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Crook   /krʊk/   Listen
Crook

noun
1.
Someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime.  Synonyms: criminal, felon, malefactor, outlaw.
2.
A circular segment of a curve.  Synonyms: bend, turn, twist.  "A crook in the path"
3.
A long staff with one end being hook shaped.  Synonym: shepherd's crook.



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"Crook" Quotes from Famous Books



... emollient remedies, Whereby they might be rescued from disease, I fixed the various rules of mantic art, Discerned the vision from the common dream, Instructed them in vocal auguries, Hard to interpret, and defined as plain The wayside omens—flights of crook-clawed birds— Showed which are, by their nature, fortunate, And which not so, and what the food of each, And what the hates, affections, social needs, Of all to one another,—taught what sign Of visceral lightness, colored to a shade, May charm the genial gods, and what fair spots Commend the lung ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton

... that to look at him in front he appeared all legs. A pair of shoes, polished with burned straw and buttermilk, and surmounted by two buckles, scoured away to skeletons, completed his costume. In this garb he set out with a crook-headed staff, into which long use, and the habit of griping fast whatever he got in his hand, had actually worn the marks ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... the morning to our own church, Where Mr. Powel (a crook legged man that went formerly with me to Paul's School), preached a good sermon. In the afternoon to our own church and my wife with me (the first time that she and my Lady Batten came to sit in our new pew), and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... benevolence seems to delight to surround itself. He had also about him the halo of American humor, having just been up to answer a charge of murder, in another county, of which he was extravagantly innocent. He carried a crook, as seemed fitting, and had with him two sheep-dogs, one of which the kindly man assured us he had frequently cured of a recurrent disease by cutting off pieces of its tail. This sacrificial part having been pretty ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... work's sake, and I'm thirty years of age. Been in this country now for over fourteen years. Had I had a nest egg when I started, I'd have been half a millionaire by now. But, wae's me! I left the old country with nothing belonging to me but my crook and ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... Bridgeboro Troop, looked down with withering scorn upon this shabby advocate of scouting. And Peter Piper returned the look fearfully, yet bravely. After the tremendous thing he had done he was not going to be fooled by this hoodlum crook who seemed to have haphazard knowledge of those wonderful, far-off beings in natty khaki and shining things hanging from their belts. He would not even discuss those misty, unknown comrades with this lawbreaker. Anybody might learn a little about ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... just been removed are without doubt the arch-spirits of the combination which robbed Miss Lennard, attempted to rob Mr. James Allerdyke, possibly murdered Mr. James Allerdyke, and certainly murdered Lydenberg, Lisette Beaurepaire, and Ebers. Van Koon is an American crook, whose real name is Vankin; Merrifield, as you know, is Mr. Delkin's secretary; the other man is one Otto Schmall, a German chemist, and a most remarkably clever person, who has a shop and a chemical manufactory in Whitechapel. He's an expert in poison—and I think you will have ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher

... boundary mountains on which the eye had fastened have melted into air. If he set out to contend,[686] almost St. Paul will lie, almost St. John will hate. What low, poor, paltry, hypocritical people an argument on religion will make of the pure and chosen souls. Shuffle they will and crow, crook and hide, feign to confess here, only that they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has enriched either party, and not an emotion of bravery, modesty, or hope. So neither should you put yourself in a false position to your contemporaries ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... and, if I could afford it, I would have exact imitations of the real vegetable as portions of my dining-service. They would be very appropriate dishes for holding garden-vegetables. Besides the summer-squashes, we have the crook-necked winter-squash, which I always delight to look at, when it turns up its big rotundity to ripen in the autumn sun. Except a pumpkin, there is no vegetable production that imparts such an idea of warmth and comfort to the beholder. Our own crop, however, does not promise ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a train following him to have room for them in one of the dress-boxes. When he appears there, it should be enlarged expressly for the occasion; for at his heels march the figures, in full costume, of Cato, and Brutus, and Cassius, and of him with the falcon eye, and Othello, and Lear, and crook-backed Richard, and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and numbers more, and demand entrance along with him, shadows to which he alone lends bodily substance! 'The graves yawn and render up their dead to push us from our stools.' There is a mighty bustle at the door, a gibbering and squeaking in the lobbies. ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... sultan sent for one of his grooms, who is hump-backed, big-bellied, crook legged, and as ugly as a hobgoblin; and after having commanded the vizier to marry his daughter to this ghastly slave, he caused the contract to be made and signed by witnesses in his own presence. The preparations for this fantastical ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... To be sure, there was nothing for dinner that day; but, as Jemima agreed with me, we'd rather have gone without a dinner for a month, than have parted with Poll. Since we've looked up a little in the world, I saved up five guineas, by hook or by crook, and tried to get Poll back again, but the lady said she wouldn't take fifty guineas ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... his umbrella, which had a crook for a handle, Nat reached out between the curtains and began to feel around under Mr. Post's bed for the box. He had to work cautiously, but at length his efforts were rewarded. He felt the umbrella crook fasten on the object, and he pulled it ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, and half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, and sends him an angel ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... parties, desertion without communication for five years," he said, crooking a short finger covered with hair, "adultery" (this word he pronounced with obvious satisfaction), "subdivided as follows" (he continued to crook his fat fingers, though the three cases and their subdivisions could obviously not be classified together): "physical defect of the husband or of the wife, adultery of the husband or of the wife." As by now all his ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... nail or crook 'll be thy heame O' t' joists, or back o' t' door; Or, mebbe, thoo'l be bunched(1) aboot Wi' t' barns across o' t' floor. When t' rain an' t' wind coom peltin' through Thy crumpled, battered croon, I'll cut thee up for soles to wear I' my ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... for enlistment and was turned down on the ground that he was lacking in a sense of equipoise. Being too young for any other branch of the service, he persuaded his family to allow him to try his luck in Canada. Somehow, by hook or by crook, he had to get into the war. The Royal Flying Corps accepted him with the proviso that he must take out his British naturalisation papers. This changing of nationality was a most bitter pill for his family to swallow. ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... from a ball of mud carried between the toes of a snipe! - and such feathered and furred agents as feed on berries and other fruits sometimes drop the seeds a thousand miles from the parent. but it will be noticed that such vagabonds as travel by the hook or by crook method, getting a lift in the world frpm every passer-by -.burdocks, beggar-ticks, cleavers, pitchforks, Spanish needles, and scores of similar tramps that we pick off our clothing after every walk ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... letter from an oil well promoter," said Dick Rover. "I don't exactly know what to make of it. He makes a proposition which on the face of it looks rather good, but somehow or other I have got it in my head that he is a crook." ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer

... another quarter of the globe in company with Mrs. Bagnet and an umbrella. The latter faithful appendage is also invariably a part of the old girl's presence out of doors. It is of no colour known in this life and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle, with a metallic object let into its prow, or beak, resembling a little model of a fanlight over a street door or one of the oval glasses out of a pair of spectacles, which ornamental object has not that tenacious capacity ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... Vandal toll, Maryland! Thou wilt not crook to his control, Maryland! Better the fire upon thee roll, Better the shot, the blade, the bowl, Than crucifixion of the soul, Maryland! ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... idea about the Volsky family is a good one. We'll try it out, dear! There was a MAN, once, Who said: 'Suffer the little children to come—'Why, Rose-Marie, what's the matter?" For Rose-Marie, her face hidden in the crook of her elbow, was crying like a very ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster

... We saw big ones and little ones, old ones and young ones, and middle-aged ones; ones with long ears, short horns, double horns, and single horns; black ones and red ones—in fact, all the kinds of rhinos that are resident in British East Africa. One had an ear gone and another had a crook in his tail. If we had stayed another week we might have got out a Tana River Rhino Directory, with addresses and tree numbers. We studied them fore and aft, from in front of trees and from behind them, from close range and long range, over our shoulders, and through ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... tore open his telegram, Fandor lit a cigarette.... By hook or by crook, he must see the contents of this telegram which his travelling companion was reading with frowning brows. But Fandor might squint in the glass for the reflection of the message, pass behind the abbe to peep over his shoulder ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... from his chariot with his armour to the ground; but Patroclus, on the other side, when he beheld him, sprang from his car. Then they, as bent-taloned, crook-beaked vultures, loudly screaming, fight upon a lofty rock, so they, shouting, rushed against each other. But the son of the wily Saturn, beholding them, felt compassion, and addressed Juno, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... magnificent, white robe, also richly worked with gold and purple; a somewhat similar robe but of less ornate design being given to me. Lastly, a silver sceptre was thrust into his hand and into mine a plain wand. This sceptre was shaped like a crook, and the sight of it gave me some clue to the nature ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... the city; by day; on land; by night; in the country; by hook; across the ocean; by crook; over the lands; along the ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... and had begun to play cards, the sailor propped up in his hammock, and the soldiers squatting uncomfortably on the floor. One soldier had his right arm in a sling and his wrist was tightly bandaged so that he had to hold the cards in his left hand or in the crook of his elbow. The boat was rolling violently so that it was impossible to get up or to drink tea ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... to if you don't want to," he told her gently, looking down in a puzzled way at her distress. Her face was buried in a crook of her arm; her black hair streamed tempestuously over her heaving shoulders. "Come closer to the fire, then, ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley

... connected with the numerous collieries of the grand allies from that time downward. He had laid down or superintended the railways at Burradon, Mount Moor, Springwell, Bedlington, Helton, and Darlington, besides improving those at Killingworth, South Moor, and Derwent Crook. He had constructed fifty-five steam-engines, of which sixteen were locomotives. Some of these had been sent to France. The engines constructed by him for the working of the Killingworth Railroad, eleven years before, had ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... the attention whether the spectator would or no. Thus, the revolving chimney-pots on one great stack of buildings seemed to be turning gravely to each other every now and then, and whispering the result of their separate observation of what was going on below. Others, of a crook-backed shape, appeared to be maliciously holding themselves askew, that they might shut the prospect out and baffle Todgers's. The man who was mending a pen at an upper window over the way, became of ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... thickness. Between them the road passed, a pale skein across the backs of the foothills, connecting camps and little towns. Farther on the Stanislaus River, rushing down from the Sierra, would crook its current, to run, swift and turbulent, beyond the screen of alders ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... sight, or the "music" of the hounds is heard in the distance, the spade is laid aside, the ploughman leaves his team, the coachman his stables, the gardener his greenhouses, books are closed, and every one rushes away to see the sport. The squire, the farmers, and every one who by hook or by crook can procure a mount, join in the merry chase, for as an ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... dispatched to Ohio for the purpose of checking the raid of the Confederate general John Morgan, and aided materially in preventing the raiders from recrossing the Ohio River and in compelling Morgan to surrender. In the spring of 1864 commanded a brigade in General Crook's expedition to cut the principal lines of communication between Richmond and the Southwest. Distinguished himself by conspicuous bravery at the head of his brigade in storming a fortified position on the crest ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson

... I think him a coyote and a crook, and so I say it right out in meeting. Any objections?" The gaze of the boss shifted from ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... the leadership of Geronimo, had for eighteen months been on the war path, and during that time had committed many murders and been the cause of constant terror to the settlers of Arizona, surrendered to General Miles, the military commander who succeeded General Crook in the management and direction of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... "Captain O'Neil—Old Crook—Cruikna-bulleen—him that I tould ye that tale av whin he was in Burma.[1] Hah! He was a Man. The Tyrone tuk a little orf'cer bhoy, but divil a bit was he in command, as I'll dimonstrate presintly. We an' they came over the brow av the hill, wan on each side ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... who passest through millions of years in thy existence. The eldest son of the womb of Nut, engendered by Seb the Ancestor [of the gods], lord of the crowns of the South and of the North, lord of the lofty white crown; as prince of gods and men he hath received the crook and the whip, and the dignity of his divine fathers. Let thy heart, which dwelleth in the mountain of Ament, be content, for thy son Horus is stablished upon thy throne. Thou art crowned lord of Tattu (Busiris) and ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... believe in the responsibility of idiots. He did not believe a new-born infant was morally answerable for other people's acts. He thought a man with a crooked spine would never be called to account for not walking erect. He thought if the crook was in his brain, instead of his back, he could not fairly be blamed for any consequence of this natural defect, whatever lawyers or divines might call it. He argued, that, if a person inherited a perfect mind, body, and disposition, and had perfect teaching from infancy, that person ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... have been thinking, a flock of sheep has stolen quietly into the space enclosed by the entrenchment. With the iron head of his crook placed against his breast, and the handle aslant to the ground, the shepherd leans against it, and looks down upon the reapers. He is a young man, and has a bright intelligent expression on his features. Alone with his sheep so many hours, he is glad ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... showman. Alfred thought little of the matter. He only regarded the name as a nom-de-plume. Other bills were printed bearing the name of Al. G. Field; when nearing the end of the circus season the management of the Bidwell & McDonough's Black Crook Company applied to Thayer & Noyes for two or three lively young men to act as sprites, and goblins, Mr. Thayer recommended young Mr. Field as a capable person to impersonate the red gnome; this name went on the bills. Alfred never signed a letter or used the newly acquired ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... ranged for them the methods manifold Of the diviner's art; I first discerned Which of night's visions hold a truth for day, I read for them the lore of mystic sounds, Inscrutable before; the omens seen Which bless or ban a journey, and the flight Of crook-clawed birds, did I make clear to man— And how they soar upon the right, for weal, How, on the left, for evil; how they dwell, Each in its kind, and what their loves and hates, And which can flock and roost in harmony. From me, men learned what deep significance Lay in the smoothness ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... simply could not resist him. Let him make up his mind to win a woman and she was a gone gosling. His picture was to be found in rogues' galleries and ladies' lockets. And sh-h-h! Listen! Everybody knew he was the identical crook who, disguised in woman's clothes, escaped in the last lifeboat that left the sinking Titanic. Who said ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... question, Jess, sae hurry up, lass, for we've hed a heavy day. But it wud be the grandest thing that was ever dune in the Glen in oor time if it could be managed by hook or crook. ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren

... had his mate's head fixed firm in the crook of his elbow, and pressed it to his yelling lips mysteriously. Sometimes Jukes would break in, admonishing hastily: "Look out, sir!" or Captain MacWhirr would bawl an earnest exhortation to "Hold hard, there!" and the whole black universe seemed to reel together with the ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... "the downs, you see, are full of stones, and we are fain to shoe ourselves thus; and these," says he, "will make the stones fly till they sing before me." I did give the poor man something, for which he was mighty thankful, and I tried to cast stones with his horn crook. He values his dog mightily, that would turn a sheep any way which he would have him, when he goes to fold them: told me there was about eighteen score sheep in his flock, and that he hath four shillings {45} ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... brimmed hat trimmed with roses and fluttering ribbons. High-heeled slippers with bright buckles and a crook tied with blue ribbons added to the quaint effect, and the whole costume was ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells

... to have him brought up from Ramsgate to Yarmouth by means of love, not being possessed of money. The moment, therefore, that Jim Welton returned, she issued her commands that he should go straight off to Ramsgate, find the boy, and, by hook or crook, bring him to the "Garden of Eden," on pain ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... blow in the face with his right. But for the arm that upheld him, Rondeau would have fallen. To have him fall, however, was not part of Bryce's plan. Jerking the fellow toward him, he passed his arm around Rondeau's neck, holding the latter's head as in a vise with the crook of his elbow. And then the battering started. When it was finished, Bryce let his man go, and Rondeau, bloody, sobbing, and ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... rolling on the floor of the hut, stretched its fat arms to the huge shadow in the doorway. Moti Guj knew well that it was the dearest thing on earth to Chihun. He swung out his trunk with a fascinating crook at the end, and the brown baby threw itself shouting upon it. Moti Guj made fast and pulled up till the brown baby was crowing in the air twelve feet ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling

... lives. The displacement of this tribe from lands owned by them in fee simple attracted attention, and a commission was appointed by President Hayes in 1880 to inquire into the matter; the commission, consisting of Generals Crook and Miles and Messrs William Stickney and Walter Allen, visited the Ponka settlements in Indian Territory and on the Niobrara and effected a satisfactory arrangement of the affairs of the tribe, through which the greater portion (some 600) remained in Indian Territory, ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... peasant hears upon his field the trumpet of the knight, He quits his team for spear and shield, and garniture of might, The shepherd hears it 'mid the mist—he flingeth down his crook, And rushes from the ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... tells me Mr. G.'s homeward flight was hastened by curious dream. Dreamt all his sheep were straying from fold; some going one way, others another; each bent on his own particular business. In vain Mr. G. leaping up and taking crook in hand, put hand to mouth and halloed them back to Home-Rule fold. They went their way, some even making for Unionist encampment, where Mr. G., moving heavily in his slumber, distinctly saw one sheep regarding scene through ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 5, 1892 • Various

... effects of it have been long since over. You and your brother are fond of quacking, a most dangerous disposition with regard to health. Let slight things pass away themselves; in a case that requires assistance do nothing without advice. Mr. Crook is a very able man in his way. Should a physician be at any time wanting, apply to Dr. Nesbitt, and tell him at leaving Bath I recommended you all to his care. This indeed I intended to have mentioned to him, but it slipped my memory. I forgot Mr. Crook's bill, too, but desire I may have the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... V. Hodgson, biologist, was to collect by hook or crook all the strange beasts [Page 26] that inhabit the Polar seas, and no greater enthusiast for his ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... away from that glade, none speaking to the other. We camped an hour's ride up the river, in a place secure against surprises in a crook of the stream with a great rock at our back. We were outside the pale now, and must needs adopt the precautions of a campaign; so we split the night into watches, I did my two hours sentry duty at ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... sortie will be made, but that after two or three days of the sham fights, such as took place to-day, the troops will quietly return into Paris. The object of General Trochu is, they say, to amuse the Parisians, and if he can by hook or by crook get the National Guard under the mildest of fires, to celebrate their heroism, in order that they may return the compliment. I cannot, however, believe that no attempt will be made to fight a battle; the troops are now ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... and no wonder the eyes of the gathered multitude of spectators remained glued upon the motionless figures, looking like statues of famous gladiators in the arena waiting to battle before a Nero, who by the crook of his thumb, either up or down, would seal their fate eventually one way or ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... thinker such black moments. How had Nehemiah lived during those first ten years in England? Who should say? But he had had the wild daring to uproot himself from his childhood's home and adventure himself upon an unknown shore, and there, by hook or crook, for better or for worse, through vicissitudes innumerable and crises beyond calculation, ever on the perilous verge of nothingness, he had scraped through the days and the weeks and the years, fearlessly contributing perhaps more important items to posterity ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... to make it lie right, 'I wish it was old Jog—wouldn't I sarve him out!' He then turned his horses round in their stalls, tucked his greasy jacket under the flap of the saddle-bags, took his ash-stick from the crook, and led them out of the capacious door. Jog looked at him with mingled feelings of disgust and delight. Leather just gave his old hat flipe a rap with his forefinger as he passed with the horses—a salute that Jog did ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... (2) a practical man with a clever tongue in his head (3) but poor; the fact being, he was not the sort to make gain by hook or by crook, but a lover of honesty and of too good a nature himself to make his living as a pettifogger. (4) Crito would then take the opportunity of times of harvesting and put aside small presents for Achedemus of corn and oil, or wine, or wool, or any other of the farm produce ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... crook in Mrs. Butler's lot, to use the language of her father, was the distressing circumstance, that she had never heard of her sister's safety, or of the circumstances in which she found herself, though betwixt four and five years ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... journey, they were less and less inclined to converse. At every turn of the sinuous road fresh splendors broke upon them. By slow degrees the glaciers became visible: first those of Gria and Taconay; then the Glacier des Boissons, thrusting a crook of steel-blue ice far into the valley; and then—faintly discernible in the distance, and seemingly a hand's breadth of snow framed by the sombre gorge—the Glacier des Bois, a frozen estuary of the Mer ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... which guided. The trouble was that on the outward track one had to shape course constantly to avoid the heaviest mounds, and consequently there were many zig-zags. We lost a good deal over a mile by these halts, in which we unharnessed and went on the search for signs. However, by hook or crook, we managed to stick on the old track. Came on the cairn quite suddenly, marched past it, and camped for lunch at 7 miles. In the afternoon the sastrugi gradually diminished in size and now we are on fairly level ground to-day, the obstruction practically at an ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... dark skin and eyes, and a hat that like its master had concluded to abjure all fashions and perhaps for the same reason, he looked now like any bandit and now in a more pacific view could pass for nothing less than a Spanish shepherd at least, with an iron ladle in lieu of crook. There was Dr. Quackenboss, who had come too, determined as Earl said, "to keep his eend up," excessively bland and busy and important, the fire would throw his one-sidedness of feature into such aspects ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... away discomfited and pondering. An hour later the Captain Montalvo called, and strange to say proved more fortunate. By hook or by crook he obtained the address of the ladies, who were visiting, it appeared, at a seaside village within the limits of a ride. By a curious coincidence that very afternoon Montalvo, also seeking rest and change of air, appeared at the inn of this village, giving it out that he proposed to lodge ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... snow the green thing pushes up, knowing that summer must come. Nothing despairs but man. Set the sharp curve of the white new moon in the sky: she is white in true frost, and yellow a little if it is devising change. Set the new moon as something that symbols an increase. Set the shepherd's crook in a corner as a token that the flocks are already enlarged in number. The shepherd is the symbolic man of the hardest winter time. His work is never more important than then. Those that only roam the fields when they are ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... nice," Tode explained, "the way I worked at 'em! It took me a week off and on, to make that K crook in and out, and up and down, as it ought to. Dora Hastings, she told me about 'em, and made the patterns. You don't ...
— Three People • Pansy

... for her to hae been born a cripple, and carried frae door to door, like auld Bessie Bowie, begging bawbees, than to be a king's daughter, fiddling and flinging the gate she did. I hae often wondered that ony ane that ever bent a knee for the right purpose, should ever daur to crook a hough to fyke and fling at piper's wind and fiddler's squealing. And I bless God (with that singular worthy, Peter Walker the packman at Bristo-Port),* that ordered my lot in my dancing days, so that fear of my head and throat, dread of bloody rope and swift bullet, and trenchant ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... he turned was the grim, kindly face of old Doctor Jordan facing him. He carried in the crook of his arm a brown shawl with something round and small muffled up in it. There was one slit in front, and through this came a fist about the size of a marble, the thumb doubled under the tiny fingers, and the whole limb giving circular waves, as if the ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle

... in the wind, and the "something" would doubtless bear fruit; for this elderly spinster aunt, with a mania for psychical research, had brains as well as will power, and by hook or by crook she usually managed to accomplish her ends. The revelation was made soon after tea, when she sidled close up to him as they paced slowly along ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... times by narrow margins owing to his connection with just such enterprises as this. This was to be his last stand and into it he was throwing his heart and soul and to his standard gathering whatever forces he could win by hook or crook. It was he who had heard of Danbury and it was he who had prompted him to bargain with the priest. With a record of past defeats he himself had lost prestige with the hill people. And yet both the priest and Danbury turned to him now to manage ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... my plant to the city. But he has the look of a man ye couldn't trust in the dark—an' 'twould be clever engineerin' to marry a million. I'll set him a job that'll show the stuff that's in him. If he's a crook, I'll give him the chance to prove it." Reaching into a pigeon-hole of his desk, McNabb withdrew a thick packet of papers and removed ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx

... Sherwood's portraits in their little silver filigree easels on the mantelpiece, flanking the clock that would not run and which was held by the ugly china shepherdess with only one foot and a broken crook, the latter ornament evidently having been at one time prized by the babies of her aunt's family, for the ring at the top was dented by ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... Plumber. "Yes, you crook! You want to get away with thirty thousand dollars, that's what you ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... Trail Town. He touched the elbows of the other two men as they walked in the dark, but he rarely touched any human being. And now Abel Ames suddenly put his hand down on that of Ebenezer, where it lay in the crook of Abel's elbow. ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale

... now we're running byes, But, sir, first time he tries I'll send you word of. And running 'on the crook' Their measures we have took, It is the deadest ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... with me, scoundrel," shouted Dubois, raising himself with one hand on the arm of his chair, and the other on his archbishop's crook, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... trees and can afford the time, you can, of course, bend and tie the branches as they grow, so that they will take directions which seem to you better, but this is not practicable in orcharding on a commercial scale. There is no disadvantage in crooked branches in a fruit tree, but they should crook in desirable directions, and that is where the art in ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... day (I speak of one from many singled out) One of those heavenly days that [1] cannot die; When, in the eagerness of boyish hope, [2] I left our cottage-threshold, [A] sallying forth [3] 5 With a huge wallet o'er my shoulders slung, [4] A nutting-crook in hand; and turned [5] my steps Tow'rd some far-distant wood, [6] a Figure quaint, Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds Which for that service had been husbanded, 10 By exhortation of my frugal Dame—[7] Motley accoutrement, of power to smile At thorns, and brakes, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... combated the one prominent reason for the objection: but there were two. Harry believed that he had exhausted Juliana's treasury. Reproaching him further for his wastefulness, Mrs. Shorne promised him the money should be got, by hook or by crook, next day. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... foreclose. Then the place would be Keane's or Gerty's, it was much the same. Keane really meant it to be Sir Digby's and Gerty's, while he, Keane, should live and be honoured and respected there—his son-in-law a lord. Richards thought he must try by hook or by crook to prevent his partner from foreclosing, if only for the following reason: if Grantley Hall once passed into Keane's hands, much though Gerty and Jack loved each other, the latter, being a Mackenzie and a Scot, would be far too proud to propose ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... for the clothes I have on, I suppose," is the answer, half humorous, half wistful, as the interrogated party, the younger of two officers, glances down at his well-worn regimentals. "That's one reason I'm praying we may be sent to reinforce Crook up in the Sioux country. No need of new duds when you're scouting for old 'Gray ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... corrupted nature in yourselves, But ill-conducting, that hath turn'd the world To evil. Rome, that turn'd it unto good, Was wont to boast two suns, whose several beams Cast light on either way, the world's and God's. One since hath quench'd the other; and the sword Is grafted on the crook; and so conjoin'd Each must perforce decline to worse, unaw'd By fear of other. If thou doubt me, mark The blade: each herb is judg'd of by its seed. That land, through which Adice and the Po Their waters ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... length. The boy, therefore, must roll them up at the bottom. Arrived at school, however, the drying process set in, and he, perforce, must unroll the legs. As the boy occupied a sitting position, the legs of his buckskins set to the crook of his knees. Imagine, if you will, a row of boys ranging from 12 to 17 years, standing in a class reciting their lessons, straight as hickories, yet the pantaloons of every mother's son of them still sitting down. But it mattered little to the boy of that day, ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... I should recommend another to get one. A ten-pound note will suffice for all these things. The bunk should not be too wide: one rolls so in rough weather; of course it should not be athwartships, if avoidable. No one in his right mind will go second class if he can, by any hook or crook, raise money ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... or by crook, Hedger Luxellian was made a lord, and everything went on well till some time after, when he got into a most terrible row with ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... thing to it," Jack replied. "He had a motor car which he was running for some gazabo over in Gatun. He was out for his health when he saw the boys shooting by in a car with a man he knew to be a crook, and was about to follow on and see what was doing when he saw me speeding up the right of way, looking as if I was obliged to ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... did not give up hope. She sent horsemen through all the country-side: up Tweed to the Crook, and to Talla; up Yarrow, past Catslack Tower, and on to the Loch of Saint Mary; up Ettrick to Thirlestane and Buccleugh, and over to Gala, and to Branxholme in Teviotdale; and even to Hermitage Castle, far away ...
— The Gold Of Fairnilee • Andrew Lang

... Jacob tarrying for a Rachel. But when she did finally appear, with hat not perfectly poised, her hair in a pretty disarray, she looked so waywardly charming, he forgave her on the spot, and the lamb led the stern shepherd with a crook from Eve's apple tree. ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... doubts must be set at rest, while he would be only overjoyed to be finally certified that they were groundless. It is not till this professed hope is in danger of being realised that the mask is dropped and the King's determination to have a divorce by hook or by crook is avowed. ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... Eastman remarked curtly, turning away from the window. "That door shouldn't be left unlocked. Any crook could come in. I'll speak to the janitor about it, if you don't ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... that it is part of the unspoken marriage contract, that the wife must not only keep her own soul white, but bleach her husband's also; and no matter what a reprobate a man may be, he always expects his better-half, by hook or by crook, to steer ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... endeavour to put ministers in a minority two or three times before the bill gets to its second reading in the Lords, no matter upon what question. I hear there are many peers whose votes depend entirely upon their notions, whether or not Peel can, by hook or by crook, carry on.' ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli

... cylindrical, but they gradually lose this form and assume a flattened condition. Sometimes the rate of growth is unequal on different portions or on the opposite sides of the ribbon, and curvatures are produced and these often give to the fasciation a form that might be compared with a shepherd's crook. It is a common thing for fasciated branches and stems to divide at the summit into a number of subdivisions, and ordinarily this splitting occurs in the lower part, sometimes dividing the entire fasciated portion. In biennial species the rosette of the root-leaves ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... bear moving. You, Mr. Sleep, must lend me a suit of clothes, with that old wideawake of yours. There's not the fellow to it in this parish. After that, all you can do at present is to keep watch here while I get Dan'l down to the sea. You, Mr. Tummels, by hook or crook, must beg, borrow, or steal a boat in St. Ives, and one that will keep the sea for three or ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of having given way before her, he seized his crutch, placed the crook under his arm, and turned ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... breast, and tarnish silver braid on all the seams; over his shoulder was slung a horn; in his sash was sticking a dagger. A raw-boned, hook-nosed chestnut horse shambled unsteadily under his weight; two lean, crook-pawed greyhounds kept turning round just under the horse's legs. The face, the glance, the voice, every action, the whole being of the stranger, was expressive of a wild daring and an unbounded, incredible pride; his pale-blue ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... frankly. "Right now I don't know what to do. I must keep on, by some hook or crook, till I can get advice from some one who's ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins

... ignorance or incompetency of those above him, or had overestimated their forebearance or friendship for him, or their zeal for the public service. Always highly conscientious in his purposes and independent in his thoughts it was but natural that he should scorn "to crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning." Not always as patient and conciliatory with his equals as a less virile or rugged nature would have made him, he occasionally aroused antagonisms and made enemies, as such characters always do, ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson

... attended him; no servant was at his side. He went afoot, and carried with him his most precious luggage—the long rifle which he never entrusted to any hands save his own. Close wrapped around the stock, on the crook of his arm, and not yet slung over his shoulder, was a soiled buckskin pouch, which went always with the rifle—the "possible sack" of the wilderness hunter of that time. It contained his bullets, bullet-molds, flints, ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose at Goodman Brown's approach and walked onward side by side ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Lot's wife cast back a faithless look Unready to forego what I forsook; This say I, having counted up the cost, This, though I be the feeblest of God's host, The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook, Yet while I love my God the most, I deem That I can never love you overmuch; I love Him more, so let me love you too; Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such I cannot love you if I love not Him, I cannot love Him if I ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... we may travel without fearing to excite suspicion,' said he. 'Crook that straight back of yours a little, Gerard! And now we shall push upon our way, or we may find that ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle



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