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Dab   Listen
noun
Dab  n.  
1.
A gentle blow with the hand or some soft substance; a sudden blow or hit; a peck. "A scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak."
2.
A small mass of anything soft or moist.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dab" Quotes from Famous Books



... the fire, holding a frying pan whose hollow handle had been fitted with a long stick. The big dab of butter soon melted, and in a moment the trout were crepitating and curling up in the ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... "What has been happening to me?" said the sad little eyes. Oh, how sweet it was to see them snap at her again from the red eiderdown!... But the nose, which was of some black composition, wasn't at all firm. It must have had a knock, somehow. Never mind—a little dab of black sealing-wax when the time came—when it was absolutely necessary... Little rogue! Yes, she really felt like that about it. Little rogue biting its tail just by her left ear. She could have taken it off and laid it on her lap and stroked it. She felt a tingling ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield

... but fresh-water fish, the Scandinavians, at a date probably less remote however, did not hesitate to brave the ocean. The kitchen-middings contain numerous remains of fish, amongst which those of the mackerel, the dab, and the herring are the most numerous. There, too, we meet with relics of the cod, which never approaches the coast, and must always be sought by the fisherman in the ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... then execute the parts. Fancy the fabric Quite ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, Ere mortar dab brick. ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson

... the few pioneers left in it were kept alive on a diet of roast flathead. On the beach three boats were drawn up out of reach of the tide, and looking behind him Jack counted twelve huts and one store of wattle-and-dab. The store had been built to hold the goods of the Port Albert Company. It was in charge of John Campbell, and contained a quantity of axes, tomahawks, saddles and bridles, a grindstone, some shot and powder, two double-barrelled ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... the versatility of his talent. Known to the world as the inventor of Telpherage, he was an electrician and cable engineer of the first rank, a lucid lecturer, and a good linguist, a skilful critic, a writer and actor of plays, and a clever sketcher. In popular parlance, Jenkin was a dab at everything. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... well brought up and industrious young man was Hamilton Morris, and he had not the least idea of the good in store for him for several months after Mrs. Kinzer decided to marry him to her daughter Miranda. But all was soon settled. Dab, of course, had nothing to do with the wedding arrangements, and Ham's share was somewhat contracted. Not but what he was at the Kinzer house a good deal; nor did any of the other girls tell Miranda how very much he was in the way. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... grammar had been unexceptionable; but since she had been in England, she said "you ain't" and dropped all her g's; and when Montague brought down a bird at long range, she exclaimed, condescendingly, "Why, you're quite a dab at it!" He sat in the front seat of an automobile, and heard the great lady behind him referring to the sturdy Jersey farmers, whose ancestors had fought the British and Hessians all over the state, as ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... old fool!" he stated with conviction. "I meandered out to take a look around for her, and I didn't like the looks of that little dab of a saddle Conrad had put on Pat. You didn't see anything of ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... well, my dear—but you must reflect, that, etc., etc., et cetera"—each et cetera a dab of wet wool, taking out more and more stiffening and color, until the beautiful project hangs, a limp rag, on her hands, a forlorn wreck over which she could ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... down, and wet your whistle, my piper! I say, egad! you're the piper that played before Moses! Had you there, Dab. Dab, get a fresh bottle of Burgundy for Mr. Hoskins." And before he knew where he was, there was Gus for the first time in his life drinking Clos-Vougeot. Gus said he had never tasted Bergamy before, at which the bailiff sneered, and told him the ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray

... great assenting dab at the fire, necessitating a prompt examination of all her gear to see if she had ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... undershirt. The sun's rays, diffusing abnormal heat through the atmosphere, reflected piercingly upward from the water, had played havoc with him. His first act upon landing was to seat himself upon a flat-topped boulder and dab tenderly at his smarting face while his men hauled up the canoe. That in itself was a measure of his inefficiency, as inefficiency is measured in the North. The Chief Factor of a district large enough to embrace a European kingdom, traveling in state from post ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... farm road too rough for a carriage, we passed through fields and hedgerows to an erection which looks too insignificant for such solemn use. Don't expect any ghastly details. A longish building of "wattle and dab," much like the northern farmhouses, a high roof, and chimneys resembling those of the "oast houses" in Kent, combine with the rural surroundings to suggest "farm buildings" rather than the "funeral pyre," and all that is horrible ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... then, you see, Patch, he was a fool. Well, after a while he began to feel very lonely. He'd no relations, and what friends he'd had in the old days had disappeared. So he got him a dog—this fool, a little white scrap of a dog with a black patch." The terrier recognized his name and made a dab at the firm chin. "Steady! Well, yes—you're right. It was a great move. For the little white dog was really a fairy prince in disguise—such a pretty disguise—and straightway led the fool into Paradise. Indeed, they were so happy together, the fool ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth—so! Till at last there was only one small fish ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... about that; first principles bring us to the skin; fortify that, and the matter's done. How would it do to bile a big kittle full of tar, tallow, beeswax and injen rubber, with considerable wool, and dab the whole family once a week? The young'uns might be soused in it every Saturday night, and the nigger might fix the elderly folks with a whitewash brush. Then there wouldn't be no bother a washing your clothes or yourself, which last is an invention of the doctor ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... joke is a joke, if it tante carried too far, but this critter win be strangled, as sure as a gun, if he lays here splutterin' this way much longer.' So I jist gives the hoss a dab in the mouth, and made him git up; and then sais I, 'Prince,' sais I, for I know'd him by his beard, he had one exactly like one of the old saint's heads in an Eyetalian pictur, all dressed to a pint, so sais I, 'Prince,' and a plaguy handsum man he is too, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... Guatemalan money, and the approach of a Marquis makes him palpitate with emotion. But he is a profoundly miserable man. Of that I am assured. It amuses me when I meet him in pompous society to address him lightly as "DAB," and remind him of the dear old Balham days, and the huge amount of bird's-eye we used to smoke together. For his motto now is, "Delenda est Balhamia"—I speak of course figuratively—and half-crown havannahs ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various

... her party? There was no more satire in it, so far as he is concerned, than in painting lilies white. A full-length portrait of the fair Lady Beatrix, too, must needs show a gay and vivid figure, superbly glittering across the vista of those stately days. Then, should Dab and Tab, the eminent critics, step up and demand that her eyes be a pale blue, and her stomacher higher around the neck? Do Dab and Tab expect to gather pears from peach-trees? Or, because their theory of dendrology convinces them that an ideal fruit-tree would supply any fruit ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... must remember that the beggars were Ghazees; they're hard to stop. Then, our men were worn out and had been sniped every night for the last week or two. However, the bugler's the key to my explanation; I'll put this dab of cigar ash here to represent him. This bishop's Bertram, and you can judge by the distance whether the fellow could have heard the order to blow, 'Cease fire,' through the row that was ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... requested, but for the hurry of this new business. I have heard of her and her compositions in this country; and I am happy to add, always to the honour of her character. The fact is, I know not well how to write to her: I should sit down to a sheet of paper that I knew not how to stain. I am no dab at fine-drawn letter-writing; and, except when prompted by friendship or gratitude, or, which happens extremely rarely, inspired by the muse (I know not her name) that presides over epistolary writing, I sit down, when necessitated to write, as I would ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... ready substitute for the purpose, and they used them for constructing the partitions and outer-walls of the early houses, by forming a "wattling" and daubing it with plaster or clay. (See Wattle-and-dab.) The trees thus received the name of Wattle-trees, quickly contracted to Wattle. Owing to its beautiful, golden, sweet-scented clusters of flowers, the Wattle is the favourite tree of the Australian poets and painters. The bark is very rich in tannin. (See Wattle-bark.) The tree was ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... With a final dab at the sky, he held his picture off from him, to mark the effect. In love with the figure of a camel belonging to the camp, which was chewing the cud superbly in the foreground, he had at unawares so magnified ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... Tom sat down to breakfast the cat rubbed up against him more vigorously than usual; but Tom, being bewildered between his expected gain in corn and the positive loss of his child's toe, kept never minding her, until the cat, with a sort of caterwauling growl, gave Tom a dab of her claws, that went clean through his leathers, and a little further. 'Wow!' says Tom, with a jump, clapping his hand on the part, and rubbing it, 'by this and that, you drew the blood out o' me,' says Tom; 'you wicked divil—tish!—go along!' says he, making a kick at her. With ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... insignificance (unimportance) 643; mediocrity, moderation. small quantity, modicum, trace, hint, minimum; vanishing point; material point, atom, particle, molecule, corpuscle, point, speck, dot, mote, jot, iota, ace; minutiae, details; look, thought, idea, soupcon, dab, dight^, whit, tittle, shade, shadow; spark, scintilla, gleam; touch, cast; grain, scruple, granule, globule, minim, sup, sip, sop, spice, drop, droplet, sprinkling, dash, morceau^, screed, smack, tinge, tincture; inch, patch, scantling, tatter, cantlet^, flitter, gobbet^, mite, bit, morsel, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... when she got home, Roddy had come in out of the garden to meet her. He was in his shirt sleeves; glass beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, his face was white with excitement. He had just put the last dab of mortar to the ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... Daisy's illness—in especial, Mr. Dove was concerned, and expressed himself willing to do all in his power for the sweet, pretty little lady. He said he knew a doctor of the name of Jones, who was a dab hand with children, and if the young ladies liked he would run round to Dr. Jones's house, and fetch ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... gentlemen held at Miss Gilbert's stables, it has been observed that every week some horse more determined than the average has been too much for the wind, or the patience, of most of the subscribers. One only has never been beaten, the Marquess of S——, but then he was always in condition; a dab hand at every athletic sport, extremely active, and gifted with a "calmness," as well as a nerve, which few men ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... had gone Lemuel Doret found his wife in the kitchen. She wore a pale-blue wrapper with a soiled scrap of coarse lace at her full throat, her hair was gathered into a disorderly knot, and already there was a dab of paint on either cheek. She had been pretty when he married her, pretty and full of an engaging sparkle, a ready wit; but the charm had gone, the wit had hardened into a habit of sarcasm. They had ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... in places it was over six feet high. I ventured out and found that every exit but one from the Home was snowed up. We had therefore to dig ourselves out of the woodshed door and into the others from the outside. You make a dab with a shovel in the direction where you think you last saw the desired door before the storm, and trust the fates for results. Part of our roof has blown off and our chimney is in a ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... Havin' money in bank is one thing but locatin' an investment for it is another. I've kidded the old man a lot about the Maggie, but she's worth two thousand dollars if somebody'd spend a thousand on her inner works an' give her a dab o' paint an' some new fire hose an' one thing ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... a vanished social order. They carry mine to a stout red-faced lady with grey hair and a large apron, the latter convenience somehow suggesting, as she stood about with a resolute air, that she viewed her little pupils as so many small slices cut from the loaf of life and on which she was to dab the butter of arithmetic and spelling, accompanied by way of jam with a light application of the practice of prize-giving. I recall an occasion indeed, I must in justice mention, when the jam really was thick—my only memory of a schoolfeast, strange to say, throughout our young annals: ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... a silly vision of two distressed dumplings, like dilatory chorus girls, mad with the nightmare feeling of not being dressed in time, hearing their cue called in a heartless voice from the inexorable sky, desperately applying the last dab of flour to their imperfect complexions. But the witch found no fault with them when they came. She gave them her ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson

... if you say he is all right," answered the man, smiling as he put the least tiny dab more of varnish on the Donkey's back. "Shall I set him on the shelf to dry, so you may soon take him down to Earth for some lucky ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope

... A humming-bird did see (Upon a lower bough he sat) Of Puff-leg family. "Oh dear!" she cried, "I wish you'd give One of your puffs to me; I hear that they are always used In white society. And though I have no powder, yet A pleasure it would be To dab my face and arms with it, Like dames of high degree. And then I'm sure my darling pet Would greatly like it too; She is the loveliest of babes—" "That, ma'am, is very true," The humming-bird made haste to say; "She much resembles you. But that small gift you ask is not Like stocking nor like shoe: ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... thought Tom, "for she fears nothing!" and he sealed the letter with a dab of black wax flattened by the impression of the woman's ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... she had seen in the German's hand; emptied out the contents, dusted it and put in ground rice till it was two-thirds full. Then, with the lap-scissors, she trimmed a piece of paper to the right size, wrote "A" upon it, and stuck it to the side of the bottle with a dab of treacle—she had nothing else. She was hastily wiping off the surplus stickiness when the bell rang again. She finished what she was doing, and shrouded the bottle in a duster, so that there was another summons before she could set out. She took the Schiedam with her—of course it was ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... without bread to eat; I was to give place to Lord St Ives, and a certain Admiral Baldwin, the most deplorable-looking personage you can imagine; his face the colour of mahogany, rough and rugged to the last degree; all lines and wrinkles, nine grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at top. 'In the name of heaven, who is that old fellow?' said I to a friend of mine who was standing near, (Sir Basil Morley). 'Old fellow!' cried Sir Basil, 'it is Admiral Baldwin. What do you take his age to be?' 'Sixty,' ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... came finally, and from my window I watched the trees along the drive take shadowy form, gradually lose their ghostlike appearance, become gray and then green. The Greenwood Club showed itself a dab of white against the hill across the valley, and an early robin or two hopped around in the dew. Not until the milk-boy and the sun came, about the same time, did I dare to open the door into the hall and look around. Everything was as we had left it. Trunks were heaped ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... savage scowl, "I guess I'll change that order a little. Instead of that cold porridge I'll take—um, yes—a little hot partridge. And you might as well bring me an oyster or two on the half shell, and a mouthful of soup (mock-turtle, consomme, anything), and perhaps you might fetch along a dab of fish, and a little peck of Stilton, and a ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... cocoa-nut) in the "haeeiuol" (short grass). On moonlight nights when the tide was high they would fish from the reef—catching generally either "youis" (the Pacific haddock) or merely the common "choop" (or dab). Life was one long round of sport and play—until one day—to quote Hans Burdle in his world-famed book of Travel, "Set Sail ahoy" "the radiant Ah! Ah! awoke and found herself to be a woman—with a woman's joys, a ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... not a-goin' to fire into him, so I gave the frigate a dig wi' my heels—tho' I'd got no irons on 'em—an' tried to shove up alongside of a fat young cow as was skylarkin' on ahead. As we went past the bull he made a vicious dab wi' his horn, and caught the frigate on her flank—right abaft the mizzen chains, like. Whew! you should ha' seen what a sheer she made right away to starboard! If it hadn't bin that I was on the look-out, I'd ha' bin slap overboard that time, but I see'd the squall ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... and snugness of an eider-down pillow. But she has no great tenderness, even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later,—oftener soon than late,—is apt to fling off her nestlings, with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... in a week, while others may need several months. Look at the leaves every day, and when one seems to be ready slip a piece of cardboard under it and shake it about gently in fresh cold water. If any green stuff remains, dab it with a soft brush and then put it into another basin of clean water. A fine needle can be used to take away any small and obstinate pieces of green. It is now a skeleton and must be bleached according to the following directions:—Pour ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... my father, "just move your tusk a little nearer, please, and I'll show you how to begin." My father wet the brush in the pool, squeezed on a dab of tooth paste, and scrubbed very hard in one tiny spot. Then he told the rhinoceros to wash it off, and when the pool was calm again, he told the rhinoceros to look in the water and see how white the little spot was. It was hard to see in the dim ...
— My Father's Dragon • Ruth Stiles Gannett

... Pocket was a dab at brooding! That is the worst of your conscientious ass; he takes his decision like a man; he means to stick to it like a sportsman; but he cannot help wondering whether he has decided for the best, and what would have happened if ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... temperament. "If that child's own mother walked in this minute I couldn't tell 'em apart, they do favor one another so," old Margaret had told her mistress when she opened the door for the girl, and she was right. Pomford village was full of these hereditary likenesses. Mark Dab-ney, whom all the present trouble was about, was so like his father at his age that his Uncle Harry had picked Mark out on a crowded dock when the lad had visited him in Rio the year before, although ...
— The Little Gray Lady - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... washing, pulverizing and crushing, it is ready to be worked up into domestic and other utensils. Squatted upon the ground, the potter places in her lap a small basket, wood, or pottery base, upon which she places a "dab" of clay. This she thumbs and pats, until it forms the basis of the new vessel. Then another piece of clay is rapidly rolled between her hands, until it is in the form of along rope. This rope is then coiled around the edge of the base already ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... after dabbing his fat head for some time— and it smokes to such an extent that he seems to light his pocket- handkerchief at it, which smokes, too, after every dab—"to pursue the subject we are endeavouring with our lowly gifts to improve, let us in a spirit of love inquire what is that Terewth to which I have alluded. For, my young friends," suddenly addressing the 'prentices and Guster, to their consternation, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... quarters of the vegetable. Boil for eighteen minutes. Take out the lettuce, untie it, drain it, and serve at once. Kidneys are good when they are placed inside large Spanish onions and gently stewed, in which case a dab of ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various

... of metal. I pretended to pick it up accidentally but I did it as guiltily as a child touches something forbidden. She didn't say a word, just watched me mischievously while she arranged the tea cups on the other end of the table. Presently she lighted a tiny temple lamp, melted a dab of sealing wax in its wavering blue flames—rose-colored wax it was—and it splashed out on the gray blotter like ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... had on his head a thick cloth cap, with its crown cotton-padded. But for this, which served as a helmet, the beak of the bird would have been into his skull, for at the first dab it struck right ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... car, joyously raffish as a pair of gipsies. She wiped a dab of mud from her cheek, and remarked with an earnestness and a naturalness which that Jeff Saxton who knew her so well would ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... Peter! Think o' that—a little chap no taller 'n your elber! I seen 'im do it wi' my two eyes—a-sittin' on a box. Drored t' bull in wi' a bit o' chalk, first; then 'e outs wi' a couple o' brushes; dab 'e goes, an' dab, dab again, an'—by Goles! theer was a pair o' eyes a-rollin' theirselves at me—just a pair o' eyes, Peter. Ah! 'e were a wonder were that little old chap wi' gray whiskers! The way 'e went ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... off a small piece of clean washleather, which has an even, smooth surface. Let the color become nearly dry, then proceed to dab it all over with the washleather, held on the end of the finger, breathing on the slide when necessary, in order ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various

... and bubbles, Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another, From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil, Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown, A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at random, Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature, Just as much, whence we come, that blare of the cloud-trumpets,— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... it was the urgency of going back that confronted her. She had come down in the morning to find her breakfast laid in just the way she liked it—tea, a soft-boiled egg, buttered toast, and, as a special temptation to a capricious appetite, a dab of marmalade. She sat down to the table unwillingly, sipping at the tea and nibbling at the toast, but leaving the egg and the marmalade untouched. In her mother's bustling to and fro she felt the long-delayed protest in the atmosphere. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... wanted was to do like other girls do," said the swollen lips, as Violet began to cry again, and to dab her eyes with a soaked rag of a handkerchief. "I never meant nothing! 'N' Mamma says she KNOWS it wasn't all my fault!" she went on, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... pleasant! To be quite alone here (dab), surrounded by these magnificent works (dab, dab, dab), and everything so quiet too—nothing to disturb one." (Dab) after a pause. "I wonder what Jones and Robinson are doing (dab, splash)—lying at full length in a gondola, I dare say—smoking (dab), ...
— The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson • Richard Doyle

... astonishing spectacle he saw—the woman running away as best her bulk allowed, casting glances that were half frightened, half triumphant, behind her; while Mark was sitting up, rubbing a bump on his forehead ruefully, and Lil Artha had taken out a handkerchief to dab ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas

... withdrew the silk necktie, dripping, from the bottom of the jar. "That's sucked up the very last drop, sir. Hold still, sir, and let me lay this just on the top, and as soon as you begins to feel it too warm I will take it away and hang it up to dry. I won't dab the place with the handkerchy, because it will feel cooler if you let it dry ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... after years of devotion to Marian, John Gilman let Eileen make a perfect rag of him and tie him into any kind of knot she chose. Peter, when Marian left here she had lost everything on earth but a little dab of money. She had lost a father who was fine enough to be my father's best friend. She had lost a mother who was fine enough to rear Marian to what she is. She had lost them in a horrible way that left her room for a million fancies and regrets: 'if I had done this,' or 'if I had done that,' or ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... him about the calf, and so hungry to see him, that by the time the apple-float came on the table I thought it would have to be fed to me by old Eph. Mother made it worse by remarking, as she put a lovely dab of thick cream right on ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess

... take her leave, She had to puff up her monstrous sleeve. Then a little dab here and a wee pat there. And a touch or two to her hindmost hair, Then around the room with the utmost care She thoughtfully circulated. Then she seized her gloves and a chamoiskin, Some breath perfume and a long stickpin, A bonbon box and ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... head its full measure of rotundity—your eyes will wander aimlessly from cheek to chiffon, from glinting satin to the pattern on the floor, forgetful of the purpose of the portrait, and only arrested by some dab of pink or mauve, which will remind you that the artist is developing a somewhat irrelevant ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various

... goose! do go on! What have you stolen? A pin from Elise's pin cushion,—or some powder from her puff-box? Another dab on your nose would greatly improve your appearance,—if you ask me! It's as red ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... England; and on a nearer approach the daisy, the thistle, and the sweet briar pleasantly affected my European eyes. The villages are no longer moveable: the Kraal and wigwam are replaced by the Gambisa or bell- shaped hut of Middle Africa [9], circular cottages of holcus wattle, Covered with coarse dab and surmounted by a stiff, conical, thatch roof, above which appears the central supporting post, crowned with a gourd or ostrich egg. [10] Strong abbatis of thorns protects these settlements, which stud the hills in all ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... man raved in three languages, but Emma Campbell flatly refused either to be in "slaveryment" or in the "nekked rind." Visions of herself being caught and painted bare-legged, with a trifling little dab of an apron tied around her waist even as one ties a bit of ribbon around the cat's neck, and of this scandal being ferreted out by the deacons, sisters, and brethren, of the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Riverton, South Carolina, haunted her and made her projeck darkly. When she ventured ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... of the river. And if Mr. Abbott had not risen in gentle alarm and begun to teeter around, Kenny in an interval of frantic excitement would not have been forced to fish him out of the stream by his coattails. He considered always that he saved the old man's life. Nor had he meant to dab at him with the oar, thereby encouraging the unfortunate old chap to duck and misinterpret his ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... whispered Helen, suddenly, and Ruth made a last dab at her eyes and put away her handkerchief ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson

... says. 'Look at 'em, smoking cigarettes. I could do that sort of work. There's nothing in it. It don't take 'eathen foreigners to dab a bit ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... for the law, A dunce at syntax, but a dab at law, One happy christmas laid upon the shelf His cap and gown, and stores of learned pelf. With all the deathless bards of Greece and Rome, To spend a fortnight at his uncle's home. Arriv'd, and pass'd the usual how d'ye ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... breeches-maker and restorer, have so dealt with the Last Judgment that it is almost impossible to do it justice now. What Michelangelo intended by his scheme of colour is entirely lost. Not only did Daniele da Volterra, an execrable colourist, dab vividly tinted patches upon the modulated harmonies of flesh-tones painted by the master; but the whole surface has sunk into a bluish fog, deepening to something like lamp-black around the altar. Nevertheless, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... retained the bare form of the name, there were other writings in which the name was extended by a Latin termination. There was no like extension to tempt him to say anything but 'C[a]desh', '[E]dom', 'J[a]don', 'N[a]dab'. I must admit my inability to explain 'Th[)o]mas', but doubtless there is a reason. The abbreviated form was of course first 'Th[)o]m' and then 'T[)o]m'. Possibly the pet name has claimed dominion over the classical form. As in the herba impia of the early botanists, these young ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt

... looking pinker and creamier than ever. Lil knew when camisoles were edged with filet, and when with Irish. Instinctively she sensed when taffeta was to be superseded by foulard. The contents of her scented bureau drawers needed only a dab of whipped cream on top to look as if they might have ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... just you tell us right out what it is without any more fooling," and Rex made a playful dab at his friend ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... is as nutritious and unattractive and indigestible as Science," remarked Chaffery, cutting and passing wedges. "But crush it—so—under your fork, add a little of this good Dorset butter, a dab of mustard, pepper—the pepper is very necessary—and some malt vinegar, and crush together. You get a compound called Crab and by no means disagreeable. So the wise deal with the facts of life, neither bolting ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... the man, looking into his hat, throwing his handkerchief in at one dab, and putting it on again. 'That's ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... the house, Miss Fontover, was an elderly lady in spectacles, dressed almost like an abbess; a dab at Ritual, as become one of her business, and a worshipper at the ceremonial church of St. Silas, in the suburb of Beersheba before-mentioned, which Jude also had begun to attend. She was the daughter ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... the bailie, because, poor man, he had outlived the times for which he was qualified; and, instead of the merriment and jocularity that his wily by- hand ways used to cause among his neighbours, the rising generation began to pick and dab at him, in such a manner, that, had he been much longer spared, it is to be feared he would not have been allowed to enjoy his earnings both with ease and honour. However, he got out of the world with some respect, and the matters ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... cried out Mal, 'I'll nothing do wi' 'ee, Go to Fanny Trembaa, she do knaw how I'm shy; Tom, this here t'other daa, down the hill thee didst stap, And dab'd a great doat fig {48} in Fan ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... colour or taste; three new spuds, of which the largest is about the size of an ordinary hen's egg, the smallest that of a bantam's, and the middle one in between, and which eat soggy and have no taste to speak of, save that they are a trifle bitter; a dab of unhealthy-looking green something, which might be either cabbage leaves or turnip-tops, and a glass of water. The whole mess is lukewarm, including the water—it would all be better cold. Tea: A thin slice of the aforesaid alleged ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... not to grow industriously, after the way Dab and I have sprained our old backs spading and feeding them according to spiritual direction that stood over us with a rake," answered father, with proud if profane enthusiasm. There was a faint pink glow in his haggard, thin cheeks, and he took from his ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... the houses were mere huts—roofs on stilts; others, "wattle and dab;" a few, brown-stone. To the most imposing of these we were conducted by our escort. Above the doorway, on either side of which stood a sentry, was an inscription: "Headquarters: ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... take a measuring rule and find out the exact distance from "tip to tip." Another waggish picture is made by the snub-nosed girl with her hair arranged a la Madonna. These long hirsute lamberquins on either side of her face make the poor little nose appear even smaller, like unto a wee dab of putty or a ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... Polly goes into the kitchen to cook, She never looks at a cookery-book, Nor a sign of a recipe; It's a dot of this and a dab of that, And a twirl of the wrist and a pinch and a pat— "I cook by hand," ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various

... the shops, dropping a word to a workman here and there, the man addressed looked up cheerfully and made a furtive dab at the brown paper cap, and Richard returned the salute smilingly; but he was sad within. "The foolish fellows," he said to himself, "they are throwing away a full loaf and are likely to get none at all." Giles and two or three of the ancients ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... taking particular care to keep the toes well turned in when lunging ten times backwards. (Exercise 17.) Once, to his joy, the girl whom he had first met outside his country cottage came in and had her simple lunch of Smilopat (ninepence the dab) at his shop. That evening he lunged twelve times to ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... like winter hail, The whistle and they sigh, They shrill like cordage in a gale, Like mewing kittens cry; They hiss and spit, they purring come; Or, silent all a span, They rap, as on a slackened drum, The dab that kills a man. ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... you going to do, Nurse Jane?" asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, as he saw the muskrat lady housekeeper going out in the kitchen one morning, with an apron on, and a dab of white flour on the ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis

... prismatic moisture and looking more ethereal than ever, sat in the bows timorously inhaling the breath of freedom, when all on a sudden voices invisible in the mist, came round a corner. It was one of Ar-hap's war-canoes toiling up-stream. Heru and I ducked down into the haze like dab-chicks and held ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... for her to go white and begin bitin' her upper lip, like they usually does; but she ain't that kind—not on your nameplate! She just peels off the sleeve protectors, sets her side combs in firm, gives her face a dab or so with the rabbit's foot, and starts along after me, with that new antelope walk of hers, as easy and pleased as if she'd been asked to come to the front ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... alive, man! When you were talking about my pictures, I then began to understand myself for the first time, I believe; and because you do not imitate my style,—do not, like a good many others, take a tube of black paint in your hand, or dab on a few glaring colours, or even make two or three crippled figures with repulsive faces look up from the midst of filth and dirt, and then say, 'There's a Salvator for you!'—just for these very reasons I think a good deal of you. I tell you, my lad, you'll not find a more ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... its shame. The singers were all colour-washed, deliberately colour-washed to a bright orange tint. The men had oblong dabs of black wool under their lower lip; the beard of the mighty Pharaohs. This oblong dab shook and wagged ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... mile shining to the eye. I've seen pictures in my time, but never one that made a dab of paint look a mile deep. Besides, why draw a thing when you can lie on your back and look up ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... ingenuity soon furnished him with an idea. Drawing his knife, and sticking the point of it some half inch deep into the fleshy part of my thigh, he obtained the required "carmine"; and, after dipping his finger in the blood, and giving it a dab in the centre of the white circle, he stood for a short time contemplating his work. A grim smile announced that he was satisfied with it; and, uttering a final grunt, the swarthy Apelles leaped down from the platform, and disappeared from my sight. A horrid suspicion had already taken possession ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... through her handkerchief, which she was using to dab her eyes; of Longstreet she never for an instant lost sight. She saw the eagerness in his eyes and knew that it was an eagerness to believe in her. She saw Helen's anger and contempt; she saw Carr's black looks; she saw, too, how Howard kept his ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... blackbird hopped down upon the grass and took a tentative dab or two at the first slug he came across; but it was really too early for breakfast for a good hour yet, so he flew up again into a bush and preened his feathers, which had been discomposed by the limited accommodation of the night. Now he ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... hours; an' when Spanish Bill discovers me I'm mighty near froze. Taos nights in November has a heap of things in common with them Artic regions we hears of, where them fur-lined sports goes in pursoot of that North Pole. Bein' froze, an' mebby from an over-dab of nose-paint, I never saveys about this yere Spanish Bill meetin' up with me that a-way ontil later. But by what the barkeep says, he drug me into the Tub of Blood an' allows he's ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... reddy to cry. I could feel tears startin' in my hart, and my throte all hot and lumpy, thinkin' of ma and Danny an' all of them, and I noticed the teakettle just in time—it neaded skourin'. You bet I put a shine on it, and, of course, I couldn't dab tears on it and muss it up, so I had to wait. Mrs. M. duzn't talk to me. She has a morgage or a cancer I think botherin' her. Ma knowed a woman once, and everybuddy thot she was terrible cross cos she wouldn't talk at all hardly and when she died, they found she'd a tumult in her insides, and ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... Bombay? Been bullying all that softy crowd—cheeked the old man—we had to go fooling all over a half-drowned ship to save him. Dam' nigh a mutiny all for him—and now the mate abused me like a pickpocket for forgetting to dab a lump of grease on them planks. So I did, but you ought to have known better, too, than to leave ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... Dab to watch while the new carpets were put down, one after another, and then to see how much at home and comfortable the furniture looked as it was moved ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various

... of the species was in every way up to grade and sample. A happy combination of open air, open pores and open casegoods gave to his face the exact color of a slice of rare roast beef; it also had the expression of one. With a dab of English mustard in the lobe of one ear and a savory bit of watercress stuck in his hair for a garnish, he could have passed anywhere for a slice of ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... fare. Of course there was soon a deficiency of the better articles in the Department, the Army Commissary at Hilton Head declaring that we used up more candles and sugar than any regiment; so we have got to draw soldier's rations again, a few candles, a little dab of sugar, a big hunk of salt food, and hard biscuit. They can be swapped for duck and chickens, but what a ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... down the stairs Miss Carter dropped behind the others. So did Bob Strahan. As he waited for her he saw her dab her eyes with her handkerchief and he put out his ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett

... 'shame' too," continued Sarah, "for she gave them a dab with her paw on their ears, and said in ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... the time. What I am afraid of is a war. I had a little dab of it in the Black Hawk trouble. But a war between these states would shake the earth. I have two boys, you know. Sarah worries about it. Everybody's beginning to live in a kind ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... carried her handkerchief, now reduced to a wet dab, to her eyes, and went out with ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... have been duly honoured, there begins a scene of boisterous fun. The women make pads of the boiled sticky new rice, and cover it with soot from their cooking vessels. With these they approach the men and dab the pads upon their faces and bodies, leaving sooty marks that are not easily removed. The men thus challenged give chase, and attempt to get possession of the rice pads and to return the polite attention. For a short space of time a certain license prevails among the young people; and irregularities, ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... surgeon, just as I was a materialist. When I was young, I was caught by the lure of so-called science, and became a surgeon, because it was precise, definite,—and I am something of a dab at it now—ask the boys here! ... But surgery is artisan work. Younger hands will always beat you. Pallegrew in there is as good as I am now. There is nothing creative in surgery; it is on the order of mending shoes. One needs to get beyond that.... And here is where we get beyond ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... an old chap as lives close by us,' said Chippy. 'He's a reg'lar dab 'and at fishin', an' I've been with him many a time to carry his basket an' things. He rigged me up wi' these when I told 'im about our trip, an' I know wot to do becos I've seen him at it often enough. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... thinking of? Besides, at this present moment my unfortunate friend is engaged in lamentations, and is composing melancholy verses upon the departure of Mademoiselle Mimi, who, I hear, has thrown him over. Well, for my part, I too, regret the loss of that young woman. She was a dab hand at making coffee, which is the beverage of serious minds. But I trust that Rodolphe will console himself, and soon get ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... text or motto of some kind?" suggested Dol, glancing over his shoulder. "Twould make it more like the things one sees in cemeteries. You're such a dab ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... Lady Katherine, I can see, when the two eldest, who come in while we are at breakfast each day, take the jam-spoon, or something equally horrid, and dab it all over the cloth. Yesterday they put their hands in the honey-dish which Mr. Montgomerie was helping himself to, and then after smearing him (the "burrrs" were awful), they went round the table to escape being caught, and fingered the backs of every one's chair and the door-handle, ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn

... all stopped was very primitive, and he had the same table with the judge. The most attractive offer for breakfast by the landlady was buckwheat-cakes. She appeared with a jug of molasses and said to the judge: "Will you have a trickle or a dab?" The judge answered: "A dab." She then ran her fingers around the jug and slapped a huge amount of molasses on the judge's cakes. Storrs said: "I think I prefer a trickle." Whereupon she dipped her fingers again in the jug and let the drops fall from them on Storrs's cakes. The landlady ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... scrutiny, as though he were trying to remember something buried in ancient neglect; and his eyes would thereafter, perhaps at the mere sense of helplessness, fill slowly with tears, until Emmy, smothering her own rough sympathy, would dab Pa's eyes with a harsh handkerchief and would rebuke him for his decay. Those were hard moments in the Blanchard home, for the two girls had grown almost manlike in abhorrence of tears, and with this masculine distaste had arisen a ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton

... to where the log had been, Gilbert saw something else. It was a little dab of yellow. It grew smaller; disappeared. There was nothing to be seen now but a little spot of gray; probably ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... what you wanted to know, I presume," said Captain Chester, signing his name with a vicious dab of the pen and bringing his fist down with a thump on the blotting-pad, while he wheeled around in his chair and looked squarely up into the perturbed ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... moods (for Germaine is a pretty collection of moods) gleam with the impulsive devilry of a gamine; Germaine, who teases an old vagabond painter like myself, by daubing a purple moon in the middle of my morning sketch, adds a dab on my nose when I protest, and the next instant embraces me, and ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... arms. Mickey submitted to a hug and a little cold dab on his forehead, counted his money, locked the door and ran. On the car he sat in deep thought, then suddenly sniggered aloud. He had achieved the next installment of the doggerel to which every ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... her typewriter, where with heaving shoulders she strove to mute her mirth with a ridiculous dab of ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... Another time in a newly whitewashed room, a toy or some small article of furniture would be hung on the wall and the children would have to fetch it without touching the wall. When the child who fetches it comes back, if he has failed ever so little to fulfil the conditions, a dab of white on the brim of his cap, the tip of his shoe, the flap of his coat or his sleeve, will ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... a dab of clay placed at right angles to the axis of the cylinder, at a distance from the bottom determined by the ordinary length of a cell. This wad is not a complete round; it is more crescent-shaped, leaving a circular space between it and one side of the tube. Fresh layers are ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... old drawing-master!—a German—half blind, though he would never confess it—who dabbled in oil-painting, and let the boy watch his methods. How he would twirl his dirty brush round and dab down a lump of Prussian blue, imagining it to be sepia, hastily correcting it a moment afterwards with a lump of lake, and then say chuckling to himself: 'By Gode, dat is fine!—dat is very nearly a good purple. Fenwick, my boy, ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... to the splendors of the enlarged bank room, Amzi had not abandoned his old straw hat and seersucker coat, albeit the hat had been decorated with a dab of paint by some impious workman, and the coat would not have been seriously injured by a ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... I to my own son! but ye've gone up so, Stephen. We've killed the pig this morning for ye, thinking ye'd be hungry, and glad of a morsel of fresh mate. And 'a won't be cut up till to-night. However, we can make ye a good supper of fry, which will chaw up well wi' a dab o' mustard and a few nice new taters, and a drop of shilling ale to wash it down. Your mother have scrubbed the house through because ye were coming, and dusted all the chimmer furniture, and bought a new basin and jug of a travelling crockery-woman that came ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... me at it! Why, my brother set up a place once for mending bicycles; and I used to stand about at the door, as if I had just returned from a ride; and when fellows came in, with a nut loose or something, I'd begin talking with them while Bertie tightened it. Then, when THEY weren't looking, I'd dab the business end of a darning-needle, so, just plump into their tires; and of course, as soon as they went off, they were back again in a minute to get a puncture mended! I ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... was owing to this process, or to the action of nature, or to the combined efforts of nature and his friends, that Bumpus owed his recovery, we cannot pretend to say; but certain it is, that, on Corrie's making a severer dab than usual into the pit of the seaman's stomach, he gave a gasp and a sneeze, the latter of which almost overturned Poopy, who chanced to be gazing wildly into his countenance at the moment. At the same time he involuntarily threw up his right arm, and fetched Corrie such ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... paste, you should take the greatest care to previously work it well on the paste-board or slab, to get out all the water and buttermilk, which very often remains in; when you have worked it well with a clean knife, dab it over with a soft cloth, and it is then ready to lay on your paste; do not make your paste over stiff before you put ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... will tell as well as I can—That in my early youth there was a manufactory; that I often went and saw Mr. Allen dab a piece of white clay on a wheel, and, with his foot turning the wheel, with his right hand he formed a handsome basin or cup in a minute or two. The china basins, cups, saucers, pots, jugs—everything was made here, painted here, by poor sickly ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... tin plates would be handed in, one after the other ... two meals a day. For breakfast a corn pone of coarse, white corn meal, and a bit of fried sow-belly. For dinner, all the water we could drink. For supper, breakfast all over again, with the addition of a dab of greens. On rare occasions the sheriff's son or the jailer went hunting ... and then we'd have rabbit. The sheriff had the contract, at so much per head, for ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... forgive it to the great Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, who professes he studied it. I dare swear you will sincerely believe him when you read his celebrated works. I have got them for you, and intend to bring them. Oime! l'huomo. propone, Dio dispone. I hope you won't think this dab of Italian, that slid involuntarily from my pen, an affectation like his Gallicisms, or a rebellion against Providence, in imitation of his lordship, who I never saw but once in my life: he then appeared in a corner of the drawing-room, in the exact similitude of Satan when he was ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... Girl was slipping matronly looking rings on her fingers and adding an extra dab of powder. She took another chocolate, hugged Monster, gave orders about sending back the lingerie, remarked that she must send her photograph to the society editor for the next day's edition, and she ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... latter part of this scene; and when the curtain fell, people were so busy wiping their eyes that for a moment they forgot to applaud. That silent moment was more flattering than noise; and as Mrs Jo wiped the real tears off her sister's face, she said as solemnly as an unconscious dab of rouge on her ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... badly. In his best days, as he records in one of his letters, it was said of him that he "tripped like a pewit." "If I do not flatter myself," he wrote when he was just under sixty, "my march at present is more like a dab-chick's." A lady has left a description of him entering a room, "knees bent, and feet on tiptoe as if afraid of a wet floor." When his feet were not swollen with the gout, they were so slender, he said, that he "could dance a minuet on a silver penny." ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... rowed back again, Giles described the habits of the birds which frequented this reedy spot. Jamie listened open-eyed to his accounts of the moor-hen, flapper, coot, water-rail, dab-chick, and sand-piper, to say nothing of rats in abundance, and an otter now and then. If you crept upon the islet very quietly, you could hear the rats before you saw them. Carefully listening to ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney

... treat than usual for the others; but it was incredible that no one would come after all, and that Darling would never see the palace on the beach, and the state-rooms, and the limpets, and the seaweed, and the salt-water soup, and the real fish (a small dab discarded from a herring-net) which Madam ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... this dab upon the wagon," Johnson said, referring to the bed, and it was carried down by the brothers, and the dead man's portmanteau thrown ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... goes on a-moving that left of his like it's all right. But it ain't. It's hurtin' him like a knife dug into him. He don't dast strike a real blow with that left of his. But it hurts, anyway. Just to move it or not move it hurts, an' every little dab-feint that I'm too wise to guard, knowin' there's no weight behind, why them little dab-touches on that poor thumb goes right to the heart of him, an' hurts worse than a thousand boils or a thousand knockouts—just hurts all over again, an' worse, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... have to wait long. Not far to the north in the hard blue sky suddenly appeared a little dab of woolly white. Another showed in the east. They showed all about, and grew and grew in size until they became great, over-toppling, blending mountains, a new and mysterious world against the sky. Then came a darkening of the mass. The ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... said old O'Beirne, "and he that took up wid larnin' and litherature he couldn't ha' tould you the price of a pinny loaf. Faix, man, if I was Maggie I'd just put a good dab of strong glue in your place behind the counter down-below, and stick you standing steady in it, for buyin' and sellin's all the notion you have in your head here ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... out wid my teeth as fast as I cud, the room bein' empty. Then I tuk my boot an' the clanin'-rod and knocked out the pin av the fallin'-block. Oh, 'twas music when that pin rowled on the flure! I put ut into my pouch an' stuck a dab av dirt on the holes in the plate, puttin' the fallin'-block back. "That'll do your business, Vulmea," sez I, lyin' easy on the cot. "Come an' sit on my chest the whole room av you, an' I will take you to my bosom for the biggest ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... of sweet almonds, one ounce; fluid potash, one drachm. Shake well together, and then add rose water, one ounce; pure water, six ounces. Mix. Rub the pimples or blotches for some minutes with a rough towel, and then dab them with ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... to get dusk by that time and there were kind of like little dabs of dark red on the top of the ridge. Away up on the peak of the big poplar tree was a dab of red and all the rest of it was dark. It seemed awful clear against the sky, that tree. I kind of thought how all day long the sun had been on a bee-line hike too, going straight west. "If the sun can do it, we can do it," that's what I said. It would be nice up ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... [dab] Pedazo pequeo de alguna cosa; salpicadura; golpe blando. Munting putol; pilansik; ...
— Dictionary English-Spanish-Tagalog • Sofronio G. Calderon

... laugh or knew of his speaking unless spoken to. He could light a fire in a minute under the most unfavorable conditions and with the most unpromising material, made the best coffee to be tasted outside of a creole kitchen, was a "dab" at camp stews and roasts, groomed my horses (one of which he rode near me), washed my linen, and was never behind time. Occasionally, when camped near a house, he would obtain starch and flat-irons, and get up my extra shirt in a way to excite the envy of a professional ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... here, Judy," she complained as that indefatigable artist sat on the beach with her easel before her, in a blue work-apron, and with a dab of charcoal ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey

... dress. She got the desired effect with the least possible effort, as was evinced now by the way she was whirling two coils of chestnut hair, from which the tangles had not been removed, into round puffs over each ear. A dab of rouge on each cheek, a touch of red on the lips, a dash of powder over the whole, sleeves turned back, neck turned in, resulted in a poster effect that was ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... snow-apples with their contrast of deep crimson outside and white flesh within. The windfalls covered the ground ready to the hand; and the branches bent under their burden. It was the season of apple-sauce with cinnamon, and baked apples with a dab of jelly where the core ought to be, and apple-tapioca and Brown Betty. And these tasted wondrous good, even to youngsters already gorged with ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White



Words linked to "Dab" :   apply, small indefinite amount, splash, tap, swob, splatter, corn dab, touch, put on, strike, sand dab



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