"Pick off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be very crafty, and to steal great numbers of eggs. They attempt, also, together with the Chimango, to pick off the scabs from the sore backs of horses and mules. The poor animal, on the one hand, with its ears down and its back arched; and, on the other, the hovering bird, eyeing at the distance of a yard the disgusting morsel, form a picture, which has been described by Captain Head with his own ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... storming such a place. The breech-loading rifles of the Indians thrust through chinks between the rocks were ready to pick off every soldier who showed himself for a moment, while the Indians lay utterly invisible. They were familiar with byways both over and under ground, and could at any time sink suddenly out of sight like squirrels ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... Smaland. Indeed he is! Those high-born brats run around with their guns in our woods and pick off the deer out of sheer mischief, but if one of us peasants were dying from hunger and took a shot at one of the beasts—well, then he wouldn't have to starve to death, for they'd hang him—but not to an oak—Lord, ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... oot!" fierce as a sword. "Joomp into t'mizzen-chains, and pick off yon chap at the helm, as he cooms under ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... but began to pick off the hairy caterpillars and swallow them. When he had eaten all those in sight he made holes in the silken web of the nest and picked out the caterpillars that were inside. Finally, having eaten his fill, he flew off as silently as he had come ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... heed the mantlets in front," said Dickon, who was in command of the six archers near Guy, "but pick off those fellows as they come down. Shoot in turn; it is no use wasting two arrows on one man. Don't loose your shaft until a man is within three mantlets from the end; then if one misses, the next can take him when he runs across next time. That is right, Hal," he broke off, ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... not only plastered our positions on shore with shrapnel, but actually tried to drive the ships off the coast by firing at them, and their desperate snipers, in place of a better target, tried to pick off officers and men on the decks and bridges. We picked up many bullets ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... white sail, not a soul to be seen on deck, except a dark object, which we took for the man at the helm. "What schooner's that?" No answer. "Heave—to, or I'll sink you." Still all silent. "Sergeant Armstrong, do you think you could pick off that chap at the wheel?" The marine jumped on the forecastle, and levelled his piece, when a musket—shot from the schooner crashed through his skull, and he fell dead. The old skipper's blood was up. "Forecastle, there! Mr Nipper, clap a canister of grape over the round shot into ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... dashed on it. A volley received them,—with answering volley, the police charged into the narrow opening. The rioters fled into a tenement-house, from which came yells and screams of terrified women and children. Walling had some sharpshooters with him, to pick off those beyond the reach of the clubs. One fellow, armed, was seen astraddle of the ridge pole of a house. The next moment a sharpshooter covered him, and he tumbled headlong to the ground. The same afternoon he saw ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... business as it was in olden times and we must go back a good deal to old-fashioned weapons, as we have to a great extent to old-fashioned armor. The picked snipers or sharpshooters could be placed in points of vantage to pick off any of the enemy who exposed themselves and a score of them in each company would get very few ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... the contrary, took his grain of corn to a branch, or sometimes to the trunk of a tree, where he sought a suitable crevice in the bark or in a crotch, placed his kernel, hammered it well in till firm and safe, and then proceeded to pick off pieces and eat them daintily, one by one. Sometimes he left a kernel there, and I saw how firmly it was wedged in, when the English sparrow discovered his store, fell upon it, and dug it out. It was a good deal ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... difficult to be a country gentleman's wife," Rebecca thought. "I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year. I could dawdle about in the nursery and count the apricots on the wall. I could water plants in a green-house and pick off dead leaves from the geraniums. I could ask old women about their rheumatisms and order half-a-crown's worth of soup for the poor. I shouldn't miss it much, out of five thousand a year. I could even ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Confederates acquired such a dread of these weapons that they forced their negroes to the work of serving the guns, which they did not dare attempt themselves, and our men were reluctantly compelled, in self-defence, to pick off the poor fellows who were unwillingly opposed to them. In more than one instance after an engagement, members of the "Andrew Sharp-shooters" have indicated precisely the spot where their victims would be found, and the exact position ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... our column. The enemy's force consisted of detachments of cavalry, artillery, and Landwehr infantry. Before our little guns could be trained on them, the Landwehr men had already seized several outlying houses, barns, and sheds, whence they strove to pick off our gutiners. For a moment our Mobilises hesitated to go forward, but Gougeard dashed amongst them, appealed to their courage, and then ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... tendril curls. There were a lot of gorgeous nasturtiums under the window of the living-room; but, of course, nobody expects more of nasturtiums than for them to be faithful unto death by frost. However, I did pick off a red one and proceed to chew it up with the deepest appreciation of its peppery flavor. And as I chewed with smarting tongue I cast my eyes along a row of beans that was fairly loaded with snaps, ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... a Babe in the Wood!" responded Adderley, "Yes!—it is so!" and he began to pick off delicately the various burs and scraps of forest debris which had collected and clung to his tweed suit during his open-air siesta—"To speak truly, I am a trespasser in these domains,—they are the Manor woods, I know,—forbidden precincts, and possibly guarded by ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... gets within two hundred meters of the enemy? That a unit attacking from the front never succeeds? So be it! Let us attack from the flank. But a flank is always more or less covered. Men are stationed there, ready for the blow. It will be necessary to pick off these men. ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... the judge. "But pick off the ringlets all the same. And say, Florian, of course I don't count, but there was another fellow at the foot of the stairs, the junior in the firm of Fuller and Cox, my fellow practitioners; and in accidents of this sort one sometimes does as much damage ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... thorough inspection of the walls, while the only four serviceable cannon left fired slowly on, as if for the funeral of Louisbourg. The British looked stronger than ever, and so close in that their sharpshooters could pick off the French gunners from the foot of the glacis. The best of the French diarists made this despairing entry: 'Not a house in the whole place but has felt the force of their cannonade. Between yesterday morning and seven o'clock to-night from a thousand to twelve hundred shells ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... bower of bean-vines in Benjamin's yard, And the cabbages grow round it, planted for greens; In the time of my childhood 'twas terribly hard To bend down the bean-poles, and pick off ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... cold water, pick off the dead leaves, put them in two quarts of boiling water, with a tablespoonful of salt, and a quarter teaspoonful of bi-carbonate of soda. Boil rapidly for twenty minutes with the saucepan uncovered, then drain in a colander, ...
— Vaughan's Vegetable Cook Book (4th edition) - How to Cook and Use Rarer Vegetables and Herbs • Anonymous
... saw you I have been in France, and have eaten frogs. The nicest little rabbity things you ever tasted. Do look about for them. Make Mrs. Clare pick off the hind quarters, boil them plain, with parsley and butter. The four [crossed out] fore quarters are not so good. She may let them hop off by ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... great as his fame," said the two Darwanis together, as they raced off to their followers. Charteris made his dispositions hurriedly. Twenty men, his best shots, were sent out under Warner to wriggle through the long grass to within range of the guns, and pick off the gunners when they attempted to fire. The rest of the Darwanis—such as possessed fire-arms, at least—were ordered to load, but remain where they were, and the Granthis to fall back a hundred yards. The eyes of all were fixed upon the favoured few, who, with upraised ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... a minute, and then alighted upon her favorite sweet-meats, "pepnits." She chose for her portion a large amount of these, an harmonica, and a sugar pig, which Dotty assured her was not "colored." "Nothing but pink dots, and those you can pick off." ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... spoke from the rigging of the Ranger, where several seamen had climbed in the endeavor to pick off the gunners on the deck of the British warship. There were one hundred and fifty-seven men upon the Drake; Paul Jones had one hundred and twenty-six. The Drake's battery was sixteen nine-pounders ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... B.-P., on a rock directing the movements of his force, was surrounded by the deafening roar of artillery. In nearly every cave on those hills savages lay with rifle to shoulder, finger on trigger, waiting to pick off the besiegers as they came bounding over the rocks towards them. The Cape Boys never wavered; up they dashed, panting and sweating, to the very mouths of the caves, fired their rifles into the darkness, charged in, to reissue in a few minutes, jabbering to each other, and then rushing off ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... Soon his battery is turned upon the particular offending gun with endeavor to compel its abandonment; in vain, for its work of destruction goes on. Captain Semmes places sharp-shooters in the quarter boats to pick off the officers; in vain, for none are injured. He views the surrounding devastation—a sinking ship, rudder and propeller disabled, a large portion of the crew killed or wounded, while his adversary is apparently ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne |
