"Nip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... breath, Now nip the leaves that 's yellow fading; Nae gowans glint upon the green, Alas! they 're co'er'd wi' winter's cleading. As through the woods I musing gang, Nae birdies cheer me frae the bushes, Save little robin's lanely sang, Wild warbling where ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... this point for Camblain-le-Abbeau for another nip at the ridge from that angle, pulled into the wagon lines for two days and then got into action on the Lens-Arras road. We laid the guns on the side of the road, camouflaging them in the usual fashion. We were the first battalion to arrive, but within four days 100 or more batteries were there. ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... you see the dangers by which we are surrounded. Under the circumstances, I owe it to myself, to my honor, and to the security of my land, to attack Austria and Saxony, and so to nip their abominable designs in me bud, before their allies are ready to give them any assistance. I am prepared, and the only question to be answered before setting our army in motion, is where to commence the ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... I must lay more at length before the reader. Word had reached Albany of dubious import; it had been rumoured some hostility was to be put in act; and the Indian diplomatist had, thereupon, sped into the Wilderness, even at the approach of winter, to nip that mischief in the bud. Here, on the borders, he learned that he was come too late; and a difficult choice was thus presented to a man (upon the whole) not any more bold than prudent. His standing with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and when we take the case of a mental worker, we see that, in order to carry this power right on through a long life, proper diet is of great importance. Also many good mental workers are more sensitive than ordinary men: they are more easily destroyed by strong drink or opium. The nip of brandy, the soothing draught, are terrible dangers to such. Instances of brain power continued far into old age are always lessons in plainness of diet and temperance. One such temperate man will do as much work as ten ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... get to London all right. If there's going to be any fun, now is when it will begin. Quick, get out. We'll nip into ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... heritage? What good did he hope to get for himself by assuming the crown of so rude and barren a land as Scotland? Had she not told him he was but a summer king, that the winter would soon blight his prospects and nip his budding hopes; and had she not proved herself wiser even than he was himself? and then she would suddenly break off in these reproaches to declare that, if he were a prisoner, she would go to him; ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... of these good Fathers and then their—blood! His lute is also with him; and he will continue to practise the few lessons which the bulbuls of the poplar groves have taught him. No, he cares not for books. And so, he uncorks the bottle, hands it to Shakib his senior, then takes a nip himself, and, thrumming his lute strings, trolls a few doleful pieces of Arabic song. "In these," he would say to Shakib, pointing to the bottle and the lute, "is real poetry, and not in that book with which you would kill me." And Shakib, in stingless ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... almost get mixed up about it themselves. And then it is very hard to know which is Nip and which is Tup, because the little dogs ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... knew then that she had only been wasting words on Billy Woodchuck. She realized that she hadn't frightened him in the least. And she felt sure that the moment her back was turned he would scurry into the clover-patch and nip off as many of the juicy red tops ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... say 'Round me nip,'" he shouted, "I want to see a cloud of dust and a livin' statue. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... glass shows me, and more. I see the children growing up. I see the girls droop and pine in this dreary parsonage, where the winds nip, and the miasma from the churchyard chokes them. I see the handsome promising boy going to the devil—slowly at first, then by strides. As their hope fades from his sisters' faces, he drinks and takes to opium-eating—and ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... don't you remember ARABI setting himself up against the KHEDIVE? Well, naturally, we couldn't stand the two of them playing their games there; so we just had to nip in, and smash ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... was sailing inshore now, one stiff pink taffeta sail set to the breeze. And in a minute, with a reckless splash into the dashing waves, the man had it, and an easy, athletic figure swung up the causeway, holding it away from him, as if it might nip at him. He wore a dark blue jersey, and loose, flapping trousers ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... "an' the napkins is marked with big red letters! I wonder if that's so nobody'll nip 'em; an' oh, Peter, look at the pictures stickin' right on ter the ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... found her in the Tramp-House, and I was all-fired mad at her about somethin'—I shan't tell what, for Bill would kill me; but I pitched into her right and left; and, by gum, she pitched into me, so that for a spell it was nip-and-tuck betwixt us; and, by George, if she didn't order me out of the Tramp-House, and said it was her'n; and I'll be dumbed if I don't believe she'd av put me out, too, body and bones, if I hadn't gone. She was just like a ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... is a straight-up rider, too. He's more graceful than Mac, I think, but not quite so good on tricks. It will be nip and tuck." ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... alcohol lamp. "Guess we'd better turn in, boy. This is a good place to sleep—plenty of fresh air, no mosquitoes or black flies, and the police so far away that we will soon forget how they look. If you say so we will have a nip of cold tea and ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... her; and a nip of rum gave her the strength to drag herself to the bed, with old Goussot's assistance, and to tell her story. For that matter, there was not much to tell. She had just lit the fire in the living-hall; and she was knitting quietly at her bedroom window, waiting for the men ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... the fight, and gave me an alleged description of it. He said that they drew lots, and Black Jimmie put his hands on his knees and bent his head, and the other blackfellow hit him a whack on the skull with a nulla nulla. Then they had a nip of rum all round—Black Jimmie must have wanted it, for the nulla nulla was knotted, and heavy, and made in the most approved fashion. Then the other blackfellow bent his head, and Jimmie took the club and returned the whack with interest. ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... to the field hospital he had taken more than one nip of whisky. His voice was well oiled when he sang a greeting to a medical major in a florid burst of melody from Italian opera. The major was a little Irish medico who had been through the South African War and in tropical places, where he had drunk fire-water to kill all manner of microbes. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... had expected her to, she went about and they began to close in upon each other. He could see that even with shortened canvas she was staggering drunkenly under the fierce impacts of the wind. For himself, it was nip-and-tuck, now, and no man in his normal sense would have risked a sixpence on the boat's chance to live until she ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... he said. 'Nip out quick and snaffle what you can get. There's a certain amount of friction between the Khye-Kheens and the ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... a few hours later. Swam out of sight of the sands to rid myself of a view of the excursion riff-raff thereon congregated. Sea completely smooth, but cold. Took a nip of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... wheels revolved, as creakily as ever, at the Capital. Blobb, of Oregon, made machine speeches to the sleepy House, but neither he, nor they, noted the darkening atmosphere without. Senator Jenks took his half-hourly "nip" with laudable punctuality, thereafter rising eloquent to call Mr. President's attention to that little bill; and all the while that huge engine, the lobby, steadily pumped away in the political basement, sending streams of hot corruption into every ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... campaigners, we at once distributed ourselves over our work. Cancut wielded the axe; I the match-box; Iglesias the batterie de cuisine. Ragmuff drifted one troutling and sundry chubby chub down to nip our hooks. We re-roofed our camp with its old covering of hemlock-bark, spreading over a light tent-cover we had provided. The last glow of twilight dulled away; monitory mists ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... me a flask of whiskey from which I drew a nip. Unaccustomed as I was to drink, it nearly strangled me. It went all the way down like fire. Then it spread with a pleasant warmth ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... as I moved about and worked I did not feel the cold; but if I stood or sat for a couple of minutes I felt the nip of it in my very marrow. Yet, fierce as the cold was here, it was impossible it could be comparable with the rigours of the parts in which this schooner had originally got locked up in the ice. No doubt if I died on deck my body would be frozen ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... stamped and gilded leather was drawn up to the fireside, the Squire's favourite seat on an autumn or winter afternoon. The chair was empty now, but, stretched at full length before the blazing logs, lay the Squire's chosen companion, Nip, a powerful liver-coloured pointer; and beside him in equally luxurious rest, reclined Argus, Vixen's mastiff. There was a story about Vixen and the mastiff, involving the only incident in that young lady's life the recollection whereof could make ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... blood poisoning. Slowly his fine constitution brought him through, and at last a secondary operation for repair became possible. We took chances on bone-grafting to form a hand; and he was left with a flipper like a seal's, able, however, to oppose one long index finger and "nip a line" when he fished. But there was no skin for it. So Dr. Beattie and I shared the honours of supplying some. Pat—for that was his name—has been a veritable apostle of the hospital ever since, and has undoubtedly been ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... nigger. He gets into the servant-gall's bed-room sometimes at night, and nearly scares her to death under pretence he wants her candle; and sometimes jumps right on to the bed, and says she is handsome enough to eat, gives her a nip on the nose, sneezes on her with great contempt, and tells her she takes snuff. The fact is, he is hated everywhere he travels for his ugly behaviour as much as an Englishman, and that is a great deal more than sin is ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... bees he set honey and wine in the winter, lest they should feel the nip of the cold too keenly; and bread for the birds, that they all, but especially "my brother Lark," should have joy of Christmastide, and at Rieti a brood of redbreasts were the guests of the house ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... old fellow turned up again, Win," was the reply, given half chokingly. "Nip me, and you will find I am neither ghost nor spirit, but real flesh and blood." And the boy, kneeling by the invalid's couch, felt his eyes growing dim and misty again at the sound of the weak young voice lingering so lovingly ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... tactical resourcefulness, had twisted around in such a way that he delivered a strong-jaw nip on the right leg of ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... time comes to put his nose on't. When the Company advertise for estimates he canna compete wi' you, because he's pre-engaged to me; and he'll think you're out o't too, because you're busy wi' your own woark. You'll be free to nip the eight shillings. Then we'll force him to fulfill his bargain and ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... "it is nip and tuck between wind and water in Holland. Let us sit down here on the canal bank, in the sunshine, and I will tell you what hard work has to be done to keep this good land of ours. And it is a good land! We ...
— The Dutch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... which seems to us to show that the Rulers of England were fully alive to "the mischief these designs tend to," and to prove that it was the theories of the Diggers, not their actions, that filled the breasts of the privileged classes with the determination to nip their enterprise in the bud, before it had time to influence the life and thought ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... sir, and sorry to hear her husband's fallen a bit low." Anthony touched his pocket. "What they calls 'nip' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... one or two bare patches on a precipitous hillside, or the gray effect of the snow, intermingled with the black pine forest—all nature was as white as a sheet. How exceedingly pleasant! And, to make it all the better, it was cold enough to nip one's nose short off! If people have but life enough in them to bear it, there is nothing that so raises the spirits, and makes the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, like a brook down the slope of a hill, as a bright, ...
— The Three Golden Apples - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to his father, and this prompt veto of his mother put a damper on his hopes, so that he continued to work at the shop, with all his dislike for the business. His parents talked over the matter, and his father was led thereby to watch him more carefully, that he might nip the first buddings of desire for the sea. At length, however, Benjamin ventured to make known his ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... could; and so it's just all gammon to talk about our bein' his—his—murderers. Now march the pris'ners down into the fo'c's'le again; clap the bilboes on 'em; shut down the scuttle upon 'em; and then come aft into the cabin, all hands, and we'll 'freshen the nip.'" ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... between his moustacheless lips, always rather screwed up, and ready to nip with a smile anything that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... straightway subpoenaed him. Mahony was none too well pleased: the boy threatened to be a handful. His old father, on delivering him up at the coach-office, had drawn Mahony aside to whisper: "Don't let the young limb out o' yer sight, doc., or get nip or sip o' liquor. If 'e so much as wets 'is tongue, there's no 'olding 'im." Johnny was a lean, pimply-faced youth, with ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... drawing rollers the slivers are embedded in the gill pins of the fallers, and these move forward, as mentioned, to support the stretch of slivers and to carry the latter to the nip of the drawing rollers. Immediately the forward ends of the fibres are nipped between the quickly-moving drawing rollers, the fibres affected slide on those which have not yet reached the drawing rollers, and, incidentally, help ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... time-sheets that covered a pile of paper-weights. Colonel Shaw came stamping across the room, clapping his gloved hands together, as if he were as cold under the frosty eyes of Mac Tavish as he had been in the nip of the January ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... myself determinedly. "There is a shrewd nip in the wind, for all the show of sunlight;" and I rose, pulled down the window, and ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... the way, Louis, take a lunch in to the lady; fix up something neat if you can, and let me know when it is ready. All right, Broussard, a nip of that brandy ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... nip an' tuck, I reckon!" went on Barringford, as interested as if the youths were matched for a heavy purse. "I must say I don't know who to shout for! Do your best, both on ye! Now, ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... which is the most intelligent of dogs: he flew at the princess, knocked her down, and commenced shaking her so violently as to tear her miserable clothes to pieces. Used, however, to mouthing little lambs, he took care not to hurt her much, though for her good he left her a blue nip or two by way of letting her imagine what biting might be. His master, knowing he would not injure her, thought it better not to call him off, and in half a minute he left her of his own accord, and, casting a glance of indignant rebuke behind him as he went, ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... heights, was well aware that such a move was not possible unless the entire French line was ready to cooperate with him, for, if he tried to drive down upon the ridge of the Aisne, or, for that matter, tried to flank it, the line of the Duke of Wuerttemberg would bend back upon him and nip him in a way which ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... had worked off the last batch of letters, and there was nothing to do but to wait for the next, or—happy thought—to take the present batch down to the post, and so get out into the sunshine and fresh air for a short time. 'I rather think I'll nip down to the post-office,' said he, 'You couldn't come too, ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... judged that the cold was somewhat unusual for that locality, inasmuch as the cottonwood trees lost their leaves by the frost, showing that vegetation, generally well suited to the temperature of its country, or habitat, had been caught by an unusual nip of the frost. The explorers noticed that the air of those highlands was so pure and clear that objects appeared to be much nearer than they really were. A man who was sent out to explore the country attempted to reach a ridge (now known as the Little Rocky Mountains), ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... I happened to reach him," he said, in an effort to relieve her embarrassment. "We had it nip and tuck," he added, lightly. "My lungs are ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... bedroom at Buena Vista, the marshal's residence, Driscoll the next day received a personage, and offered him a cigar. Declined, with bow from shoulder. Hoped he would have a nip of peach brandy? Declined, with sweep from hips. He was a personage. Driscoll noted regalia, medals, cordon; and apologized for the temerity ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the bill of the "fierce turtle" has closed upon any object its hold is secure. You may cut its head off, but otherwise it cannot be forced to let go, until it has either captured its prey or taken the piece with it. It will "nip" a stout walking-cane between its mandibles, as if it was no ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... to be taken aback a minute, for the forward creature had just cut her mother out; but he soon began to talk and laugh with her as chipper as could be, and only stopped to give me a nip of a bow when ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... he rose from his desk and went out to an A B C shop with Booty or some other man. Sometimes the other man had ideas, views of life and so forth, that interested Ransome; if he hadn't, at any rate he was a man. That is to say, he didn't sulk or nag or snap at you; or nip the words out of your mouth and twist them; he wasn't perverse; he didn't do things that passed your comprehension, and he let you be. For Ransome the world of men brought respite. Even at home, in that world of women, of one woman, when things (he meant the one woman) ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... he remarked at length. "After what I've seen and heard—" He lifted his fist and brought it down with a sudden crash on the table. "Man—let's have a nip!" ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... danced in this manner as you have beheld, I, that am called Pinch, do go about from house to house: sometimes I find the doors of the house open; that negligent servant that left them so, I do so nip him or her, that with my pinches their bodies are as many colours as a mackerel's back. Then take I them, and lay I them in the door, naked or unnaked I care not whether: there they lie, many times till broad day, ere they waken; and many times, against their wills, they show some parts about ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... her,—symptoms which he thought had been so patent,—as disgusting inconstancy to the inconstant Cynthia; that she had felt that an attachment which could be so soon transferred to another was not worth having; and that she had desired to mark all this by her changed treatment of him, and so to nip it in the bud. But this morning her old sweet, frank manner had returned—in their last interview, at any rate. He puzzled himself hard to find out what could have distressed her at breakfast-time. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... I do—I will," she replied. "But, John Sherwood, you mustn't interfere—never in the world! Promise!" She stood there, almost menacing in her insistence, evidently resolved to nip this particularly ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... don't come out in front like men, and squarely speak their mind, But like that wuthless yaller pup, they're hangin' 'round behind. They're little and contemptible, but if yer make a slip It must be bothersome ter know they'll take that chance ter nip. ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... flock around her when Maggie takes her part. Bare, ugly rooms will be the rage; poverty will be the height of the fashion, and it will be considered wrong even to go in for the recognized college recreations. Rosie, my love, we must nip this growing mischief in ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... from the locusts and other insects that devour it; the drought at other times affects it, particularly the aquatic varieties. There is a use to which the rice is applied here, which was new to us, namely, as a substitute for razors; by using two grains of it between the fingers, they nip the beard, or extract it from the chin ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... Some of the little hazelnuts or the slender peanuts were easy to nip with the tongs, but the big English walnuts, or queer-shaped Madeira nuts were very difficult. Great delicacy of touch was necessary, and the children found the ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... I was thinkin',' said Philpot, wistfully, 'and what's more, I mean to 'ave one, too, at dinner-time. I shall nip down to the "Cricketers". Even if I don't get back till a few minutes after one, it won't matter, because Crass and Nimrod will ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... he yelled, swinging down from his saddle, "if you don't let up! Hey, Nip! Sick 'im!" He turned and motioned to his other dog, which had been standing dumbly by, and instantly he joined in the chase. "Sick 'em, boy, sick 'em!" he bellowed, urging him on, and before Creede could get his face straight the long, rangy brindle ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... any of these see strangers moving about with the air of spies—well, Jack imagined it would be nip and tuck with them as to whether they would be shot down like rats, get away by a close shave, or fall into the hands of the Huns, which last, he felt, would be the very worst fate that could ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... segregate; set apart, keep apart; insulate, isolate; throw out of gear; cut adrift; loose; unloose, undo, unbind, unchain, unlock &c (fix) 43, unpack, unravel; disentangle; set free &c (liberate) 750. sunder, divide, subdivide, sever, dissever, abscind^; circumcise; cut; incide^, incise; saw, snip, nib, nip, cleave, rive, rend, slit, split, splinter, chip, crack, snap, break, tear, burst; rend &c, rend asunder, rend in twain; wrench, rupture, shatter, shiver, cranch^, crunch, craunch^, chop; cut up, rip up; hack, hew, slash; whittle; haggle, hackle, discind^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... mind being handled. It seemed to know it was in the hands of friends, and safe from the barking dogs. And though wild squirrels quickly bite one who manages to catch them alive in the woods, this one did not offer to nip the hands of the ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope
... As soone as you haue piled vp your Hoppe-poales, dry and close, then you shall about mid-Nouember following throw downe your hils, and lay all your rootes bare, that the sharpenesse of the season may nip them, and keepe them from springing too earely: you shall also then bring into the garden olde Cow-dunge, which is at least two yeeres olde, for no new dunge is good, and this you shall lay in some great heape in some conuenient place of the ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... shade of the gum-tree the Southerner sat, A-twisting the brim of his palmetto hat, And trying to lighten his mind of a'load By humming the words of the following ode: 'Oh! for a nigger, and oh! for a whip; Oh! for a cocktail, and oh! for a nip; Oh! for a shot at old Greeley and Beecher; Oh! for a crack at a Yankee school-teacher.' And so he kept oh-ing for all he had not, Not contented with owing for all that ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... born for his amusement and convenience, nothing more. Maud admired Tom with all her heart, and made a little slave of herself to him, feeling well repaid if he merely said, "Thank you, chicken," or did n't pinch her nose, or nip her ear, as he had a way of doing, "just as if I was a doll, or a dog, and had n't got any feelings," she sometimes said to Fanny, when some service or sacrifice had been accepted without gratitude or respect. It never occurred to Tom, when Maud sat watching ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... to you, Mister Archie. Well, sir, that's our game, just as I say. We'll lay up a good stock of rations—I mean save the fresh and keep on eating the stale, and be all ready for the right morning, and when it comes, nip outside, mount the helephant, and away we will go—I mean, that is, if you think that you can creep up same as I do, and lower ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... 'fo' Brer Rabbit's stummuck 'gun ter sorter growl en pester 'im. Dat butter er Brer Fox sot heavy on his mine, en his mouf water eve'y time he 'member 'bout it. Present'y he say ter hisse'f dat he bleedzd ter have a nip at dat butter, en den he lay his plans, he did. Fus' news you know, w'ile dey wuz all wukkin' long, Brer Rabbit raise his head quick en fling his years forerd en ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... us knew it until it was too late— that our chief mate had rather too strong a liking for rum; not that he was exactly what you might call a drunkard, you know, but he kept a bottle in his cabin, and was in the habit of taking a nip just whenever he felt like it, especially at night time; and on this particular night that I'm talking about he must have taken a nip too many, for when he came on deck at midnight to keep the middle watch he hadn't been up above an hour before he coiled himself down in one of the ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... month—Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that Great Deliverance, were both at Lexington; they also had "obstructed an officer" with brave words. British soldiers, a thousand strong, came to seize them and carry them over sea for trial, and so nip the bud of Freedom auspiciously opening in that early spring. The town militia came together before daylight, "for training." A great, tall man, with a large head and a high, wide brow, their captain,—one who had "seen service,"—marshaled ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... when he saw that we were disposed to follow his example; "nothing like good whiskey to keep a man all right, at the mines. I don't drink much myself, but I've no objections to other people taking a nip now ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... prospect—nothing but ice in mountains, and in masses which tossed the ships—slowly indeed—and threatened to "nip" them in halves. But notwithstanding all the hardships, the men bore up, and prepared for the overland journey to Cape Herschel—a hundred miles only!—as soon as the spring should open. As soon as possible, a pioneer party, under Lieutenant Gore and Mr Des Voeux, of the Erebus, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... ain't useter niggers like some w'ite folks, en she can't git 'long wid um, but she puts up wid me mighty well. I tuck holt er de little piece er groun' w'at she had, en by de he'p er de Lord we bin gittin on better dan lots er folks. It bin nip en tuck, but ole tuck come out ahead, en it done got so now dat Miss P'raishy kin put by some er de cotton money fer ter give de little gal a chance w'en she git bigger. 'Twon't b'ar tellin' how smart dat chile is. She got Miss Deely peanner, en, little ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... fourteen hours we went on doing that, up to our shoulders in the bilge, the grease caking on us in a fresh layer every time we climbed out to get something in the store. The weather eased a little off Finisterre and we got her righted. We went up to the Chief's room to have a nip of whisky. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... that Scotland was a long way off, and he said yes, that had occurred to him, but that we must make sacrifices for Willie's good. He was very brave and cheerful about it. Well, I mustn't stay. There's quite a nip in the air, and Rammikins will get a nasty cold in his precious little button of a nose if I don't walk him about. Say 'Bye-bye' to ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... as fond of colouring as children are, and as fond of tattooing as are savages. The artist by means of his three spoons satisfies the first of these needs, and by means of his needle the second. His remuneration is a "nip" of wine. ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... lads, and work the crater stuff out of your elbows, and the first lieutenant will see us all so sober, and so wet in the bargain, and think we're all so dry, that perhaps he'll be after giving us a raw nip when we ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... a little," said Stagers. "Take a nip of whisky. Things ain't at the worst, by a good bit. You just get ready, and we'll start by the morning train. Guess you'll try out something smart enough as we travel along. Ain't got a ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... bright, clean town with a touch of good taste in its public buildings to remind one that this busy, industrial city has found time even while making money to have called into being a school of art of its own. It was a delightful morning with dazzling sunshine and an eager nip in the air that spoke of the swift, deep river that bathes the city walls. I revelled in the clear, cold atmosphere after the foulness of the drinking-den and the stifling heat of the journey. I exulted in the sense of liberty I experienced at having once more ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... everywhere, My heart's own thoughts could steal: I nip't them that they should not hear: They smiled, and would reveal; And o'er each meadow, right or wrong, They sing ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... The real market is for the skins of the little fellows, which are made up into all sorts of alligator leather bags. Most of that stuff is imitation, but still quite a lot of it is real. It's plenty of fun catching the little 'gators, because even the smallest of them can give you quite a nip and a reptile three feet long is a handful. I did well enough out of it, because in addition to the sport I had, my brother-in-law let me have the skins of all those I caught myself. Some people, too, want to have baby ones as pets, but I don't think I'd want to have them around, myself, ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Blakes. Mr. McLaggan, the minister, once found six of them sitting at the foot of a gum tree, drinking a bottle of rum. He spoke to them, told them that they were young reprobates, and were going straight to hell. Hugh Boyle held out the bottle, and said, 'Here, Mr. McLaggan, wouldn't you like a nip yourself?' The minister was on horseback, and always carried a whip with a heavy lash, and it was a beautiful sight the way he laid the lash on those Boyles and Blakes. I really think you had better turn them out of the school, Mr. Philip, or else ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... He went cautiously toward it, smelled it, and tried to nibble it; but the apple rolled away, for it was round, and the ground was smooth as well as sloping. The Prairie-dog followed and gave it a nip which satisfied him that the strange object would make good eating. But each time he nibbled, it rolled farther away. The coast seemed clear, all the other Prairie-dogs were out, so the fat Alderman did not hesitate to follow up ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... in a moist soil, though it generally has a holy horror of aqua pura. Some of them are of an immense size; I have seen them fill a tumbler. Producers, however, generally charge more for the large ones than for the small. The size of the nip usually depends upon the par. It may be that your par's nip is extremely small, while JOHN SMITH'S par's nip is very large. Four fingers is, I believe, considered to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... "I'd take a nip of coffee," said Jarrow. "Now then, here's Doc Bird to help open your gear. Anything you want, ask for it, and you, Doc, keep an eye out to make all hands comfortable. I got ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... of her baby, and their babies talked after their own fashion, and made use of the little nippers they have in their tails to nip ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... way it stands now. Mama is become No. 2; I have dropped from No. 4, and am become No. 5. Some time ago it used to be nip and tuck between me and the cats, but after the cats "developed" I ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the moon, keeping faithfully to her loneliness, and never once responding with her own tongue to the hunt-calls of her wild brothers and sisters in the forests and out on the plains. Usually she would snarl at the Voice, and sometimes nip Kazan lightly to show her displeasure. But to-day, as the Voice came a third time, she slunk back into the darkness of a fissure between two rocks, and Kazan saw only the fiery glow ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... asylum, I will. This canteen ony holds three pints; that's great deal less'n you do. It's full now, and you're empty. Fill up some place else, and tomorrow or next day, when you'd give a farm for a nip, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... On the best corn and hay That in fields could be grown, Or in any meadows gay; But now, alas! it's not so, - There's no such food at all! I'm forced to nip the short grass That grows beneath your wall. Poor old horse! ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... agen found myself on terror fermer on my friend's chair. It took me longer to recover myself than I shood have thort posserbel, but at larst I was enabled to crawl away, but not 'till my frend had supplied me with jest a nice nip of brandy, which he said he kept andy in case of any such surprisin axidents ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... womanhood as lovely as the rose, and as blameless as the lily. In her time she was married to a farming lad. There never was a brawer pair in the kirk, than on that day when they gaed there first as man and wife. My heart was proud, and it pleased the Lord to chastise my pride—to nip my happiness, even in the bud. The very next day he got his arm crushed. It never got well again; and he fell into a decay, and died in the winter, leaving my Mary far on in the road ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... "It's nip and tuck," said the doctor; "but we'll pull him through. Probably his first serious bout with John Barleycorn. If he had eaten food, this wouldn't have happened. It is not ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... y'r old peaks have a nip in the air at three in the mornin'!" Matthews came down to the raft chaffing his hands. "That's a job worthy a woodsman," he observed, holding the halter reins while the Ranger got ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... a nip of Scotch about eleven-thirty," said the bartender. "Just so as to get up a little circulation before opening time. He's got a hard afternoon before him to-day," ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... have some doubts as to whether ants are really shut out of many flowers by hairs pointing downwards in a fringe and similar contrivances. The ant has a singularly powerful pair of mandibles: put one between your shirt and skin and try; the nip you will get will astonish you. With these they can shear off the legs or even the head of another ant in battle. I cannot see, therefore, why, if they wished, they could not nip off this fringe of hairs, or even sever the stem of the plant. Evidently they do not wish, and possibly ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... lawyer who had determined to see no more of this red-haired girl—to nip in the bud any feeling he might have developed for her? Was this the same man, running down dale and up hill with a basket of broken china on his arm, while the red-haired girl chased on ahead with an empty milk can, ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... than the cowslip, fragrant as the breath of a cow. And Aurelia darted about, piling the golden heap in her basket with untiring enjoyment; then, producing a tape, called on Harriet, who had been working in a more leisurely fashion, to join her in making a cowslip ball, and charged Eugene not to nip off ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reply, with abrupt, impetuous sarcasm. "You have claimed, more than once," he went on, "to have steadied me and kept me out of harm's way; but I've never yet made any such demands on you as you are making on me. This thing can't go on, and you know it as well as I do. Nip it. Nip it now. Don't think that our intimacy is to end in any such fashion as this, for it isn't—especially ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... study to nip all childhood twitchings in the bud; remembering all the while that childhood—the formative period for the nervous system of the child—presents the golden opportunity to prevent and abort the more grave neuroses of later life. There ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... preambulated; another that she pedalated.[B] One may remark that she crutchalated; [C] but all must concede that she "went". Now whither did she "went"? Ah! methinks your brain is puzzled. Why, she "went to the Cupboard," says our author, who, perhaps, just then took a ten-cent nip. She did not go around it, or about it, or upon it, or under it. She did not let it come to her, but she went herself to the above-mentioned and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... the interest of intelligence his mind is sheathed in this sensitive body and the world forces without report themselves to this sensitive nerve mechanism. Fire comes in to burn man's fingers and teach him how to make the fire smite vapor from water. Cold comes in to nip his ears and pinch his cheeks until he learns the economy of ice, snow and rain. Steel cuts his fingers and the blood oozes out. Thenceforth he turns the axe toward the trees and the scythe toward the standing grain. The stone falling bruises him, compelling a knowledge of ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... and trust, dear Miss Maitland, that you will forego a mistaken expression of sympathy, should an appeal be made to you, and assist me as a magistrate to nip this evil in the bud. In other words, to send this vagrant to the lockup at the earliest possible moment. As I observed, you owe it to your community to ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... of Asia. I imagined that taking aboard a boss like the Commander-in-Chief, as well as that much bigger boss (in naval estimates) his own big brother, the Commodore, our Lieutenant-Commander would nip away presto. Not a bit of it! No sooner had he got us aboard than he came out boldly and very, very slowly, stern first, from the lee of the River Clyde and began a duel against Asia with 4-inch lyddite from the Wolverine's after gun. The fight seems quite funny to ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... with the scent of the eucalypt ever in his nostrils and the pure, clear air of the bush ever in his lungs. And such a man, entering upon a new world, as it were, in his return to civilization, would greet that civilization—with a nip. ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... awfu' feery-farry (excitement) the nicht, neeburs," Drumsheugh would respond, after a long pause; "ye wud think he wes a mail gaird tae hear him speak. Mind ye, a'm no gain' tae shove ahint if the engine sticks, for I hae na time. He needs a bit nip," and Drumsheugh settles himself in his seat, "or else there wud be nae ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... too, as one of the actual participators in the pursuit, had a great deal to say upon the subject, and seemed somewhat disposed to draw the long-bow when narrating his own share of the exploit, which tendency I thought it only kind to nip in the bud by giving our version of the affair. Both father and son at first appeared to be considerably nettled when they found that it was to us they owed their discomfiture; but their better sense speedily ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... completely ignorant of the nature of the plot and the names of the ringleaders. Let us double the sentries, and quietly get the men under arms. Let Miss Sarah do what she pleases, and when the mutiny breaks out, we will nip it in the bud; clap all the villains we get in irons, and hand them over to the authorities in Hobart Town. I am not a cruel man, sir, but we have got a cargo of wild beasts aboard, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... thinks nothin' of wakin' 'er up in the night, cryin' its heart out one minute, an' cooin' like a dove the next, though I don't 'old with keepin' birds in the 'ouse as makes an awful mess, an' always the fear of a nasty nip through the bars of the cage, which means a piece of rag tied round ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... which Tantaine was half tempted to come forward. By doing so he would assuredly nip all explanations in the bud; but, on the other hand, he wanted to hear all the young rascal had to say. He therefore only moved a little nearer, ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau |
