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Hobble   Listen
verb
Hobble  v. i.  (past & past part. hobbled; pres. part. hobbling)  
1.
To walk lame, bearing chiefly on one leg; to walk with a hitch or hop, or with crutches. "The friar was hobbling the same way too."
2.
To move roughly or irregularly; said of style in writing. "The hobbling versification, the mean diction."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hobble" Quotes from Famous Books



... be at the gates in a few minutes, but these few minutes seemed as if they would never pass away, but they did pass, and at the gateway Joseph toppled from his mule and just managed to hobble into the inn at which they were to sleep that night: too tired to eat, he said, too tired, he feared, to sleep. Azariah pressed him to swallow a cup of soup and he prepared a hot bath for him into which he poured a bottle of vinegar; an excellent remedy he reported this to be against ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... the water's drawn And with it eagerly I run To help those of my friends who stand In danger of being burned alive. For I am told a dribbling band Of greybeards hobble to the field, Great faggots in each palsied hand, As if a hot bath to prepare, And threatening that out they'll drive These wicked women or soon leave them charring into ashes there. O Goddess, suffer not, I pray, this harsh deed to be done, But show us Greece and Athens with their warlike ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes

... he, "cannot what sentimentalists call 'the Dismal Science,' which as you say has been banished hither, do anything to help you out of this hobble?" ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various

... she heard a tinkling. She took it for sheep-bells, and started up once more, and once more cried to Mr. Coventry; and this time he heard her, and shook off his deadly lethargy, and tried to hobble toward ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... I had been told—that if one in its movement to the salt water through the tall grass beyond the sand, touched any filth, it clawed off the polluted leg, and that a crab had been seen thus to deprive itself of all its eight limbs, and after a bath to hobble back to its hole with the aid of its claws, to remain until it had grown a complement of supports. I wondered why it did not content itself with washing instead of mutilation. To the biblical expounder it was an apt illustration ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... "Let go my arm! Hang it, man, you're pinching me! Oh, he'll do well enough. He'll be fit to hobble about in a week or ten days. The bullet went clean through his leg and out again without cutting an artery. It was a sort of miracle—and a damned lucky miracle for all hands, too! If we'd had a splintered bone or a severed artery to deal with I should have had to call in a doctor. Then the fellow ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... was dressing, Bill Ball caught breath enough to whisper to Lee: "By cripes! I've got it. Circuit's got a hunch some feller's tryin' to rope an' hobble his gal, an' he's goin' to ask Tom for his time, fork a cayuse, an' hit a lope for a railroad that'll take him to whatever little ol' humanyville his gal ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... at bottom a Republican. If he voted under the other regime with the Ministry, it was simply in order to accelerate an inevitable downfall. He even inveighed against M. Guizot, "who has got us into a nice hobble, we must admit!" By way of retaliation, he spoke in an enthusiastic fashion about Lamartine, who had shown himself "magnificent, upon my word of honour, when, with ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... stood out on the back of it. He could scarcely believe that the hand was his own. But after the first spasm of weakness was over, the precious will returned. He could walk. Strength enough to permit him to hobble along had returned to the ankle at last, and mind must control the rest of his nervous system, however weakened it might be. He must ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... vision of the opening heavens on the road to Damascus. They've brought their vision back with them to civilian life, despite the lost arms and legs which they scarcely seem to regret; their souls still triumph over the body and the temporal. As they hobble through the streets of London, they display the same gay courage that was theirs when at zero hour, with a fifty-fifty chance of death, they hopped over the top ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... voice; and she hasn't strained it in idle babble about her own affairs! I must say that Lu—Miss Blood's power of holding her tongue commands my homage. Was it her little coup to wait till we got into that hopeless hobble ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... bothering him so. No, he didn't need a doctor. The confounded thing simply gave out on him whenever he got the least bit reckless, but it seldom if ever amounted to anything. Only made him realize that he couldn't "get gay" with it. He'd be all right in a day or two. Hobble a little, that's all,—like a lame dog. More scared than hurt, ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... times came within a rod or two of partridges in the road. My companion said, that, in one journey out of Bangor, he and his son had shot sixty partridges from his buggy. The mountain-ash was now very handsome, as also the wayfarer's-tree or hobble-bush, with its ripe purple berries mixed with red. The Canada thistle, an introduced plant, was the prevailing weed all the way to the lake,—the road-side in many places, and fields not long cleared, being densely filled with it as with a crop, to the exclusion of everything else. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... Pellams. "Here, you fellows, hold him! We'll have that in a rondeau or something, next week, if you don't hobble the muse!" ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field

... at the buckboard and was snatching out the horse-blanket that lay folded up under the seat. Then he unsnapped the reins from Paddy's bridle, snapping them on the blanket, one to the buckle and the other to the strap-end. In another minute he had the hobble off Paddy and had swung me up on that astonished pinto's back. The next minute he himself was on Maid Marian, poking one end of the long rein into my hand and telling me to keep up ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... am only fit to go to bed, Or hobble out to sit within the sun, Ring down the curtain, say the play is done, And the last ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

... in the works than a mosquito when I took him up there. And eat! My Gosh, he can eat! And a complexion like a Yaqui. And he can sleep longer and harder and louder than a corral of gradin' mules on Saturday night! 'Course he's slim yet, but it's the kind of slim like rawhide that you could hobble a elephant with. And, say, he's a pardner on your life! Believe me, and I'm ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... a real hoss, there. The water is right close. Old Dobe knows where it is. Just lift off your saddle and turn him loose—or mebby you better hobble him the first night. He ain't used ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... When he asked of what Helen Carey was at that moment thinking, there was no result. But when he asked, "Of what is that policeman on the corner thinking?" he was surprised to find that that officer of the law was formulating regulations to abolish the hobble skirt as an impediment ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... talk, that was why he talked so well. On Thursday night his crutch would be left with his big hat at the front door; then, one hand leaning on his cane, the other against the wall for support, he would hobble over to the chair waiting for him, usually by the window for he loved to look out on the river, and there, seldom moving except to stand bending over with both arms on the back of the chair, which was his way ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... we passed a little grass, and as the day appeared likely to become rainy, I halted for the night. Leaving the native boy to hobble the horses, I took my gun and ascended one of the hills near me for a view. Lake Torrens was visible to the west, and Mount Deception to the N.W. but higher hills near me, shut out the view in every other direction. In descending, I followed ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... that there is still a considerable hitch or hobble in your enunciation; and that when you speak fast you sometimes speak unintelligibly. I have formerly and frequently laid my thoughts before you so fully upon this subject, that I can say nothing new upon it now. I must therefore only repeat, that your whole ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... small of taste; And the waltz, that loveth the lady's waist; And the galopade, strange agreeable tramp, Made of a scrape, a hobble, and stamp; And the high-stepping minuet, face to face, Mutual worship of conscious grace; And all the shapes in which beauty goes Weaving motion with ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt

... in cabe alle-right. Mike smell fire. He go see who burn. Fin' tree bad miner—One gone happy hunting-groun',—two sleep f'm much fire-water. Tree hosses hobble on down trail." As he spoke he acted his words so that it was plain that he had found the three claim-jumpers who were dead drunk, and their mounts which were trying to break away in sheer ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... existence has its special trials and its special consolations. Habits are the crutches of old age; by the aid of these we manage to hobble along after the mental joints are stiff and the muscles rheumatic, to speak metaphorically,—that is to say, when every act of self-determination costs an effort and a pang. We become more and more automatic as we grow older, and if we lived long enough ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... to display her small store of knowledge, though she really meant to bring comfort to this dismayed sister. "When it is once injured, it requires a long time to grow strong again. Wouldn't you rather spend two or three months in bed than to hobble about on crutches all the rest of ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... regularly carried for dissection. Scarcely one escaped being subjected to the knife. This dead-house stood some eighty, or a hundred, yards from the hospital, and between them was an area, containing a few large trees. I was in the habit, after I got well enough to go out, to hobble to one of these trees, where I would sit for hours, reading and meditating. It was a good place to make a man reflect on the insignificance of worldly things, disease and death being all around him. I frequently ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... was Sergeant Renton—who, though badly frost-bitten, refused to leave the front line, and always showed his other foot to the Doctor. He could only hobble with the help of spades as crutches. Young Roger who "saw red" in the Dere and nearly bayonetted the Doctor. Hastie Young, an "old soldier," the regimental barber: he cut the Brig.'s hair, until the Brig. unfortunately ran into ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... hills, and they'd find him at last, maybe a day or two later, lost in the mountains, grazin' on berries, and as green as a cabbidge from the hunger an' the cowld, till it got so bad at long last they had to hobble him." ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... the sheep had fed slowly back and settled themselves for the night on the gently sloping side of a draw above the sheep wagon there was just daylight enough left for her to feed and hobble the horse and cut wood without lighting a lantern. From half a mutton hanging outside at the back of the wagon she cut enough for her own supper, and fed the young collie she was training. Then, she dipped a bucket of water from the barrel, made a fire in the tiny camp ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... "Quarts to the horses and quarts to the Siwashes and a skookum pack of trouble all round, Mrs. Clallam! If I hedn't a-came to stop it a while ago, why about all the spirits that's in stock jest now was bein' traded off for some blamed ponies the bears hev let hobble on the range unswallered ever since I settled here. A store on a trail like this here, ye see, it hez to keep spirits, of course; and—well, well! here's my room; you ladies'll excuse, and make yourselves at home as well as ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... forms—has created dissatisfaction. Dr. Ishizaka relates how an underling official required a Korean of education to rewrite a notice of change of residence six times because he omitted a dot in one of those atrocious Chinese characters, which are a hobble on the development of Japan. This last opinion is mine, not the doctor's. (3) The gendarmerie, or military police system, is mentioned, 13,000 strong, of whom about 8,000 are renegade Koreans. Admittedly a rough lot, these men are endowed with ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... so away from Riverport. Then suddenly he found his thoughts going out in the direction of Arnold Masterson and his daughter, Sarah. He had not been to see them for several days now, since the man was able to leave his bed and hobble ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... not shapte, but partlye wel onward, A clapping fierbolt (such as oft, with rownce robel-hobble, Jove to the ground clattreth) but yeet ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley

... shame." If such a woman chanced also to be beautiful beyond comparison with her less favored sisters, the conclusion was inescapable. They could read in her self-claimed emancipation only the wildness of a filly turned out to pasture without halter or hobble; the wildness of one who scorns respectability; for primitive morality is pathetically narrow. It may sing piously about the pyre of a burning witch, but it can hardly grasp the ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... He would pack them off, and send them anywhere on ass-back or cart, (cart preferably,) to rid our country of 'em. But now again to the point: for if we fall among the potsherds we shall hobble on but lamely. Since thou art raised unto a high command in the army, and hast a dragoon to hold yonder thy solid and stately piece of horse-flesh, I cannot but take it into my fancy that thou hast some commission of array or disarray to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... my right knee, and it becomes painful in the night and wakes me up. In the morning my way is made through the waking city with a painful limp, that gives rise to much unsympathetic giggling among the crowd at my heels. Perhaps they think all Pankwaes thus hobble along; their giggling, however, is doubtless evidence of the well-known pitiless disposition of the Chinese. The sentiments of pity and consideration for the sufferings of others, are a well-nigh invisible quality of John Chinaman's character, and as I limp slowly along, I mentally ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... Lord Hobble was there wearing a magnificent stud; Erasmus Belt, the famous author, whose novel "Bitten: A Romance" went into two editions; Sir Septimus Root, the inventor of the fire-proof spat; Captain the Honourable ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... into the cinders that lined the track, and looking impatiently down the road. Presently the section boss came limping along painfully, and sat down on the bank in the warm spring sunshine. He had dropped a piece of heavy machinery on his foot, the week before, and was only able to hobble short distances. ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston

... when her son told her, leaving him wondering at her stony aspect. When she came down she was bonneted and shawled. He was filled with joyous amaze to see her hobble across the street and for the first time in her life pass over ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... with a strange hobble, and when they reached a house at the back of the synagogue, he leaped from the ground, spreading his coat wings as he did so, to a window about twenty feet from the ground. The next moment a door opened, and Bar Shalmon, ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa

... change into which a world's progress was irresistibly pushing them, whoever owned Widewood must have stood for some of their largest wishes and hopes, and they would have ceased to deride the blessed mutation and to hobble it with that root of so many world-wide evils—the calling still private what the common need has made public. The ghost of this thought flitted in John's mind, but would not be grasped ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... hobble them," said Jack, thinking quickly, "because they would wander aside a little distance, anyway. And we may want them ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge

... "for the wish you express, But I've no occasion for such a fine dress; I had rather remain with my limbs all free, Than to hobble about, ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth

... did when he could hobble was to take a man from the resident engineer's office out to the point where he'd left the rails and tape his flight, finding it to be two hundred and thirty-five feet. That hurt his story, because he had been estimating it at five hundred feet; but he was strictly honest ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... and, of course, a considerable amount of pain arising from the cauterisation of the wound, he seemed to be little the worse for his adventure; and when at length the party struck camp and resumed their march shortly after mid-day, he was able to hobble along with the rest, although it was found necessary to relieve him of ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... on carelessly in the open. Mr. Clifford was a good shot, and shaken though he was, at this supreme moment his skill did not fail him. The man was struck somewhere, for he staggered about and fell; then slowly picked himself up, and began to hobble back towards his companions, who, when they met him, stopped a minute to give him ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... will get those poor children out of their hobble! It is chivalrous enough of him to come down about it, in the midst of ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... therefore, was she that an ally had come at last to Laxton, who might arm her purposes of hospitality with some powers of self-fulfilment. And yet, for a service of that nature, could she reasonably rely upon me? Odious is the hobble-de-hoy to the mature young man. Generally speaking, that cannot be denied. But in me, though naturally the shyest of human beings, intense commerce with men of every rank, from the highest to the lowest, had availed ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... patch of grass down the hill a bit. I'm going to take the hosses down there and hobble 'em out." Whistling, Sinclair strode off down the hill, leading the ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... Tell her, then, we have enough Southern gentlemen remaining, and there is no necessity of inviting big Northern hobble-de-hoys." ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... on having the thing as you please. You will find, when too late, that your counsel will end in having us all in a hobble." ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... you think, my dear dog, when you talk; You've no "table manners," you bolt meat, you gobble; And how could you eat bones with a knife, spoon, and fork? You would be in a most inconvenient hobble. ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... water-bed of India-rubber gives ease to his mangled frame, and enables him to endure the wearing tedium of an unchanged posture. Bandages and supporters of India-rubber avail him much when first he begins to hobble about his ward. A piece of India-rubber at the end of his crutch lessens the jar and the noise of his motions, and a cushion of India-rubber is comfortable to his armpit. The springs which close the hospital door, the bands which exclude the drafts from doors and windows, his pocket comb ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... overburdened with honorary functions; I have seven of these in one governmental department alone. The bureaux would be very glad to get rid of them. But habit is stronger than both of us together, and I continue to hobble up the stairs of various government buildings. Old clerks point me out to each other as I go by like a ghost wandering through the corridors. When one has become very old one finds it extremely difficult to disappear. Nevertheless, it is time, as the old song says, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... elder listened with some patience but with a commiserating grin upon his face. He had heard young men tell of great ideas before, of a new and better way of digging pits, or of fishing, or making deadfalls for wild beasts. But he listened and yielded finally to Ab's earnest demand that he should hobble out into the open and see with his own eyes how the strung bow would send the shaft. They went together to an open space, and again and again Ab showed to his old friend what the new thing would do. With the second shot there came ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... plod, trudge, stump along, lumber; trail, drag; dawdle &c. (be inactive) 683; grovel, worm one's way, steal along; job on, rub on, bundle on; toddle, waddle, wabble[obs3], slug, traipse, slouch, shuffle, halt, hobble, limp, caludicate|, shamble; flag, falter, trotter, stagger; mince, step short; march in slow time, march in funeral procession; take one's time; hang fire &c. (be late) 133. retard, relax; slacken, check, moderate, rein in, curb; reef; strike sail, shorten sail, take in sail; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... one person in the house, or maybe in the world, whose coming made that noise, that mingled hobble, rush, and tap: Grandma. ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Germans falling back, a trifle dismayed but in good order, and then the pursuing French. And now they were serving the men from the troop-trains that kept pouring up toward the Aisne, or those of the wounded who could hobble over from the hospital trains that ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... have been prolonged but that the maudlin voice of Bobs' father reeling into the alley struck terror to their hearts, and with small ceremony they scuttled away to the pawnshop, leaving little Jane to hobble back alone to her cellar and wonder how it would feel to wear a warm coat like one ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... "Good Lord, the only people about here that aren't busy are the dead ones. Even the wounded are busy planning to hobble around at conventions when the Big Show is over. Already they are talking about how they intend to take a hand in things after the war when ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat

... To the willows; we will hold our own there;" and, springing from the wounded beast, which tried to hobble after them, but could not, for its sinews were cut, he ran to the shelter of the trees, followed by Jeffrey ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... spring. The less the distance of the leap the more remote the chance of slipping down the rock and being whirled off in swift water. It is a method of progression by which, in the race of existence, many lives are lost. The timid will hobble from stone to stone, landing at each forward point more and yet more shaky in the knees. The torrent roars about them. Sick they grow and giddy; stepping-stones are green and slimy; the effort of balancing cannot be ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... window sill; tied my rope to the nails, threw my shoes out of the window, put the rope in my mouth, then took hold of it with my well hand, clambered into the window, very weak, but I managed to let myself down to the ground. I was so weak, that I could scarcely walk, but I managed to hobble off to a place three quarters of a mile from the tavern, where a friend had fixed upon for me to go, if I succeeded in making my escape. There I was found by my friend, who kept me secure till Saturday eve, when a swift horse ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... of the train were either hobbled or herded at night, according to the locality; if in an Indian country, always hobbled or, preferably, tied up to the tongue of the wagon to which they belonged. The hobble is simply a strip of rawhide, with two slides of the same material. Placed on the front legs of the mule just at the fetlock, the slides pushed close to the limb, the animal could move around freely enough to graze, but was not able to travel very fast ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... her one five-cent bag of peanuts per diem, per day, she calls personally to inquire into the oversight. She waits very patient and ladylike until about eleven o'clock in the morning, and if I ain't made good by then, she just pulls up her leg hobble by the roots and drops in on me to find out what's ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... silence that was filled by the yelps of the little dogs who had marked a water-rat to ground, and the hobble-de-hoy shouts of the hound puppies, uttered with no definite idea of the cause of their enthusiasm, but none the less enthusiastic ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... Dick, 'for a jolly awkward cut like that to come in and make the going bad for me? But I'll stick it out, Chippy. It's the last day, and I'll hobble through somehow ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... a gentle bell mare, when possible with a young colt by her side, and were turned over to a similar treatment as was given the fillies in forming manadas. Thus the different remudas at Las Palomas always took the name of the bell mare, and when we were at work, it was only necessary for us to hobble the princess at night to insure the presence of her ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... crowds. The Malays, dark of skin, with keen faces, wear the sarong, a skirt of bright-colored silk or cotton wrapped about the loins and falling almost to the shoe. The sarong is scant and reminds one strongly of the hobble-skirt, as no Malay is able to take a full stride in it. The skirt and jacket of the Malay may vary, but the sarong is always of the same style, and the brighter the color the more it seems to please the wearer. The East Indians are of many kinds. The Sikhs, who are ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch

... the place the Cheap Jack had rubbed, but she had no redress, and saw no way out of her hobble ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... in pleasure. Nor do I hate that farm of ours so much For any thing, as that it is so near. For if 'twas at a greater distance, night Would come upon him ere he could return. But now, not finding me, I'm very sure He'll hobble back again immediately; Question me where I've been, that I've not seen him All the day long; and ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... When they halted he made me wait upon him, and do every thing which he required. In the morning he mounted again, and I had to walk after him, as before. This was hard service for one who had been the favourite of the sultan. For a week I contrived to hobble after him, but it was impossible to go on any longer. We passed through a town, and as soon as we were clear of the gates and he did not watch me, I let go the tail of the pony, and escaped without his perceiving it. I regained the town, and faint with hunger and fatigue, sat at the steps of ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... rascal a-gwine," Uncle Brack said. "He jest dream all de time, and dreams don't nebber amount to nothin'. Dem dreams what he carries on wid in de daytime, dey is what makes him tell so many lies. De idea, talking like I has a different name everwhar I goes, when I don't go nowhar. Why, I can't hardly hobble to de sto'. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... party," whispered Kennedy. "No, stop a bit!" They drew back into the shadow. "That is Du Sang," said Kennedy; "I know his hobble." ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... feyther from his big chair in the corner. (He was now well enough to hobble down stairs.) "You yoong chaps thinks too mich o' yoursels—I'm goin' ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... many miles. Again, with the same team I once started to Amarillo, being half a day ahead of the steer herd. First evening I camped out at a water-hole and staked out Prince with a long heavy rope and strong iron stake pin. The other horse was hobbled with a rope hobble. Some wolves came in to water, and I was lying on my bed looking at them when the horses suddenly stampeded, the strong stake rope and pin not even checking Prince. They were gone and I was afoot! Prince ran for forty miles to the ranch. The hobbled ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... them on a walk it is a touching sight; but yet not really sad, because their faces are bright and happy. Fancy meeting twenty or thirty boys going along together, every one of them lame or deformed in some way! Some go on crutches, and some hobble, and others limp; but they do not seem to mind, because, perhaps, they have never known what it is to be active like other boys, and there are plenty of pleasant things ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... dress-designers, actors, travellers in underwear, bank clerks ... they come here in uniforms and we put them into pyjamas and nurse them; and they lie in bed or hobble about the ward, watching us as we move, accepting each other with the ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold

... hast thou fixed my doom, kind master, say? And wilt thou kill thy servant, old and poor? A little longer let me live, I pray— A little longer hobble round thy door. ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... him to make out there, in full view upon the dry leaves, any semblance to a bird. When the bird returned after being disturbed, she would alight within a few inches of her eggs, and then, after a moment's pause, hobble awkwardly ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... a piece of my mind; you must know, I can see as far into a millstone as another man; and so, if you thought for to fob me off with another one of your smirking French puppies for a son-in-law, why you'll find yourself in a hobble, that's all." ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... clear and warm in the sun. Masters and Bauer went out to inspect some pottery recently found near an excavation for a well. Elijah Clifford busied himself at the little barn with some plans for an improved hobble to use on an unusually cunning and ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... under streetlights. Broken beggars grumble when they sense people. On some corners powerful streetcars stutter. And plush cabs drop into the stars. Among rough houses whores hobble back and forth, Sadly swinging their ripe behinds. Much sky lies broken in these dried-out things... Whiny cats ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... faint cry of "Coming, sir, coming," was heard, and a long hobble-de-hoy kind of youth, whose business it was to look after the not extensive Castle stables, emerged in a great heat from round the ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... end of a week the old postmaster was able to hobble to the window and sort the mail, but the doctor would not consent to his cooking ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... man. "But aren't you a medical man?" said she in an alarmed manner. "Certainly not, ma'am," replied I. "Then why did you let me show you my leg?" said she indignantly, and pulling her clothes down, the poor old woman began to hobble off; presently two others joined her, and I heard hearty peals of laughter as she recounted her story. A stranger visiting these out-of- the-way villages is almost certain to be mistaken for a doctor. What business, they say ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... "I never hobble or tie or picket Sleepy at night; he sticks close to old Fox. That's my horse, the red one. You'd think Fox was going to die, too, but he isn't. He used to be a cow horse; and a mean one, too, they say; but all at ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... was his diet that in three months he recovered sufficiently to hobble with a stick. Clad in a linen coat,—which was knotted together in a hundred places, so that it looked as tattered as a quail's tail,—and carrying a broken saucer in his hand, he now went about the idle quarters of the town, earning his ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various

... dreams, This dread ambition, Myrt? Hast thou the ghost of a desire To wear a hobble[Footnote: "Harem," or whatever is to come in the future, may be substituted here.] skirt? If so, at any pain or cost, oh, tell me ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams

... hospital couches is most human and pathetic. At last night—the veritable Christmas Eve comes. The chapels in these hospitals are generally on the ground floor, and frequently sunk some feet below it, but open to the hospital; so that the poor inmates who can leave their beds can hobble to the railing and look down into the chapel—one mass of dazzling lights, glitter, colour, and music: and thus, without the fatigue of descending the stairs, can join in the service. At half-past eleven at night the chapel is gaily lit up; carriage after carriage, mule-cart after mule-cart rattles ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... chuckled old Kiah; 'he's off the Spanish coast, missy, along o' Lord Nelson and our captain. You come again, young master, and I'll tell you the rest.' And then he would hobble himself to the gate to let them out. 'Never tell me,' he said, as Pete hurried to do it instead and Patty to give him her arm, 'I'm not quite useless yet, no more I am; I told the captain he'd find me doing a hand's turn when ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham

... all after the dacoits. Blood-drops marked the way and, near by, they found the wounded man who, only able to hobble, had hidden himself in a thicket. The Deputy Magistrate's father-in-law was arrested. He was one of the leaders of the band. It did not take long to capture the others. And after this, for a time, this part of the Dacca ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee

... "But it's such a hobble, Daddy! It seems to me that I'm not much of a 'do something' girl or I'd manage better than ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... protest she went upstairs, and returned with a decent-looking cap, which I promised to return, and then, bidding my Samaritan-like hostess good-bye, I walked firmly out of her sight, and then literally began to hobble, and was glad as soon as I could get into the main road to hail one of the town cabs and be driven home, not feeling strong enough to go to the works and tell of ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn

... he, lightly, "but your good wishes do not get me out of my hobble. Money I must have within seven days, and money I have not. And if our grandfather discovers my delinquencies it will be all UP with me. By the bye, Marcia, I can hardly expect you to sympathize with me, as that would be so much ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... right, but you all has to 'scuse me if I don't talk so good, 'cause I's been feelin' poorly for a spell and I ain't so young no more. Law me, when I think back what I used to do, and now it's all I can do to hobble 'round a little. Why, Miss Olivia, my mistress, used to put a glass plumb full of water on my head and then have me waltz 'round the room, and I'd dance so smoothlike, I ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... Mrs. Dunn; "I do declare that would be jest lovely! I ain't had a good rest like that in I don't know when! Hoopsy Topsy, you and Ella'll have to shove me out in this here chair. I can hobble ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells

... dare to put them in prison," continued Mat; "but I will say they'll be great fools to do it. The Government have so good an excuse for not doing so: they have such an easy path out of the hobble. There was just enough difference of opinion among the judges—just enough irregularity in the trial, such as the omissions of the names from the long panel—to enable them to pardon the whole set ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... no word further spoken. Gently they aided the injured man to his feet and helped him hobble through the hall and into the great dining-room beyond, where stood the long table of polished mahogany. Dunwody, swaying, leaned against it, while Jamieson hurried to the window and threw up the curtains to admit as much as possible of the light of late afternoon. Returning, he motioned ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... she'd had enough stuff!" he said to himself, with all a man's dislike of the prevailing hobble. He pondered how to open the conversation, asking himself uneasily what punishment the girl would award him for his faux pas of the afternoon. Would she be haughty? She didn't look the kind of little thing to be haughty! Would she be cold and aloof? Somehow, glancing at the irregular, piquant ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... tightly bound in that position. The {134} parts fester and the toes grow into the foot." The result is that women grow up with feet the same size as when they were children, and the flesh withers away on the feet and below the knees. Throughout life the fashion-cursed girl and woman must hobble around on mere stumps. When you first see a Chinese woman with bound feet you are reminded of the old pictures of Pan, the imaginary Greek god with the body of a man and the feet of a goat. The resemblance to goat's ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... am, life would not be worth having. As for this inn-proprietor, if he has so little delicacy as to push his cousin upon me at this crisis, I need not have any compunction regarding him; so perhaps my easiest way of getting out of the present hobble will be to accept his proposal and to present the box of precious ointment handed me by Wei for my sister to this ogling love-sick girl." So turning ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... over the field behind them, all who could stand on their feet, including officers and men knocked over and buried by shells and with wounds of arms and heads and even legs which made them hobble, reached the edge of the village on time and lay down to await the lifting of the fire of their own guns before the ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... up and took the hobble off Buck Olney's feet, felt in the seam of his coat-lapel, and pulled out four pins, with which he fastened Buck's "pedigree" between Buck's shrinking shoulder-blades. Then he stood off and surveyed ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... Burke's party or his camels are there visible, or if Mr. Howitt's party have arrived. On my way out on Saturday about two miles from here found dung of horses or mules, of some considerable age, and on my return to the camp one of the men a short distance from the camp picked up part of a hobble-strap with black buckle, much worn and had been patched, or rather sewn, by someone as a makeshift; the leather was perfectly rotten. No traces on any of the trees round here of anyone having been encamped. The flies all along have ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay

... in number; but the power is wholly on our side. We apprehend his imperial highness, the heir to the crown, to have some tendency towards the high heels; at least we can plainly discover that one of his heels is higher than the other, which gives him a hobble in his gait. Now, in the midst of these intestine disquiets, we are threatened with an invasion from the island of Blefuscu, which is the other great empire of the universe, almost as large and powerful as this of his majesty. For as ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... be sure," said he, mournfully, "I might make shift to hobble along with a stick. But that would only delay you, and perhaps hinder you from finding dear little Europa, after all your pains and trouble. Do you go forward, therefore, my beloved companions, and leave me ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... before me, and I thought of his rare intelligence, of his fine traits of character, and of the true heroism he had shown in risking, perhaps, his own life to get me—a stranger—out of an ugly hobble, I felt a certain spot in my left side warming toward him, very much as it might have done had his blood been as pure as my own. It seemed to me a pity—anti-Abolitionist and Southern-sympathizer though I was—that a man of such rare natural talent, ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore

... company with an Arab servant, slipped and fell 71 feet to a granite pavement below. He was picked up conscious, but both legs were fractured about the middle. He had so far recovered by the 24th of July that he could hobble about on crutches. On the 15th of November of the same year he was seen by Kartulus racing across the playground with some other boys; as he came in third in the race he had evidently lost little of his agility. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... tradesmen, who, like shovel-nosed sharks, prey upon the blubber of those uncouth whales of fortune, are infected with the same rage of displaying their importance; and the slightest indisposition serves them for a pretext to insist upon being conveyed to Bath, where they may hobble country-dances and cotillons among lordlings, squires, counsellors, and clergy. These delicate creatures from Bedfordbury, Butcher-row, Crutched-friers, and Botolph-lane, cannot breathe in the gross air of the Lower Town, or conform to the ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... every step his body heeled over because one leg was shorter than the other. Having found what he wanted he would wheel round, with a strange agility that was apparently a consequence of his deformity, continuing his discourse, and driving his points into the air with his hammer, and so hobble back, still talking; still talking through his funny cap, as his neighbours used to say of him. At times he convoluted aerial designs and free ideas with his hammer, spending it aloft on matters superior to boots. The boots were never noticed. ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... to see them roll on the grass over which we hobble. The grandsire turns wearily from his middle-aged, care-worn son, to listen with infant laugh to the prattle of an infant grandchild. It is the old who plant young trees; it is the old who are most saddened by the autumn, and feel most delight in the returning spring." ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... added: "You will join me at the table on my veranda, won't you? I can hobble that far but ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... dogmas, the sacraments, the whole scheme which is founded upon this sand-bank? Courage, my friend! At the right moment all will be laid aside, as the man whose strength increases lays down the crutch which has been a good friend to him in his weakness. But his changes won't be over then. His hobble will become a walk, and his walk a run. There is no finality—CAN be none since the question concerns the infinite. All this, which appears too advanced to you to-day, will seem reactionary and conservative a thousand ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... which formerly raised his Fancy, and fired his Imagination. The same Folly hinders a Man from submitting his Behaviour to his Age, and makes Clodius, who was a celebrated Dancer at five and twenty, still love to hobble in a Minuet, tho he is past Threescore. It is this, in a Word, which fills the Town with elderly Fops, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Although we were well muffled, and grandma warmed us up with a drink of hot water and sweetened cream before starting us out after the cows, the frost nipped at our feet until the old scars became so angry and painful that we could scarcely hobble about the house. Many remedies were tried, to no purpose, the most severe being the early foot bath with floats of ice in the water. It chilled us through and through, and also made grandma keep us from the fire, lest the heat should undo the benefit expected ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... infinite distance. The pain and stiffness in his leg kept him from moving; he must have remained for a long time beside Zephyr. Then, with his fears as an incentive, he had managed to get on his feet and hobble away; it was an imperative necessity to him not to be alone, to find comrades who would share his fears with him and make them less. Thus from every nook and corner of the battlefield, from hedges and ditches and clumps of bushes, the wounded ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola



Words linked to "Hobble" :   shackle, hinder, limp, walk, fetter, strap, bond, gait, hitch, hobbler, dog hobble, hamper, impede, gimp



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