"Nip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out of gear; cut adrift; loose; unloose, undo, unbind, unchain, unlock &c (fix) 43, unpack, unravel; disentangle; set free &c (liberate) 750. sunder, divide, subdivide, sever, dissever, abscind^; circumcise; cut; incide^, incise; saw, snip, nib, nip, cleave, rive, rend, slit, split, splinter, chip, crack, snap, break, tear, burst; rend &c, rend asunder, rend in twain; wrench, rupture, shatter, shiver, cranch^, crunch, craunch^, chop; cut up, rip up; hack, hew, slash; whittle; haggle, hackle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... their—blood! His lute is also with him; and he will continue to practise the few lessons which the bulbuls of the poplar groves have taught him. No, he cares not for books. And so, he uncorks the bottle, hands it to Shakib his senior, then takes a nip himself, and, thrumming his lute strings, trolls a few doleful pieces of Arabic song. "In these," he would say to Shakib, pointing to the bottle and the lute, "is real poetry, and not in that book ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... lettin' you go. They say it's an awful wicked city, and I hear it's nip and tuck whether a person comes home as good ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... ones deign with him company keep: This sings to him, sings to him that, when he wants * A pick-me-up[FN97] lying there all of a heap: And when of a loveling he needeth a kiss, * He takes from his lips or a draught or a nip; Heaven bless them! How sweetly my day with them sped; * A wonderful harvest of pleasure I reap: Let us drink our good liquor both watered and pure, * And agree to swive all who ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Christian, a moralist, a right thinking and forward-looking man. And that part, in times of stress, asserts itself. It may not worry him on ordinary occasions. It may not stop him when he swears, or takes a nip of whiskey behind the door, or goes motoring on Sunday; it may even let him alone when he goes to a leg-show. But the moment a concrete Temptress rises before him, her noses now-white, her lips rouged, her eyelashes drooping provokingly—the moment such an abandoned ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... be kept On the best corn and hay That in fields could be grown, Or in any meadows gay; But now, alas! it's not so, - There's no such food at all! I'm forced to nip the short grass That grows beneath your wall. Poor old ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... him unmercifully," he panted. "Of course you didn't hear anything; he never whines when I beat him. He didn't nip you, did he?" ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... "'Twas nip and tuck, boys. The water caught us in the tunnel, and I thought we were gone. It swept us right to the ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... to nip all childhood twitchings in the bud; remembering all the while that childhood—the formative period for the nervous system of the child—presents the golden opportunity to prevent and abort the more grave neuroses of later life. There may be a special contraction of one or more muscles ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... anywhere by reason of the priest's blessing; and, sure enough, the huntsman and his riverence stuck to the hunt like wax; and just as the cat got on the border of the bog, they saw her give a twist as the foremost dog closed with her, for he gave her a nip in the flank. Still she went on, however, and headed them well, towards an old mud cabin in the middle of the bog, and there they saw her jump in at the window, and up came the dogs the next minit, and gathered round the house with the most horrid ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... You would let a good man die sooner than give him a drop of schnapps. That's what you Germans call economy. Penny wise, pound foolish.' He became sentimental. The chief had given him a four-finger nip about ten o'clock—'only one, s'elp me!'—good old chief; but as to getting the old fraud out of his bunk—a five-ton crane couldn't do it. Not it. Not to-night anyhow. He was sleeping sweetly like a little child, with ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... we wuz ready to drop down, and then Josiah sez, "Less take the rest of the grandeur for granted, and less go somewhere and git a cup of tea, and a nip of sunthin' ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... before known as much as you tell me now, I would have taken some steps to have him watched, and to nip the matter before it went too far. Do you think that he will take your notice, and come no more ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... fundamentally friendly. The badger's name was Josiah; the particular little boy whose property he was used to carry him about, clasped firmly around what would have been his waist if he had had any. Inasmuch as when on the ground the badger would play energetic games of tag with the little boy and nip his bare legs, I suggested that it would be uncommonly disagreeable if he took advantage of being held in the little boy's arms to bite his face; but this suggestion was repelled with scorn as an unworthy assault on the character of Josiah. "He bites legs sometimes, but he never bites faces," said ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... was put in as pitcher on the scrub, while Dare Phelps occupied the box for the regular nine. For the first six innings, it was a nip-and-tuck battle between the two pitchers. But from that time on, Dare Phelps seemed to go to pieces, while Tom struck out man after man. As a result, the score at the end of the game stood 4 to 10 ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... thinks of his pets, and the chances are ten to one he's hatched up a scheme to steal or kill every lasting one of the rabbits. It would be just like him. Hugh, of course you'll be forewarned, and take the necessary precautions to nip his ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... but you ain't anybody's baby doll. If a feller calls you 'childie' or 'sweet lamb' or tells you you're the peacherino in the peach basket, don't you answer back, but just smile and wend your ways. If he goes so far as to put his arm around your waist or take a nip with his nails out of your arm or hip, why, then you can land him one on the napper if nobody's lookin'. But all the same, the chaps mostly ain't so black at heart. They just try to decorate their gray lives a bit, and if those sort of things didn't happen to me once or twicet a ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... drawn, I suppose, by the smell of the food, from between the round stones and out of holes in the precipice. Some were already quite close to us. I stared quite fascinated by the unusual sight, and as I did so I saw one of the beasts stretch out its huge claw and give the unsuspecting Good such a nip behind that he jumped up with a howl, and set the 'wild echoes flying' in sober earnest. Just then, too, another, a very large one, got hold of Alphonse's leg, and declined to part with it, and, as may be imagined, a considerable scene ensued. Umslopogaas took his axe ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... Which howls down from Siberia's waste, And strips the forest in its haste,— But these were few and far between, Set thick with shrubs more young and green. Luxuriant with their annual leaves, Ere strown by those autumnal eves That nip the forest's foliage dead, Discolour'd with a lifeless red, Which stands thereon like stiffen'd gore Upon the slain when battle's o'er, And some long winter's night hath shed Its frost o'er every tombless head, So cold and stark the raven's beak May peck unpierced each frozen cheek: 'T was a wild ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... eighty years the nineteenth day of this month—Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that Great Deliverance, were both at Lexington; they also had "obstructed an officer" with brave words. British soldiers, a thousand strong, came to seize them and carry them over sea for trial, and so nip the bud of Freedom auspiciously opening in that early spring. The town militia came together before daylight, "for training." A great, tall man, with a large head and a high, wide brow, their captain,—one who had "seen service,"—marshaled them into line, numbering but seventy, and bade ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... theatre, Doctor of Common Law—"an appropriate one", the Master of Balliol remarked, "though 'Surgeon' would perhaps be the mot juste"; and thus at last Hogarth donned cap-and-tassel, though not Frankl's—a livery which drew from Harris the reflection: "Sweet beauty!—in his mortarboard". The nip upon the brow of the college-cap peak resembled the nip of the Scotch prison-cap, awaking memories: ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... good care that he gets no nip at me," declared Chick, with a grin. "Why do they have such dangerous ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... went on deck he saw that the reefs had been shaken out of the topsails and the spanker hoisted. There was still a fresh wind, but it had backed round more to the south, and there was so sharp a nip in it that he went below and put on a pea-jacket. Then he beckoned to Bertie, who was off duty, to join him on ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... was nip and tuck between you and Adam, Lizzie. Let's get in away from the mosquitoes—I'm so glad I had this ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... everywhere infest the country). . . One kind is very warlike—the 'bull-dog': sentinels stand on the watch, outside the nest, and in case of attack disappear for a moment and return with a whole army of the red-headed monsters, and should they nip you, will give you a remembrance of their sting ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... road, into the brush, out again, and then into a field, down a hill, nip and tuck! At Tom Riley's fence, Rob got him by the leg, but the trowsers were old and the piece came out: and then the man dashed into Riley's old tobacco barn, and slammed the door almost ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... Louise slackened the reins, and Blue went off with short, stiff-legged jumps. It had been a long time since he had felt the weight of his lady, and his mood now was exuberant, especially so, since the morning was clear, with a nip of frost to tingle the skin and the glow of the sun to promise falsely the nearness of spring. The hill trail steadied him a little, though he went up the steepest pitch with rabbit-jumps and teetered on his toes the ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... she grew up to womanhood as lovely as the rose, and as blameless as the lily. In her time she was married to a farming lad. There never was a brawer pair in the kirk, than on that day when they gaed there first as man and wife. My heart was proud, and it pleased the Lord to chastise my pride—to nip my happiness, even in the bud. The very next day he got his arm crushed. It never got well again; and he fell into a decay, and died in the winter, leaving my Mary far on in the ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... of life o'ercast, Chill came the tempest's lower; (And ne'er misfortune's eastern blast Did nip ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... fashion. All the girls will flock around her when Maggie takes her part. Bare, ugly rooms will be the rage; poverty will be the height of the fashion, and it will be considered wrong even to go in for the recognized college recreations. Rosie, my love, we must nip this growing mischief ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... just for an instant, and then stopped, this trick of his wouldn't have been so disagreeable. But he was not content with a mere nip. When he had hold of you he never wanted to let you go. And it was no joke getting away, once you found yourself caught ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... woman, and he had not noticed on her entrance if she were tall or short. He could not say why he felt she must be well over thirty—there was not a line or wrinkle on her face—not even the slight nip in under the chin, or the ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... is: The piper Of the matter made a botch; One can hardly blame the viper If she took a nip of Scotch, For she only did what he did, And his nippie wasn't small, Otherwise, you see, he needed Not have seen the snake ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... breath, Now nip the leaves that 's yellow fading; Nae gowans glint upon the green, Alas! they 're co'er'd wi' winter's cleading. As through the woods I musing gang, Nae birdies cheer me frae the bushes, Save little robin's lanely sang, Wild warbling ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... slight turn'd peaele her cherry lip; Her sorrow, not a-zeed by eyes, Wer lik' the mildew, that do nip A bud by darksome midnight skies. The day mid come, the zun mid rise, But there's noo hope o' day nor zun; The storm ha' blow'd, the harm's a-done, An' hope's a-left ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... said Mrs. Edmonstone 'but not necessarily ill-regulated. I should think it rather a sign that he had no one to tell him of the tricks which mothers generally nip ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a gum tree, drinking a bottle of rum. He spoke to them, told them that they were young reprobates, and were going straight to hell. Hugh Boyle held out the bottle, and said, 'Here, Mr. McLaggan, wouldn't you like a nip yourself?' The minister was on horseback, and always carried a whip with a heavy lash, and it was a beautiful sight the way he laid the lash on those Boyles and Blakes. I really think you had better turn them out of the school, Mr. Philip, or ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... right. He was an ardent gambler himself. But late hours, he explained, were bad for one's health. He had seen men who did not take care of themselves die of fever. He was no teetotaler, and welcomed a stiff nip any time when it was wet work in the boats. On the other hand, he believed in liquor in moderation. He had seen many men killed or disgraced ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... like that around when I was born, then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes tight. I'm always afraid going over bridges. I can't help imagining that perhaps just as we get to the middle, they'll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we're getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge DID crumple up I'd want to SEE it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn't it splendid there are so many ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... all right. He's very gentle," said the housekeeper. "Uncle Toby named him Mr. Nip because he used to nip and bite when he first came. But Uncle Toby soon cured him of that. Mr. ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... matter of the chump Cyril. It cut me to the heart to do it, but I had decided to give him his way and let those purple socks pass out of my life. After all, there are times when a cove must make sacrifices. I was just going to nip back and break the glad news to him, when the lift came up, so I thought I would leave it till I ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... to London all right. If there's going to be any fun, now is when it will begin. Quick, get out. We'll nip into a taxi." ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... giggles, and made out his nose was bleeding, and shoved the book at me what hadn't practised the verse and wasn't much of a singer if I had known it. Well, things was rougher, you see, fifty years ago, and I got a nip from the counter-tenor ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... real market is for the skins of the little fellows, which are made up into all sorts of alligator leather bags. Most of that stuff is imitation, but still quite a lot of it is real. It's plenty of fun catching the little 'gators, because even the smallest of them can give you quite a nip and a reptile three feet long is a handful. I did well enough out of it, because in addition to the sport I had, my brother-in-law let me have the skins of all those I caught myself. Some people, too, want to have baby ones as pets, but I don't think ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... one or two bare patches on a precipitous hillside, or the gray effect of the snow, intermingled with the black pine forest—all nature was as white as a sheet. How exceedingly pleasant! And, to make it all the better, it was cold enough to nip one's nose short off! If people have but life enough in them to bear it, there is nothing that so raises the spirits, and makes the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, like a brook down the slope of a hill, as ...
— The Three Golden Apples - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... think our butternuts and our hickories would never be subject to these pests, but they will be. When the Northwest started to plant apple orchards they said they had no codling moths up there. There were some orchards that didn't but sooner or later they came. The time to nip those things is in the bud, and not let them spread. Lack of foresight has cost New England millions and millions of dollars just because they would not take the advice of one man when he told them ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... the fellows to show you the way," said Mother Carey's chickens; "we cannot help you farther north. We don't like to get among the ice pack, for fear it should nip our toes: but the ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... is not my fault I am here. But it is my fault if I leave this strange old earth the poorer for my failure.... I will no longer be little. I will find strength. I will endure.... I still have eyes, ears, nose, taste. I can feel the sun, the wind, the nip of frost. Must I slink like a craven because I've lost the love of one man? Must I hate Flo Hutter because she will make Glenn happy? Never!... All of this seems better so, because through it I am changed. I might have lived on, a ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... is the way it stands now. Mama is become No. 2; I have dropped from No. 4, and am become No. 5. Some time ago it used to be nip and tuck between me and the cats, but after the cats "developed" I didn't stand any ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... still, at this early period of life it is not the least bit like a crab; for a crab, as most of us know it, is a creature with a shell broader than it is long, and long legs, and a pair of pincers which can give a most painful nip to unguarded fingers. As a youngster, however, he presents a very different appearance, as may be seen in fig. 1. That is what he looks like just after leaving the egg—a creature with a huge eye, a big round body, and a long, slender tail—a sort of compromise between a crab and a lobster, but ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... habits and strong woodpecking instincts. Arsene we called him. For some days he gladdened us with his soft bright eye. But when we came to know him well and I relied on him to break the shells of my eggs every morning at breakfast, to steal my pens and spill my ink, to wake me by a gentle nip on the nose from his firm but courteous beak, a rough grenadier came one day to explain a new type of infernal machine, and, when we went out, left ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... until ten o'clock on the night, as he lay with his party behind the bank of which I have spoken, that a pleasurable thrill of anticipation began to take hold of Samuel. A slight frost nip was in the air, and in the sky there shone a myriad stars. Away behind him lay the trenches he had just quitted, peaceful and still in the faint moonlight; and looking to his front he could see the German lines, just as still, only much closer. He tried to ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... the other break-loads. At 6 in the morning we all met outside the school, for the schoolmaster acted as our guide. I did not know before that he has two daughters and a son who has matriculated this year. First of all they held a great review, and the gentlemen fortified themselves with a nip and so did some of the ladies; I did not, for I hate the way in which a liqueur burns one's throat so that every one, at any rate girls and ladies, make such faces when they are drinking, that is why I never drink liqueur. I did not care ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... advice, gentlemen," he said, addressing Don Juan and me, "you will have a nip of this old brandy before we go any further in this matter. Then I think you had better let me give the instructions to these workmen, Mr. Inspector, or they may ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... ground! I'm a swinge-cat; but I warns you not to be misled by my looks! I'm a flyin' bison, an' deevastation rides upon my breath! Whoop! whoop! whoopee! I'm the Purple Blossom of Gingham Mountain, an' where is that son of thunder who'll try an' nip me in the bud! Whoop! whoopee! I'm yere to fight or drink with any sport; any one or both! Whoopee! Where is the stately stag to stamp his hoof or rap his antlers to my proclamations! Where is that boundin' buck! ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the human body all round. Headaches—it's wonderful what Macjone's pills do for headaches. If you have a low, all-overish feeling, Macjone's pills pick you up directly. They are wonderful, too, for colds; and if there's any infection going they nip it in the bud. I wish you would try them, Mrs. Bertram; I know they'd pull you round, I'll send for a box for you with pleasure when I'm having my next chest of tea down from London. I always get my tea from London. I think what they sell here is little better than ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... held it. His feet were swept out over the brink of the fall, but he clung on grimly, and by the strength of his arms drew himself on to the rock and rested a while. Presently he stood up, for the cold began to nip him, and the people below became aware that he had swum the river above the fall and raised a shout, for the deed was great. Now Eric must begin to clamber down Sheep-saddle, and this was no easy task, for the rock is almost sheer, ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... been over-worked, and requires repose; or his bowels are loaded, and Nature wishes to take time to use up the old material;—there might be fever lurking in his system; Nature stops the supplies, and thus endeavours, by not giving it food to work with, to nip it in the bud;—there might be inflammation; food would then be improper, as it would only add fuel to the fire; let, therefore, the cause be either an overworked stomach, over-loaded bowels, fever, or ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... set foot here in his life, I reckon; but, from what we hear, he must fling away his money finely. However, as father says, there's one excuse for him—he has neither chick nor child of his own. Eh, but you're looking white, Sir; Gethin air is apt to nip pretty sharp those who are not accustomed to it. You had best not try the ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... the gum-tree the Southerner sat, A-twisting the brim of his palmetto hat, And trying to lighten his mind of a'load By humming the words of the following ode: 'Oh! for a nigger, and oh! for a whip; Oh! for a cocktail, and oh! for a nip; Oh! for a shot at old Greeley and Beecher; Oh! for a crack at a Yankee school-teacher.' And so he kept oh-ing for all he had not, Not contented with owing for ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... beggar man's shoulder; He asked him did the frost nip colder? "Frost!" said the beggar, "no, stupid lad! 'Tis the palsy makes ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... continued gravely, 'Quigley doesn't like you; he is looking for a chance to do you a mischief, and he would have had his chance the other night if I hadn't overlooked you like a mothering hen, and sold you good creek water at a shilling the nip.' ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... cloth thrown over Sultan, and to order for him a bucket of warm small beer with three or four handfuls of oatmeal stirred into it. While this was adoing, and I was awaiting a summons to his lordship's presence, I took a nip of brandy in the public room of the inn, and over it amused myself by reading a crude fly-sheet nailed on the wall, offering a reward of fifty guineas to anyone giving information leading to the arrest of one Samuel Nixon, commonly called ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... perfect day: the sky cloudless; sunlight like pale gold or amber; soft mists in the distance; a delicate air, gently stirred, fresh, with no poisonous nip in it. I knew last night it would be fine, for the gale had blown itself out, and when I came in at sunset the chimneys and shoulders of the Hall stood out dark against the orange glow. The beloved house seemed to welcome me back, and as I came across the footpath, through the ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... found himself pitted against Lucy Little. Despite his name, Little was not a "sissy," and he was no mean antagonist, as Punch found out. It was nip and tuck between them, and neither seemed to have the ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... straightway subpoenaed him. Mahony was none too well pleased: the boy threatened to be a handful. His old father, on delivering him up at the coach-office, had drawn Mahony aside to whisper: "Don't let the young limb out o' yer sight, doc., or get nip or sip o' liquor. If 'e so much as wets 'is tongue, there's no 'olding 'im." Johnny was a lean, pimply-faced youth, with ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... we have danced in this manner as you have beheld, I, that am called Pinch, do go about from house to house: sometimes I find the doors of the house open; that negligent servant that left them so, I do so nip him or her, that with my pinches their bodies are as many colours as a mackerel's back. Then take I them, and lay I them in the door, naked or unnaked I care not whether: there they lie, many times till broad ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... buildings to remind one that this busy, industrial city has found time even while making money to have called into being a school of art of its own. It was a delightful morning with dazzling sunshine and an eager nip in the air that spoke of the swift, deep river that bathes the city walls. I revelled in the clear, cold atmosphere after the foulness of the drinking-den and the stifling heat of the journey. I exulted in the sense of liberty I experienced at having once more eluded the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... mind," thought Sammy, "to let you stay there. I wonder how you would like to stay and have a duck come along and nip off ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... if you would have a perfect flower you must deny existence to many weeds, you must repress the rank growth, you must pluck off many a leaf and nip many a bud that the one may come to the fullness of its beauty. Through the grain of character goes the wise husbandman, and death is in his hand—the death of the less worthy, the harmful, and the enemy ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... Adams ran for president. In the convention it was nip and tuck between Thomas Jefferson and himself, but Jefferson was understood to be a Universalist, or an Universalist, whichever would look the best in print, and so he only got 68 votes out of a possible 139. In 1800, however, Jefferson turned the tables on him, and Mr. Adams only received 65 to ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... the Frenchman Domnic. He is worth listening to. I shall be very glad when the Easter vacation brings you home once more, you are seldom out of my thoughts. I made two gallons of maple syrup. Walt Dumont has an auction this P. M. Nip and ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... each, so no time was lost in putting the leather into the field. It was Putnam's kick-off, and on the instant the ball went sailing into the air, to land well into Pornell's territory. Then came a grand rush, and before the words can be put down twenty-two lads were at it nip-and-tuck to get possession of ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... calkelate to drive stage more than a year or two longer," Sam said to Mrs. Page, confidentially, on the return from their last trip together to Piney-woods Station. "I've got a little place down in Amador, and an interest in the Nip-and-tuck gold-mine, besides a few hundreds in bank. I've a notion to settle down some day, in a cottage with vines over the porch, with a little woman to tend the ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... and a nip of rum gave her the strength to drag herself to the bed, with old Goussot's assistance, and to tell her story. For that matter, there was not much to tell. She had just lit the fire in the living-hall; and she was knitting quietly at her ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... twitched and his hands clenched. "The sheepman heah I have to reckon with is Lee Jorth, a lifelong enemy of mine. We were born in the same town, played together as children, an' fought with each other as boys. We never got along together. An' we both fell in love with the same girl. It was nip an' tuck for a while. Ellen Sutton belonged to one of the old families of the South. She was a beauty, an' much courted, an' I reckon it was hard for her to choose. But I won her an' we became engaged. Then the war broke out. I enlisted ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... colder weather set in. Out of doors was available only for the activities of life. As long as energy was burnt with some lavishness, all was well, but when the first enthusiasm had ebbed, Jack Frost began to nip shrewdly. Then the children went within doors. They divided their favours almost equally between the third stories of the Orde and ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... another difficulty which threatened to nip my diplomatic honours in the bud. The news had just arrived, that the allied armies had passed the frontier, and were sweeping all before them with fire and sword. A populace is always mad with courage, or mad with cowardice; and the Parisians, who, but yesterday, were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... rulers, had its disadvantages; he could never venture to wander out of earshot of his father or mother, who formed his body-guard, and the utmost prudence did not suffice to protect him from an occasional punch on the head, or a nip in a tender part, meant probably as earnest of more substantial kindnesses to be conferred upon him at the very ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... lack of protection, and often lack of care in planting," was the answer. "When the new tree begins to put out tender rootlets a child brushing against it or 'inspecting' it too closely will break them off and it dies. Or stock will nip off the new leaves and shoots and the result is the same. A frame around ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... 'Jack' also liked her better than any of us, though he was tame enough to eat out of my hand, giving me a friendly nip with his sharp beak occasionally, just to show what he could do if he had a mind to and was not ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... take the money he lost, but a large amount besides. I had the same thing tried on me once; so when I saw a fellow-gambler imposed upon, I went to the front. Besides, if we let such a thing go too far it would ruin our business, so I thought it was best to nip it ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... home, but went first into the town, provided himself and family with provisions against Christmas, and indulged in a little nip of brandy besides. Glad as he was over the day's bargain, he, and his wife too, took an extra drop in their e'en, and their son Bernt had a taste of ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... when he turns upon them. In this fight all my dogs did was to assail each bear in front and rear. While the dog in front kept up a vigorous barking as close to his nose as it was safe to venture, the dog in the rear, watching his opportunity, sprang in and gave him a severe nip in the tender spot in his hind leg. This, of course, could not be put up with, and so the bear, still holding on to his pig, quickly whirled around to repel this second assailant. The instant he did so the clever dog that had been in front, but was now in the rear, ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... doesn't understand a thing at once he dismisses it with "pooh." As I ascend the wide oak staircase, with room enough for eight people abreast on every step, I reflect on the foolishness of a man saying "pooh," hastily. How many great schemes might anyone nip in the bud by one "pooh." What marvellous inventions, apparently ridiculous in their commencing idea, would be at once knocked on the head by a single "pooh." The rising Artist has an infant design for some immense historical Fresco. He comes—I see him, as it ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... It is nip and tuck between New York and Pennsylvania for membership down through the years. This year Pennsylvania is one man ahead of New York, unless George Salzer has brought another new member's name with him. Pennsylvania is 58, New York ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... a moment more awe inspiring than what had gone first; but before Cherry had more time than sufficed to nip Cuthbert hard by the hand, they heard the old woman's voice, in an accent of stern command, uttering one ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... one of the facts which, amongst much that is discouraging, convinces me of the innate nobility of man. An old friend of mine of pious disposition once remarked to me that he could never have been a Christian martyr. At the first twist of the cord, or the first nip of the red-hot pincers, he was sure that he would have thrown incense by the handful upon the altar of any heathen god or goddess that was fashionable at the moment. His spirit might have been willing, but his flesh would certainly ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... clean as blood of babes, as white as milk: O Merlin, may this earth, if ever I, If these unwitty wandering wits of mine, Even in the jumbled rubbish of a dream, Have tript on such conjectural treachery— May this hard earth cleave to the Nadir hell Down, down, and close again, and nip me flat, If I be such a traitress. Yield my boon, Till which I scarce can yield you all I am; And grant my re-reiterated wish, The great proof of your love: because I think, However wise, ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... to caress the intelligent and affable bird, which, instead of responding as expected, "squawked," as our phonetic language has it, and, opening a beak imitated from a tooth-drawing instrument of the good old days, made a shrewd nip at Kitty's forefinger. She drew it ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... are producers, it must be confessed that we have each of us anti-social desires. Are we vine-growers? It would not distress us were the frost to nip all the vines in the world except our own: this is the scarcity theory. Are we iron-workers? We would desire (whatever might be the public need) that the market should offer no iron but our own; ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... Ellen prodded her book emphatically with her long finger. "Yes, if he isn't nipped in the bud he's going to make trouble. WE'LL live to see it—you and I will live to see it, Mr. Meredith. And who is going to nip him? England should, but she won't. WHO is going to nip him? ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... old cage will be just the thing. Don't let them nip Teddy's toes while I get it;" and away went Mrs. Jo, leaving Dan overjoyed to find that his treasures were not considered rubbish, and ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... crews and the owners—but ashore, stalwart and gratified folk who had noted the storms and the tides ate well and drank deep and went warmly clad, who might otherwise have felt the gnawing of hunger and the nip of ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... violently upon the ground, hoping thereby so to stun and bewilder him that the terrier could rush in and crush him before he recovered his wits. But I had miscalculated; the blow did indeed stun and confuse him, but he was still too quick for the dog, and had him by the lip like an electric trap. Nip lifted up his head and swung the weasel violently about in the air, trying to shake him off, uttering a cry of rage and pain, but did not succeed in loosening the animal's hold for some moments. When he had done so, and ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... Buena Vista, the marshal's residence, Driscoll the next day received a personage, and offered him a cigar. Declined, with bow from shoulder. Hoped he would have a nip of peach brandy? Declined, with sweep from hips. He was a personage. Driscoll noted regalia, medals, cordon; and apologized for the temerity of ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... a full-grown male, met the onset of the hounds with grim confidence. The dogs encircled him with a ring of ferocious teeth, running in from behind whenever they could to nip the huge beast in the haunches or on the flank. But the surprise of the encounter ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... daring to enjoy ourselves like other people," retorted Bridgie, with what Mademoiselle was glad to recognise as a decided nip of severity; "but from this minute there must be no more playing until the work is finished. Dennis has cut the evergreens, and we must begin making wreaths at once, so as to be in order when Jack arrives to-morrow evening. We could have two hours' ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... in addition to other characteristics that suggested a fowl, had a sagging dewlap, and the February nip had colored it into resemblance to a rooster's wattles. When he came in Mr. Orne's face was sagging, in general. It was a countenance that was already ridged into an expression of sympathy. When he set eyes on Britt the expression of woe was touched up with ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... morning dawned fair, but there was a nip in the air which impelled us to move about smartly. Then the sun rose gloriously over the eastern peaks, and its genial warmth raised our drooping spirits. I cannot account for the feeling, but somehow the whole army felt that a battle was imminent, ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... now," said Timmins, spitting into the fire contemplatively, "there hasn't been much doing. But, before that, shots popped around here considerable. Fitzpatrick thought, and still thinks, I guess, that the only way to nip this free-trader business in the bud was to go at it in the old-fashioned way, with bullets. So, as soon as we had a camp here, we started after those fellows. But they were ready for us, and, when it was all over, three or four ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... chin and jaw! I thought of the Squire's stern voice, and his blunt, plain-featured face. Always, always, so long as I lived, I should long to take a pair of pincers and tweak that nose into shape, and nip little pieces of flesh from the neck, and pad them on the hollows beneath the cheek-bones. Suddenly I began to laugh. I imagined myself doing it— saw the expression ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... "for it gets a man in the wind; but I won't tell her so; and," continued he, "you don't mind a raw nip, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... manifesting himself. One of the rummy things about Jeeves is that, unless you watch like a hawk, you very seldom see him come into a room. He's like one of those weird chappies in India who dissolve themselves into thin air and nip through space in a sort of disembodied way and assemble the parts again just where they want them. I've got a cousin who's what they call a Theosophist, and he says he's often nearly worked the thing himself, but couldn't quite bring it off, probably owing to having fed in his boyhood on the flesh ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... a snow set in as killed half of the sheep and many even of the red deer and the forest ponies. It was three-score years agone,* he said; and cause he had to remember it, inasmuch as two of his toes had been lost by frost-nip, while he dug out his sheep on the other side of the Dunkery. Hereupon mother nodded at him, having heard from her father about it, and how three men had been frozen to death, and how badly their stockings ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... put a summary end to the colony; Morton was sent back to England, and the "revelries" which he had countenanced or promoted were seen no more in Massachusetts. The era for gayeties had not yet come in the new world. Endicott would not be satisfied with crushing out evil; he would also nip in the bud all such lightsome and frivolous conduct as might lead those who indulged in it to forget the dangers and difficulties attending the planting of the reformed faith in ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... light, Harvey. There, aren't they rippers? Quite tame, too. They know us quite well. They know they're going to be fed, too. Hullo, Sir Nigel! This is Sir Nigel. Out of the 'White Company', you know. Don't let him nip your fingers. ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... what it is to have a failure of the crops, but in the spiritual world no such failure is possible. Wet soil may rot the seed, or frost may nip the early buds, or the weather may prove too wet or too dry to bring the crops to maturity, but none of these things occur to prevent the harvest of one's actions. The Bible tells us that God will render ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody |
