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Killer   /kˈɪlər/   Listen
Killer

noun
1.
Someone who causes the death of a person or animal.  Synonym: slayer.
2.
The causal agent resulting in death.  Synonym: cause of death.
3.
A difficulty that is hard to deal with.
4.
Predatory black-and-white toothed whale with large dorsal fin; common in cold seas.  Synonyms: grampus, killer whale, orca, Orcinus orca, sea wolf.



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"Killer" Quotes from Famous Books



... the Arthuric legends) Britain was inhabited only by a few giants. Now if you had met giants with one head, and also giants with seven heads, and no others, you would have had a right to say, "There are two breeds of giants here, one-headed and seven-headed." But if you had found, as Jack the Giant-Killer (who belongs to the same old cycle of myths) appears to have found, two-headed giants also, and three-headed, and giants, indeed, with any reasonable number of heads, would you not have been justified in saying, "They are all of the same ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley

... he escapes—become a professional killer. My dear chap, you forget. She's used to decent people. It makes all the difference in the world." Pell turned away, lest the hard look should return to ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne

... "By a professional killer; the larynx has been cut above the glottis, and with the same stroke the two carotid arteries, with the jugular veins. As the assassin had to raise the head, the victim was not able to cry out; considerable ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... that was here left it for a sample,' says Hoppy. 'Wanted me to try it and, if I liked it, he cal'lated maybe I'd buy some. I don't think I shall, though,' he says; 'don't taste right to me.' Yes, sir, Jim Young swears that's true. Wan't enough snake-killer in that hair tonic to suit Hoppy. I—Yes, Cap'n Lote, what is it? ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... be offensive. The game of Squash Tennis has known many so-called "great getters," but they invariably have succumbed to "purposeful power" and the aggressively angled shots of players with the burning desire to win, "the killer instinct" that spurs the great players to go all out for ...
— Squash Tennis • Richard C. Squires

... in the full tide of his success as a sheep-killer, that he came, one day, into Mr. Marble's door yard, and took his station near the wood pile. Mike saw him, and knew well enough what he came for. His father had just been slaughtering an ox, and some of the dainty pieces of the animal were lying on the ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank

... sawed off by a black Mary (woman) and an old nigger with only one leg, having left the other leg in the mouth of a shark while diving for dynamited fish. There was Billy Watts, horrible reputation as a nigger killer, a man to scare the devil. I remember lying at Cape Little, New Ireland you know, when the niggers stole half a case of trade-tobacco—cost him about three dollars and a half. In retaliation he turned out, shot six niggers, ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... wove and interwove in the smoky Oven. The Whimper or the faltering Wail of Children, the quavering Sigh of overlaced Women, and the long-drawn Profanity of Men—these were what the Fool-Killer heard as he looked upon ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade

... one form or another have thrilled the bosoms of happy childhood for so many hundreds of years, and which will continue to thrill them through centuries yet unborn. Then it was that he made the acquaintance of Little Red Riding Hood, Jack the Giant Killer, and the Seven Champions of Christendom. The mingled lights and shades from the blazing logs of hickory in the fireplace lent additional charm to the thousand and one stories which the mother recounted for the child's edification, and I doubt ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... dealt with, as he viewed the matter, most unfairly, the condemned killer sullenly refused to make submission to his appointed destiny. On the car journey up to Chickaloosa, although still weak from his wounds and securely ironed besides, he made two separate efforts ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... thread-paper giants, and we now see courage, manly beauty, talents, wit, and eloquence, reduced to a peace-establishment size, instead of those long-splice scoundrels, that used to go striding about our imaginations, like Jack the giant-killer in his seven-league boots, kicking the shins and treading on the toes of every common sized idea ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... lion, the man was a killer. But, unlike the lion, his vague description and the narrative of his deeds was in all the newspapers, and mankind was a vast deal more interested in him than in the lion. The lion had slain calves in upland pastures. ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... breakfast!" called Mrs. Moss; and for about twenty minutes little was said, as mush and milk vanished in a way that would have astonished even Jack the Giant-killer with his ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... dead man when the faint daylight came; and so could not tell whether or not he had used his knife. His body must have washed over the rail with a sea, and we hoped the invisible killer had gone, too. But we hoped too much. With courage born of this hope a man went forward to lower the masthead lights, prodding his way with the ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... backs, and he keeps up this performance until life is extinct, when he devours his prey. His services as a snake-killer are known all over the country, and consequently he is never shot or trapped. He is intelligent enough to understand his immunity from attack, and comes fearlessly about the houses of the ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... gypsy; she had made her too proud and serious. A more proper part for her was that of a heroine, a queenly heroine,—that of Theresa of Hungary, for example; or, better still, that of Brynhilda the Valkyrie, the beloved of Sigurd, the serpent-killer, who incurred the curse of Odin, because, in the tumult of spears, she sided with the young king, and doomed the old warrior to die, to whom Odin ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... names, either taken from villages or of a titular character. A few are called after animals or plants, as Majiria the cat, Ringni a kind of tree, Dumare from Dumar, an ant-hill, Dukare from Dukar, a pig, and Titawe from Titawa, a bird. Baghmare means tiger-killer or one killed by a tiger; members of this sept revere the tiger. Two septs, Bhoyar and Wanjari, are named after ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... too big a devil," they said, "to care a fig for any man. She would laugh in the face of the mightiest lady-killer in London, and flout him as if he were a mercer's apprentice or a plough-boy. He does not ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... I'm not one to waste much breath on talking love. My Ogallalla Sioux warriors know me as the soldier-killer. Be cautious when you go back, and give no hint to any one but Addie Neidic that there is a living being in Dead Man's Hollow, for so this ravine is ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline

... quarters is not worth a button." I must say that it seemed to me that the club was, to use his own style of language, not worth a button-hole; for it was all knotted over at the head, something like the club which I remember to have observed in picture-books of Jack the Giant Killer, besides being so heavy that he required to grasp it with both hands in order to wield it at all. However, he took it with him, and in this manner we set ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... said; "I am Hereward the outlaw, I am the champion, I am the Berserker, I am the Viking, I am the land thief, the sea thief, the ravager of the world, the bear-slayer, the ogre-killer, the raven-fattener, the darling of the wolf, the curse of the widow. Touch me, and I will give you to the raven and to the wolf, as I have this ogre. Be my men, and follow me over the swan's road, over the whale's bath, over the long-snake's leap, to the ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... with what ethic and philosophy come from being fed on fairy tales. If I were describing them in detail I could note many noble and healthy principles that arise from them. There is the chivalrous lesson of "Jack the Giant Killer"; that giants should be killed because they are gigantic. It is a manly mutiny against pride as such. For the rebel is older than all the kingdoms, and the Jacobin has more tradition than the Jacobite. There is the lesson of "Cinderella," which is the same as that ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... hated trouble, whereas it's what he lives on. I've always wanted to die in bed, while he's been a killer all his life and the smoke hangs forever in his eyes. Only for an accident we might have lived here all our days and never had a 'run-in,' which makes me wonder if I hadn't better let things go on ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... be possible that this strange, half-wild man of the mountains, this killer, this master of a wolf pack, could be in any way connected with my father? I wondered, and as I wondered I found that a vague fear of this mad man who despite his reputed age seemed as youthful and as agile as a man in his thirties, was gripping me. Perhaps ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... the animal dwelled! In countless matches he had used those holds, always drawing back from the exertion of the full killing power. They were part of a game, part of the Twenties. Yet when his friend had been killed he had become a killer himself. He believed in nonviolence and the sanctity of life—until the first test, when he had killed without hesitation. More ironic was the fact he really felt no guilt, even now. Shock at the change, yes. But no ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... For there was only one man to whom I might speak freely, and from him my path ever diverged. How far apart the years had led us! Sometimes there came a whisper that I had been snatched from the hand of Satan, killer of souls; sometimes my only opportunities of salvation seemed left in that sad, damp homestead. I could never return to him; I could never be wholly free from him. Ever was I controlled by a shadowy force which reached me from his abundant ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... she answered. "You have always been that way—and I know that it's because at bottom you are timid and disposed to suffer. And then, too, perhaps you have reasons for not having confidence in a wife's intimate friends—lady-killer that ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair

... cut short by a tap at the door; a long, gawky youth, with a budding moustache, entered and slouched over to a chair. He was young Isaacstein, son of the Tarrong storekeeper, a would-be sportsman, would-be gambler, would-be lady-killer, would-be everything, who only succeeded in making himself a cheap bar-room loafer; but he was quite satisfied that he was the ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... surrounding Manhattan Armory. Two policemen were killed, four others seriously injured. Tammany Hall has warned that this man is extremely dangerous. Citizens are cautioned to keep clear of him. Lane is an insane killer. He is armed with the latest military weapons. A built-in electronic brain controls ...
— Mutineer • Robert J. Shea

... ever before. He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived. Because of all this he became possessed of a great pride in himself, which communicated ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... those of her friend; she wondered if she were to seem fair in the eyes of this Lassiter, this man whose name had crossed the long, wild brakes of stone and plains of sage, this gentle-voiced, sad-faced man who was a hater and a killer of Mormons. It was not now her usual half-conscious vain obsession that actuated her as she hurriedly changed her riding-dress to one of white, and then looked long at the stately form with its gracious contours, at the fair face with its strong chin and full ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... doing them harm, only warning them that another vessel which was becalmed near at hand was a "killer," and the people were so uneasy about her that Mr. Brooke went on board, and was taken by the captain for a maker of cocoa-nut oil. He was a Scotchman, from Tanna, where he had settled, and was in search of labourers; a good-natured friendly kind of person on the whole, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... supper. I had no saddle, as mine had been left at camp a mile distant, so taking the harness from Brigham I mounted him bareback, and started out after the game, being armed with my celebrated buffalo killer Lucretia Borgia—a newly improved breech-loading needle-gun, which I had obtained ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... when they, with most of Rickett at their heels, burst down the door of the Sheriff's office and found his body, they had only one thought, which was to swing into the saddle and ride on the trail of the killer, who was even now in a diminishing cloud of dust down the street. He was riding almost due east, and the cry went up: "He's streakin' it for the Morgan Hills. Git after him, boys!" So into the saddle they went with a rush, fifteen tried men on fifteen chosen horses, and ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... very pretty and picturesque; and Maecenas was sure to be charmed with it as a birthday Ode, for such it certainly was, whether there was any real Phyllis in the case or not. Most probably there was not,—the allusion to Telephus, the lady-killer, is so very like many other allusions of the same kind in other Odes, which are plainly mere exercises of fancy, and the protestation that the lady is the very, very last of his loves, so precisely what all middle-aged ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... good lady-killer had posted about devoted attendants, who, without knowing what was going on, closed the hotel, barricaded the doors, and in this mansion, so large that it equalled a fourth of Paris, the Lady d'Hocquetonville was as in a desert, with no other aid than that of her patron ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... though a user would consider all those to be apps. (Broadly, an app is often a self-contained environment for performing some well-defined task such as 'word processing'; hackers tend to prefer more general-purpose tools.) See {killer ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... Tom steered their craft in a deadly game of tag with the sub-killer. Gradually the missile appeared to be ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton

... together. That's what our association always ought to mean to us,—just chumship, and wonderful and preposterous pretends. I couldn't think of myself being married to you any more than I could Jack the giant killer, or Robinson Crusoe. You're my truly best and dearest childhood's playmate, and that is a great deal to be, Uncle Jimmie. I don't think a little girl ever grows up quite whole unless she has somewhere, somehow, what I had in you. You wouldn't want to marry ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... Sopolis; he is manifestly moon-struck; persons duly pia-matered he accounts beside their five wits; he might come from Samos and call Mnesarchus father; for he enjoins silence and linguinanity. But by the unabashed Athene, by Heracles the beast-killer, no jot or tittle of notice shall he have from me. 'Tis my foreboding that I fall not in with him again. For his censures, I void ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... to think long upon a dreamy summer night without falling asleep, and very soon Bobby's eyes closed and he forgot all about the dog and the cat and the cow and the fiddle, and dreamed he was Jack the Giant Killer and was just about to slay the biggest giant ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum

... embraces popularly myths and superstitions. In Baring-Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages the reader will find many of these traced backward, through various people son converging lines, toward a common origin in remote antiquity. Among these are the fables of "Teddy the Giant Killer," "The Sleeping John Sharp Williams," "Little Red Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust," "Beauty and the Brisbane," "The Seven Aldermen of Ephesus," "Rip Van Fairbanks," and so forth. The fable with Goethe ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... character with rare sympathy, he was profoundly touched by the poetry and the pathos of these miserable lives. Through all these studies runs a quaint vein of humor, relieving the pathos of the situations. The picturesque costume of the old Rat Killer tickles the sense of humor, and conveys somehow a delightful suggestion of his humbuggery which offsets the touching squalor of the grotesque little apprentice. And none but a humorist could have created the swaggering hostler's boy holding the ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... opportunities of observation, and amongst other cases that had interested me, I had seen some not unlike the present. The fact was that, as everybody counted me nobody, I had taken full advantage of my conceded nonentity, which, like Jack the Giant-killer's coat of darkness, enabled me to learn much that would otherwise have escaped me. My reflections on my observations, however, did not lead me to any further or more practical conclusion just yet, than that other and better advice ought ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald

... his team. He was a man about thirty-five years old, five feet eleven inches in height, remarkably good looking, with long black hair, and full beard and mustache, and in Philadelphia he was known as a perfect "lady-killer." ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton

... hatred of Glooskap, this quadruped appears as an enemy.] But the Mikumwess, seeing this, steered straight to meet the monster, and, coming to him, said, "I am the great hunter of beavers; lo, I am their butcher; many a one has fallen by my hand." [Footnote: This is oddly like the speech of the beaver-killer in The Hunting of the Snark.] Now the Beaver had placed himself under water, with his tail out of it and rising upwards, that he might sink the canoe with a blow thereof; for the Beaver strikes mightily in such wise, as is his wont. But he of the magic power, with one blow of his tomahawk, ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... Otter-man, the mischievous Puck of Indian lore, who was waiting for voyagers to land and camp, when he would seize their sleeping forms and transport them a dozen miles in a moment, or cradle them on the tops of the highest trees. Again there was a most rapacious and ferocious killer-whale in a piece of swift water, whose delight it was to take into his great, tooth-rimmed jaws whole canoes with their crews of men, mangling them and gulping them down as a single mouthful. Many were these stories of fear told us at the ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young

... round. Come on, Dreiser, I know just the place for us—" and then descanting on a steak or fish planked, or some new method of serving corn or sweet potatoes or tomatoes, he would lead the way somewhere to a favorite "rat's killer," as he used to say, or grill or Chinese den, and order enough for four or five, unless stopped. As he walked, and he always preferred to walk, the latest political row or scandal, the latest discovery, tragedy or art topic would get his keen ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... little Billy has killed an Indian stone-dead—too dead to skin,” said one of the men, who had approached nearer than the rest, and had almost stumbled over the corpse. From that time forward I became a hero and an Indian killer. This was, of course, the first Indian I had ever shot, and as I was then not more than eleven years of age, my exploit created ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... what I needed as a time-killer, so I spun him a yarn about the lovely life me an' Kid Porter was livin'. We jerked out his trunk just before the train left, bought a month's grub, an' came along out to our shack. His name was William Sinclair Hammersly, an' the' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... myself, follow its trail to the bitter end. Moreover, I learned that, to knock over a wild boar and keep him down for good, one needs a heavy rifle. The bullet of my 6.5 mm. Mannlicher, which has proved to be a wonderful killer for anything up to and including sheep, has not weight enough behind it to stop a pig in its tracks. These animals have such wonderful vitality that, even though shot in a vital spot, they can travel an unbelievable distance. ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... murder. But could he injure the man who has made him a Duke by a lucky coup-d'epee? No, no. Let him cross the frontier; and, when he is out of reach, what thundering denunciations will not the possessor of the dukedom fulminate against the killer of his cousin! It is shocking to perceive how intimately acquainted old Scribe must be with manners, customs, and feelings, as they exist ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... royalty. Were not the mightiest men of the olden times kings? Alexander was a king; Solomon, the wisest of men, was a king; Napoleon was a king; Caesar died in his attempt to become one, and Cromwell, the puritan and king-killer, aspired to regality. The father of Adrian yielded up the already broken sceptre of England; but I will rear the fallen plant, join its dismembered frame, and exalt it above all the flowers ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... of the World,' 'Richelieu,' and 'Macbeth.' On July 29th, 1865, I made my debut in London, at the Haymarket, as Ophelia to the Hamlet of Walter Montgomery. Poor Montgomery! He was what you would call a 'lady-killer'—very conceited, but, withal, very kind. He once wrote a letter to my father, and added a postscript, saying: 'Keep this letter. Should poverty fall upon you or yours, your great-grand-children may be able ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... you start then, ever so slightly, you cruel killer, you merciless destroyer? What good now is the blue vial in your pocket? Of what use the clenched fist, and writhing, clutching fingers? You have come too late, Wolf; you have lost your poor too! Look and look and look ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine

... lunge beyond thy length; Lend no rotten bough thy strength. Gauge thy gape with buck or goat, Lest thine eye should choke thy throat After gorging, wouldst thou sleep? Look thy den be hid and deep, Lest a wrong, by thee forgot, Draw thy killer to the spot. East and West and North and South, Wash thy hide and close thy mouth. (Pit and rift and blue pool-brim, Middle-Jungle follow him!) Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, Jungle-Favour ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... to me for advice, not for sentiment," he observed presently. "Perhaps I am a bad adviser, but that is the worst you can say of me. I daresay I do not understand women. I have known a few pretty well, but that is all. I am not a lady killer, and I certainly never wished to marry. You must not expect much of me—but what little there is to expect will be practical. Perhaps Ghisleri could advise you better than I. He is a queer fellow. If he ever cuts his throat, he will not die of it—his heart and his ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... the Greeks had taken their revenge on the killer of Patroclus they busied themselves in paying due funeral rites to their friend. A pile was erected, and the body burned with due solemnity; and then ensued games of strength and skill, chariot races, wrestling, boxing, and archery. Then the chiefs sat down to the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... alone the truth lives. In criticism it is his business to break the images of false gods and misshapen heroes, to take away the poor silly, toys that many grown people would still like to play with. He cannot keep terms with "Jack the Giant-killer" or "Puss-in-Boots," under any name or in any place, even when they reappear as the convict Vautrec, or the Marquis de Montrivaut, or the Sworn Thirteen Noblemen. He must say to himself that Balzac, when he imagined these monsters, was not Balzac, he was Dumas; he was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... and the Prince said he would ask Jack the Giant-killer to supper. Little Boy replied that he would be proud to meet him. Just as they came near to the house, which was built of pearls and rubies, the Prince said: "Alas! here comes that tiresome fool, Humpty Dumpty." When Little Boy looked, he saw a short man very crooked in the back, and ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... at each end, but with a slit in the centre for the insertion of the things to be conveyed. When filled it is slung over the shoulder, one end in front and the other behind, so as to balance. Without knowing the shape of a wallet the story of Jack the Giant-Killer stowing away such enormous quantities of pudding is scarcely to be understood: children nowadays never see such a thing. Many nursery tales contain allusions of this kind, the meaning of which must be obscure to ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... run a pin through insects and to allow them slowly to torture to death. An insect killer that is generally used is called "the cyanide bottle." Its principle ingredient, cyanide of potassium is a harmless looking white powder but it is the most deadly poison in the world. Unless a boy ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... lady-killer, but thet 's 'bout all the kind o' killer he is, fer as I ever noticed—one o' yer he-flirts. Thar ain't hardly an officer in this garrison thet ain't just achin' fer ter kick that squirt, but ther women—oh, Lord; they think he's a little tin god ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... turned into the fish called killers, a fish which has ever since been an enemy to whales, and is its greatest terror; As the sister was always a gay girl, painting her cheeks of many hues, and loving many-coloured ornaments, he commanded her to become, and she became, the striped killer. He bade her brothers be always very kind to her, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... scarcely button his coat. But he was sober. He did not even carry the odor of whisky upon his breath or his person; for Kent had been very thoughtful and very thorough. He had compelled his patient to crunch and swallow many nauseous tablets of "whisky killer," and he had sprinkled his clothes liberally with Jockey Club; Fleetwood, therefore, while he emanated odors in plenty, carried about him none of the ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... jugful!' says I, emphatic. 'I'll borrer a boat to get to Orham in, when I'm ready to go. You won't ketch me in that man-killer again; and you can call me a coward ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... and many too,—three who attack us in the water, and several more that men use against us. The killer, the sword-fish, and the thrasher trouble us at home. The killer fastens to us, and won't be shaken off till he has worried us to death; the sword-fish stabs us with his sword; and the thrasher whips us ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... secret; and as there was no instance, to my knowledge, of any one of the number breaking faith, I am the more obliged to them, because the slight and trivial character of the mystery was not qualified to inspire much respect in those entrusted with it. Nevertheless, like Jack the Giant-Killer, I was fully confident in the advantage of my "Coat of Darkness;" and had it not been from compulsory circumstances, I would have, indeed, been very cautious ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... by the next patrol, and if we'd calculated to be mean enough to run away from the women—where would we escape to?" asked Banks curtly. "Hold on at least until we get an ultimatum from that commodious ass at the Presidio! Then we'll anticipate the fool-killer, if you like. My opinion is, they aren't in any great hurry to try ANYTHING ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... joined the glorious Royal Mounted when you've got money to burn. You're a wise one, you are, Phil Steele—but you've learned something new. You've learned there's never a man so good but there's a better one somewhere—even if he is a man-killer like Mr. William DeBar." ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... coughed thrice without result, stepped off the prayerrug, rolled it up tightly; then, hugging it beneath his arm, went on: "That four-eyed guy slipped me a whole lot of feed- box information. Why, he's a killer, Wally! And he's got a cash- register ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... end to end with those painted masterpieces, the Life of Robinson Crusoe, the Hunting of Chevy-Chase, the History of Jack the Giant-Killer, and all the little eager faces and trembling hands bent over these, and filling them up with some choice quotation, sacred or profane;—no, the galleries of art, the theatrical exhibitions, the reviews and processions,—which ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... for me! Old Bull-doze was hangin' onto him below, somewhere, but I dropped my Killer (gun) and grabbed my knife, 'cause I knew if I didn't get in on him with Slasher it was all up with both of us. Bear and I took a tight grip on each other and I hit straight for his heart just as he gave me a swipe ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill

... mortal remains of Tehachapi Hank were brought into Ragtown, together with his self-confessed killer Basil Filer. The constable—for Ragtown had one now—took Filer in charge and hurried him to the county seat in Twitter-or-Tweet's machine. The burros had been loosed to pick their living ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins

... was all full of twilight; but there they sat, every one of them. I did not count them, but there were ever so many: Aladdin, and Ali Baba, and Fortunatis, and Jack-the-Giant-Killer, and Doctor Faustus, and Bidpai, and Cinderella, and Patient Grizzle, and the Soldier who cheated the Devil, and St. George, and Hans in Luck, who traded and traded his lump of gold until he had only ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle

... spirited vein. Heard, in my own drawing-room, Mr. Barr's compliments and ardent speeches moved me to badinage, and I saw no harm in accepting them as the ordinary give-and-take of the would-be lady-killer, more original and therefore more entertaining than those of a fashionable flirt, but still of the same general character. I affected to be alternately irate and pleased at what he said. Meanwhile ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... each shoulder; besides this, the management offers one hundred dollars to any man, regardless of color, who can throw Orso in a wrestling match. A rumor arose in Anaheim that from the mountains of San Bernardino comes for this purpose the "Grizzly Killer," a hunter who was celebrated for his bravery and strength, and who, since California was settled, was the first man who attacked these great bears single-handed and armed only with a knife. It is the probable ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... of "cures" on the fact that it claims to be a germ killer, and assumes that all disease is caused by germs. To quote from its advertising literature, it claims to cure thirty-seven diseases which are mentioned by name, and then follows the assertion that it cures "all diseases that begin with fever, all inflammations, all catarrhal contagious ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... afterwards employed it in her works. The peasants, who knew nothing of betters and had never so much as heard of local colour, could not explain her chattering with this backward child; and to them she seemed a very homely lady and far from beautiful: the most famous man-killer of the age appealed so little ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... coyote that caught a fugitive scent of the gray killer, but Breed did not share this dread. He was Flatear's match in size and strength and so was not concerned. Breed could not know that Flatear's hatred had become almost an obsession; that night after night the slayer was craftily ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... of his maimed figure drove to her heart. "Well, I reckon happiness is not so much in what comes as in the way you take it," he returned, smiling. "There was a time, you must remember, when I was the straightest shot of my day, and something of a lady-killer as well, if I do say it who shouldn't. I've done my part in a war and I'm not ashamed of it. I've taken the enemy's cannon under a fire hot enough to roast an ox, and I've sent more men to eternity than I like to think of; but I tell you honestly there's no battle-field under ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... Representatives, where it was referred to the Committee on Post-Roads, of which Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was then the chairman. The Rev. Obadiah B. Brown, who had meanwhile been promoted in the Post-office Department, wrote a report on the subject for Colonel Johnson, which gave "the killer of Tecumseh" an extended reputation, and was the first step toward his election as Vice-President, a ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... for yourself when you meet her. Half of the boys in town are crazy over her. She eats 'em alive. Can't you tell the man-killer ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... there, Platner?" demanded the general, in a tone so rough, that Somers was reminded of the ogre in Jack the Giant-killer. ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... blindly to 'a course,' the Dockers cry. But it does me harm: Then 'twill do good by-and-bye. Where lairned ye that, Echoes of Echoes, say! The killer ploughs 'a course,' the healer ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... the lady-killer, sir," grinned Riley. "I'm a regular Blarney stone when I'm out on a job of that sort. Sure, I'll have some of them for you ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... Faery. Wisdom made a breach and battered Babylon to bits: she scattered To the hedges and ditches All our nursery gnomes and witches. Lob and Puck, poor frantic elves, Drag their treasures from the shelves. Jack the Giant-killer's gone, Mother Goose and Oberon, Bluebeard and King Solomon. Robin, and Red Riding Hood Take together to the wood, And Sir Galahad lies hid In a cave with Captain Kidd. None of all the magic hosts, None remain but a few ghosts ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves

... Away, away, bird-killer!" they cried. They made such a racket that it attracted the farmer, who came running, so that Gorgo had to flee, and the boy got ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... classes. Very seldom was he, during that time, mentioned with respect by any writer of great literary eminence. Young coupled his prose with the poetry of the wretched D'Urfey. In the "Spiritual Quixote," the adventures of Christian are ranked with those of Jack the Giant-killer and John Hickathrift. Cowper ventured to praise the great allegorist, but did not venture to name him. It is a significant circumstance that, till a recent period, all the numerous editions of the "Pilgrim's Progress" were evidently meant for the cottage and the servants' hall. The paper, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... Bight, but sailed the Word o' the Lord out o' Rickity Tickle, in the days of his pride, when I was a lad o' the place; an' he cotched his load, down north, lean seasons or plenty, in a way t' make the graybeards an' boasters blink in every tickle o' the Shore. A fish-killer o' parts he was: no great spectacle on the roads o' harbor, though—a mild, backward, white-livered little man ashore, yieldin' the path t' every dog o' Rickity Tickle. 'I gets my fish in season,' says he, 'an' I got a right t' mind my business between whiles.' But once fair out t' sea, with ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... OF NEPAL. The weird story of the man-killer of the foothills. Tinged with the mysticism of India, dramatic ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney

... and bust, and then, of course, there's nothing left. Poverty never spoils a good man, but prosperity often does. It's easy to stand hard times, because that's the only thing you can do, but in good times the fool-killer has to do night work."—Lorimer: Letters from a Self-made Merchant to his Son ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain

... What! be advis'd by thee To have my loving, kind, and pretty boy Given to an unkind killer of sweet boys? ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... Seals are strange indeed. For nine or ten months of the year they wander freely over the open seas. They dive for their food, and sleep calmly amidst the restless heaving of the ocean. This is the happy life of the Seal, though enemies—Sharks, Killer Whales or Grampuses—sometimes snap him up as ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith

... said, "you will. You will be, as a matter of fact, quite a good deal tougher, stronger and harder than any animal now existing on the face of the Earth. I must except, of course, a few of the really big ones, like the elephant and the killer whale." ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Bay. Danish fairy and folk tales. (Beauty and the horse.) Coussens. Child's book of stories. Jerrold. Big book of fairy tales. Lang. Jack, the giant killer and other fairy stories. Mabie. Fairy tales every child should know. Mulock. Fairy book. Perkins. Twenty best fairy tales. Scudder. Book of folk stories. Scudder. Fables and folk stories. Tappan. Folk stories and fables. ...
— Lists of Stories and Programs for Story Hours • Various

... Sergeant Madden tolerantly. "Not killer-fashion—like delinks. The Force had to give 'em the choice of joining up or getting out. Took years to get 'em out. Had to use all the off-duty men from six precincts ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... I cried, as I finished the letter; how full of true feeling, how honourably, how straight-forward: and yet it is devilish strange how cunningly she played her part—and it seems now that I never did touch her affections; Master Harry, I begin to fear you are not altogether the awful lady-killer you have been thinking. Thus did I meditate upon this singular note—my delight at being once more "free" mingling with some chagrin that I was jockied, and by a young miss of eighteen, too. Confoundedly ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... teguexin lizard of the pampas, called iguana by the country people, is a notable snake-killer. Snakes have in fact, no more formidable enemy, for he is quick to see, and swift to overtake them. He is practically invulnerable, and deals them sudden death with his powerful tail. The gauchos say that dogs attacking the iguana are sometimes known to have ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... of Melissa's cabin was scrupulously clean. Pictures of the President and of one of the happy victims of Somebody's Pleasant Pain-Killer were tacked upon the walls beside long strings of dried red peppers and of okra. A gourd, cut into the shape of a cup, hung upon a nail by its crooked neck. The bed was covered neatly with a blue-and-white homespun coverlet, and a kettle steamed upon ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... candidate for our pot, and as many as six were shot in one day. The men called them the "manna of the Labrador wilderness." Pete's disinclination to eat them was quickly forgotten, for hunger is a wonderful killer of prejudices, and he was as keen for them ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... known to tackle the great sperm-whale, except when one of those mighty creatures has been wounded by his human enemies. And to witness one of these mighty struggles is worth travelling many a thousand miles to see; it is terrible, awe-inspiring and wonderful. The 'killer' ranges in length from ten feet to twenty-five feet (whalemen have told me that one was seen stranded on the Great Barrier Reef in 1862 which measured thirty feet). Their breathing apparatus and general anatomy is much similar to that ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke



Words linked to "Killer" :   choker, individual, exterminator, garroter, liquidator, cause, public executioner, manslayer, felo-de-se, kill, executioner, garrotter, throttler, somebody, murderer, terminator, Orcinus, genus Orcinus, dolphin, causal agency, mortal, suicide, poisoner, difficulty, someone, soul, lady killer, regicide, eradicator, causal agent, strangler, spree killer, person



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