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Catlike   Listen
adjective
Catlike  adj.  Like a cat; stealthy; noiseless.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Catlike" Quotes from Famous Books



... by the flash on his forehead, By the hope in those eyes wide and steady, He was leagues in the desert already, Driving the flocks up the mountain, Or catlike couched hard by the fountain To waylay the date-gathering negress: So guarded he entrance or egress. "How he stands!" quoth the King: "we may well swear, (No novice, we've won our spurs elsewhere And so can afford the confession,) We ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... foothold that it was a miracle how any living thing could catch and cling to its forbidding surface. Only lifelong practice of the men, who from childhood had been required to make the ascent and whose fathers and fathers' fathers before them had done the same, could have accounted for that catlike ability to cling to the trail where was no trail. The sensation of the long swinging upward movement was unutterably alien to anything in life or in dreams, and the sheer height above and the momently-deepening chasm below were presences contending ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... he pulled the latter along. Their groping hands touched a wall—a wall of wood. Detroit Jim stood up and pulled Anderson beside him. He felt the old man shiver. He shoved him gently in to the left and himself moved cautiously to the right, slowly, catlike. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... him into the permanent role of the garrulous American, a breed for which he had all the finely bred American's contempt, talked of the weather, the woods, the climate, the beauty of the Californian women, with little or no assistance from Magdalena. The moment he paused, and he was hungry, the catlike tread of the Chinese butlers was the only sound in the large house; the silence was so oppressive that he reflected with gratitude that his visit would be ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... with the doctor and the two were struggling with might and main, trampling the grass and tearing the ground with their heels. Injun Joe sprang to his feet, his eyes flaming with passion, snatched up Potter's knife, and went creeping, catlike and stooping, round and round about the combatants, seeking an opportunity. All at once the doctor flung himself free, seized the heavy headboard of Williams' grave and felled Potter to the earth with it—and in the same instant the half-breed saw his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... time, the tug was lying alongside and the stores transferred to the schooner's hold in short order. A dozen or more catlike sailors assisted the crew of the tug, and Ralph ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown

... black shadow slipped across the sand. He looked behind him. There were other shadows, coming with long easy bounds out of the trees, fanning out in a shallow crescent. They reminded Kieran of some animal he had once seen in a zoo, a partly catlike, partly doglike beast, a cheetah he thought it had been called, only the cheetah was spotted like a leopard and these creatures were black, with stiff, upstanding ears. They bayed, and ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton

... emboldened to venture into view, and then one well-aimed volley at the signal from the leader's rifle, and the vengeful shafts of those who had as yet only the native weapon, would fall like lightning stroke upon the rash ones, and that would end it. Catlike they had crouched and watched since early dawn. Catlike they had played the old game of apparent weariness of the sport, of forgetfulness of their prey and tricked their guileless victims into hope and self-exposure, ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... or sinister figure ever cast a shadow across the history of a great nation than did this mulatto woman in the most corrupt hour of American life. The grim old man who looked into her sleek tawny face and followed her catlike eyes was steadily gripping the Nation by the throat. Did he aim to make this woman the arbiter of its social life, and her ethics the limit ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... he had been speaking a few minutes before he had made a spring, and had succeeded in getting hold of the topmost stones. Taking advantage of the slight foothold afforded by the crevices in the masonry, he drew himself up with catlike agility till he was able to kneel upon the narrow summit. He had chosen a spot for his attempt where he had previously observed that no enemy appeared, rightly judging that there must be some reason for this peculiarity, of which he might be able to take advantage. This proved ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... a colossal lion in bronze. This is the softest piece of casting I ever saw; the catlike motion of the paw is perfectly lifelike. I turn back again to that Amazon. I could gaze on the agony of that horse for hours, and think I should continue to ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various

... man's estate, and walking about in a hat and coat, they would have no unapt idea of the general style and effect of his physique. He was accompanied by a travelling companion, in many respects an exact contrast to himself. He was short and slender, lithe and catlike in his motions, and had a peering, mousing expression about his keen black eyes, with which every feature of his face seemed sharpened into sympathy; his thin, long nose, ran out as if it was eager to bore into the nature of things in general; his sleek, thin, black hair ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... is to be Attorney-General Craig," said the old lady, apparently abstracted but in reality catlike in watchfulness, and noting with secret pleasure Branch's anger at this explicit statement of the triumph ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... he grasped the cable with one hand, slowing himself, turned with the skill of an acrobat, and landed catlike, feet first, on the stat-magnetic ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond

... rose: Thring was his, his own, own, own; and now his eyes had in them that catlike blaze ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... no further injunctions, but his manner was eloquent of the urgent need for self-repression. When Piers entered his wife's room, that room which he had not entered since the night of Ina's wedding, his tread was catlike in its caution, and all the eagerness ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... and his mother in that letter as not to hear the howl of fear echoing through the hall, as Mug fled in terror from the dreaded new owner to whom Master Hugh was to sell her. Neither did they hear the catlike tread with which Lulu glided past the door, taking the same direction Mug had gone, namely, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... me so quickly that I am not accustomed to it!' There was a break in his voice which moved the other. He lit a candle, feeling that the doing so would impress his patient, and went round the room; not with catlike movement this time—he wanted the other to hear him. When he had turned the key in the lock, as sharply as he could, he came to the bedside and sat down. Harold spoke again after a ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... that Jerry Durand was not game. He rose promptly and followed the Westerner from the car, swinging along with the light, catlike tread acquired by ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... of getting the old-fashioned rear window open was a mere nothing to the experienced O'Hara, and in a moment he was inside the house. His feet struck soft carpet. Catlike, he stepped to one side in order to prevent any hidden eyes from perceiving his form silhouetted in the dim light of the open window. He dared not use his flashlight for fear that the circle of light would betray his position, thus making ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... glimmering across the floor. Across the hall was his destination—the broad balustraded staircase, which swept grandly up to the second floor. Toward this he tiptoed steadying himself with one hand against the wall. Almost to his goal, he heard a muffled footfall and shrank against the wall with a catlike agility, but, though the shadow fell steep and gloomy there, luck ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... Mono Indians of the California Mountains (93): "The dirt on their faces was fairly stratified, and seemed so ancient and so undisturbed it might also possess a geological significance." Navajo girls "usually evince a catlike aversion to water." (Schoolcraft, IV., 214.) Cozzens relates (128) how, among the Apaches, "the sight of a man washing his face and hands almost convulsed them with laughter." He adds that their personal appearance ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... remained alone in the attic she never knew, but finally she heard the catlike tread of the returning bandits and saw them coming up ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum

... work, when I was startled by a loud "Ahem!" behind me. I quickly sprang up, and, turning round, discovered that the man who had thus suddenly interrupted me in my thoughts was a big, stalwart Indian. He had come into the room in that catlike way in which nearly all of the Indians move. Their moccasined feet make no sound, and so it is quite possible for even scores of them to come into the house unheard. Then, as Indians have a great ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... instant he balanced himself just inside the portal, and the smile remained fixed upon his lips. Then his eyes became ringed with white and he made a swift, catlike movement of retreat. Plainly this was the supremest surprise of his lifetime, and he seemed to doubt his senses. But he recovered quickly. Thrusting ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... artistically untrained, caught at the moment the picturesqueness and grace of him, the mysterious lines of texture, of race; the bold chiselings of thought and experience. The colors of the room became him, too, for he was dark, with curious, catlike, greenish eyes. ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... the quiet parlour with a silent, catlike tread. She was at his side before he knew it. It was the girl whom he had met on his way to the Manse the first day of his arrival. Jess's experience as a maid to her ladyship has stood her in good stead. She had a fineness of build which even the housework ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... his convive of the moment, so much was he impressed with Fouchette's fighting talent. Fouchette, who was serving the wine, was not unmindful of the implied compliment. She glanced at the animal and then at its owner with a bitter smile that in her catlike jaws seemed almost ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... wasn't thinking of it exclusively, for at his wife's reproachful words there glided through the room, catlike, a dim vision of the ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... all—their self-respect. Grace and ardour, sleekness of coat and buoyancy of limbs are gone out of them. Tails are knotted with hunger and neglect; bones protrude through the skin. So they strew the ground in discomposed, un-catlike attitudes, while the sun burns through their parched anatomy. Do they remember their kittenish pranks, those moonlight ecstasies on housetops, that morsel snatched from a fishmonger's barrow and borne through the crowded traffic in a series ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... With lithe, catlike softness, the youth Crau had followed them up the hillside, padding noiselessly in the shadows of the pines and olives. Crouching behind a tree, he felt in his breast-pocket and drew out a small package which he quietly unwrapped ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... out of the house with a garden hat tied over her white hair, and big garden gloves on her hands. At sight of the girl she uttered a joyful shriek, flung scissors and trowel and basket aside, and rushed forward. With catlike quickness the girl leaped to her feet and the two met and fell into each other's arms. I wished when I saw the little woman's arms close so about the girl, and the look that flashed into her face, that heaven had ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... young ape-man watched Taug press closer to Teeka. He saw the rough caress of the huge paw as it stroked the sleek shoulder of the she, and then Tarzan of the Apes slipped catlike to the ground and approached ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Letting the matter of the unlocked door wait for the moment, he began to steal catlike across the floor towards the dais. He had to investigate; also he really ought to put out those candles; it was utterly unprofessional to leave them alight. But he could not conquer a feeling that the place would seem still more peculiar ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony

... obeyed this missive, and the lady received him with a gracious and smiling manner, all put on and catlike. She talked with him of indifferent things for more than an hour, still watching to see if he would tell her ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... basket stuff, slung over her shoulder; a little drab paw, darting from out its deepest recesses in pursuit of a tantalizing curl, soon explains how matters stand, and a voice of the greatest feline sweetness is heard in reply to divers catlike salutations, proceeding from the ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... Ballerraderad, which, we must remember, is one of the most populous provinces in all Injy. This combined dwelling and church edifice stands at the far end of the little village, and as the lonely Indian moon was just rising above the horizon, Sister Flora heard a series of catlike footsteps along the veranda beneath her—for we must remember that in this part of our globe the nights are strangely still and the sounds therefore carry for a great distance. Breathlessly Flora Martin, ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... "Lafe" to everybody except Gowan and the Jap. The latter addressed him as "Mistah Lafe"; Gowan kept to the noncommittal "Ashton." The puncher had become more taciturn than ever, but missed none of the home evenings in the parlor. He watched Ashton with catlike closeness when Isobel was present, and seemed puzzled that the ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... approach, and went bounding forward over everything that impeded their progress, jumping, running, and wading through the marsh with frantic energy. The cheetah's blood was up. It singled out one of the animals, and away it went, bounding catlike over the bushes; plunging into the morass, though hating water, rather than allow its prey to escape. Off started the hunting party, now keeping their eyes on the flying deer, now upon the persevering cheetah. It was no easy task, however, to keep the chase in sight, ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... the question. It was not meant to be answered. For de Spain asked it only to cover the spring he made at that instant into Sandusky's middle. Catlike though it was, the feint did not take the big fellow unprepared. He had heard once, when or where he could not tell, but he had never forgotten the hint, that de Spain, a boxer, was as quick with his feet as with his hands. The outlaw ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... walked to and fro. The man in the blouse also lit a. cigar, and paced to and fro, passing in every journey the bench on which Grammont lay asleep. Suspecting him as I did, I never took my eyes from him for a moment when he was near Grammont, and he, in his catlike watch of me, was equally vigilant. At last, growing tired of this ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... the clump of bushes the near horse of the half-broken pair gave a catlike bound to the right against his tracemate. A second jump followed the first with flash-like quickness; and this time the frightened animal was accompanied by his companion, who, not knowing what it was all about, jumped ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... shivered, The lion at last was delivered? Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead! And you saw by the flash on his forehead, By the hope in those eyes wide and steady, He was leagues in the desert already Driving the flocks up the mountain Or catlike couched hard by the fountain 70 To waylay the date-gathering negress: So guarded he entrance or egress. "How he stands!" quoth the King: "we may well swear, (No novice, we've won our spurs elsewhere And so can afford the confession) We exercise wholesome discretion In keeping ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... The new-comer was a tall, narrow-shouldered, stooping fellow, with a sallow, unwholesome complexion, thin lips, and small sunken brown eyes. His cheeks were creased with a dimpling subsmile, half uneasy, half malicious, and his tread was mincing and catlike. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... always eaten what was set before him. To-night, over his untouched plate, he watched Manuel with his sightless eyes, keeping track of his every mouthful, word, intonation, breath. What profit he expected to extract from this catlike surveillance it is impossible ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... children greatly preponderate in such places; the men probably wandering abroad in quest of that daily miracle, a dinner and a drink, or perhaps slumbering in the daylight that they may the better follow out their catlike rambles through the dark. Here are women with young figures, but old, wrinkled, yellow faces, tanned and blear-eyed with the smoke which they cannot spare from their scanty fires,—it being too precious for its warmth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... in the workshop. The lamplight fell on the burned silver bowl that lay between him, on mallet and furnace and chisel. Brangwen stood with a queer, catlike light on his face, almost like a smile. But ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... ended in a soft chord and the dancers began trooping through the doorway to the big punch-bowl of lemonade in one corner of the hall. They were just in time to see a lithe figure in pink spring out, catlike, from behind the palm-screened alcove and hear a furious voice cry out, "How dare you insult a guest by talking about her, the moment her back ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... stole from his hiding-place, and advanced towards the sleeping giant with catlike steps; but he tried in vain to steal the good sword from its master's side by his incantations. Neither commands nor supplications would avail, and he was forced to use stronger spells. So he scattered ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... he said to himself, as he went downstairs, with his leisurely catlike pace, that velvet step by which he had gradually crept into society. 'We may have to go through refusal number two and number three; but she means to have me. She is a very clever girl for a countrybred one; and ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... head, and something seemed to expand in his brain, to press violently against his temples, as if striving to force its way out. He put down his coffee cup, and the two perpendicular lines appeared above his eyebrows, giving him an odd look, cruel and rather catlike. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... when I think of my incomparable Jenny and her astounding mastery of minutiae at "Crow's Nest"—her finesse and exquisite touch, her kittenlike delicacy, her catlike swiftness and sureness. The two beings involved were as children in her hands. Oh, precious phoenix of a woman, you and I were of the same spirit, kneaded into our clay! Through your father you won it—and I had it from my mother—the primeval fire ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... situation lasted for some minutes. I had no clear vision through my spy-hole, and knew not at the first watching whether the man I saw was asleep or awake. A finer inspection of him, made with a catlike poise as I knelt crouching at the door, showed me that he slept: had fallen to sleep with his fingers amongst the jewels—a great rough dog of a man clutching wealth in his dreaming. And he was, then, one of those connected ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... I'd make such a fuss with that child and sit with her nights!" Calista thought, her prominent hazel eyes following in rather a catlike fashion. They followed in the same way more than once during the next few weeks. She would brush the little girl's hair when Hannah was busy, or call her to a meal, but at other times she passed her by. At first ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... of green, like balls of angry flame, dull yellow hide, catlike form, and twitching tail, the boys had no difficulty in recognizing it for ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... looked for the white squirrel, which was not to be seen. Suddenly the bushes near the stump moved, and she saw the most evil-looking animal that she had ever met drawing back slowly toward the fallen tree. It was long, and seemed to move more like an immense serpent than an animal. It had a catlike face, with small ears and spiteful eyes, and a half-open mouth displaying a red tongue and sharp teeth. Its face was sly, malicious, cruel, and cowardly. It seemed to be such an animal as would attack ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth

... be sold as bad as one of Barnum's. I handle my million when I come of age, which will be New Year's day, 1878; then you'll see if all the men love you, and think me a fright just because I havn't your big black eyes and catlike ways." ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... at three this morning, and after raging to myself for two interminable hours I gave it up. I rose, assumed a catlike stealthiness, to keep from waking Livy, and proceeded to dress in the pitch-dark. Slowly but surely I got on garment after garment —all down to one sock; I had one slipper on and the other in my hand. Well, on my hands and knees ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... and impenetrably black, though I think that Smilax could see a little with his extraordinary catlike sight. Then came a first sleepy bird note. The day, at last, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... remember, my mother, that the Count has as secretary a man named Vautrot. The name is a bad one; but the man himself is a good enough creature, except that I somewhat dislike his catlike ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... was worthy of any jockey. Sometimes when I was at the wheel and running a little to leeward of another vessel, he would say, "I reckon I can weather him, sir, if you let me have her a bit;" and then, with delicate touches and catlike watching of every puff and every send of the sea, he would edge his way up, and ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... have a catlike instinct of fidelity to old haunts, and, having once chosen a habitat, adhere to it, despite many a year of persecution. They prefer inaccessible cliffs, on every projecting shelf and jut of which the eggs are laid, but also inhabit islands where are many clefts, fissures, and holes made by tumbled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... not reply, but strode on. I have a catlike dislike of rain. I bear it philosophically, but that is all. To carry on a conversation during a persistent downpour is beyond my powers. I might as well try to sing under water. Paragot, who ordinarily was indifferent ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... her eyes gladdened the soul—Alyosha felt that. There was something else in her which he could not understand, or would not have been able to define, and which yet perhaps unconsciously affected him. It was that softness, that voluptuousness of her bodily movements, that catlike noiselessness. Yet it was a vigorous, ample body. Under the shawl could be seen full broad shoulders, a high, still quite girlish bosom. Her figure suggested the lines of the Venus of Milo, though already in ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... turned aside, as a rule, when she approached. And when she had passed on with her suspicious glance, her bent and shaking head, it whispered that there walked a woman with a romantic past. It is, moreover, to be hoped that the younger portion of Lady Ferriby's world took heed of this catlike, lonely woman, and recognized the melancholy fact that it is unwise to form a romantic attachment in the days of ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... and tell her that her father has written a delightful poem about her? Remember me, please, to Mrs. Gosse, to Middlemore, to whom some of these days I will write, to -, to -, yes, to -, and to -. I know you will gnash your teeth at some of these; wicked, grim, catlike old poet. If I were God, I would sort you - as we say in Scotland. - Your ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... doing over here east of Horsethief?" he inquired, bending his black brows in a frown, his small mustache twitching in catlike threat of a snarl. ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... outstretched, his hand spitting fire. Beyond him the albino vanished in mid-air. The second askari, his rifle lowered, was staring in vague surmise at his breast, from which protruded a piece of polished wood. At that moment she found herself surrounded by khaki-clad forms all moving with catlike grace. The dark faces under the fezzes were changed by the fervor of battle; the bared teeth shone out beside the locks of the rifles. These thin, hard bodies, buffeting her about, formed round her a rampart from which ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... foc'sle with one catlike bound. He got Blackie by the throat and yanked him from the bunk. Then he shook him, and threw him into the ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer



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