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Crowing   /krˈoʊɪŋ/   Listen
Crowing

noun
1.
An instance of boastful talk.  Synonyms: brag, bragging, crow, gasconade, line-shooting, vaporing.  "Whenever he won we were exposed to his gasconade"






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"Crowing" Quotes from Famous Books



... on the anvil lent cheer to the otherwise harsh and unlovely mood that had fallen upon Nature over night. It sang a song of defiance that even the mournful chant of sheep on the distant slopes failed to subdue. The crowing of a belated and no doubt mortified rooster, the barking of faraway dogs, the sighing of journeying winds, the lugubrious whistle of Mr. Clarence Dillingford, —all of these added something to the ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... something that will raise you quicker than yeast," he said, beating a hasty retreat, while the indignant young lady verified his words by leaping half-way across the floor, her angry tones mingling with Willie's crowing laugh, as the child took the whole for fun, meant expressly for ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... interesting to rear a few pheasants annually. There is no bird which gives more delight, even if fairly tame; their beautiful colouring and cheerful crowing are always pleasant in the garden and woods around your house. If you feed them every day, they will come regularly up to the very door; and with them come the swans, waddling up from the water, looking very ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... Autumn, with all the country veiled in softest haze. It was very early morning, and few people were upon the road, although since the first light of dawn men had been working in field and forest. From a farmhouse off the road came the crowing of a cock and the creak of a cumbrous handmill hidden in a thick copse near by. Nicanor, sitting by the roadside where he had slept, ate the food remaining overnight in his wallet, and rolled his sheepskin cloak into a bundle for his shoulders. ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... into contact with the inspired air, this substance grows thick and tough, or leathery, as we find it. It is the obstruction in the respiratory canal which this foreign matter causes that gives rise to the labored breathing, and the ringing, brassy cough, together with the crowing or whistling inspiration characteristic of croup. Before recovery can take place this membrane must be detached and expelled. The cough is nature's effort to accomplish ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... the old lady, glancing about her, "I was sitting in this very room only a few days after, and the air began to grow dark and heavy, and all became still. There had been two or three cocks crowing and answering one another down by the river, and others at a distance; and they all ceased: and there had been birds chirping in the roof, and they ceased. And it grew so dark that I laid down my needle and went to the window, and there at the end ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... men have watched playing at the water's edge, crowing and chuckling in the universal language of their kind, staggering groggily along the shelving beach with outspread arms balancing their uncertain steps. On such nights when M'sa beckons the dead world to the source of all rivers, the middle islands are crowded with babies—the dead babies of a ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace

... fix that boat of Sheldon's so that he couldn't run it. He'll be crowing over me all the time, and that is something I won't stand. It'll be an easy thing to get at ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh

... as the London "Times," having nothing higher than avaricious commerce and national pride to consult, in a conspicuous centre of affairs has thus become the great weathercock of the world, splendidly gilded, lifted very high in the air, but, like some other stupid chanticleers, crowing at false signals of the dawn, and well called the "Times," as in its columns nothing eternal was ever evinced. Everywhere exist these agents of custom and convention, wielded by a power behind them, and holding long no one direction, but varying in every wind. Some breeze of general policy, however, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... picturesque: game abounds. Early in the morning and in the evening you may often see the pheasants feeding close to the roadside, and, in the middle of the day, the sudden sharp noise of a detonating ball will set them crowing in ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... wonderful it all was! wee Shane felt: Raghery and the waters of Moyle; Portrush and the Giant's Causeway; the nine glens with the purple heather, and the streams that sang as they cantered to the sea; the crowing grouse and the whinnying curlew, and the eagles barking on the cliffs; the trout that rose in the summer's evening, and the red berries of the rowan; the cold, clear lakes, and the braes where the blueberries grow. He could well understand the stories ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... baby, some blamed the clock; Some blamed the doctor, some the crowing cock. With all these close questions sure no one could know, Whether the babe was too fast or ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... on it. You know as well as I do. And it was loose, the di'mond-stone was loose. We didn't either of us know that. We're not to blame if things are loose, and you're not to blame for not having any soul. But oh, oh, dear, how dreadfully it makes us both feel! You'd better give up crowing, Thomas Jefferson; I feel just as if you'd let it out ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... on; pastry, ramequins, and honey-cakes. In the aquatic line, much of the cartilaginous, of the testaceous much; many a salt slice, basket-hawked, eels of Copae, fowls of the barn-door, a cock past crowing-days, and fish to keep him company; add to these a sheep roast whole, and ox's rump of toothless eld. The loaves were firsts, no common stuff, and therewithal remainders from the new moon; vegetables both radical ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... window-frames, the cupboards and the shelves for the crockery, were all of dark oak, fashioned into leaves and ferns, with birds on their nests, and timid rabbits, and still more timid wood-mice peeping out of their coverts, cocks crowing with uplifted crest, and chickens nestling under the hen-mother's wings, sheaves of corn, and tall, club-headed bulrushes—all the objects familiar to a country life. The dancing light played upon them, and shone also upon Roland Sefton's sad and weary face. Phebe ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... the Dyer, "hearken anon unto my riddle. Since I was awakened at dawn by the crowing of cocks—for which din may our host never thrive—I have sought an answer thereto, but by St. Bernard I have found it not. There be sixty-and-four flowers-de-luce, and the riddle is to show how I may remove six of these so that there may yet be an ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... had sung those words in that room, and his dead darlings clustered eagerly around the piano to listen to their mother's music. Five fair-browed, innocent young faces circling about the idolized wife, and baby Annie nestling in her cradle beside the hearth, playing with her waxen fingers and crowing softly. Death had stolen his household jewels; but recollection robbed the grave, and music's magic touch unsealed ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... good news back, For other couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing.— And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, Warmed with the new wine of the year, Tells all in his lusty crowing! ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... spoke, from high overhead came the deep resonant boom of a village drum. But the beat was slow, there was no panic in the sound. They were directly beneath the village, and they could hear the crowing of roosters, two women's voices raised in brief dispute, and, once, the crying of a child. The run-way now became a deeply worn path, rising so steeply that several times the party paused for breath. The path never widened, and in places the feet ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... came, the father, daughter, son Walked to the church across their own loved fields. It was an ugly church, with scarce a sign Of what makes English churches venerable. Likest a crowing cock upon a heap It stood—but let us say—St. Peter's cock, Lacking not many a holy, rousing charm For one with whose known self it was coeval, Dawning with it from darkness of the unseen! And its low mounds of monumental grass Were far more ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... went to an inn on the borders of the forest, an old house with nine gables, deep moss on the roof, and a creaking signboard with a crowing bird painted on it; and the inn was called ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl

... window, where she stood for a while in the cold starlight, letting the wind blow in across her feverish face. She wrapped blankets around her, and sat listening to the sounds of the sleeping country; an owl mournfully hooting, a premature cock crowing lustily, the drowsy whickering of horses stirring in their stalls; for it was two o'clock, and the countryside was beginning to dream of day. She stayed for a long while brooding over the land she loved, as over a sleeping child. Always the ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... to "draw out" Mrs. O'Dowd as that wicked Osborne delighted in doing (much to Amelia's terror, who implored him to spare her), fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he reached a safe distance, when he exploded amongst the astonished market-people with shrieks of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Soon Steve, crowing joyously, was drawn completely out of the water. He gave this a last suggestive kick and then dangled there in midair, ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie

... the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awakened the crowing cock; Tu—whit!——Tu—whoo! And hark, again! the crowing cock, How drowsily it crew. 5 Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff bitch; From her kennel beneath the rock She maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; 10 Ever ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... impossibilities? Were they not, through the paralysis of his executive faculties, mere startling likenesses of Disappointment? In his opium dreams he had seen his own ships on the sea; commerce bustling in his warehouse; money overflowing in his bank; babies crowing on his knee; a wife nestling at his breast; a basso voice of tremendous natural power and depth scientifically cultivated to its utmost power of pleasing artists or friends; a country estate on the Hudson, or at Newport, with ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... straight to Mr. Chanticleer as he stood talking loudly to a large circle of friends and neighbours,—old Mr. Drake, young Mr. Gosling, Mr. Peacock, Mr. Pidgeon, Mr. Swann, and several others,—and forthwith arrested him. Poor Mr. Chanticleer! how crest-fallen he looked! All his crowing was stopped in a moment. He walked by the policeman's side in silence, and looked as much like a culprit as any thief that was ever found with the ...
— Comical People • Unknown

... impulsive, talented, but uneducated man; my mother was a conscientious, self-sacrificing, intelligent, but uneducated woman. Both were devotedly religious, and both believed implicitly that self-abnegation was the crowing glory of womanhood. Before I was seventeen I was employed as a district school teacher, received a first-class certificate and taught with success, though how I became possessed of the necessary qualifications I to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... of night, if I about shall go For to deny my Master, do thou crow! Thou stop'st Saint Peter in the midst of sin; Stay me, by crowing, ere I do begin; Better it is, premonish'd, for to shun A sin, than fall to ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... the morning we frequently heard the francolins crowing in the trees or on the top of a hill and when a cock had taken possession of such a spot the intrusion of another was almost sure to cause trouble which only ended when one of them had ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... word is said about a cackling rooster! Worse still, a crowing hen is so rare a thing that its very existence is problematical. I never heard of one out of that couplet. I have made diligent inquiry, but I have not been able to find any person who had heard, or who had ever seen or heard of any one who had heard, a crowing hen. But these very hands have fed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, 'tis not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he'll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he's almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]

... all animal and vegetable life that ages of study could not bring me up to." I was thinking all this behind my daughter's umbrella, while a lark, whose body had melted quite away in the heavenly spaces, was scattering bright beads of ringing melody straight down upon our heads; while a cock was crowing like a clarion from the home-farm, as if in defiance of the golden glitter of his silent brother on the roof of the stable; while a little stream that scampered down the same slope as the lawn lay upon, from a well in the ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... the linen and came downstairs rather quickly. Harkness returned to his window; she came up beside him. The inner window was open, only one pane was between them and the outer air. In yards all round cocks were crowing, as, on a mild day in the Canadian March, cocks will crow continually. Light snow of the last downfall lay on the opposite roofs, and made the hills just seen behind them very white. The whole winter's piles of snow lay in the ridges between the footpaths and the road. Had it not been that ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... punctilious lord, and has calculated to the very day and hour when I may again reach the imperial palace. For our interview here he allowed me one hour; and, lo! the cock of your great wall clock had just stepped out and crowed eleven as I entered your room, and is already here, crowing twelve as loud as he can. It is therefore time for me to depart. I have briefly made you acquainted with the Emperor's intentions and desires, and your wise and fertile brain will know how to enlarge and ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... the man who has not said At evening, when he went to bed, "I'll waken with the crowing cock, And get to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... The cocks crew the turn of the night outside, and when we had sung the hymn through, some of the men began again, and we had sung it a second time when I heard George call me. I knew that he, too, was dying, and would probably not hear the next crowing of the cock. I must go to him! how could I leave this head unsupported? Oh, death where is thy sting? I think it was with me that night; but I went to George, and when the sun arose it looked upon two corpses, the remains of two who had gone from my arms in one night, full ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... Conway, much to his satisfaction. He could not forego the opportunity of crowing over Calhoun, thinking he would be vexed over the ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... knows what; and he has the mind of ... well, an early nineteenth-century mill-owner! John Marsh spends a deal of time in vilifying the English as a mean-minded people, but my God, he has only got to look round the corner in Dublin, to see mean-minded men by the hundred. He wrote to me the other day, crowing because his Volunteers had prevented the application of conscription to Ireland, and that's a frame of mind I don't understand. He's an idealist, but all his ideals are being employed to enable mean-minded and greedy men like the farmers to go on being more mean-minded and ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... the comfortable bed, which my obese Gulnare had provided for me, until the numerous cocks of the establishment woke me shortly after daybreak with their crowing. Remembering that I had to secure Marcos in the stocks before the irascible little magistrate should appear on the scene, I rose and hastily dressed myself. I found the greasy man of the brass buttons already in the kitchen sipping his ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... show like a silver streak, and a rooster is crowing. Oh, Uncle Rod, if you were only here. Write and tell me that you ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... to exist—that's what he has done," retorted Sir Patrick. "Don't stare! I am speaking generally. Your friend is the model young Briton of the present time. I don't like the model young Briton. I don't see the sense of crowing over him as a superb national production, because he is big and strong, and drinks beer with impunity, and takes a cold shower bath all the year round. There is far too much glorification in England, just now, of the mere physical qualities which an Englishman ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... the long Winter out; Often our midnight shout Set the cocks crowing, As we the Berserk's tale Measured in cups of ale, Draining the oaken pail, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... always said "Amen," I punched Bobby and whispered, "Crow, Bobby, crow!" and he stood up and brought it out strong, like he always did when I told him. I had to stop the service to feed him a little wheat, to pay him for crowing; but as no one was there except us, that didn't matter. Then Hezekiah crowded over for some, so I had to pretend I was Mrs. Daniels feeding her children caraway cake, like she always did in meeting. If I had been the mother of children who couldn't have gone without things to eat in church I'd ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... milk; I got my sweet things snugger, When I kissed Jeannette, 'Twas understood for sugar. If I wanted bread. My jaws I set a-going, And asked for new-laid eggs By clapping hands and crowing. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various

... each serving as the impregnable support of its superior, and all filled and quickened with the life of God, and lighted up with those divine illuminations in whose illustrious morning the first and faintest cock-crowing would scare the ghosts of the Kantian philosophy out ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Their austerities, their virginity, and their miraculous powers were described in detail. The public learned with astonishment that St Ninian had turned a staff into a tree; that St. German had stopped a cock from crowing, and that a child had been raised from the dead to convert St. Helier. The series has subsequently been continued by a more modern writer whose relation of the history of the blessed St. Mael contains, perhaps, even more matter for ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... and restless. No one but herself had ever tended him before—was it really safe to trust this stranger? At least, she would watch; and quietly she stole to the door which separated her own apartment from that which had been given to Ceres. The stranger sat before the hearth, with the crowing, happy baby on her knee. Gently she drew off his clothing, gently she anointed him with some liquid, the delicious perfume of which reached Metanira. Then, murmuring some sounding, rhythmic words, she leaned forward and placed him ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the dawn be not crowing, Rolls on her oven and weeps, Sees all her past rising up to confront her— O'er her soul ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

... chopping aimlessly into a new pine log, and a black urchin gathering chips into a big split basket. At a little distance the Hopeville stage was drawn out under the trees, the empty shafts lying upon the ground, and on the box a red and black rooster stood crowing. Overhead there was a dull gray sky, and the scene, in all its ugliness, showed stripped of the redeeming ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... rooster at its highest point lording it over all. In fact, every spot on the main deck not otherwise occupied was simply filled with roosters, all challenging one another night and day by indefatigable crowing. As illustrating the difficulties of navigation in these parts, our steamer was two hours getting out of the river and across the bar, a matter of not more than a mile. Once out, she began to roll and ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... upon which the cock, perched on his roost, crowed aloud. All Michael's sickness could not prevent him considering very inquisitively the landlady's cantrips, and particularly the influence of the sauce upon the crowing of the cock. Nor could he dissipate some inward desires he felt to follow her example. At the same time, he suspected that Satan had a hand in the pie, yet he thought he would like very much to be at the bottom of the concern; and thus his reason and his ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... by means of snares (Fig. 16). A tame rooster is fastened in the jungle and around him is placed a snare, consisting of running knots attached to a central band. The crowing of this fowl soon attracts the wild birds which, coming in to fight, are almost sure to become entangled in one of the nooses. Slip loops, attached to a bent twig and released by disturbing the bait, are also employed in the ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... the time when his story begins he had never been taught anything. His name was John Britt, but everybody called him Jack; not that it mattered to him what, he was called, for he had never heard his own name, nor the shouts of the boys with whom he played, nor the crowing of the cocks, as they flapped their wings in his mother's yard; all the world was dumb and ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... dagger, or sword only—stripped to the girdle or armed to the teeth. By our Saint Trinidad! I will have satisfaction for the contumelious affront he hath put upon the very learned gymnasium to which I belong; and it would gladden me to clip the wings of this loud-crowing cock, or any of his dunghill crew," added he, with a scornful ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... savagely at the priest's wife and at the parish-school girl, and cried out in a shrill, somewhat hoarse voice, which resembled the crowing of a cock: ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub

... possibility that Deweese might still be in camp at the new reservoir, and I was hopeful that my employer might not yet be returned from the hunt on the Frio. After a number of hours' riding, the horse under saddle nickered. Halting him, I listened and heard the roosters crowing in a chorus at the ranch. Clouds had obscured the moon, and so by making a detour around the home buildings I was able to reach the Mexican quarters unobserved. I rode up to the house of Enrique, and quietly aroused him; told him my misfortune and asked him to hide me until he could get up my ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... Because the crowing of a cock once prevented our Saxon ancestors from massacreing their conquerors, another part of our ancestors, the Danes, on the morning of a Shrove Tuesday, while asleep ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 470 - Volume XVII, No. 470, Saturday, January 8, 1831 • Various

... to come in and introduce me; but that might look too much like crowing over poor Tom Bowles. So good-night to you, Jessie, and ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... it now, Maggie, but I do like it. All the lady-swells buzzed about me, and there Nance stood preening herself and crowing softly till—till from among the bunch of millinery one of them stepped up to me. She had a big smooth face with plenty of chins. Her hair was white and her nose was curved and she ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... that it were not well that all within the house should be sleeping. We know not when the Lord may appear—at midnight, at cock crowing, or in the morning; and methinks whenever He may come, He would gladly find one soul holding vigil and waiting for His appearing. Lock the door of the chantry upon me, my father. Thou canst see that there is but the one door by ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... "and I really am a little low about to-morrow. The best race of the day is a quarter-mile race for the 'All Army Cup.' There is a horribly conceited young Engineer of the name of Montague who already regards it as his own property; and saddest of all remains the fact that, notwithstanding his crowing, he can run above a bit; we have nobody in the camp with ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart

... party fell out with one another, and one, named Alt, led off the discontented and built a fortress, the remains of which may be traced at the highest point above the Adersbach labyrinth. One day the crowing of a cock betrayed where Nislaf had his abode, and troops were sent from Prague to clear the country. Most of the bandits ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... that put a dagger through Brian's heart, and he attending to his prayers. What the Danes left in Ireland were hens and weasels. And when the cock crows in the morning the country people will always say 'It is for Denmark they are crowing. Crowing they are to be ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory

... our having just engaged a cook. I'm going to smuggle her into the house without Amy's knowing it; I wouldn't have her know it for the world. She prides herself on keeping that impudent, spoiled thing of hers, with her two soups; and she would simply never stop crowing if she knew I'd had to change cooks in the middle of ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells

... Konigswart, AND likewise by Topl, Sandau, Treunitz (that is, into Eger from two sides).] Resting-places in this grim wilderness of his: poor snow-clad Hamlets,—with their little hood of human smoke rising through the snow; silent all of them, except for the sound of here and there a flail, or crowing cock;—but have been awakened from their torpor by this transit of Belleisle. Happily the bogs themselves are iron; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... crowing, pretty bird! Now flutter thy wings again:" With that they laid him a ghastly corpse, And the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... and may be seen there to this very day. Before they had left the castle, however, they had set what was left of the elixir of life out in the courtyard. Hens and hounds picked and licked it up, and all flew up into the skies. In Huai Nan to this very day the crowing of cocks and the barking of hounds may be heard up in the skies, and it is said that these are the creatures who followed the ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... explain that it is yet too early for the gates to open. Meantime let them sing and dance to while away the time. One of them sings therefore. After the song they fall into an 'antick dance full of gesture and swift motion' and thus continue till the crowing of a cock gives the signal for the whole palace to open. It is like a transformation scene at a pantomime. There is the palace with all its occupants—the 'whole nation of Fays' or Fairies. Some are playing instruments of music; some are singing: some are bearing lights: at the back of the ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... leaving his house to go abroad, and giving authority to his servants, and to each one his work, commanded the porter to watch, [13:35] watch, therefore, for you know not when the master of the house comes; at evening, at midnight, at the cock crowing, or in the morning; [13:36]lest, coming suddenly, he should find you sleeping. [13:37]And what I say to you, I say ...
— The New Testament • Various

... the picture and discovers Bryan) Ha! Ha! I see, 'tis he who wrecked our choice. This Commoner hath but a shallow mind Which like a windmill moves a lively tongue. (Seldonskip moves off, replacing the picture close to his breast, muttering) My fighting cock, you're crowing mighty loud, But Bryan holds old Wilson in his hand. (Francos and Quezox walk the deck) Quezox: Most noble sire, I marvel at the speech Which from the mouth of Seldonskip doth flow; For highest office, he no rev'rence feels And "slang" were but fit outflow of his mind. Francos: ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... was twelve by the village-clock, When he crossed the bridge into Medford town, He heard the crowing of the cock, And the barking of the farmer's dog, And felt the damp of the river-fog, That rises ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... a trip every spring to the Rocky Mountains. The second day, at noon, after a toilsome ascent of a few thousand feet, we arrived at a small clearing on the top of the mountains, where the barking of the dogs and the crowing of the fowls announced the vicinity of a habitation, and, ere many minutes had elapsed, we heard the sharp ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... blood, would you think I could do too much for the poor thing?" And she glanced compassionately at the poor wasted form which lay upon her lap, gasping for breath, and presenting a striking contrast to little Maggie, who in her cradle was crowing and laughing in childish glee at the bright firelight which ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... in the midst of fire and disaster. Brought low, it was still alert above the wreckage. The child, the dreamer, the optimist, the egoist, and the man alive in Jean Jacques sprang into vigour again. It was as though the Cock of Beaugard had really summoned him to action, and the crowing had not been that of a barnyard bantam not a hundred feet away from him. Jean Jacques' ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... should think, did the leafage on my walls blaze in such royal crimson. It was no day for wandering; under a canopy of blue or gold, where the eye could fall on nothing that was not beautiful, enough to be at one with Nature in dreamy rest. From stubble fields sounded the long caw of rooks; a sleepy crowing ever and anon told of the neighbour farm; my doves cooed above their cot. Was it for five minutes, or was it for an hour, that I watched the yellow butterfly wafted as by an insensible tremor of the air amid the garden ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... sounded like a clarion peal from a trumpet. The deck-hands rushed for a box of poultry on the deck, and dragged out bird after bird, wringing their necks. The true offender was almost the last to be caught, and avenged the deaths of his brothers by crowing vigorously all the time. The noise was enough to alarm the blockaders; and in a moment the hail, "Surrender, or we'll blow you out of water!" brought the unlucky runner to a standstill,—a prisoner. The "Southern Cross" narrowly escaped capture on account ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... execution and effect, that the mortified songsters confess his triumph by their silence. His fondness for variety, some suppose to injure his song. His imitations of the brown thrush is often interrupted by the crowing of cocks; and his exquisite warblings after the blue bird, are mingled with the screaming of swallows, or the cackling of hens. During moonlight, both in the wild and tame state, he sings the whole ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various

... a pale streak of light fell across the window, but it was so feeble that it did not lighten the room. Outside the cocks were crowing. Day was breaking. ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... crawled. His father got up; he heard him pottering about. Then the miner set off to the pit, his heavy boots scraping the yard. Cocks were still crowing. A cart went down the road. His mother got up. She knocked the fire. Presently she called him softly. He answered as if he were asleep. This ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... preparing their supper, one of them caught up the Cock, and was about to wring his neck, when he cried out for mercy and said, "Pray do not kill me: you will find me a most useful bird, for I rouse honest men to their work in the morning by my crowing." But the Thief replied with some heat, "Yes, I know you do, making it still harder for us to get a livelihood. Into the pot ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... like very chanticleer, until, taking a magnifying glass, I assiduously observed him. He is about the bigness of a mite, and carries a grey crest, and the head low, bowed over the bosom; as to his crowing noise, it comes of his clashing his wings against each other with an incessant din." Thus far Mentzelius, and more to the same purpose, as may be read in the "Memoirs of famous Foreign Academies" (Dijon, ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... its ancestors sniffed the wind on the steppes of Tartary. Meek cows are standing to be milked: when primitive man first knew them in their native forests he used to give them a wide berth, for his flint arrows fell harmless off their tough hides, and they were fierce exceedingly. A cock is crowing on the fence as if the whole farm belonged to himself: he ought to be skulking in an Indian jungle. The sheep have no business here; their place is on the rocky mountains of Asia. As for the dog, it is difficult to assign it a country, for it owns no ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... stifling as this in New York, and as for peace and quiet,—why, those rotten birds in the trees around the house make more noise than the elevated trains at the rush hour, and the rotten roosters begin crowing just about the time I'm going to sleep, and the dogs bark, and the cows,—the cows do whatever cows do to make a noise,—and then the crows begin to yawp. And all night long the katydids keep up their beastly ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... on my gate. Crowning the post at his side was his travelling bandanna, into which he had securely clasped by one great knot all his portable possessions. It was very early in the morning, in that half-dark and half-dawn time, when the muffled crowing begins to sound from the village barns and the dogs crawl forth from their barrels and survey the deserted street and yawn. Tip was not usually abroad so early, but in his travelling bandanna and solemn face, as he leaned on his elbows and smoked and smoked, I saw his reason for getting ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... Farther on, the road became nothing better than a rude trail, where, frequently, we had to stop and chop through heavy logs and roll them away. On a steep hillside the oxen fell, breaking the tongue, and the cart tipped sidewise and rolled bottom up. My rooster was badly flung about, and began crowing and flapping as the basket settled. When I opened it, he flew out, running for his life, as if finally resolved to quit us. Fortunately, we were all walking, and nobody was hurt. My father and D'ri were busy half a day "righting up," as they called it, mending the tongue and cover, ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... wonderful bird; he not only took food from his master's hand and pecked about him according to the fashion of tame and familiar birds, but took a lively interest in his devotions and studies by flapping his wings and crowing in his own little way, so as to be a sort of chorus to the acts of the saint. The old man enjoyed this extremely; and his biographer, with more geniality than hagiographers usually show, sympathises with this innocent recreation, applying the example ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... appearance of a vast bee-hive or ant-hill. San Agustin! At the name how many hearts throb with emotion! How many hands are mechanically thrust into empty pockets! How many visions of long-vanished golden ounces flit before aching eyes! What faint crowing of wounded cocks! What tinkling of guitars and blowing of horns come upon the ear! Some, indeed, there be, who can look round upon their well-stored hacienda and easy-rolling carriages, and remember the day, when with threadbare coat, and stake of three modest ounces, they first ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... of darkness! ye phantoms of the night! if while lingering within my home after the crowing of the cock, you saw me stealing about on tiptoe in the City of Books, you certainly never cried out, as Madame Trepof did at Naples, "That old man has a good-natured round back!" I entered the library; Hannibal, with his tail perpendicularly ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... was rather neglected than otherwise. He was a dull and stolid baby, neither crying nor crowing much: he would sit all day over a single toy, not playing with it, but holding it idly in his hands or between his knees. He could neither crawl, walk, nor talk till long after the usual time for such accomplishments. It seemed as if he ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne

... once more before the home of the long-suffering, much-laboring, loud-complaining Heraclitus of his time, whose very smile had a grimness in it more ominous than his scowl. Poor man! Dyspeptic on a diet of oatmeal porridge; kept wide awake by crowing cocks; drummed out of his wits by long-continued piano-pounding; sharp of speech, I fear, to his high-strung wife, who gave him back as good as she got! I hope I am mistaken about their everyday relations, but again I say, poor man!—for all his complaining must have meant real discomfort, which ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... a mouse, some readie to cast their gorge [Footnote: Vomit.] at the sight of a messe of creame, and others to be scared with seeing a fether bed shaken: as Germanicus, who could not abide to see a cock, or heare his crowing. There may haply be some hidden propertie of nature, which in my judgement might easilie be removed, if it were taken in time. Institution hath gotten this upon me (I must confesse with much adoe) for, except beere, all things else that are mans food agree indifferently with ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... it! He's one of those plausible gentlemen who's always looking for a post that will pay him, and never gets it—you know the kind of thing." Here the old lady caught Beth's eye. "You take my advice," she said. "Don't ever marry a man who does his own housekeeping. He's a crowing hen, that sort of man, you may be sure. I warn you against the man who does a ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... execution when—why, then she opened her eyes, and saw that she was lying in bed in her own little chamber where she had lived and been so happy; her baby beside her in his wicker [Footnote: Wicker: made of willow twigs like a basket.] cradle was crowing and sucking his fingers. ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... wet breeze was blowing and whatever sleep was on his eye it blew away. He walked on with the dark clouds of the night going behind him and the bright light of the day growing before him. "I'll turn back," said he, "when I hear a cock crowing, and whatever I find beside me then I'll take with me to remind myself of where ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum

... I am, the first hour after release, sitting on the porch of a villa, looking across a valley at amethyst mountains, crowned with a sprinkling of blue and white snow. The noises that come to me are not raucous;—the twitter of birds, a rooster crowing, a well-pump throbbing its heart out, the shouts of some children at play, a distant school bell, with no silver in its alloy, however, the swish of a wood-sawing machine in some back-yard. So my ears are not lonesome. Immediately before me is the gray-lavender ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... on the restless wave—a moment seen and in a moment gone. He saw and knew nothing for many days distinctly; he would call for his mother and weep, when only winds would answer. Delirium was in his brain, and wild fancies chased each other; he heard the crowing of cocks and saw his sister; his father would come to him, and he would stretch out his hand and grasp the shadowy nothing. There was a halo of beauty all about him; prismatic hues trembled in the light, and the tones of sweet music ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... his horse and put up his hands to a farm-laborer who had insulted him, or that, when he ran as candidate for Parliament, for Nottingham, and was hissed and groaned in that radical city, he stepped down from the hustings and proposed a set-to with any voter in the crowd. This was good crowing, but the old cock ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... deeply and well, half waking once, however, at that strange moment of the night when the earth turns and sighs in her sleep, when every cow gets up and lies down again. He was conscious of a shrill crowing, thin as a bugle, from some farm-yard out of sight; then he turned over and ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... somewhat demented; for I opine that the value of such curiosities must be in their rarity; and who would care for a book, if five hundred others had precisely the same?—allowing always, good Nicholas, for thy friend's vaunting and over-crowing. Five hundred! By'r Lady, there would be scarcely five hundred fools in merry England to waste good nobles on spoilt rags, specially while bows and mail ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and mother of Ab were not more than two years past their honeymoon. They, in their way, were glad that their union had been so blest and that a lusty man-child was rolling about and crowing and cooing upon the earthen floor of the cave. They lived from hand to mouth, and from day to day, and this day had been a good one. They were there together, man, woman and child. They had warmth and food. The entrance to the cave was barred so that no monster of the period might ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... here yesterday," said the gentleman in white, in a determined tone, though his voice sounded like the suppressed crowing of a cock. "My comrades," said Sarudine, introducing the others. "Gentlemen, this ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... eve and midnight and cock-crowing, Child whose love makes life as paradise, Love should sound your praise with clarions ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... given, I often catch myself endeavouring to sport a bad pun, when I have got the ear of a fair damsel] The only effect which the witticism produced in the present instance, however, was an enormous groan, in which the fellows on the dickey participated. Even the postilion who stood near, set up a crowing laugh—and the very horses by their snorting and neighing, seemed to be sensible of the utter ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various

... cool fresh water; and having brought out the baby-clothes worn by Harry, she was soon, by the aid of a little new milk, made comfortable, and, creeping down after old Nep, sat with her hands buried in his shaggy coat, crowing with delight. The lights at Captain Grosvenor's burned long into the night of that eventful day, of the discovery of the Sea-flower, while he related to his wife how they had found the little one among ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... Korde used regularly to return to his own honourable dwelling from the pot-house just when the night-watchmen were going home to sleep and the cocks were crowing in the morn, and at such times he would bellow forth ditties the whole way at the top of his voice to the accompaniment of the howling of all the watch-dogs ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... contracted—to build in a single night the much needed breakwater at Salerno on the strange condition that all cocks in the neighbourhood should first be killed; for the wizard, so the story runs, had a special aversion to Chanticleer on account of his having caused the repentance of St Peter by his crowing. In any case, the reigning Prince of Salerno gladly complied with the eccentric request, and at his command every cock in or near the place was accordingly slaughtered, with the solitary exception of one old rooster, who, being very dear to the heart of his aged ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... a long distance, and you find them not, and will be surprised when your western friend tells you that these are the voices of the prairie hens, miles away, holding their annual convention, the queer cuckooing not being loving sounds, but notes of war—abortive attempts at crowing, which the rival males set up as they prepare to do battle with ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... outside the tumble-down house as usual. Mrs. Jimson met Gerry at the door in a trim dark calico dress that made a different woman of her. Seated in a beaming circle within were the five children, each clad from top to toe in clean, fresh garments, from Tad down to the baby, who was crowing in Jennie's arms, radiant in a ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various

... the abandoned mine one day, and now we are going to fish you out of a prospect hole," exulted Billiard, much relieved to find the two girls unhurt, but unable to resist crowing a little ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown

... fixed attention: the mere glance had shown him that he looked ill, and he now saw that something in the man's heart was eating at it like a canker. Therewith at once arose in his brain the question: could he be the father of the little one crowing in the next room? But he shut it into the darkest closet of his mind, shrinking from the secret of another soul, as from the veil of the Holy of Holies! The next moment, however, came the thought: what if the man stood in need of the offices of a friend? It was one thing to pry into a ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald

... have it from the Fort, And the Rebels all a-crowing; While the devils'-echoes laugh, With a loonish thunder-lowing, After every gun's report: 'Tisn't bird-shot they are throwing,— 'Tisn't chaff! Ping! Ping! If you've ever seen the thing That can fly without ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... the letter, kissed it, and read it out to Eve, and she kept crowing and shedding tears ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... cherub in the perambulator, crowing ecstatically over the red bubble that tugged at her wrist, ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... her coming, he stopped crowing and asked, "Where are you going, Henny Penny?" "Oh", she said, "the sky is falling, and I am going to tell the king". "I will go too", said Rooster Pooster. They ran down the road till they met Turkey Lurkey gobbling contentedly. The usual formula was repeated, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... waked the chickens, and the crowing roosters roused Mrs. Barclay, and in the hurry of the hour she forgot to look for her son. As "the gray dawn was breaking," a hundred men came into the room, and found the smoking breakfast on the table. It was ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... years of age, of thriving master-mechanic appearance and obviously comfortable temper. On seeing the child, and before taking any notice whatever of the elders, the comer made a noise like the crowing of a cock and flapped his arms as if they were wings, a method of entry which had the unqualified ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... to consider himself as under arrest in his hen-coop, and insisted upon crowing about fifteen times a minute with that fidgeting irregularity which seems peculiar to certain unpleasant sounds, and which retains the ear fixed in nervous tension for the next explosion of defiance or pride, or whatever evil impulse it is which causes ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work—work—work, Till the stars shine through the roof! It's Oh! to be a slave Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... suppose it is called disgrace—what then? Cannot one, in case of need, always carry a small powder about one, which quietly smooths the weary traveller's passage across the Styx, where no cock-crowing will disturb his rest? No, brother Moritz! Your scheme is good; so at least ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... hundred times, but blindly obstinate they held to what was theirs and yet not theirs. In the frontseat the man and wife and what remained of quick moments of dropjawed ecstasy, in back unwieldly chickencoop, slats patched with bits of applebox and wire, weathered gray; astonished cocks crowing out of time and hens heads down. Hitched behind, the family cow, stiffribbed and emptyuddered. The grass, deaf lover, had seized the shack, its fingers curled the solid door, body pressed forward for joyful rape. The nesters don't look back but pant ahead; the bumping of ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... of some unusual cause of excitement, and many an urchin, throwing himself forward in a vain attempt to catch in elder brother or a laughing sister, tried the strength of his leading-strings, and rolled over, crowing in the ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... of signs and omens was broached he waxed voluble in denying that he believed in any such "foolishment." However, he agreed that many believed that a rooster crowing in front of the door meant that a stranger was coming and that an owl screeching was a sign of death. He suggested that a successful means of combatting the latter omen is to tie knots in the bed sheets or to heat ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... of other days was the fond proud father of the precious crowing bundle now pulling at his beard. What cared he for Hastings' Hall? It was a fine old place enough, and he had enjoyed coming there every day of his life; but his own bright home was just around the corner, and contained more life and joy and ...
— Three People • Pansy

... earthy breast, and field and garden and orchard crowned its brow, where lay the Monastery of St. Michaelsburg—"The White Cross on the Hill." There within the white walls, where the warm yellow sunlight slept, all was peaceful quietness, broken only now and then by the crowing of the cock or the clamorous cackle of a hen, the lowing of kine or the bleating of goats, a solitary voice in prayer, the faint accord of distant singing, or the resonant toll of the monastery bell from the high-peaked ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle

... little moderation, that it had like to have produced a very tragical catastrophe. The captain of the Beech-hill youngsters, a capital bowler, by name Amos Stokes, enraged past all bearing by the crowing of his adversaries, flung the ball at Ben Kirby with so true an aim, that if that sagacious leader had not warily ducked his head when he saw it coming, there would probably have been a coroner's inquest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various

... crowing of the cock he saw no sign of it—unless it was that the mountains on the New York shore detached themselves more distinctly from the sky of which they had seemed to form a part. On the Vermont side ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... spoke suddenly in a high crowing voice that was meant to be conversational and cheery. "I wonder why he really did hide himself like that. Something nasty, I suppose; was ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... more than half the size of Mr. Goad in mere bodily bulk, and yet he defied him in this way. He carefully took his blue lights off, then drew up the crest of his hair, like his wife's most warlike cock a-crowing, and laid down his rattan upon a desk, and doubled his fists, and waited. Then he gave a blink from the corner of his gables, clearly meaning, "Please to stop and see it out." It was a distressing thing to see, and the Major's courage was so grand ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... while she fed the fire from a tick stuffed with straw. It showed two bark shanties, a line between them decorated with the never-ending Cavendish wash. It showed a rooster perched on the ridge-pole of one of these shanties in the very act of crowing lustily. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... from nurse's arms, and flung her high in the air, catching her deftly on her descent, while Patty held her breath in apprehension. She knew perfectly well Bill wouldn't let the child fall,—and yet, accidents had occurred,—and the crowing baby might squirm out of the watchful ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells

... she gave to Leneli, and little Roseli, crowing with delight, seized the spoon and stuck it first into an eye, and then into her tiny pink button of a nose, in a frantic effort to find her mouth. It was astonishing to Baby Roseli how that rosebud ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... excitedly: and indeed they did catch one more glimpse of the fleeting sprite between the shrubs. "He was mighty jolly," said the Brown Teddy-Bear enviously, in his deep, mournful voice; and "Let's go catch him!" cried the Baby, where it sat flat on the bricks, crowing and clapping ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... demons could do them harm. Once a new-born babe, running to fetch a light whereby his mother might cut the navel string, met the chief of the demons, and a combat ensued between the two. Suddenly the crowing of a cock was heard, and the demon made off, crying out to the child, "Go and report unto thy mother, if it had not been for the crowing of the cock, I had killed thee!" Whereupon the child retorted, "Go and report unto thy mother, if it had ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... Christians the duty of destroying all unnatural productions however generated, incontinently ordered it to be put out of the way. But the destruction of this androgyne proved an arduous task. It was reported that the creature fought for its life with the energy of a demon, crowing vigorously the while and laying, in the very act of death, an egg—an egg of spheroidal form, bluish in colour, and apparently hard-boiled—an egg which the Chief Medical Officer of Health had no great difficulty in recognizing as that ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... Virginia, Carolina, Vermont. And if ever these Yankees fight great sea engagements—which Heaven forefend!—how glorious, poetically speaking, to range up the whole federated fleet, and pour forth a broadside from Florida to Maine. Ay, ay, very glorious indeed! yet in that proud crowing of cannon, how shall the shade of peace-loving Penn be astounded, to see the mightiest murderer of them all, the great Pennsylvania, a very namesake of his. Truly, the Pennsylvania's guns should be the wooden ones, called by men-of- ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... winding of a jack, the filing of a saw, and the swinging of a malefactor hanging in chains; he could counterfeit the braying of an ass, the screeching of a night-owl, the caterwauling of cats, the howling of a dog, the squeaking of a pig, the crowing of a cock; and he had learned the war-whoop uttered by the Indians in North America. These talents were exerted successively, at different times and places, to the terror of Mrs. Trunnion, the discomposure of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... made a desperate demonstration, amid peals of laughter from his daughters. 'We are stopping the way! Get out, you unruly monsters! Let go, Kitty—Mercy; I shall kick! Mamma, catch this ball;' making a feint of tossing the crowing ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with full light on his white hair and on his equally white face, which was as motionless as if dead or cut out of stone. The moments passed one after another. From the great aviaries in the gardens of Domitian came the crowing of cocks; but Chilo remained kneeling, like a statue on a monument. At last he recovered, spoke ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... been long failing, and two years after this he had taken to his bed, never to leave it again alive. And one day when the son and heir was rolling and crowing on his grandfather's bed, and Agnes was sewing at the window, and James was tying a fly by the bedside, under the old man's directions; he drew the child towards him, and beckoning Agnes ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... but his political tone, as of one who knew the world, made his father laugh and say, "Hark to the cockerel crowing ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... flutter of white and grey below me a few yards away. It is a rabbit—and now another. Their ears are cocked, but they do not appear to notice me in the least. They hop about quite noiselessly on the brown carpet. The crowing of a cock in the distance seems almost musical, and there is some insect in the tree above me that appears to be trying to give an imitation of a telegraph instrument. I wonder what these rabbits are saying ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch

... the point where we stopped until the next morning. Soon after the halt a hard rain began falling, and lasted all afternoon. We had no shelter, and just had to take it, and "let it rain." But it was in the middle of the summer, the weather was hot, and the boys stood around, some crowing like chickens, and others quacking like ducks, and really seemed to rather enjoy the situation. About the only drawback resulting from our being caught out in the summer rains was the fact that the water would rust our muskets. In our time ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... are prisoners!" cried Tad Sobber, who had had small part in the operations, but who was ready to do all the "crowing" possible. ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer

... tremble at any quick, unexpected movement. He would burst into tears at any sudden sound. Small noises, whisperings, murmurings, creakings, soft shufflings, irritated him. Loud noises, the slamming of doors, the barking of dogs, the crowing of cocks, made him writhe in agony. For Colin the deep silence of the Manor was the ambush for some stupendous, crashing, annihilating sound; sound that was always coming and never came. The droop of the mouth that used to appear suddenly in his ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... know," said Master John. "What d'ye think—if he did'nt 'pitch into' our 'dunghill' the other day, and laid him dead at a blow. I owe him one!—Come along." I followed in his footsteps, and soon beheld Chanticleer crowing with all the ostentation of a victor at the hens he had so ruthlessly widowed. A clothes-horse, with a ragged blanket, screened us from his view; and Master'John, putting the muzzle of his gun through a hole in this novel ambuscade, ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... high-souled one, O king, with that bovine bull, looked as resplendent, as the Destroyer of the three cities[147] looks resplendent with his bull. Vrishasena has a peacock made of gold and adorned with jewels and gems. And it stood on his standard, as if in the act of crowing, and always adorned the van of the army. With that peacock, the car of the high-souled Vrishasena shone, like the car, O king, of Skanda (the celestial generalissimo) shining with his peacock unrivalled and beautiful ploughshare made of gold ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... girls or boisterous boys; we never see a crowing, cooing baby. The children are born old. The babies have a sad and dejected look, as if this world were a "dreary wilderness of woe," and they grieve they were ever born. Poor little ones in the Southland! how many are gathered home ere a twelve months' stay on earth. Besides ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 1, January, 1889 • Various

... drag her in the little soap-wagon. Come, baby! Take your thumb out of your mouth and come to ride with Becky in your go-cart." She stretched out her strong young arms to the crowing baby, sat down in a chair with the child, turned her upside down unceremoniously, took from her waistband and scornfully flung away a crooked pin, walked with her (still in a highly reversed position) to the bureau, ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... cassocks. A fresh breeze was blowing; the rye and colza were sprouting, little dewdrops trembled at the roadsides and on the hawthorn hedges. All sorts of joyous sounds filled the air; the jolting of a cart rolling afar off in the ruts, the crowing of a cock, repeated again and again, or the gambling of a foal running away under the apple-trees: The pure sky was fretted with rosy clouds; a bluish haze rested upon the cots covered with iris. Charles as he passed recognised each courtyard. He remembered mornings like this, when, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... writers have endeavoured to get rid of this objection, by attempting to prove "that the crowing of the cock here mentioned, does not mean actually the crowing of a cock, but 'the sound of a trumpet!'" while others, blushing at the hardihood of their brethren, think it more prudent to maintain, that the author of the Mishna was ignorant of Jewish customs, and that the writers of the Gospels ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English

... loose and warped planks of the pier, the dull water rippling and flopping about the timbers beneath me, inhaling that faint smell of the quiet water and soaked logs, which is always a little dispiriting to me even at less dispiriting hours. The crowing of one or two cocks made me understand how dreadfully still everything was. The stillness of the very early morning is quite different from that of the night. During the latter people are asleep, and may be presumed to be happy. In the former they are about to wake up and be miserable. ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... and down, Kettle suddenly appeared carrying in his arms a white bundle, which turned out to be the After-Clap. He should have been asleep in his crib for hours, but instead he was wide awake, laughing and crowing and evidently meant, with Kettle's assistance, to make a ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell

... felt a little like crowing over his captive, and turned his head partly round to survey the boy on the back seat. Fortunately for William the darkness was so great that there was small chance ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.

... saluted the coming day, the numerous cocks descend from their high roosts and immediately begin their favourite sport of chasing the few females about. The crowing of these poorly bred but very powerful males creates pandemonium for a couple of hours, and it is like living in a poultry yard with nearly fifty brutal cocks crowing around one. During the remainder of the day sudden raids upon kitchen or tent by one or more of these cocks are of frequent ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... hearing a cock crowing in the morning, is significant of good. If you be single, it denotes an early marriage and ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... is a series of rattan nooses placed around a decoy cock. This bird, by his lusty crowing, challenges his wild fellows to fight. When the fight begins the champion of the woods soon finds his feet enmeshed in the nooses, and within a short time his whole body safely lodged in ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... teeming, seemed once more to quiver under its ardor. The sloth of ease and comfort was in the air. The big bees droned among the flowers at the lattice, and out in the glaring sunlight the lusty cocks led their bands betimes, crowing each his loud defiance. In the pastures, under the wide-armed oaks, the cattle and horses stood dozing. Life on the old plantation seemed, after all, to have set on again much in its former quiet channels. ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... the altar; and my head was universally declared to be the orthodox shape for a cowl. As I grew up, the monk took great pains with my education; and I learned Latin and psalmody as soon as less miraculous infants learn crowing. Nor did the holy man's care stint itself to my interior accomplishments. Although vowed to poverty, he always contrived that my mother should have her pockets full; and between her pockets and mine there was soon established a clandestine ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... wiped his eyes on the back of his hand: he had nothing else to receive the quick tears. Just then a hearse with nodding black plumes came by loaded with boxes and bundles, on which were perched a woman and five children, the three youngest crowing and laughing in unconscious glee at their strange circumstances. This was followed by two buggies hitched together, both packed with women and children drawn by a single horse, astride of which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... face of the sun.[160] Moreover, the diminution of light is described by him as "little more than might be caused by a temporary cloud passing over the sun"; the birds continued in full song, and "one cock in particular was crowing with all his might ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... sans reproche. And that this reparation made, the poor spirit, according to the belief of the age, released from purgatorial fires, might enter Paradise and reappear no more between the hours of midnight and cock crowing to trouble the living. ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... most fuel. It began to be noticed, while they were looking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the live stock of the Inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of this wood-stack; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing, until he appeared in danger of splitting himself. Five weeks went on,—six weeks,—and still this terrible Bantam, neglecting his domestic affairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes out of his head. By this time it was perceived that Louis ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens

... The world was fallen into an easier way: This age knew better than to fast and pray. Good sense in sacred worship would appear, So to begin as they might end the year. Such feats in former times had wrought the falls Of crowing chanticleers in cloister'd walls. Expell'd for this, and for their lands they fled; And sister Partlet with her hooded head Was hooted hence, because ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... he borne crowing to the chief's hut, from the door of which a very stout elderly woman came out to ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... nervous woman with literary gifts of her own. She had always received attention; she expected and probably deserved admiration; but so did Carlyle, who expected also to be made the center of all solicitude when he called heaven and earth to witness against democracy, crowing roosters, weak tea and other grievous afflictions. After her death (in London, 1866) he was plunged into deepest grief. In his Reminiscences and Letters he fairly deifies his wife, calling her his queen, his star, his light and ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... may when I have no French, and he no English! He is a comely fellow, with a blithe tongue and a merry eye, I warrant you a chanticleer who will lose nought for lack of crowing. He'll crow louder than ever now he hath given our Harry ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... need in Brown and knowledge and power in its assuaging by some specially appropriate fluid, then we have an altogether different matter; but the common business of "standing treat" and giving presents and entertainments is as proud and unspiritual as cock-crowing, as foolish and inhuman as that sorry compendium of mercantile vices, the game of poker, and I am amazed ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells



Words linked to "Crowing" :   self-praise, proud, boast, jactitation, boasting



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