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Kick   /kɪk/   Listen
Kick

noun
1.
The act of delivering a blow with the foot.  Synonyms: boot, kicking.  "The team's kicking was excellent"
2.
The swift release of a store of affective force.  Synonyms: bang, boot, charge, flush, rush, thrill.  "What a boot!" , "He got a quick rush from injecting heroin" , "He does it for kicks"
3.
The backward jerk of a gun when it is fired.  Synonym: recoil.
4.
Informal terms for objecting.  Synonyms: beef, bitch, gripe, squawk.
5.
The sudden stimulation provided by strong drink (or certain drugs).
6.
A rhythmic thrusting movement of the legs as in swimming or calisthenics.  Synonym: kicking.  "The swimmer's kicking left a wake behind him"



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"Kick" Quotes from Famous Books



... sometimes used the whip, and sometimes the curse. The thunder of his throne rattled through the world with astonishing effect, 'till that most useful discovery, the art of printing, in the fifteenth century, dissolved the charm, and set the oppressed cattle at liberty; who began to kick their driver. Henry the Eighth of England, was the first unruly animal in the papal team, and the sagacious Cranmer assisted in breaking ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... wondering, has to do with the Centaurus Mystery; I think I've uncovered a new approach that will literally kick the supports right out from under every theory that's been evolved for the existence of ...
— Dead Giveaway • Gordon Randall Garrett

... a kick what yo' think o' me?" the boy asked brutally. "Nay; there's 'nough liars in this fam'ly ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... now, John, that an open-face, stem-winding American has to kick four Dukes, eight Earls, seven Counts and a couple of Princes off the front steps every time he goes to call on his sweetheart—if ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart

... women often brought food for the prisoners in little baskets, which, after examination, were handed in. Now and then the guard might intercept what was sent, or Cunningham, if the humor took him, as he passed through the hall, might kick over vessels of soup, placed there by the charitable for the poor ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... "Why, the old man would kick the stones off his grave if he knew what his grandson was up to. He used to boast that he came West just to get rid of the Presbyterians and the Allopaths. Nothing he hated like ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... to kick the next wounded man I see," he thought. "It must be rather good sport"; but ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... twelve years ago when I was quite a lad, close to the old Border, Yes, Halfa. It was a true Snider bullet. Feel it! This little one on the leg I got at the big fight that finished it all last year. But I am not lame (violent leg-exercise), not in the least lame. See! I run. I jump. I kick. Praised be Allah! ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... traps; I quarreled, to her surprise and grief, with the miller's wife, on the subject of I know not what cruelly indigenous mess she had served me for breakfast; I scolded the good woman's two children because they were touching my pencils; finally, I administered a vigorous kick to the house-dog, accompanied with the celebrated formula: "Judge whether you had ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet

... sitting on the safety-valve. He has breadth of beam, good sedentary man, but when the moment comes—The Empire; that's beginning to mean something. The average Englander has never grasped the fact that there was such a thing as a British Empire. He's beginning to learn it, and itches to kick somebody, to prove his Imperialism. The bully of the music-hall shouting "Jingo" had his special audience. Now comes a man of genius, and decent folk don't feel ashamed to listen this time. We begin to feel our position. We can't make money quite so easily as we used to; scoundrels ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... pair of arms clutched the Very Young Man about his leg; he gave a violent kick, scattering a number of the struggling figures and clearing a space ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... boot into the snow, intending to kick it over the girl. She sprang back, however, quickly, so that she went quite up to her knees in the snow, and said timidly, "I ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri

... after the publication of his work; and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm to his memory to say that his time might have been much better employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt to ride his hobby his own way; and though it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the spirit of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affection, yet his errors and follies are remembered "more in sorrow than in anger," and it ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... in the end," replied the Princess, gayly. "Napoleon did nothing at all. He did not even kick Volney, and his head ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... the same, I had no business to fall asleep. I'm mad enough to kick myself full of holes," went on ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer

... Paris. Knobelsdorf recounted his interesting adventures in Italy; and even Quanta found courage to give the prince's favorite dog, which was snuffling at his feet, and which he hated as a rival, a hearty kick. The prince royal alone had preserved his noble and dignified appearance. Amid the general excitement he remained calm and dignified. The candles were burning low, and the champagne illumination was becoming intense in the heads of all the gentlemen ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... walking round it was necessary to keep brushing off the ants which dropped on the shoulder from the branches of the birches. For they were everywhere; every inch of ground, every bough was covered with them. Even standing near it was needful to kick the feet continually against the black stump of a fir which had been felled to jar them off, and this again brought still more, attracted by the vibration ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... Wagtail threw himself on the sofa, and roared with laughter. But the next moment Bangs gave another kick, and this time Pepperpot got a sound blow on the side of the head, whilst down came the great ostrich, clattering among cups and dishes, and making an awful havoc amongst them. After indulging in peals of laughter for a while longer, we collected the fragments of our ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... summoned specially to Augsburg. He urged the monk to retract his dangerous doctrine that the authority of the Bible was above that of the Pope of Rome. "Retract, my son, retract," he urged; "it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." But the conference ended where it had begun—Luther ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... the guns. One hare was knocked over, and one boy also by the kick of his gun; the others were a sight chase, and every boy, man, and dog joined in ...
— The Long Hillside - A Christmas Hare-Hunt In Old Virginia - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... does not lie, he will settle with you alone. Let the others kick, he said. Go to him right off, dear Ossep. Before the thing becomes known perhaps you can still get ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous

... took their dose in different ways. Jenks began to drink a little more; Lester drank a little less. Hicks didn't care much about it one way or the other, and Wilson swore that if Wilkins came to call on his sister again he'd kick him out of ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... that she had. 'Now, Percy,' she said, 'we'd better go.' That put my blood up. I said, 'Go you shall, but not till I give you leave,' and without another word I took him by the collar and led him to the door; he came like a lamb, and I sent him off with as fine a kick as he ever got in his life. He went rolling down, and didn't stop till he got to the bottom. You should have seen her look at me; there was murder in her eyes. If she could she'd have killed me, but she couldn't and calmed down a bit. 'Let me go; what do you want me for? You can get ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... ought to know. And I know you. Without you I believe I should never go any distance. Without me you might go too far. Together we will strike the happy medium. For us life shall go through all his paces, but he shall never lame us with a kick, like a vicious horse, or give us a furtive bite when we're not looking. Men carry such bites and kicks, the wounds from them, to their graves. We'll be more careful. But we'll see the great play in all—all its acts. And, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... three years there with the Thirty-fourth," grunted Dietz. "I'll never kick at a transfer to another regiment whenever the regiment I'm ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... bellows. (In this, I appeal to previous generations to confirm or refute me.) I pursued the phantom, on a headless donkey: at least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of his stomach that his head was always down there, investigating it; on ponies, expressly born to kick up behind; on roundabouts and swings, from fairs; in the first cab—another forgotten institution where the fare regularly got into bed, and was tucked up with ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens

... regulates the lives of us poor men no less than the motions of the stars, and binds the whole universe, high and low, into one system: and we may have arrived at the blessed wish to conform with this law rather than to strive and kick against the pricks and waste our short time in petulant rebellion. So far, so good: but how are we to know the law? How, with the best will in the world, are we to distinguish order from disorder? What assurance have we, after ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... was there to endure, if not for ever, at least until some ass of a fellow came along and kicked it down to spite an old religion, because he had found a new one. . . . But this Gothic—this Cathedral, for example, which it seems we must help to preserve—is fashioned only to kick ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... bear, brother; and, barring that he kicked and beat me, and drove me out to tell dukkerin when I could scarcely stand, he was not a bad husband. A man, by gypsy law, brother, is allowed to kick and beat his wife, and to bury her alive, if he thinks proper. I am a gypsy, and have nothing to say ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... but the land will come in good time, and while we've got a week's rations of bacon and hominy ahead, I shan't kick against luck. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various

... And I love for to live on the farm! I love for to wander in the grass-green fields— Oh, a country life has the charm! I love for to wander in the garden— Down by the old haystack; Where the pretty little chickens go 'Kick-Kack-Kackle!' And the little docks ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... though so many fouls occurred that it was obvious the race was off. But things became serious when the entire crowd attempted to pass simultaneously through the booking-hall doors. Speedwell sprained a pastern and Tiny Tim sustained a severe kick on the fetlock. Both will require a fortnight's rest before they ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various

... don't know, indeed, what he'd have done; but at last we persuaded him that if he made up his mind to proceed to such extremities, the First Lord would either laugh in his face or order the porters to kick him down stairs. He in time came to that conclusion himself, and so quieted down, observing that you would do your duty and bear yourself like ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... I had not been able to distinguish her face in the gloom of the doorway, but her voice, her greeting, her presence unmanned me. I was troubled and perplexed; I had not spirit to kick a dog. I followed the two servants from the hall without heeding how we went; nor was it until we came to a full stop at a door in a white-washed corridor, and it was forced upon me that something was in question between my two conductors that I ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... me not to touch the talisman; 'for that would be a means,' said she, 'to ruin both you and me: I know what belongs to genies better than you.' The fumes of the wine did not suffer me to hearken to her reasons; but I gave the talisman a kick with my foot, and broke it ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... their pay to the last penny, but when I insist on a proper return for it they look at me as if they'd like to knock me on the head. It's disheartening work. I've been tempted at times to throw it all up and go back to England"—at which Nance's heart gave so unusual a little kick that she had difficulty in frowning it into quietude, and just then Bernel came in with his gun and ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... that there was a suspicion of a cloud on Ponsonby's shining morning face, when the news was broken to him that for the future he couldn't unleash himself on the local bowling talent as early as usual, but he made no kick, and the new ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... you had a hundred to pick from, you would not find a better one than the dappled mount. The birds in the air do not fly more swiftly than the palfrey; and he is not too lively, but just suits a lady. A child can ride him, for he is neither skittish nor balky, nor does he bite nor kick nor become unmanageable. Any one who is looking for something better does not know what he wants. And his pace is so easy and gentle that a body is more comfortable and easy on his back than in a boat." Then said Erec: "My dear, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... too," Lady Amesbury declared. "If ever a woman earned the right to kick the traces away for a bit, Josephine has. Don't you mind anything I say, my dear," she added, as Josephine looked up at the sound of her name. "You settle down to a nice comfortable flirtation, if you ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... with this miserable result. I led her, with some difficulty, warily keeping clear of the riata, to the inclosure, from whose fence I had previously removed several bars. Although the space was wide enough to have admitted a troop of cavalry she affected not to notice it, and managed to kick away part of another section on entering. She resisted the stable for some time, but after carefully examining it with her hoofs, and an affectedly meek outstretching of her nose, she consented to recognize some oats in the feed-box—without looking at them—and was formally ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... themselves into two parties. They then form a ring, and commence dancing round a hassock which is placed, end upwards, in the middle of the room. Suddenly one party endeavours to pull the other party forward, so as to force one of their number to kick ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... were his age you used to kick and scream just as he does when his wishes are not carried out on the instant," she said. "You don't kick and scream now when you are vexed; you look like thunder, and walk out ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... you are allowed to rob the gentleman till there's not a guinea left for you to suck at. I know pretty well the extent of the evil that's in you. If we were to kick you from here to Cork, you'd forgive all that, so that we still allowed you to go on with your trade. I wonder how much money you've had ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... right enough, and that Jim absolutely refused to be quarantined; that he insisted that he always got a rash from early strawberries and that if he DID have anything, since they were so touchy he hoped they would all get it. If they locked him in he would kick the ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... me I'll ask the man to come every day of the week;—but it is one of those things that I shall need to be told directly. My idea is, you know, that they had better get rid of Sir Orlando,—and that if Sir Orlando chooses to kick over the traces, he may be turned loose without any danger. One has little birds that give one all manner of information, and one little bird has told me that Sir Orlando and Mr. Roby don't speak. Mr. Roby is not very much himself, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... first to break them! I know, my own dear Emma, if she will let her reason have fair play, will say I am right; but she is like Horatia, very angry if she cannot have her own way." "Horatia is like her mother; will have her own way, or kick up a devil of a dust,"—an observation both Greville and Hamilton had had to make. "Your Nelson," he concludes, "is called upon, in the most honourable manner, to defend his country. Absence to us is equally painful: but, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... way; and you wonder why on earth he should be in a lunatic asylum, of all places in the world. And (just as would happen outside, again) some of his fellow-sufferers take him at his own valuation and believe him a great genius; some of them want to kick him for an impudent impostor (but that he is so small); and the majority ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... with it, if you like. I should keep the tube, if I were you, as a memento. I don't suppose the respectable Mirsky will ever call to ask for it. But I should certainly kick Ritter out of doors—or out of window, if ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... do believe there's a strange dog under the counter! Get out—get out, sir, I say!" and my cruel parent gave me a vicious kick. ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... he does," replied De Pean; "when he is sober I care not to approach him too nearly! He is a wild colt that will kick his groom when rubbed the wrong way; and every way is wrong when the wine is ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... open to its utmost limit; tears start from between his closed eyes, which he gouges with chubby fists, and his whole face is distorted in intense pigmy wrath. One might really feel awfully sorry for him were it not for the fact that he sticks out one foot trying to kick a playfellow who evidently hadn't a thing to do with the accident. He's a bad, naughty cherub—that is what he is, and he deserves to have his obtrusive anatomy stung, just a little, with the back of a hairbrush, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... gib yer my advis, sistah Hannah. De greatest t'ing in de wul is edification. Ef our race ken git dat we ken git ebery t'ing else. Dat is de key. Git de key an' yer ken go in de house to go whare you please. As fur his beatin' de brat, yer musn't kick agin dat. He'll beat de brat to make him larn, and won't dat be a blessed t'ing? See dis scar on side my head? Old marse Sampson knocked me down wid a single-tree tryin' to make me stop larning, and God is so fixed it dat white folks is ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs

... the Chancellor. He mounts on horseback and gallops towards the priory of St. Martin; Richenda sends after him, and one of the lady's men was putting his hand on the horse's bridle, when our lord the archbishop, shod with iron, gave a violent kick to the enemy's steed, and tore his belly open; the beast reared, and the prelate, freeing himself, reached the priory. There he is under watch for four days, after which he is dragged from the very altar, and taken to the castle of ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... the sound was pleasant. It soothed the throb, throb in his head. Gosh, that had been some party last night, celebrating Flight ZLX's first prize in maneuvers! Great bunch, but would they be as good in real war—sure to come soon? Dane's stuff had too much kick; he ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat

... witness. But I am rather helpless in the matter; I must set down what I remember, and surely if I can remember no phrase from Holmes that a reader could live or die by, it is something to recall how, when a certain potent cheese was passing, he leaned over to gaze at it, and asked: "Does it kick? Does it kick?" No strain of high poetic thinking remains to me from Lowell, but he made me laugh unforgettably with his passive adventure one night going home late, when a man suddenly leaped from the top of a high fence upon the sidewalk ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... by train to Gardanne, watching the evening lights die upon the silver-grey precipices of Mont Victoire. At Gardanne I had to change, and kick my heels for two hours. Gardanne is a picturesque little town, built on a hill round a castle in ruins and a church very much restored. So restored did the church seem to be from the bottom of ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... skimmed along the surface a few feet before she began to settle. Unfortunately, at about that time Tommy opened her mouth for a breath of fresh air. Instead she got a mouthful of water. She began to kick ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge

... when you were one year old," he laughed, "and you could only crow and kick your small feet, and smile now and then, and cry the ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason

... companion, "you must contest the point, must you? Nay, if thou art so lazy, I must give your honour a ladder, and perhaps a kick to hasten your journey." Something then, of very great size, in the form of a human being, jumped down from the trap-door, though the height might be above fourteen feet. This figure was gigantic, being upwards of seven feet high. In its ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... difference between that offensive and that defensive weapons. Jumping suddenly then upon the shafts of Paurava's car, he roared aloud. Mounting next upon his car, he seized Paurava by the hair, and slaying meanwhile with a kick, the latter's driver, he felled his standard with a stroke of his sword. And as regards Paurava himself, Abhimanyu raised him up, like the Garuda raising a snake from the bottom of the sea agitating the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... me, unable to help myself till near day. I told Bishop of this; but she denied it, and threatened me very much. Quickly after this, being at home on a Lord's Day, with the doors shut about me, I saw a black pig approach me, at which I, going to kick, it vanished away. Immediately after sitting down, I saw a black thing jump in at the window and come and stand before me. The body was like that of a monkey, the feet like a cock's; but the face was much like a man's. I was so extremely affrighted, that I could not speak. This monster ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... portion of it lay across a desert, where there was nothing to distract the mind from its own reflections. In this enforced leisure doubts arose. What else can be meant by the word with which the Lord saluted him: "It is hard for thee to kick against the goad!" The figure of speech is borrowed from a custom of Eastern countries: the ox-driver wields a long pole, at the end of which is fixed a piece of sharpened iron, with which he urges the animal to go on or stand still or change its course; and, if it is refractory, ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... his hands. Eventually he drew out a flask and having uncorked it he ceremoniously wiped the bottle's mouth with the palm of his hand. "Let's take a leetle dram ter better acquaintances," he suggested. "Thet thar's licker I wouldn't offer ter nobody but a reg'lar man. Hit's got a kick like ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... outlaw, the wild horse had to be broken to be ridden. Many of them hated the saddle, the bit, the rider, and would not tolerate them except when mastered. These horses had to be hurt to be subdued. Then there were cowboys, great horsemen, who never wanted any kind of a horse save one that would kick, bite, pitch. It was a kind of cowboy vanity. Panhandle Smith did not have it. He had broken bad horses and he had ridden outlaws, but because of his humanity he was not so great a horseman as he might have been. In almost every outfit where Pan had worked there had always been one cowboy, sometimes ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... should at least say, even in the dullest of times, that business might be a 'lot worse.' It's these croakers on the road who really make business dull when there is every reason for it to be good. I never kick and I don't think any up-to-date ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson

... of hills overlooking the Piegan encampment the sun was shining pleasantly. The winter, after its final savage kick, had vanished and summer, crowding hard upon spring, was wooing the bluffs and hillsides on their southern exposures to don their summer robes of green. Not yet had the bluffs and hillsides quite yielded to the wooing, not yet had they donned the ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... shaking his head mournfully. "Now go back to your boss, Mr. Thornton Lyne, and tell him that I am ashamed of an intelligent man adopting so crude a method," and with a kick he dismissed Sam Stay ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace

... a tea-table, and the irate performer gave one kick, and sent the whole concern crashing into the pit. There was ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... "This isn't an ordinary kick," said Bannon, sharply. "It isn't just a case of us having to pay a big delay forfeit. There's a reason why our job's got to be done on time. I want to know the reason why the G. & M. won't give you cars. It ain't ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin

... into the darkness, I distinctly saw, by a bright star-light, the form of the sentinel, pacing, with staggering strides, beneath the casement. Presently, he came to a dead halt, at the termination of a roulade in his song, and, in a wink, the lazo was over him. A kick with my heel served for signal to the halliards, and up flew the pendant against the window-sill. But, alas! it was not the sentinel. The noose had not slipped or caught with sufficient rapidity, and escaping the soldier's neck, it only grasped and secured his chako and musket. In ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... heart to play the churl to a woman, but I durst not let her up on the turnips, where perhaps a chance kick of her feet might betray the ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... stared, and stared; And then his under lip came out and farther out it came, Till mamma and the nurse agreed it was a "cruel shame"— But now what does that same wee, toddling, lisping baby do But laugh and kick his little heels ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... mad, superbly drunk; If you kick open your doors and play the fool in public; If you empty your bag in a night, and snap your fingers at prudence; If you walk in curious paths and play with useless things; Reck not rhyme or reason; If unfurling your sails ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore

... down, and now Christine—she thinks I don't know. I'm no fool; I see a lot of things. I'm no good. I know that I've made her miserable. But I made a merry little hell for you too, and you don't kick about it." ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... right wrist by a leather thong, he flourished it in the air, and brought it down on his charger's flank with a crack like a pistol-shot, causing the animal to wriggle its tail, toss its ponderous head, and kick up its heels, in a way that ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... leave alive. Six hundred warriors will fall by them in their first conflict, and a man for each of their weapons, and one for each of the three themselves. And they will boast a triumph over a king or chief of the reavers. It will not be more than with a bite or a blow or a kick that each of those men will kill, for no arms are allowed them in the house, since they are in 'hostageship at the wall' lest they do a misdeed therein. I swear what my tribe swears, if they had armour on them, they would slay us all but ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... not throw away the milking pail if the cow should kick it over: do not be discouraged if a misfortune ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop

... John Kuntz, was dead and buried. He knew that he had been a very wealthy, and therefore most respectable, alderman of the town; that he had been very fond of horses; and that he had died in consequence of a kick received from one of his own, as he was looking at his hoof. But he had not heard that, just before he died, a black cat 'opened the casement with her nails, ran to his bed, and violently scratched his ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald

... but a few seconds later Heinz Schorlin had swung himself from the saddle and dealt the dog so vigorous a kick that it retreated howling into the thicket. Meanwhile he had watched every movement of the bay, and at the right instant his strong hand had grasped its nostrils and forced it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... while that developed on the rupture of the circuit coincided in direction with the inducing current. It appeared as if the current on its first rush through the primary wire sought a purchase in the secondary one, and, by a kind of kick, impelled backward through the latter an electric wave, which subsided as soon as the primary current ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall

... the way, have you by any chance an aunt, a cousin, a grandmother, or any other suitable female relation who might be represented as being likely to kick the bucket?" ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... disgust that spoilt the effect entirely. It was trying, for Patch saw his prospects vanishing into thin air unless his rival could be promptly silenced; so slipping cautiously behind, he dealt the animal as vigorous a kick as the dilapidated state of his ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... of the sachem stretched out in the dilapidated slouchiness peculiar to himself. He did not bother to remove any of his clothing, and, though the place was quite chilly he drew none of the bison robes over him. He had lain down on one, but had managed in some way to kick it half way across the lodge, and his couch, therefore, was the simple earth, which served better than a kingly bed of eider ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... get drunk, I'd like ter know? You feel yer oats too much to-night. No man or horse can kick over the traces with me;" and he went off in the unreasoning anger of a half-drunken man. But he carried all his generous impulses with him, for a few minutes after, seeing a man lying in a most dangerous position, he ran up and shook him, crying, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... Leon, tearing his hair. "On the day when I see her again after three years' absence, I can think of nothing more soul-inspiring than showing her mummies!" He launched a kick at the triple coffin of the colonel, saying, "I wish the devil ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... my eye out, I go wild. I get my hand on his throat and choke him still. I drag him to the stairs and throw him head first all the way down to the bottom. He fall in a heap and lie still. I run down and drag him to the door. I kick his face and he never move. He was dead. I kick him again—and again. And then I laugh—I laugh—I laugh in his dead face—I was so glad ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... deep around the Alm-hut that the windows seemed to stand level with the ground and the house-door had entirely disappeared. Round Peter's hut it was the same. When the boy went out to shovel the snow, he had to creep through the window; then he would sink deep into the soft snow and kick with arms and legs to get free. Taking a broom, the boy would have to clear away the snow from the door to prevent its falling into ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri

... I guess you find one better company than two at this particular moment. I won't shoot Simon Rattar till I hear from you, though by Gad, I'm tempted to kick him just to be going on with! But look here, Carrington, if my services will ever do you the least bit of good—in fact, so long as I'm not actually in the way—just send me a wire and I'll come straight. ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston

... was as ignorant as Dominie Sampson on military matters; and, conceiving good provisions to be thrown away upon him, they stripped him nearly naked and dismissed him, like the barber in Gil Blas, with a kick in the breech, and sent him in to us in ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... road, and other help was nigh at hand, and the providential calm that comes over fallen horses after their initiatory struggle was at hand too, and in due time matters were righted: that those two fiery stallions did not kick everything to pieces, and that all four steeds did not gallop us to destruction, was due, under Providence, to the skill and courage of our good Pierre and the patient Muscatelli."—Railways have since superseded all this peril, and cost, and care: and trains now go through the Simplon, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... little behind, with a movement that sent his straw hat forward in the direction of his nose. "I don't know as I'd do anything for him that I wouldn't do for you," he responded with an equal geniality. "I guess you'd better open that one"—and he gave a little affectionate kick to ...
— Pandora • Henry James

... choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? And did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel? Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honouredst thy sons above me to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel, my people? Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... swore to him, upon which the fisherman immediately took off the covering of the vessel. At that instant the smoke ascended, and the genie, having resumed his form, the first thing he did was to kick the vessel into the sea. This action alarmed the fisherman. "Genie," said he, "will not you keep the oath you just ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... sleeping all day. What was worse, was that he would eat such big meals, that he left but little food for his wife and children. Barbara's anger and impatience grew so strong, that she no longer used words as a means to reform her husband. She would kick him as he lay lazily on his bed, and would even whip him like a child. Finally the thought of leaving home came into his head; he determined to travel to some distant land, partly with the purpose of getting away from his wife, who was always interfering with his ease, and partly ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... lecture, where we cannot follow him just now, but must remain with Drysdale and Saunders, who chatted on very pleasantly for some twenty minutes, till a knock came at the door. It was not till the third summons that Drysdale shouted, "Come in," with a shrug of his shoulders, and an impatient kick at the sofa cushion at his feet, as though not half pleased at the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... little lake was a spotted green frog. He too lived near the big rock. He would squat like a lump on the top in the sun, blinking his bright little eyes. Then splash! jump he would go, plump into the water. He'd keep his funny head with the little blinking, bright eyes above water while he'd kick his long, spotted, green legs and he'd swim across to another rock. At first he used to frighten the slippery shiny little fish when he came tumbling into the quiet water. But the spotted green frog never did anything to hurt the little fish so the slippery shiny little fish didn't ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell

... night about them seemed to be listening. "I'll make a mess of you," he said in his hoarse whisper. "I'll do you—injuries. I'll 'urt you. I'll kick you ugly, see? I'll 'urt you in 'orrible ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... to my hotel last night I saw a number of boys playing Burmese football. They do not take sides, nor do they try to kick goals. The football is ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous

... that chap impressed me. I wonder sometimes whether he has succeeded in writing himself into liberty and a pension at last, or had to go out of his gas-lighted grave straight into that other dark one where nobody would want to intrude. My humanity was pleased to discover he had so much kick left in him, but I was not comforted in the least. It occurred to me that if Mr. Powell had the same sort of temper . . . However, I didn't give myself time to think and scuttled across the space at the foot of the stairs into the passage where I'd been told to try. And I tried the first ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... of how I used to run and leap and kick the ball, And ride and dance and climb the hills and frolic in the sea; And all the thousand things that now I'll never do at all. . . . Mon Dieu! there's nothing left in life, it often seems to me. And as the nurses lift me up and strap me in my chair, If they would ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... in the sunshine. Bones clack a light staccato. Bare wrist bones, Thigh bones, Ankle bones, Kick the soil loose. ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott

... that the Solomon Spalding theory had been exploded, and quoting one of the elders, said that Mormonism began in a hamlet and got to a village, from a village to a town, thence to a city, thence to a territory, and that if it got "just another kick it would as sure as fate be kicked into a great and mighty nation." This "old man eloquent" seemed over head and ears in Mormonism, and almost shook with joy at certain ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... the advantage of the first kick at the ball while the mercury tube inside was still quiet. Once the mercury was agitated, the ball would be as easy to ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell

... cathedrals. No! let the venerable orders of the hierarchy exist with all their advantages. And shall I tell them, I reject your just and reasonable petition, not because it shakes the church, but because there are others, while you lie grovelling upon the earth, that will kick and bite you? Judge which of these descriptions of men comes with a fair request—that, which says, Sir, I desire liberty for my own, because I trespass on no man's conscience;—or the other, which says, I desire that these men should not be suffered to act according to ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... her without exactly knowing what he was doing. When he got close to her she raised her great head to him, and he thought: "If I only had a jug I could get a little milk." He looked at the cow and the cow looked at him, and then, suddenly giving her a kick in the ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... the fellow tried to kick me and made it more difficult for us to get the man, and as a result I got ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey

... under foot by him, ere, on account of his youth, he could commit sin. He therefore began to tempt his senses; but he, enraged with himself, and beating his breast with his fist, as if he could drive out thoughts by blows, "I will force thee, mine ass," said he, "not to kick; and feed thee with straw, not barley. I will wear thee out with hunger and thirst; I will burden thee with heavy loads; I will hunt thee through heat and cold, till thou thinkest more of food than of play." He therefore sustained ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... fighting again, for it was too absurd. Being prevented from leaving the army, as he was incapable of embracing any other profession, he applied for and obtained the position of captain quartermaster, "a kennel," as he called it, "in which he would be left to kick the bucket in peace." That day Mme Burle experienced a great internal disruption. She felt that it was all over, and she ever afterward preserved a ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... wouldn't lie. Every word of it is the trufe; fact, everything I ebber told you wuz the trufe. Now, my pa had a brother, old Uncle Martin, and his wife wuz name Julianne. Aunt Julianne used ter have spells and fight and kick all the time. They had doctor after doctor but none did her any good. Somebody told Uncle Martin to go ter a old conjurer and let the doctors go cause they wan't doing nothing for her anyway. Sho nuff he got one ter come see her and give her some medicine. This old man said she had bugs in ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... sourge of danger. In few parts (if any) of the body is a blow more fatal than over what is popularly called the "pit of the stomach." In the quadruped this part is little exposed either to accidental or intentional injuries. In man it is quite open to both. A blow, a kick, a fall among stones, etc., may thus easily ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... one phase of the explosion. My arms were wrenched, my fingers twisted and tortured, and, when it was all too clear to me that I could not possibly bear one added iota of physical pain, the ingenious fiend began to kick my shins and ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... discovered by Rocinante, he wanted to exchange friendly greetings with them, so he set off at a brisk trot in their direction. But the ponies seemed to have no desire to strike up an acquaintance with an unknown hack, for they arrogantly turned their backs on him and commenced to snort and kick and bite until the saddle fell off Rocinante and he was left quite naked. By this time the Yanguesans had heard the commotion and rushed up, armed with sticks, and with these they thrashed poor Rocinante so soundly that he fell to the ground in ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... but if you'll just kindly give me a kick under the table when I'm going too far I'll ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... them. It is not often that a common bawd, without brains or beauty enough to attract a passing glance, thus has the opportunity to elicit volleys of applause from crowds of men; and, without stopping to question the value of it, she makes herself doubly drunken with it. If to kick up her skirts is to attract attention—hoop la! If indecency is then the distinguishing feature of the evening, she is the woman for your money. So she jumps rather than dances. She has a whole set of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... and revelling, are the Brembo and the Serio! What a country the Valtellina! I went back to our father's house, thinking to find thee again, my little sister—thinking to kick away thy ball of yellow silk as thou went stooping for it, to make thee run after me and beat me. I woke early in the morning; thou wert grown up and gone. Away to Sorrento—I knew the road—a few strides brought me back—here I am. To-morrow, my Cornelia, we will walk together, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... shipping clerk morosely, as he picked himself up and dusted off his clothing. "Gee! You got a wallop like the kick of a mule, Per—" ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... kick de natchul stuffin' outen you,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, but de Tar-Baby, she ain't sayin' nuthin'. She des hilt on, en de Brer Rabbit lose de use er his feet in de same way. Brer Fox, he lay low. Den Brer Rabbit squall out dat ef de Tar-Baby don't tu'n 'im loose he butt ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris

... the statement I am now making. Let those who thought that with the use of those phrases, "a planter of Jamaica" "the West India interest," "residence in Jamaica and its experience," they could make our balance kick the beam—let them, I say, hear what I tell, for it is but the fact—that when the chains were knocked off there was not a single breach of the peace committed either on the day itself, or on ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... me," he explained. "When I walk up, I don't. walk down. Bye-bye, my son!" He began talking about Beaton to the Marches as they climbed the station stairs together. "That fellow puzzles me. I don't know anybody that I have such a desire to kick, and at the same time that I want to flatter up so much. Affect you that way?" ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... table, covered with papers and books, Mr. Rushton seemed perfectly ignorant of his presence, as he had not heard the noise of the kick. His head resting upon his hand, the forehead drooping, the eyes half closed, the bosom shaken by piteous sighs, and the whole person full of languor and grief, no one would have recognized the rough, bearish ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... confession, and his wooden head: While all the minor plunderers of the age, (Too numerous far for this contracted page,) The Rigbys, Calcrafts, Dysons, Bradshaws there, In straw-stuffed effigy, shall kick the air. But say, ye powers, who come when fancy calls, Where shall our mimic London rear her walls? That eastern feature, Art must next produce, Though not for present yet for future use, Our sons some ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... us steps out of the way of an ox-cart. It must be a very stupid dog that lets himself be run over by a fast driver in his gig; he can jump out of the wheel's way after the tire has already touched him. So, while one is lifting a stick to strike or drawing back his foot to kick, the beast makes his spring, and the blow or the kick ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... days of my success, it afforded him, no doubt, some gratification to kick a man when he is down, but his effort brought only a smile—the animus was so apparent and the ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell

... under Jack's command, opened fire at almost the same moment. Heavy shells flew screaming into the enemy lines. German projectiles began to kick up the water close to the Vindictive and the Brigadier. But in the first few volleys, none of the enemy shells found their marks. Jack was conning the ship from the port forward, the flame-thrower hut. Frank, with ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake

... first, that an opportunity might thus offer of exchanging his dreadnought for a less impressive costume; and, secondly, that in case of his declining to accompany them, he saw signs abroad that a generous and enlightened public did very probably purpose to kick him out; a conjecture which was considerably strengthened by the universal applause which attended his exit at ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... other boys had got away the sipahis turned their attention to him, but as they aimed blows at him with the sticks, he caught the blows on his arms and the sticks shivered to atoms without harming him; so then they went to kick him but a great cibei snake came rustling up behind them; so they saw it was no use to contend with him and desisted: whereupon he drove all the village cattle ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas

... He does kick off his shoes as fast as any horse ever I see; and they does wear, mum, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... that,—the one portrayed in the chain of circumstantial evidence which the colonel had laid before him? It was monstrous! it was treason to womanhood! One look in her eyes, superb in their innocence, was too much for his determined impartiality. Armitage gave himself a mental kick for what he termed his imbecility, and ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... joke, and flew in his face, spitting and scratching. He was dreadfully frightened, and ran to the back-door, but the dog, who lay there sprang up and bit his leg; and as he ran across the yard by the straw-heap, the donkey gave him a smart kick with its hind foot. The cock, too, who had been awakened by the noise, and had become lively, cried down from the ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... my friends, not hating my enemies, but detesting superstition." Despite the admiration of the people, the powers of the state could not forget that the man so enthusiastically received was the great apostle of mockery and irreverence. The government gave its last kick to the dead lion by ordering the papers not to comment on his death. The church laid an interdict on his burial in consecrated ground,—an hour or two too late, as it proved. His body, minus the heart, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris

... spent the night was five miles away; his stiff riding-boots were ill-adapted to pedestrianism. The idea of lugging that heavy saddle five miles over a mountain road caused him to knit his brows and look very serious indeed. As he gave the saddle an impatient kick, his eyes rested on the Bologna sausage, one end of which protruded from the holster; then there came over him a poignant recollection of his Lenten supper of the night before and his no breakfast at all of that ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... and was mildly sat upon. To-day he came around and gave me back my opinion, clause for clause, as his own. But I have no kick coming. Somebody will have to be here to fight the battle to a finish when the judge returns, and our expert will advise the ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... peculiar traits are characterised in masterly style. At last a balance is brought, on which each lays a verse; but notwithstanding all the efforts of Euripides to produce ponderous lines, those of Aeschylus always make the scale of his rival to kick the beam. At last the latter becomes impatient of the contest, and proposes that Euripides himself, with all his works, his wife, children, Cephisophon and all, shall get into one scale, and he will only lay ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black



Words linked to "Kick" :   gnarl, scissors kick, hit, football game, propel, bounce, crab, input, spring, yawp, football, kick back, grizzle, score, exhilaration, peck, punt, whine, tally, stimulant, kicker, forgo, relinquish, trip the light fantastic toe, stimulation, blow, strike out, scuff, resile, recoil, bemoan, bewail, movement, goal-kick, punting, scold, cheer, grouse, croak, frog kick, deplore, report, place kick, bleat, kick the bucket, grouch, motion, bound, sport, bellyache, charge, dispense with, foreswear, squawk, forego, motility, ricochet, kick starter, stimulus, rack up, inveigh, excitement, mutter, rail, take a hop, athletics, lament, give up, holler, bitch, grumble, yammer, rebound, dance, kick out, hen-peck, impel, displace, protest, trip the light fantastic, kick turn, backbite, kick about, nag, kvetch, move, objection, murmur, kick one's heels, repine, waive, bang, reverberate



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