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Boot   Listen
noun
Boot  n.  
1.
A covering for the foot and lower part of the leg, ordinarily made of leather.
2.
An instrument of torture for the leg, formerly used to extort confessions, particularly in Scotland. "So he was put to the torture, which in Scotland they call the boots; for they put a pair of iron boots close on the leg, and drive wedges between them and the leg."
3.
A place at the side of a coach, where attendants rode; also, a low outside place before and behind the body of the coach. (Obs.)
4.
A place for baggage at either end of an old-fashioned stagecoach.
5.
An apron or cover (of leather or rubber cloth) for the driving seat of a vehicle, to protect from rain and mud.
6.
(Plumbing) The metal casing and flange fitted about a pipe where it passes through a roof.
Boot catcher, the person at an inn whose business it was to pull off boots and clean them. (Obs.)
Boot closer, one who, or that which, sews the uppers of boots.
Boot crimp, a frame or device used by bootmakers for drawing and shaping the body of a boot.
Boot hook, a hook with a handle, used for pulling on boots.
Boots and saddles (Cavalry Tactics), the trumpet call which is the first signal for mounted drill.
Sly boots. See Slyboots, in the Vocabulary.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Boot" Quotes from Famous Books



... walked on again. Georgie had not seemed to observe her. The other girl was doubtless Berry Joy, with whom she was less at ease than with anybody else. She felt not the least desire to confront her, and a strange man to boot; besides, Mrs. Joy must not ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... cat remembered; she drove her teeth deep into Hall's hand and fought with a feline fury that is always terrifying. Jim was gazing in big-eyed silence, when Hall, enraged, thrust the cat into the leg of a boot and growled, "I'll fix yer biting," and held her teeth to the grindstone till the body ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... two provincial girls, in Bury-Fair, La Roch, "a French peruke-maker" succeeds in deceiving Mrs. Fantast and Mrs. Gertrude under the name of Count de Cheveux. The Count is very amusing, and though a coward to boot, pretends to be a great warrior. His description of war is characteristic; he states that "de great Heros always burne and kille de Man, Woman, and ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere

... White has the great advantage of a Queen against a Rook; but with all this, and the move to boot, it is impossible for him to do more than draw the game. It is evident that he cannot move his Queen from the front of his King on account of exposing him to check with the Rook. If he move his King, Black takes the Queen, and the game is drawn. And lastly, if he take ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"

... out, an' afther supper he was pullin' off his boots, whin Mollie an' th' mother begun talkin' about th' rights iv females. ''Tis th' era iv th' new woman,' says Mollie. 'Ye're right,' says th' mother. 'What d'ye mean be the new woman?' says Donahue, holdin' his boot in his hand. 'Th' new woman,' says Mollie, ''ll be free fr'm th' opprision iv man,' she says. 'She'll wurruk out her own way, without help or hinderance,' she says. She'll wear what clothes she wants,' she says, 'an' she'll be no man's slave,' ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne

... funeral came Robert was, with the assistance of his wife and daughters, attired in his best "blacks"; he himself saw to his foot-gear, having possessed himself of a pair of shears with which he cut a large piece out of the top of one boot. Mrs. Wainwright had been tearful enough with sentimental foreboding all the morning, and, when she saw the irreparable damage wrought by Feyther's ruthless hands, she began to ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... amongst those who waited on the deck. The party landed. They clambered up the bank and pushed aside the tangled undergrowth, some of the men using their swords in order to make the quicker way. Some one kicks against a mass of green creeper; his boot strikes something wooden and hollow; he has not lighted upon an empty bush. Quickly he tears aside the clinging mass; a beautifully striped snake wriggles out, hissing angrily. The man scarcely heeds the dangerous thing. He shouts aloud; the others come up. What has he found? ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... color-bearer, thinking, no doubt, that we were coming in as prisoners. The sergeant had drawn his sabre and was about to cut the man down, but at a word from me he desisted and carried the flag back to my staff, his assailant quickly realizing that the boot was on the ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... meat was all consumed, and then their only resource was the hides, which were cut into small pieces and soaked in hot water, after the hair had been removed. When the last hide had been eaten, nothing remained but their boot-tops and the scraps of leather from their wagon. Even the neck-piece of a buffalo-skin which had served as a door-mat was used for food. Thus they kept themselves alive until spring, when they subsisted on thistle-roots ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... either in Quebec or elsewhere, but judges, on the other hand, viz., in Ottawa, receive, not "four hundred francs," but thirty-five thousand francs ($7,000) a year, and have "enough to buy a cap and a gown," yea, and a brilliant red one, to boot. Voila un progres. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... agreed. "Perhaps you're right. Say that I sent you, and that, though you've never been with me, friends of mine know all about you. You might tell her that you were to have travelled with the Princess Boriskoff. That will impress her. She would kiss the boot of a Princess. Afterward, come up and tell me how you ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... but was reproached with being a foreigner from the island of Keos; and, also, because he was not a stable politician but always inclined to change sides, he was nicknamed Kothornos, which means a large boot which will fit either leg. Of these three statesmen the eldest was Thucydides, who was the leader of the conservative opposition to Perikles; while Nikias, who was a younger man, rose to a certain eminence during the life of Perikles, as he acted ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... formed some of us so that we must kill to live and for us to kill is lawful. It is not so with you. You were made to live on seeds and nuts, yet Kag-ax the Weasel, whom we all hate, is scarcely more bloodthirsty than you are. And you are a coward to boot. You haven't the courage to fight and you kill for pleasure ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix

... from old Talbot fly, The coward horse that bears me fall and die! And like me to the peasant boys of France, To be shame's scorn and subject of mischance! Surely, by all the glory you have won, An if I fly, I am not Talbot's son; Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot; If son to Talbot, ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... whinger instead of a poniard of Parma. Yet this, my dear father, you call prompt and valiant service. The king, I am told, could not sit upright for a fortnight, though all the cushions in Falkland were placed in his chair of state, and the Provost of Dunfermline's borrowed to the boot of all." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... Hugh," said the injured boy warmly; "why, he's a regular jim-dandy about such jobs. I bet you he used to be an army surgeon in his younger days, from hints he's let drop. And then he knows the Signal Corps work right off the handle to boot, even if—well, I won't say what I meant to. He's been so kind and considerate to me; my own father couldn't have been more tender. I've guessed the secret of the old haunted quarry, Hugh!" which last he almost whispered in ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson

... Apparel, proclaims the man Apparitions seen and gone Appearance, judge not by Appetite, good digestion wait on Appetite, cloy the hungry ed are of —, to breakfast with what —grown by what it fed on Applaud these to the very echo Apple of his eye Appliances and means to boot Apollo's lute, musical as Apollos watered Apprehension of the good April, June, and November Arch of London bridge Argue, though vanquished, he could Argues yourselves unknown Argument, staple of his Armor, his honest thought Arms, take your last embrace Arrows, Cupid kills ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various

... blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the promenaders, The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor, The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls, The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... there, Adam, you're out there! The boot's on t'other leg, for hereabouts do lie thirty and eight o' my lads watching of ye this moment and wi' finger ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... Williams England's Ironsides F. Harald Williams The Three Cherry-Stones Anonymous The Midshipman's Funeral Darley Dale Ladysmith F. Harald Williams The Six-inch Gun "The Bombshell" St. Patrick's Day F. Harald Williams The Hero of Omdurman F. Harald Williams Boot and Saddle F. Harald Williams The Midnight Charge Clement Scott Mafeking—"Adsum!" A. Frewen Aylward The Fight at Rorke's Drift Emily Pfeiffer Relieved! (At Mafeking) "Daily Express" How Sam Hodge Won the V.C. Jeffrey Prowse ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... made further merriment as we rode down into the great basin. Before us, the horse and boot tracks showed plain in the soft slough where melted snow ran ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... newly-fallen tree lay across the track. It was stripped—had been stripped late the previous afternoon, in fact; and, well, you won't know, what a log like that is when the sap is well up until you have stepped casually on to it to take a look round. A confident skip, with your boot soles well greased, on to the ice in a glaciarium for the first time would be nothing to it in its results, I fancy. (I remember we children used to scrape the sap off, and eat it with satisfaction, if not with relish—white box I think ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson

... Jenks-Smith and I, for haven't we been financial mother and father in law to a pair of them for ten years? Jenks-Smith was smart, though; he wouldn't give a lump sum down, but makes them an allowance, and we go over every year or so and bail them out of some sort of a mess to boot, have the plumbing fixed up, and start the children all over with new clothes. That's what we're doing when the papers say, 'Mr. and Mrs. Jenks-Smith, who went to Carlsbad for the waters, are now in Ireland, being entertained in regal style by their daughter and son-in-law ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... had already become uneasy, for when Rob Riley came home at Christmas time he did not come to see them, nor did he bring any messages from Henrietta. When she asked him about the girl, at meeting time on Sunday, Rob hung his head and looked at the toe of his boot a minute, and then said that he "hadn't laid eyes on her for six weeks." What did it all mean? Had Henrietta got into some disgrace? The father was alarmed also. He thought it about time that she should be getting a thousand dollars for a picture; though, for his ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... really have been a gorgeous sight to behold, in those days, when the shoemaker brought over the shield, when the court-house was changed. The silken flag waved to and fro, on the shield itself a double eagle was displayed, and a big boot; the youngest lads carried the "welcome," and the chest of the workmen's guild, and their shirt-sleeves were adorned with red and white ribbons; the elder ones carried drawn swords, each with a lemon stuck on its point. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... Larkin's name. Around this bier were a number of men bearing in their hands long and waving palms—emblems of martyrdom. The trades came next, and were led off by the various branches of the association known as the Amalgamated Trades. The plasterers made about 300, the painters 350, the boot and shoemakers mustered 1,000, the bricklayers 500, the carpenters 300, the slaters 450, the sawyers 200, and the skinners, coopers, tailors, bakers, and the other trades, made a very respectable ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan

... it by greasing his whole person carefully and smoothly over with buffalo-fat, until he shone like a patent leather boot; then he rubbed himself almost dry, leaving the skin sleek and glossy. Having proceeded thus far he took up a small mirror, a few inches in diameter, which he or some other member of the tribe must have procured during one of their few excursions to the trading forts of the Pale-faces, and examined ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... had deprived the child of all her gravity. If you ask me how this was effected, I answer, "In the easiest way in the world. She had only to destroy gravitation." For the princess was a philosopher, and knew all the ins and outs of the laws of gravitation as well as the ins and outs of her boot-lace. And being a witch as well, she could abrogate those laws in a moment; or at least so clog their wheels and rust their bearings that they would not work at all. But we have more to do with what followed than with how it ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... have a floor of ash and black walnut which has been oiled with raw linseed oil once. How can I finish it so as to get a hard, smooth finish that will not be scratched by boot heels nor be sticky or retain the dirt as a waxed floor does? A. Oil raises the fiber of black walnut and gives it a rougher surface than when free from it. To polish any wood, it is only necessary to ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various

... be libelous if it isn't true," asserted Io warmly. "It isn't fair or decent that a newspaper can hold a man up as a boot-licker and toady, if he isn't one, and yet not be ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... to the fire he saw that it was not many hours old and was surrounded by fresh boot and horse tracks in the dust. Piles of slender pine logs, trimmed flat on one side, were proof of somebody's intention to erect a cabin. In a rage he flung himself from the saddle. It was not many moments' work for him to push part of the fire under ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... as a coot,' an' I tuk wan stip forward, an' the nixt I knew was the sole av my boot flappin' like a cavalry gydon an' the - funny-bone av my toes tinglin'. 'Twas a clane-cut shot - a slug - that niver touched sock or hide, but set me bare-fut on the rocks. At that I tuk Love-o'- Women by the scruff an' threw him under a bowlder, an' whin I sat down I heard the bullets ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... said nothing. He turned away, collecting his robes. The Captain put his boot on the hem of ...
— Beyond Lies the Wub • Philip Kindred Dick

... is the one who runs a car to its detriment, and a horse to a lather; who leaves a borrowed tennis racquet out in the rain; who "dog ears" the books, leaves a cigarette on the edge of a table and burns a trench in its edge, who uses towels for boot rags, who stands a wet glass on polished wood, who tracks muddy shoes into the house, and leaves his room looking as though it had been through a cyclone. Nor are men the only offenders. Young women have been known to commit ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... Bridges, the linnen draper, and evened with (him) for 100 pieces of callico, and did give him L208 18s., which I now trust the King for, but hope both to save the King money and to get a little by it to boot. Thence by water up and down all the timber yards to look out some Dram timber, but can find none for our turne at the price I would have; and so I home, and there at my office late doing business against my ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... tly foolee poor Chinee," Hop declared, putting on an injured look. "You takee um card and puttee in your boot, ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout

... foreheads except the thought that wages might fall a shilling a week, was there no envy, I wonder, as they looked down on the wan hands lying so listless across their knees? Would they not have given their First, and their fellowship in embryo to boot, to have had the morning appetite of Tom Chauntrell, the horse-breaker, after twelve pipes overnight, with gin and water to match, or to have been able, like Joe Springett, the under keeper, to breast the steepest brae in Cumberland with never a sob or a painful breath? Did they never murmur while ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... shirt sleeves appeared through the bushes, carrying a boot. We seemed to have interrupted him in the ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... you ever make a slung-shot?' 'Yes,' says he. 'Tell me how,' says Linkern. 'Wal,' says he, 'I took a egg shell and sunk one half of it in the sand; then I melted some zinc and lead and poured it into the egg shell, and made two of these; then I took a old boot and cut out some leather and sewed the leather around these two halves with squirrel's hide; then I made a loop for the wrist of squirrel's hide'; and then Linkern says, 'Look at this.' He handed a slung-shot to the feller; and says, 'Take your knife and rip it open.' So he did, and there fell ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters

... Sir, from your travelled hand, (Round which the foreign graces swarm)[1] A Plan of radical Reform; Compiled and chosen as best you can, In Turkey or at Ispahan, And quite upturning, branch and root, Lords, Commons, and Burdett to boot. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... was not to be taken in that style. Slipping agilely out of the way, he planted another blow, this time on his opponent's head. In a trice Bill threw down his cudgel and, raising his heavy boot, endeavoured to administer a vicious kick. It was time to take to more effective tactics, and while the man's leg was poised in the air, George put in a thwack that made his skull resound, and threw him quite off his already ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead

... us without our showing any passports; here, on the contrary, it was another reason for the strictest examination. "Have you no forbidden books?" was the first question. By good fortune, before crossing the bridge, I had advised Trettenbach to hide his song-book in the lining of his boot. I am assured that had it been taken upon him he would not have been allowed to pass. In ransacking Braun's bag, one of the officials found a shell such as are gathered by the basketful on the shores of the Lake of Neuchatel. His first impulse was to go to the office and ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... flogging him. He had inflicted many lashes, and was continuing the correction. The author indignantly interfered, and the dog was liberated, but with a great deal of abuse from the men; and a gentleman galloping up, and who was the owner of the dog, and a Middlesex magistrate to boot, seemed disposed to support his people in no very measured terms On being addressed, however, by name, and recognising the speaker, and his attention being directed to the 'whaled' and even bloody state of the dog, he offered the best excuse ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... cried the Gnome, and turning to a big rock he tapped upon it twice with the toe of his little red boot. In a moment a door opened, showing a pair of rocky steps leading ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory

... very good of you to say so, sir," said Mrs Brade, with an ill-used air, "and it would be if it wasn't for my husband. He's one of the best of men, sir, but that untidy in his habits. What with one boot here, and another boot there, and tobacco ashes all over the place, he nearly worries my ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... then, they placed me opposite to a part of the room which was partitioned; I tried to get my boot on; I pulled it with my hands, I pushed with all the strength of the muscles of my leg, making the most unheard-of efforts, when suddenly, the two tags of my boot remained in my hands, and my foot struck out ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... cranes. "We sha'n't have any swimming to do here; the rain don't seem to have deepened the ford so much as a single inch. You see those long-legged gentry; it barely wets their feet. So much the better, since it ensures us against getting our own wetted, with our baggage to the boot. Stay!" he adds, speaking as if from some sudden resolve, "let's watch the birds a bit. ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... Mart lifted one heavy boot and then the other for Munn's inspection. The other silent men leaned forward ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... attempt a definition of beauty. But in trying to describe it and characterize it he ran the same risk. "We ascribe beauty to that which is simple," he said; "which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes." Is a boot-jack beautiful? Is a crow-bar? Yet these are simple, they have no superfluous parts, they exactly serve their ends, they stand related to all things through the laws of chemistry and physics. A flower is beautiful, a shell on the beach is beautiful, ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs

... his life he once hurt his hand with an ax while chopping wood. This immediately led to his relations with his younger brother, whom he used to maltreat and knock down. In particular, he recalled an occasion when he struck his brother on the head with his boot until he bled, whereupon his mother remarked: "I fear he will kill him some day." While he was seemingly thinking of the subject of violence, a reminiscence from his ninth year suddenly occurred ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud

... in silence at his heels, not a word passing between them all the way: the only noises which came from the two were the brushing of her dress and his gaiters against the heather, or the smart rap of a stray flint against his boot. ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... the boot is on the other leg," he said. "I should like to know what the mischief you mean by wandering around my grounds at this hour of the ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of the hopeless army of Mediocrity. Here Art is no benignant goddess, but a Circe who turns her wooers into mewing Toms and Tabbies who linger about the doorsteps of her abode, unmindful of the flying brickbats and boot-jacks of the critics. Some of us creep back to our native villages to the skim-milk of "I told you so"; but most of us prefer to remain in the cold courtyard of our mistress's temple, snatching the scraps that ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... yet twenty good years to come Apprenticeship and a resemblance of death Become a fool by too much wisdom Both himself and his posterity declared ignoble, taxable Caesar: he would be thought an excellent engineer to boot Courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study Dangers do, in truth, little or nothing hasten our end Death can, whenever we please, cut short inconveniences Death has us every moment by the throat Death is a part of you Denying ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger

... a cross road he would turn to the right: when a man said "whoh" he would stop: when he said "hike" he would go backwards, and when he said "yep" he would go on again. That was life, and if one questioned it, one was hit with a stick, or a boot, or a lump of rock: if one continued walking nothing ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... that I will say no more, least you should think I mean by discommending it, to beg your commendations of it. And therefore without replications, lets hear your Ketch, Scholer, which I hope will be a good one, for you are both Musical, and have a good fancie to boot. ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton

... to our dear Karwan Bashi." The Comfortable Camel nodded complacently at the Knight and began plucking sly wisps from the Scarecrow's boot top. For a short time there ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... things, or some jest at a play. His pick-tooth bears a great part in his discourse, so does his body, the upper parts whereof are as starched as his linnen, and perchance use the same laundress. He has learned to ruffle his face from his boot, and takes great delight in his walk to hear his spurs gingle. Though his life pass somewhat slidingly, yet he seems very careful of the time, for he is still drawing his watch out of his pocket, and spends part of his hours in numbering them. He is one never serious but with his ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... of their chief! That's right, brothers, and woe betide any hand that touches her. Do you shriek for vengeance? Has it not been yours through yonder monster who murdered the poor defenceless one? Do you want your victim's jewels? Well, well; they belong to you, and I will give you mine to boot, if you will leave the wife of Hur to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... head, with fine, soft, reddish brown hair; a round, stubbly beard shot with gray; and small, beady eyes set close together. He was clothed in an old, black, grotesquely fitting cutaway coat, with coarse trousers tucked into his boot tops. A worn visored cloth cap was on his head. In his right hand he carried ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... reverend friend, which is the largest and thickest in the company, is not more than half its size. The frame this skull belonged to could scarcely have been less than nine feet high. Such is the lamentable progress of degeneracy and decay. In the course of ages, a boot of the present generation would form an ample chateau for a large family of our remote posterity. The mind, too, participates in the contraction of the body. Poets and philosophers of all ages and nations have lamented this too visible process ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... sitting at the time in the snow residence which belonged to Mangivik. Mrs Mangivik was sitting opposite to her mending a seal-skin boot, and Cowlik the easy-going was seated beside her, engaged with some other portion of native attire. Nootka was busy over the cooking-lamp, and old Mangivik himself was twirling his thumbs, awaiting the result of her labours. Oolalik ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... the fire. She sat in the armchair, and as she remained in it erect, he knelt before her, took her hands, kissed them, and looked at her with a wondering expression, timorous and proud. Then he pressed his lips to the tip of her boot. ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... Y-e-let-pos a band of the Chopunnish nation residing on the South side of Lewis's river whom we have not previously seen. the band with which we have been most conversent call themselves pel-late-pal-ler. one of the yeletpos exchanged his horse for an indifferent one of ours and received a tomahawk to boot; this tomahawk was one for which Capt. C. had given another in exchange with the Clahclel-lah Chief at the rapids of the Columbia. we also exchanged two other of our indifferent horses with unsound ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... Church's book, alas!); the Poet his rough hairy paper, his headache, and his cross-nibbed pen; the Soldier abandons his inner picture of swaggering about in ordinary clothes, and sees the dusty road and feels the hard places in his boot, and shakes down again to the steady pressure of his pack; and Authority is satisfied, knowing that he will get a smattering from the Boy, a rubbishy verse from the Poet, and from the Soldier a long and thirsty ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... had sunk deeply into the slush. I pawed the mud with my right in order to find the duckboard. I touched the edge and stepped firmly upon it. With an effort I dragged the other foot from the slush. It came out with a loud, sucking squelch, but I felt it was leaving my boot behind. I let it sink back again and then freed it with ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... Guert stepped out on the ice, which he struck a hard blow with the heel of his boot, as if to make certain of its solidity. A second report was heard, and it evidently came from behind us. Guert gazed intently down the river; then he laid his head close to the surface of the ice, and looked again. At ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... he was uncoiling his riata as he spoke, and divined his purpose, as, with a cluck and a boot to Panchito, she thundered after the big cat, her heart thumping with mingled fear and excitement. Evidently this was an old game to Panchito, however, for he pinned his ears a little and headed straight for the quarry. Seemingly he knew what was expected of him, and had a personal interest ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... but now, in its morbid magnificence, devoid of all wholesome influence on manners. From this point, like architecture, it was rapidly degraded; and sank through the buff coat, and lace collar, and jack-boot, to the bag-wig, tailed coat, and high-heeled shoes; and so ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... appointment. I will give you preliminary,' says Bill, '$1,000 for drinks, bribes and carfare in Washington. If you land the job I will pay you $1,000 more, cash down, and guarantee you impunity in boot-legging whiskey for twelve months. Are you patriotic to the West enough to help me put this thing through the Whitewashed Wigwam of the Great Father of the most eastern flag station of the Pennsylvania Railroad?' ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry

... to report that a marauding party of the enemy's cavalry, some twenty strong, had driven off a herd of General Whish's camels which were grazing near his camp. Fatteh Khan, as ressaldar, was the senior officer in camp, and at once gave the order for every man to boot and saddle and get to horse at once. The little party, numbering barely seventy, led by Fatteh Khan, followed the messenger at a gallop for three miles to the scene of the raid. Arrived there they suddenly found themselves confronted, not ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband

... to git the water on the land and make them fellers pay for it or sell to us at our own figger, ain't we? Why, it's as good as gold, man! If you don't see enough in it as it stands you are in a place where you can hold 'em up for a bonus to boot." ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... ill-clothed, their women and children in no better case, working all day in feverish ecstasy at unsaleable pictures, and quite possibly they would have killed or wounded anyone who suggested a compromise with the market. When materials and credit failed altogether, they stole newspapers and boot-blacking that they might continue to serve their masterful passion. They were superbly religious. All artists are religious. All uncompromising belief is religious. A man who so cares for truth that he will go to prison, or death, rather than acknowledge a God in whose existence ...
— Art • Clive Bell

... on the wash-stand centre-table, dipped it into water and commenced lathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed corner, slips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks. Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best cutlery with a vengeance. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... Station, we shall have traced roughly the western boundary of the borough. It covers an immense area, and it begins and ends in a cemetery, for at the south-western corner is the West London, locally known as the Brompton, Cemetery. In shape the borough is strikingly like a man's leg and foot in a top-boot. The western line already traced is the back of the leg, the Brompton Cemetery is the heel, the sole extends from here up Fulham Road and Walton Street, and ends at Hooper's Court, west of Sloane Street. This, it is true, makes a very much more ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... Tavannes!" the Marshal replied, and spurred his horse among the rabble, who had fled to the sides of the street and now strove hard to efface themselves against the walls. "Begone, dogs; begone!" he cried, still hunting them. And then, "You would bite, would you?" And snatching another pistol from his boot, he fired it among them, careless whom he hit. "Ha! ha! That stirs you, does it!" he continued, as the wretches fled headlong. "Who touches my brother, touches ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... impossible for the monopolies to get a corruptible Legislature at the next election. At last the people had in their service a lawyer equal in ability to the best the monopolies could buy, and one who understood human nature and political machinery to boot. ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... already some distance before her, the bridle of her palfrey being held by one of the horsemen, who rode by her side and seemed to look after her carefully; and so, without more ado, she accepted the services of the man, and, placing her foot on the toe of his riding-boot, mounted to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... the shoemaker, and Pauline told him all about the widower bootmaker, and of her scruples about having boots made by any one else. The bootmaker evidently thought that a foot like Pauline's was worthy of a good boot and Pauline said there were occasions on which one had to sink one's own feelings. She was scandalized at London prices, and told the man so. "But of course it means higher pay for the ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss

... the hands of the Imperial Government in dealing with the hide-bound officialism of which the Government of India is in the eyes of some British Radicals the visible embodiment. None of them, probably, anticipated that the boot would be on the other leg. If the Government of India have sometimes sacrificed Indian interests to British interests, it has been almost exclusively in connexion with the financial and fiscal relations between the two countries, and often against the better judgment and sense of ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... ground on which we were seated, we were nearly all suffocated. I thought my last hour was come. Already my eyes saw nothing but a dark cloud, when a person of the name of Borner, who was to have been a smith at Senegal, gave me a boot containing some muddy water, which he had had the precaution to keep. I seized the elastic vase, and hastened to swallow the liquid in large draughts. One of my companions, equally tormented with thirst, envious of the pleasure I ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... find the draught trap mended,' said Arthur. 'Brown set to work on it, and the doors shut as tight as a new boot.' ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... gravity. After all, it was to Dora that his eyes turned again most naturally. He thought her exquisite, and, rather than be long without a glimpse of her, he contented himself with fixing his eyes on the hem of her dress and the boot-toe that occasionally ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... his income—the exact excess he did not stop to ascertain—but he expected an increase of salary before long, as a matter of course, either in his present situation or in a new one. But no increase took place for two years, and then he was between three and four hundred dollars in debt to tailors, boot-makers, his landlady, and to sundry friends, to whom he applied for small sums of money in cases ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... Corps, Sound a loud reveille; Sound it over Sydney shore, Send the message far and wide Down the Richmond River side— Boot and saddle, mount and ride, Sound ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson

... the Arab boot-polishers, who scuffled and played tricks among themselves while they waited for customers. "Cirez, moosou! Cirez!" Long wagons, loaded with stone from the quarries of the Gorge, jangled by, some of them drawn by mixed teams of eleven horses and mules, on whose ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... foot was certainly not so compressed as the right. Though it could not be raised, it was possible to move it ever so slightly forwards and backwards. Might it not be possible, by never-ceasing friction, to so abrade the edges of the sole of the boot that it might be reduced to such dimension as would permit it to ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... was just in, and the little room was full of people waiting for it to be distributed; and Frank waited with them, leaning against the wall, with his head bent down, and beating his boot ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... incomparable in her glittering renown as a singer as Handel in his as a composer, with the difference—which is in Frau Lind's favor to boot—that Handel's works weary many people and do not always succeed in filling the coffers, whereas the mere appearance of Frau Lind secures the utmost rapture of the public, as well as that of the cashier. If, therefore, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... her mother at Hampstead. I am positive as to her living at Hampstead. I remember so distinctly my weekly walk down the hill from Church Row to the Swiss Cottage station. When walking down a steep hill all the weight of the body is forced into the toe of the boot, and when the boot is two sizes too small for you, and you have been living in it since the early afternoon, you remember a thing like that. But all my recollections of Cecilia are painful, and it is needless to ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... savvy? There's something in the law that prevents Injuns gettin' in on anything good, too; I don't rightly recollect what it is, but if it's legal you can bet it's crooked. Anyhow, Uncle Sam lets up a squawk that she's only eighteen, goin' on nineteen, and a noble redskin to boot, and says his mining claims is reserved for Laps and Yaps and Japs and Wops, and such other furrin' slantheads of legal age as declare their intention to become American citizens if their claims turn out rich enough so's it pays 'em to ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... visit Polotzk. The old woman had no flag, and no money. She hoped the policeman would not notice her miserable hut. But he did, the vigilant one, and he went up and kicked the door open with his great boot, and he took the last pillow from the bed, and sold it, and hoisted a flag above the rotten roof. I knew the old woman well, with her one watery eye and her crumpled hands. I often took a plate of soup to her from our kitchen. There ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... misinterpreted, and falsified ... by the Adiaphorists in many places both as regards the words and the substance (nach den Worten und sonst in den Haendeln), which thus became a buskin, Bundschuh, pantoffle, and a Polish boot, fitting both legs equally well [suiting Lutherans as well as Reformed] or a cloak and a changeling (Wechselbalg), by means of which Adiaphorists, Sacramentarians, Antinomians, new teachers of works, and the like hide, adorn, defend, and establish ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... who was watching the movements of the puma with anxiety on Rob's behalf, but with keen interest all the same, as he saw the active creature suddenly throw itself down by the boy's feet and, playful as a kitten, begin to pat at first one boot and then the other, ending by rubbing its head upon them, watching their owner ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... into. Gaskill went into the house, returning with an old rubber boot, a calico shirt and a pair of corduroy pants. Many patches made their original material a matter of doubt. He explained that was the best he could do for ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... at the door saluted in military fashion with drawn sword. Ludwig hurried into the house. In the hall he encountered the little Laczko, who, at sight of the visitor, dropped the boot and brush he held in his hands, and disappeared through a door at the end of the hall. Vavel followed him, and found himself in the kitchen, where the widow of Satan Laczi also dropped to the floor the cooking-utensil she had in ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... the bundle which he had formed out of the handkerchiefs of the population of Albano, and holding it under his left arm, he drew forth some matches, and breaking off one, he struck it against the sole of his boot. It kindled. Thereupon he held the Same to the bundle of handkerchiefs. The flame caught. The bundle blazed. The guide held it for some time till the blaze caught at one after another of the projecting ends of the rolled-up handkerchiefs, and the flame ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... open his door; not far away there was a scuffle, and the sound of a body falling down stairs. In some distant apartment a fellow was struggling to draw off his tight boots, skipping about on one foot amid much profanity. That the boot conquered was evident when the man crawled into the creaking bed, announcing defiantly, "If the landlord wants them boots off, let him come an' pull 'em off." Across the hall was a rattle of chips, and the voices of several men, occasionally raised in anger. Now and then ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... his neck and threw him. As he rolled over Foster's noose snared both hind feet and he was held stretched and helpless between two trained cow horses while the men disengaged the bundle that had once been Bangs. One boot heel was missing and his foot was jammed through the stirrup, evidence that the horse had pitched with him and the loosened heel had come off, allowing his foot to slip through as he ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... ran down his face. All this time, the two boys followed him closely about: getting out of his sight, so nimbly, every time he turned round, that it was impossible to follow their motions. At last, the Dodger trod upon his toes, or ran upon his boot accidently, while Charley Bates stumbled up against him behind; and in that one moment they took from him, with the most extraordinary rapidity, snuff-box, note-case, watch-guard, chain, shirt-pin, pocket-handkerchief, even the spectacle-case. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... far north I encountered a polar bear. Throwing off my slippers, I wanted to step upon an island facing me. I firmly placed my foot on it, but on the other side I fell into the sea, as the slipper had not come off my boot. I saved my life and hurried to the Libyan desert to cure my cold in the sun; but the heat made me ill. I lost consciousness, and when I awoke again I was in a comfortable bed among other beds, and on the wall facing me I saw inscribed in golden ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... trades! Now the State does the same thing, as far as possible, in regard to education. What an absurdity! In our free country, State education has no more foundation in good sense than the old sumptuary laws, that regulated the length of a boot or the dimensions ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... over by the boot-boy," she said. "Take them down, Georgie, and let me send them to ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... I was forced to be content; for Lizzie took Annie in such a manner (on purpose to vex me, as I could see) with her head drooping down, and her hair coming over, and tears and sobs rising and falling, to boot, without either order or reason, that seeing no good for a man to do (since neither of them was Lorna), I even went out into the courtyard, and smoked a pipe, and wondered what on earth is the ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... thy stately prime, Hear'st thou the silent warnings of Time? Look at thy brow ploughed by anxious care, The silver hue of thy once dark hair;— What boot thine honors, thy treasures bright, When Time tells of coming gloom ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... has evidently emanated from the stable. When persons wish to exchange horses, he who has the poorest animal gives a "boot" or compensation in addition to the horse, to make the exchange equal. The proverb is applied to a person who has over-reached ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop

... carefully, with an exaggerated caution indeed, bestowed the fat envelope which contained ten whole crisp new dollars where nobody but himself would be apt to look for it—not in the wallet with his other commissions, but in his boot! This gave the whole transaction a touch of the romantic, and suggested possible "hold-ups" in a way to set Monty's eyes a-bulge. Then the stage rattled away to the north, and the day's monotony ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... his Death, and hers to boot; Can she slight me for him, he Whore our Kindred! When did he first ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne

... it had to be looked into. He picked up a heavy boot, turned the key, and flung open the door. Punch went down the stairs in two long bounds, and a rush of cold air put out the candle. He laid it down and followed cautiously, ready to launch the boot at the first ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... spewing such as they did not want on to the floor, and devouring the tender, until their cheeks shone like ruddy apples and their beards were drabbled with gravy. Then they dropped the remains on the floor and with their boot toes rubbed them over the mud that had dropped from their heels. When the flesh was well covered with filth, the two halves of the carcass were lifted by the sword point and flung back on the table with the words, "A feast they would have!" The soldiers cast their eyes over the angry ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... for the Lord's sake.—When the German brethren and sisters were going on board, I engaged a fly for the purpose of taking all their small luggage. When the man put the luggage into the fly, I was struck by its having a hind boot, which I had never seen before in any fly, which he opened, and into which he put several carpet bags. There were seventeen packages altogether. When we arrived at the vessel it was just on the point of going into the river, with several other ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller

... said Mr. Bodfish, with his most professional manner; "a small boot would pick up a ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... of what Donald's past life had been, learning incidentally that his father was rich, but since Donald was sixteen he had been considered a ne'er-do-well. He had gone away to sea when he was a boy, and had been third mate on a merchant ship; in a hotel in America he had been a boot-black, and just before he came to Paris he fought a drunken stoker and won a ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... first woman-servant I could find to Rosanna's room; and I sent the boy back to say that I myself would follow him with the boot. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... his stop-watch and repeater are of a scapement that never varies more than six seconds in the twelve months from the time-piece at the Observatory at Greenwich, where he has a friend, who is so good as sometimes to compare notes with him. By the advice of his boot-maker—who, by the way, has some knowledge of the length of his foot—he never puts on a new pair until they are at least a year old; and he parted with his last footboy because he one day discovered a perceptible difference between the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various

... Jonas, "her George gimme a letter for you, and I'll be kicked if I ain't forgot it!" He thrust his left leg out, so that his cow-hide boot hung over the dashboard, and fumbled in his pocket; then thrust out the right leg and fumbled in another pocket; then dived into two or three coat pockets; finally a very crumpled note, smelling of the stable, came up from the depths and was handed ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... that ever drew To fat their pauper lungs I fire Vicarious with vain desire! From foul Ingratitude's base rout I pick this hapless devil out, Bestowing on him all my lands, My treasures, camels, slaves and bands Of wives—I give him all this loot, And throw my blessing in to boot. Behold, O man, in this bequest Philanthropy's long wrongs redressed: To speak me ill that man I dower With fiercest will who lacks the power. Allah il Allah! now let him bloat With rancor till his heart's afloat, Unable to discharge ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... Indian summer," said the old man, as he stepped on the boy's bare foot with his soft rubber boot. ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck

... tea, and rose to go. As he picked up his cap he showed me a hole right through his sleeve—in one side, out the other-and a similar one in his puttee, where the ball had been turned aside by the leather lacing of his boot. He laughed as he said, "Odd how near a chap comes to going out, and yet lives to drink tea with you. Well, good-bye and good luck if I don't see ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich

... I quite admit that some additional height to the shoe or boot is necessary if long gowns are to be worn in the street; but what I object to is that the height should be given to the heel only, and not to the sole of the foot also. The modern high-heeled boot is, ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... I have given orders that you are to set out immediately upon the return of my horses, and you will consequently follow me at a short distance." I was suffering greatly from my old malady; hence the Emperor would not allow me to go with him on the boot as I requested, in order that he should receive his customary attentions from me. He said, "No, Constant, you will follow me in a carriage, and I hope that you will be able to arrive not more than a day behind me." He departed with the Duke of Vicenza, and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... of course no. The dust was only from another swarm of those hateful Saracens. I knew it would be so. Pah! it has made my tongue more like old boot leather than ever. Have no more drops been squeezed from the well? It's time ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... deeply engaged in this occupation when I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. Turning round I saw my friend the trader, who, after having smothered my boot in tobacco-juice, said, 'I say, captain, have you got any coffin-screws on trade?' His question rather staggered me, but he explained that they had no possible way of making this necessary article in the Southern States, and that they positively could not keep the bodies ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... rolled myself in a blanket and lay down. Dick lay at right angles to me, his feet nearly touching mine. He began snoring heavily almost immediately, and just when I was going to give him a kick, and tell him not to make such a row, I felt him give me a good sharp shove with the heel of his boot, by which I understood that he was awake, and meant to keep awake, as he did not approve ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... with a knife to suit, Do not cut the upper; This same thing is done to the boot, And ...
— How to Make a Shoe • Jno. P. Headley

... for uniformity, he has French-cropped those locks, in which, as truly as with Samson, lay his strength, he has discarded his sombrero for a Lincoln and Bennett, he cultivates a silky moustache, a glossy boot, and has generally given himself into the hands of the West-End tailor. Stung beyond endurance by taunts of his unpracticality, he enters Parliament, edits papers, keeps accounts, and is in every way a better business ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... sand to find some subterranean channel and reappear below again. Rounding an angle of the cliff, he dropped to his knees and examined some tiny parallel scratches on a rounded rock—the marks made by a boot-heel that had slipped. For an hour he toiled over the rocks on up the diminishing stream. "Gettin' thin," he muttered, gazing at the silver thread of water rippling over the pebbles. A few feet ahead the cliffs met at the bottom in a sharp-edged "V," not over a foot apart in the ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... a task, a duty, a thing not to be done but in my best, my purest, and my happiest moments. Many of these I had, but then I had not my pen and ink (and) my paper before me, my conveniences, 'my appliances and means to boot;' all which, the moment that I thought of them, seemed to disturb and impair the sanctity of my pleasure. I contented myself with thinking over my complacent feelings, and breathing forth solitary gratulations and ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... would designate, as almighty ugly. He was a thin, spare man, whose accost I could well have spared, for he had the look of a demon, and, as I soon found, was possessed with the demon of politics. Imagine what I must have suffered when I found out that he was a button-holder to boot. Observing that I was the only one who was in a state to listen, he seized upon me as his victim. I, who had fled from politics with as much horror as others have done from the cholera—I, who had encountered all the miseries of ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... told us it was somewhere up Suardalan way, above Tor Beag, and I was just about to explain, when I felt my friend's boot knock sharply against my ankle. Taking this as a hint and not an accident, I ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux

... steamers, that naval officers have an abundance of spare time. The ship, it seems assumed, runs itself; the officers have only to look on and enjoy. As a matter of fact, sea officers under normal conditions are as busy as the busiest house-keeper, with the care to boot of two, three, four, or five hundred children, to be kept continually doing as they should; the old woman who lived in the shoe had a good thing in comparison. Thus occupied, the leisure habit of self-improvement, other than in the practice of the calling, is not formed. At sea, on ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... ye follow one of these three ways. Nay, what say I? there are but two ways and not three; for if ye flee they shall follow you to the confines of the earth. Either these Welsh shall take all, and our lives to boot, or we shall hold to all that is ours, and live merrily. The sword doometh; and in three days it may be the courts shall be hallowed: small is ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... increased their capital tenfold in a couple of years. And after that the contagion spread, infecting all classes—the princes, burgesses, petty proprietors, even the shop-keepers, bakers, grocers, and boot-makers; the delirium rising to such a pitch that a mere baker subsequently failed for forty-five millions.* Nothing, indeed, was left but rageful gambling, in which the stakes were millions, whilst the lands and the houses became mere fictions, mere pretexts for stock-exchange operations. And thus ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... all come, the other cup, this warrant shall pay for all.' I observed where the warrant lay upon the table, and, after some time took occasion ignorantly to let the candle fall out, which whilst he went to light again at the fire, I made sure of the warrant, and put it into my boot; he never missing it of eight or ten days; about which time, I believe, it was above half way towards Cumberland, for I instantly sent it by the post, with this friendly caveat, 'Sin no more.' Musgrave durst not challenge ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly

... where two men are pushing Robert into the burning iron furnace. It is the man who has his arm on Robert's breast. Physiognomy here spoke the truth; this chief had been a notorious murderer, and was an arrant coward to boot. At the point where the boat landed, Mr. Bushby accompanied me a few hundred yards on the road: I could not help admiring the cool impudence of the hoary old villain, whom we left lying in the boat, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... was not he going to the king's castle, but Billy said, "Arrah, what would be bringin' the likes of me there?" At last when all the others had gone there passed an old man with a very scarecrow suit of rags on him, and Billy stopped him and asked him what boot would he take and swap clothes with him. "Just take care of yourself, now," says the old man, "and don't be playing off your jokes on my clothes, or maybe I'd make you feel the weight of this stick." But Billy soon let him see it was in earnest he was, and both of them swapped suits, Billy giving ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... their chips, And the wedges flew from between their lip Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died. That was the way he "put her through." "There!" said ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... the direct parent of the Tugenbund, and of those secret societies which freed Germany from Napoleon. Whatever follies young members of them may have committed; whatever Jahn and his Turnerei; whatever the iron youths, with their iron decorations and iron boot-heels; whatever, in a word, may have been said or done amiss, in that childishness which (as their own wisest writers often lament) so often defaces the noble childlikeness of the German spirit, let it be always remembered that under the impulse first given ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley

... infernal. The chief rule was that witchcraft being an "exceptional crime," no regard need be had to the ordinary forms of justice. All manner of tortures were freely applied to force confessions. In Scotland "the boot" was used, being an iron case in which the legs are locked up to the knees, and an iron wedge then driven in until sometimes the bones were crushed and the marrow spouted out. Pin sticking, drowning, starving, the rack, were too common to need ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... was, the front wheel struck the heel of the newsboy's boot and he and Jimmy fell, face downward on the sharp, fresh-gravel ballast so hard that they were both bleeding and the baggage man thought sure the wheel had gone over them. To his surprise their injuries proved to ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... a merchant, who had abundant wealth, and a wife to boot. He set out one day on a business journey, leaving his wife big with child, and said to her, "Albeit, I now leave thee, yet I will return before the birth of the babe, Inshallah!" Then he farewelled her and setting out, ceased not faring from country to country till he came ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... for our hero! A statuesque foot Would suffer by wearing that heavy-nailed boot— Its owner is hardly Achilles. However, he's happy! He cuts a great "fig" In the land where a coat is no part of the rig— In the country of damper ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... occasion to marvel at that sagacity of observation among the ancients to which we owe so vast a debt. Not only did they discover the alcoholic ferment of yeast, but they had to exercise a wise selection in picking it out from others, and giving it special prominence. Place an old boot in a moist place, or expose common paste or a pot of jam to the air; it soon becomes coated with a blue-green mould, which is nothing else than the fructification of a little plant called Penicillium glaucum. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... the footprint as a clue pretty thoroughly," said Furneaux. "He not only took care to leave a working model of one set, but was extremely anxious not to provide any data as to his own tootsies, so he fastened a bundle of rags under each boot, and walked like a cat ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... since che see there is none other boot, Chill now take pains to go the rest afoot; For Brock mine ass is saddle-pinch'd vull sore, And so am I even here—chill say no more. But yet I must my business well apply, For which ich came, that is, to get money. Chwas told that this is Lady Vortune's place: Chill go boldly to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... the boots). Going to him! What good would that do? (Growling to himself as he gets the first boot on with a wrench) I'll go to them, so I will. (To Judith peremptorily) Get me the pistols: I want them. And money, money: I want money—all the money in the house. (He stoops over the other boot, grumbling) A great satisfaction it would be to him to have my company on the gallows. (He ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw

... of the hostler being unavailing, the leather hat-box was obliged to be raked up from the lowest depth of the boot, to satisfy him that it had been safely packed; and after he had been assured on this head, he felt a solemn presentiment, first, that the red bag was mislaid, and next, that the striped bag had been stolen, and then that the brown-paper parcel had become untied. ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... day the master would go out to the front door, but he always came in again and sat by the window to read, his boot with the wooden heel sticking out behind him. He spat so much that Pelle had to put fresh sand every day under ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... knights of old put on their mail— From head to foot An iron suit, Iron jacket and iron boot, Iron breeches, and on the head No hat, but an iron pot instead, And under the chin the bail (I believe they called the thing a helm); And the lid they carried they called a shield; And, thus accoutered, they took the field, Sallying forth to overwhelm The dragons and pagans that ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... cried, as soon as he had any breath again. But, alas! it was too late! The Dentist's nose had been too rapid, and had caught up the boot-heel of the daring leader. This was very annoying to Oswald, and was not in ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... begun to trouble you now? Pretty badly too, I'm afraid, for you look pale, old fellow. Come, we must have off that boot, and get the leg up on a sofa! It won't do to let it hang down like that. I'll take you upstairs and doctor it properly, for if there is one thing I do flatter myself I understand, it is how to treat ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... winter a doorway in Chatham Square, that of the old Barnum clothing store, which I could never pass without recalling those nights of hopeless misery with the policeman's periodic "Get up there! move on!" reenforced by a prod of his club or the toe of his boot. I slept there, or tried to when crowded out of the tenements in the Bend by their utter nastiness. Cold and wet weather had set in, and a linen duster was all that covered my back. There was a woollen blanket in my trunk which I had ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... not show the least anxiety but calmly proceeded, by the light of his candle, to tie his boots and prepare himself for a start. When tightening the lace in his last boot, he thought that he heard a noise upon the stairs; but it ceased and he went on with his work. Then there was a sudden rush as if somebody were descending many steps at once; and simultaneously with the rush ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... of the most ghastly things about this whole affair is that he must have known. He couldn't have avoided knowing. It was daylight, and when he came out he had to go around that side of the house to get to the garage. I myself noticed the print of his boot—a larger boot than anyone else wears—in the mould of the flowerbed, three feet ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... wormed your sneaking way into my home? And thought you that Simon de Montfort would throw his daughter at the head of the first passing rogue? Who be ye, but a nameless rascal? For aught we know, some low born lackey. Get ye hence, and be only thankful that I do not aid you with the toe of my boot where it would do ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... from Galway and Louth and Meath Who went to their death with a joke in their teeth, And worshipped with fluency, fervour, and zeal The mud on the boot-heels of "Crook" O'Neil. ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... cross and ribbon, the coarse shoes, and the head-dress of her canton; the Normandy peasant her dark, striking dress, her high-heeled, gold-buckled shoe, and her white apron; the Hungarian her neat, military scarlet jacket, braided with gold, her scant petticoat and military boot, her high cap and feather. The dress of the English peasant, known now as the "Mother Hubbard" hat and cloak, very familiar to the students of costumes as belonging to the countrywomen of Shakspeare's time, demands the ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... procured of a Union man a suit of raglings, knocked off one boot-heel to make one leg appear shorter than the other, and put a gimblet, a tow-string, and an old broken jack-knife in my pockets. My jewelry corresponded with my clothes. I adopted the name of George Fry, a harvest-hand of Dr. Farney, from Wolfetown, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... his brain flashed the news that Durand had struck him on the chin with brass knucks. He crumpled up and went down, still alive to what was going on, but unable to move in his own defense. Weakly he tried to protect his face and sides from the kicks of a heavy boot. Then he floated balloon-like in space ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... floundering in the mud where slavery had left it, and where emancipation had found it,—the mud in which, for aught that could be seen to the contrary, her little feet, too, were hopelessly entangled. It might have seemed like expecting a man to lift himself by his boot-straps. ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... was fond of cats, told her how, and gave her some stuff, and sent all her own pussies to be killed that way. Marm used to put a sponge wet with ether, in the bottom of an old boot, then poke puss in head downwards. The ether put her to sleep in a jiffy, and she was drowned in warm ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... trying to lift oneself by one's boot-straps: it is very ridiculous to all who behold it. Ruskin begins with a very ordinary sentence. He says it was a fine morning, just as any one might say it. But the next sentence starts suddenly upward from the dead level, and to the end of the paragraph we rise, terrace ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... began to shoot, I showed him the length of the Spaniard's foot— And I reckon he clapped the boot on it later. (All round ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... threw the turnspit out of employment (and have well-nigh banished him from the face of the earth), cook the Jack hare, which we bring in in the pocket of our shooting-jacket. We wear jack-boots, and draw them off with boot-jacks; prop up our houses with jack-screws; wipe our hands on jack-towels; drink out of black-jacks, and wear them on our backs too, at least our ancestors did; while flap-jacks[3] gave a relish to their Lenten diet, ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various

... must have sunk when he examined it. It was very large—too large to be effectively occupied by the force which he commanded. The length was about a mile and the breadth four hundred yards. Shaped roughly like the sole of a boot, it was only the heel end which he could hope to hold. Other hills all round offered cover for Boer riflemen. Nothing daunted, however, he set his men to work at once building sangars with the loose ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... sit in your carriage, And counsel the man on foot, But get down and walk, and you'll change your talk, As you feel the peg in your boot. ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox



Words linked to "Boot" :   buskin, gad, Hessian boot, top boot, torturing, toe box, charge, spur, half boot, punting, boot out, heel counter, shoe collar, boot camp, jackboot, excitement, collar, Wellington boot, flush, hip boot, the boot, dropkick, torture, tongue, cowboy boot, place kick, punt, boot sale, iron boot, gum boot, eyelet, counter, Great Britain, exhilaration, kick, resuscitate, iron heel, instrument of torture, kicking, bootlace, Britain, trunk, car boot sale, upper, rush, riding boot, Wellington, reboot, chukka boot, thrill, blow, footwear, boot maker, goal-kick, bootleg, instep, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, footgear, boot-shaped, United Kingdom, thigh boot, automobile trunk, rubber boot



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