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Spree   /spri/   Listen
Spree

verb
1.
Engage without restraint in an activity and indulge, as when shopping.



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"Spree" Quotes from Famous Books



... showed so rawly in Paris, was common to nearly all the great towns: and the hereditary prejudices of chaste Germany against Latin immorality awoke in him once more. And yet Sylvain Kohn might easily have pointed to what was going on by the banks of the Spree, and the impurity of Imperial Germany, where brutality made shame and degradation even more repulsive. But Sylvain Kohn never thought of it: he was no more shocked by that than by the life of Paris. He ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... explanation to give of her departure. Bob remembered in passing that Bert had been confined to his room all day Sunday as the result of a fall or an accident of some sort. Monday morning, while still suffering from the effects of his spree, Bob had returned to the city to find his home deserted, and for twenty- four sleepless hours now he had been hunting for his wife. He had called up Lorelei's family, but they could give him no clue; nor could he find trace of her in any other quarter. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... me of Peter Russet's uncle. It's some years ago now, and Peter and old Sam Small and Ginger Dick 'ad just come back arter being away for nearly ten months. They 'ad all got money in their pockets, and they was just talking about the spree they was going to have, when a letter was brought to Peter, wot had been waiting for 'im at ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs

... I ought to have been. I mean to be—just for fun—until they all come home. I'm in exactly the humor to do something outrageous. I'm tired to death of everyday doings and everyday people, and my everyday self. You and I are going to have a real spree, a glorious frolic, and nobody else is to know a single thing about it. Flora" (her maid) "helped me on with this rig. She is as close as wax, and you never tell tales,—Oh, yes! I know—" as I opened my mouth eagerly—"you would have your tongue pulled out by the roots ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... introducing shepherds and stockmen, with their L.5 or L.10, to the cashiers of the banks. Many a man, within my knowledge, has gone away on finding that he could not remit his intended present to his relations, and spent the amount in a drunken "spree." I therefore determined, that on my return to England, I would endeavour to organise some plan which should render labourers remitting their little tributes of affection to their friends nearly as easy ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various

... a spree, meekly took up his pick, after a breakfast on a piece of bread and the drawings of coffee grounds that had been thrice boiled over, and stumbled away towards his tunnel, and was soon lost in the deeps ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller

... place in Berlin, but perhaps now that he is married a palace may be assigned to him. Eitel Fritz and his wife occupy the Bellevue Chateau between the Tiergarten and the River Spree. His ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... promised to make no disclosures regarding our movements, and to keep our secret inviolate. After Johnson's backing out we did not know what to do, and were just about abandoning the whole thing, when I came across an old traveling friend of mine in Chicago, who had been on a protracted spree, and who was without money and friends, in a strange city, and who came to me to borrow enough to get him home to Denver. The idea at once occurred to me to induce him to join us and in this I was successful, for he was in a ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... Dull, modeless Man, whose spark Long (beside Woman's) burning dim, Has now gone down in dark? Ha! He'd kick up the greatest shine (If he could kick) at—CRINOLINE. Were he recalled to breath, I'll have one last man-mocking spree By donning hooped skirts. Victory! This takes all sting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various

... that he's thinking of something worse than he has ever done before, and his brain can't stand it. And, ma'am, he has a great respect for you; and you've a friendship for Mr. Losely. Now, just suppose that Mr. Losely should have been thinking of what your flash sporting gents call a harmless spree, and my sister's son should, being cracky, construe into something criminal. Oh, Mrs. Crane, do go and see Mr. Losely, and tell him that Samuel Dolly ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... find the cave without Bahama Bill's aid," said Mr. Rover. "But it will do no harm to look around. If this isle is like the rest of the West Indies there will be little on it to hurt you. There are few wild animals down here, and no savages outside of some negroes who occasionally go on a spree and cut loose.." ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer

... I kep' thinkin' o' Ripley an' Tukey all the time. I s'pose they have had a gay time of it" (she meant the opposite of gay). "Waal, as I told Lizy Jane, I've had my spree, an' now I've got to git back to work. They ain't no rest for such as we are. As I told Lizy Jane, them folks in the big houses have Thanksgivin' dinners every day uv their lives, and men an' women in splendid do's to wait on 'em, so't Thanksgivin' don't mean anything to 'em; but we poor ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... "The spree to-night," concluded Macbean, whose fall completely sobered him, "was for the express purpose of expounding the trap to you, and I asked you airly to take your advice. I was no so sure about young Fowler, ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... to attack the powers in possession. Only those who have helped in wresting men free from sin can tell what a stiff fight it often is. Here is an intellectual professional man who goes off for a secret spree about once in sixty days; a respectable woman who has come under the opium habit; a boy who is both a cigarette fiend and sexually weak; a man who domineers and cows his wife and family; a woman who has reduced her husband to slavery to supply her expensive tastes; a girl who shirks all work ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... "when I'm on my kind of spree, I try not so much to empty my mind of the thoughts which bother me, but rather to fill my ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson

... some five—and—forty years ago, at Jamaica, in the town of Port Royal, had his headrails smashed, the neb of his nose (stem) bitten off by a bungo, and the end of his spine (stern—post), that mysterious point, where man ends, and monkey begins, grievously shaken in a spree at Kitty Finnans, in Prince ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... o'clock, so that he wadna sleep in. I hinna missed a creelin' for thirty-five years, an' I wasna' gaun to miss Tam Donaldson's. I heard him goin' oot two or three minutes afore me. We're in for a guid day, for he telt me he had in two bottles for the spree." ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... Their women were generally sad, broken-spirited drudges, to whom this kind of show was like an opera or a ball. There were two or three shame-faced believers of the better class, who scoffed a little but trembled in secret, and a few avowed skeptics, young clerks on a mild spree, ready for fun if ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... of the dairying that he positively gloried in was going to town with the butter. He frequently remained in for two or three days, as often as not spending all the money he got for the butter in a drunken spree. Then he would return to curse his luck because his dairy did not pay as well as those ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... fifty for," answered Bradlaugh, "but after he got it he seems to have delayed going into the hills. Next day after you lads got back from Happenchance, Porter went to Gold Hill. The spree he had there on that fifty has been the talk of the town. He's a disreputable old chap when in his cups, and I'm wondering if he knows anything about ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish

... Richie prince. No, Richie said. Yes, must. Got money somewhere. He's on for a razzle backache spree. Much? He seehears lipspeech. One and nine. Penny for yourself. Here. Give him twopence tip. Deaf, bothered. But perhaps he has wife and family waiting, waiting Patty come home. Hee hee hee hee. Deaf wait ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... miners from all the country round, within a circuit of eight or ten miles, flocked into it for the purpose of buying provisions for the week, as well as for the purpose of gambling and drinking, this being the only day in all the week, in which they indulged in what they termed "a spree." ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... yer not?" said Mrs. Warren. "I'll take yer jaunts, too—I forgot to mention that. Often on a fine Saturday, you an' me—we'll go to the country together. You don't know 'ow fine that 'ull be. We'll go to the country and we'll 'ave a spree. Did yer never ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade

... and faithfully. As a rule, in spite of the number of rough characters among them, they behaved very well. One night a few of them went on a spree, and proceeded "to paint San Antonio red." One was captured by the city authorities, and we had to leave him behind us in jail. The others we dealt with ourselves, in a way that prevented a ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... mood, Bill would have liked Wade's looks and words; but today he had a sore head, a sour face, and a bitter heart from last night's spree. And then he had heard—it was as well known already in Dunderbunk as if the town-crier had cried it—that Wade was lodging at Mrs. Purtett's, where poor Bill was excluded. So Bill stepped forward as spokesman of the ruffianly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... fail to remember that Mr. Rowell lifted his voice against it. He was a candidate for the Commons five years before James Whitney began his regime of government by indignation; at a time when if Ontario went on a political spree Ottawa got a headache. Big-party government was pretty strong in those days to keep a man like Rowell from talking out in meeting. The value of a conscience to a community, whatever it may be to an individual or a party, is in giving ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... bust the water-pipes, when rain comes pourin' down; In the mornin' when the costers come a-shoutin' with their mokes, In the evenin' when the gals walk out a-spoonin' with their blokes, When Mother's slappin' BILLY, or when Father wants 'is tea, When the boys are in the "Spotted Dog" a 'avin' of a spree, No matter what the weather is, or what the time o' day, Our music allus visits us, and never goes away. And when they've tooned theirselves to-rights, I tell yer it's a treat Just to listen to the lot of 'em a-playin' ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various

... the colonel, "and Tretherick is over at Dutch Flat on a spree. There is no one in the house but a Chinaman; and you need fear no trouble from him. I," he continued, with a slight inflation of the chest that imperiled the security of his button, "I will see that you are protected in the removal of ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... work, and I hired him. The other man whom I sent to the farm at the same time proved of no use whatever. He stayed four days, and was dismissed for innocuous desuetude. Still another man whom I tried did well for five weeks, and then broke out in a most profound spree, from which he could not be weaned. He ended up by an assault on Otto in the stable yard. The Swede was taken by surprise, and was handsomely bowled over by the first onslaught of his half-drunk, half-crazed antagonist. ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... trouble. He did not say just what kind of trouble, but I fancied it was some sort of love-trouble; he blamed himself for it; and when he left that town to get away from the thought of it, as much as anything, and went to work in another town, he took to drink; then, once, in a drunken spree, he found himself in New York without knowing how. But it was in what he called a sailors' boarding-house, and one morning, after he had been drinking overnight "with a very pleasant gentleman," he found himself in the forecastle of a ship bound for Holland, and when the mate came and cursed ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... von der Lucke, from Colln on the Spree," replied the soldier. "And, no offence, Herr Moor, God will care for the monks, but there were three poor invalid fellows in your cart. One goblet more to the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... upper part of his body. Thus they carried him, followed by an admiring crowd, and watched by other envious drunkards who had to content themselves with a single officer when they went on a similar spree. Sometimes Joe managed to place a kick where it would do the most good against the stomach of a policeman, and when the officer rolled over there was for a few moments a renewal of the fight, silent ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... they had hoped to see kill him. The two appeared to be in excellent spirits and thoroughly congenial, as the car rolled out of sight, and the gentlemen who were left behind decided that, in view of the circumstances, the "extraordinary spree" of last night had best go ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... sunny day in Quebec. The blue heaven looked sad; but they agreed that it fitly roofed the bit of old feudal Berlin which forms the most ancient wing of the Schloss. This was time-blackened and rude, but at least it did not try to be French, and it overhung the Spree which winds through the city and gives it the greatest charm it has. In fact Berlin, which is otherwise so grandiose without grandeur and so severe without impressiveness, is sympathetic wherever the Spree opens it to the sky. The stream is spanned by many bridges, and bridges ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... best hands in the mill, one of the pleasantest young fellows in Squantown, so the grown-up girls thought, the very idol of the widowed mother who had only him, had gone out with some companions on a Saturday night "spree" to a high cliff in the neighborhood. They carried with them a barrel of beer and some bottles of whiskey, of which, however, the others drank but little. A foolish bet was made between him and one of the elder men, as to which could drink the most "lager," and the others, soon tiring ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... in the afternoon those still able to walk start on their way home. Rarely, however, can they reach their domiciles, if these are any distance off, before nature enforces her rights; and the track is strewn with men and women, who, overcome with the effects of their spree, have lain down wherever they happened to be, to sleep themselves sober. Tarahumare society has not yet advanced far enough to see anything disgraceful in debauches of this kind, which, if viewed from their standpoint, are pro bono publico; and we ourselves need go back only to our ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... witch's kitchen from which go forth those demons of the river - steam- launches. The LONDON JOURNAL duke always has his "little place" at Maidenhead; and the heroine of the three-volume novel always dines there when she goes out on the spree with somebody else's husband. ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... occurred, another white man of Richland county became quite a friend to Mr. Black, the slave hunter; this apparent friendship soon led Mr. Black to tell the secret, which speedily brought him to trial. While he and his pretended friend were on a drinking spree, in the midst of the merriment,—of course the conversation was how to control negroes, as that was the principal topic of the poor white men South, in ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer

... true! They'd have jailed an Englishman—me, f'rinstance. One little spree, an' they'd put me in the Fort! One li'l indishcresshion an' they'd jug me for shix months! Him they let go wi' a admonisshion! It's 'nother case o' Barabbas, an' a great shame, but you can't change the English. They're ingcorridgible! Brown ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... hands was bound up with rags, where the glass cut 'em. The white sand of the floor of Everett's parlour had stuck to his damp clothes, and he looked like an old half corned miller, that was a returnin' to his wife, arter a spree. A leetle crest fallen for what he had got, a leetle mean for the way he looked, and a leetle skeered for what he'd catch, when he got to home. The way he sloped warn't no matter. He was a pictur, and a pictur I must say, I liked to ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... me in our midnight watch:—"I got back to the place where I was born. I thought to find it a home, but most of those I left were dead! the rest removed. All were gone. The spot which once I knew so well, knew me no more; so I fell in with an old messmate. We had a jovial spree on shore, and then, when all our cash was gone, we went to sea again." Such was not my lot, though. Had I been inclined for a spree, which I was not, I had not time to indulge in it. I took a walk through some of the beautiful green lanes about Plymouth, and filled my hat full ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... patience with anything. Swearing or profanity was never heard among the Ottawa and Chippewa tribes of Indians, and not even found in their language. Scarcely any drunkenness, only once in a great while the old folks used to have a kind of short spree, particularly when there was any special occasion of a great feast going on. But all the young folks did not drink intoxicating liquors as a beverage in those days. And we always rested in perfect safety ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird

... decamped, taking all but two of the miniatures with him. The two miniatures had been sold to a fence in New York City for one hundred dollars, and the police think they can easily get them back. With the hundred dollars Crapsey had evidently gone on a spree, and it was during this that Porton sneaked away with the other miniatures. Crapsey had an idea that Porton was bound for Boston, where he would take a steamer for Europe. But we know ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... One day, after a spree, he went on the Board wild and flurried. What he did he could never remember, but when the settlement for that day's transactions was made he was ruined. The Board gave him a week to find the necessary funds ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick

... to the east, but the ice was too much broken, so the camp was made on a patch of snow. In view of our good fortune, I produced that evening's ration of hoosh in addition to our usual lunch. Even this meagre spree went against Hurley's feelings, for, being snow-blind, he had not been able to see the islands and positively would not believe that ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... worked out. If he took a month's advance, he always considered that he had worked that month for nothing: and, literally, he had done so, as the money given to him in advance usually went towards paying a debt or having a spree; so it was fitting, considering these circumstances, that special recognition should be made of the arrival of such a period. An improvised horse was therefore constructed, and a block with a rope rove through it was hooked on to the main ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman

... Reggie! Looking after the ladies, as usual! Bring some champagne, my lad, and we'll have a nice little spree ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh

... might be acting as Pack-Pony for some Old Lady on a Shopping Spree and in the Afternoon he would be delivering a Ton ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade

... Oh, yes. The McLeods'. Yes, I remember. And," regretfully, "a big supper and a big spree afterwards ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... spot—a goodly string Of fish upon a Thursday night That Friday may be kept all right. Gone is our friend Peter Riel Whom old Bytonians once knew well; An innocent good man was he, Given sometimes to a little spree; Once member of the Council here, He gave forth many a loyal cheer, And sat triumphal carriage on, In state with Queen Victoria's Son, When Albert Edward came this way A royal visit here to pay. My song complete would not appear Unless "the Major's" name were here; ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... said Acton, "my brother John is at Ronleigh College, and I remember, soon after he went there, he said they had a great spree in his dormitory. One of the chaps had had a hamper sent him, and they smuggled the grub upstairs; and when they thought the coast was clear, they spread a sheet on the floor, and laid out the grub ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... it," replied his companion; "for there's no fool like a drunken fool. They'll do anything for a spree. They're like madmen when they go off with their wages. You may find three or four shepherds clubbing together. They'll call for champagne, and then for a pail. Then they'll knock the necks off the bottles, pour the champagne ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... sells out and throws the money into the slums, the only result will be to add himself and his dependents to the list of the poor, and to do no good to the poor beyond giving a chance few of them a drunken spree. We must therefore bear in mind that whereas, in the time of Jesus, and in the ages which grew darker and darker after his death until the darkness, after a brief false dawn in the Reformation and the Renascence, culminated in the commercial night of the ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... against the monotony of her work, and "that nasty sticky stuff," she stole from her father $300 which he had hidden away under the floor of his kitchen, and with this money she ran away to a neighboring city for a spree, having first bought herself the most gorgeous clothing a local department store could supply. Of course, this preposterous beginning could have but one ending and the child was sent to the reform school to expiate not only her own sins but the sins of those who had ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams

... the ordinary type, careless, light-hearted, improvident, never looking beyond the present moment—content to accept the first job that "turns up," and quite satisfied with a day's food and a shirt to their backs. Some are coiled up on lockers and spare sails, others sleeping off their last night's "spree" on the bare planks, and rolling over and over with every plunge of ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... the crowd would have preferred to stay by their spree; but so contagious is example and so sheeplike the sailor nature, that the whole room fell in with Bob, and answered his call ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... very interesting job you're on, and no mistake," Mr. Coulson declared. "I wonder you waste time coming over here on the spree when you've got a piece of business like ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... "It was mighty careless of me. I ought to have known better, certainly, than to talk that way, even if there didn't seem to be anyone around to hear me. I only hope he didn't understand, or that he really is what he seems to be—just a sailor on a spree." ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland

... forlorn as two infant orphans," he was saying to her. "You would think I had died instead of getting married. Nick has hinted that he means to go on a spree, and Tom says he'll lock him up in their room and sit on his chest for a week if he tries to make that kind ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly

... a little when he was sober; but a day of industry was sure to be followed by a spree. He could procure a few drinks at the saloons; but as soon as he began to be tipsy, even the saloon keepers refused to furnish him more, for the public sentiment of the place fiercely condemned them. The cooper had worked a day and obtained a jug of rum. ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic

... that disgusting little Bobbie and Lance sitting in the front, making no end of row,' said Edgar; 'and the whole place will know that Mr. Underwood and his family are going out for a spree in old Harper's van! Pah! ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 'dialect,' is surely the acme of unintelligence. If Grieg did stick to the fjord and never got out of it, even his German critics ought to thank heaven for it. Grieg in a fjord is much more picturesque and more interesting to the world than he would have been in the Elbe or the Spree." ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... speech for you, Jim,' I said; 'but it don't matter much that I know of whose fault it is that we're in this duffing racket. It seems to be our fate, as the chap says in the book. We'll have a jolly spree in Adelaide if this journey comes out right. And now let's finish this evening off. To-morrow they're going to ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... was rich an' had chunks o' money, an' a big family, an' all the rest; an' the devil got after him an' busted up the whole thing. He got all his cows an' his horses an' things struck with lightning, an' his boys an' his girls were all at a swell birthday spree, an' the house up an' fell down, an' smashed every bloomin' one o' them—oh, ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... how it came about that I secured my first sessional appointment in the gallery of the House of Commons. Some member of the reporting staff of the Daily News was disabled or had gone upon the spree. Anyway the staff was shorthanded for a night, and I was told that I could earn a guinea by presenting myself to the chief at the House of Commons, and that there would probably be very little indeed to do for it. I attended accordingly and found that my whole duty for the evening consisted in ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... took high-handed liberties with the original text and made it over, in both language and thought, so as to suit the taste of the Berlin actors. This northern version, thus diluted with the water of the Spree, was presently published by the enterprising pirate, Himburg, and proved a formidable rival of the genuine edition. The play was tried at several theaters and with various endings,—curiously enough ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... only in book learning, but in the ways of the world, and seeing that Desmond had resolved to take a desperate chance, the tramp volunteered to land him a winner; he succeeded in so doing. The champion of the walking match carried his money to his mother, the tramp went upon an extended spree and spent his share. Afterward the tramp and Desmond Dare started on the road together. The girl had been placed with Mrs. Dare on the farm, and the man and boy proceeded West afoot, determined to locate a gold mine. The former discovered each day some new quality, and held forth to Desmond ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)

... what I heard afterwards that she'd just cleared out from some fellow she'd been livin' with for years—had a quarrel with him. Anyhow, I hadn't seen a white woman for years, and she was a fine lump of a woman, and I got on a bit of a spree for a week or so, you know—half-tight all the time; and it seems some sort of a parson—a mish'nary to the blacks—chanced along and married us. She had her lines and everything all right, but I don't remember much about it. So then I'm living ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... Labour lot, Need soothing, you'll agree; If we can all together ride, I think we'll have a spree." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various

... to be Of Tutors and Deans an acute circumventist, Has been known to declare, when he went on the spree, 'Twas to bury his uncle, or call on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various

... going to give me a moral lecture, because I came to Mrs. Rhodes on a spree?' said Josephine, with a superficial kind of little laugh. 'Isn't my time my own while Mr. ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... unfinished house, enjoying the double pleasure of directing Rubam and making a dinner off cocoa-nut dumplings, and all eagerness to have the formula of this new sort of pain-killer—for pain-killer in the islands is the generic name of medicine. So ended the king's modest spree ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the lateness of the hour. Now that his intentness was relaxed, he let his gaze wander. The room was nearly empty. Most of the gay little ladies who had chattered across the tables to their recently recovered lovers or husbands, had tripped away to continue their spree of celebration at a matinee or in an orgy of shopping. Those who were left were putting on their wraps or sipping the last of their coffee under the reproachful eyes of waiters. Across the window in a brown-gray streak flowed the ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... was content. In course of time, a hired man became a necessary fixture upon the farm, and for many years Pete Wiggs, an honest, hardworking German, was grandfather's right-hand man. But Pete, jewel of a farmhand though he was, possessed one serious flaw: he would have a periodical spree. But, so considerate was he, that he always chose a time for his sprees when 'Dere really vos notting else to do, Uncle Ezra,' as he assured my grandfather by way of extenuation. So it became an understood arrangement that Pete was to be allowed, and expected to have, a 'blowout' every ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... you know," said Jimmie. "You are not yourself this morning, and I don't wonder, after the condition I found you in last night. Things always look black after a spree. You exaggerate, of course, when you talk about ruin. You are all unstrung, Bertie. Tell me your troubles, and I'll do what I can to ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... workers many were honest and capable, but a large part of them were attracted by the prospect of three weeks of board and lodging, with an amount of pay which, if small, was sufficient for a glorious spree. It became the custom in Cooperstown to augment the village police force during the hop-picking season, for city thugs were likely to be abroad, and when the pickers were paid off their revels were apt to ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... leap from a spree to a nightmare of violence and disgust. Her hair got loose, her hat came over one eye, and she had no arm free to replace it. She felt she must suffocate if these men did not put her down, and for a time they would not put her down. Then with an indescribable relief her ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... he said. "But what do you make of yonder business? Is it some accident to the works, do you think?—or has old Barkstead gone on a spree again, as they say he once did, and is now playing fast and loose ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various

... young men to imagine they were having "fun" when they went on a spree, to get "gloriously drunk," as they phrased it. You can see no fun in this. You realize that it is a most serious tragedy, with not an element of real fun in it, involving, as it does, the loss of health, the risking ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... me. I know what men are. Of course he aint afraid to shoot and he aint afraid to hang. Wheres the risk in that with the law on his side and the whole crowd at his back longing for the lynching as if it was a spree? Would one of them own to it or let him own to it if they lynched the wrong man? Not them. What they call justice in this place is nothing but a breaking out of the devil thats in all of us. What I want to see is a Sheriff that aint afraid not to ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... at him gruff-like a moment or two, for it seemed to me he was raither too familiar for a stranger, but he's got such a pleasant, hearty look with him—as you know—that I couldn't feel riled with 'im, so 'I'm goin' on the spree,' ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... people whispered to each other, "They are riding to the powder-mills. They have shot away all their own powder, and now, in true Cossack style, they are going to take our Prussian powder." At that time Frederick Street did not reach beyond the river Spree. On the other bank began the faubourgs and the gardens. Even Monbijou was then only a royal country seat, situated in the Oranienburg suburb. The powder-mills, which lay beyond the gardens, with a large sandy plain intervening, ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... in the bush, reader! Live and work from month's end to month's end without even a sight of a petticoat, and then go slap into the middle of a "spree" at some such place as Tanoa or Te Pahi. Then you would appreciate the charms of our Maori belles. Under the influence of music and the dance, supple forms and graceful motions, scented hair and flower-wreaths, smiles and sparkling eyes, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... again, I'm bound to have a drink. I tell you, I can't help myself. I've told you about it time and again. It's hell till I get enough aboard to make me forget. You know I don't like the stuff. I've hated the very smell of it since before my first real spree." ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... he came to Denver in that fall uv '83, His old friend Cantell Whoppers disappeared upon a spree; The very thought uv seein' Dana worked upon him so (They hadn't been together fer a year or two, you know), That he borrered all the stuff he could and started on a bat, And, strange as it may seem, ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field

... out, and was waiting for him to come for her, as he did in a few moments, and he too was all pleasure and cordiality. He told us when we were outside that he had come up to preach, and 'had brought Miss Anne up for a spree.' They were at a hotel, Mrs. Fordyce was at home, and the Lesters were not in town this season—a matter of rejoicing to us. Could we not come home and dine with them at once? We were too much afraid of disappointing Gooch to do so, but they made an appointment to meet us at the Royal Academy ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... ano (from year to year) De balde (for nothing, gratis) De bobilis (without effort) De broma (in jest) De buenas a buenas (willingly) De buenas a primeras (straight away) De capa caida (crestfallen) De contado (of course) De dia, etc. (by day, etc.) De jaleo (on the spree) De luto (in mourning) De mejor en mejor (from better to better) iAy or Infeliz de mi! (woe to me!) De miedo (through fear) Anteojos de oro (gold spectacles) De patitas (on shanks' pony) De peor en peor (from bad to ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... the taunts he would receive even if he were not beaten; but he would bear all that if it was his duty. Then there came to his mind the picture of his father that day he had come home after his drunken spree and found the boys trying to start the engine. At the thought his loathing of his father overcame him, and he turned and walked across the bridge. Never would he go back to live in the same house with that ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale

... said, with an effort to speak lightly. "What shall we say to him—eh, Nan? You'll like to go on the spree with your old dad to ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... the gathering-place for a rude population, which inhabits not only the valley, but the mountains within fifty miles around, and which rides into Covelo on mustang ponies whenever it gets out of whisky at home or wants a spree. ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... proper. So they chaps they said they wouldn't go to be drownded in winter—depending upon that 'ere Plimsoll man to see 'em through the court. They thought to have a bloomin' lark and two or three days' spree. And the beak giv' 'em six weeks—coss the ship warn't overloaded. Anyways they made it out in court that she wasn't. There wasn't one overloaded ship in Penarth Dock at all. 'Pears that old coon he was ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... had been staying at the hotel for several days in the dress and character of bushies down for what they considered a spree. The gentleman sharper from the Other Side had been hanging round them for three days now. Steelman was the more sociable, and, to all appearances, the greener of the two bush mates; but seemed rather too much ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... He went on his spree just like a Siberian! Seems to have known a good thing when he saw it. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... "After Christmas we'll have a spree together in town and choose it. No need to tell me you 're all right, Ronnie. It's writ large on you, my boy. He ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay

... cheer, chuckle, shout; horse laugh, belly laugh, hearty laugh; guffaw; burst of laughter, fit of laughter, shout of laughter, roar of laughter, peal of laughter; cachinnation^; Kentish fire; tiger. play; game, game at romps; gambol, romp, prank, antic, rig, lark, spree, skylarking, vagary, monkey trick, gambade, fredaine^, escapade, echappee [Fr.], bout, espieglerie [Fr.]; practical joke &c (ridicule) 856. dance; hop, reel, rigadoon^, saraband^, hornpipe, bolero, ballroom dance; [ballroom ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... a picture of the capital of the German Empire, Berlin, showing the bridge across the Spree, with the renowned statue of the Great Elector; behind this the great Royal Palace; also a picture of the "Hohkonigsberg," in olden times a mighty castle in German Alsatia, which for centuries has been ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... were handed the whaling of yore life and are being hounded out of the country. You're sore clear through at all her people and at all her friends. Naturally, you're as sweet-tempered as a sore-headed bear, and you've probably been drinking like a sheepherder on a spree." ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... the name of the river that runs through it has anything to do with that, though Josiah thought it did. He said: "You couldn't expect many morals or much stiddy behavior round a river Spree." ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... country. This would be a hard rocky road on its course leading up a small rocky canon, hard on the feet of the oxen, so they had to be constantly urged on, as they seemed very tender footed. They showed no disposition to go on a spree again and so far as keeping the loads on, behaved very well indeed. The women did not attempt to ride but followed on, close after Old Crump and the children who required almost constant attention, for in their cramped position they made many cries and complaints. To think of it, two ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... man gasped and then went on. "The babies came, and I was so proud of them! Then the fever broke out. I went to get medicine when she and the little ones were so sick, and I got on a spree—I don't remember—but when I came to, they showed me their graves in the potter's field; they said the medicine might have saved them. Oh, Job, I can't think! It makes me ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher

... to the nearest garage. Ostensibly he was looking for one Pedro Miera, who had a large sheep ranch out east of San Bonito, and who always had fat sheep for sale. Starr considered it safe to look for Miera, whom he had seen two or three days before in El Paso just nicely started on a ten-day spree that never stopped short ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... thundering sea, When all but the stars are blind — A desperate race from Eternity With a gale-and-a-half behind. A jovial spree in the cabin at night, A song on the rolling deck, A lark ashore with the ships in sight, Till — a wreck goes ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... men, and treated the crew as brutes, looking upon them as mere machines, out of whom they were to get as much work as their strength would allow. When we reached Hull I was glad to leave the Jane and Mary; and without even going on shore for a day's spree—as most of the other hands did, and accordingly fell in with press-gangs—I transferred myself to a barque trading to Archangel, on ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... returned to the room he told me he would have to be off early in the morning, before I was out of bed, having something to do in Blackwater, where "the boys were getting up a spree of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... a jim-dandy; I want you. When you've had your spree here, you come back with me and I'll do the right ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... or do anything. By prolonging the operation, a whole community becomes more or less hypnotized. In all such cases, however, unusual excitement is commonly followed by unusual lethargy. It is much like a wild spree of intoxication—in fact, it ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus

... a little spree," confessed the other. "It was planned out on our yacht. Old Epps made himself a mucker to-day by sassing some of the gents of the fleet, and the boys are handing him a little something. That's ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... town of Saxony, an old town on the Spree, where Napoleon defeated the Prussians and Russians in 1813; manufactures cotton, linen, wool, tobacco, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... Harry to have sixteen of the best voices in the chapel school to be trained to five or six good carols, without knowing why. We did not care to disappoint them if a February thaw setting in on the 24th of December should break up the spree before it began. Then I had told Howland that he must reserve for me a span of good horses, and a sleigh that I could pack sixteen small children into, tight-stowed. Howland is always good about such things, knew what the ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... putting his hand in his pocket, "just hear the money jingle. A nice big check from Dad in just appreciation of his absent son! What do you girls say to an ice-cream spree? No less than three apiece, with all ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler

... drink. He has gone on a spree, taking one of his nuggets with him to pay the cost. Jeff will be sure to run across him, and then there will ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis

... grades down which he takes men to destruction. One man he takes up, and through one spree pitches him into eternal darkness. That is a rare case. Very seldom, indeed, can you find a man who will be ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... was all my own making, and my dismissal was entirely due to an act of silly recklessness and my own idiocy. I had taken chances before and had not been caught; several times I ran the sentries at night for the sake of a noisy, drunken spree at a road- side tavern, and several times I had risked my chevrons because I did not choose to respect the arbitrary rules of the Academy which chafed my spirit and invited me to rebellion. It was ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... an hour to get up, as it was an awkward thing to grapple, but there were plenty of hands willing to help in landing the goods, as several of the Guernsey men had come over to have a parting spree. ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... ordinary rowing boat, manned by three lads out for a spree. There was no one steering and the oars were going in and out of the water with a total disregard of time. The result was that her course was anything but a straight line. The girl's sculls made no noise, and the youths were ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... opponent, "do you go into the crowd and take a few bets on my account, as I am in want of money, and after I've killed this young sprig of insolence, I intend to go on a spree. Take all ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... they went trampin' round An' nary thing to pop at found, Till, fairly tired o' their spree, They leaned their guns agin a tree, An' jest ez they wuz settin' down To take their noonin', Joe looked roun' And see (acrost lots in a pond That warn't mor'n twenty rod beyond) A goose that on the water sot Ez ef awaitin' to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... that things were going wrong was when Willis Murch told Addison that Doane had been on a spree, and that for several days he had been so badly under the influence of liquor that he did not know what ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... with straw hat and Mephistophelean limp, was there, looking like an Offenbach villain out for a spree. After being effusively greeted by the host—they understood one another perfectly—and forced to eat a quantity of some pink-looking stuff which he could not resist although knowing it would disagree with him, His Worship, left to his ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... must come over for a small spree, and to fetch you. Suppose I were to come on the 9th or 10th of August to stay three or four days in town, would that do for you? Let me know at the end ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... it feet and fists they wint, As though foighting agin rint, Says the Sassenach, "By golly, I'm perplext; For when pathriots, don't ye see, Foight like schoolboys on a spree, Why, ye niver know what they'll be up to next. There seems little to be said; Let each break the other's head: I'll mix no more in pathriot affairs. Ere that paper shall appear, Many an Oirish head and ear Must be 'closed for alterations ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various

... did he choose a spree as a relief from his particular bunch of ghosts? Trading one misery for another was all you could call it. Doing exactly the things that Marie's mother had predicted he would do, committing the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... child, you'd rather see A bit of temper, off and on, A greedy grab, a silly spree— And then a brave thing said or done Than hear your boy whine all day long About the things he musn't do: Just doing nothing, right or wrong: And God may feel the ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit

... Most of the others collected there seemed limp and taciturn, but three or four young people gaudily dressed made up for the quietude of their companions. They were life clients of the Company, born in the Company's creche and destined to die in its hospital, and they had been out for a spree with some shillings or so of extra pay. They talked vociferously in a later development of the Cockney dialect, ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... one of the wards containing the badly wounded men, at nearly eleven o'clock, A. M., she found that the assistant surgeon, in charge of that ward, who had been out on a drunken spree the night before, and had slept very late, had not yet made out the special diet list for the ward, and the men, faint and hungry, had had no breakfast. She denounced him at once in the strongest terms, and as he came in, and ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... Missouri steamboat captain and was regarded far and wide as a terror. He was, in fact, a walking arsenal. He had a way of collecting his bills with a cavalry saber, and once, during the course of a "spree," hearing that a great Irishman named Jack Sawyer had beaten up his son Frank, was seen emerging from the hotel in search of the oppressor of his offspring with a butcher-knife in his boot, a six-shooter at his belt, and a rifle in his hand. ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... on Coronation Day, on Coronation Day, We'll have a spree, a jubilee, and shout, Hip, hip, hooray, For we'll all be marry, drinking whisky, wine, and sherry, We'll all be merry on ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... the previous winter the village was full, and when he stopped a night there, en route from Winnipeg, some of the Indians took his dog-train over to an opposite point for a fiddler who lived there, and all spent the night in a grand "spree" of dancing and drinking. But in the morning only the shattered remains of his toboggan and dogs were to be found, the half-starved native animals having devoured provisions and robes, and gnawed the toboggan to pieces, so that he had to make the best of his way home on foot—a ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... was over the town in a minute; the next morning it reached Llandudno. Ellis Carter had been out on the spree with a Wakes girl in a dogcart on Sunday afternoon, and had got into such a condition that he had driven into a lamp-post at the top of Oldcastle Street just as ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... directed us, we considered we had added one more adventure to enliven us on our journey. We had only walked a little way from the castle when a lady came across the park to speak to us, and told us that the cannon and the large wooden structure we could see in the park had been used for the "spree" at the royal wedding, when the Marquis of Lome, the eldest son of the Duke, had been married to the Princess Louise of England. She also told us that the Princess and the Marquis had been staying at the castle a short time ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... made numerous inquiries and soon learned from some rivermen that Kiddy Leech had yielded to his weakness for strong liquor and gone off on a spree. ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill

... nose is a ultrymarine, My whiskers is purple and steely, and both of my cheeks is light green. When Mother first viewed it she fainted—she ain't up in Art, don't yer see? And she had a notion 'twas painted when Hez had been off on a spree. ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln

... laughed. "You're a young gent out for a spree," he said. "You don't count. You wonder at me," he continued, "being able to tell the time by the skies. But I dare say there's one, at any rate, of you who can find a train in that thing ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas

... his coat tails. He squirmed and wriggled out of his coat like a schoolboy in the hands of an avenger. The bear bowled triumphantly and jerked the coat into the tent and took two bites, a punch and a hug before he, discovered his man was not in it. Then he grew not very angry, for a bear on a spree is not a black-haired pirate. He is merely a hoodlum. He lay down on his back, took the coat on his four paws and began to play uproariously with it. The most appalling, blood-curdling whoops and yells came to ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... dear 'usband, my child, the one with the 'air in it'—carrotty 'air. An' those two bits of 'air-pins that want them silver bangles by ten o'clock, they'll be here punctual. I'm just fair drove silly with badgerin' wimmen. I'm goin' ratty with worry. When the boss comes back from his spree, I'll give 'im a bit o' my mind. I'll tell 'im, if he must go on a bend he should wait till the proper time—Christmas, Anniversary of the Settlement, Easter, or even a Gov'ment Holiday. But at a time like this, when the town's fair drippin' with ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... was who had the row over George's spree, but not with George, and owing to her clever diplomacy it was hardly a row ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... I had actually spoken Gitano to a gypsy in their hearing, it must be so. They had come for wool with all their languages, poor little souls! and gone back shorn. The elder said something about their having just come to Brighton for six hours' frolic, and so they departed. They had had their spree. ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... there grinding. And he had stood there quite alone, filing with all his might at his journeyman's probation work, the whole of St. John's day yesterday. That's how it is: one goes on the spree, and another pinches and is so stingy about his money, that he would willingly lay his soul in the fire for it. The fellow was a good enough workman, to be sure, and if he had not had that affair with the police, then—yes, no—no, ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie

... I ought to have done it at first. But, hang the girl, she'll weary me to death with her sermons and crying fits. Moll's worth two of her for that, matter—she scolds, but at least she never would look like a stuck fawn when I came home a little queer. For the matter of that, she don't mind a spree herself at times." And, emptying his glass, the libertine laughed at the remembrance of ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... was nothing to be done; and Barbizon, when I last saw it and for the time at least, was practically ceded to the fair invader. Paterfamilias, on the other hand, the common tourist, the holiday shopman, and the cheap young gentleman upon the spree, he hounded from his villages with every ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... still Englishmen. Nor, in view of the appalling loneliness of the life, is it to be wondered at that the Chinese bartenders at the club are kept busy until far into the night, and that every month or so the entire male white population goes on a terrific spree. The government doctor in Sandakan assured me very earnestly that, in order to stand the climate, it is necessary to keep one's liver afloat—in alcohol. He had contributed to thus preserving the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... that Greek sponger we talked with when we dropped in at Tarpon Springs t'other day—you kinder s'pected he knew a heap more about these goin's-on than he wanted us to grab, even if we was jest s'posed to be Northern tourists, bent on havin' a fishin' spree later on when big tarpon strike in around Fort Myers—could them spongers have a hand afetchin' in bottled stuff, or ferryin' Chinks over ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... was visible in his continual protest against the extravagance of the boys. "Why," he would say, "a family, a hull family,—leavin' alone me and the old woman,—might be supported on what you young rascals throw away in a single spree. Ah, you young dogs, didn't I hear about your scattering half-dollars on the stage the other night when that Eyetalian Papist was singin'? And that money goes out ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... hags were free Than out they swarmed for a midnight spree; I couldn't tell all they did in rhymes, But the Essex people had dreadful times. The Swampscott fishermen still relate How a strange sea-monster stole their bait; How their nets were tangled in loops and knots, And they found dead crabs in their lobster-pots. Poor Danvers ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... I was half glad when they died. At last, when mother became so used up that she really couldn't work any more, father did for us the one good act that I know anything about—he went off on a big spree that finished him. Mother and I have clung together ever since. We've often been hungry, but we've never been separated a night. What a long night is coming now, in which the doctor says we shall be parted!" and the poor girl crouched on the floor where her mother ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... friend—a good middle-aged Frenchwoman—who served half as bridesmaid, half as chaperone, and then we went before the mayor—prefet—what do you call them? I think Morrison rather enjoyed the spree. I signed all manner of papers in the prefecture; I did not read them over, for fear lest I could not sign them conscientiously. It was the safest plan. Aimee kept trembling so I thought she would faint, and then we went off to the nearest English chaplaincy, Carlsruhe, and the chaplain was away, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... house on a Saturday morning early in September and shrieked at Carol, "School starts next Tuesday. I've got to have one more spree before I'm arrested. Let's get up a picnic down the lake for this afternoon. Won't you come, Mrs. Kennicott, and the doctor? Cy Bogart wants to go—he's a brat but ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... general look of stiffness and symmetry which suggests military discipline and German bureaucracy. But there is at least one profound difference. Though Berlin is said by geographers to be built on the Spree, we might live a long time in the city without noticing the sluggish little stream on which the name of a river has been undeservedly conferred. St. Petersburg, on the contrary, is built on a magnificent river, which ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... place is pretty well clear: isn't it, Mayne?" And, as Dick nodded a cheerful assent, he shut the door of the wardrobe, locked it, and, with much solemnity, put the key in his pocket. "Now for my parable," he said. "Aunt Catherine, you will excuse a bit of a spree, but one must take the high hand with these girls. I have bundled out the whole lot of trumpery; but, as head of this family, I am not going to stand any more of ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... Blythe, And she goeth upon the spree, And red are cheeks of the bystanders For her acts ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... word; he's likely off on a spree." The old lady spoke bitterly now. "Everybody was kind to my Annie but him, and it was a word from him that would have cheered her the most. Dr. Mayo came and sat beside her just an hour before ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... throng four prowling stokers, ashore for a night's spree, attracted scant attention, and Morris Siegelman's hospitable door was reached without incident. A taxi-cab was standing by the curb, and the driver, gazing at the living panorama of the street, little guessed that he had changed garments with one of the half-drunken ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... broad stone bridge, with a finely-made iron balustrade, is built over a little arm of the Spree, and unites the square of the opera with that on which the ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... malady we call "nerves" I am convinced that the reason why people have this disease is because they are literally "food drunk." I have treated men who had been on an alcohol debauch and I know how terribly depressed they are after such a spree is over. It is exactly the same way with the pre-nervous people that break down. They sit down to a big meal and overeat. There is a temporary stimulus, just as in the case of the person who takes intoxicants, followed ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle

... hour of sailing. A gang of riggers, stevedores, or lightermen work the vessel into the stream. A handful of boosy wretches are bundled into the forecastle, and as many more rolled, dead-drunk, into their bunks, to sleep off their last spree. The mates are set to the task of dragooning into order the unruly mass. Half the men have spent their advance, and mean to run as soon as the ship arrives. They intend to do as little as they can,—to "soger," and shirk, and work against ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... pleasant young ladies, viz., Miss Fire, Miss Famine, and Miss Slaughter. 'What are you up to? What's the row?'—we may suppose to be the introductory question of the poet. And the answer of the ladies makes us aware that they are fresh from larking in Ireland, and in France. A glorious spree they had; lots of fun; and laughter a discretion. At all times gratus puellae risus ab angulo; so that we listen to their little gossip with interest. They had been setting men, it seems, by the ears; and the drollest little atrocities they do certainly report. Not ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... stages; though they used the railway, of course, they did so only for a few hours a day, and got out and remained at places of interest. Richard was very amenable, and indeed showed no desire for dissipation; his one weakness—that of having a "spree"—had no opportunity of being gratified; and Maitland wrote home the most gratifying letters, not only respecting the behaviour of his charge, but of the improvement in his health. As they drew nearer ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... growled, answering the virago's call of warning. "More likely a spree ashore. And where might you come from, young gentleman? And what might be your business to-night, ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... general, I fear her; that is, I would not want her to think ill of me, as of others. Sometimes I feel disgusted. I think—wouldn't it be a great idea to go out on such a spree that all my veins would start tingling. And then I recall her and I do not venture. And so everything else, I think of her, 'What if she finds it out?' and I ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... excuse for her lingering in the city. It was a suburban affair, and the place was difficult to reach. Vickers had invited the Falkners to go with them, to prevent gossip, and Bessie willingly accepted as a spree, though she had confided to Isabelle that "Mrs. Conry was dreadful ordinary," "not half good enough for our adorable Vickers to afficher himself with." Nevertheless, she was very sweet to the beautiful Mrs. Conry, as was Bessie's ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... here as a disturbing element, so to speak. Living and minding your business, is one thing; interfering with other folks' business is another. Filmer, he told me a time back that he ain't had a comfortable spree since that young feller was here. He sort of upset Jock's stomach with his gab. The women, too, was considerable taken with him—he's the sort that makes fool women take notice. It ain't pleasant to think ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... a couple of bottles of whisky from the hawker when this portentous announcement was made, and little "Cockney Smith" the youngest man of the party, who was just about to drink off the first grog he had tasted since his semi-annual spree at Boorala, set ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke

... chapel he was greeted by a burst of clapping, and in a moment every face brightened at the sight of him, though, to tell the truth, he was rather unsightly, for he was bedabbled with mud from his feet to his head, and his big umbrella looked as if it had been on the spree and rolled in the gutter; altogether he appeared in unusual style for a public meeting. It was no matter to him, however. He just shook himself like a dog out of the water, placed his bundle of whalebones ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell

... the sailor said apologetically, "you see it was like this. Mr. Julian is a young gentleman as loves a bit of a spree, and he has been out many a night with some of us to ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty



Words linked to "Spree" :   intemperateness, gratify, self-indulgence, intemperance, pander, indulge



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