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Thievish   Listen
adjective
Thievish  adj.  
1.
Given to stealing; addicted to theft; as, a thievish boy, a thievish magpie.
2.
Like a thief; acting by stealth; sly; secret. "Time's thievish progress to eternity."
3.
Partaking of the nature of theft; accomplished by stealing; dishonest; as, a thievish practice. "Or with a base and biosterous sword enforce A thievish living on the common road."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thievish" Quotes from Famous Books



... ever think of paying for a passage." I give the statement as Mackay's, without endorsement; yet I am tempted to believe that it contains a grain of truth; and if you add that the man shall be impudent and thievish, or else dead-broke, it may even pass for a fair representation of the facts. We gentlemen of England who live at home at ease have, I suspect, very insufficient ideas on the subject. All the world over, people are stowing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... crying piteously all the time, and then my two boys went and hid themselves. I would have suffered the rack to have recalled that hour. It was too late. On going into the kitchen shortly after, I found a poor woman of the neighborhood with the box, which she said her thievish son had confessed he stole from the pantry. Perhaps some parents imagine the feelings of Charlotte and myself when we made this discovery. But they are few. The boys both shunned us, and we dreaded to see them. But at last we sent for them to come in, and they dared not refuse to obey. I took ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... entering the fur preserve by the usual route of Hudson Bay and York Factory. From Le Grand Diable's former association with the North-West Company it was probable he would be in Robertson's brigade. Among the voyageurs of both companies there was not a more expert canoeman than this treacherous, thievish Iroquois. As steersman, he could take a crew safely through knife-edge rocks with the swift certainty of arrow flight. In spite of a reputation for embodying the vices of white man and red—which gave him his unsavory title—it seemed unlikely that the Hudson's ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... Poverty, repining and hopeless poverty, a canker of the mind unknown in savage life, corrodes their spirits and blights every free and noble quality of their natures. They become drunken, indolent, feeble, thievish, and pusillanimous. They loiter like vagrants about the settlements, among spacious dwellings replete with elaborate comforts which only render them sensible of the comparative wretchedness of their own condition. Luxury spreads its ample ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... back his money from the doorkeeper upon the plea that he did not feel well; and in five or ten minutes he was back among the boys, a hero of such moral grandeur as would be hard to describe. Not one of the fellows saw him as he really was—a little lying, thievish scoundrel. Not even my boy saw him so, though he had on some other point of personal honesty the most ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells

... them, had they not, to avoid bloodshed, quickly embarked. As it was necessary to take in a fresh supply of wood and water, the ship was warped in close to the shore, both to overawe the natives, and more easily to get on board what was wanted. The natives again quickly manifested their thievish propensities. For instance, a man came off with a club, with which he struck the ship's side in defiance, and then offered to exchange the weapon for beads. No sooner, however, did he get them, than he made off without giving up ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston

... unholy combination a pledge to reduce the tariff was carried out by a bill which greatly increased its burdens; by this combination the public lands and resources of the country were fed to a gang of vultures by a thievish Secretary of the Interior. And of course under such an administration the cause of "Religion" made tremendous strides. Catholic officials were appointed to public office, Catholic ecclesiastics were accorded public honors, and Catholic favor became a means to political advancement. You ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... weed, Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labour of my thoughts. 'Tis likeliest They had engaged their wandering steps too far; And envious darkness, ere they could return, Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night, Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end, In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps With everlasting oil to give due light To the ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton

... as an orator he pleased his hearers. This turned his head, and a spendthrift's blood runs in his veins. To bring his fair young bride to a stately mansion, he undertook the bad cause of the thievish tax-collector ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... under great temptation for three weeks (which time it took for the hampered and filibustered bill to come up for its passage or defeat), is known to those who have tried to do it. The railroads were outraged and incensed by the measure; they sincerely believed it to be monstrous and thievish. "Let the legislature try to confiscate two-fifths of the lawyers', or the bakers', or the ironmoulders', just earnings," said they, "and ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... no rest, but watched by the sick abbess; lifting her from the bed to the cold floor, and from the cold floor to the bed, and refused a piece of gold the abbess offered for her trouble, begging it might be given to Lisa Behlken, a little gipsy maiden, whose thievish and heathenish parents had left her behind them in the town, but who had been taken in and sheltered by the poor widow, though she had enough to do ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... short-legged cock, which he had reared upon bread-crumbs. But one morning, being pinched with appetite (for hunger drives the wolf from the thicket), he took it into his head to sell the cock, and, taking it to the market, he met two thievish magicians, with whom he made a bargain, and sold it for half-a-crown. So they told him to take it to their house, and they would count him out the money. Then the magicians went their way, and, Minecco Aniello following ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... recollected gesture or accent made him laugh. He slightly resented this recognition and the change it worked on his emotional tone. For he was compelled to think of her as a human being and be sorry because she was plainly cold and miserable; and it was his desire to look on women with a magpie thievish eye and no concern for their souls. Considering the part that most of them played in life it was unwarrantable of them to have souls. The dinner that one eats does not presume to have a soul. But the happy freedom of the voluptuary was ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... a sensation, not so much amongst the Gypsies, that peculiar people, for whom it was intended, as amongst the Spaniards themselves, who, though they look upon the Roma with some degree of contempt as a low and thievish race of outcasts, nevertheless take a strange interest in all that concerns them, it having been from time immemorial their practice, more especially of the dissolute young nobility, to cultivate the acquaintance of the Gitanos as they are popularly called, probably ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... converse in private even with thy sons, Pradyumna and Samva. Thou shouldst form attachments with only such females as are high-born and sinless and devoted to their lords, and thou shouldst always shun women that are wrathful, addicted to drinks, gluttonous, thievish, wicked and fickle. Behaviour such as this is reputable and productive of prosperity; and while it is capable of neutralising hostility, it also leadeth to heaven. Therefore, worship thou thy husband, decking thyself in costly garlands and ornaments and smearing thyself with unguents ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... their manner of speaking, and, not least, at their names; but, until the present day, I had been unacquainted with the most extraordinary point connected with them. How came they possessed of this extraordinary virtue? Was it because they were thievish? I remembered that an ancient thief-taker, who had retired from his useful calling, and who frequently visited the office of my master at law, the respectable S—-, {84} who had the management of ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... they call Menetto; under which title they comprehend everything that is subtle and crafty and beyond human skill and power. They have so much witchcraft, divination, sorcery and wicked arts, that they can hardly be held in by any bands or locks. They are as thievish and treacherous as they are tall; and in cruelty they are altogether inhuman, more than ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... false, whose cruel hand Was armed and prest to give the trait'rous blow, With all his fellows mongst Godfredo's band Entered unseen, disguised that few them know: The thievish wolves, when night o'ershades the land, That seem like faithful dogs in shape and show, So to the closed folds in secret creep, And entrance seek; to kill some ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... in the Lewis against the gentlemen venturers who were directed by his Majesty there, and did prosecute that rebellion against them with fire and sword and all kinds of hostility, for the which and for other thievish and treasonable crimes committed by them they and every one of them were upon the second day of February, 1612, orderly denounced rebels and put to the horn - they have now combined and banded themselves in a ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... the street. But he modestly disclaimed any special credit for his share in subsequent events, stating that he had many friends among the European colony at Cairo, and was naturally willing to help a lady against the thievish dogs who ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... humiliating to reflect, that a thievish orator at one of our Agricultural Fairs might appropriate page after page out of the "Gentleman Farmer" of Lord Kames, written in the middle of the last century, and the county-paper, and the aged directors, in clean shirt-collars and dress-coats, would be full of praises ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... remnant of the sponge loaf. Nothing much worse than had already happened could befall him, and after brief temptation he kicked off his unlaced hobnails and stole downstairs. With some such vague idea of disguising crime as a thievish monkey might have had, he packed up a pair of neatly folded towels in the paper which had once held the loaf, and so retreated to his prison. All day long the familiar noises of the house, exaggerated into importance ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... in England as the prophylactic against the infected Hejaz. It is admirably suited for quarantine purposes, and it has been abolished, very unwisely, in favour of "Tor harbour." The latter, inhabited by a ring of thievish Syro-Greek traders; backed by a wretched wilderness, alternately swampy and sandy, is comfortless to an extent calculated to make the healthiest lose health. Moreover, its climate, says Professor Palmer (p. 222), is very malarious: "owing to ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... weka (Ocydromus Australis), or the wood-hen, belonging to the class of rails, which have already become quite scarce upon North Island. In the grassy plains and forests of the Southern Alps, however, they are still found in considerable numbers. It is a thievish bird, greedy after everything that glistens; it frequently carries off spoons, forks, and the like, but it also breaks into hen-coops, and picks and ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... for they are active and lively, although they are of thicker build than the Germans. They cut their hair close on the forehead, letting it hang down on either side. They are good sailors, and better pirates, cunning, treacherous, thievish. Three hundred and upwards are hanged annually in London. Hawking is the favourite sport of the nobility. The English are more polite in eating than the French, devouring less bread, but more meat, which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... course, of a jackdaw or a magpie—these birds' thievish reputations made the guess natural. But the marks on the match were much too wide apart to have been made by the beak of either. I conjectured, therefore, that it must be a raven. So that, when we arrived near the coach-house, I seized the opportunity of a little chat with ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... partridges that "drummed" in the outlying copses and patches of second growth, in April, and led forth their broods in June, subject every autumn to our first excited, early efforts at gunning; and last of all, the flapping, canny, thievish, black crows that like the foxes were always about, and always at loggerheads with ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... at any return of this—activity. It was the first really sane moment he had had since the 'change.' Whatever it was that had happened at Widderstone was now distinctly weakening in effect. Why, now, perhaps? He stole a thievish look over his shoulder at the glass, and cautiously drew finger and thumb down that beaked nose. Then he really quietly smiled, a smile he felt this abominable facial caricature was quite unused to, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... treasure from thievish Barons and Margraves protected by scores of armed men, with the object of breaking their power, for the relief of commerce, I admired you, but to say that the despoiling of a helpless ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... I had forgotten the dates; I've heard that reason given; and another excuse is the fear of a conspiracy among the negroes to rob and murder the whites: and I think you can't deny that they are thievish." ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... and often bony and lean. In character the Martialist is fiery and choleric, naturally delighting in war and contention, but generous and magnanimous. This when Mars is well aspected; should the planet be evil aspected, then will the native be treacherous, thievish, treasonable, cruel, and wicked. The persons signified by Mars are generals, soldiers, sailors (if he is in a watery sign), surgeons, chemists, doctors, armourers, barbers, curriers, smiths, carpenters, bricklayers, sculptors, cooks, and tailors. When afflicted with Mercury or the moon, ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... he said, "go to your homes while ye may. Ignorant, and greatly daring that ye are, the bandar-log, or such thievish scum among ye, drive ye with idle words and chatterings even to the brink of death. So far have ye come, but ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... the Danish Mission Intelligence:—Nobody can deny that the Pariers are the dregs and refuse of all the Indians; they are thievish, and have wicked ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland

... stream a thievish Indian, who had come out in a canoe, managed to steal something from the ship. One of the crew chanced to see the Indian as he was slyly slipping off, and picking up a gun he fired and killed him. After that Hudson's men had several fights with ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery

... found the fellow who had gambled away the horse that he had sold. Being faced with punishment, he agreed to replace the animal he had stolen with another, and a very good horse was brought to satisfy the white men, who were now determined to pursue a rigid course with the thievish Indians among whom they found themselves. These people, the Eneeshurs, were stingy, inhospitable, and overbearing in their ways. Nothing but the formidable numbers of the white men saved them from insult, pillage, and even murder. While they were here, one of the horses belonging to the party broke ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... had been interested in it—and the picture had disappeared. She laughed at her own folly, yet she was glad Stanley had given her this chance to make up a silly day-dream. She waited until he had exhausted himself on the subject of valets, their drunkenness, their thievish habits, ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... that so his bones jut forth? What woe hath happened to this piteous one?" Then answer made the charioteer, "Sweet Prince! This is no other than an aged man. Some fourscore years ago his back was straight, His eye bright, and his body goodly: now The thievish years have sucked his sap away, Pillaged his strength and filched his will and wit; His lamp has lost its oil, the wick burns black; What life he keeps is one poor lingering spark Which flickers for the finish: such is age; Why should your Highness heed?" Then spake the Prince ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... along the plain met a heifer, and forthwith laying thievish hands upon it, led it straight to his house, where he slaughtered it and stripped off the skin. The proprietor soon appeared before the Cogia's house, making a loud cry and lamentation. 'Who would have thought,' said the Cogia to his people and his wife, 'that ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca

... emancipation of highways from all taxes levied upon wayfarers is a mark of modern civilization. The mediaeval plan was to extort a toll from every luckless traveler in the name of baron or bandit. In our day Algerine corsairs, Italian brigands, Chinese pirates and Mexican guerillas have continued the thievish custom of "tributes," and not long ago even Montana Indians established themselves on the leading roads and levied tolls from the passers-by. The civilized differs from the savage or feudal practice in rendering an equivalent for the contributions ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... roared the captain. "And now yer come ter speak uv it, my mind misgives me that all ain 't right at the island. I didn't tell yer, but I left a tidy sum uv money in that old iron safe off the Sarah Jane, the last ship I commanded, and all this what's puzzled us so may be part uv some thievish scheme. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson

... the Tinkers in a perhaps somewhat too unqualified reprobation. For there are tinkers and tinkers. Some of them, indeed, are stout and sturdy thieves,—veritable birds of prey,—whose rapacity is continually questing for plunder. But some of them have merely the magpies' and jackdaws' thievish propensity for picking up what lies temptingly in their way. And some few are so honest that they pass by as harmlessly as a wedge of high-flying wild duck. And I have heard it said that to places like Lisconnel their pickings and stealings ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... torches to burn our house, the last remaining building they had left besides the negro quarter. That was too much; all my pride, and the resolutions that I had made (and until now kept up) to treat them with cool contempt, and never, let the worst come, humble myself to the thievish cutthroats, forsook me at the awful thought of my home in ruins; I must do something, and that quickly;—hardened, thieving villains, as I knew them to be, I would make one effort for the sake of my home. ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... his tea and munched his cookies, with his head on one side and the air of a thievish jackdaw; and proceeded, after his wont, to extract such pith as the ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of yonder tower, Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk Where serpents are—chain me with roaring bears, Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house O'ercovered quite with dead men's rattling bones; Or bid me go into a new made grave; Or hide me with a dead man in his shroud;— Things ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... We have but seen the barren coasts of life; Like some wild roving crew of lawless pirates, Who, crowded in their narrow noisome ship, Upon the rude sea, with rude manners dwell; Naught of the fair land knowing but the bays, Where they may risk their hurried thievish landing. Of the loveliness that, in its peaceful dales, The land conceals—O Father!—O, of this, In our wild voyage we ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... of the Italian cabbies and porters fill me with terror for the time when I may have to fall alive and unassisted into their hands: they have neither conscience nor gratitude, and regard thievish demands when satisfied merely as ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous

... hope, a'gad, they have not forgotten my trunk-mails of apparel amid the ample provision they have made for their own belly-timber—Mercy, a'gad, I were finely helped up if the vesture has miscarried among the thievish Borderers!" ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... sat down to read it: it contained a complaint that Venetian ships had been seized by the English privateers, who then made all seas unsafe. The English nation, she then said, is not so small but that evil and thievish men may be found in it: while she promised enquiry and justice, she nevertheless reverted to her main point that she had received nothing from the republic during the forty-four years of her government but ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... lengthy thong of oxhide, which now lay in a coil on the floor. Bound round and round, twisted and intertangled, and finally tied with a special and secret knot (the ends being concealed), the thong of leather secured the contents of the chest from prying eyes or thievish hands. With axe or knife, of course, the knot might easily have been severed, but no one could obtain access to the room except the retainers of the house, and which of them, even if unfaithful, would dare to employ such means in view of the ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... as young girls," he said, "and far more tractable; thievish, of course, and untruthful—but so are all children! They attach themselves to me in a pathetic, dog-like fashion, without hope of preferment or any ulterior object.... Yes, they have established themselves ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... the thievish sultans and followed by my train of quarrelling servants, I at last reached Uzinza, which is ruled by a Wahuma chief of Abyssinian stock, and here I found the petty chiefs quite as extortionate in extorting hongo (tax) ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... and thievish sinner, God hath prepared the curse, that "every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side, according to it." ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... have been in the most dangerous condition that ever I was in through my past life; for whatever ill circumstances I had been in, I was never pursued for a thief before; nor had I ever done anything that merited the name of dishonest or fraudulent, much less thievish. I had chiefly been my own enemy, or, as I may rightly say, I had been nobody's enemy but my own; but now I was woefully embarrassed: for though I was perfectly innocent, I was in no condition to make that innocence appear; and if I had been taken, it had been under a supposed guilt of the ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... caught a small but thievish Rat. "O, sir!" said the Rat, "pray let me go. Next year I shall have grown bigger, and then you can kill me."—"No, no," said the Dog; "I have got you now, but next year I am not sure of ...
— Rock A Bye Library: A Book of Fables - Amusement for Good Little Children • Unknown

... it. For a while, the disease was checked by Fleet Ditch; it then leaped this narrow boundary, and ascending the opposite hill, carried fearful devastation into Saint James's, Clerkenwell. At the same time, it attacked Saint Bride's; thinned the ranks of the thievish horde haunting Whitefriars, and proceeding in a westerly course, decimated ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... name, she engaged a woman to accompany her as a servant; and this woman one day having committed some fault, was beaten by her master, who scolded her and told her she was lazy, thievish, and impudent. Smarting under the punishment, she determined to be revenged, and going to the magistrate told him: 'This man, who seems to you so respectable, is a wicked wretch who has abandoned his own wife, and run away in the night with the daughter of one of ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... designs of Harrison. For 'tis my purpose still to temporize, Not break with him in war till once again I scour the far emplacements of our tribes. Then shall we close at once on all our foes. They claim our lands, but we shall take their lives; Drive out their thievish souls, and spread their bones To bleach upon the misty Alleghanies; Or make death's treaty with them on the spot, And sign our bloody marks upon their crowns For lack of schooling—ceding but enough Of all the lands they ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair

... appearance and name. The true spiritual preachers must have been few. Should it be strange, then, that in our time sincere preachers are not numerous, and that the majority of ministers riot in what they themselves seem and do? It cannot and shall not be otherwise. The thievish drones, which are prone to riot, let them riot! We will resist to the utmost of our power, commending the matter to God, who doubtless will grant us sufficient honor and profit, both temporally and eternally, though we must labor gratuitously, accepting injury ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... fleece; defraud &c.545; obtain under false pretenses; live by one's wits. rob Peter to pay Paul, borrow of Peter to pay Paul; set a thief to catch a thief. disregard the distinction between meum and tuum[Lat]. [receive stolen goods] fence, launder, launder money. Adj. thieving &c. v.; thievish, light-fingered; furacious[obs3], furtive; piratical; predaceous, predal[obs3], predatory, predatorial[obs3]; raptorial &c. (rapacious) 789. stolen &c. v. Phr. sic vos ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... girl's temperament is as attractive as her looks I'd throw over the Salon for the sake of meeting her," he mused. "But that's frankly impossible, I suppose. At the best, she would not forgive me if she knew I had watched her in this thievish way. I could never explain it, never! She wouldn't even listen. Well, it's better to have dreamed and lost than never to have ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... lightning. This was delightful; and no less so a flight of crows which passed overhead, cawing, and flying so low that the children could see every feather in their bodies, which shone in the sun like burnished green-black jet, and the glancing of their thievish eyes. ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge

... the prank which he played upon the extortionate money-lender of Warwick. Riding on an easy rein through the town, Hind heard a tumult at a street corner, and inquiring the cause, was told that an innkeeper was arrested by a thievish usurer for a paltry twenty pounds. Dismounting, this providence in jack-boots discharged the debt, cancelled the bond, and took the innkeeper's goods for his own security. And thereupon overtaking the usurer, 'My friend!' he exclaimed, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... say whether the fact he committed was done at the persuasion of others, or merely out of his own wicked inclinations; nay, I cannot be so much as positive whether he had any associates or no; but in the beginning of his thievish practices, he committed petit larceny, which was immediately discovered. He thereupon was apprehended and committed to Newgate. At the next sessions he was tried, and the fact being plain, he was convicted; but being very young, the Court, through its usual ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... were seized, Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia, in whose opening chapter More has given an account of a dinner at Cardinal Morton's, who, by the way, presided in the Star Chamber. At this dinner one of the cardinal's guests reflected on the thievish propensities of Englishmen, who were to be found throughout the country hanged as felons, sometimes twenty together on a single gallows. More protested that this was not the fault of the poor who were hanged, but of rich land monopolists, ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... beginning of their confinement, the most debauched from those whom a moment of distress or error has thrown into these scenes of depravity, the contamination of bad example rapidly spreads, and those who enter dissolute, frequently come out thievish; while all timidity is banished from the mind of the more diffident. Besides, it is not always the most culpable who fall into the hands of the police, the more cunning and experienced, by contriving to come to terms with its agents, employed ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... the sobriquet of Jack Dawkins, an artful thievish young scamp, in the boy crew of Fagin the Jew villain.—C. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... Into a wakeful weasel's bed; Whereat the mistress of the house, A deadly foe of rats and mice, Was making ready in a trice To eat the stranger as a mouse. "What! do you dare," she said, "to creep in The very bed I sometimes sleep in, Now, after all the provocation I've suffered from your thievish nation? Are you not really a mouse, That gnawing pest of every house, Your special aim to do the cheese ill? Ay, that you are, or I'm no weasel." "I beg your pardon," said the bat; "My kind is very far from that. What! I a mouse! Who told you such a lie? Why, ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine

... crafty Hermes from the god conveyed 10 A drove, that separate from their fellows strayed. The theft an old insidious peasant viewed, (They called him Battus in the neighbourhood,) Hired by a wealthy Pylian prince to feed His favourite mares, and watch the generous breed. The thievish god suspected him, and took The hind aside, and thus in whispers spoke: 'Discover not the theft, whoe'er thou be, And take that milk-white heifer for thy fee.' 'Go, stranger,' cries the clown, 'securely on, 20 That stone shall sooner tell;' and showed a stone. The god withdrew, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... which Evan had proposed. The woman said: "A lawyer will do this"; the man said: "Splendid is the bargain and costly and thievish are ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans

... where the lyrebirds danced, and had often crept silently through the scrub until he could command a view of the mound where these strange birds strutted and danced, and mimicked the other birds with life-like fidelity. He loved the birds very much, and never killed any of them, even when a pair of thievish magpies attacked his larder and pecked a damper into little bits when he was away fishing. Many of the birds were tame with him now, he said; they would hop about the camp and let him feed them; and he had a carpet snake that was ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... shrewd question. You know I have a theory that a man is known by his dog. This beast seems to have changed character when he changed masters. When Enciso had him he was little more than a puppy, and then he was thievish and cowardly. Now he will attack an Indian as savagely as Leoncico himself. Pizarro must have ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... like a thievish Jack he looks! I wish for my part all the cooks Would come and baste him with a ladle As long as ever they were able, To keep his fingers ends from itching After sweet things in ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... ears of all the rest had pendants of copper. Also, one of them had his face painted over, and head stuck with feathers in manner of a turkey-cock's train. These are more timorous than those of the Savage Rock, yet very thievish. ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... property, it considerably lessons the percentage of persons driven by destitution into the ranks of crime. Add to these the great bulk of juvenile offenders convicted of theft, and that peculiar class of people who steal, not because they are in distress, but merely from a thievish disposition, and it will he manifest that half the cases of theft in England and Wales are not due to the pressure of ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison

... give a most amusing account of his ride from New York to Richmond, with various criticisms of sleeping-car accommodation, heartily endorsed by all American travelers who have read them. Arriving at Richmond he asked the usual question: "Is not the negro idle, thriftless and thievish?" From time immemorial it has been asserted that the laws of meum and tuum have no meaning for the colored man. It is a joke current in more than one American city, that the police have standing orders to arrest every negro seen carrying a turkey or a ...
— My Native Land • James Cox

... Harry, laughing, "though every Englishman thinks he is a judge of horseflesh, and I fancy those might possess endurance, if not up to much weight. As for the men, they seem to fancy themselves more than the Egyptians; but a more villainous, blood- thirsty, thievish-looking set of scoundrels, it has never been my luck ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... brief visits to the natives our discoverer was not only troubled by the thievish propensities of the natives, but had to guard against the same tendencies in his own men, some of whom were much confused as to the true course of rectitude in regard to "mine and thine"; in addition to which he had to contend with a general propensity on ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne

... the temper of the house-holder, whether she would take that apparition quietly, deceived by Lanyard's mumming into believing she had only a poor thievish fool to deal with, or with a storm of bourgeois hysteria. In the latter event, Lanyard's hand was ready planted, palm down, on the top of the desk: should the woman attempt to give the alarm, a single ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... and bloom. Therefore from such danger lock Every one of his loved flock; And let your dogs lie loose without, Lest the wolf come, as a scout From the mountain, and ere day Bear a kid or lamb away; Or the crafty, thievish fox Break upon your simple flocks. To secure yourselves from these, Be not too secure in ease. So shall you good shepherds prove, And deserve your master's love. Now, good night! may sweetest slumbers And soft ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... these creatures, though they live in the open air, have their ideas of fireside comforts. There were two or three children sleeping on the straw with which the tents were littered; a couple of donkeys were grazing in the lane, and a thievish-looking dog was lying before the fire. Some of the younger gipsies were dancing to the music of a fiddle, played by a tall, slender stripling, in an old frock coat, with a peacock's feather stuck ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... brother reporters, I shall feel that I have really performed a service. I believe they do not half understand it, or they would waste no printer's ink idly. The school war was an illustration of it, all through. I was at Police Headquarters, where I saw the East Side, that had been orderly, becoming thievish and immoral. Going to the schools, I found them overcrowded, ill ventilated, dark, without playgrounds, repellent. Following up the boys, who escaped from them in disgust—if indeed they were not ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... practice, but Chippy was as keen in practice as he was when chasing the thievish tramp for the lost basket. He had mastered the idea that it will not do to be keen by fits and starts: you must be on the spot all the time. So he took away from Locking that afternoon one fact which he had discovered about his grandmother's lodger—the boots from a London hotel—that ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... her wedding feast; but the king was so pleased with it that he would not part from it; and to the end of his life was never seen without it. After his death, Pinkel became king; and let up hope that he gave up his bad and thievish ways, and ruled his subjects well. As for his brothers, he did not punish them, but left them in the stables, where they grumbled all ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... domesticated, and on many cattle and sheep stations tame specimens are funning about the paddocks. To my mind they are an intolerable nuisance, always doing some mischief—either frightening the horses, or stealing things from the workmen. I saw one cured of his thievish propensities for a long time. He always loafed about the kitchen when dinner was being served, and if the cook turned his back for a moment, his long neck was thrust through the window, and anything within reach—from an onion to a salt-spoon—disappeared with marvellous celerity. ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... yelled the crowd; "what kind of a Cossack is he who is as thievish as a Tatar? To the devil in a sack with your ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... before both sides be heard to speak. This principle in the forehead of your Laws foretells destruction to this Common-wealth. For it declares that the Laws that follow such refusal are selfish and thievish and full of murder, protecting all that get money by their ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... the rascal, an accomplished, self-possessed practitioner in his thievish art; "I thought your boots might be pinching you, and only wished to ease you ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... Marion? How will they believe that, at a time when the British had completely overrun South Carolina; their headquarters at Charleston, a victorious army at Camden; strong garrisons at Georgetown and Jacksonborough, with swarms of thievish and bloody minded tories, filling up all between; and the spirits of the poor whigs so completely cowed, that they were fairly knocked under to the civil and military yoke of the British, who, I ask ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... which was worth three dollars. His mother appeared before the court, and plead earnestly for her boy, saving that he was a good boy to her, except that he played truant from school. He then got into the company of a gang of boys, who peddle apples,—a thievish set,—and of them he also learned to steal. He was sent to the House of Reformation; which is a prison for boys, where they are kept at work and study, but not allowed ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb

... of September the Indians became very troublesome on the line of the stage along the Sweetwater, between Split Rock and Three Crossings. A stage had been robbed and two passengers killed outright. Lem Flowers, the driver, was badly wounded. The thievish redskins also drove stock repeatedly from the stations. They were continually lying in wait for passing stages and Pony Express riders. It was useless to keep the Express going until these depredations could be stopped. ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)

... bring oneself to think it so, and then sport the pensive within twenty yards of the muzzle of Brown-Bess, impatient to let fly. But our soul burned, our heart panted for a Cushat; and in that strong fever-fit of passion, could we seek to slake our thirst for that wild blood with the murder of a thievish eavesdropper of a Pye? The Blackbird, too, often dropt out of the thicket into an open glade in the hazel-shaws, and the distinctness of his yellow bill showed he was far within shot-range. Yet, let us do ourselves justice, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... to the Bourbons, this vile traitor wrote to Talleyrand, a few days after the abdication at Fontainebleau: "I always desired the return of that excellent Prince, Louis XVIII., and his august family." But these things are mere shadows of the incomparable villainy of this thievish ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... English poets is like our robin in everything except color. He is familiar, hardy, abundant, thievish, and his habits, manners, and song recall our bird to the life. Our own native blackbirds, the crow blackbird, the rusty grackle, the cowbird, and the red-shouldered starling, are not songsters, even in the latitude allowable to poets; neither are they whistlers, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... all this, drawn from the laziness, the perverseness, or thievish disposition, of the poor native Irish, might be easily answered, by shewing the true reasons for such accusations, and how easily those people may be brought to a less savage manner of life: but my printers have already suffered too much for my speculations. However, supposing ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... self-aggrandisement and self-obliteration, are here as well as in the noisy world we have left. Lessons these are for us, too, if we bring the keen eye and listening ear. Among Mackenzie tribes no Yellow-Knife, Dog-Rib, or Slavi starved while another had meat, no thievish hand despoiled the cache of another. A man's word was his bond, and a promise was kept to the death. Not all the real things of life are taught to the Cree by the Christian. Courage is better than culture, playing the game of more importance than ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... it day by day, what later clumps of buds have burst into colour and odour. What beauty in that blooming wall! the wedding-presents of a princess ranged for admiration would not please me half so much; what delicate colouring! what fragrance the thievish winds steal from it, without making it one odour the poorer! with what a complacent hum the bee goes past! My chaffinch's nest, my swallows,—twittering but a few months ago around the kraal of the Hottentot, or chasing flies around the six solitary pillars ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... cracked and rattled under our horses' feet. Tantura is a poor Arab village, and we had some difficulty in procuring provisions. The people lived in small huts of mud and stones, near the sea. The place had a thievish look, and we deemed it best to be careful in the disposal of our ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... tom-cat I feel quite like, That o'er the fire ladders crawls Then softly creeps, ground the walls. My aim's quite virtuous ne'ertheless, A bit of thievish lust, a bit of wantonness. I feel it all my members haunting— The glorious Walpurgis night. One day—then comes the feast enchanting That ...
— Faust • Goethe

... becomes manifest in the character of the people. Commercially speaking, the Persian is considerably more of a Jew than the Jew himself, and along a route frequented by travellers, the person possessing some little knowledge of the thievish ways of the country and of current prices, besides having plenty of small change, finds these advantages a matter for congratulation almost every hour of the day. The proprietor of a wretched little mud hovel, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... that you should enforce with the utmost earnestness the Seventh Commandment, which treats of stealing, when you are teaching workmen, dealers and even farmers and servants, inasmuch as many of these are guilty of various dishonest and thievish practices. So, too, it will be your duty to explain and apply the Fourth Commandment with great diligence, when you are teaching children and uneducated adults, and to urge them to observe order, to be faithful, obedient and peaceable, as well as to adduce numerous ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump

... he embarked on board the barque Clymene, which was bound for Payta, in Peru, and was landed on Picton Island; but before the vessel had departed the Fuegians had beset the little party, and shown themselves so obstinately and mischievously thievish, that it was plainly impossible for so small a party to hold their ground among them. Before there could be a possibility of convincing them of even the temporal benefit of the white man's residence among them, they would have stripped and carried off everything from persons who ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... and Germany. They are often sent out in the pastures to gather up the horses, and will remain by them and keep them within bounds for days at a time. They are also much used in the management of sheep. Unlike the regular shepherd-dog of Europe, however, they are sometimes thievish and treacherous, owing to their wolfish origin. I do not think we could have made ten miles a day without Brusa. In the driving of pack-trains a good dog is indispensable. I always gave the poor fellow something to eat when we stopped ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... required all the wisdom of Lieutenant Cook to conduct himself in a proper manner. His sentiments on the subject displayed the liberality of his mind. He thought it of consequence to put an end, if possible to thievish practices at once, by doing something that should engage the natives in general to prevent them, from a regard to their common interest. Strict orders had been given by him, that they should not be fired upon, even when they were detected in ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... likewise informed them of "a great and navigable river and good harbour in the other headland of the bay, almost right over against Cape Cod," which he had formerly visited, and which was called "Thievish Harbor." ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... by Ptolemy and Pliny in a more confined, by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger, sense, has been derived, ridiculously, from Sarah, the wife of Abraham, obscurely from the village of Saraka, (Stephan. de Urbibus,) more plausibly from the Arabic words, which signify a thievish character, or Oriental situation, (Hottinger, Hist. Oriental. l. i. c. i. p. 7, 8. Pocock, Specimen, p. 33, 35. Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 567.) Yet the last and most popular of these etymologies is refuted by Ptolemy, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... pitiful account of these: "I came this journey with a determination to observe very carefully all your hints as to occupations and observations, east and west, north and south, but I have been so worried by lazy, deceitful Sepoys, and thievish Johanna men, and indifferent instruments, that I fear the results are very poor." He goes on to say that some of his instruments were defective, and others went out of order, and that his time-taker, one of his people, had no conscience, and could ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... nearly twelve when he reached home. Now, once more, would begin the gruesome process of deception—flinching of soul, and brazening of visage. It would be better when the whole thievish business was irretrievably begun and ordered in its ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... not of the kindreds, were for a long time sullen and heavy, and it availed little to trust to them for the doing of work; albeit they would follow about their friends of Burgdale with the love of a dog; also they were, divers of them, somewhat thievish, and if they lacked anything would liefer take it by stealth than ask for it; which forsooth the Burgdale men took not amiss, but deemed of ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... outstretched peplum and soaring wings. To her left was the small figure, archaic also, of a charioteer, from the excavations at Delphi, amazingly full of life in spite of hieratic and traditional execution. But the most conspicuous thing of all was a mutilated Eros, by a late Rhodian artist—subtle, thievish, lovely, breathing an evil and daemonic charm. It stood opposite the Nike, 'on tiptoe for a flight.' And there was that in it which seemed at moments to disorganize the room, and lay violent and ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... adjectives, imports diminution, or lessening the quality; as, "White, whitish;" i.e. somewhat white. When added to nouns, it signifies similitude or tendency to a character; as, "Child, childish; thief, thievish." ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... 'Hot as the Devil's kitchen;' 'Handy as a pocket in a shirt;' 'He's a whole team and the dog under the wagon;' 'All deacons are good, but there's odds in deacons' (to deacon berries is to put the largest atop); 'So thievish they hev to take in their stone walls nights;'[32] may serve as specimens. 'I take my tea barfoot,' said a backwoodsman when asked if he would have cream and sugar. (I find barfoot, by the way, in the Coventry ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... unfriendly Indians. Observe Mount St. Helen, of Vancouver, about ninety miles off. The country fertile and delightful, abounding with game. The ocean suddenly appears. Rough weather and its effects. Friendly Indians bring food. Rain ruins merchandise, clothing and food. Thievish Indians are withstood. The journey comes ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... passed few people, but on approaching the centre of the City they saw numbers in front of the cafes and even going to the theatre. Flashy carriages of thievish men who had enriched themselves under the new conditions, rolled frequently by. The basis of their power, the squalid element with jealous, insolent eyes, ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... a Five-hundred, Ten, and Five, One sent from God, shall slay the thievish woman And that same giant ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... suppose there is any document so transparently true in existence, and we ought to be thankful for that. It is customary to say that Rousseau had the soul of a lackey, by which I suppose is meant that he had a gross and vulgar nature, a thievish taste for low pleasures, and an ill-bred absence of consideration for others. He had all these qualities certainly, but he had a great deal more. He was upright and disinterested. He had a noble disregard of material advantages; he had an enthusiasm for virtue, ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Hodgson caught up her husband's Sunday cane, and despite pussy's cries and scratches, she gave him such a beating as she hoped might cure him of his thievish propensities; when lo! and behold, Mrs. Jenkins stood at the door with a face of ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... situation. Nevertheless, in order to be prepared for the worst, and, in case of need, to be unencumbered in my movements, I watched my opportunity, and threw away amongst the grass of the prairie a bundle containing the few things that the thievish Mexicans ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... following inscription Tjukzchi natio ferocissima et bellicosa Russorum inimica, qui capti se invicem interficiunt. In 1777 GEORGIUS says in his Beschreibung aller Nationen des Russischen Reichs (part ii., p. 350) of the Chukches "They are more savage, coarse, proud, refractory, thievish, false, and revengeful, than the neighbouring nomads the Koryaeks. They are as bad and dangerous as the Tunguses are friendly. Twenty Chukches will beat fifty Koryaeks. The Ostrogs (fortified places) lying in the neighbourhood of their country are even in continual fear of ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... on the path, but some would find its resting-place there. It would lie bare on the surface of the hard ground, and would not be there long enough to have a chance of germinating, but as soon as the sower's back was turned to go up the next furrow, down would come the flock of thievish birds that fluttered behind him, and bear away the grains. The soil might be good enough, but it was so hard that the seed did not get in, but only lay on it. The path was of the same soil as the rest of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... till it is wanted. Possibly the rural police have not yet discovered this habit of the gipsy. Indeed, the contrast in mind and locomotive powers between the gipsy and the village policeman has often amused me; the former most like the thievish jay, ever on mischief bent; the other, who has his eye on him, is more like the portly Cochin-China fowl of the farmyard, or the Muscovy ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... our encampment (at Jenin in Palestine) our dragoman told us that the people of the village were so quarrelsome and thievish that it was never safe to stop a night there without an extra guard, and he had engaged the brother of the sheik of the village to occupy this responsible post. This man was a great, tall, athletic-looking fellow, but a deaf mute. While we were taking our dinner he came into our tent, brandishing ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe

... The novel proceeds to relate how this member of a wealthy and respected family turned corsair, after losing all his capital in a mercantile speculation in Cyprus; how he, in his turn, was robbed of his ill-gotten gains on the high seas by some thievish merchants of Genoa; and how Landolfo, after passing through a variety of more or less improbable adventures, was finally rescued from drowning off the coast of Corfu by a servant-maid who, whilst washing dishes by the sea-shore, chanced to espy the unconscious ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... we had brought, and which were all on shore, however carefully guarded, I was sensible, run no small risk, when I considered the thievish disposition of many of the natives, and their dexterity in appropriating to themselves, by stealth, what they saw no prospect of obtaining by fair means. For this reason, I thought it prudent to declare my ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... apple wife called out, as I shook her rickety erection of trestles and boards. She was as red in the face as Birkenbog himself, for a cur with a kettle tied to its tail had taken refuge under her stall, and she had been serving a writ of ejectment with the same old umbrella with which she whacked thievish boys and sheltered her ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... the border, and fierce fighting now and then. There had been some thievish raids made by Mexicans upon ranches along the river not many miles away, and that reminded her how Knight had remarked some weeks ago that she had better not go alone as ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... to cure This rust and canker of the soul, passed on, His heart with all-embracing pity filled. "O deepening mystery of life!" he cried, "Why do such souls in human bodies dwell— Fitter for ravening wolves or greedy swine! Just at death's door cursing his flesh and blood For thievish greed inherited from him. Is this old age, or swinish greed grown old? O how unlike that other life just fled! His youth's companions, wife and children, dead, Yet filled with love for all, by all beloved, With his whole heart yearning for others' good, With his last breath ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... the boy was in charge of the apothecary, and probably picked up more or less of the smattering of chemistry and physics which he afterwards used. His final offence was a ridiculous and characteristic one. He was a greedy and thievish fellow, and was by way of penalty set to read aloud about the ancient martyrs, those dry though pious old gentlemen, while the monks ate dinner. Thus put to what he liked least, and deprived of what he liked best, he impudently extemporized, instead of the stories of holy agonies, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... his dad would have tied in his place. He unrolled his blanket and carried it to the sheltered little nook under the ledge, and dragged the bag of doughnuts and the jelly and honey and bread after it. He had heard about thievish animals that will carry off bacon and flour and such. He knew that he ought to hang his grub in a tree, but he could not reach up as far as the fox who might try to help himself, so that was out of ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... pipers, judges of painting, men of much noble sentiment and 'honest virtue, and they show me much honour and friendship. On the other hand there are also amongst them some of the most false, lying, thievish rascals; I should never have believed that such were living in the world. If one did not know them, one would think them the nicest men the earth could show. For my own part I cannot help laughing at them whenever they talk to me. ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... where had hung the placard. There was no mistaking it—the veil was of the richest Mechlin lace. I knew very well that no lady of elegance could occupy such apartment, or, indeed, was to be found (I mean no disrespect to the abbe) in that quarter of Paris. The window plainly belonged to some thievish den, and the lace formed a portion of the spoils. I began to be distrustful of late visits to the abbe's quarters, and full of the notion of thievish eyes looking out from the strange window—I used half to tremble as I passed along the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... were gossips in those days, as in all other, chuckled, at safe distance, that if Olopana's suspicions were correct, the boy should have somewhat of his—er—uncle's good looks and pleasant manner, whereas he was hairy, ill-favored, and, as his nature disclosed itself with increasing years, violent, thievish, treacherous; in short, he was Olopana at his worst. Every day added to the bad feeling between the boy and his father, for when he had grown old enough to appreciate the position to which he had been born, the youngster repaid the hate of his parent, and ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... the guilt of parricide, by renouncing their parent, by making her ruin their favourite object, and by associating themselves with her worst enemy for the accomplishment of their purpose. France, and, of course, Spain, have acted a treacherous, a thievish part. They have stolen America from England, and, whether they are able to possess themselves of that jewel or not hereafter, it was doubtless what they intended. Holland appears to me in a meaner light than any of them. They quarrelled with a friend for an enemy's sake. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... others like these. But they play with the ball, with the sack, with the hoop, with wrestling, with hurling at the stake. They say, moreover, that grinding poverty renders men worthless, cunning, sulky, thievish, insidious, vagabonds, liars, false witnesses, etc.; and that wealth makes them insolent, proud, ignorant, traitors, assumers of what they know not, deceivers, boasters, wanting in affection, slanderers, etc. But with them all the rich and poor together make up ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells

... they are lively and active, though thicker of make than the French; they cut their hair close in the middle of the head, letting it grow on either side; "they are good sailors, and better pyrates, cunning, treacherous, and thievish;" and, he adds, with a touch of satisfaction, "above three hundred are said to be hanged annually in London." They put a good deal of sugar in their drink; they are vastly fond of great noises, firing of cannon, beating of drums, and ringing ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... he threw his own, And loud in anger cried, 'Take this one too, you thievish crew, Since you ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... had forgotten the dates; I've heard that reason given; and another excuse is the fear of a conspiracy among the negroes to rob and murder the whites: and I think you can't deny that they are thievish." ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... betray his father, prince, and country, turn Turk, forsake religion, abjure God and all, nulla tam horrenda proditio, quam illi lucri causa (saith [2283]Leo Afer) perpetrare nolint. [2284]Plato, therefore, calls poverty, "thievish, sacrilegious, filthy, wicked, and mischievous:" and well he might. For it makes many an upright man otherwise, had he not been in want, to take bribes, to be corrupt, to do against his conscience, to sell his tongue, heart, hand, &c., to be ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... loitering two or three hundred yards in our rear, and instead of enlivening the way with song and tale, like our late guide, Martin of Rivadeo, he scarcely ever opened his lips, save to tell us not to go so fast, or that I should burst his pony if I spurred him so. He was thievish withal, and though he had engaged to make the journey seco, that is, to defray the charges of himself and beast, he contrived throughout to keep both at our expense. When journeying in Spain, it is invariably the cheapest plan to agree to maintain the guide ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... of white spread out before me. I watched—the specks were moving, they might be deer, or they might be wolves, but from the way they progressed I had little doubt they were men. They came from a quarter I did not like, inhabited by Dacotahs and Pawnees—treacherous, thievish rascals, who will take the scalp of an old woman if they can catch her asleep, and make as much boast of it as if they had killed a warrior in open fight. Still it was necessary to be on my guard against them. I waited till I ascertained ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston

... that the tories of the time of Cromwell and Charles the Second were but the lineal descendants of the thievish wood kernes mentioned by Spenser, or at least the inheritors of their habits. Defoe attributes the establishment of the word in England to the ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... than thou art, The churlish Shepherd said, To tell thee plain, thy Thievish looks, Now ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various

... returned to his lodgings at once, but, tempted by the novelty of all he saw about him, he lingered in the streets, and saw cause to alter his opinion of the extreme propriety of the students. Some of them were playing at pitch and toss in the thievish corners. At least half a dozen pairs of antagonists were settling their quarrels with their fists or with quarterstaves, in various secluded nooks. Songs, gay rather than grave, not to say a trifle licentious, resounded; while once or twice he was asked: "Are you North or South?"—a query to which ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... to the notorious Comanche Wygwind, one of the many leaders belonging to that tribe. He was a powerful, wiry Indian, in middle life, who had long been detested by the ranchmen for his thievish and brutal propensities. He had stolen hundreds of cattle, not to mention horses, and though often pursued, and driven more than once into dangerous quarters, he had managed in some way to pull through to the ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... chiefly of rapacious men, eager to amass fortunes, as soon as possible, and return to Europe. The produce of their labours being also less valuable, their tasks are not so rigorously exacted, and in justice to both, it must be allowed that the Negroes themselves are less treacherous and thievish, than they are in the Islands: for the propagation of the black species being very considerable here, most of them are born in the country, and it is remarked that these are in general less depraved than those imported from Africa. Besides, we must do the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various



Words linked to "Thievish" :   thieving, dishonest



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