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Scrub   Listen
adjective
Scrub  adj.  Mean; dirty; contemptible; scrubby. "How solitary, how scrub, does this town look!" "No little scrub joint shall come on my board."
Scrub game, a game, as of ball, by unpracticed players.
Scrub race, a race between scrubs, or between untrained animals or contestants.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scrub" Quotes from Famous Books



... all day, all their lives. Still, it was not you so much as the world that was wrong. It wasn't fair and right that Maggie's sister should have cancer while you had nothing the matter with you. Or even that Maggie had to cook and scrub while you made poems. ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... choose the beautiful green woods that he had once roamed in, but turned towards a most horrible place—a great marsh full of pools of slimy black water, and reeds, and rough scrub and bushes. It was the most lonely place you can imagine, and people feared to go there because they said it was ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay

... weird appearance of these ancient groves of such gigantic dimensions contrasted sadly with the treeless expanse beyond, and proved that Cyprus had for very many centuries been the victim of neglect. The olive is indigenous to the island, and the low scrub jungles of Baffo, the Carpas district, and other portions abound with the wild species, which can be rendered fruitful by grafting. In selecting trees for the extension of forests, there is a common-sense rule to guide us by observing those varieties ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... nature, the girl walked wearily away to her desk at the library. It was barely eight o'clock, and her duties began only at nine, but she was an early bird, this New World Little Dorrit, and loved to be promptly at her work, and the janitor and scrub-women often listened to her cheery song as she plied the duster among the shelves and desks of the sanctum. Wells, perhaps, never noticed how much neater everything looked since Miss Wallen took charge, but she was a dainty creature, in whose eyes dusty books and littered desks were abominations. ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... into herself something of the night's colossal calm, to wrest from the starved scrub of the desert a portion of its patience, its astounding perseverance; to stifle her craving for clear unprejudiced ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... the worms and insects devoured your crops, and you didn't raise half so much as if you furnished the birds shelter and food. So he left mulberries in the fields and fence corners and wild cherries, raspberries, grapes, and every little scrub apple tree from seeds sown by Johnny Appleseed when he crossed ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... listened after that howl. He had found voice—a voice with a strange new note in it, and it gave him still greater confidence. He had expected an answer, but none came. He had traveled in the face of the wind, and as he howled, a bull moose crashed through the scrub timber ahead of him, his horns rattling against the trees like the tattoo of a clear birch club as he put distance between ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... Mary made of it, Hal wondered. Had she revelled, shop-girl fashion, in scenes of pallid ease? He learned that what she had made of it was despair. This world outside, with its freedom and cleanness, its people living gracious and worth-while lives, was not for her; she was chained to a scrub-pail in a coal-camp. Things had got so much worse since the death of her mother, she said. Her voice had become dull and hard—Hal thought that he had never heard a young voice express ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... quality. I was to go away in the Wagon, they told me, forthwith to School; for my Grandmother—if I was indeed any body's Grandson—had left me nothing, not even a name. Henceforth, I was to be little Scrub, little Ragamuffin, little boy Jack. All the unknown Lady's property, they said, was left to Charities and to deserving Servants. There was not a penny for me, not even to pay for my schooling; but, in Christian mercy, Mrs. Talmash was about to have me taught some ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... and his woe drops out of sight. He's managed to keep hold of a little property that brings him in just enough to scrub along on, and he joins that hungry-eyed, trembly-fingered fringe of margin pikers that hangs around every hotel broker's branch in town, takin' a timid flier now and then, but tappin' the free lunch hard and reg'lar. ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... and skirt the green islands of gardens, and thrust aside the churches; whereafter, continuing its way through Council Square (still running inexorably straight), the thoroughfare stretches to, and traverses, a barren plain of scrub, and so reaches the pine plantation belonging to the Monastery of St. Michael the Archangel where the latter is lurking behind a screen of old red spruces of which the denseness seems to prop the very heavens, and which on clear, sunny days can ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... Amalia and left the cabin. Frantically they searched for her all night, riding through the darkness, carrying torches and calling in all directions, as far as they supposed her feet could have carried her, but did not find her until early morning, lying peacefully under a little scrub pine, far down the trail. By her side lay her husband's worn coat, with the lining torn away, and a small heap of ashes and charred papers. She had been destroying the documents he had guarded so long. She would not leave them to witness against him. Tenderly ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... Pawnees or of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose sight of those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon their prairies. The coyote skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps heavily through the air, and the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through the dark ravines, and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the rocks. These are the sole dwellers ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... people of a community so well as the physician who lives among them? To the world the Doctor's patients were laborers, bankers, dressmakers, scrub-women, farmers, servants, teachers, preachers; to the Doctor they were men and women. Others knew their occupations—he knew their lives. The preachers knew what they professed—he knew what they practiced. ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... unhorsed by sliding girths, Strains hard to readjust his seat Ere the main body show the gap 'Twixt them and the read-guard; scrub-oaks near He sidelong eyes, while hands move fleet; Then mounts and spurs. One drop his cap— "Let Mosby ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville

... mind hard jobs much, and there must always be one scrub in a family. Amy is splendid in fine works and I'm not, but I feel in my element when all the carpets are to be taken up, or half the family fall sick at once. Amy is distinguishing herself abroad, but if anything is amiss ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... headquarter staff were fairly comfortable in comparison to the others. Our tents were pitched in a quadrangle formed by four rows of trees and scrub, which had evidently been planted around the site of a former house and served to break the high winds. Each officer had a tent with a wooden floor. Mine was carpeted with an extra blanket to exclude draughts and make it feel comfortable ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... continued snowing, and the mountain-tops soon hid themselves and sulked away among the leaden mists. Our tent was pitched among a low sort of scrub, the only apology for fire-wood procurable, and here we soon had a fine carpet of fresh snow, which put the unfortunate coolies, and the servants, and the three goats and the four ducks, and, in fact, everybody but F. and myself, who now begin to feel thoroughly AT HOME, to considerable ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... sojourn we were invited by two officers to join their dinner at a Cairo eating- house. We plowed our way gallantly through the mud to a little shanty, at the door of which we were peremptorily commanded by the landlord to scrub ourselves, before we entered, with the stump of an old broom. This we did, producing on our nether persons the appearance of bread which has been carefully spread with treacle by an economic housekeeper. And the proprietor was right, for had we not done so, the treacle would have run off ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... arable land NA%; permanent crops NA%; meadows and pastures NA%; forest and woodland NA%; other NA%; mostly rock with sparse scrub oak, few trees, some commercial ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... paint days, an', of course, Fridays, they are scrub days. They pass around turpentine an' hide the matches. But, of course, Mis' Morris may get the better of it. 'Tain' every woman that can stand widowin', an' sometimes them that has got the least out of marriage will seem the most deprived to ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... she tried to run, but her legs were heavy; she stumbled a great deal, and her breath made strange, distressing sounds as it issued from her open lips. Hounding the steep shoulder of the ridge, she hastened down a declivity into a knot of scrub-oaks and ebony-trees, then halted, ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... then, and he saw a herd of deer coming through the scrub, and he went towards them, and threw a spear that went through the nearest stag and drove the bowels out of him. He kindled a fire then, and he cut thin bits of the flesh and put them on spits of white hazel, ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... cannot bear, they say, to see women leaving the sacred precincts of home—and yet their offices are scrubbed by women who do their work while other people sleep—poor women who leave the sacred precincts of home to earn enough to keep the breath of life in them, who carry their scrub-pails home, through the deserted streets, long after the cars have stopped running. They are exposed to cold, to hunger, to insult—poor souls—is there any pity felt for them? Not that we have heard of. The tender-hearted ones can bear this with equanimity. It ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... No-good, Away with such a fellow from the earth. Ay, said Mr. Malice, for I hate the very looks of him. Then said Mr. Lovelust, I could never endure him. Nor I, said Mr. Liveloose, for he would always be condemning my way. Hang him, hang him, said Mr. Heady. A sorry scrub, said Mr. High-mind. My heart riseth against him, said Mr. Enmity. He is a rogue, said Mr. Liar. Hanging is too good for him, said Mr. Cruelty. Let us despatch him out of the way, said Mr. Hatelight. Then said ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... we got washed in India,' said Cyril. 'We should have been awfully late if we'd had to go home and scrub.' ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... ate, Hiram's gaze traveled again and again across the scrub-grown meadow. The lay of the land pleased him. The richness of the soil had been revealed ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... the merry merry Christchurch bells! She's up by this time;— that don't sound like a drag now!" cries Tom, bursting desperately, with elbow-guarded visage, through the tangled scrub. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... he heard in it the tremble of an emotion that was consuming her. He had seen the flame of it in her face and eyes. Something he had said, or had done, had tremendously upset her, changing in an instant her attitude toward him. The thought that came to him made his face burn under its scrub of beard. Did she think he was a scoundrel? The dropping of his hand, the shock that must have betrayed itself in his face when she said she was St. Pierre's wife—had those things warned her against him? The ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... of Penacerrada, which includes Baroja, is an austere land, covered with intricate mountain ranges which are clad with trees and scrub ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... the job goin' to pay us?" persisted a Sydney man. "An' arter we've beat off this other gang, are we going to scrub along on grub wages until we're yanked out by process-sarvers three months later? If that's the ticket I'm not in it. I aren't no ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... Frogman, although he wore green patent-leather shoes with ruby buttons, had very large and flat feet, and when he tramped through the scrub his weight crushed down the underbrush and made a path for Cayke to follow him. Therefore they soon reached the forest, where the tall trees were set far apart but were so leafy that they shaded all the spaces ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... we halted and tethered our horses, while the Arabs unloaded the provisions from the camels and prepared a fire out of the dry scrub, for at sunset the heat of the desert departs from it suddenly, like a bird. Then we saw a traveller approaching us on a camel coming from the south. When he was come ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... a scrub-woman. She had taken council of Selina, and through her had obtained the position of caretaker in a little memorial kindergarten over on Pacific Street. Like Polk Street, it was an accommodation street, but running through a much poorer and more sordid quarter. Trina had ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... this evening. I will take the same train, and we will walk from Whiting to a deserted railway siding two miles further on, where the projectile has been shipped. We will unload it from the flat car and take it into a grove of scrub oaks on the shore of Lake Michigan, near by. This will be enough to demonstrate to you our control of gravity. The experimental model is there also, and we will send it off on a trip if you like. Everything will be ready for the start to ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... on a blazing Arizona morning. The hot sun is pouring down upon the jagged front of a range of heights where occasional clumps of pine and cedar, scrub oak and juniper, seemed the only vegetable products hardy enough to withstand the alternations of intense heat by day and moderate cold by night, or to find sufficient sustenance to eke out a living ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... great, handsome fellow came close up to me with his mud and his burs—"do you think it's exactly fair, when a fellow's been out all the morning shooting ducks for your dinner, to make him stand out on the gallery such a day as this and scrub the mud off ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... breaking in sickly pallor over the jagged scarp of the Mesa, bounding the chaotic labyrinth of bowlders, crag and canon beneath. Far up the rugged valley, jutting from the faded fringe of pine, juniper and scrub oak that bearded the Mogollon, a solitary butte stood like sentry against the cloudless sky, its lofty crown of rock just faintly signalling the still distant coming of the heralds of the god of day. Here in the ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... back away a few yards, I tied his halter to a scrub tree and then advanced toward the bear with my rifle in my left hand. He didn't budge, and when I yelled at him he only started a little and cocked his head over on the other side. That made me laugh, ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... am nearly eight, So I can fill the kettle, And sweep the room and clean the grate, And even scrub a little; Oh! I'm so very glad to be A little useful ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... are awful!" cried Jenny. "Countesses! Always in the divorce court, or something. Somebody ought to stop them. They don't have countesses in America, do they? Why don't we have a republic, and get rid of them all? If they'd got the floor to scrub they wouldn't have time ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton

... "'Tain't a mite of use puttin' that little washtub in my room no more, bekase you ain't a-goin' to toll me into it. I takes my bath when I gits home to Sally. She kinder expects it of me. Hit's a wife's privilege to cut her man's hair and pare his nails and scrub his ears an' all them little things, 'specially ef she ain't got no chillun to do hit fur, an' I'd feel mighty mean ef I disapp'inted her. I don't do much fer Sally, noways. No, darter, oncet or twicet a year's often enough fer a human critter to git wet all over, 'cep'n in ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... the preacher. A glint of humour came into his eyes. "You asked me what it would cost to get married. If you'll go down to City Hall, it will cost you exactly two dollars. But if you care to be married here—well, there's an old scrub-woman I know who for nine years every Sunday has come to this church and put a quarter in the plate to keep this institution going for you. And if you care to use it now it will cost you just what it has cost her. Figure it out and send me a check, ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... followed them from a distance at first; but the enemy had received quite as much punishment as they desired upon that occasion, and soon ceased the aggressive, being eager for a truce to communicate with the little rear-guard posted in the scrub by the river so as to recover their wounded ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... flights of stairs were thickly strewn with mud and dust from the feet of the different lodgers; but when Pollie reached the last landing she felt it was home indeed. The stairs were as clean and white as hands could scrub them—no dirt was to be seen here,—and outside her mother's door was a little mat on which to rub the shoes before entering. It was quite a relief to reach ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer

... on, up the thorny steep they pressed. The palms and mangroves gave place to scrub oaks, and they in turn to pine and cedar. As they ascended, there was a change in soil, vegetation ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... scrub forest in 1837, are a little street, a house of some pretension occupied by Mr. Laughton, the enterprising owner of the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe, and ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... male residents of the parish, and they must not be insane, deaf, dumb, blind, nor disqualified by crime. I will tell you: let them be Jean d'Eau—at the French market. He will still be there; it is his turn to scrub the market to-day. Get him, get Richard Reau, and old man Ecswyzee. And on no account must the doctor be allowed to come. Do that, Madame Brouillard, as quickly as you can. I will ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... fairies lives inside our pigeon-cot— Oh, the bustle and the sweeping there has been! For the pigeons didn't scrub their house (I think they all forgot), And the fairies like their home so scrup'lous clean; There are fairy dusters hanging from the sumach as you pass; Tiny drops are dripping still from overhead; Broken fairy-brooms are lying near the fir-tree on the grass, Though ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various

... headquarters, while a lodging-house missionary, in the Mulberry Street bunk-house. It was only a block from Chatham Square, and central. The first thing I did was to clean it. I proceeded with soap and water to scrub it out, dressed in a pair of overalls. While performing this operation, a tall gaunt figure lurched into the room with his hands in his pockets—a slit for a mouth, shaggy eyebrows, rather small eyes. He looked at me ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... Now that they subsist chiefly on the milk of their buffaloes, the ceremony has lost much of its old significance.[339] When the Nagas of North-Eastern India have felled the timber and cut down the scrub in those patches of jungle which they propose to cultivate, they put out all the fires in the village and light a new fire by rubbing two dry pieces of wood together. Then having kindled torches at it they proceed with them to the jungle ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... The brigalow scrub was about half a mile in length, and stood between the swamp and the high river bank. At the dried-up bed of the swamp itself he did not care to look a second time; its once reedy margin was now a sight of horror, for many hundreds of cattle had been bogged there long ...
— In The Far North - 1901 • Louis Becke

... literally taken to the woods, through which the Riverfield ribbon was at that moment winding itself. Clucking and chuckling, they concealed themselves in an undergrowth of coral-strung buck bushes, little scrub cedars, and dried oak leaves, and I could hear them holding a council of war that sounded as if they were to depart forever to parts unknown. In a twinkling of an eye I saw my future fortune literally take wings, and in my ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... darlings, and I own to a weakness for them," she admitted. "We put them in a bath and scrub them, and they're really so intelligent. Wasn't it the poet Herrick who had a pet pig? This little chap's as sharp as a needle. I believe I could teach him tricks directly, if I tried! Miss Carson says I mustn't let myself grow too fond ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... the landward rail, and, with or without glasses, endeavoured to discover battle-signs and the positions of our men. There were across the steep green hillsides several great scars, where the scrub was withered and the bare earth showed; but surely our main line was over that high ridge, for reports stated that the army corps had penetrated several miles. The artillery was awakening to its evening activity, field ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... botanist enough to describe these flowers, but I noticed them with surprise and admiration. I saw nothing else, however, to attract any one to the neighbourhood: the soil is wretchedly poor, principally covered with scrub, and, with the exception of a few spots in the hollows, utterly valueless to the farmer. A few half-starved cows only, belonging to Sydney families, and called the town herd, may be seen picking up the poor and scanty herbage. In this neighbourhood, the Sydney hounds meet, and occasionally ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... as I trekked along down by the Oliphant River, I used to creep from the waggon at dawn and look out. But there was no river to be seen—only a long line of billows of what looked like the finest cotton-wool tossed up lightly with a pitchfork. It was the fever mist. Out from among the scrub, too, came little spirals of vapour, as though there were hundreds of tiny fires alight in it—reek rising from thousands of tons of rotting vegetation. It was a beautiful place, but the beauty was ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... luxuriant and about three feet high, while dotted about pretty thickly all over the plains were clumps of palmetto, palms, trees of various kinds—some of which would probably be the fruit-trees that had restored Barber to life—and big clumps of bamboo and scrub. I anticipated that it would be among those clumps of scrub that we should eventually find the treasure hulk, if indeed the craft actually existed and was not the figment of a madman's imagination; and I also foresaw that our ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... above the timber-line, the trail ran around Crater Lake and gained the rocky defile that led toward Happy Camp and the first scrub-pines. To pack his heavy outfit around would take days of heart-breaking toil. On the lake was a canvas boat employed in freighting. Two trips with it, in two hours, would see him and his ton across. But he was broke, and the ferryman charged ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... course, empty, and no one would disturb her. She had brought the Parsonage key to unlock the door, and after filling her bucket at the pump in the yard, she put on the apron, tucked up her sleeves, and set to work. And it was work! Gwen had never in her life before tried to scrub a floor, and though her arms were sturdy and strong at wielding a tennis-racket or the lawn mower, they soon began to ache at the unwonted exercise which she had set herself. The room seemed most enormously large, and she was sure it was abnormally dirty. The school children's boots must have ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... maids; how many were the ignoble progeny of the elevator-man, and what his plebeian wife did for their croup; how much rent the hall-boy's low-born father paid for his mean two-story dwelling in Jersey City; and how many hours a day or night the debased scrub-women devoted ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... They were better out of the world, he told us, as we carried him off to the hospital. When he was gone, the children came upon the alley, and loyally did it stand by them until a job was found for the mother by the local political boss. He got her appointed scrub-woman at the City Hall, and the alley, always faithful, was solid for him ever after. Organized charity might, and indeed did, provide groceries on the instalment plan. The Tammany captain provided the means of pulling the family through and of bringing up the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... a nail-brush and some Pears' soap; you may take mine ... and go and cut his claws and scrub his hands as ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... one night. They got along all right with the little one, the one they called John Calvin Sorrow—only the little cuss kicked and scrambled so that we both had to see to him for a minute, and when we was ready for the other, there he was at least ten rods away, a-legging it into the scrub oak. Well, they looked and looked and hunted around till daybreak, but he'd got away all right, the moon going under a cloud. They tracked him quite a ways when it come light, till his tracks run into the trail of a big band of Navajos that had been up north trading ponies and was going ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... abundant, so I am informed, than it has ever been before. In some places hardly any trees of the two species to which its attack is here limited have escaped. These are the black or yellow oak (Q. tinctoria) with its variety (coccinea), the scarlet oak and, the scrub oak (Q. ilicifolia). These trees appear brown on the hill-sides from a distance, in consequence of being altogether stripped of their leaves. The sound of the falling frass from the thousands ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various

... years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good-bye; and whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply at the old stand.—Who next?—Oh, my little friend, you are let loose from school and come hither to scrub your blooming face and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the town-pump? Take it, pure as the current of your young life. Take it, and may your ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... kitchen and grabbed the broom. She did not dare scrub the porch floor for fear that it would not dry in time, but she swept it carefully and spread down the rug. Then one by one, and making a separate trip each time, she carried out the table and the chairs. With a passing sigh for the bouquet abandoned ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... and show them the way to amend them. In short, it makes every man the more jocund and acceptable to himself, which is the chiefest point of felicity. Again, what is more friendly than when two horses scrub one another? And to say nothing of it, that it's a main part of physic, and the only thing in poetry; 'tis the delight and relish ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus

... afternoon, however, as she stood in the doorway, it seemed to be singularly calm; the southwest trades blew but faintly, and scarcely broke the crests of the long Pacific swell that lazily rose and fell on the beach, which only a slanting copse of scrub-oak and willow hid from the cottage. Nevertheless, she knew this league-long strip of shining sand much better, it is to be feared, than the scanty flower-garden, arid and stunted by its contiguity. It had been her playground when ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... off, brought in to one of the children—a beautiful little girl, sick with what would be "la grippe" on Beacon Hill, but is only "grip" down in the slums. The mother had a little babe, and was in such delicate health that it was impossible for her to go out to wash or scrub. Her two narrow little rooms were scrupulously neat and clean, as were her children; but the tears ran down her cheeks as, in answer to our questions, she confessed, as if she had been admitting a crime, poor soul, that they had had nothing to eat ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... slightly towards the river, forming a remarkable water-shed, perhaps, between the Nassau and the Mitchell. As we approached the river, we entered into a flat covered with stunted box, and intersected by numerous irregular water-courses. The box was succeeded by a Phyllanthus scrub, through which we pushed, and then came to a broad creek, filled with fine water, but not running, although high water-marks on the drooping tea-trees proved that it was occasionally flooded. We did not understand, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... enemies' stronghold. They had circled the plains to the west, and ridden down in the shelter of the hills, to avoid coming within rifle range of the house. These western hills were rocky, and at their end a growth of firs, scrub oak, and brush gave the lynchers shelter. They were four or five hundred yards from the house, ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... head, for all one could see of the roof. The light shone bright on crooked backs, slightly distorted limbs, the pallor of sickness, the stains of rough weather; on girls meekly folding hands that daily scrub and scour; on laboring men stooping the shoulders that habitually carry weights; on spectacled old women with eyes worn out by incessantly peering at the tiny stitches of their untiring needles; but one would have looked in vain for any types even ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... day finds them in "The Slashes," a desolate region inhabited by squatters. As they jolt over corduroy roads between pools of stagnant waters, the travelers look out wearily upon a sparse growth of gallberry and scrub-pine. Now and then they pass the solitary hut of a charcoal-burner, surrounded by its little patch of meagre corn; a pack of cur dogs rush out and bark fiercely, within the safe limits of the wattle fence surrounding the premises; white-headed children gaze from the ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... horses in a thicket of scrub oak where they would be out of bullet-reach until the enemy gained the bank. As I looked to make sure of them, the sorrel gave a shrill neigh to welcome the pounding of hoofs on the Appleby road. I made sure this would be General Davidson bringing in the reserves; and ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... his head, and sitting down on a projecting root of a scrub oak, produced from the depths of his capacious pocket a bit of tin, which he carefully selected from among a miscellaneous hoard of treasures. "Here." said he, holding it up to the view as he spoke; ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... from the Vilcanota Valley. In the other directions the slopes are so steep as to render a wall unnecessary. The walls are built of fragments of lava rock, with which the slopes of Mt. Piquillacta are covered. Cacti and thorny scrub are growing in the ruins, but the volcanic soil is rich enough to attract the attention of agriculturists, who come here from neighboring villages to cultivate their crops. The slopes above the city are still extensively cultivated, but ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... even thousands of miles of continuous travel. These are the celebrated "portages" of Canadian history, from the French word porter, to carry, transport. Sometimes the portages were made still easier for loaded canoes by a road being cleared through the scrub and over the rocks, and wooden rollers placed across it. Strong men could then easily haul a loaded canoe over these wooden rollers until it could be launched again in the water. Often these portages were made to circumvent dangerous rapids or waterfalls. The Indians and the French Canadians soon ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... was taken up cheerfully enough, but it was quite hopeless. The breakaways were heading for the line of bush, and the sapling scrub along the creek was so thick that the boys would have been perfectly secure under its cover, even if the pursuers were not in hearty sympathy with the pursued, and the pursuit were not a miserable and ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... scrub 2 quarts soft-shell clams in shell, put in kettle with 2 cup cold water, cover and cook till shells open. Strain liquor through double cheesecloth. Add enough Chicken stock, well seasoned, to make 1 quart. ...
— For Luncheon and Supper Guests • Alice Bradley

... on a little farther over the hilly ground, covered with thick forest or dense, tall scrub. But there were troops, troops, everywhere, and now and then the batteries. They were mostly boys, like their antagonists of the North, and the sleep of most of them was the sleep of exhaustion, after a forced and rapid march over heavy ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... whose memory goes back to the fifties, when he went to school from a shack on Yates Street opposite the site of the present King Edward Hotel, believes Colville Island may also have been used for this purpose as well, but distinctly remembers the trees and scrub on Deadman's Island and the fire on it described in the following account, which is kindly furnished by Mr. ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... that further progress became impossible. As a last resource, therefore, they tried the river, and here they got on very much better, the water being so low that much of the bed was dry; and by scrambling over boulders and great piles of drifted tree-trunks and tangled scrub that were encountered at frequent intervals, with, here and there, a few yards of clear gravel or sand, upon which the going was perfectly easy, they eventually reached an open space of some twenty acres in extent. This during the rainy season was undoubtedly a pool; but it ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... "I can bathe myself—almost. You may scrub the corners of my ears, if you please. And I can't quite part my hair straight. Will you find Uncle Carey? and see if ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin

... your fires," said the manikin, "I'll bake your bread, I'll wash your dishes, I'll scour your pans, I'll scrub your floors, I'll brew your beer, I'll roast your meat, I'll boil your water, I'll stuff your sausages, I'll skim your milk, I'll make your butter, I'll press your cheese, I'll pluck your geese, I'll spin your thread, I'll knit your stockings, I'll mend your clothes, I'll patch your shoes—I'll ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle

... also—of that of Italy and Greece. For as we descend into the glen, every lane-bank and low tree is entwined, not with ivy, but with a still more beautiful evergreen, the Smilax of South-eastern Europe, with its zigzag stems, and curving heart-shaped leaves, and hooked thorns; the very oak- scrub is of species unknown to Britain. And what are these tall lilies, which fill every glade breast-high with their sword-like leaves, and spires of white flowers, lilac-pencilled? They are the classic flower, the Asphodel of Greece and Grecian song; the Asphodel through which the ghosts of Homer's ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... was invariably from left to right; {18} so that the more potent or persistent movement of revolution must have been in opposition to the course of the sun. It would appear that this Hibbertia is adapted both to ascend by twining, and to ramble laterally through the thick Australian scrub. ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin

... and require any scrubbing, remember that to wash or scrub wood you must follow the grain, as rubbing across it rubs the dirt in instead of taking ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... matter?" inquired Jack, coming up, while he endeavoured to scrub his long hair dry with ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... ace of spades, And said she'd have her washed white, By the other maids; She was put in a tub, And with water and towels Her skin they did rub, Through a long summer day till the night; But the more they did rub her, The blacker she got; And while they did scrub her, She mourned her hard lot. So the maids threw away All their labor and care, And the mistress gave up Her fine ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... stretches far northward from the Orange River between German SW. Africa and the Transvaal, an elevated plateau, not really desert, but covered with scrub and affording coarse ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... again the slave of an ivory-poaching, hide-poaching, specimen-poaching, slave-dealing gang of Arabs, Negroes, and Portuguese half-castes, led by a white man of the Teutonic persuasion. He could feel the smiting heat, see the scrub, jungle, and sand shimmering and dancing in the heat haze. He could see the line of porters, bales on heads, the Arabs on horseback, the white man in a litter swinging from a long bamboo pole beneath which half a dozen Swahili loped along. He could see ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... syringa bushes, and other shrubs. In New England he is best known as a garden bird. Mabel Osgood Wright, in "Birdcraft," says: "I have found it nesting in all sorts of places, from an alder bush, overhanging a lonely brook, to a scrub apple in an open field, never in deep woods, and it is only in its garden home, and in the hedging bushes of an adjoining field, that it develops its best qualities—'lets itself out,' so to speak. The Catbirds in the garden ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... Scrub clean (but do not peel) the carrot and turnip. Wash celery, parsley, and barley. Shred all the vegetables finely; put in saucepan with the water. Bring to the boil and slowly simmer for 5 hours. Add the chopped ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel

... on, through fords and out of them, under the low-growing branches of scrub pine, brushing his bruised legs against rocks. He had definitely decided that he had missed the cabin when the horse turned off the trail, and ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... are quickly forgotten. This was strongly borne in upon me lately while staying in the village of Hindon in the neighbourhood of the Great Ridge Wood, which clothes the summit of the long high down overlooking the vale of the Wylye. It is an immense wood, mostly of scrub or dwarf oak, very dense in some parts, in others thin, with open, barren patches, and like a wild forest, covering altogether twelve or fourteen square miles—perhaps more. There are no houses near, and no people in it except a few ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... piano, allegro must be forte, Go wash my neck and sleeves, because this shirt is dirty Mon charmant, prenez guarda, Mind what your signior begs, Ven you wash, don't scrub so harda, You may rub my shirt to rags. Vile you make the water hotter— Uno solo I compose. Put in the pot the nice sheep's trotter, And de little petty toes; De petty toes are little feet, De little feet not big, Great ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens

... they went, and, when day broke, they were once more in the scrub pines and cedars, with a cold wind blowing and nipping at their ears and noses. But Boyd, who went far back on the trail, could discover no sign of Felton's band, and ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... these wild parts had gone up to Bonsa Town to be present at the great feast, the sun was sinking before ever they reached the place. Moreover, this promontory proved to be covered with dense thorn scrub, through which they must force a way in the gathering darkness, not without hurt and difficulty. Still they accomplished it and at length, quite exhausted, crept to the very point, where they hid themselves between some ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... just 6.30 A.M. when Emma McChesney turned the little bend in the stairway that led to the office. The scrub-woman was still in possession. The cigar-counter girl had not yet made her appearance. There was about the place a general air of the night before. All but the night clerk. He was as spruce and trim, and alert and smooth-shaven as only a night clerk ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... of the mountain in a full-grown stream. This is a defect in the Generoso, as much to be regretted as the want of shade upon its higher pastures. Here, as elsewhere in Piedmont, the forests are cut for charcoal; the beech-scrub, which covers large tracts of the hills, never having the chance of growing into trees much higher than a man. It is this which makes an Italian mountain at a distance look woolly, like a sheep's back. Among the brushwood, however, lilies-of-the-valley ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... woodland and waste which formerly prevailed. Immediately south of the church and its surroundings we find the “Ings,” or meadows, the Saxon term which we have noticed in several other parishes. Further off, we have “Oaklands” farm, and “Scrub-hill,” “scrub” being an old Lincolnshire word for a small wood; as we have, in the neighbourhood, ‘Edlington Scrubs’ and ‘Roughton Scrubs.’ “Reedham,” another name, indicates a waste of morass. “Toot-hill” might be a raised ground from which ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... began to jabber to each other in a jargon which I could not comprehend, and presently two of them laid hold of me, one by each arm, and in spite of my protests and such resistance as I made, forced me through the scrub inland. Some of the tribe followed, others went on ahead, flitting like shadows among the trees, the journey being performed at a rate which made it hard for me to keep pace ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... tellin' when a man's on the spot. The middle peak ought to be a good fifty feet higher than the others and flat lookin' on top. In a ravine, between the tall boy and the one at the left, Juarez said there was a lot of scrub trees and brush. He said plow through the brush, keepin' to the up edge when you can get to it, until you come to about the middle of the patch. There a man would find a lot of loose rock, boulders that looked like they'd slid off the mountain. This rock, and the Lord knows how ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... there, sure enough, I beheld a party of negroes marching confidently toward the house. How many there were I could not tell—for they were just then winding their way through thick detached masses of scrub beyond the boundaries of the estate—but the confident manner of their approach led me to suppose that they believed they were quite strong enough to achieve an easy conquest ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... face up to bleach it, her great yarn petticoats hauled off and proper ones put on, and her head and feet dressed right, she'd beat the Blue-nose galls for beauty out and out; but that is neither here nor there, those that want white faces must wash them, and those that want white floors must scrub them, it's enough for me that they are white, without my making them so. Well, she looked all eyes and ears. Jerry's under-jaw dropped, Cutler was flabbergasted, and the doctor looked as if he thought, "Well, what are you at now?" while the old woman appeared ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton



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