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Butting   Listen
noun
Butting  n.  An abuttal; a boundary. "Without buttings or boundings on any side."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Butting" Quotes from Famous Books



... hour we crept up and on, occasionally butting into the trunk of a tree or stumbling over a fallen bough, but meeting with no other adventures or obstacles of a physical kind. Of moral, or rather mental, obstacles there were many, since to all of us the atmosphere of this forest was as that of a haunted house. ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... of things a fellow never gets used to, my dear," answered Daddy. "This one is young yet, but he will probably never get over the sense of rebellion which comes over a man, a real man, who finds himself butting his head against stupidity and ignorance. Don't you make any mistake about that fellow Grant! The poorest kind of chap is the one who is always letting things slide. This is a tough, square-jawed, earnest chap, of the sort who put their hearts ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare through the mist at us galloping past, And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... hope you're not going to make trouble for your dear aunts' husbands by going in for clothes. The competition in the family is hot enough now without you butting in. Hastings is in mourning at the bank and Waterman is sad over his last political licking and my billions ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... larvae, perhaps more horrible in their pulpy stillness than in the infernal wriggle of maturity. But no sooner is the stone turned and the wholesome light of day let in on this compressed and blinded community of creeping things than all of them that have legs rush blindly about, butting against each other and everything else in their way, and end in a general stampede to underground retreats from the region poisoned by sunshine. Next year you will find the grass growing fresh and green where the stone lay—the ground-bird builds ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... to take a wherry for the trip to Kingston. The moment that our wants were made known, the black boatmen crowded round us in a perfect mob, each extolling the merits of his own boat and depreciating those of the others. From words they soon came to blows, the combatants lowering their heads and butting at each other like goats, until one Hercules of a fellow, having won by force of arms—or rather, by the superior thickness and strength of his woolly skull—the right to convey us to our destination, we were led in triumph by him to his boat, and comfortably stowed away in the stern-sheets. ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... of wood fitted, by scarphing or butting, to make good a deficiency in length, as the end of a knee and the like. The ekeing is also the carved work under the lower part of the quarter-piece, at the aft part ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... Hercules his labours: for he that is once possessed of the ball, hath his contrary mate waiting at inches, and assaying to lay hold vpon him. The other thrusteth him in the breast, with his closed fist, to keepe him off; which they call Butting, and place in weldoing the same, ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew

... ordered. There was no point in allowing it to stay, and that band of solid light, immovably in place on the wrestler's head, made a perfect battering ram for head-butting mayhem. ...
— The Glory of Ippling • Helen M. Urban

... In butting the sods together, use a wooden mallet, and pound the sod into close contact with the loam beneath, flattening all joints so that the ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue

... solid square blocks, standing out sharply against the skyline, and you couldn't help hitting them. It was like butting your head against a stone wall.... They crept nearer and nearer, and then our officers gave the word. A sheet of flame flickered along the line of trenches and a stream of bullets tore through the advancing mass of Germans. They seemed to stagger like a drunken man hit between the eyes, after which ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... said; "every word. It comes from Charlie Crowder. When you hear it you'll see, and you'll see too that you'll only mix things up by butting in. They're getting their net ready for him, and they'll have him in it before the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... obtained. Now I must be going up again. Steward, give me a glass of weak grog and a biscuit. Do you know, lads, my sides fairly ache. Once or twice I was pressed against the wheel with such force that I could scarcely breathe, and if I had been pinned there by an elephant butting me I could not have been more powerless. That is right, steward, get me my oil-skin and sou'-wester from the cabin. You had better get a kettle on over the spirit-stove, so that we can have a cup of hot cocoa when we like. Now then, I am ready for the fray again!" and buttoning himself ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty

... why under the sun you had to come butting into it!" muttered Ted, resentfully, nursing some bruises he had sustained ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... The deep-sunk schooner stuffed with Eastern lime, Slow wedging on, as if the waves were slime; The knife-edged clipper with her ruffled spars, The pawing steamer with her inane of stars, The bull-browed galliot butting through the stream, The wide-sailed yacht that slipped along her beam, The deck-piled sloops, the pinched chebacco-boats, The frigate, black with thunder-freighted throats, All had their talk about ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... smash his face in if he had. The unexpected addition had saved the day for his sweetheart, but that kid had no business butting in, anyway! Miss Brown watched the ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... say that he was a bad manager of asses or horses or oxen, who had received them originally neither kicking nor butting nor biting him, and implanted in them all these savage tricks? Would he not be a bad manager of any animals who received them gentle, and made them fiercer than they were when he received ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... Bedouin was wroth and they drove at one another, shouting aloud, whilst their horses pricked up their ears and raised their tails. They clashed together with such a dint, that it seemed to each as if the heavens were split in sunder, and strove like two butting rams, smiting one another with thick-coming spear-strokes. Presently, Kehrdash aimed a blow at Kanmakan; but he evaded it and turning upon the brigand, smote him in the breast, that the head of the spear issued ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous

... at all. You see, sir, it's this way. There are two forms of it. There's the white form, and that is poison, shocking poison; it's what the Fijians use when they want to pacify a busybody like Captain Cook who comes butting in where he isn't wanted. As a matter of fact there's uncommon little of it—they don't get a hundredweight in a generation. Then there's the red form, and that's what Johnnies have been dumping down 580 tons of at What's-its-name. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... herbage. There I sat a few minutes whilst they shook their beards at me, and tried to scare me with all their horns; but I was not to be frightened, and would offer up my adorations to departing day, in spite of their caperings. Being tired with skipping and butting at me in vain, the whole herd trotted away, and I after them. They led me a dance from crag to crag and from thicket ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... bundle on her alpenstock, and Seppi called Bello to herd the goats. But the goats were well pleased with the rich green grass of the alp, and were unwilling to leave the pasture. They frisked and gamboled and stood on their hind legs butting each other playfully, and it was some time before Seppi and Bello could ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... losing her way. This caused her to fall off broadside to the stream, in which position she received a heavy fire from St. Philip. Getting clear and her head once more up river, the Manassas, which had been lying unseen close to the east bank, came butting into the starboard gangway. The blow was delivered with slight momentum against the chain armor, and appeared at the time to have done little damage; but subsequent examination showed that the Brooklyn's side was stove in about six feet below the water-line, the prow having entered between ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... see the matron; she'll find a room for you; there are lots of rooms, I guess. Anyway, I'm not going to have you butting in here." ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour

... the smith, giving so violent a wrench to the leg of the quarryman, that the latter uttered a cry of acute pain, and, with the rage of a wild beast, butting suddenly forward with his head, succeeded in biting Agricola in the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... an ancient man of the royal tribe,[2] had unexpected warnings to offer. A man had seen a man, who had caught a glimpse of the Zaire butting her way upstream in the dead of night. Was it wise, when the devil Sandi waited to smite, and so close at hand, to engage in so ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... fat, ugly, and ungainly of body, huge as to the hands and feet, not scrupulously clean in his person and habits, and, like most very fleshy people, he is blessed with an exceedingly even temper, and is excessively happy, good-natured, and stolid. He can break open a door by butting it with his head, and the door is the only sufferer. [Awang Kepala Kras—Awang of the Hard Head—who is a Kelantan Malay, backs himself to butt a trained fighting ram out of time!] He can lift great weights, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... squadron were, as a rule, overcome by the exertion of the great powers of the steam-driven, iron-plated vessels; but at last there came a check, that, though it seemed at first insignificant, terminated the sylvan manoeuvres of the iron-clad navy. After running the gantlet of the burning cotton, butting down trees, and smashing through bridges, the column entered a stretch of smooth water that seemed to promise fair and unobstructed sailing. But toward the end of this expanse of water a kind of green scum ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... had to grip the calf by the nape of the neck, insert a forefinger in its mouth, and force its nose down into an oil-drum full of skim milk. The calf sucked, thinking it had a teat; and so it was taught to drink. But calves have a habit, born of instinct, of butting the udders with their noses, by way of reminding their mothers to let down the milk; and so this calf butted at times, splashing sour milk over Brook, and barking his wrist against the sharp edge of the drum. Then he would swear a little, and Lizzie ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... the reaction of the environment initiates variations, which without it would never arise; such, for instance, as the origin of horns through the pressures and irritations caused by butting, or otherwise using the head as a weapon or for defence. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that this is so, all the evidence we possess shows that, from the very first appearance of the rudiment of such an ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... "Umph," and the little wife's peal of merry laughter was checked, and the ha ha's grew fainter and spread farther and farther apart, until they died away altogether, and I felt like charging upon that burly, surly demon, and butting him out ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... what he had suffered, he forgot both his sack of money and his wooing, for he was so afraid lest the house-door should come dancing after him. Everyone who met him stared and looked after him, for he was flying like a madman, and he could not have looked worse if a herd of rams had been butting at him ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... first stood at the door astounded and uncertain; but by degrees, the impression that his mother must have suffered some personal damage pervaded his partially developed mind, and considering Mr. Pickwick as the aggressor, he set up an appalling and semi-earthly kind of howling, and butting forward with his head, commenced assailing that immortal gentleman about the back and legs, with such blows and pinches as the strength of his arm, and the violence of his ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... not much note, Lived over toward Truxton way, Who owned a goat with a shaggy black coat, As I've heard the neighbours say. And it was the fear of one and all; Butting the great, butting the small,— No matter whom,—who happened to fall In the way of this ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle

... Une montagne!" Never was a better summing up of British character than those words of the French cartoonist during the Boer War, beneath his picture of a certain British General of those days, riding at a hand gallop till his head was butting a cliff. Without seeing a hand's breadth before our noses we have built our Empire, our towns, our law. We are born empiricists, and must have our faces ground by hard facts, before we attempt to wriggle past them. We have thriven so far, but the ruin of England ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... judgment to do it without butting the inner hall-door open, and in the consequent mental confusion and physical darkness slipping down the kitchen stairs. The visitor, however, brought himself up safely ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... paintless farmhouses. Swine, hanging by the ham-strings in the neighboring shed; the barn-yard speckled with the ruffled poultry, some sedate with recent bereavement, others cackling with a dim sense of temporary reprieve; the rough-coated steer butting in the fold, where the timid sheep huddle together in the corner; little boys on a single skate improving the newly frozen horse-pond—these furnish the foreground of the picture during the earlier hours of the morning. Later in ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... near by and scattered particles of bark all around. A red-headed woodpecker sat in the round door of his cozy house in an old snag and seemed perfectly content in his utter inability to sing. Frolicsome spring lambs amused themselves by butting each other off a low stump down in the ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison

... is, people don't do that. They persist in butting into the college world, jerking out some sophomore celebration, and saying, 'What use is this silly ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... God!" he exclaimed, savagely, "I ain't going to do it. I'm going back. I can't leave a mine like that." He had wheeled the mule about, and had started to return on his tracks, grinding his teeth fiercely, inclining his head forward as though butting against a wind that would beat him back. "Go on, go on," he cried, sometimes addressing the mule, sometimes himself. "Go on, go back, go back. I WILL go back." It was as though he were climbing a hill that grew steeper with ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... with surprise and pain as one caught his red beard and swung to it, smiting and kicking. He wrapped his left arm about the man, crushing him close up to him, and, as the other came, diving low, butting at his solar plexus, the giant gripped him by the collar, using his own impetus, and brought the two skulls together with a ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... outstretched arms, and cried: "Bless, Jove omnipotent, this bold design: Aid me, and yearly offerings shall be thine. A milk-white steer—I bind me to the vow— Myself will lead, the choicest, to thy shrine, Tall as his mother, and with gilded brow, And butting horns, and hoofs, that ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... the finger of gossip. Also, you will find yourself unable to secure a position in Granville. Also, you may find yourself losing the—er—regard of this—ah—fortunate individual upon whom you have bestowed your affections; but you'll never lose mine," he burst out wildly. "When you get done butting your head against the wall that will mysteriously rise in your way, I'll be waiting for you. That's how I love. I've never failed in anything I ever undertook, and I don't care how I fight, fair or foul, so that ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... noticeable break in the texture of the fictitious world. But when the stimulus of the pseudo-fact results in action on things or other people, contradiction soon develops. Then comes the sensation of butting one's head against a stone wall, of learning by experience, and witnessing Herbert Spencer's tragedy of the murder of a Beautiful Theory by a Gang of Brutal Facts, the discomfort in short of a maladjustment. For certainly, at the level of social life, what is ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... broader, truer," she insisted. "At present intellect in Christminster is pushing one way, and religion the other; and so they stand stock-still, like two rams butting each other." ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... and nearer. He picked himself up to see what had become of the enemy, but they were nowhere to be found. Instead of them, a flock of goats, chased by Mr Thorn's party, and frightened by their shouts, were butting away with heroic valour at anybody and everybody who came in their way, while daylight revealed the laughing countenances of his friends, who had seen his overthrow and the enemy which caused it. Paddy did not much mind, however. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... his head and threw it up as if he were butting something. "Not at all! By no means." He took the book from her and looked at it. "Yes, that is not so easy, there. This is an old book. They do not print it so now any more, I think. They leave it out, may-be. Only one woman could sing ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... things when he had read "The Trojan Women," "I can imagine all that happening now," he said, "but I can't imagine any of that Gaelic life recurring. I don't feel any life in it. It's like something ... something odd suddenly butting into things ... and then suddenly butting out again ... and leaving ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... we were compelled to seek sanctuary in the silent canyons. And the third day brought us no better luck. At evening we were constrained to admit that we were simply butting our heads against a wall—with an ever-present possibility of the wall toppling over ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... of anxiety and responsibility about Dolly was Tony, who began to make it his daily custom to pass by the house at the hour when old Oliver ought to be going for his morning papers; and if he found no symptom of life about the place, he did not leave off kicking and butting at the shop-door until the owner appeared. It was very much the same thing at night, when the time for shutting up came; though it generally happened now that the boy was paying his friends an evening visit, and ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton

... "See you're butting in with the swell mob," observed Mr. Bates cheerfully. "Getting your name in the paper, ain't you, along with the fake heavyweights and the divorces?" and before Bobby's eyes he thrust a copy of the yellowest of the morning papers, wherein ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... earnestly. "We're always patting ourselves on the back and fancying ourselves mighty clever; but we're not. We're asses—always slipping and tumbling about, and when not doing that, running down the wrong road and butting our stupid heads against posts or walls. Asses, all of ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... vacation," Cap'n Abe declared, still staring at the fishfly now feebly butting its head against the pane. "That week was when I went to the—'hem—buryin' of my a'nt, Joab. I'll go this time mebbe for two-three months. Take a v'y'ge somewhere, ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... not less than fifty." They could not have counted them, as they were constantly in motion, galloping from place to place, and butting each other with ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... butting the overthrown hunter with his head, "what's the next part of this game? ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... to increase the sport, being made perforce witnesses of the sanguinary action, at first looked down upon it from their poles with inexpressible horror, and afterward, when their supports were shaken by the butting of the buffaloes, fell to the ground as if dead, and, with outstretched limbs, lay, expecting their fate with the greatest resignation—without making a single effort to save themselves. Two other tigers, of somewhat less stature, were now, with great difficulty, driven in; while the main struggle ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... Who's What, where your imagination is hampered and interfered with by other people butting in to tell you that their recreations are dodging O.B.E.'s and the Income Tax Commission. Publications: Hanwell Men as I knew Them. Club: The Philanderers, and so forth. This cramps ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various

... of an aunt to me—to uncle E.'s disgust. I did think he deserved a free field, because he discovered her in the chrysalis—when he came here with me; and he got it, so far as I was concerned. But he admitted to me that he thought it folly to keep on butting your head against a perfectly immovable wall, alluring as the wall might be; that he should go back to his mills and his former resolution and keep off the battlefield of love forever after. So then I concluded to give up my tramp entirely for this ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... morning about three weeks after our return from our long excursion, "let's be jolly to-day, and do something vigorous. I'm quite tired of hammering and hammering, hewing and screwing, cutting and butting, at that little boat of ours, that seems as hard to build as Noah's ark; let us go on an excursion to the mountain top, or have a hunt after the wild ducks, or make a dash at the pigs. I'm quite flat—flat as bad ginger-beer—flat as a pancake; in fact, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... their loathsome kennel, but I had not proceeded far before I observed, to my astonishment, another prison full of women, still more abominable; some had become frogs; some, dragons; some, serpents, and there they swam about, hissing and foaming, and butting one another, in a foetid, stagnant pool that was much larger than Bala Lake. "Pray, what can these be?" asked I. "There are here," said he, "four chief classes of women, not to mention their minions—Firstly: Panders, who maintained ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... two probably think it's very funny," snapped Ruth, "sitting up in an apple tree for a half hour, with Jerry trying to knock your feet off every time you let them hang down, to say nothing of his butting me over the fence. Well, laugh if you want to, but it's not so ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... him, like the monkey who had seen the world. Now, Sady, Hal's boy, who went to America of his own desire, was not free. Hence jealousies between him and Mr. Gum; and battles, in which they both practised the noble art of boxing and butting, which they had learned at Marybone Gardens and Hockley-in-the-Hole. Nor was Sady the only jealous person: almost all my mother's servants hated Signor Gumbo for the airs which he gave himself; and I am sorry to say, that our faithful Molly, his wife, was as jealous as his old fellow-servants. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... like a hen on the stony hillside, or whirred away in low, straight flight over the bushes. Flocks of black and brown goats, with pendulous ears, skipped up and down the steep ridges, standing up on their hind legs to browse the foliage of the little oak shrubs, or showing themselves off in a butting-match on top of a big rock. Marching on the highroad they seemed sedate, despondent, pattering along soberly with flapping ears. In the midst of one flock I saw a fierce-looking tattered pastor tenderly carrying ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... twenty or thirty rusty Irish, playing pitch and toss and waiting for employment; - on along the railway, which came in at the same gates and which branches down between each vast block - past a pilot-engine butting refractory trucks into their places - on to the last block, [and] down the branch, sniffing the guano-scented air and detecting the old bones. The hartshorn flavour of the guano becomes very strong, as I near the docks where, across the ELBA'S decks, a huge vessel is discharging her cargo ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... be squeamish. You think I'm butting into what doesn't concern me; but I'm not. What concerns Billy does concern me. And if he doesn't make ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... Fledgling's weather rail, tearing off a fender, while Dan signalled full speed astern. It was fortunate that he had his wits about him, for the erratic yacht, instead of falling back as she naturally should have done, suddenly moved forward under the impulse of a swell, butting the tug, almost gently, about ten feet from the bow. Then the tug backed clear, and, breasting the waves, began to take up the slack cables. A hundred yards she went and then stopped headway with a jerk as the men slipped the cables ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... "The trouble, you see, came with that chap Harleston's butting into the affair. Who would have foreseen that he would happen along just at that particular moment and scoop the letter without turning a hair. It was ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... the stone turned and the wholesome light of day let upon this compressed and blinded community of creeping things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury of legs—and some of them have a good many—rush round wildly, butting each other and everything in their way, and end in a general stampede for underground retreats from the region poisoned by sunshine. Next year you will find the grass growing tall and green where the stone lay; the ground-bird ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... them. I hold all such laws to have been enacted through chicanery, fraud and corruption, with the sole end in view of dispossessing, robbing and enslaving the working class. But this does not imply that I propose making an individual law breaker of myself, and butting my head against the stone wall of existing property laws. That might be called force, but it would not be that. It would be mere weakness and folly. If I had the force to overthrow these despotic laws, I would use it without an instant's hesitation or delay, but I haven't got it, so I am law abiding ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... Dorry Benton and Ralph Warner (they're all in my patrol) went into the city to get Skinny's outfit, so we could give him a surprise at the meeting on Monday night. I didn't go because I wanted Westy to have the say, and I didn't want him to think I was butting in, because Skinny belonged to him, as you might say. Besides I had to cut the grass to my sisters could play tennis with Johnny Wade—honest, that fellow is there all the time. He's got a machine, but I never saw it. I guess maybe it's a sewing ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... the brazen car comes on. It burns in the East as the sunrise burns. I see great flashes where the far trail turns. Butting through the delicate mists of the morning, It comes like lightning, goes past roaring, It will hail all the windmills, taunting, ringing, On through the ranges the prairie-dog tills— Scooting past the cattle on the thousand hills. Ho for the tear-horn, scare-horn, dare-horn, Ho ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... the scene in a most uncalled-for manner, and now was butting its massive head against the frail green stalks of corn, knocking them aside, pawing the dirt and shaking its head at the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope

... kind remarks Laura's goat naturally make a quick exit. She jumped to her feet, and with one of those 'Parted on Her Bridal Tour' expressions, said: 'It's you, is it, Sabrina; you were always noted as the Butting-in Kid. But now if you have got all of that humorous monologue of yours out of your system you can toddle right along and sell your matches, as this kind gentleman and I are discussing a few words in private and do not wish them to get ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey

... reach a given point. And by means of some native method of telegraphing, such as by means of wigwag flags, or "smokes," the news could be hurried up the river much in advance of the vessel that was butting against the strong current of ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy

... what they portended, drew forth a pistol and, cocking it, had it ready to hand. But as I did so they broke into shrill clamour and, rising on heavy wings, soared away as came Pluto to leap about us, uttering joyous barks and butting at us with his head. And then I saw him all wet, nay, as I gazed on him, disbelieving my eyes, he shook himself, sprinkling us with blessed water. Somehow I was upon my feet and, taking Sir Richard's swooning body across my shoulder, I stumbled on towards that place of rocks, Pluto ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... with a light step and an easy heart, but when they were near home, who should they see but Donald O'Neary, and all around him the cows were grazing, and the calves were kicking up their heels and butting their heads together. ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... rhinoceros, which immediately charged the tree full tilt. He hit square, the tree shivered and creaked, the boys wound their arms and legs around the slender support and howled frantically. Again and again rhinoceros drew back to repeat his butting of that tree. By the time Cuninghame reached the spot, the tree, with its despairing burden of black birds, was clinging to the soil by ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... face look like a railroad map. You're too soft, young fellow. I'll put her down as a material witness. Go wash that blood off, and we'll send 'em both down to Night Court. You've done yourself out of your relief butting in this way. Take a tip from me, and let these rummies fight it out among themselves after this as long as they don't mix up ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... calling off their prices with laughable mechanicalness. As the officers passed from counter to counter the market was again in turmoil, but of a different kind. "What are those dudes doing in here? Some people never know where they belong. What's the idea? Just butting in, eh, lolly-pop!" And the police marched out as wise as they had entered, chased away by the drawling voice of tia Picores—who could never understand how people allowed such a government of thugs and grafters to exist among ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... peacefully in a pasture beside the road, with their lambs gamboling about them. In a field beyond, the goats were leaping up in the air and butting playfully at each other, as if the lovely day made them feel lively too. Calves were bleating in the corrals, and away off on the distant hillside the children could see cows moving about, and an occasional flash of red when a vaquero rode ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... happened unguardedly to attack an old ram that had more courage than the rest of the flock. He, instead of running away, faced about and aimed a blow with his forehead at his enemy with so much force and dexterity that he knocked Tiger over and over, butting him several times while he was down, and obliged him ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... You understand that it is nothing except anxiety for his personal condition that I thought warranted my butting into his ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... just one thing left—and that's men! There may be some natives on this island that feel sore at our butting in on 'em and they may have come across ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... fuss the phantom settled to his stride and came down the slope, butting the mists away from his giant chest, the rhythmical beat of his hoofs rising to a terrifying roar as he ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... to appear as "butting in," but don't you think a few illustrations in your New Medal books would aid in increasing interest in this fine series of stories, ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish

... got acquainted with "Scar Face" Hopkins, who was a first-class fellow, with a hand-clasp like a polar bear, a heart like a steam pulsometer, and a face that looked as if it might have been used for the butting post at ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... come to terms with me," Collins exclaimed. "You have no chance of winning now. I like your nerve, but you're butting into too strong a game for a lad of ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson

... came Father Adam's yarn. An' I guess that's where the soup thickens. He says some woman's coming along from the Skandinavia folk. He guesses they're going to put up some proposition that looks like butting in on the plans laid out for Sachigo. But that don't seem to worry him a thing. I guess his letter wasn't written to hand us warning. He seems concerned for the woman. You'll see. He asks me to treat her gently. Firmly, yes. But also, 'very, very gently.' He says, ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... to sense all this, and had no scruples about butting in and finding out all about the trouble. As bad examples are as catching as good ones, and more so, Whitey joined Injun in his investigations. So behold! A dark night on the prairie. A tent showing only a streak of yellow light where the opening folds did not quite meet. Two ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... billiard-saloon? Not being a saint, of course he can plead no high-toned sense of need of physical culture, to warrant these indulgences. He goes because he likes it, gets enjoyment, exercise, rest for a mind tasked to the full with the day's work. This he ought to have; and if butting little ivory balls about or propelling big wooden ones will give it him, let him have it, if so be that it cannot be got otherwise. There is no contamination in the cue or the ten-pin; but there is in the habits ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... by prancing round from the far side of the table and forcibly seizing her hand. He was jealous of the large share Godfrey had to-day secured of her society. He meant to have his innings. So he rubbed his curly head against her much braided elbow, butting her lovingly in the exuberance of his affection as some nice, little ram-lamb might. But just as they reached the door, through which Lady Calmady and the rest of the party had already passed, the boy ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... don't come using it here, because I'm the little guy that does all the talking in this theatre! That fellow gets my goat," he added complainingly to Wally, as Mr Pilkington withdrew like a foiled python. "He don't know nothing about the show business, and he keeps butting in and making fool suggestions. He ought to be darned glad he's getting his first play produced and not trying to teach me how to direct it." He clapped his hands imperiously. The assistant stage-manager bent over the footlights. "What was that ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... begin; But I decline to have you butting in. Tyrants there still may be, but not the sort Discarded from a philo-Teuton Court; The tolerant warmth that sheds a kind of lustre Over a stout Ausonian filibuster Does not extend to thoroughly bad hats Like abdicated Hellene ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various

... terms the whole voyage, and had threatened a rupture several times. Once, on the coast, the mate had seized the steward, when the steward suddenly lowered his head, and pitched it straight into Mr. Brown's stomach, butting him against the galley, grunting at every shove, and calling out "You Brown!'' Mr. Brown looked white in the face, and the heaviest blows he could give seemed to have no effect on the negro's head. He was pulled off by the second mate, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... fantastick Mask nor Dance, But of our kids that frisk, and prance; Nor wars are seen Unless upon the green Two harmless Lambs are butting one the other, Which done, both bleating, run each to his mother: And wounds are never found, Save what ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton

... stretched over a wooden causeway between parallel wet ditches gave evidence of some kind of a railway, on which, at rare intervals, jogged a sleepy mule with a sleepier driver and a musty old rattle-trap of a car,—a car butting up against the animal's lazy hocks and rousing him occasionally to ringing and retaliatory kicks. Around the barracks the buildings were closer, mainly in the way of saloons; then came a mile-long northward stretch of track, with wet fields on either side, fringed along the ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King

... downstairs where it was cooler and that I did have a long talk with the fellow Blackwell. What would I be talking to him about, if I wasn't reading the riot act to him? Ain't it likely too that he would be sorry for what he did while he was angry at your father for butting in as he was having trouble with his wife? And after he had said he was sorry why shouldn't I hit the road out of there? There's no love lost between me and Luck Cullison. I wasn't under any obligations to wrap him up in cotton and bring him back this side up with care to his ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... justice," he went on doggedly. "I want a fair trial before a jury of Arizona men. When I state my case I'll tell them the truth and I don't want any lawyer butting in. And one thing more. I'm going to ask you, Miss Fortune, to leave this case strictly alone. I thank you just as much for your good intentions, but we don't look at this matter the same. I quit the ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... movement, and the back of the strong rough hand, hardened by forty years or more of toil, covered for an instant the youth's nose and mouth. That single movement of a female arm, the muscular development of which a pugilist might have envied, shed more blood than all the clawing, tugging, and butting of the male combatants had caused to flow. 'That is to teach you,' said the strong woman, 'not to fight in my ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... thought I heard you say 'That hateful Dearth woman, coming butting in where she is ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie

... looking steadfastly at the paper, with his head thrust forward like a butting ram. The bashful clerk was completely intimidated by this speech. He recollected that even a bad name is still a name, that he, himself, would not have to bear that name, and that the smith, as a father, had the right to name his son as he chose. So he wrote the word in the little ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... Stefan, what are you butting in for?" Kilrea took courage to ask while he kept discreetly out of reach. "We came to see if everything was all right and proper here. We're satisfied now and are going back. Got to ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... not long delayed, and the "laissez aller" being pronounced, the preux chevaliers started forward with so much fury, and so little discretion, that meeting half-way with a tremendous shock, and butting against each other like two rams, both were thrown violently backwards, exhibiting, amid the shouts of the spectators, their heels, no longer hidden by the trappings of their steeds, kicking in the air. Encumbered as they were, some little time elapsed before ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Colin trotted happily beside them. "You're a fearful ass, Jerrold. You're simple ruining that kid. He thinks he can come butting into everything. Here's the whole afternoon spoiled for all three of us. He can't walk. You'll see he'll drop ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair

... laugh, knowing all I do now, to think of us three boys—nothing else; three audacious impertinent boys—butting into an unknown country without any sort of a guard or defense. We seemed to think that if there were men we could fight them, and if there were only women—why, they would be ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman

... get off this lot as fast as you can hoof it. If I find you butting in again it will be ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... younglings. One of them stood over her sleeping lamb, stamping her feet, to dismay me, no doubt, while the little creature lay like a folded door-mat on the pasture. Another brutally repelled the advances of a strange lamb, butting it over whenever it drew near; another chewed the cud, while its lamb sucked, its eyes half closed in contented joy, just turning from time to time to sniff at the little creature pressed close to its side. I felt as if I had never seen the sight before, ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... it wasn't just a matter of waiters, and truckdrivers and such. It ... well ... ran all the way from top to bottom. So, I finally felt as though I was sort of butting my head against the wall. I thought I better start at ... kind of ... fundamentals, so I began researching the manner in which the governments of the West handled some ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... his face glowing with ardours that gave another life to it; his teeth churning; his whole frame agitated with a raging ungovernable impetuosity: all sensibly betraying the formidable fierceness with which the genial instinct acted upon him. Butting then and goring all before him, and mad and wild like an ower-driven steer, he ploughs up the tender furrow all insensible to Louisa's complaints; nothing can stop, nothing can keep out a fury like his: ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... that," was the reply. "You have been very successful, you wild beasts, in butting into the business of other people, and getting out again uninjured, but it is going to be different now. There are two black Bears and two Wolves that I know of who will never get ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson

... brutal, animal-like in its unreasoning fury. Driven wild with humiliation over the heavy throw, Garman lowered his head and charged like a mad bull, butting, striking, kicking. His blows were wild, but their power was irresistible; Roger's guard was beaten down, he tried in vain to escape; and one of the blows went home on his forehead and knocked him into the palmetto scrub. With both feet ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... some curtains not fifteen feet from that check room when you showed up. I could have grabbed you then, of course, but just between you and me I didn't want to run the risk of having to split the credit fifty-fifty with any bull, in harness or out of it, that might come butting in. The neighbourhood was lousy with cops and plain-clothes men hunting for whoever it was that bumped off Sonntag; they're still there, I guess, hunting without knowing who it is they're looking for, and without having a very good description of you, either. I was ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... of God's making; yea, and if through our folly their terror is admitted to touch us, yet since we are not our own, but are bought with a price, we are not so at our own dispose, but that God will have the butting and bounding of their rage, as also a power to uphold and support our spirits. When I said my foot slipped, thy mercy, O Lord, help me up. And the reason why, by God's ordinance, the spirit is not ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... failed to use the most scientific method. We have gone at the matter of butting through evil without thinking enough. Less butting and more thinking is our religion now. We will not try any longer to butt a whole planet when we try to keep one man from ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... of gigantic build, and of imperturbable placidity. When a soldier in the German army had provoked him to the point where he had to fight, this modern Titan had seized his tormenter and without apparent effort had dashed the man's brains out by butting him against the wall of the barracks. For this episode Nettinger had been compelled to serve eleven years ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... is to flood All the circulation freely with injections of goat's blood, That is really rather soothing, and it doesn't seem to hurt, Though they lacerate your feelings with an automatic squirt; Time will show if it's effective, but 'twill be revenge most sweet If the patients take to butting every single soul ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various

... schooner Hesperus, and she did not sail the wintry sea. It was the stern-wheeled tub Amenhotep, which churned her way up and down the Nile, scraping over sand banks, butting the shores with gaiety embarrassing—for it was the time of cholera, just before the annual rise of the Nile. Fielding Bey, the skipper, had not taken his little daughter, for he had none; but he had taken little Dicky Donovan, who had been in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... plentifully sprinkled with their extract, the goolabee paanee, so greatly in request. The gazelle is also very fond of crisply-toasted bread, a taste which must be acquired in domestication. It is a courageous animal, and will come readily to the assault, butting fiercely when attacked. In taking a gazelle away from Arabia, it should be carefully guarded against cold and damp, and if not provided with water-proof covering to its feet, would soon die if exposed to the wet decks ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... show was really well worth seeing. First, all five bulls went raging round the ring, butting at the fence with their horns, pawing up the sand, hunting for something to kill. Then each one in turn would pretend to catch sight of the Doctor for the first time and giving a bellow of rage, would lower his wicked looking horns and shoot like an arrow across the ring as ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... place, and, being also a survival from a comparatively early day, was a somewhat characteristic affair. It was a box-house, painted red, with a broad porch thatched with bear-grass, and a saddle-shed butting up against it. The interior, barring a little store at one end, was a single large room, bedroom, sitting-room, office, furnished with home-made tables with blankets for cloths, knocked-up chairs with cowhide seats and coyote-skin backs, deers' antlers ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... mistakes for some poor tradesman crazed. Had Colepepper's whole wealth been hops and hogs, Could he himself have sent it to the dogs? His Grace will game: to White's a bull be led, With spurning heels and with a butting head. To White's be carried, as to ancient games, Fair coursers, vases, and alluring dames. Shall then Uxorio, if the stakes he sweep, Bear home six w****s, and make his lady weep? Or soft Adonis, so perfumed and fine, Drive to St. James's a whole ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... of a nerve, butting into a peaceable camp like this. We ain't broke no laws. So you're a'going to civilise us, eh? Well, Mister Harris, we can play that civilising game, too. Hey boys, all together, tie 'em ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... dimensions will be a help to anyone wishing to construct the apparatus. The upright is a 4 by 4-in. timber, set 3 ft. in the ground with 8 ft. extending above. It is braced on four sides with pieces 2 in. square and 2 ft. long, butting against short stakes. The upper end of the post is wound with a few rounds of wire or an iron strap to prevent splitting. The crosspiece is 2 in. square, 12 ft. long, strengthened by a piece 4 in. square and 5 ft. long. These two pieces must be securely bolted or spiked together. A malleable ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... overhear part of your talk with J. Pinkney Hare just now. How others might view it I know not, but to me it seemed only fair to warn you that that interesting young man must be shunned by the wise. As to the mayoralty, he has as much chance of getting in as a jack-rabbit has of butting a way through the Great Wall of China. For we have a great wall ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... hand-painted picture of myself starting to Lilac Valley to fight a man who is butting in with my girl, and taking my mother along to help me beat him up," ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... writeing letters to a guy she never seen and maybe this will learn her a lesson and I suppose she can give her sweater to somebody else and maybe Kramer has got it by this time but what he ought to have is a wallop in the jaw for butting in but what can you expect from ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner

... "for butting into what's not my business, but if you peel them potatoes you lose out. They're new Bermudas. You want to ...
— Options • O. Henry

... Nick has more influence with York than I have. He crosses the street when he sees me. I like him about as much as he likes me. He's boss of his own show—his directors cut no ice. Anyway, it's none of my business. I've no excuse for butting in." Her face showed her disappointment. "I'm sorry," said Hess. "I'd do anything I could for you, little girl, or for any one who ever did you a good turn. But you see how it is. I can't ask favours of York and his crowd. If I ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... invited to take a hand in that myself, but I prefer to keep out. In the manner they propose to do it, I want none in mine. If you're thinking of butting in, take my advice and ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... the island were constructed by the home authorities in a very dilatory manner. Ponce's house in Caparra had been fortified in a way so ineffective that Las Casas said of it that the Indians might knock it down butting their heads against it. This so-called fort soon fell in ruins after the transfer of the capital to its present site. There is no information of what became of the six "espingardas" (small ordnance or hand-guns) with which it had been armed at King Ferdinand's expense. They had probably been transferred ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... seem to know if you were in or not, so I came up anyhow." Glancing at Bennington, he added: "Sorry, if I'm butting in." ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... practice here, and leaves room for numberless reflections: she cannot eat Turkeys when roasted or boiled; and she dreads them when alive so much, that she displays every forenoon a cudgel to them, fitted by its size to strike terror into a bull, or a butting cow. What can her keeping of Turkeys be owing to? Assuredly to vanity, which is of such an insinuating nature, that we are apt very often to meet it where we least expect it; I have seen it in an old shoe, in a dirty shirt, ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... old feller that wore this was a sport, eh?" he said, proudly, shaking the pieces on his arms until they rattled. "I guess he done 'em up pretty well for all these handicaps. I'll bet when he got to falling around on 'em and butting 'em with this fire helmet he made 'em purty tired. Don't youse ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... vanished herds were much given to fighting, and always through jealousy. The bulls bellowed until they could be heard for miles, tore up earth and threw it into the air, rolled their eyes, and often rushed together in a terrifying manner; but beyond butting their heads, pushing and straining until the weaker turned and ran, nothing came of it all. I have yet to find a man who ever saw a wild buffalo that had been wounded to the shedding of blood by another wild buffalo. It is probable that no ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... renew the attack. Bleeding profusely as the animal was, its long hair down its sides being matted with blood, yet its rage and strength seemed undiminished, as it continued rushing forward and butting with the same ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... steaks were cut to dine half-a-dozen men; and then, as the bulls did not observe him, grown brave from impunity, he went on further and picked up his gun. This he handed up to me, and it was not much the worse for the butting it had got. The bulls were still feeding quietly, apparently having forgot all ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... the Sabbath. This is often encouraged by slaveholders. When they wish to have a little sport of that kind, they go among the slaves and give them whiskey, to see them dance, "pat juber," sing and play on the banjo. Then get them to wrestling, fighting, jumping, running foot races, and butting each other like sheep. This is urged on by giving them whiskey; making bets on them; laying chips on one slave's head, and daring another to tip it off with his hand; and if he tipped it off, it would be called an insult, and cause a fight. Before fighting, the parties choose their ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb

... Charles P. Stickney, butting upon a tearing clerk who was holding aloft a bulletin of icebergs and derelicts, tried to stop him: upon which the clerk, who would not be stopped, cried with a back-looking face of passionate haste: "London message just received—no intelligence ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... as we have said, about or somewhat under the middle size. In his gait he was very ungainly. When walking, he drove forward as if his head was butting or boring its way through a palpable atmosphere, keeping his person, from the waist up, so far in advance that the a posteriori portion seemed as if it had been detached from the other, and was engaged in a ceaseless but ineffectual struggle to regain its position; or, in ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton



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