"Oaf" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with great pains and patience, disentangled the casting line, first from her hair, which Ricardo was anxious to cut (the great stupid oaf,—her pretty hair!) then from the landing-net; but Dick had ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... It was very heavy, and the boughs kept slipping this way, and sliding that way, and tumbling down every third second. I got cross—oh, so cross! and presently I passed the janitor's son, lounging along homeward, and he grinned, being an oaf, and said, 'Better let me help ye, hadn't ye?' Oh, no! he didn't mean to be rude, he really meant to help; but my blood was up, and my hair was down, and I was very short with him, I fear, and trundled off alone with my dignity. Then a branch fell out and got tangled ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... he was entirely thrown out of all his calculations. He felt for the moment that there was no calculating at all, no security in preparing paths. You never know where they would lead. Here had he been actually alarmed in secret! And the oaf stood before him undisturbedly opening up the ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... James Simonds, was directed to the River St. John, by the proclamation oaf Governor Lawrence inviting the inhabitants of New England to settle on the vacant lands in Nova Scotia, he was a young man of twenty-four years of age. His father had died at Haverhill; August 15th, 1757. The next year he went with his uncle, Capt. Hazen, to the assault of Ticonderoga, in the ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... twenty other odorous falsehoods. I got a varrant from the mare, and her box being sarched by the constable, my things came out sure enuff; besides a full pound of vax candles, and a nite-cap of mistress, that I could sware to on my cruperal oaf — O! then madam Mopstick came upon her merry bones; and as the squire wouldn't hare of a pursecution, she scaped a skewering: but the longest day she has ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... in the breast of his coat he carried a bundle of flowers as large as a birch-broom. His neck quivered in the noose, yet he was never cowed to civility. 'I know no more of the matter than you do,' he cried indignantly, 'nor half so much neither,' and if the magistrate had not been an ill-mannered oaf, he would not have dared to disbelieve my true-hearted Jack. That time we escaped with whole skins; and off we went, after dinner, to Vauxhall, where Jack was more noticed than the fiercest of the bloods, and where he filled the heart of George Barrington with envy. Nor was he idle, despite ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... noodle, nizy[obs3], owl; goose, goosecap[obs3]; imbecile; gaby[obs3]; radoteur[obs3], nincompoop, badaud[obs3], zany; trifler, babbler; pretty fellow; natural, niais[obs3]. child, baby, infant, innocent, milksop, sop. oaf, lout, loon, lown[obs3], dullard, doodle, calf, colt, buzzard, block, put, stick, stock, numps[obs3], tony. bull head, dunderhead, addlehead[obs3], blockhead, dullhead[obs3], loggerhead, jolthead[obs3], jolterhead[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a muscle of his face. He had no acquaintance with priests of Baal or their vessels, so that he was not in the least bound to comprehend, and one of them exclaimed "The oaf knows not your meaning, corporal. Speak plainer to his Somerset ears. He knows not the tongue of ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of relief. "Thank heaven! Isn't he maddening?" he exclaimed, reassembling his brushes. "Isn't he the most fatuous idiot that ever escaped from his native menagerie? Did you hear him commence to criticize my work? The oaf! I'm afraid—" glancing at her face—"that I swore at him, but he deserved it for butting in like that, and he couldn't understand what I said." His tone was ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... on the man's forearm and ran the other down the plump body beneath the coat. 'My goodness!' said he to Torpenhow, 'and this gray oaf dares to be a thief! I have seen an Esneh camel-driver have the black hide taken off his body in strips for stealing half a pound of wet dates, and he was as tough as whipcord. This things' soft all over—like ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... into that secret Truth, now known only to a few, but presently to reign over the world. Sure there is no bound to the trustingness of women. Look at Arria worshipping the drunken clodpate of a husband who beats her; look at Cornelia treasuring as a jewel in her maternal heart the oaf her son; I have known a woman preach Jesuit's bark, and afterwards Dr. Berkeley's tar-water, as though to swallow them were a divine decree, and to refuse ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... imperative on him to bring the letter to the very house that was indicated, let the owner of the letter be where she might; and he laid down the law very satisfactorily with sundry long-worded quotations. Not to much effect, however, for the housemaid called him an oaf; and Robin would decidedly have had the worst of it had not the gardener come in and taken his part. "They women knows nothin', and understands nothin'," said the gardener. "Give us hold of the letter. I'll take it ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... he made this oration, had been taught by her husband that Mr. Van Boozenberg was an oaf, but an oaf whose noise was to be listened to with the utmost patience and respect. "He's a brute, my dear; but what can we do? When I am rich we can get rid ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... of a sudden in the middle of the road, and looking at Little John in wonder. "Why, thou great oaf! not a drop of rain has fallen these three days, neither has any threatened, nor hath there been a sign of foul weather in earth or ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... of the street flew master and pupil without word spoken. They reached the Pra, skirted its right- hand boundary for some hundreds of yards, and came to the door of a tall, narrow, white house. Upon this door the doctor kicked furiously until it was opened; then, with a malediction upon the oaf who snored behind it, up he blundered, three stairs at a time, Strelley after him whether or no; and stayed not in his rush towards the stars until he had reached the fourth-floor landing, where again he kicked at a door; and then, releasing his victim's hand, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... last he came to Paradise, And found his own four Gods, and that he wrote; And marvelled, being very near to God, What oaf on earth had made his toil God's law, Till God said mocking: "Mock not. These be thine." Then cried Evarra: "I have sinned!" — "Not so. If thou hadst written otherwise, thy Gods Had rested in the mountain and the mine, And I were poorer by four wondrous Gods, And thy more wondrous law, Evarra. ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... hand on the man's forearm and ran the other down the plump body beneath the coat. "My goodness!" said he to Torpenhow, "and this gray oaf dares to be a thief! I have seen an Esneh camel-driver have the black hide taken off his body in strips for stealing half a pound of wet dates, and he was as tough as whipcord. This thing's soft all ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... is the meed of her beauty,' said Bedford. 'Sister Kate likes not worship at any shrine save one. Look at our suite: our knights—yea, our very grooms are picked for their comeliness; to wit that great feather-pated oaf of a Welshman, Owen Tudor there; while dames and demoiselles, tire-women and all, are as near akin as may be ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... drowsy oaf! I'll knock some sense into you. Nice pair, upon my word! And you—you scoundrel," he cried, turning on me, "where have ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... dullard, dolt, numskull, witling, blockhead, coot, lackbrain, ninny, oaf, nincompoop, mooncalf, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... would appear," says he, filling his glass. "But let us speak no more of business. The very sight of Torrance brings in my head a little droll matter of some years ago, when I had made a tryst with the poor oaf at the cross of Edinburgh. Each had gone his proper errand; and when it came four o'clock, Torrance had been taking a glass and did not know his master, and I, who had forgot my spectacles, was so blind without them, that I give you my word ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sister," said the enamoured lover, "and I hope that you two will always be friends." Lizzie, when she had read this, had declared to herself that of all the female oafs she had ever seen, Augusta Fawn was the greatest oaf. When she found that Lady Fawn was alone, she did not betray herself, or ask for the beloved friend of the future. "Dear, dear Lady Fawn!" she said, throwing herself into the arms and nestling herself against the bosom of the old lady, "this makes my happiness perfect." ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... waited. Seeing that he would get no help, he said, "By the way, that little ... misunderstanding we had, the Senator Crane thing, I'm sure you realized that our talk was ... well, the words were put into my mouth. I felt the same way about the oaf as you did. But sometimes, in the line of duty, old man ... well, I know you were reading between ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... to force his attentions upon her, to take advantage of her helplessness as he had when he had held her hand so tightly and, as he now believed, against her wishes. Although she did not show it, she must have thought him a bumpkin, an oaf, an underbred cur. He groaned as he ransacked ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... brandy, burning trash! Fell source o' mony a pain an' brash? [illness] Twins mony a poor, doylt, drucken hash, [Robs, stupid, drunken oaf] O' half his days; An' sends, beside, auld Scotland's ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... found a close, And, clean and kempt, the little oaf— Disburdened of her wants and woes, And burdened with her wheaten loaf— Went forth to minister ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... Warrenne fought with his brain as well as his strength and skill. He had learnt a lesson, and no dull-witted oaf of a Gorilla was going to have him like that twice. As the Gorilla cowered and crouched in simulated defeat and placed his face to tempt the coup de grace which he would see swinging up, and easily dodge, Dam swiftly side-stepped and ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... order to inquire if he perhaps wanted to see Ole Henriksen; he would then be able to turn the conversation to his book and get the old man to express an opinion. It would be quite entertaining; the oaf would be forced to admit that he valued poetry according to weight. But was it worth while? It was really of no account whatever what this person might think. Irgens made a turn across the docks; he looked up—Coldevin had not moved. Irgens sauntered past, crossed the ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... think I did not look very silly? My lord, smiling, and gazing at me from head to foot; Lord Jackey grinning and laughing, like an oaf, as I then, in my spite, thought. Indeed the countess said, encouragingly to me, but severely in persons of birth, "Lady Davers, you are as much too teazing, as Mrs. B. is too bashful. But you are a happy man, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... ground, obstinate and defiant. It was unjust that anyone, knowing himself to be brilliantly clever, should yet be made an oaf by ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... LUDWIG.) You booby dense— You oaf immense, With no pretence To common sense! A stupid muff Who's made of stuff Not worth ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... dull, too, and vague as in heaviness of dreaming. Those feelings, vague in the house, were scarcely clearer in the cold and in the open spaces of the night, and Julian was conscious of a sense of irritation, of anger against himself. He felt as if he were an oaf, a lout. Was it, could it be, Cuckoo who had made him feel so? After all, what was she? Julian tried to hug and soothe himself in the unworthy remembrance of Cuckoo's monotonous life and piteous deeds, to reinstate ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... cassock began to break out in excuses, saying that his Patron would reward me, and that he was glad that an Englishman had been by to rescue a Person of Quality from such great Peril, when that Flanders Oaf younger—the extortionate villain—would not stir a finger to help him unless he had half a guilder over and above ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... gift; earnest. Hap, a wrap, a covering against cold. Hap, to shelter. Hap, to hop. Happer, hopper (of a mill). Hap-step-an'-lowp. hop-step-and-jump. Harkit, hearkened. Harn, coarse cloth. Hash, an oaf. Haslock woo, the wool on the neck of a sheep. Haud, to hold, to keep. Hauf, half. Haughs, low-lying rich lands by a river. Haun, v. han', Haurl, to trail. Hause, cuddle, embrace. Haveril, hav'rel, one who ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Forgive, ye Wise, the Oaf who nothing knows And glories in the Bubbles that he blows, And while you wrestle blindly with the World, He whistles on his ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... it comes to. He's spent enormous sums. At times it's been near to crippling me. But I can't keep it up. He's got to go. Besides, the big, drunken oaf is a disgrace to me. I can't afford to be associated ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... answer, his henchman, the Multiplier, called out, "And what do you know of art, Oaf? Don't you know that ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... you big oaf—" Fay began heatedly. Suddenly his features quirked and he twitched. "'Scuse me, folks," he said rapidly, heading for the door, "but my tickler told me I ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... thought of us," urged Trimble. "Trust me to set this lazy oaf to work. Now listen, Jack, and carefully. Cap'n Bonnet's ship waits in the Cape Fear River, twelve leagues to the north'ard of us. You will find her betwixt a bay of the mainland and a big-sized island where the river makes in from the sea. There ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... dancing girl was probably the wife of a boorish oaf whose idea of romance was spending an evening telling his wife how he came to be a successful bank president. But she had found her means of escape. Perhaps she had pleaded a sick headache and had retired to her room. And there upon the bed now reposed her shell of reality while her ...
— A Bottle of Old Wine • Richard O. Lewis
... that she is dead. But the devil a word did I hear of her since he was at your house in St. James's Street. He stared at me, as a child would have done at an Iroquois, and the Duke of Dorset seemed tout confus. I felt as if I looked like an oaf, but how I appeared God knows. I turned the discourse, as you may suppose." And here is a peep of a gambling party at faro. "I went last night to White's, and stayed there till two. The Pharo party was amusing. Five ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... thought so," said Wayland, "I would ride back and cut him over the pate; there would be no fear of harming his brains, for he never had so much as would make pap to a sucking gosling. We must now push on, however, and at Donnington we will leave the oaf's horse, that he may have no further temptation to pursue us, and endeavour to assume such a change of shape as may baffle his pursuit if he should ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... shot, my lad. Besides, the old boy was beginning to annoy me. I couldn't take my eyes from my plate at meals without catching sight of that oaf...." ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... "Oaf, I mean nothing of the sort; they would only make a laughing-stock, as those Devonshire people did, of me. No, I will go to the King himself, or a man who is bigger than the King, and to whom I have ready access. I will not tell thee his name at present, only if thou art brought ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Personal interest I have none; you and I shall certainly never profit by the politics to which we are attached. The "Archaeologic Epistle" I admire exceedingly, though I am sorry it attacks Mr. Bryant,[2] whom I love and respect. The Dean is so absurd an oaf, that he deserves to be ridiculed. Is anything more hyperbolic than his preferences of Rowley to Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton? Whether Rowley or Chatterton was the author, are the poems in any degree comparable to those authors? is not a ridiculous author an object of ridicule? ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... not I: he doesn't know; and I don't care. (Violently.) Be off, you oaf. (Christy runs out. Richard adds, a little shamefacedly) We ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... morning with that oaf of unlicked antiquity, Prideaux, and his great boy. He talked through all Italy, and everything in all Italy. Upon mentioning Stosch, Walpole asked if he had seen his collection. He replied, very few of his things, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... this over-worked world, that stints itself to keep them in idleness, approves of the answer. "The flannelled fool," "The muddied oaf," is the pet of the people; their hero, ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... looking oaf, and seemed too dazed to speak. The woman, however, if she had been washed, would have been quite good-looking. She had rather the European type of features, and was quite talkative. She told us that ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... oaf!' cried Mrs. Mountain, irritated for once into open rebellion. 'Oh, it's like a man, the stupid hulkin' creeturs as they are, to come an' frighten the life out of a ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... though at every page or two Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion, that this proceeding was quite out of the common; while Nippers, twitching in his chair with a dyspeptic nervousness, ground out, between his set teeth, occasional hissing maledictions against the stubborn oaf behind the screen. And for his (Nippers's) part, this was the first and the last time he would do another man's ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... than to leave his men like sheep without a leader. The old proverb has it right, 'When the chief fails, the host quails.' It was when they had become frightened about him that they began to give way, and after that it was easy for any oaf to jump out of the bushes and put them ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... Dryden's fool, "unknowing what he sought," His hours in whistling spent, "for want of thought,"[47] This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense Supplied, and amply too, by innocence: Did modern swains, possessed of Cymon's powers, In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours, Th' offended guests would not, with blushing, see These fair green ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... such a object?" Mother went on. "The hands an' arms on her! Dear me! Why, I do believe if our Sal was to give her one squeeze she'd kill her. Oh, but the finery and clothes! Y' never see the like! Just look at her!" And Dad, the great oaf, with Joe at his heels, followed her ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... however, Herbert so spoke, or so looked, that both Isa and her mother that his heart was touched. He still declared to himself that he had made no sign, and that he was an oaf, an ass, a coward, in that he had not done so. But he had made some sign, and the sign had been read. There was no secret,—no necessity for a secret on the subject between the mother and daughter, but yet it was not spoken of all at once. There was some little increase of ...
— The House of Heine Brothers, in Munich • Anthony Trollope
... means what day you like) 'Papa' had rouge and hair-powder to buy; He brought back salt! this oaf ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... your wits against us; you shall remember it! You have a mind to help us to a dish of your own making, you shall have two served up to you by your humble servant Cecile Amelie Thirion!—Poor old Blondet! It is lucky for him that the President has taken this journey to turn us out, for now that great oaf of a Joseph Blondet will marry Mlle. Blandureau. I will let Father Blondet have some seeds in return.—As for you, Camusot, go to M. Michu's, while Mme. la Duchesse and I will go to find old Blondet. You must expect to hear it said all over ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... ain' lef no baskit on no front po'che! I got jus' th'ee markit baskits in the livin' worl' an' they ev'y las' one an' all sittin' right where I kin lay my han's on 'em behime my back do'. No'm, Miss Julia, I take my solemn oaf I ain' lef no——" But here she debouched upon the porch, and in spite of the darkness perceived herself to be in the presence of distinguished callers. "Pahdon me," she said loftily, her tone altering at once, "I beg leaf to insis' ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington |
