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Hurdle   /hˈərdəl/   Listen
Hurdle

noun
1.
A light movable barrier that competitors must leap over in certain races.
2.
An obstacle that you are expected to overcome.
3.
The act of jumping over an obstacle.  Synonym: vault.



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"Hurdle" Quotes from Famous Books



... lot shocked, of course, and awful sorry to lose Tom Bond; but he believed every word I told him and knew the facts must be exactly as I revealed 'em. Then he sent post-haste for the police and a doctor, and I took 'em to the scene, and men fetched a hurdle and the body of Bond was brought down to the garage and treated with all due respect. The doctor examined him then and found he'd been shot through the back at tolerable close range; and the ball had gone through heart and lung and killed him instantly. 'Twas dark by now, and Dr. James said ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... the air as she jumped the hurdles and gates made her feel horribly dazed and giddy, and unable to collect her senses in time for the next leap. As she descended lightly in her heelless silk slippers upon Don Juan's back after the fourth hurdle had been passed, she swayed and only by a violent effort recovered herself. Her heart seemed to be beating right up in her throat and choking her. She put up one hand and pulled at her turquoise collar till the clasp gave way ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward

... Day on the report of Simeon; and Lesurques was executed, forgiving his judges. And not only had he constantly protested his innocence, but at the moment the verdict was given Couriol had cried out, in firm tones, 'Lesurques is innocent!' He repeated this statement both on the fatal hurdle and on the scaffold. All the other prisoners, while admitting their own guilt, also declared the innocence of Lesurques. It was only in the year IX. that Dubosq, his ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... farmer, opening her eyes and drawing in her breath for an outburst. Joseph Poorgrass retired a few steps behind a hurdle. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... I would be laid naked upon an hurdle for Thy love, all men to wonder on me and to cast filth and dirt on me, and be drawen from town to town every day my life time, if Thou were pleased thereby, and no man's soul hindered. Thy will be fulfilled ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various

... a tarred bonnet over her head; and her legs, feet, and arms had likewise tar on them; the heat of the weather melting the tar, it ran over her face, so that she made a shocking appearance. She was put on a hurdle, and drawn on a sledge to the place of execution, which was very near the gallows. After spending some time in prayer, and singing a hymn, the executioner placed her on a tar barrel, about three feet high; a rope (which ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... of villainy! Fifty and one as arrant knaves as ever lay on a hurdle! Oh, what a mass of corruption have we here! ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... been found guilty of these horrible Treasons, the judgment of this court is, That you shall be had from hence to the place whence you came, there to remain until the day of execution; and from thence you shall be drawn upon a hurdle through the open streets to the place of execution, there to be hanged and cut down alive, and your body shall be opened, your heart and bowels plucked out, and your privy members cut off, and thrown into the fire before ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various

... "Ho-haw!" broke in a hurdle-maker in a corner; and then, regretting the publicity of his merriment, put his fingers bashfully to his ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... the pretended crime of magic, and many an innocent woman has died of shame. In this may be found the secret of future marriage legislation. The young girls of Miletus delivered themselves from marriage by voluntary death; the senate condemned the suicides to be dragged naked on a hurdle, and the other ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... van; common carrier; wagon, waggon^, wain, dray, cart, lorry. truck, tram; cariole, carriole^; limber, tumbrel, pontoon; barrow; wheel barrow, hand barrow; perambulator; Bath chair, wheel chair, sedan chair; chaise; palankeen^, palanquin; litter, brancard^, crate, hurdle, stretcher, ambulance; black Maria; conestoga wagon, conestoga wain; jinrikisha, ricksha, brett^, dearborn [U.S.], dump cart, hack, hackery^, jigger, kittereen^, mailstate^, manomotor^, rig, rockaway^, prairie schooner [U.S.], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... the Ojibwe is described as "the hurdle", which is another name for the Canadian national game of La Crosse. When about to play, the men, of all ages, would strip themselves almost naked, but dress their hair in great style, put ornaments on their arms, and belts round their waists, and paint their faces and ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... I (forgetting they were out of action), and wrenched at a handle which was offering itself. The car jumped off the mark like a hunter at a hurdle, jumped clear away from the child (who sat down abruptly on the pave) and bolted down-hill all out. I glimpsed the low parapet of the bend rushing towards me, an absurdly inadequate parapet, with the silvery gleam of much cold water ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various

... strong and willing hands lifted the wreck away piecemeal, and, under the direction of the doctor, got him out and placed him on a hurdle made soft with blankets and straw. He was insensible, but his face and head were uninjured, for he was found lying with his arms protecting both. Carefully they bore him to the vicarage, the vicar following, and his sister already at the door ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer

... machete was strewing the ground with slender boughs. We also set to work at shaping the stakes, which I drove into the ground by means of a stone, which served as a hammer. Some branches, interwoven and tied together by creepers, formed a kind of hurdle, which, fixed on the top of the posts, did for a roof. The Indian, assisted by his little companion, who was much interested in all the preparations, filled the hut with leaves, and covered the branches with a layer of dry grass. ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... cream every day and be unhappy about something. Incidentally, I have had many residential clients with breast cancer since then, and have not taken on their symptoms, so I can assume that I have safely passed that hurdle. ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... car on a lofty plateau where several ladies and gentlemen were exercising their horses at hurdle-jumping. The elan of rush, plunge and recovery could not ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... lasting as many minutes, but no decisive effect was as yet observable. After this, however, Brassy could not come up to time. The event, therefore, was declared in Caunt's favour, and his opponent was carried off the field on a hurdle into the public-house, where I afterwards ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... swede-grubbing it was swede-trimming, in which process they sliced off the earth and the fibres with a bill-hook before storing the roots for future use. At this occupation they could shelter themselves by a thatched hurdle if it rained; but if it was frosty even their thick leather gloves could not prevent the frozen masses they handled from biting their fingers. Still Tess hoped. She had a conviction that sooner or later the magnanimity ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... some heavy strains during certain attitudes which are taken by horses in hurdle jumping as is explained in detail by Montane and Bourdelle[26] under the description of this ligament. But in spite of the frequent and unusually heavy strains, which these structures receive, complete rupture ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... him a line. Gianacchi was there, trying to treat Fillimore with coldness because the Sportsman had discovered too many virtues in his Musquito, exalted her indeed into a favourite for Saturday's hurdle race, a notability for which Gianacchi felt himself too modest. "They say," Fillimore had written, "that Musquito has been seen jumping by moonlight"—the sort of thing to spoil any book. Fillimore was an acute and weary-looking little ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... shall have power to declare the punishment of treason." Art. 3, sec. 3. By the common law, the punishment of treason was of a savage and disgraceful nature. The offender was drawn to the gallows on a hurdle; hanged by the neck and cut down alive; his entrails taken out and burned while he was yet alive; his head cut off; and his body quartered. Congress, in pursuance of the power here granted, has very properly abolished this barbarous practice, and confined the punishment to simple ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... the land on either side of the road. Nearly behind the milestone there was a gap in this fence, partially closed by a hurdle. A half-ruined culvert, arching a ditch that had run dry, formed a bridge leading from the road to the field. Had the field been already chosen as a place of concealment by the police? Nothing was to be seen but a footpath, and the dusky line of a plantation beyond ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... tired of rogues, thieves, cutthroats, and Newgate altogether;—though all these objections may be urged, and each is excellent, yet we intend to take a few more pages from the "Old Bailey Calendar," to bless the public with one more draught from the Stone Jug:[*]—yet awhile to listen, hurdle-mounted, and riding down the Oxford Road, to the bland conversation of Jack Ketch, and to hang with him round the neck of his patient, at the end of our and his history. We give the reader fair notice, that we shall tickle him with a few such scenes of villainy, throat-cutting, ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... off their wounded. O, those darlings of old Kentucky! whose light went out on that July morning nearly thirty years ago, those eager souls that God sealed with His eternal peace ere aught had ruffled them, other than the zest of a hurdle-race or quail hunt on their native bluegrass; many of them scarce passed the mile-stones of boyhood, fresh from the classroom and tender home circle. Yet, they plunged into the awful fire of that needless sacrifice, like veterans, to whom ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea

... from the first, and when I saw him ride I knew that I had also seen him ride before, but could not tell where. Only now has it come to me, and I know that in Yokohama I saw him within a year win the great hurdle-race of ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... scapula, humerus, ulna and radius are all almost in a perpendicular line. Owing to this rigid formation, the elephant cannot spring. No greater hoax was ever perpetrated on the public than that in one of our illustrated papers, which gave a picture of an elephant hurdle-race. Mr. Sanderson, in his most interesting book, says: "He is physically incapable of making the smallest spring, either in vertical height or horizontal distance. Thus a trench seven feet wide is impassable to an elephant, though the step of a large ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... Esq.; Roger Moncaster, of Garstang, attorney; Thomas Cowpe, of Walton-le-Dale; William Butler, of Myerscough, Esq.; William Arkwright, of Preston, gentleman;" and all of them were put to death on Gallows Hill the cost being for "materialls, hurdle, fire, cart, &c.," and for "setting up" Shuttleworth's head, &c., 12 pounds 0s 4d. There can be no doubt that Gallows Hill derives its name directly from the transactions of 1715-16. Prior to that time it was a simple mound; after that period it became ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... shut up their horses in the old refectory, closing the entrance with a hurdle, and then dispersed over the ruins. Mary had brought her drawing-pad, that she might sketch a magnificent pillar, and the remains of a transept arch which rose gracefully behind it, crowned with drooping ivy, and disclosing in the back ground, through a shattered window, the dreamy blue of the ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... thoughtless as to draughts and chills, careless of heat, indifferent to the character of dinners, able to do well on hard, dry bread, capable of sleeping in the open under a rick, or some slight structure of a hurdle, propped on a few sticks and roughly thatched with straw, and to sleep sound as an oak, and wake strong as an oak in the morning-gods, what a glorious life! I envied them; they fancied I looked askance ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... her eye-glasses. Two negro grooms were setting up a low hurdle with wings, while two small black boys dangled joyously from the halters of a couple of young horses, and a third bore ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... not belie its name to-day. The whole of the copse-wood where the mist had cleared returned purest tints of that hue, amid which Winterborne himself was in the act of making a hurdle, the stakes being driven firmly into the ground in a row, over which he bent and wove the twigs. Beside him was a square, compact pile like the altar of Cain, formed of hurdles already finished, which bristled on all sides with the sharp points of their stakes. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... secret heart of hearts, for he tries to make up for that loss with a sort of coerced blitheness which doesn't always carry. He affects a sort of creaking jauntiness which sometimes falls short of its aim. When he can't clear the hurdle, I notice, he has the habit of whipping up his tired spirits with a cocktail or a highball or a silver-fizz. But he is preoccupied, at times. And at other times he is disturbingly short-tempered. He announced this morning, almost ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... rocking-chair, that I could ride him all day with pleasure. But when it came to chasing after hounds and bears along the rim Stockings gave me trouble. Too eager, too spirited, he would not give me time to choose the direction. He jumped ditches and gullies, plunged into bad jumbles or rock, tried to hurdle logs too high for him, carried me under low branches and through dense thickets, and in general showed he was exceedingly willing to chase after the pack, but ignorant of rough forest travel. Owing ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... the count, "Victor Hugo has been pitiless—yes, pitiless—towards Marie Antoinette, by dragging over the hurdle the type of the Queen in the character ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... wonderful how a man who talked so little as father could have had so many thoughts in his mind. But then they all are boxed up together in every man's heart. At a time like this they come racing and tumbling out like a flock of sheep out of a yard when the hurdle's down. What a dashed queer thing human nature is when you come to think of it. That a man should be able to keep his tongue quiet, and shut the door on all the sounds and images and wishes that goes racing about inside of his mind like wild ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... only between two meadows, and the ordinary farmer, when the old gate wore out, would have stopped it with a couple of rails, or a hurdle or two, something very, very cheap and rough; at most a gate knocked up by the village carpenter of ash and willow, ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... and hurried back to his seat. He knew that this was the last hurdle. He did not know that the papers had been prepared individually, the tests given on the basis of the entrance exams he had taken back at New Chicago Primary ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell

... his accomplices. It did not seem in human power for one man to accomplish such a deed of darkness without confederates. Bertrand had none, however, and could denounce none. A frantic sentence was then devised as a feeble punishment for so much wickedness. He was dragged on a hurdle, with his mouth closed with an iron gag, to the market-place. Here his right hand and foot were burned and twisted off between two red-hot irons. His tongue was then torn out by the roots, and because he still ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the manner I have stated, drawn to the place of execution. This was originally an ignominious incident of the terrible penalty, and required that the criminal should be rudely pulled along over the ground, behind a horse; later, however, a hurdle or wicker frame, or a sledge,—that is, as we call it, a sled,—was used, either from motives of humanity, or in order to prolong the life of the traitor through subsequent stages of the punishment. ...
— The Trial and Execution, for Petit Treason, of Mark and Phillis, Slaves of Capt. John Codman • Abner Cheney Goodell, Jr.

... and Gilbert saw him lift up a hurdle of branches and disappear underground. His cellar was deep and cool, one of the many caverns which communicate with the catacombs and riddle the Campagna from Rome to the hills. Gilbert seated himself upon the smaller of the two benches at the end of the table; his three men took the other, and ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... proceedings according to my account, Mr. Elford dispatched a servant to the surgeon; and, having prepared a hurdle by way of litter, went with me and two of ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... remonstrance and proof against the rebuke of spur. Perhaps he could not control the fault; at all events he did not, and the effect was not pleasant. The rider felt a sudden jar, as though the horse had come down stiff-legged from a hurdle-leap; and sometimes it would be so sharp as to shake loose the forage-cap upon his rider's head. He sometimes did it when going at easy lope, but never when his little girl-friend was on his back; then he ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... tea and coffee service are mounted on four feet that are fastened to the bowl with cattle heads with branched horns. Each foot stands on a cloven hoof. The knob of each of the pots is a tiny horse jumping over a four-bar hurdle. ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor

... the screen apparently the living animal. Nothing was wanting but the clatter of hoofs upon the turf, and an occasional breath of steam from the nostrils, to make the spectator believe that he had before him genuine flesh-and-blood steeds. In the views of hurdle-leaping, the simulation was still more admirable, even to the motion of the tail as the animal gathered for the jump, the raising of his head, all were there. Views of an ox trotting, a wild bull on the charge, greyhounds and deer running and birds flying in mid-air were shown, also athletes ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... Bailey of high treason, viz. Isabella Condon, for coining shillings in Cold-Bath-Fields; and John Field, for coining shillings in Nag's Head Yard, Bishopsgate Street. They will receive sentence to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution; the woman to be burnt, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 34, June 22, 1850 • Various

... air the unrecognisably dented summit of the pipe which his colossal fists easily encompassed, the muscles in his treelike arms rolling beneath the chemise like balloons. The Young Pole with a shriek of fear climbed the Zulu—receiving just as he had compassed this human hurdle a crack on the seat of his black pants that stood him directly upon his head. Pivoting slightly for an instant he fell loosely at full length on his own paillasse, and lay sobbing and roaring, one elbow protectingly raised, interspersing the inarticulations of woe with a number of sincerely ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... sympathetic, and vastly interesting all the while. Could he not divine it in her undivided attention, the quick, amused flicker of recognition animating her beautiful face when he had turned a particularly successful phrase or taken a verbal hurdle without a cropper? And above all, her kindness to him impressed him; her natural and friendly pleasure in being agreeable. Here he was already on an informal footing with one of the persons of whom he had been most shy ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... what gather you by this? K. Edw. Third. That thither thou didst send a murderer. Y. Mor. What murderer? bring forth the man I sent. K. Edw. Third. Ah, Mortimer, thou know'st that he is slain! And so shalt thou be too.—Why stays he here? Bring him unto a hurdle, drag him forth; Hang him, I say, and set his quarters up: And bring his head back presently to me. Q. Isab. For my sake, sweet son, pity Mortimer! Y. Mor. Madam, entreat not: I will rather die Than ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe

... undaunted 'Roley,' remounts just as the two country-breds pass him like a flash of light. 'Nothing venture, nothing win,' however, so in go the spurs, and off darts the waler like an arrow in pursuit. He is gaining fast, and tops the last hurdle leading to the straight just as the hoofs of the other two reach ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... fashion to ride farming at a pretty good pace, and take the fences in a fly where the gate stands at the wrong corner of the field. Broad strips of turf fringe the road, offering every excuse for a gallop, and our guide continually turned through a gate or over a hurdle, and through half a dozen fields, to save two sides of an angle. These fields contrast strangely with the ancient counties—large, and square, and clean, with little ground lost in hedgerows. The great cop banks of Essex, Devon, and Cheshire are almost unknown—villages you scarcely ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... till he comes within shot. At the signal given the bullock stands still, and the sportsman rests his gun upon his back and fires. They seldom miss. Others go with a fine buck and doe antelope, tame, and trained to browse upon the fresh bushes, which are woven for the occasion into a kind of hand-hurdle, behind which a man creeps along over the fields towards the herd of wild ones, or sits still with his matchlock ready, and pointed out through the leaves. The herd seeing the male and female strangers so very busily and agreeably ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... burning, 'till they were melted, like garlic in a pan with the glow thereof.' Reaching the nethermost hell, he was shown the Prince of Darkness, black as a raven from head to foot, thousand-handed and with a long thick tail covered with fiery spikes, 'lying on an iron hurdle over fiery gledes, a bellows on each side of him, and a crowd ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... and marriage ceremonies, replied when asked if he consented to take the bride for his wife: 'I renounce them all'; of a Hampshire rustic who, when giving the ring, said solemnly to the bride: 'With my body I thee wash up, and with all my hurdle goods I thee and thou'; of another who, when asked whether he would take his partner to be his wedded wife, replied with shameful indecision: 'Yes, I'm willin'; but I'd a sight rather have her sister'; ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... Ford, had hurdles strongly set: And Regamon failed through the ford to win, ere Ailill's troops were met: Of white-thorn and of black-thorn boughs were the hurdles roughly framed, And thence the name of the ford first came, that the Hurdle ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... dispute should be settled by a combat within the walls, the Duke of Lancaster consenting to preside. Victory declared in favour of Du Guesclin, who would have cut off the head of his adversary, had not the Duke of Lancaster interceded for his life. Cantorbery was dragged upon a hurdle out of the lists, and condemned to pay 1000 florins to Oliver; his horse and armour were given to Bertrand, and the felon knight ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... necke, and inscarfte it in her long siluer lockes, which with strugling were vnrould. Backward hee dragd her, euen as a man backward would plucke a tree downe by the twigs, and then like a traitor that is drawen to execution on a hurdle, he traileth her vp and downe the chamber by those tender vntwisted braids, and setting his barbarous foote on her bare snowie breast, bad her yeeld or haue her wind stampt out She crid, stamp, ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash

... second barricade, he drew his horse up, as if it were merely a question of jumping a hurdle in a steeplechase just then I saw the window on the first floor open again. 'Ah! you old rascal!' I exclaimed. The report of a gun drowned my voice; the horse which had just made the leap, fell on his knees; the horseman tried to pull him up, but after making ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... cannot take possession of them; in autumn, they are outside, exposing their layers of figs and peeled peaches to the sun; but by that time the Osmiae have long disappeared. If, however, during the spring, an old, disused hurdle is left out of doors, in a horizontal position, the Three-horned Osmia often takes possession of it and makes use of the two ends, where the reeds lie truncated ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... evaporated, and the leaves acquired the softness of linen rag, and a small pinch of them, when rolled in the hollow of the hand, became a little ball that would not unroll. In this state the mass of tea was divided into two portions, and a negro took each and set them on a hurdle, formed of strips of bamboo, laid at right angles, where they shook and kneaded the leaves in all directions for a quarter of an hour, an operation which requires habit to be properly performed, and on which much of the beauty of the product depends. It is impossible to describe this process; ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... hands of a Catholic priest, should they recover, they were punished with confiscation of property and consignment to the galleys for life. If they did not recover, their bodies were refused respectful burial, and were dragged on a hurdle and thrown into a ditch, to be ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... model of manly beauty, too—that you waved your handkerchief till you could wave it no longer, when he took his seat, with the others, in the boat—that your heart was like to jump out of your bosom, on that later occasion when he leaped the last hurdle at the foot-race, and won it by a head. In the bitterness of her remorse, she will not even seek for that excuse for herself. Is there no atoning suffering to be seen here? Do your sympathies shrink from such a character as this? Follow her, good friends of virtue, ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... should really be restricted to these cattle-hunters of west and north-west Hispaniola. The flesh of the wild-cattle was cured by the hunters after a fashion learnt from the Caribbee Indians. The meat was cut into long strips, laid upon a grate or hurdle constructed of green sticks, and dried over a slow wood fire fed with bones and the trimmings of the hide of the animal. By this means an excellent flavour was imparted to the meat and a fine red colour. The place where the ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... also a watermelon hurdle race. The course was laid out with big watermelons and time was kept ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt

... dazzled and bewildered his sight: below, and at the foot of the steep woods opposite, the river lay cool and shadowy, or vanished for a space beneath a cliff, where the red plough-land broke abruptly away with no more warning than a crazy hurdle. Distinct above the dreamy hum of the little town, the ear caught the rattle of anchor-chains, the cries of an outward-bound crew at the windlass, the clanking of trucks beside the jetties; the creaking of oars in the thole-pins ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... But this part must be treated lightly. He rode up to the culprit with the air of a Saint George, spoke a few stern words from the saddle, tethered his steed to a hurdle, and took off his coat. ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... for they knew that if she saw thousands of roubles overlooked by them, she would not have touched a farthing. She scarcely ever went to church. She slept either in the church porch or climbed over a hurdle (there are many hurdles instead of fences to this day in our town) into a kitchen garden. She used at least once a week to turn up "at home," that is at the house of her father's former employers, and in the winter went ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... take place on the Main Street of the town, in front of the bank, and in the middle of the course two poles had been erected, one on each side of the street, between which a brightly colored tape had then been strung, forming a sort of aerial hurdle. The tape was fifty feet above the ground, and to qualify at all it would be necessary for the contesting ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson

... the usual manner was passed upon Grey; but the King having, by a most rare instance of mercy in those days, remitted that part of the sentence which directed him to be drawn on a hurdle and hung, he was allowed to walk through the town to the Northgate, and was there immediately beheaded. On Monday, August 5, the Duke of Clarence presided in a court of the peers, who, having satisfied themselves by carefully examining the record of the conviction of the prisoners, Scrope and ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... defence thus strangely secured in his hand; and, looking up the moon-lighted road, sees Mr. BUMSTEAD, in the sun-bonnet, leaping high, at short intervals, over the numerous adders and cobras on his homeward way, like a thoroughbred hurdle-racer. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various

... not? When I was in the Rifles they were quartered at Zante. Matilda was just then coming it rather strong with Villiers, of ours, a regular greenhorn. Fanny, also, nearly did for Harry Nesbitt, by riding a hurdle race. Then they left for Gibraltar, in the year,—what ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... laughed Peggy, skimming over a five-barred hurdle as though it were five inches. "But, oh, Polly, look at Salt! Look at him! He acts as though he'd gone crazy," she cried, for the horse had come to the fence which divided his field from the track and was neighing and pawing in the most excited manner, ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... amusement probably than is common at Epsom or Ascot. Every one knew everybody and everybody's horse; and as the horses were generally ridden by gentlemen, there was no doubt of fair play. There was an accident, as usual, in the hurdle-race; but not being fatal, it did not interrupt the sports. Large groups of the natives, sitting on the ground, or standing leaning on their spears, gave increased effect to the picturesque scenery. Some clumps of forest-trees ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... room. He had lain there, save during one hour,—the memory of which haunted Katherine with hideous and sickening persistence,—ever since Tom Chifney, the head-lad from the stables, and a couple of grooms had carried him in, on a hurdle, from the steeple-chase ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... trivial offences. A boy less than sixteen years of age was hung for stealing jewelry from his master.[74] On the other hand, with flagrant inconsistency, a nobleman, Rene de Bonneville, superintendent of the royal mint, for the murder of his brother-in-law, was dragged to the place of execution on a hurdle, but suffered the less ignominious fate of decapitation. A part of his property was given to his sister, and the rest confiscated to the crown, with the exception of four hundred livres, reserved for ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete's singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... G. Hurdle, Machine Gun Company No. 3, home at Drivers, Va.; for extraordinary heroism in action at Ferme la ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... brought to light an outrage and a crime. What was the outrage? Complaint. What was the crime? Suffering. Let misery hide itself in silence, otherwise it becomes treason. And those men who had dragged Gwynplaine on the hurdle of sarcasm, were they wicked? No; but they, too, had their fatality—they were happy. They were executioners, ignorant of the fact. They were good-humoured; they saw no use in Gwynplaine. He opened himself to ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... lime in the soil adds to its stickiness. It is amusing to watch a fox "break" covert and make his way over a plough which "carries": he travels very badly; we have seen him fail to jump a sheep hurdle at the first attempt. Fortunately for the fox, the hounds are also handicapped by these conditions, and scent is wretched. This might appear at first sight to show that the scent of foxes is chiefly given off from their feet. We ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... the burial of the dead was accompanied with special ceremonies, the expense and formality attendant upon the funeral according with the rank of the deceased. The corpse was first placed in a cane hurdle and deposited in an outhouse made for the purpose, where it was suffered to remain for a day and a night, guarded and mourned over by the nearest relatives with disheveled hair. Those who are to officiate at ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... special interest. But Anna afterwards could only recall it with real pain. The crisis came on a racecourse. One of Vronsky's chief pleasures was horse-racing, and at the brilliant races that season he himself rode his own splendid horse. But the occasion was a most disastrous one, for at the hurdle races more than half the riders were thrown, Vronsky being one of them. He was picked up uninjured, but the horse had its ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... Anne, when it was repealed (1709). According to the hiber Albus it was strictly observed in the days of Edward I., for it states that: "If any default shall be found in the bread of a baker in the city, the first time, let him be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house through the great street where there be most people assembled, and through the great streets which are most dirty, with the faulty loaf hanging from his neck; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... with some working hands, immediately ran to the spot, and, raising the mangled remains of Simpson on a hurdle, they were conveyed to the next house, there to remain till the Coroner's inquest could be held on ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie

... wishes to fence in a perfectly square field which is to contain just as many acres as there are rails in the required fence. Each hurdle, or portion of fence, is seven rails high, and two lengths would extend one pole (161/2 ft.): that is to say, there are fourteen rails to the pole, lineal measure. Now, what must be the size of ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... stopped his horse suddenly and made him stand almost perpendicular on his hind legs. Then, without the assistance of bridle, stirrup, or pommel, he secured his position and made the animal plunge wildly forward as if he were clearing a high hurdle, while he no more swerved from his seat than if he had been pinioned to it. Setting his horse again at his topmost bent, he took his pistol, threw it into the air, caught it on the fly, and finally hurled it with all his might in front of him. Then ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... feet between mine. In and out. Don't throw your shoulders back. Don't keep your elbows in. It's not a hurdle race." ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... pulled-down material, close by. He shouted and waited until he heard the dogs bark and a rattle of stones. The Herdwicks were coming down and presently broke out from the snow in a compact, struggling flock. Tom shouted and threw a hurdle across the entrance when the dogs had driven the sheep ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... his anti-christian spirit, or admit of queen Elizabeth's supremacy. He alleged, though by birth and education an Englishman, that he was a sworn subject of the king of Spain, in whose service the famous duke of Alva was. The doctor being condemned, was laid upon a hurdle, and drawn from the Tower to Tyburn, where after being suspended about half an hour, he was cut down, stripped, and the executioner displayed the heart of a traitor. Thus ended the existence ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... a vast number of buildings, including four separate sets of barn, stable, sheds, and yard, away from the village, as well as those near the Manor House, and many repairs were necessary. There were, too, very many gates, repairs to fences, hurdle-making, and odd jobs, to keep a man employed for months at a time. The building of three hop-kilns, with the necessary storerooms for green and dried hops, as the hop acreage increased, the preparation of hop-poles, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... force open the door on the left] Odd! This door seems to be locked. [He comes in and puts the chair back in its former place] This is like a hurdle race. ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov

... from a stream, a leaf screen must be placed at some distance in front of the inlet. This may be made of a hurdle fastened to strong stakes sunk into the bed of the stream. The opening of the inlet should be at least double the size of the sectional area of the pipe through which the water is carried to the ponds, and should be some distance, a couple ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker

... Catholics. Mary persecuted Protestants. Elizabeth persecuted Catholics again. The father of those three sovereigns had enjoyed the pleasure of persecuting both sects at once, and had sent to death, on the same hurdle, the heretic who denied the real presence, and the traitor who denied the royal supremacy. There was nothing in England like that fierce and bloody opposition which, in France, each of the religious factions in its turn offered to the government. We had neither a Coligny nor a Mayenne, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Lord in His mercy remember me, miss! When I opened the door, I had no blood left. There stood two men, with a hurdle on their shoulders, and on the hurdle a body, with the head hanging down, and the front of it slouching, like a sack that has been stolen from; and behind it there was an authority with two buttons on his back, and he waited for ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... rascal, didn't I tell you you weren't to knock yourself up, eh? Why can't you do what you're told? Why, I declare you're as thin as a hurdle, and as black under the eyes as if you had been fighting with a collier. You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Look at me; do all I can I can't get up an interesting pallor like you, and I've fretted enough over those conic sections (comic ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... July, 1676, the Superior Criminal Court of Paris pronounced a verdict of guilty against her, for the murder of her father and brothers, and the attempt upon the life of her sister. She was condemned to be drawn on a hurdle, with her feet bare, a rope about her neck, and a burning torch in her hand, to the great entrance of the cathedral of Notre Dame, where she was to make the amende honorable in sight of all the people; to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... having ridden over old Simon he dismounted to examine the knees of his horse;—Mr. Marsden, a skilful huntsman, who rode the most experienced horses in the world, and who generally contrived to be in at the death without having leaped over anything higher than a hurdle, suffering the bolder quadruped (in case what is called the "knowledge of the country"—that is, the knowledge of gaps and gates—failed him) to perform the more dangerous feats alone, as he quietly scrambled over or scrambled through upon foot, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... last gasp would have noted the ridiculous thing. And surely it was a droll malignity of Fate to bring him here to her whom, in this moment of all moments in his life, he wished far away. Fate meant to try him to the uttermost. This hurdle of trial was ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... time to see the Guernsey gallop madly across the garden, plough her way through the sweet corn, and disappear gaily over the fence, heading for the trolley-tracks, with Amos a close second as she took the hurdle. ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... one, who wore a long, twisted, pomatumed moustache, who talked of steeple chases, all the while, and wanted to have "a healthy dash" of some kind. A class of Irish exquisites, they appeared to be,—good for a fight, a card-party, or a hurdle jumping,—but entirely too Quixotic for the sober requirements of Yankee warfare. When anything absurd, forlorn, or desperate was to be attempted, the Irish brigade was called upon. But, ordinarily, they were regarded, as a party of mad fellows, more ornamental than ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... afternoon of a clear grey day; and ten minutes after a turn of the road brought him to an overturned cart, its inside wheels shattered like cracked biscuits and a horse struggling wildly in the shafts, and a lad lying under the hedge with blood spattered on a curd-white face. Men and a hurdle had to be fetched from the farm that was in sight, the doctor had to be summoned from a village three miles away, and then he was asked to wait lest there should be need of a further errand to a cottage hospital. He was in a jarred mood by then, for the farm ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... we'd started, I was stupid-like with wonder Till the field closed up beside me and a jump appeared ahead. And we flew it like a hurdle, not a baulk and not a blunder, As we charged it all together, and it fairly whistled under, And then some were pulled behind me and a few shot out ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... was carried from the bar on a hurdle drawn backwards, unto the place of execution at the cross of Edinburgh. None were suffered to be with him but two bailies, the executioner and his servants. He was permitted to pray to God Almighty but not to speak to the people. Being come upon the scaffold, his right ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... He knows no more than a baby about anything, and so he turned the cows into Darnel meadow, and never put the hurdle to stop the gap—never thinking they could get down the bank; so the farmer found them in the barley, and if he did not run out against him downright shameful—though Paul up and told him the truth, that 'twas nobody else ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge

... came out and got a hurdle, and he and his father, with Farmer Grey, put Sam Green on it, and bore him to the house. Sam cried out that they were killing him; so when Farmer Grey heard this he put his hand under Sam's leg, and spoke to him just as kind and soft as if he ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... old-fashioned Greek games, there were bicycle and hurdle races, shooting matches, and contests in jumping. People from all parts of the world went to see them in as large numbers as they went to Olympia in ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber

... buts that rose from the platforms were made of wattle and hurdle-work. In different places calcined and agglutinated fragments have been picked up, and pieces of clay which had served as facing. The house to which they had belonged had been destroyed by fire, and the clay, hardened in the flames, had resisted the disintegrating ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... "the second biggest blackguard in Victoria; give him a wide berth." Another of the betting-men was pointed out to me as having been a guard on the South-Eastern Railway some ten years ago. I need not describe the races: they were like most others. There were flat races and hurdle races. Six horses ran for the District Plate. Four of them came in to the winning-post, running neck and neck. The race was ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... they were passing belongs to to the tribe of Wazaramo. It is covered with villages, the houses of which are mostly of a conical shape, composed of hurdle-work and plastered with clay, and thatched with grass or reeds. They profess to be the subjects of the Sultan of Zanzibar. They are arrant rogues, and rob travellers, when they can, by open violence. They always demand more tribute than they expect to get, and generally use threats ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... moment, as the words were spoken, a groom approached him hastily; his young brother, whom he had scarcely seen since the find, had been thrown and taken home on a hurdle; the injuries were rumored ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... regret, for he realised that he had had no right to bring this girl into such a fight. It was not her friend who was in danger at Bindon. Her life had been risked without due warrant. "I didn't know, or I wouldn't have asked it," he said in a low voice. "Lord, but you are a wonder—to take that hurdle for no one that belonged to you, and to do it as you've done it. This country will rise to you." He looked back on the raging rapids far behind, and he shuddered. "It was a close call, and no mistake. We must have been within a foot of down-you-go fifty times. But it's all right ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... was absorbed in contemplating the photograph. They had been taken standing by the hurdle of the sheepfold, she with the young lamb in her arms and John looking down ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair

... crowd opening, a horse was seen dragging a hurdle, on which a human being lay bound, the blood flowing from his mouth. A party of soldiers next appeared with a number of persons, their hands bound behind them, in their midst; while priests, carrying lighted tapers, were seen among them, apparently trying to gain their ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston

... pupil will become inoculated with the germs of truth in all its aspects. If he could give the things that the pupils get, then all would share alike in the distribution. If the teacher could impart instruction, he certainly would not fail to lift all his pupils over the seventy-five per cent hurdle. ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... half-hour. She jumped again, higher each time, silencing the protests of the riding-master with an imperious gesture. Her horse tired. His sides heaved, his delicate nostrils dilated. She beat him with her crop, and flung him again at the hurdle. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... civil feuds,—of the best and basest feelings of mankind;—the loyalty and hospitality of cavaliers; the fanatic outrages of Roundheads; and ultimately of wanton desolation! The gate through which Colonel Lilburne and his men entered, was blocked up with a hurdle; and the yard where his forces were marshalled was covered with high flourishing grass; the towers had almost become mere shells, but the vaulted passages, once stored with luxuries and weapons, still retained much of their original freshness. What a contrast did these few ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various

... most grievous punishment used in England for such as offend against the State is drawing from the prison to the place of execution upon an hurdle or sled, where they are hanged till they be half dead, and then taken down, and quartered alive; after that, their members and bowels are cut from their bodies, and thrown into a fire, provided near hand and within their own sight, even for the ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... choice between a hurdle-race through these gardens, a cat-walk along this wall, and a descent into the cutting," he reflected. "The walls look devilish high and the cutting devilish deep. Hang me if I know which road ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston

... thy sackcloth! and thank heav'n Thy courtship hath not kill'd me; Is't not even Whether we die by piecemeal, or at once? Since both but ruin, why then for the nonce Didst husband my afflictions, and cast o'er Me this forc'd hurdle to inflame the score? Had I near London in this rug been seen Without doubt I had executed been For some bold Irish spy, and 'cross a sledge Had lain mess'd up for their four gates and bridge. When first ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... pleasures seem to have deserted me. It is true. I used to like to wander about the city, to see it at its busiest, to loiter amid the hum and the roar and the ceaseless activity. I saw in it then only friendly rivalry, like a hurdle race or a football game—something pleasing and stimulating. Now it all affects me in just the reverse way. I look beneath the surface, and my heart sinks to find not friendly competition, but a battle, where men and women fight for daily bread, where the weak are crowded and trampled upon ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... the right side of the hurdle strives to get his head, and every rider is wiser than to indulge this instinct. Soon another leap presents itself; up they all go and down again,—four close together! Hurrah! blue and yellow! Hurrah! green and red! A third leap, not far from the last, and no refusals! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... the falling horse 50 Harm is done by the attempt 51 The bearing-rein 54 Mechanical assistance of the jockey to his horse 56 Standing on the stirrups 58 Difference between the gallop and the leap 58 Steeple-chases and hurdle-races unfair on the horse 59 The rider should not attempt to lift his horse ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood

... plains were such a dejected and altogether sneaking looking crew, shorn of their power by the hands of one man, stripped of their roaring weapons, tied like cattle to a hurdle, that the vengeful spirit of Ascalon veered in a glance to humorous appreciation of the comedy that was ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... provided with lanterns; and, lighting these hastily, and with hurdle-staves in their hands, they poured out of the door, taking a direction along the crest of the hill, away from the town, the rain having ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various



Words linked to "Hurdle" :   hurdling, obstruction, sport, barrier, athletics, jumping, jump, obstacle, hurdler, overleap, hurdle race, vault



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