Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Barb   /bɑrb/   Listen
Barb

noun
1.
An aggressive remark directed at a person like a missile and intended to have a telling effect.  Synonyms: dig, gibe, jibe, shaft, shot, slam.  "She threw shafts of sarcasm" , "She takes a dig at me every chance she gets"
2.
The pointed part of barbed wire.
3.
A subsidiary point facing opposite from the main point that makes an arrowhead or spear hard to remove.
4.
One of the parallel filaments projecting from the main shaft of a feather.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Barb" Quotes from Famous Books



... Luigi's name, though it was fixed like the barb of an arrow in his heart, and fastened the closer the more exquisite she seemed. The strife between love and anguish robbed him of speech. But Amanda's sweet lips only moved the faster, while she made him sit down and brought out ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... not to hear. Thundering madly forward, he appeared blind as well as fear-stricken, and Helen, suddenly seeing a barb-wire fence ahead, felt herself go faint, for she had never taken a fence, and she knew that Pat never had. She must get control of herself again. And this she did. Stiffening in the stirrups, she gripped a single rein in both hands and pulled with all her strength. But she could not swerve the horse. ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... the counter in animated controversy with a man on the outside who had evidently asserted or quoted (the quotation is the usual weapon: it has a double barb and can be wielded with comparative safety) something ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott

... the descent and entered upon the broad domain of the Hacienda de San Francisco, the boundary of which, to my amazement, I found indicated by a very familiar American barb-wire fence. ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole

... boune! Thou mount'st behind Upon my black barb steed: O'er stock and stile, a hundred mile, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... manufacture enormous baskets, which I often saw them carrying on their backs when I met them in the forest. I was much struck with the cleverness of some of their fish-traps; these were long cone-like objects tapering to a point, the insides being lined with the extraordinary barb-covered stems of a rattan or climbing palm, and the thorns or barbs placed (pointing inwards) in such a way that the fish could get in ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker

... immediately speak, but with the head of her dying boy upon her heart she sat in mute and unbroken agony, every pang of her departing orphan throwing a deeper shade of affliction over her countenance, and a keener barb of sorrow ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... struck, pack-camels were loaded, horses were saddled, and the caravan started for Alexandria. By the side of the camel that carried the queen, quietly stepped the proud barb that bore Mark Antony. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... from morals; and as the literary dominance of New England was at that time absolute, Poe was buried under a mass of uncharitable criticism. It should not be forgotten that he had struck the poisoned barb of his satire deep into many a New England sage, and it was, perhaps, only human nature to strike back. So it came to pass that Poe was pointed out, not as a man of genius, but as a horrible example and degrading influence ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... more shots and he resumed work. Later on, as he neared the fence and was establishing his last points within the field, a horseman with a gray moustache came galloping up along the stretch of barb wire. He nodded, inquired if the engineer was named Bryant, and announced that he had half a dozen injunctions ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... one eye Upon the other were a Spye;... H'had seen three Governments Run down, And had a Hand in ev'ry one, Was for 'em, and against 'em all. But Barb'rous when they came to fall:... By giving aim from side, to side, He never fail'd to save his Tide, But got the start of ev'ry State, And at a Change, ne'r came too late.... Our State-Artificer foresaw, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... indispensable amusement of bathing, is particularly dangerous in these countries. In the shallows you are liable to be struck by the stingray, a species of skate, with a sharp barb about the middle of its tail; and the effect of the wound is so serious, that I have known a person to be in a state of frenzy from it for nearly forty-eight hours. In deeper water, the sharks are not only numerous but ravenous; and ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... sportful albicore, or dolphin, whose curving black bodies splashed the sea about us. A piece of mother-of-pearl about six inches long and three-quarters of an inch wide was the lure for him. Carefully cut and polished to resemble the body of a fish, there was attached to it on the concave side a barb of shell or bone about an inch or an inch and a half in length, fastened by faufee fiber, with a few hog's bristles inserted. The line was drove through the hole where the barb was fastened and, being braided along the inner side of the pearl shank, was tied again at the top, forming a chord ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... late in the season, we were getting out a train load of "Barb Wire" cattle, when who should come toddling along on a plow nag but Jack himself. Busy as we were, he held quite a levee, though he didn't give down much news, nor have anything to say about himself or the crops. That night at camp, while the rest of us were arranging ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... their barb'rous offspring left behind, The dregs of armies, they of all mankind; Blended with Britons, who before were here, Of whom the ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe

... Dispers'd and dash'd the rest upon the rocky shore. Those few you see escap'd the Storm, and fear, Unless you interpose, a shipwreck here. What men, what monsters, what inhuman race, What laws, what barb'rous customs of the place, Shut up a desart shore to drowning men, And drive us to the cruel seas again? If our hard fortune no compassion draws, Nor hospitable rights, nor human laws, The gods are just, and will revenge our cause. Aeneas was our prince: a juster ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... took away the silver and china and Monsieur Jolivet went ahead to show them to their room. Then something whistled in the darkness, and an arrow buried to the head of the barb stood out in the rear wall of the inn. The three seized their rifles, but the darker shadow in the shadows was gone. Tayoga broke off the arrow level with the wall, and threw the shaft into ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... plowing over sandy wastes. The declining sun had left them among the foothills, wandering from one to another, in the vain hope that each summit might show the silvery gleam of a windmill, or even that outpost of civilization, the barb-wire fence. And now the stars looked down indifferently, myriads of them, upon the travelers still plodding wearily through a land magically transformed by moonlight to a silvery loveliness that blotted out all the garish ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... is, Barb; thar he is," he said, not loudly. Miss Alathea and the Colonel, following close behind, were a ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... they had been brought from the interior, and taken from a wild herd; but they were totally unlike the races hitherto described. The mare, of a reddish brown, had been some time domesticated, and was docile and well behaved; neither of them possessing sufficient character to be referred to the Barb, the Dongola, or the Nubian breeds. They were undersized, and not handsome; the male, who had not been long from his native forests, was the best looking; carried his head well, was strongly and compactly made, especially about ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... "De fus' barb wire us ever seen, us scairt of it. Us thunk lightnin' be sho' to strike it. It sho' keep de stock ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... silent for an instant. Then he shot his final barb with deliberate intention—not so much to reproach—though there was utter honesty and loyalty to Carl in what he said—but more to touch the girl's tragedy with something sharp enough ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... beneath the tree like a fox caught in a hencoop. Behind him were three Black Friars standing close together in a frightened group, like three black sheep in a tempest. Hitched to the branches of the trees close at hand were six horses, one of them a barb with gay trappings upon which the Bishop was wont to ride, and the others laden with packs of divers shapes and kinds, one of which made Robin's eyes glisten, for it was a box not overlarge, but heavily bound with bands and ribs ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... copper-fastened pajamas so much, but to wear asphalt neckties and barb-wire suspenders is something which aggravates ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott

... talking about going in the army, Arthur," said Mr Temple, hesitating about extracting the hook, which was buried in the boy's leg, for he felt that he would have to make a deep cut to get it out—it being impossible to draw it back on account of the barb. "How would it be with you if the surgeon had to take off an ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... the secret and virtue of the lamp! I believed his death to be certain; but find that he enjoys the fruit of my labour and study! I will, however, prevent his enjoying it long, or perish in the attempt." He was not a great while deliberating on what he should do, but the next morning mounted a barb, set forwards, and never stopped but to refresh himself and horse, till he arrived at the capital of China. He alighted, took up his lodging in a khan, and stayed there the remainder of the day and the night, to refresh himself after so long ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... when he comes wandering like a lost angel to our door, is at once admitted, welcomed, embraced. His quiver is not seen; if his arrows penetrate, their wound is like a thrill of new life. There are no fears of poison, none of the barb which no leech's hand can extract. That perilous passion—an agony ever in some of its phases; with many, an agony throughout—is believed to be an unqualified good. In short, at eighteen the school of experience is to be entered, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... Ventadour; the rest of the cavalry did not budge. Count de Moret had been killed; terror was everywhere taking possession of the men. The duke was engaged with the king's light horse; he had just received two bullets in his mouth. His horse, "a small barb, extremely swift," came down with him and he fell wounded in seventeen places, alone, without a single squire to help him. A sergeant of a company of the guards saw him fall, and carried him into ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... fashioning horse-shoes. Mules with Bedouins perched, chin on shin, amid the bales of merchandise on their backs, cross the bazaar at every moment; or files of donkeys, stooping under bundles of faggots, pick their careful way. By-and-by—but this is not a frequent sight—a Moslem swell ambles past on a barb, gorgeous in caparisons, the enormous peaked saddle held in its place by girths round the beast's breast and quarters, and covered with scarlet hammer-cloth. If we move about and examine the stalls, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... ancestors. At Laugerie-Basse a rough drawing shows us a man striking with a harpoon a fish that is trying to escape. These harpoons were generally made of reindeer horn (Figs. 10 and 13). Some had but one barb, others several. One of the largest was found in the Madeleine Cave; it is eight inches long, and has three barbs on one side and five on the other. Most of these weapons have a notch in the handle, with the help of which they could be firmly fastened to a spear or lance. ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... blow. Darling's access to market was destroyed. The road he had built was fenced across by triple barb- wire fences. It was one of those jumbles in human affairs that is so common in this absurdest of social systems. Behind it was the fine hand of the same conservative element that haled the Nature Man before ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... disengaged by pulling on the other end of the line. As soon as the spear has been thrown, and the animal struck, the siatko is thus purposely separated; and being slung by the middle, now performs very effectually the important office of a barb, by turning at right angles to the direction in which it has entered the orifice. This device is in its principle superior even to our barb; for the instant any strain is put upon the line it acts like a toggle, opposing its ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... though now clad in very different garb! He it was who sat that black barb so royally; the King's plumed hat was in his left hand, while the right held that of Mrs Jane. It was at Will Jackson's words of thanks that she was smiling with such delight; it was he before whom Colonel Lane bent bare-headed to his saddlebow. The awkward lout who had never ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt

... same all over the world! A fence makes them see red. Barb wire is to 'em like a new steel trap to a wolf. Wonder if it was one of ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... missive weapon of offence, and whether ancient or modern, in the rudest form among savages or refined by art, is always a slender stick, armed at one end, and occasionally feathered at the other. The natives of Tropical Africa feather the metal barb. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... above the raised road; and a body of English was holding Venette, a mile and a half below it. A kind of bow-and-arrow arrangement, you see; the causeway the arrow, the boulevard at the feather-end of it, Marguy at the barb, Venette at one end of the ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... Hauling Pilgrim into the willows, we set out over a low, cultivated bottom, whose edges were being lapped by the rising river, to the detriment of the springing corn; then scrambling up the terrace on which the Chesapeake & Ohio railway runs, we crawled under a barb-wire fence, and ascended through a pasture, our right of way contested for a moment by a gigantic Berkshire boar, which was not easily vanquished. When at last we gained the top, by dint of clambering over rail-fences and up ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... up). What life? Don't worry about me, Mrs. Pindar,—I get twenty five dollars a week at the Shale Works making barb wire to trip up the Huns with,—enough to get nice clothes—(she glances down at her dress) and buy good food, and have a good time on ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the gap in the barb-wire fence; she watched him dismount to examine the severed wires; she watched him leap on his horse again, and ride furiously down the road until he was lost to view below the dip in the slope toward the valley. And still for some minutes she stood staring at the place where he had disappeared. ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... and laughed loud and long, mocking the young knight's disappointment; so after he had again prayed the maiden in vain to accompany him, he left the refectory in silence, sprang upon his barb, and rode on to the wood, resolving to wait there ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... bracken Stretch the foe the turf beside. Our stinging kerne of aspect stern That love the fatal game, That revel rife till drunk with strife, And dye their cheeks with flame, Are strange to fear;—their broadswords shear Their foemen's crested brows, The red-coats feel the barb of steel, And hot its venom glows. The few have won fields, many a one, In grappling conflicts' play; Then let us march, nor let our hearts A start of fear betray. Come gushing forth, the trusty North, Macshimei,[145] loyal Gordon; And prances high ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... to call This adorn'd adored fayry To the banquet of her dayry. Soft Amarantha weeps to see 'Mongst men such inhumanitie, That those, who do receive in hay, And pay in silver twice a day, Should by their cruell barb'rous theft Be both of that and life bereft. But 'tis decreed, when ere this dies, That she shall fall a sacrifice Unto the gods, since those, that trace Her stemme, show 'tis a god-like race, Descending in an even line From heifers and from ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... and dogs in useless contest fought, And sons of reason satisfaction sought From sights would sicken Feeling's gentle heart, Where want of courage barb'd Oppression's dart."[5] ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various

... blades, and as many eyes Of flame flashed terribly. Then Rupert stay'd His hot hand in amazement, And all his blood-stain'd chivalry grew pale: The hunters, chang'd to quarry, fled amain, I saw the prince's jet-black, favourite barb Thrown on her haunches; then away, away, Her speed did bear him safe. Then there came one, A grisly man, with head all bare and grey, That shouted, "Smite and scatter, spare not, ho! Ye chosen of the Lord!" and they did smite, As on the anvil; till the plumed helms Of all our best bent down. ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... will not choose what many men desire, Because I will not jump with common spirits, And rank me with the barb'rous multitudes. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... though rapid it might be, My father sweet forbore, but said: "Let fly The bow of speech thou to the barb hast drawn." ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... stupidity is needed to give a margin of safety to human intercourse." I do not think that Dr. Crothers could have known a Penguin Person when he wrote that. The Penguin Person is not a wit, there is no barb to his shafts of fun, no uneasiness from his preternatural cleverness, for he is not preternaturally clever. You never feel unable to cope with him, you never feel your mind keyed to an unusual alertness to follow him; you feel, ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... up here with no trees nor plants, I can't tear my close on a barb wire fence. With my feet on a pillow where I can't use 'em There's nothing on earth can ever bruise 'em. But oh, how I hate to lie here all day, When I want to be out in the garden at play. I want to get up and run and shout, ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... find that he enjoys the fruit of my labour and study! I will, however, prevent his enjoying it long, or perish in the attempt." He was not a great while deliberating on what he should do, but the next morning mounted a barb, set forward, and never stopped but to refresh himself and his horse, till he arrived at the capital of China. He alighted, took up his lodging in a khan, and stayed there the remainder of the ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... individually practicable, uncle—just this time. Pshaw! I don't believe you're half-trying to argue. Why, when Boyar bucked you off that time and ran into the barb-wire, then he didn't need doctoring for that awful cut on his shoulder, because he had ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... most beautiful amongst them was the young Countess of Exeter, whose magnificent black eyes did great execution. The lovely Countess was mounted on a fiery Spanish barb, given to her by De Gondomar. Forced into a union with a gouty and decrepit old husband, the Countess of Exeter might have pleaded this circumstance in extenuation of some of her follies. It was undoubtedly an argument employed by her admirers, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... adept at 'tree,' 'dodge,' and 'squat;' he could play 'log-lump' with 'wind,' and 'baulk' with 'back-track' so well that he scarcely needed any other tricks. He had not yet tried it, but he knew just how to play 'barb-wire,' which is a new trick of the brilliant order; he had made a special study of 'sand,' which burns up all scent, and he was deeply versed in 'change-off,' 'fence,' and 'double,' as well as 'hole-up,' which is a trick requiring longer notice, and yet ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... almost always live out their names? There's Sin Scherman; there'll always be a little bit of mischief and original naughtiness in her,—with the harm taken out of it; and there's Rosamond Holabird,—they couldn't have called her anything better, if they'd waited for her to grow up; and Barb was sharp; and our little Hazel is witchy and sweet and wild-woodsy; and Luclarion,—isn't that shiny and trumpety, and doesn't she do it? And then—there's me. I shall always be stiff and hard and unsatisfied, except in little bits of summer times that won't come often. ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... would have been snugly anchored before the storm. But the southeaster abated, and the usual northwest wind came out again, and we sailed steadily down into the roadstead of Monterey Bay. This is shaped somewhat like a fish hook, the barb being the harbor, the point being Point Pinos, the southern headland. Slowly the land came out of the water, the high mountains about Santa Cruz, the low beach of the Saunas, and the strongly-marked ridge terminating in the sea ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... and substantial fences, erected during this period, aggregate about 100 rods of board and picket fences around the campus, garden and stock yards; 12 large farm gates, all hung between tall posts with overhead tie; and 780 rods of web and barb wire fence; all set with good Bodark or Locust posts, top down and reinforced with a strong oak stub in every panel, making ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... the grass-tree jointed to the upper end; 3, a similar weapon, with five or six jags cut in the solid wood of the point upon one side; and 4, the light hard wood spear of Port Lincoln, and the coast to the eastward, where a single barb is spliced on at the extreme point with the sinew of the emu or the kangaroo: each spear averages from six to eight feet in length, and is thrown with facility and precision to distances, varying from thirty to one hundred yards, according to the kind made use of, and ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... him? he is a substantial true-bred beast; bravely forehanded. Mark but the cleanness of his shapes too: his dam may be a Spanish gennet, but a true barb by the sire, or I have no skill in horseflesh:—Marry, I ask six hundred ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... knows the fair and friendly moon The band that Marion leads— The glitter of their rifles, The scampering of their steeds. 'Tis life to guide the fiery barb Across the moonlight plain; 'Tis life to feel the night-wind That lifts the tossing mane. A moment in the British camp— A moment—and away Back to the pathless forest, Before the peep ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... than merit has in the army. I would fain not be meaner than my equal, So in an evil hour I let myself Be tempted to that measure. It was folly! But yet so hard a penance it deserved not. It might have been refused; but wherefore barb And venom the refusal with contempt? Why dash to earth and crush with heaviest scorn The gray-haired man, the faithful veteran? Why to the baseness of his parentage Refer him with such cruel roughness, only Because he had ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... parting off a section and wrapping it round a "curler." A sudden remembrance clutched at Missy's ecstatic reply; the shine faded from her eyes. But mother, engrossed, didn't observe; more deeply she sank her unintentional barb. "No," she mused aloud, "a garland of little rosebuds would be better, I believe-tiny delicate little buds, ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... is not likely that an enemy, badly wounded with a poisoned arrow, will survive; for the head is set on loosely, in order that, when the arrow is withdrawn, the poisoned barb may remain in the wound. How opposed are these cruel stratagems of war to the precepts of the gospel of peace, which are "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... wise Who learns to prize His barb before all gold; But us his barb More fair than ours, More ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... who walks the States with a barb'd tongue, questioning every one I meet, Who are you that wanted only to be told what you knew before? Who are you that wanted only a book to ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... mountain's shape—two fishhooks bound together back to back, one prong to the east, the other to the west, the barbs pointing to the north. Sweetwater Spring is on the barb of the eastern hook; three miles west, on the main shank, an all but impassable trail climbed ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... that?" said Mr Button. "You might job it into a fish, but he'd be aff it in two ticks; it's the barb that holds them." ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... armies to Belinda yield; 65 Now to the Baron fate inclines the field. His warlike Amazon her host invades, Th' imperial consort of the crown of Spades. The Club's black Tyrant first her victim dy'd, Spite of his haughty mien, and barb'rous pride: 70 What boots the regal circle on his head, His giant limbs, in state unwieldy spread; That long behind he trails his pompous robe, And, of all monarchs, only ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... Cardinals' hats, who dare not take the Eucharist without a Pretaster, who is all absorbed in profane Greek texts, in cunning jewel-work, in political manoeuvres and domestic intrigues, who comes caracoling in crimson and velvet upon his proud Neapolitan barb, with his bareheaded Cardinals and his hundred glittering horsemen. He the representative of the meek Christ who rode upon an ass, and said, 'Sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow me'! Nay," and the passion of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the cruel mockery of God's good world, which you were helping so successfully to ruin!" continued the detective, speaking to the court but at Brellier, each word pointed as a barb, each pause more pregnant with scorn than the spoken words had been. "You didn't think of that, did you? Oh, no! You gave no thought to the ruined home and the weeping wife, the broken-hearted mother and the fatherless child. That was outside your reckoning altogether. ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... river, with the most impervious jungle of hooked thorns, called by the Arabs "kittul." This tree does not grow higher than twenty-five feet, but it spreads to a very wide flat-topped head, the branches are thick, the wood immensely strong and hard, while the thorns resemble fish-hooks minus the barb. This impenetrable asylum was the loved resort of elephants, and it was from this particular station that they made their nocturnal raids upon the cultivated district more than 20 miles ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... it known that he has been in politics. They pointed to his rather doubtful record as a member of the Daily Palo Alto board. The sins of his Freshman days rose up against him when they touched on the fact that he had been elected class-president on a barb ticket, and had immediately gone over to the enemy in a fraternity house. Finally, to fill his cup, a Freshman, who had withstood fraternity blandishments for a year, glided through the hands of the Gamma Chi Taus, who fully believed they had him, and appeared on the very ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field

... are, when well fed, intensely vicious and quarrelsome. Like the Syrians, they have only three paces, the walk, the lazy loping canter, and the brisk hard gallop; the trot is a provisional passage from slow to fast. Yet with all their shortcomings I should prefer them to the stunted bastard barb, locally called an Arab and priced between 20l. and 40l. The latter generally dies early from chills and checked perspiration, which bring on 'loin-disease,' paralysis of the hind-quarters, or from a fatal swelling of the stomach, the result ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... plantain-leaves an hour unrolled; And while the left hand held, the right hand drew The cruel steel forth from the wound and laid Cool leaves and healing honey on the smart. Yet all so little knew the boy of pain That curiously into his wrist he pressed The arrow's barb, and winced to feel it sting, And turned with tears ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... a barb-wire fence bordering the road, and like an inspiration Alex Ward's feat with the rails at Hadley Corners occurred to him. Could he not do the same thing with one of the fence wires? Connect this end of the ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... to Afric's coast extend, And make the Moors before the English bend; Those barb'rous pirates willingly receive Conditions, such as we are pleased to give. 50 Deserted by the Dutch, let nations know We can our own and their great business do; False friends chastise, and common foes restrain, Which, worse than tempests, did infest the main. Within those Straits, make Holland's ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... say, they weren't drunk. There's not a thing we can object to and they know it; somebody has put 'em wise how to act. Here they are, sober this morning, behaving themselves, and so on. We can't keep men from going for a walk if they want to; we can't string barb-wire around the camp and hold them in; we can't even say they can't touch a bottle if a stranger offers them one when they're on ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... satin and silver, lifted on high his two barb-tipped sticks, gaily ornamented with tinsel paper, and called Vivillo from a distance. His mocking voice infuriated the bull, who rushed upon him; then, as he swayed lightly aside, it was all he could do to save himself from the great animal's sudden, swift turn, without placing either ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... knows the fair and friendly moon The band that Marion leads,— The glitter of their rifles, The scampering of their steeds. 'Tis life to guide the fiery barb Across the moonlit plain; 'Tis life to feel the night wind That lifts his tossing mane. A moment in the British camp,— A moment,—and away Back to the pathless forest ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... possession of a faithful friend and a laborious slave. [11] Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and original country of the horse; the climate most propitious, not indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood: [12] the Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the memory of the purest race: the males are sold at a high price, but the females ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... though both are equally bound to obey the laws of economy. A daughter of Este, who is worth six millions, has the right to wear a broad-brimmed hat and plume, to flourish her whip, press the flanks of her barb, and ride like an amazon decked in gold lace, with a lackey behind her, into the presence of a poet and say: "I love poetry; and I would fain expiate Leonora's cruelty to Tasso!" but a daughter of the people would ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... grabbed the pike pole again, cautiously hooked the barb into the dead man's clothing, and, assisted by the men, pulled him aft to the poop, where the professor had preceded, and was examining his ankle. There was a big, red wale around it, in the middle of which ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... nods were abrupt, and they spoke in the most formal manner. She was under grave suspicion; in the first place, she was traveling alone, in the second place, she was an American. At table there was generally a desultory conversation, and many a barb of malice Elsa shot from her bow. Figuratively, the colonel walked about like a porcupine, bristling with arrows instead of quills. Elsa could have shouted at times, for the old war-dog was perfectly oblivious. ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... not a disagreeable place. Barb's much less strong-minded sister had at least a good share of her practical nicety. The little board path to the door was clean and white still, with possibly a trifle less brilliant effect. The room and its old inhabitants were very comfortable and tidy the patchwork counterpane as gay ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... golden tresses that I saw the other day at sea. That is the dart which awakes my love. God! What a treasure to possess! Would he who could gain such a prize crave other riches his whole life long? For my part I could swear that I should desire nothing else; I would not give up even the barb and the notch for all the gold of Antioch. And if I prize so highly these two things, who could estimate the value of what remains? That is so fair and full of charm, so dear and precious, that I yearn and long to gaze again upon her brow, which God's hand has made so clear that it were ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... old log lying beside the line. She alighted squarely, but it was so damp and rotten that she sank straight through it to her knees. She caught at the wire as she went down, and missing, raked her wrist across a barb until she tore a bleeding gash. Her fingers closed convulsively around the second strand. She was too frightened to scream now. Her tongue stiffened. She clung frantically to the sagging wire, and finally managed to grasp it with the other hand. Then she could ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... beauties. It is the flowery species, so remarkable for its weakness and momentary duration, that gives us the liveliest idea of beauty and elegance. Among animals, the greyhound is more beautiful than the mastiff, and the delicacy of a jennet, a barb, or an Arabian horse, is much more amiable than the strength and stability of some horses of war or carriage. I need here say little of the fair sex, where I believe the point will be easily allowed me. The beauty of women ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... showing the decrease in price in the United States of many articles within the past ten years largely consumed by the agricultural community." And among these "many articles" "largely consumed," are "mowing machines, barb fence-wire, horseshoes, forks, wire-cloth, slop-buckets, wheelbarrows, and putty." No wonder dyspepsia is the national disease in America. Fancy "consuming" French staples, pie-plates (though they sound almost edible), and putty!!! The ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various

... of Colney's famous 'national interrogation' over vacancy of understanding, as if from the pull of a string. He had his audience with him; and the satirist had nothing but his inner gush of acids at sight of a planted barb. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... heard the Tecbir, so these Arabs call Their shout of onset, when with loud acclaim They challenged Heaven, as if demanding conquest. The battle join'd, and through the barb'rous herd, Fight, fight! and Paradise was all their ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... foot-soldiers the better to scale the walls, upon which Clorinda is posted, and whence she shoots arrow after arrow at the assailants. Wounded by one of the missiles flung from the wall, Godfrey seeks his tent, where, the physician failing to extract the barb, an angel brings a remedy from heaven which instantly cures ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... him stirred her as nothing had ever before stirred her. It was hate, it was wounded pride crying out for vengeance, it was the barb of scorn urging her to give back in kind. And, heaven above! he had been on his knees, and she had dallied with the moment of revenge even as a cat dallies with a mouse. Diane! She detested the name. Fool! And yet, why was he here? What was this sudden veil of mystery ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... a few first-class polo-ponies. Then there were the ponies of thirty teams that had entered for the Upper India Free-for-All Cup—nearly every pony of worth and dignity, from Mhow to Peshawar, from Allahabad to Multan; prize ponies, Arabs, Syrian, Barb, country-bred, Deccanee, Waziri, and Kabul ponies of every colour and shape and temper that you could imagine. Some of them were in mat-roofed stables, close to the polo-ground, but most were under saddle, while their masters, who had been defeated ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... sharpness &c adj.; acuity, acumination^; spinosity^. point, spike, spine, spicule [Biol.], spiculum^; needle, hypodermic needle, tack, nail, pin; prick, prickle; spur, rowel, barb; spit, cusp; horn, antler; snag; tag thorn, bristle; Adam's needle^, bear grass [U.S.], tine, yucca. nib, tooth, tusk; spoke, cog, ratchet. crag, crest, arete [Fr.], cone peak, sugar loaf, pike, aiguille^; spire, pyramid, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... and was fixed in the back of one of the monsters, which almost sprang out of the water as it felt the pain of the wound; then off it went, towing the canoe at a tremendous rate after it, the end of the rope being secured to the bows, while the barb to which the rope was attached being shaken out of its socket remained firmly fixed in the ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston

... animal. He was a chestnut horse, with a coat that shone like satin, and not a white hair about him. His nose was small, his eyes large, his ears and neck long. He had all the points which an Arab prizes in his favourite barb. ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... but our unerring eye instantly discerns in him Black Donald, the robber-captain; and if we do not tremble for our heroine, it is only because we are morally certain that her deadly peril is only an excuse for her inevitable lover's "dashing up on a coal-black barb, urged to his utmost speed," and delivering the desolate fair, who has won our regard alike by her indignant virtue, and the skill with which, while laboring under uncontrollable agitation, she constructs sentences so ponderous and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... leaving his old father in a desolate home with harrowing memories tearing his heart; while over the life of an innocent babe he hung a cloud as dark as was ever woven out of the world's misfortune, and sent another life to wander in painted shame outside life's eden of purity, the barb of conscious guilt to be driven deeper and deeper into her soul by the scorn of a pitiless world. All because young Beatty ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... was extremely sorry, and he said so several times; but, as Joe pointed out, "talk won't pull a hook out of a fellow's ear." The barb made it impracticable to draw the hook out, and it was quite impossible that Joe should enjoy the cruise with a fish-hook in his ear. Jim said that the hook must be cut out; but Joe objected to having his ear cut to pieces with ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... this way. We will go and look at the hackneys, and make choice of one fit to carry those great limbs of yours, my worthy friend. As for me, a light-made barb will suffice; but it takes bone and muscle to carry all that bone," and he clapped his hand upon Tom's ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... thee with so much art Is but a barb'rous skill; 'T is like the pois'ning of a dart, Too apt ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... way in which the food is held, and made so helpless that it cannot escape. On the skin of the Anemone there are many thousands of very tiny pockets, or cells. Each cell contains a fine thread with a poisoned barb at the tip, The thread is packed away in the cell, coiled up like the spring of a watch. As soon as anything presses against the cells they shoot out their threads. Thus the tips of many poisoned threads enter the skin of any soft animal which ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith

... to the wooden tent-pin on account of its tendency to split, and carry pins made of iron. With these, an inch below the head of the pin is a projecting barb which holds the tent rope. When the pin is being driven in, the barb is out of reach of the mallet. Any blacksmith can beat out such pins, and if you can afford the extra weight, they are better than those of ash. Also, if you can afford the weight, it is well to ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... spirit was sitting in the light Of thy looks, my love; It panted for thee like the hind at noon For the brooks, my love. Thy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight, Bore thee far from me; My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... always undertook, not when he shook himself out of bed in the stable loft at five o'clock, but before he went in to devour Jess with his eyes and his porridge in the ordinary way. It was at this point that Andra Kissock, that prancing Galloway barb, breaking away from all restrictions, charged between Ebie's legs, and overset him into his own horse-trough. The yellow soap was in Ebie's eyes, and before he got it out the small boy was far enough away. The most irritating thing was that from the back kitchen came peal ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... nor changed color. Quieting the frightened animal with a reassuring word, he deftly caught the tinder spark at the tip of his cigarette and drew in a deep inhalation of the smoke. Then, with the utmost coolness, he proceeded to snap the arrow-shaft in twain and draw out the barb, Constans yielding him grudging admiration, for it was all very ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... attendance with two horses, and the young men mounted, the proprietor upon a favourite barb, and Nigel upon a high-dressed jennet, scarce less beautiful. As they rode towards the theatre, Lord Dalgarno endeavoured to discover his friend's opinion of the company to which he had introduced him, and to combat the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... RECITATIVE. But hush, my sons, our tyrant lords are near; The sounds of barb'rous pleasure strike mine ear; Triumphant music floats along the vale; Near, nearer still, it gathers on the gale; The growing sound their swift approach declares; — Desist, my sons, nor mix ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... ah! what ill-starr'd rage Divides a friendship long confirm'd by age? Blockheads with reason wicked wits abhor, But fool with fool is barb'rous civil war. Embrace; embrace my sons! be foes no more, Nor glad vile poets with ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... frantic hands she rends her hairs, And casts them forth, sad keepsakes to the wind, As if in plucking those she plucked her cares; But grief lies deeper, and remains behind Like a barb'd arrow, rankling in her brain, Turning her very thoughts ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood



Words linked to "Barb" :   fluke, vane, arrowhead, hook, remark, spear, dig, filament, cheap shot, barbwire, alter, strand, input, barbed wire, fibril, lance, modify, comment, point, change, web



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com