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Funk   Listen
verb
Funk  v. t.  
1.
To envelop with an offensive smell or smoke. (Obs.)
2.
To funk at; to flinch at; to shrink from (a thing or person); as, to funk a task. (Colloq.)
3.
To frighten; to cause to flinch. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Funk" Quotes from Famous Books



... are.' It is a winning face that Mr. Torrance turns on his son. 'I suppose you have been asking yourself of late, what if you were to turn out to be a funk!' ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... degenerate herself of a murdering type . . . or else of the lying type. Comrade Ossipon might have been said to be terrified scientifically in addition to all other kinds of fear. It was an immeasurable and composite funk, which from its very excess gave him in the dark a false appearance of calm and thoughtful deliberation. For he moved and spoke with difficulty, being as if half frozen in his will and mind—and no one could see his ghastly face. He ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... newspapers and periodicals of that time, which did so much to keep militarism alive, one finds very little about glory and adventure and a constant harping on the disagreeableness of invasion and subjugation. In one word, militarism was funk. The belligerent resolution of the armed Europe of the twentieth century was the resolution of a fiercely frightened sheep to plunge. And now that its weapons were exploding in its hands, Europe was only too eager to drop them, and abandon this ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... told me an hour ago that in the Tramps' Lodging House, last night, it was the common talk that there would be a rush on the houses in this region to-night. I went to the Mayor and tried to see him, but he was hiding, I think. I went to the Chief of Police, and he was in a blue funk. So I thought I would come up myself and see you. I knew you could raise a few men among your servants over here, and I would bring half a dozen, and we could answer for a few tramps, anyhow. But you are all right, and there is nothing to do but ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... do when I'd be riding alone and a strange horse drew up from behind—the old racing instinct. I FELT the thing too! I felt as if a strange horse WAS there! And then—the words just jerked out of me by sheer funk—I started saying, 'Death is riding to-night!... Death is racing to-night!... Death is riding to-night!' till the hoofs took that up. And I believe the old mare felt the black horse at her side and was going to beat him ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... sharp and complaining, for anything painful always made him exasperated. Martin lying ill in bed, Martin shivering and in pain and in a funk was so unlike the rather superior being whom he liked to pretend bullied him, that he felt upset and rather shocked. He gave a sigh of relief as Joanna ran upstairs—he told himself that she was a good practical sort of woman, and handsome when she ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... I did funk the danger, at fust; but these Safeties don't run yer much risk, And arter six weeks in the Park, I could treadle along pooty brisk; And then came the barney, my bloater! I jined 'arf a dozen prime pals, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

... He began to mutter. We were always incurably anxious to hear what he had to say. This time he mumbled peevishly, "It took you some time to come! I began to think the whole smart lot of you had been washed overboard. What kept you back? Hey? Funk?" We said nothing. With sighs we started again to drag him up. The secret and ardent desire of our hearts was the desire to beat him viciously with our fists about the head; and we handled him as tenderly as though he had ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... a funk for?" she laughed. "You're fortunate enough to be able to drink wine daily, and can't you, forsooth, even come up to me? Yet I mean to recite, by and bye, my own share. If you say what's right, well and good; if ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... 'news,' which was generally that 'Mrs. "Bunny" Bumpkin looked sweet in grey'—or that 'Miss "Toby" Tosspot was among the loveliest of the debutantes at Court.' Sometimes a son of Israel came along, all in a mortal funk, and said he 'didn't want it mentioned' that Mrs. So-and-So had dined with him at a certain public restaurant last night. Generally, he was a shareholder, and his orders had to be obeyed. The shareholders in fact had most to do with the 'society' ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... He didn't just funk it at that one time; it's his habit. I've always heard him say he hated to drive a car. Too lazy! Anyhow, there was the very dickens to pay. Before leaving the hill for his dash across the river he'd told March to consider himself ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... hands in his pockets. The luck had been with him all the evening. He was completely satisfied, both with himself and with Captain Lockwood's taste in wines. "What's the matter? You look to me to be in an absolute blue funk." ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... None for him. Not one word. They were cowards, afraid for themselves, afraid of death; their funk had made them forget him. It was as if they didn't believe that he was there. And, after all, it ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... eighteen inches in length. Although breeding off the coast of Newfoundland, they appeared winters as far south as Virginia, performing their migration by swimming alone. The last bird appears to have been taken in 1844, and Funk Island, off the coast of Newfoundland, marks the place of their disappearance from our shores. There are about seventy known specimens of the bird preserved, and about the same number of eggs. The immediate cause of the extinction of ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed

... 8th Corps Headquarters intending to enjoy a cup of tea al fresco, but we were reckoning without our host (the Turkish one) who threw so many big shell from Asia all about the mound that, (only to save the tea cups), we retired with dignified slowness into our dugouts. Whilst sitting in these funk-holes, as we used to call them at Ladysmith, General Gouraud ran the gauntlet and made also a slow and dignified entry. He was coming back with me to Imbros. As it was getting late we hardened our hearts ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... when he had learned that I intended crossing the ocean, and when we passed out of sight of land he was in a blue funk. He said that he had never heard of such a thing before in his life, and that always he had understood that those who ventured far from land never returned; for how could they find their way when they could see no land ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Dawson, The Right of the Child to Be Well Born. Funk & Wagnalls, $0.75. A plain study of eugenics, non-technical and helpful; includes a chapter on eugenics and religion. To be commended ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... was their absolute and undisguised cheerfulness. I have lively recollection of the first German prisoners I saw in the early days of the war. They were in a gray funk, which is several degrees more sheer than a blue funk. They absolutely believed that the next moment or two would be their last on this woeful earth and that they would be shot ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... key made—for himself; he certainly let me use it once, but only once, and who's to prove it? And he's had the opportunity every day of using it himself. That's very awkward, Foxy, my boy. If I were Foxy, I should be in a funk, myself." ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... observed, after a renewal of his restless pacing, "that I've got to tell her my situation first. I don't need to tell you that I funk doing it, but ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the day, but all one had to do was to lie comfortably in one's "funk hole" and wait for the "hate" to die down. After many experiences in the open, without a particle of cover, being shelled in deep holes had ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... at all, for I made sure they was going to do away with me somehow; but, as I couldn't help myself, I was not going to show them what a funk I was in; so I pretended to whistle, quite happy like. I had been whistling away some time, when I thought I heard their footsteps moving off; and so it proved; for when I next sung out to them, no one answered. I called them all manner ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... inevitable and saw Kate off with a smile of encouragement. Then I waited. I was tired and frightened—horribly frightened. I sat there and imagined scores of gruesome possibilities. It was no use telling myself to be brave. I couldn't be brave. I never was in such a blue funk before or since. Suppose Kate got lost—suppose she couldn't find me again—suppose something happened to her—suppose she couldn't get help—suppose it came on night and I there all alone—suppose Indians—not ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... radiant spectacle has faded away, we look at each other. Those who had fled into the funk-holes now gradually and head first disinter themselves. The group recovers ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... nearly broke both his son's legs, administering to him fatherly punishment with an iron bar, so that he could not possibly be very dangerous after his death. But another portrait, found on the best and the prettiest of the pyramids, amazed my friend a good deal, and put him in a blue funk. The whole district recognized an English officer, a certain Captain Pole, who in his lifetime was as kind a gentleman ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... manner as he struggled between dignity, greediness, and common funk was so irresistibly funny ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... a blue funk whenever he thinks of stacking up against the freshman," one sophomore confidentially told another. "I believe he ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish

... he offered up just pride and dignity on the altar of mercy, and retired to Quebec. A shallow-pated fellow, who had probably figured personally in the outrages of that period, in talking to me on the subject, thus described it,—"he bolted off in a funk to Quebec;" and doubtless hundreds of others, as shallow-pated as himself, had been made to believe such was the case, and vituperation being the easiest of all ignoble occupations, they had probably done their best to ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... the politicians of both parties are in something of a funk. It is the nature of parties thus situate to fancy that there is no hereafter, riding in their dire confusion headlong for a fall. Little other than the labels being left, nobody can tell what will happen ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... but now we'd done it I felt it would be beastly mean to take the old boy's chink after putting him in such a funk. He didn't say anything about bringing us up as his own sons—so I didn't know what to do. I let Pincher go, and was just going to say he was very welcome, and we'd rather not have the money, which seemed the best way out of ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit

... it frightened you are of the conceited Spaniard?" she asked herself. "You've prided yourself on being a match for any man, and being able to keep any ardent suitor at arm's length, and here you are in a funk! It's ashamed of you I ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... the governor? If I were he I should be in a most awful funk. I should hardly be able to think of anything but that man who is to come to-morrow with his knives. But he takes it all as cool as ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... rising to speak in the House of Commons, he bade his friend feel his pulse, which was throbbing terrifically. "I know I shall make one of my best speeches," said Canning, "because I'm in such an awful funk!" President Pierce, who has a great deal of oratorical power, is subject to a similar horror ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Always, have I noticed, with all the alacrity of which they are capable, do they respond to any order to shorten down. That is why they are for'ard, in that pigsty of a forecastle, because they lack the iron. Well, I can say only this: If nothing else could have prevented the funk hinted at by Margaret, the sorry spectacle of these ironless, spineless creatures was sufficient safeguard. How could I funk in the face of their weakness—I, who lived aft ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... to be bought," he sneered. "There is Tom Willing, who made the most part of his money importing Guinea niggers, and now is in a mortal funk lest some of it, like them, shall run away. Two years ago he was a member of the rebel Congress and a partner of that desperate speculator Morris, with a hand thrust deep in the Continental treasury ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... till Margaret relieved her mind at our expense," said his daughter coolly. "I had to say something. Besides, I'd heard one of the maids say that somebody's mother had deserted him—I fitted it in. What a funk you are, father!" ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... were destroying the German barbed wire, while the heavier stuff was demolishing their trenches and bashing in dugouts or funk-holes. ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... visitor after a moment breathed. "You've had to vacate the house—that was inevitable. But at least here he doesn't funk." ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... was quite assured that the affair would be a crush. The administration, for which Mr. Webster, our secretary of state, had not hesitated to write in most determined fashion to the attache Hulsemann regarding the presumptuous Austrian demands upon our government, none the less was much in a funk regarding "European obligations." Not wishing to offend the popular fancy, and not daring to take decisive stand, the usual compromise was made. Although no member of the administration was sent officially to recognize these unofficial ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... would have been an awful business, if we had been found out. Still, it was a game, wasn't it? What an awful funk they were in! It was the funniest thing I ever saw. Things have changed since then, Terence, and I am afraid we have quite done with jokes ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... silence, and a new expression grew in his eyes till it even dominated that which had shone in them before. Bill thought he recognized it. The word "funk" flashed through his mind, and left him wondering. What could Charlie have to fear from Fyles talking to Kate? Did he believe that Kate would let the officer pump her with regard to ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... he shouted. "Thought you were a native boat. Must establish a funk—get in the first ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... In 1911 Casimir Funk coined the name Vitamine to describe the substance which he believed curative of an oriental disease known as beri-beri. This disease is common in Japan, the Philippines and other lands where the diet consists mainly of rice, and while ...
— The Vitamine Manual • Walter H. Eddy

... excessively unpleasant to feel. Perhaps its wearer had a touch of fever! Then the stout tradesman on the other side of the Convent sneezed suddenly, and W. Keyse, with every nerve in his body jarring from the shock, knew that he was simply suffering from funk. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... but that he should go back and speak to him. He said the boy would be disappointed. The men were visibly uneasy at his going, but that didn't affect him. He ordered them to wait, and back he went, pell-mell, all alone into that horde of fiends. They hadn't got over their funk, luckily, and he saw Blue Arrow and made his party call and got out again all right. He didn't tell that himself, but Sergeant O'Hara made the camp ring with it. He adores Morgan, and claims that he doesn't know what fear is. I believe it's about so. I've seen him in ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... trenches—and there are thousands of them that don't need any kicking and, on the contrary, have been kicked back; but he has become half-petrified in the atmosphere of this place. It's lovely to come to as a sort of funk-hole of peace—but my holy aunt!—What the blazes are you ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... hesitation, he said something further, that I could not catch; but there seemed a lot of funk ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson

... becoming a manufacturing centre on the other, and a mart in Europe for American goods, we'll get our revenge on Elizabeth and Cromwell in a fashion John Bull has never dreamt of in these times, though he used to be in a mortal funk of it a hundred years ago, when there wasn't nearly as much danger ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... child, you haven't sense enough to set a trap. But, since there are spring-guns in his neighbourhood, I repeat that you ought to inform him of the fact. I dare say he wouldn't funk a spring-gun on his own account, but he may not want his ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair

... indeed in a state of complete funk. With his thin legs quaking under him, he poured forth in Malay a crazed, distorted tale. According to Wadakimba, Leavitt—or Farquharson, to give him his real name—had awakened the high displeasure of the flame-devil within the mountain. Had we not observed that the cone was smoking ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... worse if you turn back. There isn't a woman or a girl about the place but will be making jokes about you if you funk it ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... could see from the expression on his face that he was in a blue funk. This puzzled her. She could not understand why anyone would be afraid of Martians. They were huge, and ugly, and alien, but they ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... returning to his room, shutting himself in and waiting for the dawn, which would change everything—would make everything seem quite usual and reasonable. But something in the depths of him, speaking in a disagreeably distinct voice, remarked, "That's right! Be a funk stick!" And his young cheeks flushed red, although he was alone. Immediately he went out on to the landing, thrust his feet again into the red slippers, and boldly started down the stairs into the black depths below. Holding the candle tightly, and trying to shuffle with ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... blown right back into our wire and put me in a fearful funk. To-day I had my usual breakfast at 10-0 in bed, washed, shaved, and then went along to see "A" Company Commander to arrange about firing. On the way to his headquarters I saw a captain of the R.H.A., and found ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack

... cold politeness when I mounted to the veranda, and the governor dispensed glasses of "Dr. Funk," a drink known to all the South Seas. Its secret is merely the mixing of a stiff drink of absinthe with lemonade or limeade. The learned man who added this death-dealing potion to the pleasures of the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... discovered in the toe of one of them a still larger booty. The last of the group was a cheery little fellow barely four feet high, likable in spite of his ingrained lifetime lack of soap. He showed no funk, and when ordered to undress turned to the "gringo" manager with: "Me too, jefe?" Then he quickly stripped, proving himself not only honest but the biggest little giant imaginable. He had a chest like a wine-barrel and legs that resembled steel poles, weighed fifty-two kilos, ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... to bear much," he said with more and more of his parental bitterness, "but I don't know that I'm yet in a funk before my child. Doesn't she want to see me, with any contrition, after the trick she has played me?" And then as his companion's answer failed: "In spite of which trick you suggest that I should leave the country with ...
— The Outcry • Henry James

... made timidly, because by then General D'Hubert had become acutely aware of the number of his years, of his wounds, of his many moral imperfections, of his secret unworthiness—and had incidentally learned by experience the meaning of the word funk. As far as he could make out she seemed to imply that, with an unbounded confidence in her mother's affection and sagacity, she felt no unsurmountable dislike for the person of General D'Hubert; and that ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... Macedonian, and sloop of war Frolic; and the President is also requested to present a silver medal,[77] with like emblems and devices, to the nearest male relative of Lieutenant Bush, and one to the nearest male relative of Lieutenant Funk, in testimony of the gallantry and merit of those deceased officers, in whom their country has sustained a loss ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... an awful funk, certainly," returned Marcus, frankly, "but I never meant to bother you like that. Cheer up, Livy, I daresay it is all right, and I know you will be a model of discretion for the future. Aren't you going to look ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... wholesale killing could not be the aim of these wretches, that the gray automobile was not what our one-cent sheets in their tales of gunmen like to call a "murder car." But what did I know about it? I was in a funk, a funk of the bluest variety. In that one age-long moment I learned what sheer ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... in a great funk, I missed my gymnastic lesson yesterday. I was upstairs at Hella's and without meaning it I was so late I did not dare to go. And Hella said I had better stay with her that we would say that our sum was so difficult that we ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... funk," returned Darrin, smiling. "However, I'm not going to be betrayed into any bragging until we've wiped the field up with ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock

... that," he said to himself later in the day, as he thought over the incident. "But extravagant or not, I couldn't have discharged that woman if somebody had offered me a clear hundred. Mrs. B. doesn't know it, but I was in a blue funk from start ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... you would. I'd like to find out whether she would believe you. I have tried to tell her myself, but the honest truth is, I funk it." ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... was in the nigger-catching business in the Solomon Islands. Natives opened fire on us when our boats were aground in a creek, and some of our men got hit. I wasn't a bit scared of a smack from a bullet, but when I got a scratch on my hand from an arrow, I dropped in a blue funk, and acted like a cur. Knew it was poisoned, felt sure I'd die of lockjaw, and began to weep internally. Then the mate called me a rotten young cur, shook me up, and put my Snider into my hand. But I shall always feel funky at ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke

... World's Famous Orations," with the permission of Funk and Wagnalls Company, New York ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... I was in an awful funk when I found myself alone on the beastly old carpet, and I couldn't manage it at all. I suppose it was because I couldn't speak the language; Shin Shira used Arabic or something, wasn't it? I tried all sorts of things too, a little ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow

... tremendous bounds, was Alcatraz. He got no help from his rider. The light jockey on Lady Mary was aiding his mount by throwing his weight with the swing of her gallop, but Manuel Cordova was a leaden burden. The most casual glance showed the man to be in a blue funk; he rode as one astride a thunderbolt and Alcatraz had both to plan his race and ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... came up, in a blue funk evidently, and I couldn't make anything of him. Sahib this, and sahib that, and salaaming and general idiotcy—or shamming—I couldn't tell which. I didn't know a nigger then as ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... would think," the young man admitted. "But does it, in fact? It had somehow got stuck in my head that English folk, meeting as strangers, were rather apt to glare. We're most of us in such a funk, you see, lest, if we treat a stranger with civility, he should turn out not to be ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland

... revenge all the same," Horser answered. "It's too late now to funk the thing. They can't budge you. We'll see to that. We hold New York in our hands. Be a man, Mace, and run a ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... crowding to the windows, climbing over each other's backs behind the blinds, billiard cues and all. Somebody broke a window pane, and with the sound of falling glass, so suggestive of riot and devastation, Schomberg reeled out after us in a state of funk which had prevented his parting with his brandy and soda. He must have trembled like an aspen leaf. The piece of ice in the long tumbler he held in his hand tinkled with an effect of chattering teeth. ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... succession, came her hand against my head, "You...rude...bad...boy," said she slapping me at each word, "I've a good mind to tell your mamma, get into bed this instant," and into bed I got without a word. She blew out the light, and left the room with her sister, leaving me in a dreadful funk. I scarcely knew that I had done wrong, yet had some vague notion, that feeling about her thighs was punishable; the soft hairy place my hand had touched, impressed me with wonder, I kept thinking there was no cock there, and felt a sort of delight ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... e.g., Le Progres Medical of September, 1907). In England and the United States very little has yet been done in this direction, but in the United States, at all events, opinion in favor of action is rapidly growing (see, e.g., W.A. Funk, "The Venereal Peril," Medical Record, April 13, 1907). The American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis (based on the parent society founded in Paris in 1900 by Fournier) was established in New York in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... the affair—though, of course, being a creature of handcuffs and bludgeons, he thought our friend Curtis was the real scoundrel—I realized at once that Vassilan's indisposition was a bad attack of blue funk. Such a man could no more remain quietly in his room at the hotel than a fox terrier could pass a dog fight without taking hold. As soon as I saw the Earl go out alone, and heard him direct the taxi to the Central Hotel in 27th Street, I decided that my best place was at the driving wheel of ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... lesson," he said. "Never funk a pistol unless you are sure there's a carthridge inside. Mine hadn't. Drive on, cabby!" With which parting shot the gallant major rattled away down Piccadilly with a fixed determination never again to leave his rooms without a ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the Nicaraguan Representative; in other words that he, the parroco, was praised for what was really the Commissioner's idea. And it is evident that if Mr. Parker's lady had not died from the effects of a mosquito-sting, that gentleman would never have been in such a complex funk as to suggest a procession ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... had not fled; I had brought back the body; I had handed over the property. But how did that help me? It would only suggest that I had yielded to a sudden funk after killing my man, and had no nerve left to clutch at the fruits of the crime; it would suggest, perhaps, that I had not set out to kill but only to threaten, and that, when I found that I had done murder, the heart went out of me. Turn it ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... companions, who had run away, and small blame to them, for it was like the rising of a corpse suddenly endowed with volition. Both were by this time in what has been forcibly and picturesquely described as a "blue funk"; they trembled ceaselessly; their teeth chattered, and their eyes roved here and there with a wild, hunted look; every now and then they stopped convulsively, imagining that they saw or heard something to indicate the proximity of the ferocious ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan

... really was frightened," she persisted. "It gave me quite a nasty turn, as the servants say. I don't think"—meditatively—"that I enjoy being shot at. Am I a funk, my uncle?" ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... never meet him in a quarrel if I can help it, Mr. Trefethen," replied Peveril, flushing with gratified pride, "for I can't imagine anything that would throw me into a greater funk than to face as an enemy the man who established the existing record on that machine. But, now, don't you think we might adjourn to the supper of which you spoke awhile since? I was never quite so famished in my life, and am nearly ready to drop ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... sir," he went on reflectively, "there's a dozen I could stake my life on who wouldn't be in any crooked game. Suppose," he counted off on his fingers, "we take Olsen and Binney and Barker and Dodd and Thompson and Willis. They're all true blue, and I don't think they're in such a funk over the volcano as some of ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... barn owl in the chapel belfrey. Saw him and heard him. Constance nervous; omens and that sort, I fancy; but no funk. ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... use his own phrase for it, on an earlier train than Eleanor had expected, and marched up to the Hilton House with a jaunty air of perfect ease and assurance. But really, he confided to Eleanor, he was in a "blooming blue funk" all ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... inquietude, disquietude, worry, concern; batophobia[obs3]; heartquake[obs3]; flutter, trepidation, fear and trembling, perturbation, tremor, quivering, shaking, trembling, throbbing heart, palpitation, ague fit, cold sweat; abject fear &c. (cowardice) 862; mortal funk, heartsinking[obs3], despondency; despair &c. 859. fright; affright, affrightment[obs3]; boof alarm[obs3][U.S.], dread, awe, terror, horror, dismay, consternation, panic, scare, stampede [of horses]. intimidation, terrorism, reign of terror. [Object of fear] bug bear, bugaboo; scarecrow; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... my back, my man taking the tripod, we started off. There was a light railway running towards Contalmaison. I followed this until I got near the spot brother Fritz was aiming at, hugging a trench at the side of a by-road. The bank was lined with funk-holes, which came in very useful during the journey, and I had to seek their shelter several times, but the nearest shell fell at a junction between that road and a communication trench. Just this side lay a very much ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... at this time that Dam's heart went wholly and finally out to Ormonde Delorme who roundly stated that his father, a bemedalled heroic Colonel of Gurkhas, was "in a blind perishing funk" during a thunderstorm and always sought shelter in the wine cellar when one was ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... a protection note, so we're all right. Don't worry, little girl. Why, don't you see this gets us out of our difficulty? We can start afresh now without offending anybody. Look there; there's that idiot of a plumber who's done all the mischief—a nice funk he'll be in when he ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... approving tone, "quite right. I holds that a man should always attend to what he's at, an' to nothin' else. I've lived long in the woods now, and the fact becomes more and more sartin every day. I've know'd chaps, now, as timersome as settlement girls, that were always in such a mortal funk about what was to happen, or might happen, that they were never fit for anything that did happen; always lookin' ahead, and never around them. Of coorse, I don't mean that a man shouldn't look ahead at all, but their great mistake ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... unnerved me. Like the boy before the dentist's door, I suddenly discovered a multitude of reasons for being elsewhere. Some hints of the struggle going on within must have shown in my face, for one of my companions said, "Don't funk; you can do it." ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... sir," said the driver with a little toss of his head. "You've got a lot to go through before you've seen as much as I have. Blow 'em! Those Boches are still at it," and he craned his head forward over his wheel. "They've got the range of this blooming road to a T. I don't funk risks, but it's madness to shove ahead through that!" And he slowed the car down as a rain of shells crashed among the trees in front of them, bringing half a dozen tall poplars down on to the road itself, while the whole terrain to their ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... sat in room 407—I in a blue funk from sheer nervousness, Raffles Holmes as imperturbable as the rock of Gibraltar from sheer nerve. It was the usual style of hotel room, with bath, pictures, telephone, what-nots, wardrobes, and centre-table. The last proved to be the main point of interest upon our arrival. It was littered up with ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs

... that I was doing this dead man a distinct wrong—as if it mattered to the dead, after all! When the affair was over, I thought more of the possible consequences than of its relation to the dead man himself; but do as I would at the time, I was in a ridiculous funk, and especially when going through the ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell

... know,' said this fellow Ewbank, who was one of the downright sort, 'if it wasn't you, I should say you were in a funk of robbers? ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... many variations) is the whole story of Peter Funk. These "mock auctioneers," sometimes, as in the case I have mentioned, take advantage of the respectability of their victims, sometimes of their haste to leave the city on business. When they could not possibly avoid it, they disgorged their prey. No instance is known ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... and, as I said, between ourselves. You don't think, do you, that just in the midst of the fight poor Lennox was seized with what you vulgar young fellows call a fit of blue funk, ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... crowd of roistering boys and rosy-cheeked girls, who made the old school-house hum like a beehive. Very pleasant to the passers-by was the music of their voices. At recess and at noon they had leap-frog and tag. Paul was in a class with Philip Funk, Hans Middlekauf, and Michael Murphy. There were other boys and girls of all nationalities. Paul's ancestors were from Connecticut, while Philip's father was a Virginian. Hans was born in Germany, and Michael in Ireland. ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... Government is much too timid with its money—like an old maiden aunt of mine—always in a funk about her investments. They don't spend half enough on railways for instance, and they are slow in a general way, and ought to be made to sit up in all that concerns the encouragement of private enterprise, and coaxing out into ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... to regret that she had tied her fortunes to a man utterly unworthy of love and respect. She remained for several years at Dresden, and among other operas she appeared in Weber's "Euryanthe," with Mme. Funk, Herr Berg-mann, and Herr Meyer. She also made a powerful impression on the attention of both the critics and the public in Cherubini's "Faniska," and Spohr's "Jessonda," both of which operas are not much known out of Germany, ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris

... down there in the canyon—quiet and hot. I looked at Whitney and he looked at me, and I had the sudden, unpleasant realization that he was a coward, added to his other qualifications. Yes, a coward! I saw it in his blurred eyes and the quivering of his bloated lips—stark dumb funk. That was bad. I'm afraid I lost my nerve, too; I make no excuses; fear is infectious. At all events, we tore down out of that place as if death was after us, the mules clattering and flapping in the rear. After a time I rode more slowly, but in the morning we were nearly ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... to carry the body out. Millson chanced by. They got in a funk and rushed the thing. Of course they had a motor down the road, and equally of course it was no trick to whisk the body out of ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... oi had missed my foot there warn't no saying how far oi would ha' fallen to t' bottom. At last the man avore me says, 'Here we be!' and grateful oi was, vor what wi' the crawling and the climbing, and the funk as oi was in o' falling, the swaat was a-running down me loike water. The torches war put out, and in another minute we pushes through some bushes and then we war on t' top of the cliff a hundred yards or so back from t' edge, and doon in a sort of hollow all covered ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... a great admirer of Lord Fisher and the Blue Water school, sometimes spoken of as the Blue Funk school. Again, I find that the Great War has left many people in the blues, and by means of homeopathy I cure 'em; I mean to say that they come to their doors and laugh at my blue bike. My ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill

... me—little me!" she called back. "Of one person's comfort when hundreds of thousands of other women are in terror; when the destiny of millions is at stake! Lanny, you are in a blue funk!" and she was laughing forcedly and hectically. "I'm going on—going on like one in a trance who can't stop if he would. It's all right, Lanny. I undertook the task myself. I ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... most likely, before the sixth come up to bed. So if you funk, you just come along and hide, or else they'll catch you and ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... a frightful funk," continued the narrator, warily guarding his ear with his hand, "but just then the drawing-room window opened, and you and Aunt Maria came out—I mean emerged. The burglars vanished silently into the laurels, ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... chance for us put him in blue funk. If I not shoot, presently he shoot," and he made a sound that resembled the whistling of an arrow, then added, "Now you go sleep. I not tired, I watch, my eyes see in dark better than yours. Only two more days ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... come in when he hears the gong. We use the alarm clock at present for a gong. I don't know what I shall do when the cow goes away. She wakes me every morning punctually at half-past four, but I'm in a blue funk that one of these days she will oversleep herself. It is one of those clocks you read about. You wrote something rather funny about one once yourself, but I always thought you had invented it. I bought it because they ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... remaining niggers tried to climb out of the water upon the bottom of the canoe. I yelled and cursed and struck at the nearest with my fist, but it was no use. They were in a blind funk. The canoe could barely have supported one of them. Under the three it up-ended and rolled sidewise, throwing them back into ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... but he'll work you to death, for he's always in a funk that Tom Mitchell'll get ahead of him. But you cannot do better. I have no house in town, but you can ride the distance between here and Christianstadt night and morning, if my estimable brother-in-law—whom may ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... refused to do so, as he said it was against his principles. This specimen of the white feather astonished us beyond measure. Captain E— shortly after received orders to start for India, where I believe he died of cholera—in all probability of FUNK. ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow

... Trout and Mrs. Booth had worked alone, but now Mrs. Trout asked Mrs. Antoinette Funk, a lawyer, of Chicago, who had done active work for the Progressive party, to come to Springfield, and she arrived on May 13. A week later Mrs. Medill McCormick came to reside in the capital and her services were immediately enlisted. She was a daughter of the late ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... afraid I learn much less, but, fortunately, I have not to pass an examination—except if mamma takes it into her head to examine me. But she will have so much to think of with Georgina that I hope this won't occur to her. If it does, I shall be, as Harold says, in a dreadful funk. ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James

... Pike. He wants me to take a guide, that's his little dodge. As if I couldn't take care of myself! I've got it all up in the guide-book, and guess I could find the top blindfold. I'll laugh if I get up before the Cambridge fellows. They'll probably funk it, though, or miss the way, and have to get me to give them a leg up. It'll be a good lesson ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... from the services, the board made a hasty appeal to authority. Its chief of staff, Vice Adm. John L. McCrea,[15-8] recommended that the Army and Navy consult Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary for specific definitions of the five racial categories. That source, the admiral explained to the Under Secretary of the Navy, listed Polynesian in the Malayan category, and if the ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... he mill," the artist chimed in a little later, "in ruins now. What a lot of snow, Holy Mother! Grisha, why did you go? You are a funk, ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... hadn't happened before his illness. In time he'll begin to grope after detailed recollection, and he'll begin to realise that he never did go through it and that it must have happened while he was ill. Well, I don't funk that. That won't happen yet awhile; and when it does happen I'm confident enough that something else will have happened meanwhile and that he'll see, and thank God for it, that what is is best. There'll be another thing too. He'll ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... in the trenches and the shells were coming, and it was beastly wet and verminy and uncomfortable, I never felt this feeble, horrible quivering—I know just what funk is—I felt it the day I did the thing they gave me the V.C. for. This is not exactly funk—I wish I knew what it was and could crush it out ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn

... everything liquid in the place for me. But what I was speaking of—do you know, those fellows got a tremendous notion of my nerve. It wasn't so much that they told me so, but they told others about it. They really thought I was game to the core—when in reality, as I tell you, I was in the deadliest funk you ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... thrill felt Hyacinth, When he heard that villanous shout Calmuc! Now, thought he, my trial beginneth; Saints, O give me courage and pluck! "Courage, boys, 'tis useless to funk!" Thus unto the friars he began: "Never let it be said that a monk Is not likewise a gentleman. Though the patron saint of the church, Spite of all that we've done and we've pray'd, Leaves us wickedly here in the lurch, ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Warren, so called because the works resembled a rabbit warren. This was on the lower side and to the left end of Vimy Ridge, and was extra dangerous. It did seem as though each place was worse than the last. The Warren was a regular network of trenches, burrows, and funk holes, and ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes

... better hold your tongue, Liputin; you talk for the sake of talking, as you always do. All men are spies, gentlemen, who funk their duty at the moment of danger. There will always be some fools who'll run in a panic at the last moment and cry out, 'Aie, forgive me, and I'll give them all away!' But let me tell you, gentlemen, no ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... post commander, as he came hurrying out to meet the party, "we've been in a blue funk about you fellows for two whole days. ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... the look-out. At once a party took to the boats, while others watched along the shore. We were in a great funk about the matter, for if the wild bulls got over to our side it might mean almost ruin for us. So we charged gallantly at them in the water, and strove to head them back to the other side, where the Paparoa ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... us being as cool as that, if he knew he had to stand up within an hour and rattle off a speech in Parliament. I'd be in a devil of a funk myself. And yet he is as keen over that book he's reading as though he had ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... the indignant Summers, with a voice that had a crow, but also something of a crack in it. "And who's a funk, either? ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... should! Still, one may be allowed to have one's grumble and, after all, I think we are pretty sure of some stiff fighting, which makes up for everything. I am not afraid of the enemy a bit, but I do funk fever." ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... "He'd funk it," said Dick, his face paling a little. "He'd never stand up to me. He's got no fight in him. Why, he's managed that claim there now for two years and he's never so much as fired a shot over it. Now that fellow Robinson wot's got the claim a mile farther up the creek, he's the boy for me. Why, ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross

... you get my note? I came down to make sure. I thought, afterwards, Jimmy might funk ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... my fun," he said; "and don't you suppose for a moment I'm going to funk a lot of stupid, silly girls. How much do you think I'm going to ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... Funk! Young man: I come of a famous family of fighters; and as your sister well knows, you would have as much chance against me as a perambulator ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... Brother Copas easily. "Well, so—in a sense—do I. We beat you at the polls; not in Merchester—we shall never carry Merchester—though even in Merchester we put up fight enough to rattle you into a blue funk. But God help the pair of us, Mr. Simeon, if our principles are to be judged by the uses other men make of 'em! I have had enough of my fellow-Liberals to last me for some time. . . . Why are you studying Liddell and Scott, ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... few of the more important matters," he said in a businesslike tone. "None of us has any authority to act for the rest of the people in the tower, but so many of us are in a state of blue funk that those who are here must have charge for a while. ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster

... a man in such a funk. He was a storekeeper, we found afterwards. He nearly dropped on his knees. Then he handed Starlight a bundle of notes, a gold watch, and took a handsome diamond ring from his finger. This Starlight put into his pocket. He handed the notes and watch to Jim, who had ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... Terence. I knew that we could not be found out when we had not told a soul. Did you ever see such a funk as the Spaniards were all in, and after all their bragging and the airs that they had given themselves. Our men were so savage at their cowardice, that I believe they would have liked nothing better than an order to pitch into them. And didn't the women ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... all wild birds should fly promptly, rapidly and far from the presence of Man, the Arch Enemy of Wild Life. The species that persistently neglects to do so, or is unable, soon is utterly destroyed. The great auk species was massacred and extirpated on Funk Island because it could not get away from its sordid enemies who destroyed it for ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... went in and I saw Mr. Blair was dead. And I told Mr. Thorpe so, and he didn't seem surprised, but he was all of a blue funk, and he said, 'Well,—get a doctor—or whatever is the thing to do.' Just like that. He didn't show any grief or any sorrow,—only just seemed ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... man, and don't funk it like this," said Senor Sperati, who had graciously consented to assist him with his dressing because of the injury to his hand. "The idea of you losing your nerve, you of all men, and because of ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... musketry, [Footnote: Letter of Commodore Decatur.] and the wounds were mostly inflicted by round shot and were thus apt to be fatal. Hence the loss of the Americans amounted to Lieutenant John Messer Funk (5th of the ship) and six seamen killed or mortally wounded, and only five severely and ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... old man. I just had to. I know the sort of funk that takes you the first time you try this kind of game. And I give you my word there are precious few chaps would have stuck it ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges

... expect it, I can tell you. They're in a pitiable funk, I hear. One regiment is ordered to Uxbridge already, because they daren't trust it. They'll find soldiers are men, I do ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... by the rapidity of the enemy's attacks; then electrified once more by the most astounding news of all. Alexandria, in Egypt, was the base of a pillar of fire! Fully half of the city was wiped out, and the remainder in a mortal funk, terrorized and riotous. The United States was not ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various

... a bunch of kids," he chided. "Let's git down to business, an' do something. I don't want this to end in nuthin' but talk as in the past. It's now or never. I'm willin' to lead an' take the hull blame, if yez don't funk on me ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody

... of article in the Standard Bible Dictionary, edited by Jacobus, Nourse, and Zenos; published by Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1909:—Herod I, the son of Antipater, was early given office by his father, who had been made procurator of Judea. The first office which Herod held was that of governor of Galilee. He was then a young man of about twenty-five, energetic and athletic. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage



Words linked to "Funk" :   recoil, blue funk, Casimir Funk, funk hole, quail, shrink back, squinch, funky, depression



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