Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Badger   Listen
noun
Badger  n.  
1.
A carnivorous quadruped of the genus Meles or of an allied genus. It is a burrowing animal, with short, thick legs, and long claws on the fore feet. One species (Meles meles or Meles vulgaris), called also brock, inhabits the north of Europe and Asia; another species (Taxidea taxus or Taxidea Americana or Taxidea Labradorica) inhabits the northern parts of North America. See Teledu.
2.
A brush made of badgers' hair, used by artists.
Badger dog. (Zool.) See Dachshund.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Badger" Quotes from Famous Books



... from your holes you shall come out.' His threat as good as prophecy Was proved by Mr. Mildandsly; For, putting on a mealy robe, He squatted in an open tub, And held his purring and his breath;— Out came the vermin to their death. On this occasion, one old stager, A rat as grey as any badger, Who had in battle lost his tail, Abstained from smelling at the meal; And cried, far off, 'Ah! General Cat, I much suspect a heap like that; Your meal is not the thing, perhaps, For one who knows somewhat of traps; Should you ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... a breed of four-horned sheep, and Polo, or his informant, took the lower pair of horns for abnormal ears. Probably the breed exists, but we have little information on details in reference to this coast. The Rev. G.P. Badger, D.C.L., writes: "There are sheep on the eastern coast of Arabia, and as high up as Mohammerah on the Shatt-al-Arab, with very small ears indeed; so small as to be almost imperceptible at first sight near the projecting horns. I saw ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... stretched lazily on some soft badger mounds not far away. The St. Bernard was not with them, for the big brothers were afraid that Napoleon, the white bull, would gore him, and had chained him up at home; and the collie was watching the sheep around ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... good Sir Hugh Robsart," interrupted the host, "many a time and oft; his huntsman and sworn servant, Will Badger, hath spoken of him an hundred times in this very house. A jovial knight he is, and hath loved hospitality and open housekeeping more than the present fashion, which lays as much gold lace on the seams of a doublet ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... him like a baited badger, for this thing was getting beyond her control and the savage instincts of the ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... very "orthodox" precedents for such manifestations. One of these we find in the accounts of what were called "the jerks," which accompanied a great revival in 1803, brought about by the preaching of the Rev. Joseph Badger, a Yale graduate and a Congregationalist, who was the first missionary to the Western Reserve. J. S. C. Abbott, in his history of Ohio, describing the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... all manner of acts with the hands are strange things; so also the flight of birds and insects through the air, the blossoming of plants and trees, the ripening of their fruits and seeds are strange; and the strangest of all is the transformation of the fox and the badger into human form. If rats, weasels, and certain birds see in the dark, why should not the gods have been endowed with a similar faculty?.... The facts that many of the gods are invisible now and have never been visible furnish no argument against their existence. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... greeted him on all sides made his heart faint at the thought of his Lily in this cage of foul animals. He did not fear for himself, and never paused until a shouting circle of idle ruffians set themselves full in his way, to badger and bait the poor scholar with taunts and insults—hemming him in, bawling out ribald mirth, as a pack of hounds fall on some stray dog, or, as Malcolm thought, in a moment half of sick horror, half of resolute resignation, like wild cattle—fat bulls ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in which Mr. Giles describes his dramatic parting with Gibson. It will be found in the chapter marked "20th April to 21st May 1874": "Gibson and I departed for the West. I rode the 'Fair Maid of Perth.' I gave Gibson the big ambling horse, 'Badger,' and we packed the big cob with a pair of water-bags that contained twenty gallons. As we rode away, I was telling Gibson about various exploring expeditions and their fate, and he said, 'How is it that, in ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... Frank Thompson, Ben Badger and Ted Butler, all seniors, and stars on the H.S. football team, had risen early that morning, every one of them feeling glum over the dread that the great sport might be "killed" for them. They were the only members of the eleven who happened to see "The Blade" early. In consequence, ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... street fight. Rabbits sat up in the chaparral and cocked their ears, feeling themselves quite safe for the once as the hunt swung near them. Nothing happens in the deep wood that the blue jays are not all agog to tell. The hawk follows the badger, the coyote the carrion crow, and from their aerial stations the buzzards watch each other. What would be worth knowing is how much of their neighbor's affairs the new generations learn for themselves, and how much they are taught of ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... Ireland! A countryman was making his way along the bank of a mountain stream in Galway, when he caught sight of a badger moving leisurely along a ledge of rock on the opposite bank. The sound of the huntsman's horn at the same moment reached his ears, followed by the well-known cry of a pack of dogs. As he was looking round, to watch for their approach, he caught sight of a fox making his way behind the ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... account, as the same conditions seem to operate in directly reverse ways with different animals. No one can explain the process of natural selection which has resulted in the otter of America being larger than the otter of Europe, while the badger is smaller; in the mink being with us a much stouter animal than its Scandinavian and Russian kinsman, while the reverse is true of our sable or pine marten. No one can say why the European red deer should be a pigmy compared to its giant brother, the American wapiti; why the Old ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... from the coach, was sturdy Steve Mullane, also a chum of the Winters boy. Besides these, favorable mention might also be made of Big Bob Jeffries, who surely would be chosen to play fullback on account of his tremendous staying qualities; Fred Badger, the lively third baseman who had helped so much to win that deciding game from Harmony before a tremendous crowd of people over in the rival town; and several other boys who may be recognized as old acquaintances when ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... five, he wouldn't regard the odds a bit. They're like wild animals, an' fight jest the same. I've seed a Feweegin, only a little mite uv a critter, make attack on a whale-boat's crew o' sealers, an' gi'e sev'ral uv 'em ugly wounds. They don't know sech a thing as fear, no more'n a trapped badger. Neyther do thar weemen, who fight jest the same's the men. Thar ain't a squaw in that canoe as cudn't stan' a tussle wi' the best o' us. 'Sides, ye forgit thet we haven't any weepens to fight 'em with 'ceptin' our knives." ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... forest, very still and fragrant. We climbed out up on a bench, and across a flat, up another bench, out of the timber into the patches of snow. Here snow could be felt in the air. Water was everywhere. I saw a fox, a badger, and another furry creature, too illusive to name. One more climb brought us to the top of the Flattop Pass, about eleven thousand feet. The view in the direction from which we had come was splendid, and led the eye to the distant sweeping ranges, dark ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... men. He would never have bothered about little details had Rafferty been an ordinary servant. He recognised in Rafferty, not a servant to be dismissed or corrected, but an antagonist to be fought. It was the case of the dog and badger. Rafferty was Graft and all it implies, Pinckney was Straight Dealing. And Straight Dealing knew quite well that the only way to get Graft by the throat is to ferret out details, no matter ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... He crouched in his chair, a wizened, frightened, unhappy, oldish man. "No, no, no, no!" he cried. "She is a good girl, but she would badger us to death. She wouldn't let us do one single thing our way. She always acts as though she wanted to make you all over, and I love you the way you are. I'd rather get a job cooking on a ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... high themes in which they had a common interest. If he derived profit, it was not of a nature that Lavater and the Fraeulein would have desired. With the religious opinions of neither was he in sympathy, and when they rejected his own, he says, he would badger them with paradoxes and exaggerations, and, if they became impatient, would leave them with a jest. What is noteworthy in Lavater's record, indeed, is Goethe's communicativeness and spontaneity in all that concerned ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... Mr. Badger, one of Mr. Russell's superintendents, immediately sent me out, mounted on a little gray mule, to herd cattle. I worked at this for two months, and then came into Leavenworth. I had not been home during all this time, but mother had ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... Jaune d'Antimoine's wager, therefore, he was greatly pleased with its originality; and when, later in the day, he fell in with little Conte Crayon at Jerome Park, he pressed that ingenious young newspaper man for additional particulars. And knowing the whereabouts of Mr. Badger Brush's heart, Conte Crayon did not hesitate to tell the whole story— winding up with the pointed suggestion that inasmuch as the hero of the story was an animal-painter of decided, though as yet unrecognized, ability, Mr. Brush could not do better than manifest his interest in ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... tactful with that kind of person," she asserted instantly. "You can only be angry. You see, they love to badger poor people. It's sheer delight to them to ask impertinent questions. There's a big streak of Torquemada in them. They'd have been Inquisitors if they'd been born in Spain when there were Inquisitors!" She paused ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... Maria, if she thought anything at all about him, kept her decision securely hidden in her tight, round body. But Judy qualified her choice by the hopeful assertion that he would "come from the air"; and Tim had a secret notion that he would emerge from a big, deep hole—pop out like a badger or a rabbit, as it were—and suddenly declare himself; while Maria, by her non-committal, universal attitude, perhaps believed that, if he came at all, he would "just come from everywhere at once." She believed everything, always, everywhere. But to assert that belief was to betray ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... At the top of Badger's Street he paused. The street was still; the sky was pale green on the horizon, purple overhead. The light was still strong, but, to the left beyond the sloping fields, the woods were banked black ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... a skin of one; its fur is brown below, and black above: from the forehead a white stripe runs to the middle of the back, and then divides into two, which extend to the extremity of the tail. The feet of the animal show that it treads upon its entire sole, and lives in holes like a badger. The second sort is said to have three white stripes: our sailors caught one, but it got away again. The mole here is larger than in Europe; the upper part of the body is of a greyish brown, the lower part an ash grey; the legs are covered with a white fur, and ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... and some ragged clothing, conspicuous among which was a suit of dark cloth, apparently new, with a paper collar carefully wrapped in a red silk handkerchief and pinned to the sleeve. Over the door hung a wolf and a badger skin, and on the door itself a brace of thirty or forty snake skins whose noisy tails rattled ominously every time it opened. The strangest things in the shanty were the wide windowsills. At first glance they looked as though they had been ruthlessly ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... Badger, n. This English name has been incorrectly applied in Australia, sometimes to the Bandicoot, sometimes to the Rock-Wallaby, and sometimes to the Wombat. In Tasmania, it is the usual ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... o' fairy folk An' all the luck they bring? Now don't you 'eed the lies that's spoke; They don't do no such thing; You see my thumb, Sir, 'ow it's tore? You'll say, may'ap, a badger boar 'As done it? By your leave, An' that's a bloomin' fairy, Sir, that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various

... poor ass's confession, it would be a long work. For everything that he did was deadly sin with him, the poor soul was so scrupulous. But his wise wily confessor accounted them for trifles (as they were) and swore afterward to the badger that he was so weary to sit so long and hear him that, saving for the sake of manners, he had rather have sat all that time at breakfast with a good fat goose. But when it came to the giving of the penance, the fox found that the most weighty sin in all his shrift ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... the Captain patted Stephen on the shoulder, exclaiming, "Well done, my lad. There's the making of a tall fellow in thee! If ever thou art weary of making weapons and wouldst use them instead, seek out John Fulford, of the Badger troop, and thou shalt have a welcome. Our name is the Badger, because there's no troop like us for digging out mines ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... advocacy of Dr. Redhouse, an eminent Turkish scholar whose judgments must be received with great caution; and I would quote on this subject the admirable remarks of my late lamented friend Dr. G. P. Badger in "The Academy" of July 2, 1887. "Another noticeable default in the same category is that, like Sale, Mr. Wherry frequently omits the terminal 'h' in his transliteration of Arabic. Thus he writes Sura, Amna, Ftima, Madna, Tahma; yet, inconsistently enough, he gives ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... of my worries," gayly rattled Mr. Giddings. "Been doing the heavy society act to-night, and on my way home found I needed some sauerkraut and beer to tone up my jaded system. By Jove, Harry, you're as gray as a badger. This newspaper game must be bad for the nerves. Lots of fellows have asked me about you. Never see you at the University Club, nobody sees you anywhere. Remarkable how a man can lose himself right here in New York. Still ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... impatient men sometimes fired too soon and missed their mark, or by only wounding the animals, infuriated them and caused them to run faster. One or two ill-trained horses shied when the guns were fired, and left their riders sprawling on the ground. Others stumbled into badger-holes and rolled over. The Indians did their work well. They were used to it, and did not bend their bows until their horses almost brushed the reeking sides of the huge brutes. Then they drew to the arrow ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne

... stiffness is increased in many orders of mammals (especially the carnassia and rodents) by the ossification of a part of the fibrous body (corpus fibrosum). This penis-bone (os priapi) is very large in the badger and dog, and bent like a hook in the marten; it is also very large in some of the lower apes, and protrudes far out into the glans. It is wanting in most of the anthropoid apes; it seems to have been lost in their case (and in man) ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel

... fare with croaking spawns o' th' press, The mould o' th' subject alters the success; What's serious, like sleep, grants writs of ease, Satire and ridicule can only please; As if no other animals could gape, But the biting badger, or the ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... time last night, some person or persons unknown gave him a butt-and-bayonet job with a German Mauser out of a rack in his shop. A most unpleasantly thorough job. I went to see him this morning, hoping to badger something out of him about those pistols that are missing from the Fleming collection, and found the body. I notified the State Police, ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... colony); Richard Thompson, a soldier; Thomas Richard Evans, a convict, formerly a gunner's mate on H.M.S. Calcutta (sentenced to fourteen years for desertion and striking an officer); John Lancaster or Lancashire, a convict, a very dangerous person; Charlotte Badger, convict, a very corpulent person (has an infant in arms); Kitty Hegarty, convict, very handsome woman, with white teeth and fresh complexion, much inclined to smile, a ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... almost pleasantly; there had been no flogging; Captain Pigot had scarcely showed himself on deck, except for a few minutes after breakfast and again at noon; and the officers of the watches, glad to be freed from his obnoxious presence, had been careful not to unnecessarily hurry and badger the men whilst carrying on the duty of the ship. The only circumstance which, to my mind, seemed disquieting, was the unusual demeanour of the men, who performed their work, steadily enough indeed, but in a moody, unnatural silence, wearing, meantime, a gloomy, preoccupied ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... complete. Will you believe me, sir, when I assure you, that I went out that morning, with my locks of as bright an auburn as ever curled upon the forehead of youth; and by the time I had crawled out of the swamp, into Georgetown, that night, they were as gray as a badger! I was well nigh taking an oath never to forgive you, during breath, for frightening me so confoundedly. But, away with all malice! let it go to the devil, where it belongs. So come, you must go dine with me, and I'll show ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... the Badger, Reynard's nephew: "It is a common proverb, Malice never spake well: what can you say against my kinsman the fox? All these complaints seem to me to be either absurd or false. Mine uncle is a gentleman, and cannot endure falsehood. I affirm that he liveth as a recluse; he chastiseth his body, ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown

... Miss Conroy struck Badger sharply across the flank and disappeared into the night. "When I ask shelter of you," she flung back, "you'll ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower

... sheltered by uplands north, east, and west; looking south down the valley to the Sussex downs, which were seen in the hazy distance uplifting their graceful outlines to the blue sky, across a vast canopy of treetops; beneath whose shade the wolf and the wildcat, the badger and the fox, yet roamed at large, and preyed upon the wild deer and the lesser game. It bore the name of Walderne, which signifies a sylvan spot frequented by the wild beasts; the castle lay beneath; the parish church rose on the ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... trade, ain't it? And we thought, Deakin, the Badger and me, that coins being ever on the vanish, and you not over sweet on them there lovely little locks at Leslie's, and them there bigger and uglier marine stores at the Excise Office ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... forethoughtful an' prone to look ahead,—regyards the talk as down to cases an' makes a flash for his gun. It's concealed by his surtoot an' I ain't noticed it none before. If I had, most likely I'd pitched the conversation in a lower key. However, by this time, I'm quarrelsome as a badger; an' a willin'ness for trouble subdooes an' sets its feet on my nacheral cowardice an' ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... William Haynes, sworn; Thomas Crutch, sworn; Henry Swell, challenged; John Clarke, sworn; William Read, challenged; Harford Dobson, challenged; William Stone, challenged; William Hawkins, sworn; John Hayes, the elder, sworn; Samuel Badger, sworn; Samuel Bradley, sworn; William ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead

... protected by the terrible forest-laws, then in full force: and the hardier huntsman might follow the wolf to his lair in the mountains; might spear the boar in the oaken glades, or the otter on the river's brink; might unearth the badger or the fox, or smite the fierce cat-a-mountain with a quarrel from his bow. A nobler victim sometimes, also, awaited him in the shape of a wild mountain bull, a denizen of the forest, and a remnant of the herds that ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... man had done his own work from underneath with the jack-knife. Out poked his badger-grey head from under his man, much as the boy had often seen a ferret from beneath the ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... went on with vigor. Every beaver, marten, mink, musk-rat, raccoon, lynx, wild-cat, fox, wolverine, otter, badger, or other skin had to be beaten, graded, counted, tallied in the company's book, put into press, and marked for shipment to John Jacob Astor in New York. As there were twelve grades of sable, and eight even of deer, the grading, which fell to ...
— The Black Feather - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... shear- marks; and, within the first quarter, succeeded, without so much as drawing blood, to unbristle, for a wager of his master's, the Saturday night's countenance of Daniel Shoebrush himself, who was as rough as a badger. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... heavens storehouse he uplaid: His hope is faild, and come to passe his dread, And evill men (now dead) his deeds upbraid: Spite bites the dead, that living never baid. 215 He now is gone, the whiles the foxe is crept Into the hole the which the badger swept. ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... affected a sort of nominal dominion, were entirely governed by their own laws, and so very little connection had they with the justice of the invading country, that it was as lawful to kill an Irishman as it was to kill a badger or a fox. The instances are innumerable, where the defendant has pleaded that the deceased was an Irishman, and that therefore defendant had a right to kill him—and upon the proof of ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... his speech for this important occasion. The heaving up of the leaves and earth, as if an underground plough was at work, showed that the mole had not forgotten his duty; he had come to show his loyalty, and he brought a message from the badger, who had long since been left outside the concert of the animals and birds, humbly begging King Kapchack to ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... of the pioneers of 1849, having left the state of Iowa in the month of May, when he assisted in organizing a company known as the "Badger Company" at Kanesville, the object being mutual assistance and protection. This company joined the Bennett party mentioned so prominently in this history, at the Missouri, and traveled with them or near them to the rendezvous near Salt ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... their own, too, of course. Among them guinea pigs were the stand-bys—their highly unemotional nature fits them for companionship with adoring but over-enthusiastic young masters and mistresses. Then there were flying squirrels, and kangaroo rats, gentle and trustful, and a badger whose temper was short but whose nature was fundamentally friendly. The badger's name was Josiah; the particular little boy whose property he was used to carry him about, clasped firmly around what would have been ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... Edmund; but, if so, we'll soon start the badger. Look yonder." And he pointed to smoke rising at several spots half a mile ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... Great Ridge Wood, for the curse of the pheasant is on it as on all the woods and forests in Wiltshire, and all wild life considered injurious to the semi-domestic bird, from the sparrowhawk to the harrier and buzzard and goshawk, and from the little mousing weasel to the badger; and all the wild life that is only beautiful, or which delights us because of its wildness, from the squirrel to the roe-deer, must ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... old bounds buried her despair, Hating and loving warmth alike: so He Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle, Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm, And says a plain word when she finds her prize, But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... being taken by forty-three persons. Of this number, after a lapse of nearly a third of a century, the following are still spared to us, as willing supporters of the Society and cause to which they devoted the meridian of their days, to wit: William Barry, Daniel E. Powars, Winslow Wright, Joseph Badger, Caleb Wright, John W. Trull, Samuel Hichborn, ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston

... and silently surveyed what once had been the Kawa. The leathern features of Captain Triplett twisted into a grin. "Bald's a badger!" ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock

... boar, hog, sow; steer, stot[obs3]; tag, teg[obs3]; bison, buffalo, yak, zebu, dog, cat. [dogs] dog, hound; pup, puppy; whelp, cur, mongrel; house dog, watch dog, sheep dog, shepherd's dog, sporting dog, fancy dog, lap dog, toy dog, bull dog, badger dog; mastiff; blood hound, grey hound, stag hound, deer hound, fox hound, otter hound; harrier, beagle, spaniel, pointer, setter, retriever; Newfoundland; water dog, water spaniel; pug, poodle; turnspit; terrier; fox terrier, Skye terrier; Dandie Dinmont; collie. [cats][generally] ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... the line? Will a hole be made, or is the enemy like a badger, who digs himself in rather faster than you can dig him out? I cannot tell; it would indeed be an astonishing measure of success for a first attempt, and the enemy may require a great deal more hammering at many points before he has definitely ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... understand this repressed, ardent nature, although its developments sometimes forced themselves upon her. She had heard Staneholme hound on a refractory tyke till he shouted himself hoarse, and yet turn aside before the badger was unearthed; she had seen him climb the scaurs, and hang dizzily in mid-air over the black water, to secure the wildfowl he had shot, and it was but carrion; and once, Joan and Madge, to whom he was wont to be indulgent in a condescending, superior way, trembled before the stamp of his ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... piece of black or flesh-colored silk on a wooden frame, and fix it in that position by means of tacks or twine. Then apply the Isinglass, after it has been rendered liquid by a gentle heat, to the silk with a brush of fine hair (badger's is the best). As soon as this coating is dried, which will not be long, apply a second, and afterward, if the article is to be very superior, a third. When the whole is dry, cover it with two or three coatings of the Balsam of Peru. This is the genuine court plaster. It ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... that of throwing at cocks on Shrove Tuesday. Badger-baiting continued in Royston occasionally till the first decade of the present century, and was sometimes a popular sport at the smaller public-houses on the ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... petition received no better fate than mine. His family were the property of Judge BADGER, who was afterwards made a member of Mr. Harrison's cabinet. When Mr. Badger removed to Washington, he took with him among other slaves this family; and Freeman removed also to that city. After this, when Mr. B. resigned ...
— The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N.C. • Lunsford Lane

... I had a firm friend, and I knew it. She was a good girl, and told me very sweetly that I might have her (plum and all) whenever I could badger my granduncle, Rumgudgeon, into the necessary consent. Poor girl! she was barely fifteen, and without this consent her little amount in the funds was not come-at-able until five immeasurable summers had ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... followed by nun (n) is unknown to Arabic while we find sundry cases of "lan" (fath'd lam and nun), and Jalandah means noxious or injurious. In Oman also there was a dynasty called Julandah. for which see Mr. Badger (xiii. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... one-fourth of the jurors who served in the civil and criminal courts belonged to that body. These persons are often very little educated; and young men possessed of from 1000l. to 2000l. a-year in stock, can sometimes neither read nor write. Cock-fighting, driving, and badger-baiting, are pursuits that occupy youths of this class very frequently; and a showy, tawdry style of dress, engages the attention of the young women. Certainly, it is not of materials of this kind, that the English constitution would have juries composed; and it is ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... often called the Badger State. It got this name not because badgers are to be found there, but because the lead miners, instead of building houses, used to dig out caves in the hillsides and live in them summer and winter. From this they were nicknamed Badgers, ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... under the intelligent superintendence of the accomplished Principal, assisted by Mr. Badger, [Mr. Langdon's predecessor,] Miss Darley, the lady who superintends the English branches, Miss Crabs, her assistant and teacher of Modern Languages, and Mr. Schneider, teacher of French, German, Latin, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... ministerial side of the House attacked the brave Colonel, and most of the sly Whigs joined in the clamour. Little Perceval, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir Vicary Gibbs, the Attorney General, flew at the honourable member like two terriers at a badger; but Colonel Wardle never shifted his ground. Nothing daunted in a good and honest cause, he relied upon his own courage and integrity, and coolly set all their threats at defiance. Sir Francis Burdett certainly seconded his motion, but he said but little, very, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... wonderful adventures. He was telling them the story Of Ojeeg, the Summer-Maker, How he made a hole in heaven, How he climbed up into heaven, And let out the summer-weather, The perpetual, pleasant Summer; How the Otter first essayed it; How the Beaver, Lynx, and Badger Tried in turn the great achievement, From the summit of the mountain Smote their fists against the heavens, Smote against the sky their foreheads, Cracked the sky, but could not break it; How the Wolverine, uprising, Made him ready for the encounter, Bent his knees down, like a squirrel, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... in the height of fashionable splendour, his mind was at all times in consonance with the lines which precede this chapter; yet none could be more ready to lend a hand in any pleasant party in pursuit of a bit of gig. A mill at Moulsey Hurst—a badger-bait, or bear-bait—a main at the Cock-pit—a smock-race—or a scamper to the Tipping hunt, ultimately claimed his attention; while upon all occasions he was an acute observer of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... with a quiet face, rather deeply sunken eyes, spoke for the first time. "We are in two minds because of this Redax, so let us not do anything in haste. Back in the desert world of the People I have seen the mba'a, and he was very clever. With the badger he went hunting, and when the badger had dug up the rat's nest, so did the mba'a wait on the other side of the thorny bush and catch those who would escape that way. Between him and the badger there was ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... a vigorous hail from a masculine throat—"Ahoy, Renny Potter, ahoy!" "Adrian, this is a matter of life and death to my hopes, hide me in your lowest dungeon for goodness' sake; I do not know my way about your ruins, and I am convinced the old lady will nose me out like a badger." ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... the very credulous and inquisitive gossip against which I memorialize; for I think I may expect fact to be believed, when fiction is swallowed whole; and I feel sure of seeing, directly on the publication of this document, a notice in the "Snapdragon," the "Badger," or the "Coon," (whichever paper gets that number of the magazine first,) ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing: it is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house some time before it fall; it is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him; it is the wisdom of the crocodiles, that shed tears when they ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... dictionary, connote some definite thing; (2) those which, connoting nothing, may or may not suggest something by their sound. Instances of Christian names in the first class are Rose, Faith; of surnames, Lavender, Badger; of Christian names in the second class, Celia, Mary; of surnames, Jones, Vavasour. Let us consider the surnames in the first class. You will say, off-hand, that Lavender sounds pretty, and that Badger sounds ugly. Very well. Now, suppose that Christian ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... passed them unnoticed; the warm, sleeping smell of a caribou came hot and fresh from a thicket, but he did not approach the thicket to investigate; out of a coulee, narrow and dark, like a black ditch, he caught the scent of a badger. For two hours he travelled steadily northward along the half-crest of the slopes before he struck down through the ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood

... though I had not been so successful, from nervousness, I fancy; when the Indian being at some distance, as we were in full chase of another buffalo, a huge bull started out from behind a knoll, and rushed towards us. My brother's horse started at the unexpected sight, and putting his foot into a badger hole, stumbled, and threw him over his head. The faithful animal stood stock still, but on came the bull. I shrieked out to Malcolm to leap on his horse and fly, but he was stunned, and did not hear me. The bull was not twenty paces from him; in another instant he would have been gored ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... and a badger-baiting the day after, consumed the time merrily.—I hope our traveller will not sink in the reader's estimation, sportsman though he may be, when I inform him, that on this last occasion, after young Pepper had lost a fore-foot, and Mustard the second had been nearly throttled, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... country as a kind of "attraction" in public-houses of the lowest class. The animal was kept in a tub or barrel and was attacked by dogs. Yielding at last to superior numbers, it was dragged or drawn out. The badger was then set free and permitted to return to its tub until it recovered from the effects of the struggle, after which it was again baited. It had to submit to this barbarous treatment several times a day. The verb "to badger," now often applied to persons, was originally used in ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... eyebrows, and a mouth like a trap when it was not pursed up for that everlasting flute. As he sat there with his wig off, the crown of his bald head was fringed with an obstinate-looking patch of hair, the colour of a badger's. My amazement at finding him here at this hour, and alone, was lost in my hatred of the man as I saw the depths of complacent knowledge in his face. I felt that I must kill him sooner or later, and the ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Isles do not possess it. This little bear-like quadruped is known in New South Wales, and called by the natives womat, wombat, or womback, according to the different dialects, or perhaps to the different rendering of the wood rangers who brought the information. It burrows like the badger, and on the Continent does not quit its retreat till dark; but it feeds at all times on the uninhabited islands, and was commonly seen foraging amongst the sea refuse on the shore, though the coarse grass seemed to be its usual nourishment. ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... on aimless. The night was full of sounds, but whether earthly; from wildfowl and bittern and curlew, from fox, and badger, and otter; or from the evil spirits of the marsh, I knew not nor cared. For now the long imprisonment and the day's terrible doings, and the little food I had had since we halted on the hill of Brent, all began to get hold of me, and I stumbled on ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... petitions were of a contrasting tenor, it is true, one for example presented to the city council of Atlanta in 1859: "We feel aggrieved as Southern citizens that your honorable body tolerates a negro dentist (Roderick Badger) in our midst; and in justice to ourselves and the community it ought to be abated. We, the residents of Atlanta, appeal to you for justice."[59] But it may readily be guessed that these petitioners were more moved by the interest of rival dentists than by their concern as Southern citizens. ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... my soul fly to Reinfeld in the night and associate with yours? In that case it can certainly not dream here; but it ought to tell about its journey in the morning, whereas the wayward thing is as silent about its nocturnal employments as though it, too, slept like a badger. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... grown good, I know not how to reach the strange device, Except—Domitian-like—thou murder'st flies. Or is't thy piety? for who can tell But thou may'st prove devout, and love a cell, And—like a badger—with attentive looks In the dark hole sit rooting up of books. Quick hermit! what a peaceful change hadst thou, Without the noise of haircloth, whip, or vow! But there is no redemption? must there be No ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... and of the fact that the duties of the position seem to contribute to the lengthened days of the holders of it, entirely passed away. The riverside town of Marlow, Buckinghamshire, furnishes an example of this. Mr. H.W. Badger has occupied the position of parish clerk for half a century, and a few months ago was presented by the townspeople with an illuminated address, together with a purse of fifty-five sovereigns, in recognition of his long term of service and of the esteem in which he is held. He was appointed ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... up from his place and scampered down the hill to his herd, rounding up his pack animals as he ran. With mad haste he shooed them into the dark mouth of the canyon, and then hurried in after them like a badger that, hearing the sound of pursuers, backs into some neighboring hole until nothing is visible but teeth and claws. So far the boss herder had reasoned well. His sheep were safe behind him and his back was against a rock; a hundred men could not dislodge him ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... him for this unlooked-for deficiency of game, he will find himself beset with "varmints" innumerable. The wolves will entertain him with a concerto at night, and skulk around him by day, just beyond rifle shot; his horse will step into badger-holes; from every marsh and mud puddle will arise the bellowing, croaking, and trilling of legions of frogs, infinitely various in color, shape and dimensions. A profusion of snakes will glide away from under his horse's feet, or quietly visit him in his tent ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... base by over-ground runs of some wild animal—not, I think, a very large one; they were just like the runs which rabbits make among gorse and heather, only on a bigger scale—bigger, even, than a fox's or badger's. By crouching and bending our backs, we could crawl through them with difficulty into the scrubby tangle. It was hard work creeping. The runs divided soon. Colebrook felt with his hands on the ground: "I can make out the spoor!" he muttered, after a minute. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... another, like Cervantes, distinguished himself at the battle of Lepanto; and a third gave rise to the sovereign German house of Tour and Taxis. Taxus is the Latin of Tasso. The Latin word, like the Italian, means both a badger and a yew-tree; and the family in general appear to have taken it in the former sense. The animal is in their coat of arms. But the poet, or his immediate relatives, preferred being more romantically shadowed forth by the yew-tree. The parent stock of the race was ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... Benton leaned against the end of the bar and listened to a Bear Paw Pool man relate how they took in a bunch of pilgrims with a badger game down in Glasgow. Little knots of cowpunchers stood about drinking at the bar or discussing ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... Red Indians, who are gradually retreating step by step towards the Rocky Mountains as the advancing white man cuts down their trees and ploughs up their prairies. Here, too, dwell the wild horse and the wild ass, the deer, the buffalo, and the badger; all, men and brutes alike, wild as the power of untamed and ungovernable passion can make them, and free as the wind that sweeps over their ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... turkies, geese, and beaver; one of the last was caught alive, and in a very short time was perfectly tamed. Catfish are very abundant in the river, and we have also seen a buffaloefish. One our men brought in yesterday an animal called, by the Pawnees, chocartoosh, and, by the French, blaireau, or badger. The evening is cool, yet the musquitoes are ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... Mr. Beltham. You will recognize me better by opening your door entirely: voices are deceptive. You were born a gentleman, Mr. Beltham, and will not reduce me to request you to behave like one. I am now in the position, as it were, of addressing a badger in his den. It is on both sides unsatisfactory. It reflects egregious discredit upon you, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... his, when cornered in a discussion at one time, caused much merriment. The subject was bald-headed men. Some one remarked that those who became gray were seldom bald. Alexander replied with considerable warmth: "I know better than that, for my father is as gray as a badger, and hasn't ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve

... line of the old Potawatomi trail from the Wabash country to post Chicago, and in the neighborhood of the Beaver lake region in northern Indiana, and at many other points. The furs handled by them consisted of the marten (sable), mink, musk-rat, raccoon, lynx, wildcat, fox, wolverine, badger, otter, beaver, bears and deer, of which the most valuable were those of the silver-gray fox and the marten. The value of these furs mounted into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and they were ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... porcupine, weighing full twenty-five pounds and deliberately walking up the slope near by, as if going to its den in the rocks, but, though we yelled and shouted, it scorned to notice us and indifferently went its way. A horned owl now and then hooted and bade us begone, while a badger came out from his hole, but hurried back when he saw or smelled ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... "I haven't got the key," she said. "I suppose it's at that Badger man's in the village. You know ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... evidently variants of the same story. The dwarfs are generally spoken of as having been caught by a trapper in his net, or bag, and the hunter, quite unconscious of the fact that a Fairy is in his bag, proceeds homewards, supposing that he has captured a badger, or some other kind of vermin, but, all at once, he hears the being in the bag speak, and throwing the bag down he runs away in a terrible fright. Such in short is the tale. I will proceed to give several versions ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... inspire my models with such obedience and devotion. Then I would not be obliged to rail at them for being late, and have to badger them for not showing up at all. ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane

... stories of the gray squirrel, the puma, the coyote, the badger, and other burrowers, the porcupine, the skunk, the ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the pickpocket: and he sat before a fire of dry sticks a little way back from the road. His scanty hair, stiff as a badger's, now stood upright around his batter'd cap, and he look'd at me over the bushes, with his hook'd nose thrust forward ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... around a little, put on a few more bars of pig lead, put a new fashioned necktie on the sailor who holds the rope, the emblem of lynch law, tuck the miner's breeches into his boots a little further, and amputate the tail of the badger. We do not care for the other changes, as they were only intended to give the engraver a job, but when an irresponsible legislature amputates the tail of the badger, the emblem of the democratic party that crawls into a hole and pulls ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... investigate conditions and to recommend to me the best method of carrying into effect this general recommendation. These officers performed the duty promptly and intelligently, and, under the personal direction of Capt. Charles J. Badger, Superintendent of the Academy, such of the proposed changes as were deemed to be at present advisable were put into effect at the beginning of the academic year, October 1, last. The results, I am confident, will be most beneficial to the Academy, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... bear! Such men did our forests once behold! If it came to a dispute, how did they settle the dispute. Why, they chose judges and set up stakes. Oginski lost three thousand acres of woodland over a wolf, and a badger cost Niesiolowski several villages! Now do you gentlemen follow the example of your elders, and settle your dispute in this way, even though you may set up a smaller stake. Words are wind; to wordy disputes there is no end; it is a shame to tire our ears longer with ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... lived an old farmer and his wife who had made their home in the mountains, far from any town. Their only neighbor was a bad and malicious badger. This badger used to come out every night and run across to the farmer's field and spoil the vegetables and the rice which the farmer spent his time in carefully cultivating. The badger at last grew so ruthless in his mischievous work, and did so much harm everywhere ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... not from one place to another place on the road to everywhere else. Mr. Jarndyce goes from Bleak House to visit Mr. Boythorn; but he comes back to Bleak House. Miss Clare and Miss Summerson go from Bleak House to visit Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger; but they come back to Bleak House. The whole story strays from Bleak House and plunges into the foul fogs of Chancery and the autumn mists of Chesney Wold; but the whole story comes back to Bleak House. The domestic title is appropriate; ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton

... as the old song goes;" so, making me nestle down beside him, he wrapped a part of the plaid round me, and took me, as he said, under his wing. While we were thus nestled together, he pointed to a hole in the opposite bank of the glen. That, he said, was the hole of an old gray badger, who was doubtless snugly housed in this bad weather. Sometimes he saw him at the entrance of his hole, like a hermit at the door of his cell, telling his beads, or reading a homily. He had a great respect for the venerable ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... the heiress to the Earl of Monteith. Ye see, Miss Helen is his kinswoman, and she brings him an earldom in her lap. Besides that she's verra takin' in her appearance and manner, and I needna say just hates a Covenanter as she would a brock (badger). It's a maist suitable match every way ye look at it, and it has my entire approbation. But no a word aboot this, mind ye, Kirsty—though I was juist thinkin' this afternoon of recommendin' Claverhouse ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren



Words linked to "Badger" :   Wisconsinite, tease, badger skunk, rag, badger dog, bedevil, ferret badger, bug, Eurasian badger, musteline, torment, mustelid, musteline mammal, hog badger, hog-nosed badger, Meles meles, persuade, dun, frustrate, pester, Arctonyx collaris, American, Badger State, sand badger, beleaguer, crucify, badgerer



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com