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Critter   Listen
noun
critter  n.  (Also spelled crittur)  
1.
Any animal; as, lots of critters come out only at night. (U. S., western dialect)
2.
Specifically: A domestic animal or a non-predatory wild animal; contrasted with varmint, also dialectal. (U. S., western dialect)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Critter" Quotes from Famous Books



... one o' them critters go trapsin' off. (he counts) Yes sir, that's just what's happened. Wall—sign fer the twenty-one, an' I'll go out lookin' fer that other critter. ...
— Washington Crossing the Delaware • Henry Fisk Carlton

... her wrath, she continued with energy: "The's one thing I'm goin' to do right this blessed minute. I'm goin' to draw a hull bucket o' cold water an' throw it over that mis'able critter in there! Think o' him sleepin' on the table—the table as we eat ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... makin' a cinch, is it proper f'r to always kick th' critter in th' stomach or on'y whin ye ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne

... "That critter," said the captain, smiting his leg, "is a born steward, and never ought to have been in any other way of life. Stop where you are, Tom, and make yourself useful. Now, Tregarthen, I'm ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens

... her of the sudden death of Mrs. Howard and Frank, an expression of "What? That all?" passed over her face, and she said, "Dear me, and so the poor critter's gone? Hand me my snuff, Billy. Both died last night, did they? Hain't ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes

... bresh you off. You sho'ly got the hafe o' Hinds County on you ... Pemberton's men? Law, no; they wuz on Big Black but they right out here, now, on Champion's Hill, in sight f'om our gin-house ... Brodnax' bri'—now, how funny! We jess heard o' them about a' hour ago, f'om a bran' new critter company name' Ferry's Scouts. Why, Ferry's f'om yo' city! Wish you could 'a' seen him—oh, all of 'em, they was that slick! But, oh, slick aw shabby, when our men ah fine they ah fine, now, ain't they! There was a man ridin' with him—dressed diff'ent—he wuz the batteredest-lookin', ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... Frank, if them spars only stay by us—and I guess they will. They're good sticks, and Mr. Brewster is too good a boatswain not to have 'em well supported. The old Gentile is a dreadful critter for eatin' to windward in any weather that God ever sent; but I hope you don't call this blowin' hard, do you? Why, I've seen it blow so that two men, one on each side of the skipper, couldn't keep his hair on his head, and they had to get the cabin-boy ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... of Nat's schooner, his dismay then was a feeble imitation of the panic that smote him now. It had long been a favorite formula of Bijonah's that "A schooner's a gal you can understand. She goes where ye send her, an' ye know she'll come back when ye tell her to. She's a snug, trustin' kind of critter, an' she's man's best friend because she hain't got a grain ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... right; it's all wrong. Somebody ought to keep a watch on me, and when they see me beginnin' to get hot, set me on the back of the stove or somewheres; I'm always liable to bile over and scald the wrong critter. I've done that all my life. I'm sorry, Zoeth, you know ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... is a big black bull-dog, the biggest that ever was, that has run mad. He has bitten ever so many other dogs, and horses, sheep, and cattle. He is as big as a bear, and froths at the mouth. He is the savagest critter that ever was," ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... warn't nobody to do what I ask 'em," observed Sarah in the voice and manner of a martyr. "It's rabbits or girls, one or the other, and if it ain't an old hare it's some light-moraled critter like ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... that, Frank. All the help the black hoss had was what little bit Mose give him after the barrier went up. Ketch me handing the drug habit to a dumb critter! I guess not!" ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan

... Tom. "'Twould be downright cruel, the poor critter's sick and feeble. Mas'r, if you mean to kill me, kill me; but as to my raising my hand against anyone here, I never will—I'll die first." Legree shook with anger. "Here, Sambo!—Quimbo!" he shouted, "give this dog such a breakin' in as he won't ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... all the nights in de year. You Solomon, it's a night dat dey keeps up in heaven. You know nothin' about it, you poor critter. I done believe you never hearn no one tell about it. Maybe Miss Daisy wouldn't read us de story, and de angels, and de shepherds, and dat great light what come down, and make us feel good for Christmas; and Uncle Darry, he'll ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... went out to see Pompey's Piller which we had seen towerin' up before we landed, all on 'em ridin' donkeys but me, but I not being much of a hand to ride on any critter's back, preferred to go in a chair with long poles on each side, carried by four Arabs. Pompey's Piller is most a hundred feet high. Cleopatra's Needles wuz brought from Heliopolis. One is standing; the other, which lay ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... Sparwick, with a painful effort. "I was purty well squeezed, but I'm gettin' my breath back now. The critter hit me a lick here, but ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon

... tell ye? What did I tell ye?" cried the shrill voice of Mrs. Scattergood. "Now ye'll believe what I say, I hope! The disgraceful critter! My poor, poor 'Rill! I knew how 'twould be if she ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... do it will be by a bee," said the philosopher to himself, "an' not by no woman o' that stripe. Lord, folks advise me to set up to that critter! She'd talk a deef man to death. He'd kill hisse'f makin' ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... let off he ran afoul of Husky Travers. It was in the White Caribou. 'I'm a wolf!' yaps Jones. You know his style, a gun in his belt, fringes on his moccasins, and long hair down his back. 'I'm a wolf,' he yaps, 'an' this is my night to howl. Hear me, you long lean makeshift of a human critter?'—an' ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... wuz bald, and I knew that his picture wuz engraved on my heart in deeper lines than any camera or kodak could do it. But I had a handkerchief pin that looked like him, I bought it to the World's Fair, it wuz took of Columbus. You know Columbus wuz a changeable lookin' critter in his pictures, if he looked like all on 'em he must have been fitty, and Miss Columbus must have had a hard time to git along with him. This looked like Josiah, only with more hair, but I held my thumb over the top, and I could almost hear Josiah speak. I might have had ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... good-natured, and I began to think it warn't quite so bad arter all, when whop went my cigar right out of my mouth into my bosom, atween the shirt and the skin, and burnt me like a gally nipper. Both my eyes was fill'd at the same time, and I got a crack on the pate from some critter or another that clawed and scratched my head like any thing, and then seemed to empty a bushel of sut on me, and I looked like a chimbly sweep, and felt like old Scratch himself. My smoke had brought down a chimbly swaller, or a martin, or some such varmint, for it up and off agin' ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... the old fellow said, 'I've got such a critter, mi'ty big un; but I guess I'll have to charge you about a shillin' for ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... a chance to try your gun, and I had just made up my mind like which leg I'd pepper if he tried to sneak anything away. Well, p'raps we may run across the critter again, and I'll just keep it in mind that it was the left leg I chose—he's got somewhat of a limp in the right one now, and you see that'd sort of even things up. I don't like to see a lopsided ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... As I got shut of the town the stage come in and I seen one passenger, a woman. Now that mule is slow, Mr. John; I'm free to say there are faster mules, but a set of harness never went acrost the back of a slower critter than that one of mine." Yancy, who thus far had addressed himself to Mr. Crenshaw, now turned to Bladen. "That mule, sir, sees good with his right eye, but it's got a gait like it was looking fo' the left-hand side of the road and wondering what in thunderation had ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... got their shutters raised. Eyes're like winders, but hers ye kain't see through. I don't know nuth'n' 'bout that slick gal at Bigbee's an' I don't want to know nuth'n'. But I heer'd what ye said to the boss, an' what he said to you, an' I guess you're right in sizin' the critter up, an' the boss ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)

... tall, was my Jack, And as strong as a tree. Thar's his gun on the rack,— Jest you heft it, and see. And YOU come a courtin' his widder! Lord! where can that critter, Sal, be! ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... She paused, took a pinch of snuff, offered me the box, sighed painfully, pushed the red handkerchief from her high, narrow, wrinkled brow, and continued: "Joe was a baby then, and I had another helpless critter in my lap—an adopted child. My sister had died from it, and I was nursing it at the same breast with my boy. Well, we had to perform a journey of four hundred miles in an ox-cart, which carried, besides me and ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... the illustrious descendant of the Bishops of Imeeo, was twenty feet from the ground. "Aramai! come down, you old fool!" cried the Yankee; "the pesky critter's on t'other side of the island ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... it,)—'except,' says she, of a sudden, 'except Miss Blake, whom, really, I hadn't noticed before!'—I tell ye, Cornele, my ebenezer was up at this; for you can't tell how mean and spiteful she spoke and looked, pretendin' as if I was so insignificant a critter she hadn't taken notice of my bein' there before, which, to be sure, she hadn't even bid me good afternoon; and for my part, I hadn't put myself forward among such women as was there, though I didn't feel beneath 'em, nor they didn't think so, except Miss ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... mistaken," said he at length, with a grave look, "or that thar horse and saddle is the property of Ben Younker; and I reckon it's the same critter as is rid by Ella Barnwell. Heaven forbid, sweet lady, that it be thou as met with this terrible misfortune!—but ef it be, by the Power that made me, I swar to follow on thy trail; and ef I meet any of thy captors, then, Betsey, I'll just ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... you're a broken-down critter, Who is all of a trimmle and twitter, With your palate unpleasantly bitter, As if you'd just bitten a pill - When your legs are as thin as dividers, And you're plagued with unruly insiders, And your spine is all creepy with spiders, And you're highly gamboge in the gill - When you've got a beehive ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... forenoon, and a little thing like dinner—luncheon, I mean—slipped my mind. Though 'tain't often I have those slips, I'm free to say. Ho! ho! Abbie—she's my second cousin, my housekeeper—says I'm an unsartin critter, but there's two things about me she can always count on, one's that my clothes have always got a button loose somewheres, and t'other's ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... "The critter," cried Mr. Dodge dramatically, "was on the p'int of springin' up the piazzy, when Martha handed ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... policeman majestically—"Stand back, every man of you. The critter will be too much put about to go anywhere if you don't keep still tongues ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... yearling, and sent him to Huntsville for five years. That's a fair sample of these modern days. There isn't a cowman in Texas to-day who amounts to a pinch of snuff, but got his start the same way, but if a poor fellow looks out of the corner of his eye now at a critter, they imagine he wants to steal it. Oh, I know them; and the bigger rustlers they were themselves on the open range, the bitterer their persecution of the man who ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... because they are held to be sacred, and have a better time than they do in Africa and elsewhere. But all the fun of the fauna is concentrated in the wild animals, such as the tiger (about the gamiest 'critter' that exists), the panther, cheetah, boar, bear, elephant, and rhinoceros. Two kinds of crocodiles (not alligators) live in the mud and water of the rivers; and I suppose they snap up a man or woman when they get a chance, as they do in the Philippine Islands ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... barb, roan, jade, hack, bidet, pad, cob, tit, punch, roadster, goer^; racehorse, pack horse, draft horse, cart horse, dray horse, post horse; ketch; Shetland pony, shelty, sheltie; garran^, garron^; jennet, genet^, bayard^, mare, stallion, gelding; bronco, broncho^, cayuse [U.S.]; creature, critter [U.S.]; cow pony, mustang, Narraganset, waler^; stud. Pegasus, Bucephalus, Rocinante. ass, donkey, jackass, mule, hinny; sumpter horse, sumpter mule; burro, cuddy^, ladino [U.S.]; reindeer; camel, dromedary, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... no horse of ourn'll ever hurt the boy. But that ain't saying that somebody's ornery critter won't harm him. There's some awful mean horses in this town, Billy," Hank worried. But Billy ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... Wild Man come around; who cares?" sang out Bobolink. "Why, the circuses are always wantin' wild men, you know; and I guess we'd get a pretty hefty sum now, if we could capture this wonderful critter that's been living here so long covered with the skins of wild beasts he's ate up. It's me to hit the rubber pillow I fetched along. And Joe, if you want to watch, nobody is going to keep you from ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... It is true that he had two or three large fields, as Miss Conroy had told Rowdy, but it was his boast that all the hay he raised was eaten by his saddlehorses, and that all the fields he owned were used solely for horse pastures. The open range was the place for cattle and no Cross L critter ever fed ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower

... opportunity offers. If he stays where he is, fret him—and fret him!" Finally: "If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg, and the tail on the plank road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the critter must be slim somewhere; could you not ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... county cricket match and archery meeting; to the past ball and the ball to come. In the drawing-room, when a cold fit fell on the coterie, she would glide to one egotist after another, find out the monotope, and set the critter Peter's, the Place de Concorde, the Square of St. Mark, Versailles, the Alhambra, the Apollo Belvidere, the Madonna of the Chair, and all the glories of nature and the feats of art could not warm. So, then, the fine gentleman began to act—to walk himself out as a ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... animal, over the roads, through the lanes, up and down the hills, her horse her only companion, but having the most perfect understanding with him, both Ellen and the Brownie cast care to the winds. "I do believe," said Mr. Van Brunt, "that critter would a leetle rather have Ellen on his back than not." He was the Brownie's next best friend. Miss Fortune never said anything to him or ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... dramatic finale likely to attend a meddling with the creative powers. He did not confess, save once to his own wife, how many nights he had lain awake, in their little dark bedroom, planning the anatomy of the eastern lord; he simply said that he "wanted to make the critter," and he thought he could do it. Immediately the town gave him to understand that he had full power to draw upon the public treasury, to the extent of one elephant; and the youth, who always flocked adoringly about him, ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... bull's-eye, stranger.' I blazed away, and I wish I may be shot if I didn't miss the target. They examined it all over, and could find neither hair nor hide of my bullet, and pronounced it a dead miss; when says I, 'Stand aside and let me look, and I warrant you I get on the right trail of the critter,' They stood aside, and I examined the bull's-eye pretty particular, and at length cried out, 'Here it is; there is no snakes if it ha'n't followed the very track of the other.' They said it was utterly impossible, but I insisted on their searching the hole, and I agreed ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... a storm after you have. There ain't no name in the dictionary that exactly fits that kind of a critter. A stampede is a Sunday in a country village as compared with one of them Texas howlers. You'll be wishing you had a place to hide, in about a minute after that kind of a ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin

... said her father. "I wonder if these cooks think that meat grows, all seasoned, on 'the critter'? They must believe that. However, does she do the ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... o' my ole mar. She wan't hard to find; for if ever a critter made a noise, she did. She wur tied to a tree close by the shanty, an' the way she wur a-squealin' wur a caution to cats. I found her up to the belly in water, pitchin' an' flounderin' all round the tree. She hed nothin' on but the rope that she ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... me I could go to ride if I wouldn't go to that celebration. That jus' tickled me to death, for I did lak to ride. Grandpa had two young mules what was still wild, and when he said I could ride one of 'em Grandma tried hard to keep me off of it, for she said that critter would be sure to kill me, but I was so crazy to go that nobody couldn't tell me nothin'. Auntie lent me her domino coat to wear for a ridin' habit and I sneaked and slipped a pair of spurs, then Grandpa put a saddle on the critter and helped me to git ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... wooden nutmegs In the bargain, too, we'll throw— Only you just fix the critter. Won't you liquor ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... I tell you this—there ain't a engine with its biler bust, in God A'mighty's free U-nited States, so fixed, and nipped, and frizzled to a most e-tarnal smash, as that young critter, in her luxurious location in the Tower of London will be, when she reads the next double-extra ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... are basking in the lap of luxury, this poor critter is snatching a few precious moments from 'prep' to answer your last epistle, and give what news there is. First and foremost, mother is as well as possible, and goes about with an 'open your mouth and shut your eyes, ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... in't gits a scent o' musk. Jes' so with poets: wut they've airly read Git,s kind o' worked into their heart-an' head, So 's 't they can't seem to write but jest on sheers With furrin countries or played-out ideers, Nor hev a feelin', ef it doosn't smack O' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back. This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' things, Ez though we'd nothin' here that blows an' sings,— (Why, I'd give more for one live bobolink Than a square mile o' larks in printer's ink,) ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... She's a cur'us critter as ever I seed. She don' seem to take atter her dad nur her mammy nother, though Bill allus had a quar streak in 'im, and was the wust man I ever seed when he was disguised by licker. Whar does she live? Oh, up thar, right on top o' ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.

... tarnal, pisoned, alligator of a ring-tailed, roaring, pestiferous, rattlesnake, that critter 'the Old Country,' would jist about give up one half its skin, and wriggle itself slick out of the other, rayther than go for to put our dander up at this present identical out-and-out important critical ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various

... placer. Evenin's we sat around outside and swapped yarns, and I bragged on my chickens. The chickens would gather round close to listen. They liked to hear their praises sung, all right. You bet they sabe! The only reason a chicken, or any other critter, isn't intelligent is because he hasn't no chance ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair, and the way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair; but the hunter never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread, sewed up forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head; and he showed the scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame, ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... man's nag and buggy. He came over to buy a horse from Abe Tuttle, and I asked him to fetch me along to lead or ride the critter back. He'n Tuttle are dickering now. Thought perhaps I might see somebody I knew ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... and Hittie always used to eat in the kitchen—meals on the dot, as to time. The tavern was little and dingy, and Egypt was off the railroad line, and there were few patrons, and old Files cut his steak very close to the critter's horn. But after the years of routine at a home table there was a sort of clubman, devil-may-care suggestion about this new regime at the tavern; and after his meals Britt sat in the tavern office ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... ever heerd tell on—calves with six legs, dogs with three eyes or two tails, steers that could be druv most as well as hosses (Barnum he got hold o' 'em and tuk 'em round with his show); all sorts o' curious fowl and every outlandish critter he could lay his hands on. 'T stands to reason he couldn't run that rig many years. Your goin's on here made me think o' Mason. He cut a wide ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn

... leaning again on the wheel, and looking down on Ganew, had one more talk with him, at the end of which he began cautiously to untie the rope. He held the ox-goad, however, firmly grasped in his right hand, and it was not without a little tremor that he loosed the last knots. "Suppose the desperate critter sh'd have a knife," ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... get jammed together in the door-way, and a man has to take a running leap over their heads, afore he can get in. A little nigger boy in New York found a diamond worth two thousand dollars; well, he sold it to a watchmaker for fifty cents—the little critter didn't know no better. Your people are just like the nigger boy—they don't know the value of ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... he hain't daid, nor nothin' like thet," he said; "jest takin' a nap-like." His wrath gave a final flicker, as he looked down at the ugly face cushioned within the girl's hands. "An ornery critter like thet-thar pup ought to be ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... picked chicken, last time I saw him. Kind of a spindlin' little critter, with sandy complexion and hair, but dressed—my soul! there wasn't any picked ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... please y'r honour, the critter got a chill and done died," announced the cadaverous Missourian, to whose care the animal ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... a active young feller it wouldn't be hard, but for a pore old critter like that thar, it couldn't be ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... to! nothin' wantin' but the will! There's a pair on 'em," said the driver, "but I won't never drive 'em together. Staples drove the pair last summer. He says they'd run till they dropped down dead. I guess they would. He's a putty critter enough, and well made, but dreadful ugly. Now, I like that 'ere wheeler!"—he pointed his whip towards the horse below my foot. "She's kind,—that mare is; and she's fast enough, and handsome. Broad back,—short legs,—goes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... where he left it when the horse kicked him, and looked around wild-like, and there was the critter standin' still as the mill-stun.' Now, where do you think the soul of Abe was between 'Gl—' and 'uk'? I'd like to have ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... come in mighty handy. Wal, he was the homeliest critter I ever seen. I dassn't ring in that little song an' dance you give me. And on the nex' page was Mis' Dutton." He sighed softly ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... critter just out of the asylum, I'll bet," said Mrs. Douglas, walking back to the house with her pennyroyal tea. "How queer she acted! but that girl's a lady, every inch of her, and so handsome too—I ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... tell with for'ners. And Kildare wa'n't the sort of man to let his wife go gallivantin' round the country with a lover, that's certain. We was s'prised he stood it long as he did. Oh, I ain't sayin' Dr. Benoix done his killin' in cold blood! He prob'ly done it in self-defense. The gentlest critter'll fight if it's got to. But killin' it certainly was. No axdent ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... you know that dog?' 'He face berry familiar, massa, but I loss to recollect.' 'That's the cur of Blonay, and the bear-eyed rascal must be in the neighborhood.' 'Do you think so?' inquired Davis. 'Think so! I know so; and why should he be here if his master was not?' 'Tom,' he continued, 'hit the critter a smart blow with your stick—hard enough to scare him off, but not to hurt him; and do you move to the edge of the creek, Davis, as soon as the dog runs off, for his master must be in that direction, and ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... she opened wide the door And waved the critter through; Out in the circumambient air With grateful yelp ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... my eyes upon the burner. I hed got the critter 'bout half-skinned, as ee see; an the idee kim inter my head, I mout crawl somehow under, an pull the hide over me. I tried thet plan fust; but I kudnt git kivered to my saterfaction, an I gin ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... reckon I'm worth as much as Solomon Hatch, a little pasty faced critter like that," ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... all yo'se'f, eh? Now, let me tole you' suffin'. Jest yo' look sharp after him. A 'possum am a mighty skeery critter, ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 08, August, 1885 • Various

... fust time Aunt Lucy's ma—my great grandmother, and the land knows what HER name was, I don't—the fust time she went out after the baby was born she went to camp meetin'. And one of the ministers there he talked some consider'ble about a critter name of Lucifer that was a fallen-down angel, whatever that is. Well, my great-grandmother she didn't understand much about what he was talkin' about—I cal'late none of 'em did fur's that goes, and no ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... with idioms. "Darn the critter, he's fixed my flint eternally. Now I cave. I swan to man. I may just hang up my fiddle; for this darkie's too ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... stern-davits. He was the worst pirate I met on the whole voyage. He began depredations by eating my chart of the West Indies, in the cabin, one day, while I was about my work for'ard, thinking that the critter was securely tied on deck by the pumps. Alas! there was not a rope in the sloop proof against that ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... he exclaimed aloud. "A big bobcat or a lynx! The critter must have frightened old Keno and made him hit the trail home! Hope I don't meet the brute! I've got only two ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler

... been a human thief, for you'd never say that. Did you see the critter go?" came from Jerry, as he peered ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... Tomorrow afternoon me and Job take a trip back to Eastboro, and one of us stays there. It may be me, but I have my doubts. I agreed to take a DOG on trial, not a yeller-jaundiced cow with a church organ inside of it. Hear the critter whoopin' down there in the boathouse! And he's eat everything that's chewable on the reservation already. He's a famine on legs, that pup. But never mind him. He's been tried—and found guilty. Tell me ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... jest mention, yeou needn't jump into it, like a catameount rampagin' arter fodder. Yeou step in kinder keerful and set deown and don't move reound more'n ye ken help. It's a mighty crank little critter, I tell ye. 'Twould be tolable unconvenient to upset and git eour cargo ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... yet to come, as the story-book fellers say. It had begun t' get real dark, when I thinks I hears a rustlin' sound in the dead underbrush. I grabbed my axe, an' made up my mind to die fightin', anyway. I knew sooner or later some hungry critter would come along an' find me laid out there nice an' invitin', without a chance o' protectin' myself, and I figgered that arter that the end wouldn't be a long ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... "The little critter's all right!" declared MacPhairrson, when he and the Boy were done laughing. "Ananias-an'-Sapphira won't hurt him. She likes all the critters she kin bully an' skeer. An' Stumpy an' that comical cuss of a Ebenezer, they be goin' ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... was lost a whole season. When I happened to find it, there was a piece of bone and some fur between the jaws, showing that the poor little critter had gnawed off its own foot rather than die of starvation. Made me fell bad, that did. A good trapper seldom allows such a thing ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie

... his hand. "And if I wanted to name it, I'd call it Ford." He glanced up the path to where Josephine was walking straight to the west door of the bunk-house, and laughed sourly. "Well, she needn't take my word for it if she don't want to, I guess," he muttered. "Nothing like heading off a critter—or a woman—in time!" ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... if you're a he critter on two legs," snapped Jenks. "Not in this country or any other white man's country; no, nor in red man's country neither. What you do back in the States, can't say. Trust in ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... mout be a-makin' a false play, but—durn the critter anyway, Shane! He ain't got no more backbone than a wet string! He's been in a hell of a stew ever since we got here about this storm a-brewing and it's beginnin' to roil me just havin' him pesticate around. ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... back to the serious side of the subject. "It's somethin' t' make a critter think," he declared. "Take white folks an' Injuns, f'r instance. They ain't never rightly understood each other, 'cause they ain't never bin rightly in tune with each other, an' that's another way o' sayin' ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... much as ever," said Teezle, "much as ever that the critter didn't mutton you. She skipped like a painter, and whet up her teeth for a whalin' bite. But don't think on it now. Here, who'll tell a good story, and cheer up Fabens a little? Uncle Walt, tell one of your painter stories. That 'll wean him ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... You got me now, but that hunch is a rip-snorter persuadin' sort of a critter, and it's my plain duty to ride it. I call for three thousand. And I got another hunch: Daylight's ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... near—sometimes before him, sometimes behind, but never where he was. He searched through a small pool with his hands, sifted out sticks and leaves, but found nothing else. A farmer going by told him it was only a "spring Peeper," whatever that was, "some kind of a critter in the water." ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... was a right weakly sort o' critter. Of course Hopewell was good to her," pursued Aunt 'Mira. "Hopewell Drugg is as mild as dishwater, anyhow. He'd be ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... her; "anyhow, the jig is up, dear. Even if I had a bad moment now and then in the first year, nothing came of it. Oh, mother, what a beast I am!" He was pressing his handkerchief against her tragic eyes. "Your fault? Your only fault is being so perfect that you can't understand a poor critter like me!" ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... with some impatience. "Yas, I knows. Same critter. Only one like her in th' Hills. Sasshays all over th' scenery, an' don't do ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... life to you, and that's no joke," answered the foreman shortly. "We didn't see that he was in trouble till one of the boys discovered you chasing his pony. Then we saw you rope the critter and pack the boss ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... Farmer Green, "this mare is the meanest critter that comes into my shop. She doesn't know anything except how to kick and bite. That old horse of yours is worth a dozen like her. I'd give more for his tail than I would ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey

... twitter of the bluebird and the jay, And that sassy little critter jes' a-peckin' all the day; They's music in the "flicker," and they's music in the thrush, And they's music in the snicker o' the ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley

... well 's the nex' hand," volunteered Captain Glover. "Got a sore ear, 'n' a hole in my nose, but reckon I'm 'n able-bodied seaman for all that. Hev rowed some in my time. Rowed forty mile after a whale onct, 'n' caught the critter—fairly rowed him down. Current's putty lively. Sh'd say 't was tearin' off 'bout five knots an hour. But guess I'll try it. Sh'd kinder like to feel water ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... political feeling, that it was much less expensive to give him the office than to support him and his two daughters, the prettiest girls in our school. For they further agreed that Peleg was a "shif'less sort o' critter" and never could make a living, though he was a model postmaster and an excellent citizen and neighbor. Hence, when it came Peleg's turn to make the journey to the burying-ground in the village hearse, the whole community of Meadowvale was scandalized ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field

... ride a bucking jeep with the best of them, and he could spot, single out, and stun a steer in forty seconds flat; then use his electronic brander on it and have the critter back on its feet ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch



Words linked to "Critter" :   beast, animal, fauna, brute



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