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Scrimmage   Listen
noun
Scrimmage  n.  (Written also scrummage)  
1.
Formerly, a skirmish; now, a general row or confused fight or struggle.
2.
(Football) The struggle in the rush lines after the ball is put in play.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scrimmage" Quotes from Famous Books



... his glass and flung it at him. The dancers stopped suddenly still. There was an instant of complete silence, but when Tough Bill threw himself on Strickland the lust of battle seized them all, and in a moment there was a confused scrimmage. Tables were overturned, glasses crashed to the ground. There was a hellish row. The women scattered to the door and behind the bar. Passers-by surged in from the street. You heard curses in every tongue the ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... House steeped since Debate on Address opened, not varied to-night till, at ten o'clock, copies of Report of Parnell Commission brought to Vote Office. Then such a scrimmage as never before seen. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various

... goal-posts a fine parody of a scrimmage was in progress, Desmond and Quita being 'on the ball.' The advantage was hers; and she made haste to secure it. Rising in the saddle, she swung her stick for an ambitious back-handed stroke, missed the ball, and smote 'Unlimited Loo,' with the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... one, to let myself go. I am afraid I would be among the worst if I got started joining in the scrimmage of setting everybody right. ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee

... it had its effect, for boys don't leave their hearts and consciences behind them when they enter college, and little things of this sort do much to keep both from being damaged by the four years' scrimmage which begins the battle of life ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... will be necessary, however, for the success of the performance that Christian should abandon his strictly defensive attitude in the narrative and lay about him with sufficient energy to produce a general scrimmage. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... in a scrimmage, boys, I’ve corked it with my thumb, To keep the life from leaking From ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson

... their backers held resolutely. There was competition, once, amongst the Morris-folk as there is to-day amongst football teams and their adherents. Many a bout, begun in friendly rivalry, ended in a scrimmage, in which the staves brought for use and ornament in the dance were used to break heads with. We are grown vastly more delicate and refined since then, ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp

... who participated in it were always loud and frequent. But he, too, had a reputation to sustain. The Americans stood grimly silent before him. Harris's finger twitched nervously along the trigger, and a smile played over his thin lips. The man was aching for a scrimmage. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... afraid that I shall strike, Lady Bridget,' laughed Maule. 'It will suit my general principles to keep out of the scrimmage. I don't know anything about the rights and wrongs of your labour question, but I confess that, speaking broadly, my sympathies are usually rather ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... of the growing insolence of the fanatics, and the urgency of the reforms projected by the government, the master of Hebrew romance decided to abandon the poetic heights to which his dreams had been soaring. He threw himself into the scrimmage, adding the weight of his authority to the efforts of those who were carrying on the combat with the obscurantists. Even in his historical romances, especially in the second of them, he had permitted his hatred ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... had been gained, Dave was borne to the earth, the bottom of a struggling mass until, the referee's whistle ended the scrimmage. ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... Horner was right in the hottest scrimmage, and he proved formidable for the freshmen, despite his size. He had a way of darting under them and tripping them up, then getting away ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish

... stiff than sore. It was a knock-out blow of its kind. I can just recall you hauling me out of the scrimmage, and—" ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... the horses looked fresh, the guns of the batteries were spick and span, the men seemed to have "morale" to spare; they looked as if they were just going for the first time—and not coming from the scrimmage. ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... the 8th of March 1803, he landed a company of marines at Gosport for the purpose, as it was given out, of suppressing a mutiny at Fort Monckton. The news spread rapidly, drawing crowds of people from their homes in anticipation of an exciting scrimmage. This gave Bowen the opportunity he counted upon. When the throngs had crossed Haslar Bridge he posted marines at the bridge-end, and as the disappointed people came pouring back the "jollies" pressed ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... in Chicago have been made heartsick during the past month by the knowledge that a boy of nineteen was lodged in the county jail awaiting the death penalty. He had shot and killed a policeman during the scrimmage of an arrest, although the offense for which he was being "taken in" was a trifling one. His parents came to Chicago twenty years ago from a little farm in Ohio, the best type of Americans, whom ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams

... Had not the superintendent opportunely appeared at that moment, the man might soon have lapsed into unconsciousness, for I am sure my ally would never have released him until he had released me. The moment the attendant with his one good eye caught sight of the superintendent the scrimmage ended. This was but natural, for it is against the code of honor generally obtaining among attendants, that one should so far forget himself as to abuse patients in the presence of sane ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... chums took their time in returning to the camp, knowing supper would not be served until a little later. During the day several shots had been heard at a great distance to the southward, and some of the civil engineers had wondered if some sort of a scrimmage was taking place on the other side of ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... you and the lady now, sir!" Coxeter hurried Nan across the deck, but suddenly they were pushed roughly back. The rope barriers had been cut, and a hand-to-hand struggle was taking place round the boat,—an ugly scrimmage to which as little reference as possible was made at the wreck inquiry afterwards. To those who looked on it was a horrible, an unnerving sight; and this time Coxeter with sudden strength took Nan back into his arms. He felt her trembling, shuddering against ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... as how she thinks it is, enyhow. Yesterday she asked me 'bout thet scrimmage yer hed down on the Canadian. She 'd heerd 'bout it somehow, an' wanted the story straight. So I told her all I knowed, an' yer oughter seed her eyes shine while I wus sorter paintin' ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... really known is that, on the 27th of July, while Miss McCrea was staying with her friend Mrs. McNeil, near Fort Edward, a party of Indians burst into the house and carried off both ladies. They were pursued by some American soldiers, and a few shots were exchanged. In the course of the scrimmage the party got scattered, and Mrs. McNeil was taken alone to the British camp. Next day an Indian came into the camp with Miss McCrea's scalp, which her friend recognized from its long silky hair. A search ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... boys," said the captain, earnestly. "I daren't taste nothing. If I was to drink one glass of beer, it's my belief I'd have the apoplexy. The last scrimmage, and the blooming triumph, pretty nigh ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... avoid the latter, if possible," Bell laughed. "Still, for your satisfaction, I may say there is just the chance of a scrimmage. And now I really must go, because I have any amount of work to do for Gates. Till half-past ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... were locked in such a compact scrimmage that, linking their arms and aided by an appalling dive of the ship, the seamen sent it forward in one great shove, like a solid block. Behind their backs small clusters and loose bodies tumbled ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... couple of men backed up against them while I was talking to the bartender over the counter, and that a few other customers were closing in to repeat the same experiment on me. However, they greatly overrated their own stock of fitness and equally underrated my good training, for the scrimmage went all my own way in a very ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... to shucks," said one of the lumbermen, as the three rode along the river trail. "We'll have a lot of meetings and a scrimmage or two, and then Santa Anna will come over with a big army, and our leaders won't dare to call their ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer

... although Gustave, the messenger, and I rushed out we were just in time to pull him inside and slam the door before they had a chance to polish him off. Gustave nearly had his clothes torn off in the scrimmage, but stuck to his job. An inspired idiot of an American tourist who was inside tried to get the door open and address the crowd in good American, and I had to handle him most undiplomatically to keep him from getting us all ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... journey, Jordan said: "That black guard as I first got a crack at hed been working for us two months. He war at his work yesterday. He put up this business, but how we sprised him! Ther devil that jumped from the wagon when ther scrimmage begun war his runnin' pard. Wur it not ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... damages done in riots of 1791. Two more lives lost. —June 22, 1795. on account of scarcity of food and the high prices thereof. Soldiers called out, and they gave two unfortunates leaden food enough to kill them.—May 28, 1810, two women fell out over the price of some potatoes, others joined in and a scrimmage ensued. Constables came and men mauled them, and the result of the unruly wagging of those two women's tongues was a riot, which lasted four days. Three men were sentenced to grow potatoes at Botany Bay the rest of their lives.—March 22, 1813, the chapels in Bond Street, Belmont Row, and Ladywell ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... all about his marriage,—how he ran away with his wife from a boarding-school in Kentucky—and was chased by her father and brothers, and they fired at him. A regular Southern scrimmage! But they got across ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... He became an apprentice to a bookseller in Edinburgh. His wages were only four shillings (about a dollar) a week, and on that small sum he had to support himself, paying for food, lodging, clothes, and everything else, for five years. "It was a hard but somewhat droll scrimmage with semistarvation," he says; for, after paying for his lodgings and clothes, he had only about seven cents a day with ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... you if you mention that fowl again I'll stuff her down your throat!" cried Herbert, dropping his jew's-harp and engaging with Monty. But the latter was round and easily slipped through Bert's fingers, and the scrimmage was playful, anyway. ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond

... kept up his passion for athletic sports, and if he had now been famous for nothing else at his college, he would at least have been noted as a good bat, a famous boxer, a desperate man in a football scrimmage, and a splendid oar. It was on this subject that Jim and his relations were at variance. When I speak of "relations" I refer, by the way, to a certain old-fashioned uncle and aunt in Cornwall, who since Jim's father's death had assumed ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... nothing to me if you get washed overboard. Make all fast, lads," he added, turning to his crew, who stood prepared for what one of them styled a scrimmage. Malines returned to the quarter-deck, followed by a half-suppressed laugh from some of ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne

... "we're beaten, me dear sor. The poor lads are getting more stiff and sore every minute. To-morrow morning they won't have a bit of fight in them; why, even your humble servant, sir, who adores a scrimmage, would rather lie on a sofa and smoke till his wounds are healed. Now isn't it ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... the same ordeal elsewhere! To be sure, there was a little rough play; now and then a rush was made by nobody in particular, and for no particular reason; or, again, an indiscreet voter—rendered additionally so by indulgence in beer—gave occasion for offence; but really, beyond a scrimmage, a hat broken, a coat or two torn or bespattered with mud, a cockade rudely snatched from the wearer, little harm was done. The voters knew each other, and had come to vote, and had stayed to see the fun. For the timid, the infirm, the old, the day was a trying one; but there was an excitement ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... When at last we had succeeded, with another dose of the whip, in making them understand that we really asked them to work, instead of doing as they were told they flew at each other in a furious scrimmage. Heaven help me! what work we had with those eight dogs that day! If it was going to be like this on the way to the Pole, I calculated in the midst of the tumult that it would take exactly a year to get there, without counting the return journey. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... 'em up!" entreated Morse, as the first scrimmage was to come. Sam began on a signal that would have sent Tom through guard and tackle, but Morse, hearing it, quickly ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman

... its mother and father killed beside it. Another little mite belonged to no one at all. Who could tell whether its parents had been killed or not? I am afraid many of them will never find their relations again. In the general scrimmage everyone gets lost. If this isn't frightfulness enough, ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... the mountain to a spot where Lieutenant Phillips and some men were fighting a flanking party of Indians, and there we had another lively scrimmage. We went along the side of the mountain. I had lost my rackets. One couldn't think of them and fight, as we had been ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan

... deck the battle raged: here a scrimmage; there a single fight; men at hand-grips; men hurling round-shot. They swayed, they staggered about in each other's arms; they shocked, parted, came together again. Dead men lay in the scuppers; wounded ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... subordinates. That brought our fighting force up to an even dozen, to which were speedily added the general and Messrs. Morton, Fielder, Acutt, Boyne, Pearson, and Taylor, all of whom professed to be eager for a scrimmage, although, in the case of the last-mentioned five, I had a suspicion that much of their courage had its origin in a desire to appear to advantage before Miss Duncan. However, that brought us up to nineteen—not counting the three under- ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... more by night to take the bearings of the harbor. We was in a skiff, and a gale came on and beat us about all night and split our sails and drove us ashore in the very teeth of a crew o' Frenchies. There was a tight little scrimmage, I promise you, but they were two to one, and grappled us close, and clapped a stopper on our cable, hang 'em. They chained us together, the dogs, and marched us into St. Malo with scarce a rag to our backs, and yesterday they sent ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... trains, and given hot tea, and books to both the men who were going to the front and to those who were being brought home. We work side by side with Buddhist priests, ladies of rank, and coolies, serving from one to four hundred men in fifteen minutes! You never saw such a scrimmage, everybody works like mad while the train stops, and the wild "Banzais" that greet us as the men catch sight of the hot tea, show us how ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... supper time, he approached the house warily. His face was flushed, his school clothes begrimed and rumpled, and a bruise on his right shin forced a perceptible limp as he walked. He had been practicing with the "Tigers," and the scrimmage had been most exciting. Silvey—who had not been put to bed—had bumped into Red Brown in a manner which the latter regarded as unnecessarily rough. There had been a fight between the two, while the other aspirants for positions on the team stood around and yelled ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... his rifle and pulled the trigger, but luckily the cap failed to explode. The five turned as soon as they saw us and ran in another direction. I was going to shoot one in the rump, but Willis stopped me, saying that we had our hands full without inviting any more bears to join the scrimmage. Before those five bears, got out of sight three more broke cover and joined them, and for a moment there were eleven Grizzly bears, young and old, in sight from where I stood. Eight of them ran away and the original three kept us all busy ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... ring with it. He adores Morgan, and claims that he doesn't know what fear is. I believe it's about so. I've seen him in a fight three times now. His cap always goes off—he loses a cap every blessed scrimmage—and with that yellow mop of hair, and a sort of rapt expression he gets, he looks like a child saying its prayers all the time he is slashing and shooting like a berserker." Captain Booth faced abruptly toward the Colonel. "I beg your pardon for talking so long, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... for them. Horn greeted him with a blow that brought him to the ground at once, and ran another giant through the heart with his sword; and when their followers saw that their leaders were slain, they turned and fled back to the shore, but Horn tried to cut them off from their ships, and in the scrimmage the King's two sons fell. At this Horn was sore grieved, and he fell upon the pagans in fury, and slew them right and left, to avenge the ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... but through the clang outside none could hear. The populace seems to be trying to take the committee room by assault. Out of the scrimmage a man emerges dishevelled and bursts into the room, closing the door behind him. It is JOHN SHAND in a five guinea suit, including the hat. There are other changes in him also, for he has been delving his way through ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie

... Nevertheless she went on and on, making the business of this rather second-rate pleasure-seeking daily of greater importance. How could Damaris be expected to discriminate, to retain her sense of relative values, in the perpetual scrimmage, the unceasing rush? Instinct and nobility of nature go an immensely long way as preservatives—thank God for that—still, where you have unsophistication, inexperience, a holy ignorance, to deal with, it is unwise to trust exclusively ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... think that I am doing you any wonderful favour if you take it. The truth is, Hurry, I'd be more than paid ten times over in having the pleasure of helping you to run off with the lady. I'm in my element in an affair of this sort—there's nothing I like better, barring a good stand-up scrimmage, and that's generally too soon over. Now, Hurry, just do as ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... cried; 'that's not my daughter. That girl's hair is as black as a coal, and she's a Jew besides.' As soon as I sot my eyes on the little varmint it come over me that I got the thing crooked, and in the scrimmage I let go of the ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton

... a pious pilot, who said his prayers regularly, and carefully avoided touching my dog. Of course he was from Mecca; but, unhappily for his reputation, the first night spent at Jeddah gave him a broken nose, the result of a scrimmage in ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... and was now using the broad blade of Inkosi-kaas, 'browning' his enemy wherever he could hit him, instead of drilling scientific holes in his head. I myself did not go into the melee, but hovered outside like the swift 'back' in a football scrimmage, putting a bullet through a Masai whenever I got a chance. I was more use so. I fired forty-nine cartridges that morning, and I did not ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... round, while at intervals one of them imitated the striking of the clock; as the hours advanced the ghosts became more demonstrative and the company in bed more terror-stricken, and as the clock struck twelve the ghosts jumped on to the table! Then ensued a frightful scrimmage with ear-splitting squeals, and the game ended. I imagine it was this climax which used to bring the butler. We also had the game of giant all over the house. The yells in this case sometimes brought Lady ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... and that's why he's allowed to be the head devil in this yer affair. It's an understood thing, too, that the sheriff and the police ain't goin' to interfere if Johnson accidentally blows the top of Bob's head off in the scrimmage ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... for waiting till they be sober. Besides, if everybody's caranting about to once each after his own men, nobody'll find nothing in such a scrimmage as that. Bye, bye, Uncle Martin. We'm going to blow the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... tobacco as if his life depended on the quantity of juice he could extract from each mouthful, and dried tricklings of the liquid ornamented his chin. As he came toward us his face was turned upward, taking in the scrimmage in the sky. "What's them bloody things?" he asked, indicating the air sausages. He had evidently just come up the line fresh from England. I told him and he jerked out an indelible pencil and made a note, sucking the lead of the pencil two or three times before he ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... was at the window whirling his trusty Toledo about his head, lopping ears and noses from the red renegades who had followed in the track of the first. In the scrimmage he received another jab in the right eye with a fist. When day dawned it was discovered, with joy, that the evil eye was darkened—and forever. The people trusted him once more. Finding that he was ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... with the rest, and still the mass poured over them. Now at last the circle of bluecoats was broken, policemen alone and in small clusters were rushed and whirled this way and that. Outnumbered twenty to one, they began to go down in the scrimmage. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... Then the scrimmage was on in earnest. As soon as the play had properly developed Mr. Morton blew his whistle, for this was practice only in ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock

... savage, who failed of understanding what my master and Captain Newport meant, when they wanted him to kneel down so they might put the crown upon his head. If all the stories which I have heard regarding the matter are true, they must have had quite a scrimmage before succeeding in getting him into what they believed was a proper position to receive the gifts of the ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis

... shorter intervals and varying inflections, a genuine whisper-song such as most birds that I have studied delight in. It did not please madam, his mate; she listened, looked, and then rushed at the singer, and I regret to say, they fell into a "scrimmage" in the grass, quite after the vulgar manner ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... finally the smaller vessels, each in a wedge-shaped formation (shown by the diagram), with the apex toward the enemy. The object was to drive through the Italian line if possible near the van and bring on a close scrimmage in which all ships could take part, ramming tactics could be employed, and the enemy would profit less by their superiority in armor and guns. Like Nelson's at Trafalgar, Tegetthoff's formation was one not likely to be imitated, but it was at least simple and well understood, and against ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... Florimel, I had a bit of a scrimmage after you left me in the studio." Here his lordship did his best to imitate a laugh. "Who should come rushing upon me out of the back regions of paint and canvas but that mad groom of yours! I don't suppose you knew he ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... friend at our elbow has just possessed us of some facts so mirth-provoking, (to us, not to him,) that we jot them down for the amusement and information of suffering mankind and the rest of creation, who now and then get into a scrimmage with rogues, lawyers and law. And perhaps it may be as well to let the ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... sure, they each began to scrimmage; the broken-spirited Christie exhibiting both alacrity and penetration in searching obscure corners. In the dining-room, behind the dresser, three or four books were discovered: an odd volume of Thackeray, another of Dickens, a memorandum-book or diary. "This ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte

... that I didn't expect to see anythin' quite so soldierly in this 'ere fort, an' that's the fact. I had been detailed to hang 'round headquarters till the scrimmage began, but was given liberty to do as I pleased five minutes ago, consequently I came here to find out ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis

... at a loss To justify such wayward snarling— It makes her very, very cross My poor opinion of her darling; The cause (should pride the cause withhold, She bodes and I deserve a scrimmage,) The cause is this—she calls, I'm told, The little brute ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various

... impressed into the search. They are compelled to give up the keys to all closets and rooms. As case after case of silver and gold service are disclosed, the vulture element pounces upon them. For every piece there are fifty contestants, and the result is a wild scrimmage which prevents any one getting so much as a spoon without paying dearly ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... said, "Listen!" We listened, and it seemed as though all the crows and other feathered demons of the wide bush were engaged in a mighty scrimmage. "Dad's back!" Dan said, and rushed out in ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... old scrimmage, isn't it? Should have thought your languid grace would have kept out of this sight. I've given a dance to a girl, but dash my best necktie if I can find her: might as well look for a needle in a bottle of hay—as if any fellow would be such a fool as to put a needle ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... wrath, however, and those of us who have had mothers will at once realize what that wrath amounted to. She repaired immediately to the nursery, and without knowing anything of the technical terms of the noble game of football, instinctively realized that Jack and Tommy were having a "scrimmage." That is to say, she was confronted with a structure made up as follows: basement, the ball; first story, Tommy, with his small and tender stomach placed directly over the ball; second story and roof, ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... silence. Let there not be a sound till you are near the gate; then play your little comedy of the escaping marauders. And 'twill be no comedy for them in the Tower. The yacht is all ready for the morning, Mr. Sent Leger, in case I do not come out of the scrimmage if the bluejackets arrive. In such case you will have to handle her yourself. God keep you, my Lady; and you, too, ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... any fuss, Mr. Darrin," replied the surgeon. "You were stunned by the force of that scrimmage, and there's ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock

... 'Varsity practice, suddenly as a scrimmage ended and sifted open a cry went up. Ned Banks, left end on the 'Varsity, was seen lying on the ground after an attempt to rise. They gathered about him with grave faces, while Mr. Ware bent over him ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... the ball where it lay in the dust, close to his near fore-leg, with Macnamara's shortened stick tap-tapping it from time to time. Kittiwynk was edging her way out of the scrimmage, whisking her stump of ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... came a mighty uproar aboard ship. Lorns and the Swiss, the latter already irate over some trouble he had experienced, were rolling about the deck in a most violent scrimmage, the Swiss having decidedly the worst of the trouble. The chief rushed up the plank; Lorns and the descendant of Tell and Winkelried, were torn apart; and then a double din of explanation ensued. ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various

... hope that it's not falling back we'll be, till after we've had the satisfaction of spaking to them a bit," Tim Doyle put in. "Barring the little affair of today—which isn't worth mentioning—I haven't had a chance of a scrimmage since I joined the corps. It's been jist marching and counter-marching, over the most onraisonable country; nothing but up hill and down hill and through trees, with big stones breaking our poor feet into pieces, and the rain running down us fit ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... To see a scrimmage of fifty or sixty of them on land or in the water, where they went daily to fish, was a scene to be remembered. They did not bark, but loped through the woods, which were the camp's latrines, as scavengers by day, and howled in unison at regular intervals by night; for ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... of wild Rustians. Ivan, the mondjik, fresh from the Nevskoi Prospekt, now drives for the first time in the Corso—Dam na vodka, Sabakoutchelovek, thinks he. Yes, my sweet son of a dog, thou shalt have vodka to drink after all this scrimmage is over. So he holds in his horses with one hand, crowds down his fur hat with the other, so that his eyes will be safe; and then bravely faces the stinging shower of confetti his lord and master draws down on him. Up on the back ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... and what was more, Petit-Claud produced Sechard senior upon the scene of action. The old vinegrower had become his client on this wise. He came to Angouleme on the day after Eve's visit, and went to Maitre Cachan for advice. His son owed him arrears of rent; how could he come by this rent in the scrimmage in which his son ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... succession of lovely days. One morning, early, Captain Hawthorne joined Doris and her uncle in a long ride over on Boston Neck. They found an odd old tavern kept by a sailor who had been round the world and taken a hand in the "scrimmage," as he called it, and with his small prize money bought out the place. There was some delightful bread and cold chicken, wine and bottled cider equal to champagne. There was another long lovely day when ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... half-deck, some of the boys were already turned in, and lying in uneasy attitudes, with only their boots and jackets off. Jones, who had been severely handled in the scrimmage, was moaning fitfully in his sleep, his head swathed in bloody bandages, and the pallor showing in his face through the grime and coal-dust. Hansen was the last man in. He threw himself wearily down on the sea-chests, now all of a heap to leeward, snatched ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone

... boy—the lady-killing vagabone!" said the father, with a kind look of gratified pride; and then added, as if to stop the infection of the vanity, "and there's no denying he's big enough to be better." Here a slight scrimmage at the door of the dining-room attracted the attention of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... outstretched talons of the osprey, who has turned in flight with machine-like precision. So swift and sudden is the discreet upward swoop of the white-belly that it almost appears to be a rebound after contact with the bigger bird. So the scrimmage, or, to be exact, screamage, proceeds, for each party to it tells the whole Island of its valour, and business stands still as the series of most graceful, yet savage, aerial evolutions is repeated until the rivals are blotted ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... fortunately for the case altogether—as our mere candid humanity would otherwise have had scant practical pressure to bring. Thackeray's novel contains a plate from his own expressive hand representing Miss Sharp lost in a cynical day-dream while her neglected pupils are locked in a scrimmage on the floor; but the marvel of our exemplar of the Becky type was exactly that though her larger, her more interested and sophisticated views had a range that she not only permitted us to guess ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... which the movements of the advancing French troops depended? At any minute might he not receive the signal from the captain to attack some fresh Boche, who had climbed high above the battle lines to join the general scrimmage, or else "get" the big French machine while its defenders had their ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach

... extended to the coast, and the point at which they reached it remained fixed for four years to a day. Instead of a brilliant strategical run round the enemy's flanks to a distant goal in his rear, there was fated to be a strenuous scrimmage all along the line. It was a democratic sort of war, depending for its decision upon the stoutness of the pack rather than on the genius of the individual. The pressure was differently distributed at different periods during those ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... thing. And it isn't civilization, it's intellectual savagery. It isn't progress either, it's a blind rush, an inhuman scrimmage—the very worst form of the struggle for existence. It doesn't even mean survival of the intellectually fittest. It develops monstrosities. It defeats its own ends by brutalising the intellect itself. And the worst enemies of women are women. I swear, ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair

... with clubbed guns, men snatching at their side-arms, going down, rising or half rising, firing as long as a charge was in a gun or strength in a body. And as they fired and struck and called out after the fashion of the cowboy in a scrimmage the body of men before them wavered and broke and began ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... that the brigand had expected. Instead, one of them seized his weapon and shoved it aside, while with the other Custer planted a blow between his eyes and sent him reeling backward. The two men closed, fighting for possession of the gun. In the scrimmage it was exploded, but a moment later the American succeeded in wresting it from his adversary and hurled it into ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... as he circled, while the mass whirled like a teetotum. The action raced like an overtimed kinetoscopic film. A man broke loose from the scrimmage, on the opposite side from Rainey, who barely recognized the disheveled figure with the bloody, battered face as Deming. The hunter had managed to get hold of Lund's gun. Rainey's aim was screened by a sudden lunge of ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... caught dozens of them and fed them for days in a box with coarse lace tied over the top to prevent escape, and studied their habits, and humored their propensities by putting several together in the prison that forthwith became an arena, in which duello and general scrimmage relieved one another in ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... front. I extract the following entry from my journal. "These Turks are delightful neighbours; they will create a row, and I shall be dragged into it in self-defence, as the natives will distinguish no difference in a scrimmage, although they draw favourable comparisons between me and the Turks in times of peace. Not a native came to work at the huts today; I therefore sent for the two chiefs, Commoro and Moy, and had ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... slight difference of opinion between the parties most interested, and there's no telling who is Governor until after the election," said Dixon quietly. "But I respectfully submit that the top of a high tower is no place to settle a dispute that may end in a scrimmage. We don't want to begin killing one another until we have to, and there are two ways in which the matter can be arranged: Wait until after dark, and then go silently to the parade and have it over before anybody knows a thing about it, or ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... which no sail was hoisted because the wind blew upstream. On recollecting his deserted men, he wondered whether or not Greusel had brought them across the hills to Assmannshausen. Had they yet discovered that Joseph carried the bag of gold? He laughed aloud as he thought of the scrimmage that would ensue when this knowledge came to them. But little as he cared for the eighteen, he experienced a pang of regret as he estimated the predicament in which both Greusel and Ebearhard had stood on learning he had left them without a word. Still, even now he could not see how ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... more than had time to change his clothes, which fortunately had received all the damage in the recent scrimmage, when he saw Nannie hurrying down the road. She was half running, half walking, and her face was so radiantly happy that Steve went out to learn the good tidings she evidently bore. So eager was she to impart her news that she called out before he ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... in return, and as he made his way through the grimy, unsavoury street, he chuckled as he pictured the impending scrimmage. ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... ye waant here?" growled McKelvie with a lowerin' look, and there was silence from the others; and the men put their drink down where it would not spill if there should be a scrimmage. Dol Beag put a hand to his beard, and his shifty eyes ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... a white man's courage! And, like too many of his notions, not to be maintained by reason. Do you think the Sagamore or Uncas, or even I, who am a man without a cross, would deliberate about finding a cover in a scrimmage when an open body would do no good? For what have the Frenchers reared up their Quebec, if fighting is always to be ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... generally muddy and filthy. The latter was caused by the multitude of men using the little streams, springs, or wells. Either of these, ordinarily abundant for many more than ever used them, were hardly a cup full apiece for a great army. Hence many a scrimmage took place for the first dash at a cool well or spring. On our second or third day's march, such a scrap took place between the advanced columns for a well, and in the melee one man was accidentally pushed down into it, head first, and killed. He belonged ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock

... Wiborg, we arrived at the station only to find the train crammed from end to end, and not a chance of a seat anywhere. Confusion reigned, every one was struggling with every one else for places, and the scrimmage was as great as though it were "a cheap trip to Margate and back" in the height of the season. There were only second and third-class carriages, with a sort of fourth, which was said to hold "forty men or eight horses," and ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... his teeth last time, and, even if he managed to get his despatches safely delivered, there would be a raid on the newspaper office, an arrest in the street. Of course there was always the hope that he might come in for a chance shot in a scrimmage, but that was too much luck ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward

... things went wrong with them he was angry. This state of mind survives into our advanced civilisation, where people still talk of "judgments," still pray for good things, and still implore their God for victory when they have a scrimmage ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... neither side had made a move to interfere with the combatants, but a movement on the part of the lumberjacks, a gradual edging up, warned Hippy that his opportunity to get into the scrimmage was ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower

... under each arm, and with the pair of 'em strugglin' and squealin' and rough housin' me for all they was worth, I starts towards the livin' room. We was right in the midst of the scrimmage when in walks Vee, with her hat and furs all on, lookin' some classy, take it from me. But the encouragin' part of it is that she smiles ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... nipples. I have shot on each Gulf, both Southern and Northern. I have trailed the long trail between either ocean. Brave men I have seen, both in good and in evil, But never a braver than the man called Jack Whitcomb. Well, why describe it? Call it scrimmage or battle, It was done in a minute, or it may be a dozen. It came like a whirlwind, and we three were in it As men are in whirlwinds. It came like the thunder, With a crash and a roar and a long running rumble Dying down into silence. There were dead and ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... La Rousse, a finely built girl, with copper-coloured skin and hair, 'there won't be any scrimmage to get out of ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... read much history, that's a fact," Rupert answered. "Never had much to read," he added with a laugh. "Fact is, my life up to now has been pretty much of a scrimmage for the needful." ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... you missed a little scrimmage this morning. Wetzel got in at daybreak. The storm and horses held him up on the other side of the river until daylight. He told me of your suspicions, with the additional news that he'd found a fresh Indian trail on the island just across from the inn. We went down not expecting ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... Charley, really. What I meant to point out was, that there are only twelve of us belonging to the ship on whom we could rely— indeed only eleven, for that matter, as I don't count on Tompkins; a bully like him would be sure to show the white-feather in a scrimmage— while these Greek chaps muster eight strong, all of them pretty biggish men, too, and all armed with them beastly long knives of theirs, which I've no doubt they ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson



Words linked to "Scrimmage" :   American football game, melee, exercise, drill, disturbance, practice session, rehearse, practise, practice, recitation, line of scrimmage, battle royal, American football



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