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Gig   Listen
noun
Gig  n.  
1.
A top or whirligig; any little thing that is whirled round in play. "Thou disputest like an infant; go, whip thy gig."
2.
A light carriage, with one pair of wheels, drawn by one horse; a kind of chaise.
3.
(Naut.) A long, light rowboat, generally clinkerbuilt, and designed to be fast; a boat appropriated to the use of the commanding officer; as, the captain's gig.
4.
(Mach.) A rotatory cylinder, covered with wire teeth or teasels, for teaseling woolen cloth.
Gig machine, Gigging machine, Gig mill, or Napping machine. See Gig, 4.
Gig saw. See Jig saw.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gig" Quotes from Famous Books



... hundreds of instances with the New Zealanders. The following case is worth giving, as it relates to an old man who was unusually dark-coloured and partly tattooed. After having let his land to an Englishman for a small yearly rental, a strong passion seized him to buy a gig, which had lately become the fashion with the Maoris. He consequently wished to draw all the rent for four years from his tenant, and consulted Mr. Stack whether he could do so. The man was old, clumsy, poor, and ragged, and the idea ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... wooden settle within the porch of the lodge, smoking a long clay pipe, and occasionally quaffing long draughts of rare old cider. He was just thinking of turning in for the night, when a vehicle stopped, and a voice demanded admittance. As the gates swung open a gig and its occupant passed through and proceeded at a smart pace along the broad avenue ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... will order my gig manned, and we'll go together. Poor Winchester must keep house awhile; so there is no use in asking him. I saw no necessity for putting Nelson into a passion by saying anything about the exact amount of our loss ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... and Warren rushed off to the gate and ran hastily down the road. He knew his father was often in the neighbourhood about that time of the day, and, to his great joy, he saw him driving in his gig. The boy ran and shouted, and speedily attracted the doctor's attention when his son shouted, ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie

... be denied driving her home in his gig, and when she thought about it, she found she had a strange relaxed aching of the knees, which made her glad of kindness for herself and the little ones. In the fine old kitchen she found that Armine had had an overpowering fit of crying, which had been kindly soothed by motherly Mrs. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Union Jack's gay colours floating lazily from a pole in the Outlaw's Knoll; the dark, full foliage of the forest, and purple tints of the heather setting off the bright female groups in their delicate summer gaieties. Vehicles of all degrees—smart barouche, lengthy britzschka, light gig, dashing pony-carriage, rattling shanderadan, and gorgeous wagon—were drawn up in treble file, minus their steeds; the sounds of well-known tunes from the band were wafted on the wind, and such an air of jocund peace and festivity pervaded the whole, that for a moment he ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... knocked down and run over by a gentleman in a gig, your honour," replied the overseer. "He stopped, half an hour ago, at my house to tell me that she was lying on the road; and he has given me two sovereigns for her, your honour. But, poor cretur! she was too heavy for me to carry ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the Vicar started alone in his gig. He had at first said that he would take with him a nondescript boy, who was partly groom, partly gardener, and partly shoeblack, and who consequently did half the work of the house; but at last he decided that he would go alone. "Peter is very silent, ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... overstocked, the first person he sent to was our bookseller. Again, he would take a post-chaise, or the White Hart barouche, for a party of pleasure, when his neighbours would have been happy with a gig. He did not join, or allow his daughters to mix with them at the tradesman's ball, but they staid moping at home, because there was none between the gentry and trade. Yet the professional and little-fortune people cried —— trade, and thus our bookseller belonged ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various

... consisting of three large ships, under the command of Admiral Tronde, put out under full sail and passed in front of the jetty on which we were.... The Admiral's ship came up as close as it could; the Rear-Admiral came in his gig to fetch Their Majesties and their suite, and took us on board, amid the cheers of the crew, who were all in full uniform. While the Empress and her ladies were resting in the ward-room, Napoleon inspected the rest of the ship. Just when we least expected it, he ordered all the ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... what I'll do," said Girard, who was thoroughly vexed by the opposition of the other, "I'll wager five hundred dollars that I can ride in my gig from here to my farm, spend two hours there, and return before you can make your ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... was to be always dressed in green, and large crowds would assemble every day, outside his house, to see him drive off in his green gig, with a green whip, and a servant ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... then, cannot our Evangelical lady novelists show us the operation of their religious views among people (there really are many such in the world) who keep no carriage, "not so much as a brass-bound gig," who even manage to eat their dinner without a silver fork, and in whose mouths the authoress's questionable English would be strictly consistent? Why can we not have pictures of religious life among the industrial ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... written to the Administrador to ask leave, we were recommended to wait for an hour or two on board, to allow time for the necessary forms to be complied with. A refreshing sea-breeze was blowing, and at ten o'clock we decided to brave the sun and to proceed under the double awnings of the gig (towed by the steam-launch) across the bar and up ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... friends to dine on his yacht, or to take a short cruise, it is absolutely bad form to omit the chaperon. She must be a married woman, and she may join the party with or without her husband. Another important point regarding yachting parties; the host must supply a gig or rowboat to carry his guests to and from the shore, and he must stand on the gangway to greet each one as he arrives, and assist him to the ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler

... belonged to a rich shoemaker of Piccadilly, who had embellished his little domain of half an acre with statues and jets, and all the decorations of landscape gardening; in consequence of which Goldsmith gave it the name of The Shoemaker's Paradise. As his fellow-occupant, Mr. Botts, drove a gig, he sometimes, in an interval of literary labor, accompanied him to town, partook of a social dinner there, and returned with him in the evening. On one occasion, when they had probably lingered too long at the table, they came near breaking their necks on their ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... a painter man as he came that morning erect in his gig. Who could forget the hoary majesty of his head—his 'stovepipe' tilted back, his white locks flying about his ears? He had a long nose, a smooth-shaven face and a left eye that was a trifle turned. His thoughts were generally one day ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... picked up by a launch. He got up a cutter's crew and saved many lives, as did Midshipman Cazalet in the Cressy's gig. Lieut. Chichester turned out the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... long as it were speedily. Dr. Ripley rushed from his surgery with the determination that she should not effect an entrance into this stronghold of his if hard driving on his part could prevent it. He did not even wait to light his lamps, but sprang into his gig and flew off as fast as hoof could rattle. He lived rather nearer to the Squire's than she did, and was convinced that he could ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... so, the girl shrank away from him toward her corner of the gig. "Who are you?" she cried in a ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... all surprised to see Dr. Bird's carriage at the door. "Some one must be ill, surely—I hope it's not papa," Eddie cried, hurrying on in advance, Bertie and Agnes following. "He seemed quite well this morning. Oh! there's Lawyer Hurst's gig—what can he want? Johnson," to a servant standing at the door, "whatever is the matter? Is ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... used, the carriole and the stolkjaerre. The carriole resembles an American sulky, except that it is springless, and nearly the entire weight is forward of the axle. It is a two-wheeled gig with the body shaped like the bowl of a spoon. The seat, in front of the axletree, is fastened by cross-pieces to the long, slender shafts that project behind and provide a place for light luggage and a seat for the ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... hour later the anchor was dropped fifty yards off Portygee Town. Captain Tunis ordered the gig lowered to take him ashore and, after giving the mate some instructions regarding stowage and the men's shore leave, he was rowed over to Luiz Wharf. 'Rion Latham, a red-headed, pimply faced young man, ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... said, when Lyman stepped down upon the floor. "Walt a minute. Let me shut this door. The smell of the kitchen gig—gig—- gags me. Lyman, I do reckon I ought to take a rusty knife and cut my infamous old throat. Yes, I do. I deserve it. And all because I wanted to renew my youth. I know I've said it before, but I want to say right ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... lady, that is going too far. I made certain conditions, you accepted them. I have been true to my part of the agreement—you must, nay shall, reward me. I have a horse and gig a little further up yonder by-road. I shall drive you to Bath, and then I will marry you to-morrow morning. Come. You shall reign like a queen in my old home, and I will do all you ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall

... magnificent sweep of the Navy which the sailors pulled, the little gig seemed to ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... one knows not why, or in consequence, perhaps, of some most trifling suggestion. Yesterday I was walking at dusk. I came to an old farmhouse; at the garden gate a vehicle stood waiting, and I saw it was our doctor's gig. Having passed, I turned to look back. There was a faint afterglow in the sky beyond the chimneys; a light twinkled at one of the upper windows. I said to myself, "Tristram Shandy," and hurried home to plunge into a book which I have not opened for ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... blooming maiden of middle degree, all alone—the more's the pity—yet perfectly happy in her own society, and one we venture to say who never received a love-letter, valentines excepted, in all her innocent days.—A fat man sitting by himself in a gig! somewhat red in the face, as if he had dined early, and not so sure of the road as his horse, who has drunk nothing but a single pailful of water, and is anxious to get to town that he may be rubbed down, and see oats once more.—Scamper away, ye joyous schoolboys, and, for your ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... the Harpy was at anchor in Gibraltar Bay; the captain went on shore, directing the gig to be sent for him before nine o'clock; after which hour the sally-port is only opened by special permission. There happened to be a ball given by the officers of the garrison on that evening, and a polite invitation was sent to the officers of H.M. sloop Harpy. As those who accepted the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... are strewn With level shadows, and the moon Takes the day's wink and walks aside To nurse a nap till eventide. 'Tis LIFE to reach the livery stable, Secure the RIBBONS and the DAY-BILL, And mount a gig that had a spring Some summer's back: and then take wing Behind (in Mr. Hamlet's tongue) A jade whose "withers are unwrung;" Who stands erect, and yet forlorn, And from a HALF-PAY life of corn, Showing as many POINTS each way As Martial's Epigrammata, Yet who, when set a-going, goes Like one undestined ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... by his side in a gig. By a few careful glances I had easily assured myself that there was nothing of the ploughman in the appearance of Mrs. Hollingford's son. You will want to know what I thought of him that morning, and I will tell you. He seemed to me the beau ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland

... carriage was at the door, they, with two female domestics, were ready to mount. I cannot better describe their vehicle, than by comparing it to a canoe mounted on four wheels, connected by a long perch, with a coachbox at the bow, and three gig bodies hung athwart ships, or slung inside of the canoe, by leather thongs. At the moment we were starting, Mr——-came close to me and whispered, "Do you think your ship will still be ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... left the inn at Minstercombe in a gig, I saw Clara coming out of a shop. I could not stop and speak to her, for, not to mention the opinion I had of her, and the treachery of which I accused her, was I not at that very moment meditating how best to let her ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... as the Abbe was about to cross the highway leading from Plassans to La Palud, a gig coming down the hill compelled him to step behind a heap of stones. Then, as he crossed the open space, a voice called to him: 'Hallo, Serge, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... Ingle called to keep an appointment with Miss Meeke. He came in his gig to take her to the village to inspect a certain house that he thought of leasing. But she ordered him to send his gig to the stable, and let his horse rest, while he availed himself of the family carriage in which ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... out to the shed where Bacon was at work, as serene as if he had not a fearful task on hand. He was apprehensive that the father might "gig back" unless rightly approached, and so ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... stationed at Jubulpore, Central India, was informed late one evening that his favorite horse keeper had just been dangerously bitten by a cobra of unusual size, and therefore more than ordinarily venomous. He at once ordered his gig, and in spite of the wails and protestations of the sufferer and his friends, with whom a fatal result was already a foregone conclusion, the doctor caused his wrists to be bound firmly and inextricably to the back of the vehicle; then assuring the man if he did not keep up he would ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... his wife kept their appointments with that punctuality which bespeaks an expectant mind. The friendly farmer's gig was borrowed, and in that they went, discussing many things by the way. They had instructed the household to expect them back by one, and injunctions were given to the eldest pledge to have ready by that accustomed hour the remainder of the huge stew which the provident mother had prepared ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... invitation, Jonson, seizing me by the arm, pushed me into the house, and followed. "Go for a glim, Bess, to light in the parish bull with proper respect. I'll close the gig of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... evening,—armor, harps, stone Priapuses, and birds of paradise. The men were to come overland, and would have no boats. So I went ashore with three or four Malays, and the Old Boy's time we had poking in and out over the silt to find fairway, even for the gig. At last we could make round toward a little clearing in the bamboos, with a big canary tree in the middle. All was going well, when suddenly the mate grunted, pointing dead ahead. That man Sidin has the most magnificent eyes: we were steering straight ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... up, a ragged gig-whip in his hand, which he was fond of smacking round the throng of boys. He had never yet ventured to touch one of them, and perhaps it was just as well for him ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... burns, bursts, smells, bumps, breakdowns, and explosions I have attained to the perfect joy of the scorcher. I have suffered much on the southern British highways. My Tibetan devil-mask shall therefore add to their terrors. Besides, I wore gig-lamps at school. What do they know of Sussex who only ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton

... the father's imagination, a vision of another sort played upon the juvenile fancy of his son—a vision of a gig; for, though Augustus was but a school-boy, he had very manly ideas—if those ideas be manly which most young men have. Lord Rawson, the son of the Earl of Marryborough, had lately appeared to Augustus in a gig. The young Lord Rawson had lately ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... a two-wheeled gig with a hood; a kind of vehicle in much favour among country doctors. On how many roads has one not seen it, a great way off between the poplars!—in how many village streets, tied to a gate-post! This sort of chariot is affected—particularly at the trot—by a kind of pitching movement to ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... experiment and philosophical speculation than to the ordinary routine of his profession. It was quite natural, that, in course of time, another physician should come to dash by, with fine turnout, my father's humble gig; and such, indeed, was the result. It was equally natural, that, as the dear old man looked his own fate straight in the eyes, and saw his patients falling away one by one, he should adjourn practical success to his only son,—myself. Quiet, but unremitting, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... at the little boats which ever and anon came out of this monster, with humble wonder. There was the lieutenant who boarded us at midnight before we dropped anchor in the river: ten white-jacketed men pulling as one, swept along with the barge, gig, boat, curricle, or coach-and-six, with which he came up to us. We examined him—his red whiskers—his collars turned down—his duck trousers, his bullion epaulets—with awe. With the same reverential feeling we examined ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... what was being said. However, we gathered that Captain Roberts had been protesting against turning so many people adrift in the longboat alone, for presently we heard Bainbridge shout an order to lower away the captain's gig, which, next to the dinghy and jollyboat, was the smallest boat belonging to the ship. But she was roomy enough to accommodate ten people comfortably, without ballast, or seven with provisions and water enough to last her crew for ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... with the doctor and his wife, Francis returned from his morning ride, and told them the Jarvis family had arrived; he had witnessed an unpleasant accident to a gig, in which were Captain Jarvis, and a friend, a Colonel Egerton; it had been awkwardly driven in turning into the Deanery gate, and upset: the colonel received some injury to his ankle, nothing, however, serious he hoped, but such as to put him under the care of the young ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... in the gig, and amused myself by reading the newspapers at the Governor's, while the captain rode out to the mission establishment, at Mount Vaughan. During my stay, one of the new missionaries, a native of Kentucky, came in from Mount Vaughan, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... two men dined together at the castle,—for the doing of which it was necessary that a gig should be hired all the way from Prestwick. Herriot had not been anxious to go over, alleging various excuses,—the absence of dress clothes, the calls of Stone and Toddy, his bashfulness, and the absurdity of paying ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... "sous-officiers," who, disappointed in obtaining horses, were too indolent to walk. Even the gun-carriages, and the guns themselves, were similarly loaded, while at the head of the infantry column, in an old rickety gig, the ancient mail conveyance between Ballina and the coast, came General Humbert, Neal Kerrigan capering at his side on the old gray, whose flanks were now tastefully covered by the tri-colored ensign of one of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... mounted on fresh horses, and had procured a cisium, or light carriage for two persons, not much unlike in form to a light gig, in which they had placed the unhappy Julia, with a slight boy, the son of ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... the guest of the owners or the officers of a yacht, or of the officers of a government warship or other large vessel, it is well to know that in the lading of the gig for reaching and leaving the ship, the order of precedence is always as follows: Juniors in rank or official importance enter the gig first, and the one highest in rank immediately precedes the Captain, who is always the last ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway

... American, I hope we shall. As a moralist and occasional sermonizer, I am not so anxious about it. Wherever the trotting horse goes, he carries in his train brisk omnibuses, lively bakers' carts, and therefore hot rolls, the jolly butcher's wagon, the cheerful gig, the wholesome afternoon drive with wife and child,—all the forms of moral excellence, except truth, which does not agree with any kind of horse-flesh. The racer brings with him gambling, cursing, swearing, drinking, the eating of oysters, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... continent, we found large numbers of donkeys, with drivers, and ladies use them in their little excursions; and many of them are attached to Bath chairs, a small gig, and a very comfortable conveyance, too, as we proved. The vehicle is made ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various

... world; and anyway there was sense in standing well with a man who might at any time in this transitory world have to decide the important question of your living or dying—managed to get old Dapple harnessed in the gig, and the lamps lit, and to jog off with the earliest. The drive of Penalune extends for a mile, and along it, ahead of him and behind him, the voices of his fellow-guests challenged one another in song, rising clear ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... kinds—two-wheeled, four-wheeled, heavy and light—it may be necessary to make further reference; here it is sufficient to observe that, in order to assist quick travelling, there existed individuals or companies who let out a light form of gig, in which the traveller rode behind a couple of mules or active Gaulish ponies as far as the next important stopping-place, where he could find another jobmaster, or keeper of livery-stables, to send him on further. The rich man, travelling, as he necessarily would, with a train ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... composed of a number of counties, of which a single judge, appointed or elected as the case may be, for that purpose, makes the circuit, holding courts at each county seat. Railroads being scarce, the earlier circuit judges made their trips from county to county on horseback or in a gig; and the prominent lawyers living within the limits of the circuit made the tour of the circuit with the judge. It is said that when Lincoln first began to "ride the circuit" he was too poor to own a ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... with her niece, and we find her seated accordingly along with Colonel Colleton in the same carriage with the young ladies. Ralph rode, as his humor prompted, sometimes on horseback, and sometimes in a light gig—a practice adopted with little difficulty, where a sufficient number of servants enabled him to transfer the trust of one or the other conveyance to the liveried outriders. Then came the compact, boxy, buggy, buttoned-up vehicle of our friend the pedler—a thing for ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... good! You mean the mere sight of her transformed Louis into the classic shote," added Portlaw, laughing louder as Hamil, still smiling through his annoyance, went over the side. And a moment later the gig shot away ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... later a gig from Crossmichael deposited Frank Innes at the doors of Hermiston. Once in a way, during the past winter, Archie, in some acute phase of boredom, had written him a letter. It had contained something in the nature of an invitation ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... they managed between them to convey the old gunmaker away from the scene of his disaster, and to lodge him for the night in a place of safety. At five in the morning Robert had started in the gig to make the medical arrangements, while Raffles Haw paced his palatial house with a troubled face and ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle

... at the door as the two men got into the gig, and, as it passed down through the gate, she hurried out upon the terrace, from whence she could see it for a few yards down the lane. Then she ran from the terrace to the gate, and, hurrying through the gate, made her way into the churchyard, from the farther corner of which she could see ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... abundance, where from of old tilth and pasture-land are humbly observant of seasons and alternations, where the brown roads are familiar only with the tread of the labourer, with the light wheel of the farmer's gig, or the rumbling of the solid wain. By the roadside you pass occasionally a mantled pool, where perchance ducks or geese are enjoying themselves; and at times there is a pleasant glimpse of farmyard, with stacks and barns and stables. All things as simple as could be, but ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... I suppose—and hope," said Corona, looking across the river, and seeing a gig with two men ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... laughed, but he showed no signs of giving way, and ten minutes later Mr. and Mrs. Grantham and Miss Graham took their places in the gig, and were rowed into Southampton Harbour, off which the ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty

... are green," that Thurnall started, one bright Sunday eve, to see a sick child at an upland farm, some few miles from the town. And partly because he liked the walk, and partly because he could no other, having neither horse nor gig, he went on foot; and whistled as he went like any throstle-cock, along the pleasant vale, by flowery banks and ferny walls, by oak and ash and thorn, while Alva flashed and swirled, between green boughs below, clear ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... pleasant and such good company, for no man was ever better acquainted with the ways of the world, that he very rarely, I think, left the premises without a deal, though sometimes he was in his gig before the final bargain was struck. It is a custom of the trade for the seller to give something back to the buyer by way of "luck money," and the last time I did business with him I refused to give more than one ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... down the brae every few minutes, and there comes an occasional gig. Seldom is the brae empty, for many live beyond the top of it now, and men and women go by to their work, children to school or play. Not one of the children I see from the window to-day is known to me, and most of the men and ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie

... to fill the sail of a toy boat," grumbled Sebright; "and you can't pull this heavy gig ashore with only that one-armed man at the other oar." He was sorry he could not send us off with four good rowers. The norther might be coming on before they could return to the ship, and—apart from the presence of four English sailors on the coast being sure ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... Kate. "All the world knows it." Then the gig, with the two sportsmen, was driven on. "Don't you think he looks handsome in his pink coat?" whispered Molly, afterward, to her elder sister. "Only think; I have never seen him in a red coat since he was my own. Last April, when the hunting was over, he hadn't spoken out; and ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... to drive us over in his gig," said Agnetta. "My I shan't we cut a dash? Bella, she's goin' to wear her black silk done up. We've washed it with beer and it rustles beautiful just like a new one. And she's got a hat turned up on one side ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton

... nonsense sound like learning too deep to be fathomed. So, while Rusticus will point out to you "the auld-fashioned standin' stane"—on which he tells you that there are plain to be seen a cocked hat, a pair of spectacles, a comb, a looking-glass, a sow with a long snout, and a man driving a gig,—Mr Urban will describe to you "a hieroglyphed ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... intimacy. Mr. C. is a gentleman of intelligence and respectability, and occupies a station of trust and honor in the island. On taking leave of us, he politely requested our company at breakfast on a following morning, saying, he would send his gig for us. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... defines it, is the subordinate idea: and, undoubtedly, it is the leading idea which determines the construction of the verb. We may illustrate this from the analogy of a similar construction in respect to number—a man with a horse and a gig meets me on the road. Here the ideas are three; nevertheless the verb is singular. No addition of subordinate elements interferes with the construction that is determined by the leading idea. In the expression I, your master, the ideas are two; viz., the idea expressed by ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham

... acquaintance had or had not gone somewhere) by a vehement declaration which passed into a proverb in our house: "Yes, yes, she did; for a woman will go anywhere, at any time, with anybody, to see any thing—especially in a gig." Those were days in which a gig was a vehicle the existence of which was not only recognized in civilized society, but supposed to confer a diploma of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... Banbury Crosses); local gentry in dogcarts; local gentry in closed carriages going to a funeral, and apparently (as seen through the windows) very hot and mournful and perspiring; an antique clergyman in an antique gig who gave me a tract and warned me against drink; a char-a-bancs filled to bursting with the True Blue Constitutional Club of East Pigley—such at least was the inscription on a streaming banner— who swung past waving their hats and singing "Our Boarder's such ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne

... for this art of cooking is confined to this country, and to the lower middle classes in England. By the "lower middle classes" I mean, what Carlyle terms the gigocracy—i.e., people sufficiently well-to-do to keep a gig or phaeton—well-to-do tradesmen, small professional men, the class whose womenkind would call themselves "genteel," and many absurd stories are told of the determined ignorance and pretense of these would-be ladies. But in no class above this is a knowledge of cooking a thing to be ashamed ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen

... chiefly of small calibre. Her boats included her "long-boat," with which the experience of her company in "Cape Cod harbor" have made us familiar, and perhaps other smaller boats,—besides the Master's "skiff" or "gig," of whose existence and necessity there are numerous proofs. "Monday the 27," Bradford and Winslow state, "it proved rough weather and cross winds, so as we were constrained, some in the shallop and others in the ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... his attending the traveling court, which compelled a horse, since he could not afford the gig associated with the chief lawyers' degree of respectability, he was frequently and for long spells away from home. In one of these absences his wife deemed it fit for his coming dignity of pleader to have a second story and roof of a fashionable type set upon the old foundations. ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... was half blown off the kitchen, but I have had it mended already; the other offices were all swept away. The gig is much injured; and my horse received a wound in the fall of the stable, from which he will not be recovered for some weeks: in the mean time I have no choice but to buy another, as I must go at least once or twice a week to Colonarie, besides business in Town. As to our own comforts, we ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... Vehicles were few, and horses fewer. Nothing was to be had for love or money, as it seemed. But there was at last found one man who, if he had little love for the prize-ring, had much reverence for the golden coin that supported it. He was a Quaker. He had an old gig, and, I think, a still older horse, both of which I hired for the journey—the Quaker, of course, pretending that he had no idea of any meeting of the "Fancy" whatever. Nor do I suppose he would know ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... and a God to this hour? His crown a Crown of Thorns? Thou fool, with thy empty Godhoods, Apotheoses edgegilt; the Crown of Thorns made into a poor jewel-room crown, fit for the head of blockheads; the bearing of the Cross changed to a riding in the Long-Acre Gig! Pause in thy mass-chantings, in thy litanyings, and Calmuck prayings by machinery; and pray, if noisily, at least in a more human manner. How with thy rubrics and dalmatics, and clothwebs and cobwebs, and with thy stupidities ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... days, to implore him to unravel all the things which lay between us. I wanted the story of that night, of my concern in it, stripped bare. Already my lips were opened, when round the corner of the rough lane by which Braster Grange was approached on this side came a doctor's gig. Ray shaded his eyes and gazed ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... was a man of means, and drove his smart gig and mare, and it was with some idea of buying a new horse that he was to go to Woodbridge Horse Fair. In the seventies the horse fairs of Norwich and other East Anglian towns were important functions. The Rommany gryengroes had not then all gone to America, and those ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth

... all inexperienced, the battle of life. On Mr. Verdant Green it had such an overwhelming effect that when his scout, Filcher, entered the room he found his master looking very red about the eyes, and furiously wiping the large spectacles from which his nick-name, "Gig-lamps," was derived. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... vehicle, conveyance, coach, gig, buggy, sulky, diligence, perambulator, cabriolet, brougham, surrey, chaise, stanhope, sedan, jumpseat, tally-ho, victoria, tumbrel, chariot, jingle, rockaway, hack, calash, cab, coupe, hansom cab, volante, cart, equipage, turnout, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... say that I have heard it myself—but I am told, there have been people from the eastward among us of late years, who affect to call "Hell-Gate," "Hurl-Gate," or "Whirl-Gate," or by some other such sentimental, whirl-a-gig name; and these are the gentry who would wish to alter "Satanstoe" into "Dibbleton!" Since the eastern troops have begun to come among us, indeed, they have commenced a desperate inroad on many of our old, venerated Dutch names; names that the English, direct from home, have generally ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... solitary, and lame, and poor. Her father had not been very long dead; and while he lived, no one supposed that his only child would be poor. Her youth passed gaily, and her adversity came suddenly. Her father was wont to drive her out in his gig, almost every summer day. One evening, the horse took fright, and upset the gig on a heap of stones by the road-side. Mr Young was taken up dead, and Maria was lamed for life. She had always known the Enderbys ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... now the trifling character of the fellow. When about the tenth hour of the day he had arrived at Red Rocks, he skulked into a little petty wine-shop, and, hiding there, kept on drinking till evening. And from thence getting into a gig and being driven rapidly to the city, he came to his own house with his head veiled. "Who are you?" says the porter. "An express from Marcus." He is at once taken to the woman for whose sake he had come; and he delivered the letter to her. And when she had read ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... made, gave him three cheers, for they understood his professional merits at least; and Saunders, who had not been forgotten, attended him assiduously to the side of the ship. Here Mr. Leach called, "the Foam's away!" and Captain Ducie's gig was manned. At the gangway Captain Truck again shook Paul cordially by the hand, and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... premised, is a city man, who travels in drugs for a couple of the best London houses, blows the flute, has an album, drives his own gig, and is considered, both on the road and in the metropolis, a remarkably nice, intelligent, thriving young man. Pogson's only fault is too great an attachment to the fair:—"the sex," as he says often "will be his ruin:" the fact is, that Pog ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... do not think it was very wise; but the subject does not appear to me just now in a jesting light, so I shall only say that he related to me his own conversion, which had been effected (as is very often the case) through the agency of a gig accident, and that, after having examined me and diagnosed my case, he selected some suitable tracts from his repertory, gave them to me, and, bidding me God-speed, went on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... friend Don Benigno we are, upon another occasion, induced to paint and embellish his quitrin—a two-wheeled carriage of the gig class, the component parts of which bear one to the other something of the proportions of a spider and his web; the body of the conveyance being extremely small, the shafts inconceivably long, and the wheels of a gigantic circumference. The street-doors of most Cuban houses are constructed ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... weighty body and sensible, ingenious character, had highly whetted our curiosity; and it was with something like excitement that we saw the beach and terrace suddenly blacken with attendant vassals, the king and party embark, the boat (a man-of-war gig) come flying towards us dead before the wind, and the royal coxswain lay us cleverly aboard, mount the ladder with a jealous diffidence, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... large bundle with her, a pair of pattens, and a species of gig umbrella; the latter article in colour like a faded leaf, except where a circular patch of a lively blue had been dexterously let in at the top. She was much flurried by the haste she had made, and laboured ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... and you'll infect others. You must take some quinine." With these words Parrington climbed into his gig, the sailors gave way with the oars, and the boat rushed through the water and disappeared into the darkness, where the bow oarsman was silhouetted against the pale yellow light of the boat's lantern like ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... injured by the interruption of his slumbers by Harold's coming to him for assistance in putting on his clothes, and stared at my dismay at his having permitted such an exertion. Before long, however, we saw an unmistakable doctor's gig approaching, and from it emerged Harold and Mr. Yolland. I saw now that he was a sturdy, hard-working-looking young man of seven or eight and twenty, with sandy hair, and an honest, open, weather-beaten face. He had a rather abrupt ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... led to his detection. He had special]y made to order a deep tray of iron, in the centre of which was placed a socket, the tray he filled with naphtha, and in the socket he put a candle, the light of which was shaded by a funnel. The candle was one of the kind which he used for his gig-lamp, for he kept a gig, and was calculated to last a stated time before it reached the naphtha. He furtively deposited the whole machine in the cellar, within eight inches of the wooden floor, in a place constructed to conceal ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.

... word to the Ariadne for its captain to come to the Beatitude. When the captain's gig arrived, and a man in seaman's clothes essayed to climb the side of the flag-ship, he was at first prevented. Captain Ivy, however, immediately gave orders for Dyck to be admitted, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... adventure in the water once befell Captain Marryat. In the gallant officer's private log occurs this entry: "July 10th.—Anchored in Carrick Roads, Falmouth. Gig upset with captain." ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... have—in his seedy coat, his old-fashioned spectacles on the tip of his nose, one would have taken him for a country advocate whose wildest dreams were of a practice of two thousand thalers a year, with an old gig and wheezy mare to haul him around the country side from client to client. Before his Wiesbaden days he had been the guiding spirit in the direction of the splendid gambling halls, the Casino at Homburg. Blanc was impervious to flattery; ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... Doctor Warren, physician to the family of the shipmaster; Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, commanding the king's troops,—for Mr. Brandon, though deprecating the presence of the troops in Boston, determined to be courteous to the representatives of his majesty; Admiral Montague, who came in his gig rowed by six sailors from his flagship, Romney; William Molineux[33] and John Rowe, merchants; Richard Dana and Edmund Quincy, magistrates; John Adams, a young lawyer; honored citizens and their wives; Master Lovell; and Tom's classmate, Roger Stanley, who had walked ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... how tipsy he was once driving back to Oxford with me in a gig. But he has the reputation of being one of the best ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... sir,' answered the midshipman, trying to stifle his laughter. 'Ah! did I?' exclaimed the commander. 'Well, possibly. It's no easy matter to change one's mode of expression on a sudden. I mean, man my gig; I am going on shore.' The first day he attempted to carry on duty, he threw all the crew into convulsions by shouting out, 'Wo-ho! wo-ho, there! I mean, avast hauling, you lubbers!' and he swore and stamped ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... rock had been lifted here bodily for architectural purposes, and as bodily made a most elaborate and labyrinthine ruin afterwards. At Penzance, a broiled fish supper, and to bed by midnight, having ordered a twilight gig, wherein by 7 on the ninth I was traversing the beautiful bay. Penzance is a fine town in a splendid situation; the bay, bounded by the Lizard and its opposite bold brother-headland, inclosing St. Michael's Mount, and having a fertile and villa-studded background; the town full ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... take it," said the harbour-master, "that you could hustle the man into Fernando Po for ten sovereigns. He's only a Portugee. Come aboard now in my gig and ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... Chanzy's gig lay to at the gangway of the Caledonia. The first officer, with four marines and a non-commissioned officer, boarded the steamer and saluted the captain ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... father accompanied me to the door, where the gig, which was to carry me over the first stage of my journey, was in waiting, a large target of hide, well studded with brass nails, which had hung in the hall for time unknown—to me, at least—fell on the floor with a dull bang. My father started, but said nothing; and, as it seemed to ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... Cordery, and he has sent his gig for me. It's likely that I will take the night coach to town. But I'll look in after an hour or two and have a dish of tea ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... belonged to a man who slept on the other side of the partition. He told me this morning that he had had a nightmare all night, and had screamed horribly, he knew. The stranger, as you may suppose, hired a gig and went off at full gallop with the first glimpse of daylight.[40] Being very tired (for we had not had more than three hours' sleep on the previous night) we lay till ten this morning, and at half-past eleven went through the Trossachs to Loch Katrine, where ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... This is the favorite drive of the citizens at twilight, where every known modern style of carriage may be met, from the Khedive's equipages, four-in-hand, and those of the ladies of his harem, to the single English gig or dog-cart. There are also the light American trotting wagons, elegant European barouches, mingled with equestrians upon spirited Arab horses; also people mounted upon nice donkeys,—for some of these animals are highly bred. Again, richly caparisoned camels from the Khedive's ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... two large books with him in his gig, and a considerable roll of papers. As soon as the obsequious Mr. Pugnose saw him at the door, he assisted him to alight, ushered him into the "best room," and desired the constable to attend "the Squire." The crowd immediately entered, and the Constable opened the court in ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... leader of the Scotch party, and who afterwards became known as the "South African poet" had previously landed in a gig. He gave an opportune hint, in broad Scotch, to a tall corporal of the 72nd Highlanders to ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... respectability; derived from a definition once given in a court of justice by a witness who, having described a person as respectable, was asked by the judge in the case what he meant by the word; "one that keeps a gig," was the answer. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... Miss Noel who said, "Really, Ettie dear, I can't have you driving about furiously in a gig without a groom. But pray thank Mr.—what is the name?—Price for being so kind as to propose it, meaning to give you pleasure. He has been so obliging, too, as to procure tickets for us to the play, and has kindly offered to escort us: I have a letter ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... the very moment of coming opposite to Union Passage, and within view of the two gentlemen who were proceeding through the crowds and treading the gutters of that interesting alley, they were prevented crossing by the approach of a gig, driven along on bad pavements by a most knowing-looking coachman, with all the vehemence that could most fitly endanger the lives of himself, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... tell by starlight, sir," replied Nicholls, "but I should say there's about that number. There can't be less, for she is pulling two oars, and one man wouldn't be likely to attempt the job of pulling a heavy boat like a gig ashore, much less pull her back again against the wind. And I don't think there's likely to be more than two of 'em, otherwise they wouldn't be ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... to get angry with them. He is smiling gently to himself all the time, as he softly and leisurely walks behind them. Indeed, wherever this moving nursery of young life passes, it awakens tenderness. The man who drove the gig so rapidly a little way off suddenly slows down, and, with a sympathetic word, walks his horse gingerly by. Every pedestrian stops and smiles, and on every face comes a transforming tenderness, a touch of ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... rides in the grand yellow gig, When, from under a broad scuttle hat, The eyes of fair Polly were lustrous and big, And—but no! would it dare tell of that? Ah me! by those wiles that bespoke the coquette How many a suitor was slain! There was one, though, who ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

... I took her down to see you. I suppose she will have to live with us (Em's cousin, I mean), as she has not anything in the world but a poor fifty pounds. I don't like her at all, Jemima, and I don't think you would. She's got such queer ways; she's always driving about in a gig with that low German; and I don't think it's at all the thing for a woman to be going about with a man she's not engaged to. Do you? If it was me now, of course, who am a kind of connection, it would ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... About dark, the gig came back again, bringing the captain in it and the mail orderly—but no mail, and how we did long for a word from home. A scrap of newspaper, even, would ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... the top of which we got sight of the mail coach coming towards us, at about forty yards' distance, just before the road begins to descend a narrow, steep, and winding slope. Nothing was left for J——, who drove the gig in which we were, but to cross the bridge, and, as the road narrowed up the slope that was in our front, to draw up as close to the wall on our left (our side of the road) as possible. This he did, both of us hoping that the coachman would slacken his pace down the hill, and ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... one of those floating castles. Hullo, Charles, is that you?" he broke off, lying his hand upon the shoulder of a naval officer, who was pushing his way though the crowd of boatmen and sailors to a man-of-war gig, which, with many others, was lying ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty



Words linked to "Gig" :   fishing rig, racing gig, cutter, lance, harpoon, hook, leister, fishing gear, carriage, engagement, ship's boat, equipage, pinnace, small boat, fishgig, fizgig, tackle, spear, booking, implement, rig, tender



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