on his knees in the "Hirondelle," pricking his fingers on their ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... are moving. Hark to the mingled din Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin. The fiery duke is pricking fast across Saint Andre's plain, With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne. Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France, Charge for the golden lilies—upon them with the lance! A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest, A thousand knights are ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... strange of eye, or all beblubbered with weeping. Then came a man or two also on horseback, old and reverend. After them a draggled rabble of lads and half-grown girls, bound together with ropes and kept at a dog's trot by the pricking spears of the men-at-arms behind, who thought it a jest to sink a spear point-deep in the flesh of a man's back—"drawing the claret wine" they called it. For these riders of Duke Casimir were every one jolly companions, and ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... the bank, thinking to gaze my fill at all this loveliness, and sat upon the puke, a feathery plant exquisite to the eye, but a veritable bunch of gadflies for pricking meanness. It is a sensitive shrub, retreating at man's approach, its petioles folding from sight, but with all its modesty it left me a stinging reminder that I had ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... and some parts of their bodies by pricking powdered charcoal into the skin. The women tattooed the breasts; and this practice was general among them, notwithstanding the pain of the operation, as it was thought very ornamental. Their dress consisted of ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... the moment dazed by their success, so that Cap'n Bill was all alone among the Blueskins when he stepped his wooden leg into a hole in the ground and tumbled full length, his sharp stick flying from his hand and pricking the Boolooroo in the leg ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum

... charmed their ears, That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns, Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... swept over his mind with pricking force the thought of Mary Batchelor at her door, blind with weeping and pain—of the poor boy, dead in his prime. Did those two figures stand for the realities at the base of things—the common labours, affections, ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... fond of demonstrative affection from strangers. The ladies who lavish kisses and flattery upon one's youthful head after eating papa's good dinner—keeping a sharp protective eye on their own silk dresses, and perchance pricking one with a brooch or pushing a curl into one eye with a kid-gloved finger—I held in unfeigned abhorrence. But over and above my natural instinct against the unloving fondling of drawing-room visitors, I had a special and peculiar antipathy to ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... can have any heart at all,' said Betty, 'because it's quite plain you want to break both ours. Perhaps when we are both in our graves, with stones over us like Miss Jane's—only we couldn't afford near such large ones—you'll feel something pricking you.' ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham

... advise him. "Many," saith [3447]Galen, "have been cured by good counsel and persuasion alone." "Heaviness of the heart of man doth bring it down, but a good word rejoiceth it," Prov. xii. 25. "And there is he that speaketh words like the pricking of a sword, but the tongue of a wise man is health," ver. 18. Oratio, namque saucii animi est remedium, a gentle speech is the true cure of a wounded soul, as [3448]Plutarch contends out of Aeschylus ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... The day grew warmer, the sky became overcast, and there was the dull muttering of distant thunder. There seemed a tension in the air—as if something was going to snap. Doubtless you have often felt it—a sensation as though pins and needles were pricking you all over. As though you wanted to scream—to cry out—against an uncertain ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope

... names," said Buck Denham quietly, as he went on filling his pipe very slowly; and the two boys sat down one on either side, pricking up their ears at the words ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... fellow. He lives with La Escandalosa, who's an old fox in truth, sixty years at the very least, and spends everything she robs with her lovers. But she feeds him and he ought to have some consideration for her. Nothing doing, though; he's always kicking her and punching her and pricking her with his dirk, and one time he even heated an iron and wanted to burn her. If he takes her money, well and good; but what's the sense of ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... he did not like to work. It must be judged that his mind was affected by a certain indolence, that he was capable enough when he addressed himself to any particular task, but not self-disposed to exertion. He felt no constant, pricking incitement to do his best; but was content to do fairly well, as well as was necessary for the immediate occasion. One of his comrades in the academy said in later years that he remembered him as "a very uncle-like sort of a youth.... He exhibited ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen

... the tea-table with a little inward pricking of conscience for wishing him gone. She wondered if he deemed her inhospitable, but if he did he disguised it very carefully, for his eyes held nothing but friendliness as ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... from the neck of the quivering mare, that stared at him with wild eyes, Ridge petted and soothed her, at the same time talking gently in Spanish, a tongue that she showed signs of understanding by pricking forward her shapely ears. After a little Ridge led the animal to a watering-trough, where she drank greedily, and then into camp, where he begged a handful of sugar from one ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... came pricking after as fast as ever he might, and asked Sir Percivale if he saw any knight riding on his black steed. Yea, sir forsooth, said he; why, sir, ask ye me that? Ah, sir, that steed he hath benome me with strength; wherefor my lord will ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... to supplement the words, a single shrill cry, half whistle, half scream, rose up ahead. Had they been closer, they might have noted the pricking ears of the desert steeds; but this much they saw:—one horse and rider darting out of the press, like arrow from bow, and scurrying away over the plain as if their former gait ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... insect population of an old green wall; fancies the fancies of the crickets and the flies, and the carousing of the cicala in the trees, and the bee swinging in the chalice of the campanula, and the wasps pricking the papers round the peaches, and the gnats and early moths craving their food from God when dawn awakes them, and the fireflies crawling like lamps through the moss, and the spider, sprinkled with mottles on an ash-grey back, and building his web on the edge of tombs. These ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... previous evening. When the sun rose the heat became as great as ever and the poor beasts began to slacken their speed, but eager to get on, we urged them forward with spur and rein until we began to fear that they would break down altogether. Suddenly, however, pricking up their ears and stretching out their necks, they broke into ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... went on blowing their bubbles just the same, and when the apostle of impudence pricked them again they only said: "Oh, it's so amusing!" and blew more. And even the apostle of impudence wasn't so busy pricking bubbles that he didn't have time to blow bubbles of his own, and even he didn't know how thin and hollow his own bubbles were, which was the reason they could float so high. He saw the sun on them and thought they were the lanterns that lighted up the show. Jeff believed he had discovered ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... at that moment expressing itself in regret and compunction. Since the dawn, that morning, she had been unable to sleep. The strong light, the pricking air, had kept her wakeful; and she had been employing her time in writing to her mother, ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... reforms and change of worship introduced by the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. It was rather amusing to see Parker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, addressing the rioters from a platform, under which stood the spearmen of Kett, the leader of the riot, who took delight in pricking the feet of the orator with their spears as he poured forth his impassioned eloquence. In an important city like Norwich the guild hall has played an important part in the making of England, and is worthy in its old age of the tenderest and most reverent treatment, and even of the removal from ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... though he were himself aware of its uselessness. Mumu never went into the mistress's house; and when Gerasim carried wood into the rooms, she always stayed behind, impatiently waiting for him at the steps, pricking up her ears and turning her head to right and to left at the slightest creak of the door . ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... listened for it—longed for it, I know now. I heard the passing of its feet upon the bridge, the tapping of its hand upon the door, three times—tap, tap, tap. I felt my loins grow cold, and a pricking pain about my head, and I gripped my chair with both hands, and waited, and again there came the tapping—tap, tap, tap. I rose and slipped the bolt of the door leading to the other room, and again I waited, and again there came the tapping—tap, tap, tap. Then I opened the heavy outer ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... operation of pricking an affected part with a needle, and leaving it for a short time in it, sometimes for as ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the wound had no salve, no consolation. When he was told that this young Tregear was the owner of his girl's sweet love, was the treasure of her heart, he shrank as though arrows with sharp points were pricking him all over. "I will not hear of such love," ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... 'Thy council liketh me.' And he pulled a whistle out of his neck and whistled whistles three. Then came my Lord of Arundel pricking across the down, And behind him the Mayor and Burgesses of ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... their ears, That, calf-like, they my loving follow'd through Tooth'd briars, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns, Which enter'd ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... things committed to his charge, arrange and ticket them, in order that when Gargantua came to visit them he would find everything in perfect order. There was an air of truth about these promises. The poor shrew-mouse was, however, in spite of this speech, troubled by ideas from on high, and serious pricking of shrew-mousian conscience. Seeing that he turned up his nose at everything, went about slowly and with a careworn face, one morning the mouse who was pregnant by him, conceived the idea of calming his doubts ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... pressure of minute inorganic particles, or by contact with animal matter, or by the absorption of carbonate of ammonia, the tentacles become inflected; the basal portion being the chief seat of movement. Cutting or pricking the blade of the leaf did not excite any movement. They frequently capture insects, and the glands of the inflected tentacles pour forth much acid secretion. Bits of roast meat were placed on some glands, and the tentacles began to ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... slain as if they had been logs of wood. This time the troops were allowed to come nearer yet, but when the provincials fired at the word the carnage was greater than before. In the smoke the officers were seen urging their men, striking them with their sword hilts, and even pricking them with the points. But it was in vain. The officers themselves were shot down in unheard-of proportion, and at the rail fence those who survived out of full companies of thirty-nine were in some cases only three, or four, or five. Nothing ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... dog had, however, made his escape from the wreck and found his way back again to Shoreby. He was now at Arblaster's heels, and, suddenly sniffing and pricking his ears, he darted forward and began to bark furiously at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in shades of the night, His ears pricking up, and his hoofs striking light, And his tail whisking round, in the ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... too, Adam!" Mother Golden continued, triumphantly. "I feel it pricking through the gum this minute. And he so good, and laughing like a sunflower! Did it hurt him, then, a little precious man? he shall have a nice ring to-morrow day, to bitey on, ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards

... time seconded her threat by pricking her with the point of a knife, for Madge, with a faint scream, changed her place, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... you want it for?" cry I, curiously, pricking my ears, and for a moment forgetting my private troubles in the hope of ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... had a long dirk-knife with which he playfully jabbed me in the ribs, insolently demanding what I thought of it. I seized him by the wrist with as calm a pretence of considering the knife as I could summon up, but really to prevent his cutting me. I felt the point pricking through ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... strangulated hernia. There were two well-developed testicles in the scrotum, and the hernia proved to be a third. McElmail describes a soldier of twenty-nine, who two or three months before examination felt a pricking and slight burning pain near the internal aperture of the internal inguinal canal, succeeded by a swelling until the tumor passed into the scrotum. It was found in the upper part of the scrotum above the original ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... go on; but less for your sake than my own:—my skin is hot, And there's an arid pricking in my veins; their currents clot: Tears sometimes soothe such fever, where the letting of blood ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... has it, the young student "came pricking on hastily, complaining that they went at such a pace as gave him little chance of keeping up with them. One of the party made answer that the blame lay with the horse of Don Miguel de Cervantes, whose trot was of the speediest. He had ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker

... Mohawk the members took an oath to be hurtful. To injure at any price, no matter when, no matter whom, no matter where, was a matter of duty. Every member of the Mohawk Club was bound to possess an accomplishment. One was "a dancing master;" that is to say he made the rustics frisk about by pricking the calves of their legs with the point of his sword. Others knew how to make a man sweat; that is to say, a circle of gentlemen with drawn rapiers would surround a poor wretch, so that it was impossible for him not to turn his back upon some one. The gentleman behind ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... minded anything, and that Johnny knew and cared little about the matter, their tea that evening would have been wonderfully unsociable. Gerald had not much to say, but the bent of his thoughts was evident enough when his ever-busy pencil produced the sketch of a cat pricking her paw by patting a hedgehog ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... clouds. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and her country instincts, a little overlaid by the urban experiences of the last few years, came again to the surface. She felt the fresh, cool radiation from outlying, upturned fields, the faint, sad odors from dim stretches of pricking grain and quickening leaf, and wondered if at Los Cuervos it might be possible to reproduce the peculiar verdure of her native district. She beguiled her fancy by an ambitious plan of retrieving their fortunes by ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... then, with the aristocratic indifference characteristic of that animal—became animated. She leaned her head over into the street; then, with a miraculous lightness and address, jumped on to the window-sill, pricking up her long-ears, and raising one of her paws. The chevalier understood by these signs that the tenant of the little room was approaching. He opened his window directly; unfortunately it was already too late, the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... quickly as possible with a fresh bandage, which is drawn up more tightly. During the first year the pain is so intense that the sufferer can do nothing, and for about two years the foot aches continually, and is the seat of a pain which is like the pricking of sharp needles. With continued rigorous binding the foot in two years becomes dead and ceases to ache, and the whole leg, from the knee downward, becomes shrunk, so as to be little more than skin and bone. When once formed, the ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

... and threw its little bed-fellow rather rudely several feet away. The kitten, instead of being angry, fell into a merry mood, and began to frisk about in divers directions, first running under the bed, then springing upon some diminutive object on the floor as it would upon a mouse, and finally pricking again the ear of the fawn. The fawn then rose up, and creeping gently about the room, touched the cheeks or hands of the slumbering inmates with its velvet tongue, but so softly that none were awakened. The kitten, no longer able to annoy its companion by its mischievous ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... experience of some of you to testify how your meetings in this chapel every morning may sow it. One day it falls on your heart in some word of some hymn or prayer, or in some thought or feeling which flashes through you, or some pricking of conscience for no other knows what sin or fault, or ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival

... stars were pricking out in the sky, and Patty and Ide were down by the gate, counting them. It seems, if you can count seven stars for seven nights, then the first man who touches your hand afterwards you're bound to marry. I counted my first seven, and I do hope it ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... I felt like the witches in 'Macbeth.' 'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.' It was Senator Tom-tit, the little fat Mayor of Rome. His great ambition is to wear the green ribbon of St. Maurice and Lazarus, as none know better than myself. Wanting money on my fountain, I had written to ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... idea of the manner in which their store-holes were built. They are generally 4 feet deep, of a square form and built of a 2-inch plank, with the scuttle in the top, into which a trough filled with shingle is fitted instead of a cover to prevent their being found out by pricking; and I understand they were built above two years ago. I have ordered them to be destroyed, and parties are employed in searching for such concealments along the other parts of the beach." Thus, thanks to the Navy, the smugglers ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... his confidence to the uttermost. Besides it cannot be fear and anxiety which brings on her night wandering. Another current explanation also seems to me to have little ground. As Brandes has recently interpreted it, "The sleep walking scene shows in the most remarkable fashion how the pricking of an evil conscience, when it is dulled by day, is more keen at night and robs the guilty one of sleep and health." Now severe pangs of conscience may well disturb sleep, but they would hardly create sleep walking. Criminals are hardly noctambulists. Macbeth himself is an example ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... "far in the spiritual city." And Rabelais showed him, beneath the letter, the Tourainian sun shining on the hot rock above Chinon, on the maze of narrow, climbing streets, on the high-pitched, gabled roofs, on the grey-blue tourelles, pricking upward from the fantastic labyrinth of walls. He heard the sound of sonorous plain-song from the monastic choir, of gross exuberant gaiety from the rich vineyards; he listened to the eternal mystic mirth of those that halted in the purple ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... especially satisfactory way to make pies of juicy fruit, as it does away largely with the saturated under crusts, and the flavor of the fruit can be retained much more perfectly. Pies with one crust can be made by simply fitting the crust to the plate, pricking it lightly with a fork to prevent its blistering while baking, and afterward filling when needed for the table. For pies with two crusts, fit the under crust to the plate, and fill with clean pieces of old white linen laid in lightly to support the upper crust. When baked, slip the pie on a plate, ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... received this letter he regarded it as only a passing cloud-shadow. "To-day I have a long letter from Greeley, full of sharp, pricking thorns," he wrote Weed. "I judge, as we might indeed well know from his nobleness of disposition, that he has no idea of saying or doing anything wrong or unkind; but it is sad to see him so unhappy. Will ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... after had a Fit commonly once a Month, about the Time of the full Moon; and since had them more frequently; that the Fits began with a Trembling and Shaking of the right Foot, and she had frequent pricking Pains in the right Thigh, and what she called convulsive Tremors in the right Leg and Foot. She was regular in her menstrual Discharge. At the Time she came into the Hospital, she was feverish, and complained much of a sharp Pain in the right Thigh: She was blooded, ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro

... Irish chiefs of Leinster flocked to pay their respects, but were most improperly received by John and his friends, who could not restrain their mirth at their homely garb, and soon proceeded to gibes and practical jokes; pricking them with pins, and rapping them on the head with a stick as they bent to pay homage, tweaking their ample mantles, and pulling their long beards and moustaches, all as if they had studied to enrage this proud and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... not know. The new throne did not stand very long. The troops of Ferdinand appeared at Fulneck. The village was sacked. Comenius reeled with horror. He saw the weapons for stabbing, for chopping, for cutting, for pricking, for hacking, for tearing and for burning. He saw the savage hacking of limbs, the spurting of blood, the ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... certain pricking sensations in his right leg as well as in his conscience. The leg grew more painful as he advanced, and, on examination of the limb by feeling, he found, to his surprise, that he had received a bullet-wound ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... inch thick and cut into squares. Pare and core apples and place one in center of each square. Fill each with a portion of the seasonings, sugar, raisins and dot with butter. Bring corners of the dough to the top of the apples and seal by pricking with a fork. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Serve with ...
— Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking • Unknown

... me, and only an exaggerated sense of responsibility as nurse and housekeeper kept back the tears that were pricking like ten thousand needles at my eyes. Savagely I reproached myself for having been away, and for having no foreknowledge of the coming blow. In one of his bags my father had a flask of brandy, and, guided by his directions, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... impatience, disgust sat on almost every countenance. The figures passing and repassing, rendered more ghastly by the pallid lights, and who in a slow, sepulchral voice pronounced only the word—Death; others calculating if they should have time to go to dinner before they gave their verdict; women pricking cards with pins in order to count the votes; some of the deputies fallen asleep, and only waking up to give their sentence,—all this had the appearance rather of a hideous dream than ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... under the dead leaves of the prickly 'Spaniard,' and possibly fed on the roots. The Spaniard leaves forked into stiff upright fingers about 1 in. wide, ending in an exceedingly stiff pricking point." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... that in the future years the Princess young should die, By pricking of a spindle-point—ah, woeful prophecy! But now, a kind young Fairy, who had waited to the last, Stepped forth, and said, "No, she shall sleep till a hundred years are past; And then she shall be wakened by a King's son—truth I tell— And he will take her for his wife, ...
— The Sleeping Beauty Picture Book - Containing The Sleeping Beauty; Bluebeard; The Baby's Own Alaphabet • Anonymous

... Animal in this manner, and thence inferring, how it may be alter'd for the better or worse by motions or impulses, confessedly Mechanicall, observes, How some are recover'd from swouning fits by pricking; others grow faint and do vomit by the bare motion of a Coach; others fall into a troublesome sickness by the agitation of a Ship, and by the Sea-air (whence they recover by rest, and by going a shore.) ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... needle-pricking mode of warfare she was, of course, far more expert than her rival. But if Gertie's hand was clumsy it was also heavy. And always in the back of her mind was the consciousness that she, so to speak, had at least one piece of heavy artillery ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... drives him. He was reclining upon a sofa when I entered, but immediately arose and motioned me to take a seat. I had scarcely occupied a comfortable looking stuffed back-piece of furniture, when a pricking sensation in the region of my coat-tails caused me to resume the perpendicular with amazing rapidity, and, upon looking down, I observed the point of a pin protruding through the cushion of the chair. The Secretary did not lose his gravity, but very heartily apologized for what he called the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various

... little water in the hollow of his hand and then snatched it away, flinging the water over his brother's face, for he was conscious of a sharp pricking sensation as if he had scarified the ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... bones that soft repose, Lay still expecting worse and more, Stretch'd out at length upon the floor; 1330 And though he shut his eyes as fast As if h' had been to sleep his last, Saw all the shapes that fear or wizards Do make the Devil wear for vizards, And pricking up his ears, to hark 1335 If he cou'd hear too in the dark, Was first invaded with a groan And after in a feeble tone, These trembling words: Unhappy wretch! What hast thou gotten by this fetch; 1340 For all thy tricks, in this new trade, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... had just finished pricking the tracing of the pattern of a cope, went to get a skein from the case of drawers, cut it, tapered off the two ends by scratching the gold which covered the silk, and he brought it to her ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... is pricking me. My work is calling me. I must go up and see my old darlings in the Brown Borough. There is, I see, ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... something was not precisely the same among all the Indian tribes. The Pawnee sign for "wolf" was the first finger of each hand stuck up alongside the head, like ears pricking. But it was a sign easily read. All the signs were sensible and initiative. When the "future" was meant, the finger was thrust ahead with a screwing motion, as if boring; when the "past" was meant, the hand and finger were extended in front and drawn back with the screwing motion. When he ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... deep place, where bank and trees overhung, the sun did not come, and I felt the cold striking into my raw flesh. More than that, my weight upon my shoulder began to cut off the blood from my arm. I felt pricking in my flesh, my arm began to be numb, and I feared that I might ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... magnetisation was made by M. Berna, the Commissioners determined to ascertain how far, in her ordinary state, she was sensible to pricking. Needles of a moderate size were stuck into her hands and neck, to the depth of half a line, and she was asked by Messieurs Roux and Caventon whether she felt any pain. She replied that she felt nothing; neither did her countenance express any pain. The Commissioners, somewhat ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... progress in our reading of the testimony of the rocks. The relative ages of the rocks are determined by broad comparative surveys over extensive areas; and although the identification of widely separated deposits is often greatly assisted by a study of their fossiliferous contents, the mere pricking of a continent here and there is all that is required for this purpose. Hence, the accuracy of our information touching the relative ages of geological strata does not depend upon—and, therefore, does not betoken—any ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... crossed the broad walk, down which I had first seen Mademoiselle and her sister pacing. The Captain had removed his doublet, and stood in his shirt leaning against the sundial, his head bare and his sinewy throat uncovered. He had drawn his rapier and stood pricking the ground impatiently. I marked his strong and nervous frame and his sanguine air: and twenty years earlier the sight might have damped me. But no thought of the kind entered my head now, and though I felt with each moment greater reluctance to engage, doubt of the ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... symbolic of Israel." The cedar-tree said: "I desire to serve, for I am symbolic of Israel." The palm-tree said: "I desire to serve, for I am symbolic of Israel." Finally the thorn-bush came and said: "I am fitted to do this service, for the ungodly are like pricking thorns." The offer of the thorn-bush was accepted, after God gave a blessing to each of the other trees for its willingness ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... you leave Armenia in the first place?" asked Gloria, for he seemed to need pricking along to prevent him from getting off the track into a ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... up the old spiritual standards, what has he in place of them?" asked Mrs. Pendleton, and she had suddenly a queer feeling as if little fine needles were pricking her skin. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... of the best sumpitan shooters in all Sumatra, and could send an arrow with true aim a distance of a hundred and fifty yards. But to make its effect deadly at this distance, something more than the mere pricking of the tiny "sumpit" was needed. This something was a strong vegetable poison which he also knew how to prepare; and the upas-tree, that had so nearly proved fatal to all of them, was now called into requisition to ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... the only culprit, and he lost his own fringe to Nobby quite early in the proceedings. It was not that he was hungry, for he never quite finished his own feed. At any rate he enjoyed the few weeks before he died, pricking up his ears and getting quite excited when anything happened, and the arrival of the dog-teams each morning after he had been tethered sent him to bed with much to dream of. And I must say his master dreamed pretty regularly too. Michael was killed right in front of the Gateway ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... existence is a whirlpool; for such the blank page is an added perturbation, a haunting whiteness beseeching the blackness of diurnal autobiography, an I O U that calls for instant satisfcation. To the spontaneous vexings of conscience has been added an artificial pricking at the neglect of a supererogatory duty. How have I blonched to see day adding itself to day, unrecorded, time flying without being "kodak'd" on the wing; and each new neglect retarding the day of reckoning ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... very mischievous; he even played a cruel trick on Nox while he was asleep. As he sat near to him he kept lightly pricking the dog's lips with a fine needle. The dog would half wake up, shake his head, rub his lips with his paws, and then ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin

... then a drop of blood should appear on Modestine's mouse-coloured wedge-like rump? I should have preferred it otherwise, indeed; but yesterday's exploits had purged my heart of all humanity. The perverse little devil, since she would not be taken with kindness, must even go with pricking. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... he grew still more uneasy. He grew anxious and there was a hot fear pricking at his heart. Then at last, one day he caught a glimpse of her, and his heart was ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... a bandage over his eyes; he allowed himself to be led like a child. The sight of that spotless and adorable Esther wiping her eyes and pricking in the stitches of her embroidery as demurely as an innocent girl, revived in the amorous old man the sensations he had experienced in the Forest of Vincennes; he would have given her the key of his safe. He felt so young, his heart was so overflowing with adoration; he only waited till Asie ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... elder bushes where a lane, winding and green-arched, crossed a corner of the cornfield, and to wait, through the long, still summer mornings for Lancelot or Galahad or Tristram or some other of her friends to come pricking his way through the sunshine. She could hear the clinking of his golden armor, the whinnying of his steed, the soft brushing of the branches as they parted before his helmet or his spear; the rustling ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly

... stints, and that hath but slender hold-fast of us. In true friendship, it is a generall and universall heat, and equally tempered, a constant and setled heat, all pleasure and smoothnes, that hath no pricking or stinging in it, which the more it is in lustfull love, the more is it but a raging and mad desire in ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... tossing people up, though I don't know just how it's done. If they don't, we are in the path and some of those children are sure to find us," answered Flora cheerfully, though she stood on her head with a bunch of burrs pricking ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... curls had been put on, with much pricking of fingers, and a blue ribbon added, la Fan, he surveyed himself with satisfaction, and considered the effect so fine, that he was inspired to try a still greater metamorphosis. The dress Fan had taken off lay on a chair, and into it got Tom, chuckling with suppressed laughter, ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott



Words linked to "Pricking" :   prick, puncture



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