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Crook   /krʊk/   Listen
Crook

noun
1.
Someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime.  Synonyms: criminal, felon, malefactor, outlaw.
2.
A circular segment of a curve.  Synonyms: bend, turn, twist.  "A crook in the path"
3.
A long staff with one end being hook shaped.  Synonym: shepherd's crook.



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"Crook" Quotes from Famous Books



... the story of Linford Pratt, who earnestly desired to get on in life, by hook or by crook—with no objection whatever to crookedness, so long as it could be performed ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... her straight in the eyes. "Harrison's a crook. He's been using your love for Phil as a lever. It's up to you and the boy to shake ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine

... The silk hat was a veteran, the Prince Albert dated back about four seasons, but the gray gaiters were down to the minute. Being an easy talker, he might have been a book agent or a green goods distributor. But somehow his eyes didn't seem shifty enough for a crook, and no con. man would have lasted long wearing the kind of hair that he did. It was a sort of lemon yellow, and he had a lip decoration about two shades lighter, taggin' him as plain as an "inspected" ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... lived during those first ten years in England? Who should say? But he had had the wild daring to uproot himself from his childhood's home and adventure himself upon an unknown shore, and there, by hook or crook, for better or for worse, through vicissitudes innumerable and crises beyond calculation, ever on the perilous verge of nothingness, he had scraped through the days and the weeks and the years, fearlessly contributing perhaps ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... and I went, for the third or fourth time, to negotiate with vetturinos. . . . . So far as I know them they are a very tricky set of people, bent on getting as much as they can, by hook or by crook, out of the unfortunate individual who falls into their hands. They begin, as I have said, by asking about twice as much as they ought to receive; and anything between this exorbitant amount and the just price is what they thank heaven ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to give us the latest about Meldrum," explained Dave. "Seems he had warned our friend the crook to lay off you, son. When Dan showed up again at the park, he bumped into Miss Beulah and said some pleasant things to her. He hadn't noticed that Jeff was just round the corner of the schoolhouse fixing up some dingus as a platform for the last day's ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... And by this time it had come to be common knowledge in the community that the son's profligacy was almost certain to involve the Deacon in financial ruin. It was a fact much discussed in inner business circles at Dobbinsville that Mr. Gramps' farm was heavily mortgaged, and that unless some crook or turn unforeseen favored him he would soon face bankruptcy. He had been unable to pay the interest on the notes he had been obliged to obtain in order to keep his son from going ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison

... unfitness to deal with a girl who, herself, had never known the processes of lovers, but the belief that she was trying to restrain her true feelings toward me ran through my brain like an intoxicating liquor. I would have taken the breadth of her shoulders in the crook of my arm, and pressed my face into the rich mass of her hair, and kissed her upon her white forehead, had I not suddenly recalled that never had I even phrased to her a sentence ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... the pretty girls in the flower parade, the wise clubwomen, the cut-glass society crowd, the proud owner of the automobile, the "respectable parties concerned," the proprietor of the Golden Eagle, the clerks in the Bee Hive, the country crook who aspires to be a professional criminal some day, "the leading citizen," who spends much of his time seeing the sights of his country, the college boys who wear funny clothes and ribbons on their hats, and the politicians, greedy ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... upon the face of a smooth rock wall and unfastened below is at best not easy to climb. Lennon had to crook his right elbow through the rungs to get any use of his injured arm. But the riders racing swiftly across the head of the valley would soon be within short rifle range. Lennon's left hand was only a few rungs below Carmena's boot heels all the ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... of her voice, all at once she was very serious. "Perhaps," she said slowly, "your idea about the Volsky family is a good one. We'll try it out, dear! There was a MAN, once, Who said: 'Suffer the little children to come—'Why, Rose-Marie, what's the matter?" For Rose-Marie, her face hidden in the crook of her elbow, was crying like ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster

... his regiment thus reformed, was to attack and completely defeat a foraging party, capturing several wagons and seventy-five prisoners. He then performed, with great ability, a very important duty, that of harassing General Crook's command, which had been stationed opposite Carthage, on the south side of the Cumberland. Colonel Ward, avoiding close battle, annoyed and skirmished with this force so constantly, that it never did any damage, and finally recrossed the river. From ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... Kindly came in beauty's aid; Every grace that grief dispenses, 95 Every glance that warms the soul, In sweet succession charmed the senses, While pity harmonized the whole. 'The garland of beauty' — 'tis thus she would say — 99 'No more shall my crook or my temples adorn, I'll not wear a garland — Augusta's away, I'll not wear a garland until she return; But alas! that return I never shall see, The echoes of Thames shall my sorrows proclaim, 104 There promised a lover to come — but, O me! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... he touched it. And lo! he had found at last Endymion. He lay upon a grassy knoll. Long whispering tufts sighed around his head, which rested upon the very summit of the mountain. There were no trees, no rocks. There was nothing but the sleeping figure with the shepherd's crook by his side upon the mountain top, all lying bare to the sky and to the eyes that looked from the cloud, and from which all the moonlight ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... on such themes was as lively as Lady Mary Montagu had found it in the case of fair Circassians and Turkish harems just thirty years previously. [A cicisbeo was a dangler. Hence the word came to be applied punningly to the bow depending from a clouded cane or ornamental crook. In sixteenth-century Spain, home of the sedan and the caballero galante, the original term was bracciere. In Venice the form was cavaliere servente. For a good note on the subject, see Sismondi's Italian ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... equally in demand. Some cases require respectability and some dirty work. But the crooked lawyer has got to be so crooked that everybody is afraid of him, even the judge. Now, the trouble with me is that I'm too honest. Sometimes I wish I were a crook like ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... that box. It was the strongest box I have ever seen of the kind, made of iron reinforced with steel bands, with a combination lock that would baffle even your friend, Richards, Grace, who appeared to be a pretty sharp crook." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower

... butter-cups, cow's lips and crow's feet Were glittering in the sun. She threw down her book, and caught up her crook, And after her ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... desires—the study of Old and Middle High German—in the right frame of mind, I began again from the beginning with Greek antiquity, and was now filled with such overwhelming enthusiasm for this subject that, whenever I entered into conversation, and by hook or by crook had managed to get it round to this theme, I could only speak in terms of the strongest emotion. I occasionally met some one who seemed to listen to what I had to say; on the whole, however, people ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... boisterous weather. The calling of its inhabitant was proclaimed by a number of highly polished sheep-crooks without stems, that were hung ornamentally over the fireplace, the curl of each shining crook varying, from the antiquated type engraved in the patriarchal pictures of old family Bibles to the most approved fashion of the last local sheep fair. The room was lighted by half a dozen candles, having wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease which enveloped ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... appropriate language. It already claimed boldly the natural right of mankind to be governed according to the laws of reason and of divine justice. If a prince were a shepherd, it was at least lawful to deprive him of his crook when he butchered the flock which he ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... able to crawl out as far as the long corridor she spoke to every one she met. As she grew stronger she visited here and there, and on the slightest provocation she would give a scene ranging all the way from "Romeo and Juliet" to "The Black Crook." It was thus she first met Sid Hahn, and felt the warming, ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... to the bed. He was too exhausted to speak and did not look at her at all. After a while she put her hand on his forehead and stroked it. He did not draw away from her. Slowly his head turned towards her. He lay there in the crook of her arm, she bending forward ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... I'm goin' to give him rein and let him amuse himself for a while with your dinky little writs an' receiverships. But don't go too far—you can rob the Swedes, 'cause Swedes ain't entitled to have no money, an' some other crook would get it if you didn't, but don't play me an' Glenister fer Scandinavians. It's a mistake. We're white men, an' I'm apt to come romancin' up here with one of these an' bust you so you won't hold ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... and gossip about them as drawing rooms are. And because Miss Gussie Fink had always worn a little air of aloofness to all except Heiny, the kitchen was the more eager to make the most of its morsel. Each turned it over under his tongue—Tony, the Crook, whom Miss Fink had scorned; Francois, the entree cook, who often forgot he was married; Miss Sweeney, the bar-checker, who was jealous of Miss Fink's complexion. Miss Fink heard, and said nothing. She only knew ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... you think that I am a girl to let you treat me as you have treated me since we first saw each other, and then to come to you when you decide to crook your finger to me, giving you my love? Is that it? Is that why you are ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... authorizes and directs the Secretary of War, when Fort Crook, near the city of Omaha, is ready for occupancy, to lease for a nominal rent to the State of Nebraska the possession of Fort Omaha Military Reservation, containing about 80 acres, with all the buildings, appurtenances, and improvements thereof. It is declared that ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... without its Liszt-pupil, and in Leipzig several were settled, none of whom had ever heard of Martin Schrievers. They refused to admit him to their jealous clique. In their opinion, he belonged to that goodly class of persons, who, having by hook or by crook, contrived to spend an hour in the Abbe of Weimar's presence, afterwards abused the sacred narre of pupil. He was hated by these chosen few with more vigour than by the conservative pedagogues, who, naturally enough, saw the ruin of art ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... girl 'tends like she's mad, An' says folks got to walk the chalk When she's around, er wisht they had, I play out on our porch an' talk To th' Raggedy Man 'at mows our lawn; An' he says "Whew!" an' nen leans on His old crook-scythe, and blinks his eyes An' sniffs all around an' says,—"I swawn! Ef my old nose don't tell me lies, It 'pears like I smell custard-pies!" An' nen he'll say,— "'Clear out' o' my way! They's time fer work an' time fer play! Take yer dough, an' run, Child; run! ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley

... a magnificent garden, dark avenues, snug corners, a river, a mill, a boat, moonlight, nightingales, turkeys. In the pond and river there are very intelligent frogs. We often go for walks, during which I usually close my eyes and crook my right arm in the shape of a bread-ring, imagining that you are walking by ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... than give him her hand. He kissed it, and left her. The boat was pushed out. Urquhart took the helm, with Lancelot in the crook of his arm. He turned once ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... Keane's or Gerty's, it was much the same. Keane really meant it to be Sir Digby's and Gerty's, while he, Keane, should live and be honoured and respected there—his son-in-law a lord. Richards thought he must try by hook or by crook to prevent his partner from foreclosing, if only for the following reason: if Grantley Hall once passed into Keane's hands, much though Gerty and Jack loved each other, the latter, being a Mackenzie and a Scot, would ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... imperfectly concealed, peeped the close shirt of hair-cloth which the Prelate constantly wore under all his pompous attire. His mitre was placed beside him on an oaken table of the same workmanship with his throne, against which also rested his pastoral staff, representing a shepherd's crook of the simplest form, yet which had proved more powerful and fearful than lance or scimetar, when wielded by the hand of Thomas a Becket. A chaplain in a white surplice kneeled at a little distance before ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... parallel, but much broader stripes. This they do if the log is short and very perfect. Usually a variety of pleasing patterns is displayed on the boards, depending on the position of the saw cut and on the regularity of growth of the log (see Fig. 1). Where the cut passes through a prominence (bump or crook) of the log, irregular, concentric circlets and ovals are produced, and on almost all tangent boards ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner

... when she had en on, I took Her han' 'ithin my elbow's crook, An' off we went athirt the weir An' up the meaed toward the feaeir; The while her mother, at the geaete, Call'd out an' bid her not stay leaete, An' she, a-smilen wi' her bow O' blue, look'd roun' ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... laden with American produce. The Dutch and the Danish islands had always been kept open to American trade; and evidence is not wanting that the needs of British West India planters were stronger than their respect for orders in council. At all events, by hook or crook, American farm products and lumber found their way to British planters as well as to their French competitors. But something more than the resumption of the West India traffic was needed to restore ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... a brook, Bending like a shepherd's crook, Flashed its silver, and thick ranks Of willow fringed its mossy banks; Half in thought, and half in play, Katie Lee and ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... ditch, and drive them up a boarded incline into another corral where many other sheep huddled, now a dirty muddy color like the liquid into which they had been emersed. Souse! Splash! In went sheep after sheep. Occasionally one did not go under. And then a man would press it under with the crook and quickly lift its head. The work went on with precision and speed, in spite of the yells and trampling and baa-baas, and the incessant action that gave an ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... life, and would not be adopted by a jury of prudes. "When I was the Charming Josephine," continued she, "I had the love of half the gallants of Quebec, but not one offered his hand. What was I to do? 'Crook a finger, or love and linger,' as they say in ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... to talk about, for I searched every crook and cranny of my old brain for bits of any sort with which to interest her. The last turn in the path leading back to the house found us friendly and with a taste or ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... said, when it was evident that she was not going to continue, "has the reputation, among collectors, of being the biggest crook in the old-gun racket, a reputation he seems determined to live up—or down—to. But here; if your stepdaughters are co-owners, what's my status? What authority, if any, have I to do ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... and, on being assured that I was in fact the man, he handed me a letter from General Blair at Tuscumbia, and another short one, which was a telegraph-message from General Grant at Chattanooga, addressed to me through General George Crook, commanding at Huntsville, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... no question that Helen Yardely was happy. She radiated gladness as she made her way towards the lake carrying an express rifle in the crook of her arm. Except for the barking of squirrels, and the distant cry of waterfowl the land was very still, the silence that of an immense solitude. But it affected her not at all, she was not even conscious of loneliness, and she ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... "Surprising how these things spread of themselves, when they 're once fairly started. And everybody believes the yarn; bar Mooney, and Nelson, and myself; and you can depend your life on us to keep it jigging. No, I'm wrong; Montgomery's got the inside crook ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... out across the valley, a weird, rapt look in her face, her hair falling loose, a staff like a shepherd's crook in one hand, the other hand over her eyes as she slowly looked from point ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... rather liked you in your character of a young Irish crook; but I think also that she ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter

... a good deal about what the Romans did to get through the Mont Terrible, and how they negotiated this crook in the Doubs (for they certainly passed into Gaul through the gates of Porrentruy, and by that obvious valley below it). I decided that they probably came round eastward by Delemont. But for my part, I was on a straight path to Rome, and as that line lay just along the ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... were strangers; and there in that narrow, dirty room, sawdust on the floor, festoons of fly-specked red and blue tissue paper adorning the single swinging lamp, figures cut from bill-posters of the Black Crook pasted on the walls, there in the still hours after midnight, long after the barroom outside had been closed for the night, the last penny of Vandover's estate was ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... At forty-eight a crook—even so resourceful and versatile a member of the fraternity as The Hopper—begins to mistrust himself. For the greater part of his life, when not in durance vile, The Hopper had been in hiding, and the state or condition of being a fugitive, hunted by keen-eyed ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson

... salt-water. The thief was immediately suspected, and presently afterwards taken by the sailors. He was, indeed, no other than a huge shark, who, not knowing when he was well off, swallowed another piece of beef, together with a great iron crook on which it was hung, and by which he was dragged into the ship. I should scarce have mentioned the catching this shark, though so exactly conformable to the rules and practice of voyage-writing, had it not been for a strange circumstance that attended it. ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... did get, by hook or by crook; there was dire pinching to pay for it, and, too well knowing this, the child strove her utmost to use the opportunities offered her. Each morning going into Dunfield, taking with her some sandwiches ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... mystery and murder and all that. Beagle Ben, the detective, is a corker! That fellow can look a man over and tell what he had for dinner by the expression around the corners of his mouth. He sees through a crook as easily as you can look through a plate-glass window. And the mysteries in this story are enough to give a fellow the nightmare. I wonder why such mysterious things never ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish

... go back to the sweet mysterious places, The crook in the creek-bed nobody knew but me, Where the roots in the bank thrust out strange knotty faces, Scaring the squirrels who ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various

... sultan sent for one of his grooms, who is hump-backed, big-bellied, crook legged, and as ugly as a hobgoblin; and after having commanded the vizier to marry his daughter to this ghastly slave, he caused the contract to be made and signed by witnesses in his own presence. The preparations for this fantastical wedding are all ready, and this very moment all ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... "So here's our swell-headed crook of an engineer butting in again," he sneered. "You better be hunting up your own chicken, or Gretzinger will have her. Who y' say ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... portion of the Sierra Madre del Norte has from time immemorial been under the dominion of the wild Apache tribes whose hand was against every man, and every man against them. Not until General Crook, in 1883, reduced these dangerous nomads to submission did it become possible to make scientific investigations there; indeed, small bands of the "Men of the Woods" were still left, and my party had to be strong enough to cope with any ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... brave soldier, although the flavor of bushwhacking clung to his war record; he was a fast friend and a generous foe; what one hand got by hook or by crook—chiefly, it is to be feared, by crook—the other made haste ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... Tears, true as those which in the sleepy eyes Of weeping cherubs on the stone shall rise; Tears, true as those which, ere she found her grave, The noble Lady to our sorrows gave." Down by the church-way walk, and where the brook Winds round the chancel like a shepherd's crook; In that small house, with those green pales before, Where jasmine trails on either side the door; Where those dark shrubs, that now grow wild at will, Were clipped in form and tantalised with skill; Where cockles blanch'd and pebbles neatly ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe

... can't take a secretary down to the castle, for everybody knows that, now I've retired, I haven't got a secretary; and if I engaged a new one and he was caught trying to steal my scarab from the earl's collection, it would look suspicious. But a valet is different. Anyone can get fooled by a crook valet ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... but of another kind, 480 And he another way came by 't: Some call it GIFTS, and some NEW-LIGHT; A liberal art, that costs no pains Of study, industry, or brains. His wit was sent him for a token, 485 But in the carriage crack'd and broken. Like commendation nine-pence crook'd, With — To and from my love — it look'd. He ne'er consider'd it, as loth To look a gift-horse in the mouth; 490 And very wisely wou'd lay forth No more upon it than 'twas worth. But as he got it freely, so He spent it frank and freely too. For Saints ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... little excitement, and we all seek it, and get it by hook or by crook. The girl who satisfies that natural craving with what the canting dunces of the day call a "sensational" novel, and the girl who does it by waltzing till daybreak, are sisters; only one obtains the result intellectually, and the other obtains it like a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... act by the remonstrances of Colonel John Penruddock and others. From Salisbury, finding no encouragement among the citizens, the insurgents moved westward till they reached South Molton in Devonshire, where they were overtaken on the night of Wednesday, March 14, by Captain Unton Crook. There was a brief street-fight, ending in the defeat of the Royalists, and the capture of Penruddock and about fifty more. Wagstaff escaped. Of the contemporary insurgents in the north there had meanwhile escaped Malevrier and also Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... at Goerz there still remain several. There is a bishop's crozier of the end of the twelfth century, Romanesque in style, decorated with seven pieces of rock-crystal arranged diagonally, and with a knop of the same, set at a later date. The crook is set with precious stones, rubies, turquoises, aquamarine, and lapis lazuli. Within is the Lamb holding a cross; under it the whorl finishes with a dragon. A much older bishop's staff is of worm-eaten wood—set in metal at a later date to preserve it from destruction—said to have been ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... very plain little room in which Frank sat, and seemed designed, on purpose, to furnish no temptation to pilferers. There was a table, two chairs, a painted plaster statue of a gray-bearded man in black standing on a small bracket with a crook in his hand; a pious book, much thumb-marked, lay face downwards on the table beside the oil lamp. There was another door through which the monk had disappeared, and that was absolutely all. There was no carpet and no curtains, but a bright little coal fire burned on the hearth, and ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... The General was aware that in consulting Simon he might be entering on dark ways where no gentleman would follow him. Simon's help might mean a good deal. It might mean arrests rather too near Monsieur Urbain to be pleasant. On one thing the General was resolved; by hook or by crook, by fair means or foul, Helene de Sainfoy should become his wife. With her mother on his side, he suspected that any means would in the end be forgiven. He was never likely again to have such an opportunity of marrying into the old noblesse. Personally, Helene attracted him; ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... behind all lowering stealing, lo, a shape, Vague as the night, draped interminably, head, front and form, in scarlet folds, Whose face and eyes none may see, Out of its robes only this, the red robes lifted by the arm, One finger crook'd pointed high over the top, like the head of ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... there was a gorgeous doll, and a bell that was a whole curriculum in itself, as good as a year's schooling any day! Faith in Santa Claus is established in that Thompson Street alley for this generation at least; and Santa Claus, got by hook or by crook into an Eighth Ward alley, is as good as the whole Supreme Court bench, with the Court of Appeals thrown in, for backing the Board ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... the city; by day; on land; by night; in the country; by hook; across the ocean; by crook; over the lands; along the level ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... brothers. "We must get to Cliff Island in some way—by hook or by crook," added the girl, who had set her heart upon ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson

... America in general, were "very warm" to have the courts open and very bitter against Messrs. Hutchinson and Oliver whose "insolence and impudence and chicanery" in the matter were obvious, and whose secret motives might easily be inferred. Little wonder if these men, who had managed by hook or crook to get into their own hands or into the hands of their families nearly all the lucrative offices in the province, now sought to curry favor with ministers in order to maintain ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... bag wood is such wood as can be cut with a hook or crook, and bunched. In another nearly contemporary petition (Ibid. p. 306.), the same identical privilege is described by the townsmen as a right to lop and crop with a hook and crook, and to carry away on their backs, and "none other ways." This explains the former passage, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various

... with his hands on the crook of his umbrella, while his lower jaw moved as if he were trying to swallow something; but whether it was one of his favourite aniseed lozenges, or his indignation against myself, was more than I could tell. One thing, however, seemed certain: if he strove to hide his wrath, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... authority, or just a dummy made up to look like one? Do you mean to tell me you're afraid to stake me to enough money to make El Paso and return? What, for the Lord's sake, do I look like, anyway,—a crook?" ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... and girls, wear louder vests and put more cross-hatch effects on our neophytes than any three of them. We're so immeasurably ahead of everything with a Greek-letter name that every Freshman of taste and discrimination turns down everything else and waits until we crook our little finger at him. Of course, sometimes we make a mistake and ask some fellow that isn't a man of taste and discrimination; he proves it by going into some other frat; and that, of course, keeps all the men of poor judgment out of our gang and puts ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... ninety and ninety-one of the manuscript, Geronimo criticised General Crook. This criticism is simply Geronimo's private opinion of General Crook. We deem it a personal matter and leave it without comment, as it in no way concerns the history of ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo

... away, he did, point blank, and then he dropped his rifle and stuck up his hands and called me 'Kamerad'! Kamerad, the dirty crook! Didn't I ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... grandchildren, charming little girls. One day the youngest child was sent to drive the sparrows away from her grandfather's pease. While she was thus engaged the forest began to roar, and out from it came Verlioka, "of vast stature, one-eyed, crook-nosed, bristly-headed, with tangled beard and moustaches half an ell long, and with a wooden boot on his one foot, supporting himself on a crutch, and giving vent to a terrible laughter." And Verlioka caught sight ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... rolling on the floor of the hut, stretched its fat arms to the huge shadow in the doorway. Moti Guj knew well that it was the dearest thing on earth to Chihun. He swung out his trunk with a fascinating crook at the end, and the brown baby threw itself shouting upon it. Moti Guj made fast and pulled up till the brown baby was crowing in the air twelve feet ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... our feet and wrapped Leo in a magnificent, white robe, also richly worked with gold and purple; a somewhat similar robe but of less ornate design being given to me. Lastly, a silver sceptre was thrust into his hand and into mine a plain wand. This sceptre was shaped like a crook, and the sight of it gave me some clue to the nature of ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... rafter held up her deadly aegis, and the hearts of the suitors quailed. They fled to the other end of the court like a herd of cattle maddened by the gadfly in early summer when the days are at their longest. As eagle-beaked, crook-taloned vultures from the mountains swoop down on the smaller birds that cower in flocks upon the ground, and kill them, for they cannot either fight or fly, and lookers on enjoy the sport—even so did Ulysses and his men fall upon the suitors and smite ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... the victorious soldier a brigadier-general in the regular army. Taking up the pursuit of Early in the Shenandoah Valley, Sheridan found him on the 20th strongly posted on Fisher's Hill, just beyond Strasburg. Quietly moving Crook's command through the wood, he turned the enemy's left on the 22d, and drove him from ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... leave me have it!" And Penrod, victorious and flushed, stepped back, the weapon in his grasp. "Here," he said, "this is the way I do: You be a crook; and suppose you got a ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... she may belong to one that will admit her at a certain age. In many there is a presiding lady, the Domina or Abbess; and when the present Emperor visited a well-known Stift lately he gave the Abbess a shepherd's crook with which to rule her flock. Some are just sets of rooms with certain privileges of light and firing attached. Their constitution varies greatly, according to the class provided for and the means available. But you cannot be much amongst Germans without ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... the points of the celestial compass mixed. Don't you forget, that it is part of the unspoken marriage contract, that the wife must not only keep her own soul white, but bleach her husband's also; and no matter what a reprobate a man may be, he always expects his better-half, by hook or by crook, to steer him ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... those villagers think a wolf has come to eat the sheep. Then perhaps they'll come down here, and I'll have a little company and some excitement." Then he jumped around frantically, waving his yardstick-shepherd's crook, and shouted ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... schooner right enough; and I'll make it my private business to see that we get paid. What were W. and W. to get? That's more'n I can tell. But W. and W. went into this business themselves, they were on the crook. Now WE'RE on the square, we only stumbled into it; and that merchant has just got to squeal, and I'm the man to see that he squeals good. No, sir! there's some stuffing to this ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... the open sea, as I could feel by the labor of the schooner underfoot. So I took the rifle in the crook of my arm, and with the little brown girl at my heel, I went up on deck. And we ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams

... agent had, by some hook or crook, procured one of these and sent it to London, but owing to the lateness of the season it was decided to leave it there in the Zoological Gardens and get up a controversy which, in itself, would be a good advertisement for it. The average Englishman is very fond of writing to the Times to expose ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe

... carriage whose horses have bolted, makes them valuable friends, leading to an appointment as managers, or overseers, of a cattle and sheep station somewhere out beyond the Blue Mountains. The previous manager had let the place get run down, and was actually rather a crook. Some of the other workers on the station were as idle and crooked as he. Not surprising as most of them had been sent to Australia for some offence in England. A few of the men were decent enough. There ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston

... went away discomfited and pondering. An hour later the Captain Montalvo called, and strange to say proved more fortunate. By hook or by crook he obtained the address of the ladies, who were visiting, it appeared, at a seaside village within the limits of a ride. By a curious coincidence that very afternoon Montalvo, also seeking rest and change of air, appeared at the inn of this village, giving it out that ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... usually in pairs, and when several were arranged on a mantelpiece they presented a bright array. The one illustrated in Fig. 54 is of the type much favoured in country districts. It represents a shepherd with his crook, the companion brass being a shepherdess. On the sea-coast fishermen were much fancied, and in mining districts the miner with his pick and other industrial models were extensively sold. These were varied with birds and animals and miniature replicas of household furniture. The ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess

... an instant felt her fondle them down the crook of the airshaft out of sight, and then heard her withdraw her little hand and kiss it fondly. Then again she kissed her own fingers and stretched them up, and I took up the virtue of that parting kiss on my finger-tips and pressed it sacredly ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... the first fruits of success were offered to her lips—bowl after bowl. It did not matter that her splendid salary had not begun. The world seemed satisfied with the promise. She began to get letters and cards. A Mr. Withers—whom she did not know from Adam—having learned by some hook or crook where she ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... eye, as the saying goes, could scarcely pass among this travail of the new year without some pleasure in the spectacle, though the rain might drench him to the skin. He could not but joy in the thrusting crook of the fern and bracken; what sort of heart was his if it did not lift and swell to see the new fresh green blown upon the grey parks, to see the hedges burst, the young firs of the Blaranbui prick up among the slower elder pines ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... friends in the convent, and could leave it themselves to reenter the secular life, and to marry if they pleased. Such a chapter was that of Remiremont in Lorraine, whose abbess was a princess of the Holy Roman Empire, by virtue of her office. Her crook was of gold. Six horses were harnessed to her carriage. Her dominion extended over two hundred villages, whose inhabitants paid her both feudal dues and ecclesiastical tithes. Nor were her duties onerous. She ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... till then, ghastly killings of men who crawled among the horses' feet and were hunted out to be slaughtered. And in the middle of it, the Prince was on his knees, holding up a brown head in the crook of his arm, seeing nothing of the butchery at ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... little gnomes scrambled down from the trunk of the fallen tree and went up to where the little boy had thrown himself upon the ground. They stood about him and watched him, for he had put his face in the crook of ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle

... Sullivan's house. Which he may be a fool, but he sure ain't a plumb fool. But, speakin' personal, this trail looks more and more interestin' to me. Here he's left Buck's hoss, so he ain't exactly a hoss thief—yet. And he's promised to pay for the pinto, so that don't make him a crook. But when the pinto gives out, Andy'll be in country where he mostly ain't known. He can't take things on trust, and he'll mostly take 'em, anyway. Boys, looks to me like we was after the real ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... the purling brook, No friend to lonely places; Or, if he toy with Strephon's crook, His Chloes are ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... played a voluntary, introducing airs from "1492" and "The Black Crook"—which, of course, were not recognized by the congregation—the choir arose for its ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... I have on, I suppose," is the answer, half humorous, half wistful, as the interrogated party, the younger of two officers, glances down at his well-worn regimentals. "That's one reason I'm praying we may be sent to reinforce Crook up in the Sioux country. No need of new duds when you're scouting for old 'Gray Fox,' ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... the chimbley crook-necks hung, An' in amongst 'em rusted The old queen's-arm that Gran'ther Young Fetched back ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... crook a precedent had to be found: the Prussian Consistory proved amenable, and authorized the marriage. The marriage was celebrated in July, 1787, in the Chapel Royal of Charlottenburg. Mademoiselle de Voss took the title of Countess of Ingenheim. Her happiness was short-lived. She died in the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... Winnipeg and Montreal and Toronto where the very streets reek of Bowery smells. When they go to the woods or the land, these people have not the stamina to stand up to hard work. Yet in the cities, by hook or crook, by push-cart and trade, they acquire wealth. On the charity organization of the cities they impose terrible burdens ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... is quaintly called "Gentle Annie" by the fisher folks, who repeat the saying: "When Gentle Annie is skyawlan (yelling) roond the heel of Ness (a promontory) wi' a white feather on her hat (the foam of big billows) they (the spirits) will be harrying (robbing) the crook"—that is, the pot which hangs from the crook is empty during the spring storms, which prevent fishermen going to sea. In England the wind hag is Black Annis, who dwells in a Leicestershire hill cave. She may be identical with the Irish hag Anu, associated with the "Paps ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... creeks and ditches to overflowing. I hesitated then no longer, but heading for the ditch through the marshes on a high tide, before a brave west wind took the chances of getting through by hook or by crook or by shovel and ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum



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