"Jab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a regiment. One or two turned, and there was a bit of a barney. I stuck one chap, and was just going to stick another—a fellow in blue jumping around in a queer kind of way—when all of a sudden he gave a jab in the back to ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... Isn't that awful slush? Now, isn't it? And then, if the room is dark, what I want to know is how he's going to tell whether her eyes are smiling or not? Mr. Grady, either the man is insane or I am; and if your butcher is going to stab Markley, you'll oblige me by telling him that I want him to jab him deep, and maybe fill him up with poison or something to make ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... in the face here all the time, but no matter; she dearly loved to make these English-hearted Frenchmen squirm, and whenever they gave her an opening she was prompt to jab her sting into it. She got great refreshment out of these little episodes. Her days were a desert; these were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the Professor, with a dexterous jab of his cue at the pool-balls—"then, in your estimation, an author is a thing to be led about by the nose by the beings he selects ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... "And look here, JAB," he added (he has sometimes the extreme condescension to address me as an abbreviation), "I'll trot you up to him at once—and I say, A 1 idea! tell him you mean to be your own counsel, and do all the speechifying ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... the left, is the magical word, Abracadabra, written in the usual triangular form; in the centre, a number of planetary symbols, and on the right, a circular figure filled in with lines and symbols, and beneath them the words, 'By Jah, Joh, Jab.' It was the custom to rub these charms over the cattle, etc. a number of times, while some incantation was being mumbled. The paper was then carefully folded up, and put in some safe place where the animals were housed, as a guard against ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... water in a frenzy. Tom moved like lightning to dodge a deadly blow from its bony tail. Again and again they felt the horrifying brush of the killer's fins or armor-tough hide. By this time, Mel had revived. Repeatedly the two boys dived to jab and slash at ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... and the more intoxicated he is, the more delicate and beautiful is his painting. Sometimes, after more than the usual number of aperitifs, he will sit down in a cafe to do a sketch, with his hand so shaky that he can hardly hold a brush; he has to wait for a favourable moment, and then he makes a jab at the panel. And the immoral thing is that each of these little jabs is lovely. He's the most delightful interpreter of Paris I know, and when you've seen his sketches—he's done hundreds, of unimaginable grace and feeling ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... The point is the main reliance. Its use should be practiced in every possible situation, until a correct choice or combination of long point, short point, and jab, and the execution thereof, becomes a matter of instinct. 2. The point must always be directed at a definite target. The most vulnerable points of the body are: Lower abdomen, base of the neck, small ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... the cowboy's protesting shout with a charge. De Launay was peaceful, but he did not intend to lose his prize without a fight. He smote the first man with a straight jab that shook all his teeth. The next one he ducked under, throwing him over his shoulder and down the stairs. Another he swept against the wall ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... caught me a painful blow on the shoulder. Beyond shivering with fright and yelling when he was hit, Lop-Ear did nothing. I looked for a stick with which to jab back, but found only the end of a branch, an inch through and a foot long. I threw this at Red-Eye. It did no damage, though he howled with a sudden increase of rage at my daring to strike back. He began jabbing furiously. I found a fragment of rock and threw it at him, striking him ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... a little sideways, with affected complacency. He flourished, in his trembling hand, on the end of a forearm no thicker than a walking-stick, a shining pair of scissors which he tried before my very eyes to jab ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... didn't think enough of her to let her share your life. If you gave her expensive presents and an unlimited credit account, she complained that you looked on her as a mere doll; and if you didn't, she called you a screw. That was marriage. If it didn't get you with the left jab, it landed on you with the right upper-cut. None of that sort of ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... yelled Ham Spink, and made a jab for Snap. But just then the doctor's son hit out desperately and the rich youth received a blow in the mouth that loosened two teeth and caused him ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... your arms in, do! Now the other one. Now sit down, and I'll put your hat on for you. Oh, Mrs. Hepworth, do hold your head still! Here, stick this pin in yourself, or I may jab it through your brain,—though I must confess you act as if you hadn't any! or if you have, it's addled. And Ken says that husband of yours is acting just the same way. My! it's lucky you two infants had a capable and clever bridesmaid and best man ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... I am dying, and there is morphia here under my hand. But I'll be damned in pain rather than be beaten by it! I won't die a cow's death, as the old Norsemen used to call it! I'll fight every inch of the way.—But I wish Aunt Janet would come in and jab the needle in me, forcibly. That would be quite ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... no mercy. He looked at her neck and thought how he would like to jab it with the knife he had for his muffin. He knew enough anatomy to make pretty certain of getting the carotid artery. And at the same time he wanted to cover her pale, thin face ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... sprang forward and landed a blow on Beaufort's shoulder that almost upset him because of its unexpectedness. Beaufort grunted angrily and swung back. But Penny was quick on his feet and handy with his arms and the blow was blocked, and Beaufort's jab with his left fell short. There was little space between the trees and the ledge, and what there was was uneven and covered with leaves which made the footing uncertain. It was long-distance sparring for a minute, during ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... word "Jabbirah" is used, the plur. of Jabbr, the potent, especially applied to the Kings of the Canaanites and giants like the mythical Og of Bashan. So the Heb. Jabbrah is a title of the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... Cornisk, and drove us to the lee of rocks and the shelter of our ponchos, to watch the mists drifting, to listen to the swell and lull of the wind and the patter of the cold rain. There were glimpses now and then of the inner Cuchullins, a fragment of ragged sky line, the sudden jab of a black pinnacle through the mist, the open mouth of a ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... strange to you, because, in all probability, you never ran a woman's department. If you want soup, you must boil meat slowly, and if you want meat, you must boil it rapidly, and if dough sticks to a broom straw when you jab it into ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... heavy-weight prize-fighter, with an abnormally long reach, holding an amateur bantam-weight boxer at arm's length with one hand and hitting him when and where he pleased with the other. The fact that the little man was not in the least afraid of his burly antagonist and that he got in a vicious kick or jab whenever he saw an opening would not, of course, have any effect on the outcome of the unequal contest. Now that is almost precisely what happened when the Germans besieged Antwerp, the enormously superior range and calibre of their siege-guns enabling them to pound the city's ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... bed. Sure, when she was draggin' ye into the house, didn't some divil jab her in the ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... in a quick circle at the haymow, and I thought that if Bob Till and Shorty Long had been there, they might have hidden it under some hay just for meanness, so I got a pitch fork and started to jab it into the hay all around in different places in the haymow, and Pop looked in a tunnel under a long beam, and also we all looked down stairs and all around. Once I looked up into the cupola, and had a half-glad feeling in my heart when I saw Snow-white's ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... with comment on this amazing suggestion. He clawed his hand into his sparse hair and wrinkled his forehead in attempt to decide whether or not he ought to resent this playful retort to his lament. The next moment he dealt Farr a swift jab in the ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... he was about all in, hanging on and panting and sobbing for breath in the clinches, and I knew I could put him out any time. I drew back my right for the short-arm jab that would do the business. He knew it was coming, and he was powerless ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... Turold did not put down his pen voluntarily," he said. "He stopped involuntarily, in the midst of a word. That suggests great surprise or sudden shock. The letter 'e' in the word 'clear' terminates in a sprawling dash and a jab from the nib which has almost pierced the paper. Could the unexpected appearance of his daughter have startled him in that fashion? It rather suggests that somebody sprang on him unawares, surprising him so much that he almost stuck the ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... into triumphant fervour of summons to all who hear it, to 'trust in Jab Jehovah for ever,' Such settled, perpetual trust is the only attitude corresponding to His mighty name, and to the realities found in His character. He is the 'Bock of Ages' the grand figure which Moses learned ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... same; I was a child in his grip. But with his weapon useless, and Larry rushing into the room, Tugh must have felt that for all his strength and fighting skill he would be worsted in this encounter. He blocked a jab of my fist, flung me headlong away and sprang to his feet just ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... to see if it was sharp, always watching her with the same malevolent look. Quaking with fear, she passed the doughnuts, first to him. He put out his hand to take the whole pan, but she gave him a jab in the stomach with her elbow and passed on to the next. This occasioned great mirth among the rest of the Indians who all exclaimed, "Tonka Squaw" and looked at her admiringly. When they had ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... stood still. He was in love! With nothing done with everything before him! He was going to bow down to a face! The flicker of the dresses was no longer visible. He would not be fettered, he would stamp it out! He turned away; but with each step, something seemed to jab at ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... on the wire, and did much better after that. It seems that the office boy was down on this man. One night he asked me if I could tell him how to fix a key so that it would not 'break,' even if the circuit-breaker was open, and also so that it could not be easily detected. I told him to jab a penful of ink on the platinum points, as there was sugar enough to make it sufficiently thick to hold up when the operator tried to break—the current still going through the ink so that he could ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... supporters were obviously chagrined, Keeks kept his head admirably, and cleverly ducked under a right swing and clinched. At the breakaway Cockles got his left home on the ribs, but in doing so left himself open, and Keeks shook him up badly with a jab to the jaw. Cockles' hands dropped momentarily, and Keeks, whipping in a smashing right uppercut, had his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... to yer?" screamed McGuire. "Did I ever doublecross yer? Did I ask you to bring me here? Drive me out to your camps if you wanter; or stick a knife in me and save trouble. Ride! I can't lift my feet. I couldn't sidestep a jab from a five-year-old kid. That's what your d—d ranch has done for me. There's nothing to eat, nothing to see, and nobody to talk to but a lot of Reubens who don't know a punching bag from a ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... fork. By all means do not comb your moustache with the fork of another. It is better to refrain altogether from combing the moustache with a fork while traveling, for the motion of the train might jab the fork into your eye and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... shrill, neighing laugh, and was about to begin his offensively affectionate tactics—he lifted his open, tawny hand, and aimed his forefinger with a black border on a thick yellow finger-nail towards a place where he might jab, pinch, or tickle the barefoot, bare-armed girl. But Zinaida, smiling and frowning at the same time, edged ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... was at the window whirling his trusty Toledo about his head, lopping ears and noses from the red renegades who had followed in the track of the first. In the scrimmage he received another jab in the right eye with a fist. When day dawned it was discovered, with joy, that the evil eye was darkened—and forever. The people trusted him once more. Finding that he was no longer an object of dread, his voice became kinder, his manner more gentle. A heavy and unusual ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... gameness of a fish. The Open Sesame to our clan is just that love, and an ambition to achieve higher things. Who fishes just to kill? At Long Key last winter I met two self-styled sportsmen. They were eager to convert me to what they claimed was the dry-fly class angling of the sea. And it was to jab harpoons and spears into porpoises and manatee and sawfish, and be dragged about in their boat. The height of their achievements that winter had been the harpooning of several sawfish, each of which gave birth to a little one while being ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... you?" Johnny inquired with a deadly sort of calm. "You ain't half as funny as you look. Get out." With a jab of his elbow he pushed the sheriff and his chuckle away, guessing that the man with an indoor complexion and a pen behind his ear was the clerk. Him he addressed with businesslike bluntness. He wanted a marriage license, and he could see no reason ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Jack's left shoulder, disabling it for a minute. At the same time Jarvis received a nasty blow across the face from an unexpected quarter. He was staggered by it, but he did not fall. Jack's right arm was good and very angry; a savage jab with his club into the face of the man who had struck Jarvis laid him low, and Jack ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... to try to hang back on his conductors. A slight jab through the clothing from one of the marines' bayonets caused the prisoner to stop that trick. He was taken on deck and ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... really splendid guard as he advanced warily upon the freshman. Dick's guard, at the outset, was not as good. They feinted for two or three passes, then Ripley let out a short-arm jab that caught Dick Prescott on the end of the nose. Blood ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... felt in our new way. For we've got our new way of feeling things. Rosamund tells us she repeated the words to Jennie Stileman, and Jennie had them set by a young Athenian who's over here studying English. He catches the butterfly, lets it flutter for a moment in his hand and go. He doesn't jab a pin into it as our composers would. Oh, there's Cynthia! I hope she heard the ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... roads leading from Megiddo described an almost symmetrical curve eastwards, crossing the Jordan at Beth-shan, then the Jab-bok, and finally reaching Damascus after having skirted at some distance the last of the basaltic ramparts of the Hauran. Here extended a vast but badly watered pasture-land, which attracted the Bedouin from every side, and scattered over it were a number ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... soldiers came and asked me to do what I could to heal them. I went out and examined the men. One had no less than five bullet-holes in him and yet seemed remarkably cheerful. Two others had single shots of a rather more dangerous nature. I am no surgeon, and it was manifestly impossible for me to jab into their wounds with my hunting-knife in the hope of extracting the bullets. I found, however, some corrosive sublimate tabloids in my leather medicine case. These I dissolved, and bathed the wounds with the mixture to stop suppuration. ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... The unfairness of that jab pushed him off balance. What did this man want of him anyway? Rennie had said it plain that he did not want Drew and ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... around the kitchenette door for a while, watchin' him resuscitate that pale-lookin' leg of lamb, jab things into it, pour stuff over it, and mesmerize the gas oven into doin' ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... worked that late. Why should the curtains be up now? Why, indeed! It was a question that interested other prowlers beside himself, for, as he paused for breath, close at hand he heard the stamp of a horse's hoof, followed by a muttered curse, and evident jerk of the bit and jab with the spurs, for the tortured creature plunged ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... astonished Concho short around in the trail—and as Chip gave Blazes a vicious jab with his spurs at the same instant, the ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... in flight, Bridger's trained buffalo horse closed the gap between him and a plunging bunch of the buffalo. The white savage proved himself peer of any savage of the world. His teeth bared as he threw his body into the bow with a short, savage jab of the left arm as he loosed the sinew cord. One after another feather showed, clinging to a heaving flank; one after another muzzle dripped red with the white foam of running; then one after another great animal began to slow; to stand braced, legs apart; soon to ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... There was a subtle tone of fault-finding in his employer's voice which already augured ill for their debate on the sheep question, and his nerves responded instinctively to the jab. Fate had not been so kind to him that day, that he was prepared to take very much from any man, and so he remained quiet and let the judge go the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... started to advance, Carl jabbed at him. It was not a very good jab. But the leader stopped. The manager, black-jack in hand, caught Carl's arm, and ordered: "Don't start anything! They can lick us. Just look ready. Don't say anything. We'll hold 'em till the cops come. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... not how many Neoterics. [1005]"This question of the immortality of the soul, is diversely and wonderfully impugned and disputed, especially among the Italians of late," saith Jab. Colerus, lib. de immort. animae, cap. 1. The popes themselves have doubted of it: Leo Decimus, that Epicurean pope, as [1006]some record of him, caused this question to be discussed pro and con before him, and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... was gone. Cheever had bent his neck just enough to escape the fist. He met the weight of Dyckman's rush with all his own weight in a short-arm jab that rocked Dyckman's whole frame and crumpled the white ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... from English fast enough. But they had me guessing what it was all about. I couldn't make out why the old chap had to use up all the dago words in the box just to tell who was the lady that had the private view. Once in a while the Boss would jab in a question, and then old Vincenzo would work his jaw all the faster. When it was all over the Boss looks at me as pleased as though he'd got money from ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... her another jab. She laid down her hemming to listen. This was bringing the story close home, for Belle Triplett was Tippy's niece, or rather her husband's niece. While that did not make Belle one of the Huntingdon family, Georgina had ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... afternoon we finished the cairn, which we have built to a height of eight feet. It is a solid square erection which ought to stand a good deal of weathering, and on top we have placed a bamboo pole with a flag, making the total height twenty-five feet. Building the cairn was a fine warming jab, but the ice on our whiskers often took some ten minutes thawing out. To-morrow we hope to lay out the cairns to the westward, and then to shape our ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... glass door—on the veranda. I think you might get in there!" She made a jab with the pencil. "Of course I should hate awfully to have you get caught! But you must have had a lot of experience, and with all ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... a young woman in an Eastern state is significant. Thrusting her foot into an old slipper, she felt a sharp jab upon the point of her index digit. Upon hasty removal of the footgear, she saw, or supposed she saw, a large and ferocious spider dart forth. This, to her mind, was evidence both conclusive and damning. Seizing upon the carving knife, she promptly cut off her perfectly good ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... I thought I was doomed and he was saying good-bye. But all he wanted to do was to jab a needle into the end of a finger and compare the red drop with a lot of fifty-cent poker chips that he had fastened to ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... kep' a-goin' back 'n' forth 'n' up 'n' down desperit. The red streak on thet air feller's shirt kep' a-growin'. Purty quick one side uv 'im wus red an' t' other white. See he wus gettin' weaker 'n' weaker. Ray c'u'd 'a' split 'im t' the navel ef he'd only hed a min' tew. All t' once he med a jab at Ray, 'n' threw up 'is han's, 'n' went back a step er tew, luk a boss with th' blin' staggers, 'n' tumbled head over heels in thet air open grave. There wus hell t' pay fer a minute. Lot on 'em clim' over the row o' lights, yellin' luk wildcats, 'n' hauled thet air mis'able ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... you go; perhaps it saves your life, For over sandbag rims you see 'em fire, Crop-headed chaps, their eyes ablaze with strife. You crawl, you cower; then once again you plunge With all your comrades roaring at your heels. HAVE AT 'EM, LADS! You stab, you jab, you lunge; A blaze of glory, then the red world reels. A crash of triumph, then . . . you're faint a bit . . . That cursed puttee! Now to fasten ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... of All Right,' said Ortheris, knocking off also, and lighting a half-consumed cigarette. He had been wearing it behind his ear, I believe, ever since the charge. Against this occasion. He'd kept close up to me all the time, I realised. And then old Park turned up very cheerful with a weak bayonet jab in his forearm that he wanted me to rebandage. It was good to see him ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... ceased as Mars leaped forward suddenly and lashed out with a right to the jaw that could end the fight. But Forrester moved his head aside just in time and the fist glanced off his cheek. He staggered back just as Mars followed with a left jab to the belly. ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett |
