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Spat   Listen
verb
Spat  v. i.  To dispute. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spat" Quotes from Famous Books



... last spat out his mouthful in disgust. "It's tough as sole leather and about as tasteless. We even forgot ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... even though our blood be much of the same colour, I had a score to settle with him, because of the slaying of this sister of his, Baleka, together with the Langeni tribe.[*] So I walked up to him and took him by the head-ring and spat in his face and bade him find a spear and shield, and meet me as man to man. Yes, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... he rode all but blanketed under the big army saddle. Following him, impassive, noncommittal as though an event of the recent past had not occurred, came McPherson, drew up in place beside the leader. All-seeing, Crosby spat appreciatively, but Landor gave never a glance. Following came not one but many riders; a half dozen, a score,—enough to make up the allotment, and again. In silence they came, grim-faced, more grimly accoutred. All manner of horseflesh ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... pursuing crowd lurched around the elbow-turn; fire spat twice from the mouth of each gun. Two men dropped, one rolling over and over in the dust, and the other sitting down and clasping his leg in a ludicrous fashion. But the crowd was ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... "Gar-r-r!" spat a third. "We've had one kid too many in this outfit, all along. I'll bet, if the truth was knowed, th't that young Farley'd skin a louse ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... spat from the lips of the monster as it closed with the struggling figure of Fenwick. Then the claws that were its hands raked the surgeon's throat ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw

... plans, the chief's stateroom was located in the after part of the house and on the side opposite the skipper's, and following their brief spat through the speaking-tube, Terence Reardon had confined himself exclusively to his engine-room and that portion of the ship along which he must of necessity pass when going to and from his state-room. He told himself it was the part of wisdom for one ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... not for your revenge, or your mercy. Once more I say, get you gone." Then the ruffian turned round, rushed at the chained prisoner, and dealt him a terrific kick in the side, after which he spat upon his face. ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... fellah is de fellah what done tuk my job. Hit was des dis-a-way: when I t'ink dat white man gwine catch me, sholy, I des drap down in de darkes' cawneh I kin fin'; dat's what I done, yas, suh. He des keep on agoin', spat, spat, spat, an' when he come out front de Gineral Jackson over yondeh, one dem boys what's wukkin' on her, he tuk out, an' dat white man des tu'n hisself loose an' mek his laigs go lak he gwine shek 'um plum off; ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... spat out. "You never were in love with Crimtyphon. You always hated me, and now you think it an excellent opportunity to make it good... now that Crimtyphon's gone.... For we both know he would have made a footstool of you, if I had asked him. He worshiped me, ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... series of blue lines, whose relations to one another could not be justly estimated, because of the wooded nature of the ground, which ran out into open places before fences and woods that spat red fire, and became thinner and of less extension, as if they had been made of wax and were melting under the blaze of the July sun. In that charge ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris

... fixing his eyes directly on the German officer, while the wind made the scanty hair move to and fro on his skull, he made a frightful grimace, which shriveled up his pinched countenance scarred by the saber-stroke, and, puffing out his chest, he spat, with all his strength, right ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... squeak! No, not half so good as bubble and squeak. English beef and good cabbage. But foreign rank and title!—foreign cabbage and beef!—foreign bubble and foreign squeak!" And the squire made a wry face, and spat ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... They spat at the boy and shouted, "traitor," "rascal," "thief," "false mortal," "fox," "rat," "wolf," and other bad names. Then ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... O Physician, only I could not understand it all, because his language was somewhat different to mine, and he spat out his words as a green log spits out sparks. I think that he asked me, however, how my miserable people dared to destroy his god, Harmac. I answered that I was only a servant and did not know, adding that he should put his questions ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... "wouldn't mind a bite to eat. I've allers heard tell as how the Romans after they had fought a good fight with them Carthaginians or Macedonians or somebody else would sit down an' take some good grub into their insides, an' then be ready for the next spat." ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the flashes sever the darkness, and their comrades fall; while all had felt the earthquake and the thundering. To those at the entrance it had seemed that these were the jaws and throat of a monster mountain-huge, which at their approach spat flame and bellowed. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... regarded his questioner with a venomous look and then spat emphatically on the floor, but he gave no reply except by an expressive drawing of his ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... Spaniards in formal alliance against us. Englishmen are liable to insult as they go through the street. This, however, would not go for much, by itself; but last week a number of soldiers rushed into the office, seized Mr. Logie, violently assaulted him, spat upon him, and otherwise insulted him—acting, as they said, by the express order of the emperor, himself. He is now practically a prisoner, having been taken under an escort to Sallee and, at any moment, the whole of the British colony here may ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... mats around the iron-wood trough and chewed the grated root, which, after thorough mastication, they spat out into banana-leaf cups. This chewing of the Aram-root is the very being of kava as a beverage, for it is a ferment in the saliva that separates alkaloid and sugar and liberates the narcotic principle. Only the healthiest ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... to us so simple, filled Giotto's lively countrymen, who had seldom seen it, with astonishment and delight. They cried out as at a marvel when he made the commonest deed even coarsely lifelike, as in the case of a sailor in a boat, who turned round with his hand before his face and spat into the sea; and when he illustrated the deed with the corresponding expression, as in the thrill of eagerness that perceptibly pervaded the whole figure of a thirsty man who stooped down to drink. But Giotto was no mere realist though he was a great ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... it—old Fraulein picked Her teeth, slowly explaining it. I had to listen, Fraulein licked Her fingers several times and flicked The pages over; in a fit Of rage I spat ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves

... his words they guessed the import of them, and the biggest of the men, a powerful negro, repeated the word Kaffir and spat upon him. Edgar's right arm flew out from his shoulder, the blow struck the negro on the nose, and in an instant he was upon his back upon the ground. His comrade stood for a moment stupefied, and then ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... were coming on. Instead, the Germans fairly combed the parapet with their machine guns. Each indication of curiosity from us drew forth from them such a stream of fire that the top of the parapet spat forth a steady shower of flying mud, and, which made it impossible for us to defend ourselves properly, even had there been enough of us left ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... stereotypers is off by itself. There is a furnace in it, and a great caldron of melted type metal. They take the page of the paper which has just been made up; put it on a hot steam chest; spat down upon the type some thick pulpy paper soaked so as to make it fit around the type; spread plaster of Paris on the back, so as to keep the pulpy paper in shape; and put the whole under the press which ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous

... mental attitude of a very small monkey shaking the bars of his cage with all four hands and gibbering in the face of some benign and infinitely superior professor. I fairly ached behind the ears trying to look sufficiently alert and bland and intelligent. Yank sat stolid, chewed tobacco and spat out of the window, which also went far toward stampeding me. Talbot and Johnny, however, seemed right at home. They capped the old gentleman's most elaborate and involved speeches, they talked at length and pompously about nothing at all; their smiles ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... old Josselin, and spat out of window. Mechanically, by habit, his dim eyes swept along the beach by the breakers' edge. "What's the ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... with about half the lemonade in it, and H. O. generously filled up the tumbler out of the bottle, labelled Dewar's whisky. The man took a great drink, and then suddenly he spat out what happened to be left in his mouth just then, and began to swear. It was then that Oswald and Dicky ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit

... McKenna spat out an obscenity. "Aren't we ever going to have any luck?" he demanded. "Jarrett out on a writ this ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... homely features indicated an inward struggle of the last-resort nature. When he had reached a conclusion he spat it out. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... spat Mrs. Holt. "Hidin' in the bushes! Marry a man who didn't know he was goin' to be married an hour before, unbeknownst to her folks, an' wouldn't even come in the house, an' have a few of the neighbours in. Nice doin's for the school-ma'am! Nice ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... candle. Espying the glittering fiery eyes of the cat, he mistook them for live coals, and held the match to them to light it. The cat, however, not understanding such a joke, sprang at his face, and spat, and scratched him. This frightened him dreadfully, and away he ran to the back door, where the dog jumped up and bit him in the leg. As he was crossing over the yard the ass kicked him; and the cock, who had been awakened by the noise, crew ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous

... Bat spat out his chew. He replaced it with a pipe, and prepared to flake off its filling from a plug of tobacco. Standing watched him with the anxious eyes of a prisoner awaiting sentence. With the cutting of the first flakes of tobacco, ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... spat out the spear and tried to raise its head. But the muscles were already weakening. It fought the poison long enough to take a single step forward, its small red eyes alight with brainless hate. Then it crashed and lay twisting. Dalgard lowered ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... man of winning manners and charming personality, who lives on quite friendly terms with his Protestant neighbours in the South of Ireland—told me that on the only occasion when he visited Belfast he was spat at in the streets. The story is quite credible to those who have watched the deliberate manipulation of the worst religious passions by the party organisers of Ulster, not always unassisted by ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender

... conceivably be an impression of some such stimulating effect. It dawned upon him that he had happened upon a lucky encounter, that at last he might learn something of the new age. The old man wheezed a while and spat, and then the piping, reminiscent ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... emotion. The originator of all this woe got into a light cart, smoked a cigar, and when at the third mile, at the bend in the road, the Kirsanovs' farm, with its new house, could be seen in a long line, he merely spat, and muttering, 'Cursed snobs!' wrapped himself closer ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... he had only too much simplicity, for after his reception he felt himself bound to imitate every motion of the master, and when the latter coughed, spat, or sighed, he did the same. At last Francis noticed it and gently reproved him. Later he became so perfect that the other friars admired him greatly, and after his death, which took place not long after, St. Francis ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... him a card, bearing the name of Signor Giacomo Stefani, sat down, at Peter's request, spat between his feet, and said, "I have had various affairs with your Signor brother before. I am come to solicit his patronage in the matter of a pair of vases. If he would recommend them for me in his paper, as before. They are good; they might ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... La Corriveau spat at the mention of the sacred name. "But it is in her, Fanchon. It is in all of us! If she is not so already, she will be. But go into the house and see your foolish uncle, while I go prepare for my visit. We will set ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... snarled the one-eyed man and spat towards me, whereat I raised my staff and he, lifting an arm, took the blow on his elbow-joint and writhed, cursing; but while I laughed at the fellow's contortions, the plump man sprang (marvellous nimble) and dashed out the light ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... men lowered Tom from Marc's back I stepped closer and put my face within six inches of the lion's. He promptly spat on me. I had to steel my nerve to keep so close. But I wanted to see a wild lion's eyes at close range. They were exquisitely beautiful, their physical properties as wonderful as their expression. Great half globes ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... spat wide and far, "I guess she's aiming to decorate the hull blamed town, back there, with greens. She don't mind slashing, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... he, contemptuously, "I had once compassion on her; I have repented it ever since. You have no idea what a terrible creature she is; has such a wen in her neck, quite a goitre. Mort diable!" (and the Abbe spat in his handkerchief), "I would sooner have a liaison ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Darling, you and I, Walk on the earth like other men? Did we not walk and wonder why They spat upon us so. ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray

... which cries treason louder than any voice. Some shifted uneasily, and spat, and Jake Wheeler thrust his hands in his pockets and walked away, as much as to say that it was treason even to listen to such talk. Lem ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... flavor they are mistaken, however I would not exchange it for a skin of Anthyllan wine; and if they could only know that at least one of the stripes which torments me is due to each one of themselves, they would be surprised! But away with pride! How they spat on Thee, Jesus my Lord, and who am I, and how mildly have they dealt with me, when I for once have taken on my back another's stripes. Not a drop of blood was drawn! I wish the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... spat into the stubble. "The way I look at it," he said, "it's like this: first, there's me; and then there's you. That's the way I look ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan

... that, they stamped, Gnashed their white teeth, and turning, fled and spat Upon the floor. The Elder spake to him, Yet shaking with the burden, "Who art thou?" He answered, "I, the man whom thou didst send To fetch through this thy woodland, do forbear To tell my name; thou lovest it not, great sire,— ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... breath when he'd got that far, and fetched his pipe out of his pocket and lighted it. Then he drank off half the beer, and spat in ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... retorted, calmly, and spat halfway across the road. "You wouldn't believe any of our boarders had a right to be here if you could ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... as I recalled the scene when the ragged-looking old saint had reviled and cursed and spat at me, thinking, too, of how wonderfully he had carried out the disguise, and what pain he must have suffered from ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... Geordie—go to; a juggle, I tell thee; sheer malice of the enemy, fow' an' fause as he be." Here he spat on the floor to show his detestation and contempt; but George, either too ignorant or too idle to reply, took down a dried fluke from the chimney, and warming it on the glowing turf for a few minutes, was soon occupied in disposing of this dainty and favourite repast. Their hut was ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... back an assault, and Van Derwater had sent for his section commanders to advise an attack on the enemy in preference to waiting to be wiped out with no chance of successful resistance, when he heard a shout, and bullets spat over their heads. Turning swiftly about, they saw a tank lurching across the bridge. Amidst wild shouting from the Americans, the clumsy landship stumbled towards them, with bullets glancing harmlessly off its metal ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... that the authorities enforce the law at once with the utmost rigor—. "Such quacks ought to be dealt with without mercy, as an example to other upstarts!" and with an angry growl the doctor recklessly spat the whole ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... help you, my poor child? Vanka is a Gentile. The Gentiles do as they like with us Jews." The next time Vanka abused me, I did not cry, but ran for shelter, saying to myself, "Vanka is a Gentile." The third time, when Vanka spat on me, I wiped my face and thought nothing at all. I accepted ill-usage from the Gentiles as one accepts the weather. The world was made in a certain way, and I had to ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... came and brake his mast in the midst, and sail and yard-arm fell afar into the deep. Long time the water kept him under, nor could he speedily rise from beneath the rush of the mighty wave: for the garments hung heavy which fair Calypso gave him. But late and at length he came up, and spat forth from his mouth the bitter salt water, which ran down in streams from his head. Yet even so forgat he not his raft, for all his wretched plight, but made a spring after it in the waves, and clutched it to him, and sat in the midst thereof, avoiding the issues of death; and ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... in him was working on the problem. But Lane had no more patience. They'd sweat, he thought, hating the chill air-currents that threw his hovering body this way and that. He glared down at the three towers bordering on the Square. He spat, and watched the little white speck fall, fall. Lock me up in barracks. All I wanted was a little time off. Did I fight in Chi for them? Damn right I did. Just a little time off, so I shouldn't blow my ...
— Mutineer • Robert J. Shea

... by an excavated street one sat In solitary session on the sand; And ever and anon he spake and spat And spake again—a yellow skull in hand, To which that retrospective Pioneer Addressed the ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... The compliant Chicken spat out some small pieces of straw on which he was regaling himself, and took in a fresh supply from a reserve ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... Petro spat on his hands, seized the spade, applied his foot, and turned up the earth, a second, a third, a fourth time. . . . There was something hard: the spade clinked, and would go no farther. Then his eyes began to distinguish ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... one another right smart. He said somethin' that dreened my last drop of patience; I give a sharp answer, and fust thing I knew he up with his hand and slapped me. It warn't a hard blow by no means, only a kind of a wet spat side of the head; but I thought I should have flew, and was as mad as ef I'd been knocked down. You never see a man look so 'shamed as Lisha did, and ef I'd been wise I should have made up the quarrel then. But ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... that we came [in such a realistic romance] on some such business as that of my lantern-bearers on the links, and described the boys as very cold, spat upon by flurries of rain, and drearily surrounded, all of which they were; and their talk as silly and indecent, which it certainly was. To the eye of the observer they are wet and cold and drearily surrounded; but ask themselves, and they are in the ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... moments it shook its horrible head, while Otter watched gasping, for the reek of the brute's breath almost overpowered him. Twice it opened its great jaws and spat, and twice it strove to close them. Oh! what if it should rid itself of the knife, or drive it through the soft flesh of the throat? Then he was lost indeed! But this it might not do, for the lower blade caught upon the ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... became like dragons' fangs; they spat venom, they spouted fire. Each one added her word. Anecdotes were piled upon anecdotes. A wife fled from her home before a drunken husband. Wives slaved for idle husbands. Wives were deserted for other women. The tongues whistled like whip lashes. The misery of homes ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... violent mob was gathered at the railroad station to receive them. Through some misadventure, an inadequate guard was detailed to march them to the gaol. The prisoners were set upon by the mob, reviled, stoned, and spat upon, the officers in charge trampling them under their horses' hoofs, in their vain and excited endeavours to protect them. The poor prisoners reached the jail in a full run, bruised and breathless, but thankful for the asylum the prison door afforded them from their merciless pursuers. ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond

... Get that? And there I was under a hail of Hun lead, without being able to understand why, or feel that any time had passed since giving up my job to go to war. Queer how I saw my old desk!... Well, that's how Smith got his. I heard the bullets spat him, sort of thick and soft.... Ugh!... Owens and I dragged him along, and finally into the trench. He had a bullet through his shoulder and leg. Guess he'll live, all right.... Boys, take this from ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... viper, a villain, and a coward. I leave this house; I renounce pleasant society; I leave this country—for ever; but before I go I would like to fight hand to hand with that giant, who—Ha!" He stood close to me and spat at me. "There!" he cried, and then he struck me in the face with ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking

... aged Moslem chieftain sat one day at the opening of his tent and, brooding with black brows and cursing in his black beard over wine as the symbol of Christianity, racked his brains for some word ugly enough to express his racial and religious antipathy, and suddenly spat out the horrible word "alcohol." The fact that the doctors had to use this word for the sake of scientific clearness was really a great disadvantage to them in fairly discussing the matter. For the word really involves ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... seemed as if the ravages of wear and tear, to say nothing of its immersion, had heavily discounted the value of the boot as an article of wearing apparel, for, after several agonized endeavours to replace it upon his foot, Mr. Dunkelsbaum screamed, flung it down, spat upon it, and offered up what I took to be a ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... the kitten taking some license with their dams?—biting as puppies and kittens bite at play? Well, and what sort of treatment do they sometimes get from the older folks? Now and then you hear a growl, or see a spat. But, generally, the "old ones" know better. The little frolicsome creatures are indulged. Nature seems to teach these canine and feline parents that their progeny must and will have sport. I have, indeed, as I have said, heard the ominous growl and ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... capital—from pleasure to duty. The man sat straight and listened intently. Yes, there it was again, and certainly to the south of him. His face was over the wheel and his eyes strained through the darkness. Then suddenly he spat out his cigarette and gave a sharp intake of the breath. Far away down the road two little yellow points had rounded a curve. They vanished into a dip, shot upwards once more, and then vanished again. The inert man in the draped car woke suddenly into intense ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... tricolour cockade, that proclaimed his momentary political views. He carried a short wooden pipe, from which the odour of rank tobacco emanated. He looked with some suspicion and a great deal of contempt at the two travellers, muttering "SACRRRES ANGLAIS!" and spat upon the ground to further show his independence of spirit, but, nevertheless, he stood aside to let them enter, no doubt well aware that these same SACCRES ANGLAIS always had ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... spat at a glowworm. "Why do you spit at me?" said the glowworm. "Why do you shine ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... at the door of the hut a few moments later Rob offered them his kettle of water, from which he had not yet drunk. John took a deep draught and spat it out with a ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough

... not wot I wotted, I accepted an invitation from the chief engineer to go below. We went below—miles and miles, I think—to where, standing on metal runways that were hot to the foot, overalled Scots ministered to the heart and the lungs and the bowels of that ship. Electricity spat cracklingly in our faces, and at our sides steel shafts as big as the pillars of a temple spun in coatings of spumy grease; and through the double skin of her we could hear, over our heads, a mighty Niagaralike churning as the slew-footed screws kicked us ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... "Bah!" spat LeNoir, "Dat beeg Macdonald I mak heem run like one leetle sheep, one tam at de long Sault, bah! No good!" LeNoir's contempt for Macdonald was genuine and complete. For two years he had tried to meet the boss Macdonald, but his rival had ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... him," he growled, and spat loudly on his hands. Joe looked at all men as potential customers of the "Bull and Mouth," and judged ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... mud. There are also weedy patches, bare sand-banks of limited extent, uncovered at low water, and muddy depressions both in the deep and shallow portions and clean sand. Strong currents race past the sand-spit and across the bay, carrying, no doubt, continual supplies of spat from elsewhere to settle in quiet places. No one who has lived on the margin of the tropic sea can be astounded at its prolific life, though it may be a matter of unceasing wonder that along a beach not more than four hundred yards in extent should be found shells representative of species ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... so great as when he occupied a prison cell; and Jesus Christ reached the height of his success when, smitten, spat upon, tormented, and crucified, He cried in agony, and yet with triumphant satisfaction, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... Duke of the Abruzzi. The trail was faulted in several places, but we picked it up each time without much difficulty. The following day was a bitterly disagreeable one. On this march we had in our faces a fresh southwest wind that, ever and again, spat snow that stung like needles and searched every opening in our clothing. But we were so delighted that we were across the young ice that these things seemed like trifles. The end of this march was at "Camp Nansen," named in honor ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... the night. From the door through which he had just come bullets spat aimlessly. He crouched as he ran, dodging in zigzag little rushes. Voices pursued him, fierce and threatening. Men poured from the gambling-house as seeds are squirted ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine

... cigar gently from his lips and spat on the painted floor of the room in which we were sitting. Flamands certainly they were, and both had the true Flamand physiognomy, where intellectual inferiority is marked in lines none can mistake; ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... loose from that frantic grip and continued his pull on the whistle until the Maggie, taking a false note, quavered, moaned, spat steam a minute, and subsided with what might be termed a nautical sob. "Now see what you've done," he bawled. "You've made me ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... longer contain herself; not doubting the treason of Bras-Rouge, which she had prophesied, she cried, "I was sure that you sold my son who is at Toulon. There, Judas!" and she spat in his face. "You sell our heads; so be it; they will see handsome corpses-corpses ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... question in Dutch and to be answered in English. In Rotterdam I had stopped a seafaring looking man and tried to ask him in Dutch what was the way to the Hotel de France. He listened patiently while I struggled with the language; then he spat on ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill

... about for some time, the lad spat upon some earth, and, plastering it over the smarting blister, succeeded in shutting out the air from it and secured ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... because he would not exercise the birch and ferule. "If the scholars once find out the teacher is not goin' to sting 'em up when they need it, that is an end to the skule," said one of the directors, and he spat violently at a fly, ten feet away. The others agreeing with him, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... Two of the troopers approached and laid their hands upon his shoulders. At first he made a movement to shake them off. Then he checked the impulse and stood quietly while they pinioned him. After they had finished he spat on the ground, cast a glance at the square and the rope dangling from a branch above it, and walked easily towards it. The square opened to receive him and closed ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... Charles II also, we read that when the sentence of the Court presided over by Bradshaw, condemning the King "to death by severing his Head from his Body," had been read, the soldiers treated the fallen monarch with great indignity and barbarity. They spat on his clothes as he passed by, and even in his face; and they "blew the smoak of Tobacco, a thing which they knew his Majesty hated, in his sacred mouth, throwing their broken Pipes in his way as ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... he said. "He's their 'lobbygow.'" With which contemptuous information he spat upon the air-brakes and, shoving both hands into his pockets, meditatively jingled a bunch ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... of memory, he recalled some scenes of which he had been witness years before, when a woman, hot, red, excited with wine and with furious jealousy, had reviled him in the coarsest terms, had struck him in the face and had spat out foul and vindictive words of abuse. That woman—ah, that woman was his wife—had been for many years to him the type of what women must always be when stripped of the veneer of society's restraints. Janetta had of late shaken his ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... playing High-Five with an old farmer who had whiskers both gray and sandy. They were quarrelling. Frequently the old farmer turned his face towards a box of sawdust—colored brown from tobacco juice—that was behind the stove, and spat with an air of great impatience and irritation. With a loud flourish of words Scully destroyed the game of cards, and bustled his son up-stairs with part of the baggage of the new guests. He himself conducted ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane

... And the long-nosed man spat tobacco juice on the clean deck. "You reckoned on giving me the slip, though. But I've been watching you. Didn't I tell you I was half wild hoss and half alligator? What's to hinder me from going out to ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... her Jane walked slowly downstairs. When she got to the last step she looked up. Fly spat over the banister. ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick

... first-born of all the sheep too. When a man's first son is born, he must make a big gift to the synagogue. Farmers have to give part of the wool at sheep-shearing; part of the wood at woodcutting; and the best of the fruit at harvest." He looked around and spat on the ground. "On top of that we pay for the schools and synagogues! Is it any wonder we have hardly ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith

... close of a June afternoon, Cyrus Treadwell sat alone on the back porch of his house in Bolingbroke Street. He was smoking, and, between the measured whiffs of his pipe, he leaned over the railing and spat into a bed of miniature sunflowers which grew along the stone ledge of the area. For thirty years these flowers had sprung up valiantly every spring in that bleak strip of earth, and for thirty years Cyrus had ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... face of Sextus Was seen among the foes, A yell that rent the firmament From all the town arose. On the house-tops was no woman But spat towards him, and hissed; No child but screamed out curses, And shook its ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... hanner; but I spat in his face and went home and told my uncle Tourlough, who forthwith took out a knife and began to sharp it on a whetstone, and I make no doubt would have gone and stuck the fellow like a pig, had not my poor ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... question was singular. The old man spat into the fire and put his hand to his beard. The boy crossed his legs suddenly and shoved his muscular fingers deep into his pockets. The figure shifted position on the bed and the infant at the foot of it seemed to clench his toy-dagger a little more tightly. Only the little ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... the hat on the head of a scarecrow whose construction had occupied his spare hours, and in which he felt some little pride. But after surveying the result a moment he seemed to feel that he had insulted a helpless object, for he took the hat off, spat into it, and kicked it into shapeless pulp. Then he came back to the house and grimly asked his wife if she had anything handy to take the poison out ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... sea staggered under her ponderous gliding and groaned about her massive bulk as she wended her awkward course toward the bay-shore over against the fort. She sighted her blunderbusses, and, rolling, grunting, wheezing in her revolving towers like a Falstaff ill at ease, spat her gobbets of flame and death. The poor little water-spaniel fort ran down to the shore and barked at her of course. Cui bono or malo? Why, like Job's mates, fill its poor belly with the east wind, or try to draw out leviathan with a hook, or his tongue with a cord thou lettest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... others too, suffered every kind of punishment. One kind of torture was to make us hold a board at arm's length and hold it out by the hour. They also had a practice of twisting our legs, while they spat on our faces. When ordered to undress, one person replied, 'I am not guilty of any offence. Why should I take off my ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... hatred which the long oppression had aroused, that the very women trod underfoot the slain jailer, and spat upon his corpse. In that city, where women rarely showed themselves in public, this outburst strongly indicated the general public rage against the overthrown despots. Messengers hastened to Attica to carry to the exiles the glad tidings, and ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... They were only ordinary mortals, and could not run downhill. And he showed me his great bare knee, and slapping it with pride, he said: "That is what takes you downhill, and no other nation has a knee like the Montenegrins. And as for the Bosnians—" then he spat! ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell

... to you, grunted Hrolfur as he straightened himself up and spat a stream of yellowish-brown liquid from his mouth. Hand me ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... the fig by the light of a lamp under which he halted. Then he smelt it with both nostrils, bit a tiny piece, spat it out and threw the fig ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... There was nobody there to speak to him; but, as he passed, the prisoners fell back to render him more visible to the people who were clinging to the bars: and they assailed him with opprobrious names, and screeched and hissed. He shook his fist, and would have spat upon them; but his conductors hurried him on, through a gloomy passage lighted by a few dim lamps, into ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... fleet had been moving steadily downstream for several hours, their passengers, in the majority of instances, sound asleep, lulled by the gentle motion and the far away "spat, spat, spat," of the industrious paddle wheel at ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... form, and could stand upon its feet; could go and gabble much like other children of the same age; it had never as yet taken any other nourishment but from the nurse's breasts, and what, in my presence, they tried to put into the mouth of it, it only chewed a little and spat it out again without swallowing; the cry of it seemed indeed a little odd and particular, and it was just fourteen months old. Under the breast it was joined to another child, but without a head, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... the front, bristling with waving horns, rode the brave men. Their revolvers spat out fire and the smoke almost obscured the oncoming steers. The men yelled until ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... was a very bad man; he was a brawler, a fighter, a drunkard. He is said to have spat in the parson's face, and to have struck him, and beaten the parish clerk who interfered. It was believed that he had sold himself to work evil, and many foul deeds he committed, and, what was worse, he gloried ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... man. When he was young he was slim, but he always has owned a pale blue, unwinking squint which he uses with effect. He halted where he was and squinted up at the man, and spat fluid tobacco and grinned. ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... his feet just as a shot rang out in the antechamber. Orrin dashed to the portal when a second shot spat forth from the automatic which must certainly be in the hands of a madman. The doors swung wide and Leland, hair disarranged and bloodshot eyes staring, burst into the room. Orrin went down at the next shot and the hardly recognizable scientist ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... For an instant he found himself held face to face with his turbaned brother. Into that pallid terror-stricken human mask the renegade's eyes stabbed like two daggers. Then deliberately and after the fashion of the Muslim he was become he spat upon it. ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... eagerly forward, knocking their shining pows together with a vehemence that shattered them like egg-shells. The wigs of the next pair were similarly affected; and in seeking to recover them the pair similarly perished. Then, crack! spat! pash!—at every step the lady took there were two heads that beat as one. In three minutes there was but a single living male in the room. He was an odd one, who, having a lady opposite him, had merely pitched himself headlong into her stomach, doubling ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... dear hands and feet. It is your sins that made them! Ah! How pale and worn he looks! He has gone through all that great agony in the garden, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death, and the great drops of sweat fell like blood to the ground. They spat upon him and buffeted him, they scourged him, they mocked him, they laid the heavy cross on his bruised shoulders. Then they nailed him up. Ah, what pain! His lips are parched with thirst, and they mock him still in this great agony; ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... men who had disappeared into the burning building. They had been swallowed up, as it were. For that is the way with the New York firemen. They go straight to the heart of the fire. Now and then a stream of a hose spat out of a window, showing that the men were still alive and working. About the ground floors the red-helmeted salvage corps were busy covering up what they could of the goods with rubber sheets to protect them from water. Doctors with black bags and white trousers were ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... he thought that young Petey might know, for young Petey had said: "If I had been Jean Myles I would have spat in Aaron's face rather than ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... Delawares broke faith, then the lash fell and the term "women" as applied to them carried a very different meaning when spat out by Canienga lips or ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... "He spat forth a drop of this water and it became the source of the River Nass. Another drop from his mouth became the Stikine River, and the third drop became the Taku River. Then followed the Chilkat, the Alsek, and finally, all the great rivers of ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... convulsed with the fury of his hate; he spat at Ryder as he spoke, and then, with the swiftness and the strength that had marked them in health, the outlaw's fingers fastened upon his hairy throat. The long, thin hands clamped themselves upon his neck, and for a moment Monkey Mack was ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... of Sextus Was seen among the foes, A yell that rent the firmament From all the town arose. On the house-tops was no woman 205 But spat towards him and hissed, No child but screamed out curses, ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... Then he took the cigarette from his lips, bared his teeth, and putting the tip of his tongue between his teeth spat off a grain of tobacco, turning slightly aside, like a man who is alone, or ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... the Pedler, and, having turned this intelligence over in his mind, spat thoughtfully into the shadow again. "You won't be wantin' ever a ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... could bear the atmosphere which this visitor had left; but though I did not advance within thirty yards of the spot at which he had first appeared, I was driven back by a vapour that wellnigh stifled me. Cospetto! I have spat ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Indians had sprung at him—his eight comrades were wrestling and reeling—with a twist and a jerk he had flung his captors sprawling—his comrades had done likewise with theirs and while muskets bellowed and rifles spat they ran headlong for the gates; got safely in, too, with only Squire Boone wounded; the gates creaked shut, the bar fell into place, the peace treaty had been broken almost as soon as made, and Fort Boonesborough was ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... carefully in a small covered market basket. She was entirely intent on this minute and rather pathetic task, quite unattending the greatness of the ship, or the many people the great hulk swallowed or spat forth. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... after a prolonged absence; that this papa was an old gentleman, very chatty and free with his money in the public-house - whereupon Mr. Naseby's face became encrimsoned; that the papa, furthermore, was said to be an admiral - whereupon Mr. Naseby spat out a whistle brief and fierce as an oath; that Master Dick seemed very friendly with the papa - 'God help him!' said Mr. Naseby; that last night Master Dick had not come in, and to- day he had driven away in the phaeton with the ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... we er got to offer, an' that little's mighty common, but, sech as 'tis, you er more'n welcome. Hit's diffunt wi' me when the mornin' air blows at me. Hit makes me wanter nibble at somepin'. I dunner whar you come from, an' I ain't makin' no inquirements, but down in these parts you can't spat a man harder betwixt the eyes than to set back an' ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... attitudes, spat tobacco with the same calm delight, and joked each other, breaking into short and sudden fits of laughter, and pounded each other on the back, just as when he was a student at the La Crosse Seminary and going to and fro ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... is high time you came," she said. She placed in Bertha's hand a large book, which, by the way, was her ticket. Frau Rupius, however, was not going to take the train; she sat down, ate cherries and spat out the stones at the stationmaster, who took a huge delight in the proceedings. Bertha entered the compartment. Thank God, Herr Klingemann was already there! He made a sign to her with his screwed-up eyes, and asked her if she knew whose funeral it was. She saw that a hearse was ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler

... recognise the tune; but recognise it she did, and it increased her anger yet more, if that were possible. She flung out both hands in a fury, as if she would herself have struck at Miles, then, thinking him not fit for her touch, she changed her mind, and spat full in his face. Oh, what a savage Thistle was that woman, and worse far than any Thistle in her behaviour! Loudly, too, she exclaimed, 'I scorn to fall down at thy words!' Her meaning in saying this ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... abominably. The ambulance men declared that he had tried to throw himself out of the back of the ambulance, that he had yelled and hurled himself about, and spat blood all over the floor and blankets—in short, he was very disagreeable. Upon the operating table, he was no more reasonable. He shouted and screamed and threw himself from side to side, and it took a dozen leather straps and four or five orderlies to hold him in position, so that the surgeon ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte

... and the smile on it almost degenerated into a simper. His Holiness had a cold; and his recitative, though full, was not smooth. He was all priest when, in the midst of the service, he hawked, held his handkerchief up before his face, a little way off, and ruthlessly spat in it! ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... Volpatte." And they mixed the two exploits together in a muddled way, that of the shell-hole, and the present, and looked on him as the hero of the moment, while he puffed, sniffled, grunted, spat, and tried to dry himself under the celestial shower-bath with rapid rubbing and as a measure of deception; then at last ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... His lips trembled. His eyes seemed to snap in a rapid fire between the eyes and mouth of the big man slouched down in the chair in front of him. "Wait a minute," he spat out. "Since you do know that somebody is ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... instantly spat it out into her hand, and with more energy than delicacy flung it ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade

... white colour, our dress and shape of body, our Damascenes, garments of black silk and robes of blue cloth or dyed wool, all amazed them; some insisted that the white colour of the strangers was not natural but put on"; as with Cook and so many others the savages now behaved with Cadamosto. They spat upon his arm and tried to rub off the white paint; then they wondered more than ever when they found the flesh itself ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... that flared up threw an orange-red light on his face, showing eyes which were lusterless. For a few moments he held the match in his hollowed palms, coaxing its blaze in the breeze. Before it had burned out there came a sharp report and Karyl heard the spat of flattening lead on the masonry at his back. The echo rattled along the rocky side of the hill. One of the sentry-boxes had answered his unasked question ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... bough crackled and sprang away at his touch; the Rose turned upon him, screaming and spouting fire; a noise like thunder filled all the air. Every rose in the garden turned and spat flame at where he stood. His face and his hands became blistered with ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman

... "Spat! Something hit Al, and he was the first wounded, but it was only a scratch, and he kept right ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... were distinguishable, growing larger by degrees. Boats, great and small, showed through the mist; greetings were shouted from vessel to vessel. The chatter around him grew louder. A little girl offered him some grapes for sale. Munching the purple berries, he spat the skins over the side after the manner of his countrymen. He entered into friendly talk with someone who expressed satisfaction that the weather seemed to ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler



Words linked to "Spat" :   Bivalvia, young, tiff, class Lamellibranchia, hit, gaiter, Lamellibranchia, applaud, acclaim, sanction, offspring, dustup, precipitate, motion, pettifoggery, run-in, class Bivalvia, scrap, bicker, squabble, dispute, collide with, spawn, class Pelecypoda, bickering, fuss, row, come down, wrangle, gesture, leg covering, argufy, legging, clap, bravo, run into



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