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Mop   Listen
noun
Mop  n.  
1.
An implement for washing floors, or the like, made of a piece of cloth, or a collection of thrums, or coarse yarn, fastened to a handle.
2.
A fair where servants are hired. (Prov. Eng.)
3.
The young of any animal; also, a young girl; a moppet. (Prov. Eng.)
Mop head.
(a)
The end of a mop, to which the thrums or rags are fastened.
(b)
A clamp for holding the thrums or rags of a mop. (U.S.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mop" Quotes from Famous Books



... MOP.—Philip Cook, Jr., Sioux City, Iowa.—This invention relates to a new and useful improvement in mops, whereby they are so arranged that they may be wrung or freed from water when in use by moving the slides connected with the handle ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... sunrise that does not find you in the forefront of all the lighted world; never a flower have I seen that does not seem sweeter—it brings thoughts of you; never a crime that does not deepen its shame because you are in the world. In prison, when I used to mop my floor and clean down the walls; when I swept the dust from the corners; when I folded up my convict clothes; when I ate the prison food and sang the prison hymns; when I placed myself beside the bench in the workshop to make things that would bring cash ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... from the creek and filled the tea-kettle, the big iron pot, and both pails. Then, when Billy Louise had turned her back upon him, while she looked in a dark corner for the mop, he suddenly seized her under the arms and lifted her upon the table; and before she had finished her astonished gaspings, he caught up a pail of water and sloshed it upon the floor under her. Then ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... no malice, but a dreadful jeopardy of bruises and broken ribs. Their play is truly called horse-play; it is all slaps and bangs, tripping-up, tumbles, and laughter. But to see the young peasant in his glory, you should see him hastening to the Michaelmas-fair, statute, bull-roasting, or mop. He has served his year; he has money in his pocket, his sweetheart on his arm, or he is sure to meet her at the fair. Whether he goes again to his old place or a new one, he will have a week's holiday. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... part fine, lithe, active-looking men, of a deep, rich, bronze colour. Most of them were almost naked, and adorned with necklaces of shells or sharks' teeth, their hair so arranged that it stuck out all round their heads like the thrums of a twirled mop. A few of them wore necklaces or armlets of vari-coloured beads, of which they appeared to be inordinately proud, and these adornments furnished many of our people with a hint as to the kind of article most desired in exchange, a whole basket of assorted fruit, as heavy as one man could conveniently ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... of work-basket bull-dog, diminutive in size, dyspeptic in temper, disagreeable to contemplate, and distressing to be obliged to admire. One of the missions in society of Skye Terrier—who, when going before a high wind, bears no unapt resemblance to a mop or a wisp of tow—was to mop up Pug, and polish him off the hearth-rug of Fashion; a mission which he appears to have at least partially accomplished. For now the black muzzle of Pug is but seldom to be seen protruded from carriage-window, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... through the air holes or other openings after your men have got into the house. Only after these have exploded should the cellar doors be forced. Then, when ascending the stairs, keep close to the walls while one of your men keeps firing straight up the shaft. Mop up as you go down floor by floor. If necessary, pierce holes in the ceilings and mop up by ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak

... faint reek of perfume and spirits and stale cigarette smoke in the room; and in two narrow tumbled beds were two women, one whose head was still drowsy on her pillow, and Roselle, who sat up in a pale blue nightgown with a black ribbon girdled high about the waist, and her raven hair in a mop ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton

... his curly mop warmly. "It is not you. See!" He turned to a Peterborough, for which McPherson had just mulcted him of thrice its value. "The canoe! Is it not—not—what you ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... jury, Brown interposed, and begged that Mr. Ryland should call Mrs. Brown as the last witness, instead of first, which was the proper course. "Because," said he, "if anything goes wrong during the trial or anything is wanting, Mrs. Brown will be quite ready to mop it all up." ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... dairy work were hurried through, and then came the dressing, as the dance began at seven. Betty, knowing herself to be a beauty, except for her teeth, had soon finished. A white blouse, a blue cotton skirt, a blue ribbon in her mop of brown hair—and she looked at herself exultantly in Miss Henderson's glass. Jenny was much more difficult to please. She was crimson with excitement, and the tip of her little red tongue kept slipping in and out. But Rachel patted and pinned—in ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... length until it resembles an attenuated German sausage, black in colour. Its "face" may be obtruded and withdrawn at pleasure, or rather will, for what creature could have pleasure in a face like a ravelled mop. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... two feet long and not more than three inches broad, with a sort of shoulder for the foot. The handles are about six feet long and end like a mop-stick, without any crossbar. A slight alteration would turn these tools into pikes, a much more likely operation than the beating of swords into plough-shares and spears into pruning-hooks. Meanwhile the length of the handle keeps the worker from too dangerous ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... which develops a few suburban shoppers scattered over the settees, with their bags and packages, and two or three old ladies in the rocking-chairs. The Chorewoman is going about with a Saturday afternoon pail and mop, and profiting by the disoccupation of the place in the hour between the departures of two great expresses, to wipe up the floor. She passes near the door where Mrs. Roberts is standing, and Mrs. ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells

... moving his arms aimlessly. After a while they led him back to a bunk, gave him a medicine for sleep and left him snoring gently. Another hour passed as they pored over their notes, with Tiger stopping from time to time to mop perspiration from his forehead. All three were aware of the moving clock hands, marking off the minutes that the ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse

... even more than he hated the sore throat, and he protested with tears while she found the bottle in the bathroom and swathed the end of the wire mop in cotton. When she brought it to his bedside, he fought so strenuously that she was obliged at last to give up. His fever had excited him, and he sobbed violently while she applied the bandages to his ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... before, tied it round her slender waist, and then, with an entirely satisfied little nod at the mirror, she tripped lightly downstairs and into the kitchen. Dame Hartley was washing dishes at the farther end of the room, in her neat little cedar dish-tub, with her neat little mop; and she nearly dropped the blue and white platter from her hands when she heard Hilda's cheerful "Good morning, Nurse Lucy!" and, turning, saw the girl smiling ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... road toward the ranch buildings plodded two dusty pedestrians, one a blond youth bundled thickly in sweaters, the other a fat man who rolled heavily, and paused now and then to mop his purple face. Both were dripping as if from an immersion, while the air about the latter vibrated with heat waves. They both stumbled as they walked, and it was only by the strongest effort of will that they propelled themselves. As they neared the corner of the big, low-lying ranch-house, ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... yet, once or twice, I had found her eyes fixed on me with a cool, half-amused expression, as if she found something in my struggles to carry trays as if I had been accustomed to them, or to handle a mop as a mop should be handled and not like a hockey stick—something infinitely entertaining and not ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... in the door and bent an approving gaze on the big pinto as he swung out across the pasture lot. The boy's face was small and quizzical, a shaggy mop of tawny hair hanging so low upon his forehead that his mild blue eyes peered forth from under the fringe of it and gave him the air of a surprised terrier, which effect had gained ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... delicately pretty as ever, with the same mop of goldy-brown curls, done up in a knot now and making her look quaintly like the little five-year-old on a hot day with her curls twisted on the top of her head for comfort. She wore a simple little straight frock of ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... racket brought the cook and all the other deck hands who heard it. The cook still carried the frying pan in his hand, being too much surprised to set it down when he heard the noise. The man with mop and pail who had been scrubbing the deck came and also two or three other deck hands. There they all stood, staring with open mouths and bulging eyes at Billy, who had risen to his forefeet and stood surveying the wreck he had made. He ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery

... the Brownie shews his honest face. Hail, from thy wanderings long, my much lov'd sprite! Thou friend, thou lover of the lowly, hail! Tell, in what realms thou sport'st thy merry night, Trail'st the long mop, or whirl'st the mimic flail. Where dost thou deck the much-disordered hall, While the tired damsel in Elysium sleeps, With early voice to drowsy workman call, Or lull the dame, while mirth his vigils keeps? 'Twas thus in Caledonia's domes, 'tis said, Thou ply'dst ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... their childish share of the world's excitements, gazed with a sort of awful relish. Only Johnnie, speeding down the room away from it all, was doing anything rational to avert the catastrophe. The child hung on the slowly moving belt, inert, a tiny rag of life, with her mop of tangled yellow curls, her white, little face, its blue eyes closed. When she reached the top, where the pulley was close against the ceiling, her brains would be dashed out and the small body dragged to pieces ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... to the Captain, hurried forward to receive our distinguished guest, who climbed heavily on his Secretary's arm. Arriving thus at the sally-way, he nodded graciously in answer to the first lieutenant's salute, pulled out a handkerchief to mop his brow, and in the act of mopping it cast a glance across ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... machine, barking and growling. Still no kiddies appeared, but their father came out of a back door and drove the dogs back. He was low-browed, swart and silent, with a heavy black mustache and a mop of hair to match. Cliff left the car and walked away with him, speaking in an undertone what Johnny knew to be Spanish. The low-browed one interpolated an occasional "Si, si, senor!" ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... on the Common was most singularly armed and equipped for a fight. On his left arm, wrapped in a linen cloth, was a large cheese for a shield, while he carried, instead of a sword, a mop ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... who had come out of the cocoon and gone into the form of a mop, her head adorned ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May

... 'em down at the carriage house and give 'em five hundred lashes. He say they have salt and black pepper mixed up in er old bucket and put it all on flesh cut up with a rag tied on a stick (mop). Alex Rogers had a nigger to put it on the place they whooped. The Lord puts up wid such wrong doings and den he comes and rectifies it. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... ships' guns. The flags of various nations were hung over the quarter-deck in the form of an awning, and the officers wore frock-coats and swords. Most of the chiefs were destitute of clothing, the mop-like hair and foreheads of some of them being bound round with bands of small shells and the hair ornamented with tufts of feathers. Two or three wore old shirts, and one, Boe Vagi, the chief of the Port ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... would tell him of times when he was a wee boy, and would come in from play with a dirty face; how his mother would order him to wash, and how he would painstakingly mop off just enough of his features to leave a dark ring abaft his cheeks, and above his eyes, and below ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... about the girl. We pictured her perfectly before we saw her, as a little thing, with a mop of curled brown hair; an oval face, pearl-tinted; wide, blue eyes. He dwelt on all her small perfections—the brows that swept across her forehead in a thin black line, the transparency of her slender hands, the straight set of her head ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... the kitchen, Nancy, hurrying with her belated work, jabbed her dish-mop into the ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter

... over to the bed and pulled the coverlet round Andrews with an awkward gesture. Looking up at her, he had a glimpse of the bulge of her breasts and her large teeth that glinted in the lamplight, and very vague in the shadow, a mop of ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... nearly closed and her face all drawn up on that side as if with a twinge of toothache, she stepped out on the verandah, sat down in a rocking-chair some distance away, and took up her knitting from a little table. Before she started at it she plunged one of the needles into the mop of her grey ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... distinguishable as he waved back acknowledgments of the cheers sent to him across the water. Half-a- dozen eager hands were waiting to help with the boat as she ran ashore, and there he stood, the water dripping from his clothes, his hair ruffled into a veritable mop of dark brown curls, his face ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... habitues were French and Italian, gentle, noisy people who did, in their way, slight damage to the fine arts. By nine-thirty, they were done eating and gone; almost all the lights were turned out and chairs were piled up on the tables, out of the way of the early morning mop. By ten Pigalle and his wife and several others, mostly sculptors, scene painters and musicians, were gathered beneath the light at the main table and had begun their nightly game of poker. From then on it was slim gambling and loud, staccato ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... above the cliffs. The air was warm, and he climbed in such hurry that the sweat soon began to drop from his forehead. By the time he reached the cliffs he was forced to pull a handkerchief out and mop himself; but without a pause, he took the turning westward towards Troy harbour, and tramped along sturdily. For his ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... deficiencies. Most men of twenty-two are endowed at any rate with some share of the comeliness of youth, but to me even this was denied. Short, thick-set, and deep-chested almost to deformity, with long sinewy arms, heavy features, deep-set grey eyes, a low brow half overgrown with a mop of thick black hair, like a deserted clearing on which the forest had once more begun to encroach; such was my appearance nearly a quarter of a century ago, and such, with some modification, it is to this day. Like Cain, I was branded—branded by Nature with the stamp of abnormal ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... dropped the buildings, the broken things, and shuffled into a run, toward them! Its face changed, the lips drew back from broken, stained teeth, the curling, cruel lips, and the rotting flesh of the face wrinkled into a grin of lust and hatred. The shaggy mop of its hair seemed to writhe and twist, the long, thin fingers grasped spasmodically as it neared. The torn, broken ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell

... Temperance, with her hand on her hip, and not offering to approach me, "your hair is as thick as a mop." ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... His graying hair was pulled here and there like a rag mop that's dried dirty—stiff. He had a freshly lit cigarette between his lips. He grinned nervously when he saw me, butted the cigarette, said in a thin voice, "This is it, Anders. Ship goes up in ...
— The Very Black • Dean Evans

... his fingers into his mop of a head, as was usual with him, when any difficulty confounded his philosophy, "I have swam like a fish in my day, and I can do it again, when there is need; nor do I much regard the weather; but I question if you get Nelly to sit a horse, with this water whirling like ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... made traps, traveling-bags and satchels, mop-holders, and various other small articles, and put up preserved fruits in glass and tin. They began at Wallingford, in 1851, making match-boxes, and the manufacture of traveling-bags was begun in Brooklyn, and later transferred to Oneida. Trap-making was begun at Oneida ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... and they looked around together at the dimly burning gas-lights, the creaking scenery being drawn back from the stage, the woman with a brush and mop sweeping, and at that dismal perspective of holland-shrouded auditorium beyond, ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... sweet self, dear lady guest, we find Juliet's dark face, Viola's gentle mien, The dignity of Scotland's martyr'd queen— The beauty and the wit of Rosalind. What wonder, then, that we who mop our eyes And sob and gush when ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... Rudolph's farm. He has got a nice vife, und a putiful leetle child. Putty soon Leah comes in, being shased, as ushual, by fellers mit shticks. She looks like she didn't ead someding for two monds. Rudolph's vife sends off dot mop, und Leah gits avay again. Den dat nice leedle child comes oud, und Leah comes back; und ven she sees dot child, don'd she feel orful aboud dot, und she says mit affectfulness, "Come here, leedle child, I voodn'd harm you;" und dot nice leedle child goes righd up, and Leah chumps ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... would," sighed Charlie; "thee ought to. O ho!" he added, a bright thought striking him; "you got a mop?" ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May

... help me roll these here barrels out on the porch, an' I 'll mop up the floor," said Mrs. Wiggs. "Miss Hazy, you look 'round in the kitchen, an' see if you can't find a taller candle. Seems like I put one in the sugar-bowl—that's it! Now, if you'll jes' cut it up right fine it'll be all ready to put on the floor ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan

... a peasant, and you'll turn up your toes a peasant. What's your merchant to me? What use would he be? Has he any ambition to rise in the world? What do I want of his mop? ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... defiance of an obvious decree of the Almighty. However, she had not ventured to speak until the young man, with a muttered ejaculation suspiciously like an imprecation, straightened his stocky figure and began to mop the sweat from his face, hands and ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... school, and would make no fugitive visit to Ansdore. Immediately her mind leapt to preparations—her sister was too big to sleep any more in the little bed at the foot of her own, she must have a new bed ... and suddenly Joanna thought of a new room, a project which would mop up all her overflowing ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... in black, she had contrived by an artful arrangement of lace and jewellery to give an air of lightness to her costume. She had a pretty little pale face, a minois chiffonne, with slightly turned-up nose, large laughing brown eyes, a dazzling set of teeth, and a tempestuously frizzled mop of powdered hair. When I managed to get a side-look at her quietly, without being giggled at or driven half mad by unintelligible incitements to a jocularity I could not feel, it struck me that, if we once found a common term of communication we should become good friends. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... motherly, comfortable as she might be, wasn't his affair; that child with the mop of black hair who combined so magically the charm of mouse and butterfly and flitting bird, who was daintier than a flower and softer than a peach, was no concern of his. Good heavens! what were ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... together, but above their voices the pure stream of music flowed with gracious oblivion. When Emily ceased, it was with an inward fervour of gratitude to the master and the instrument, To know that, was to have caught once more the point of view from which life had meaning. Now let them chatter and mop and mow; the echo of that music ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... she saw a man and a dog on the stony beach below, both with their backs to her and oblivious of her approach. Of the man, she had a glimpse only of a broad blue flannel back and a mop of black hair. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... was trundling light-heartedly eastward, his barrow emptied to the last peanut. Having reached Fifth Avenue, he paused to mop his perspiring brow when a long, low automobile, powerfully engined, that was creeping along behind, pulled up with a sudden jerk, and its driver, whose immense shoulders were clad in a very smart livery, pushed up the peak of his smart cap to run ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... edge of the African jungle arranges her hair in "mop" fashion because that headdress represents her ideal of beauty. Rings in the nose, wonderful decorations of ankles and toes, represent ideals of fashion and beauty. The girl in Japan, China or the Philippines thinks she has made herself beautiful when she has arrayed herself in accordance with ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery

... the newspapers that say: "Mrs. Henry Jones, of 5464 South Elm, said that 10:00A.M. she was shaking her dust mop out of the bedroom window when she saw a flying saucer"; or "Henry Armstrong was driving between Grundy Center and Rienbeck last night when he saw a light. Henry thinks it was a flying saucer." This is not a ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... and dug and dug. The man took off both his coats; the rabbit scraped with its four paws, using its tail as well—it had a nice long tail in those days; the mouse crept out of his pocket and made channels with its little pointed toes; and the squirrel brushed and swept the water in with its bushy, mop-like tail. The rising sea poured down the ever- deepening hole. They worked with a will together; there was no complaining, though the rabbit wore its tail down till it was nothing but a stump, and the mouse stood ankle-deep in water, and the ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... conclusion the major sat down to mop a brow that was perspiring freely. From Lady O'MOY in the background came faintly, the sound of a half-suppressed moan. Terrified, she clutched the hand of Miss Armytage,—and found that hand to lie like a thing of ice in her own, yet she ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... well-knit shoulders. Bob weighed a hundred and eighty and looked as though he were put together to stay. For a moment Noah Ezekiel studied the friendly mouth, the resolute nose, the frank brown eyes; but not until they concentrated on the tangled mop of dark hair did a light dawn ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... place," the tall man continued, "you rescued us in a deucedly shabby manner. It makes me ill to think of it. I've a mind to mop you 'round just for that. In the second place, your vessel is bound for Athens, N. Y., and there's no sense in it. Now, will you or will you not turn this ship about and take us back where our clothes are, or to ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... up to this time had exhibited the most determined courage, now seemed overcome with a sudden fear. Either the arrow or one of the bullets must have sickened him with the combat; for, dropping his mop-like tail to a level with the line of his back, he broke away; and, trotting sulkily forward, sprang in at the door of ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... the trio wields the dish-mop while the host dries the dishes, and the Dreamer before the fire luxuriates in the thought that ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... off on to the wharf I'd be overcome with my feelings, and have to retire to the privacy of the bar to hide my emotions till the boat was going. And she'd stand on the end of the pier and wave her handkerchief and mop her old eyes with it until she was ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... grounds were nicely laid out and planted, and promised in time to be well wooded, if the ocean breeze driving upon them did not lay an embargo upon their growth, in the same heartless manner as it does upon the west coast of Scotland, where, the moment a tree gets higher than a mop handle, its top becomes curved over by the gales, with the same graceful sweep as that which a successful stable-boy gives a birch broom after a day's soaking. I hope, for my hospitable friend's sake, it may not prove ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... would be o' taking a man's false teeth out of 'is mouth without 'is knowing it. Jimmy went down one day while Bill was at the wheel to look for 'is knife, wot 'e thought 'e'd left down there, and 'ed 'ardly got down afore Bill saw 'im come up ag'in, 'olding on to the top of a mop which the steward ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... was Captain Brent's senior pilot. His skin hung on his face in folds, like that of a rhinoceros It was very much the same color. His grizzled hair was all lengths, like a worn-out mop; his hand reminded one of an eagle's claw, and his teeth were a pine yellow. He greeted only such people as he deemed worthy of notice, but he had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... said the doctor instantly. "I honestly do. I had no right to speak like that. But you mustn't think of bobbing your curly mop, dear." ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... to this school of thought—who held that there was nothing to him beyond that look and that he had built up his reputation as a budding mastermind on a foundation that consisted entirely of a vacant eye, a mop of hair through which he could run his fingers, and the fame of ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... Captain retreated kicking, he attacked, leaping and slashing. What saved Captain Duncan was a sailor with a deck mop on the end of a stick. Intervening, he managed to thrust it into Michael's mouth and shove him away. This first time his teeth closed automatically upon it. But, spitting it out, he declined thereafter to bite it, knowing it for what it was, ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... dictates that the first line of action to be pursued when there is a death in the family is to scrub the house thoroughly from cellar to garret, and Mrs. Pennycook had been inoculated with the virus of this superstition very early in life. She tucked up her skirts, seized a broom and a mop, rounded up Soft Wind and proceeded to produce chaos where neatness and order ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... that the tree prevented him from falling backwards. He was quite sober, but cheerful withal, as he had nothing to do but sleep, smoke, eat, and drink the light wine of the district, of which his only complaint was that "one might mop up a barrel of it an' get no forrarder." Nevertheless, he received a positive shock when addressed in his own language by a young woman who was obviously of Brazil. He stared at her so hard that he forgot the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... their breath. The first thing that the cock did was to shake himself until he resembled nothing so much as a living mop. Then he began to smooth his feathers down again. Then he stretched his neck, flapped his wings and crowed. Finally, with a blink of his bright eyes, which almost appeared like a wink to the hushed and expectant crowd, he made two solemn steps with ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... little vegetable, Bensington," said Cossar—"that's what you ought to have been. Something growing over a rockery. Here you are, fearfully and wonderfully made, and all you think you're made for is just to sit about and take your vittles. D'you think this world was made for old women to mop about in? Well, anyhow, you can't help yourselves ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... with the same disproportionate shortness of legs. They wear Shan jackets and petticoats of dark-blue; their ornaments are chiefly cowries; their legs are bare. Unmarried, they wear no head-dress, but have their hair cut in a black mop with a deep fringe to the eyebrows. If married, their head-dress is the same as that of the Shan women—a huge dark-blue conical turban. Morality among the Kachin maidens, a missionary tells me, is not, as we ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... stepped firmly to the sally-port, swiftly unlashed from the iron top-rail a mop, and threw it overboard. Then he set about unlashing a second article ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... to see anything except coat-tails and petticoats, until of a sudden there was a breaking away of these obstacles and he found himself in close proximity to a gentleman of medium height, strongly built, with a mop of dark hair framing a handsome, pale, smiling face, the lower parts of which were concealed by a thick brown beard. It was Kossuth, and there was that in his countenance and expression which satisfied all the dreams of his admirer. He was chatting and shaking hands with the elder persons; ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... and with her hair like a mop, sat down and began to touch the piano with resolute fingers and forcible rhythm. ONE, two, three, ONE, two, three. The boys pushed the furniture into the corners. Brian offered himself to Ida; Bessie insisted upon surrendering the curate to Urania, and took ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... less often than he could wish, he tugged at his locks, so that they reared themselves on end, especially at the very top, where they leaned in various directions and displayed what appeared to be several cowlicks. At every quarter that shining mop was uneven, because badly cut by Big Tom Barber, his foster father, whose name belied his ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... occasional interjections. "People won't SEE that," for example, and "It all seems so plain to me." The doctor showed himself clever but unsubstantial and inconsistent. Isabel sat back with her black mop of hair buried deep in the chair looking quickly from face to face. Her colour came and went with her vivid intellectual excitement; occasionally she would dart a word, usually a very apt word, like a lizard's tongue into the discussion. I remember chiefly ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... them. We watched him work hard for another fifteen minutes, tapping and splicing wire connections and tightening screws. Then he opened the square box. Sure enough, it was a female mech's head and it had a big mop of blonde hair on top. The servo attached it carefully to the neck, made a few quick connections and then said a few words in ...
— The Love of Frank Nineteen • David Carpenter Knight

... liquor, they take a whisk, and stir it about till it is all of a ferment, and white froth; and they frequently add the whites and shells of about a dozen of eggs, which they beat in with it, and put altogether into the cask; then with a clean mop-stick, or some such thing, stir the whole together; and then lay a cloth, or piece of paper over the bung-hole, till the ferment is over; and then bung it up close, in a few ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry

... place this world is!" continued Mrs. Coggan (a wholesome-looking lady who had a voice for each class of remark according to the emotion involved; who could toss a pancake or twirl a mop with the accuracy of pure mathematics, and who at this moment showed hands shaggy with fragments of dough and arms encrusted with flour). "I am never up to my elbows, Miss, in making a pudding but one of two things do happen—either my nose must needs begin tickling, and ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... crowded. Finally, the man who answered to the name of "Stuffy" appeared from the direction of the group near the bar, and made his way toward Felix. He carried a broom and a bucket, from which trailed a mop used for swabbing wet floors. When he reached O'Day's table, he dropped to his knees and attacked a sluiceway leading to a miniature lake, fed by the umbrellas and waterproofs belonging to ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... successful a journalist as Mr. Bob Carmody. I was confident that the very young office-boy would pass them and go to the doors beyond, which must lead to the true sanctum. No; where he stopped I saw a wide-spread paper; over the top of it a mop of flaming red hair, and bulging from the sides of it the sleeves of a very pink shirt. The curtain was lowered, disclosing a round, red face heavily blotched with shaving-powder. There was nothing of dignity in Mr. Carmody's appearance; there was nothing ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... as a woman at thirteen, and my older sisters insisted upon lengthening my dresses, and putting up my mop of hair with a comb. I felt injured and almost outraged because my protestations against this treatment were unheeded and when the transformation in my visible appearance was effected, I went away by myself and had a good cry, which I would not ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... he remembered Gill Mace. The boy who had called Frank a thief was unable to repeat the vile accusation when he emerged from the puddle into which Frank had pushed him. His mouth was full of mud, his hair was a dripping mop, his clothes were plastered with it. Frank had waited to respond to any later move that Gill might decide on. The jeweler's nephew, however, made none. As he emerged from the puddle three schoolgirls, arms linked in friendly companionship, ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster

... beautiful Madam Whitworth. "I was speaking of my own friend who might have taken a Canadian line instead of the American. She is so careless about instructions. Now look; we are beginning to wind down into the very heart of the Harpeth Valley, and by the time you make very tidy that mop of hair you have on your head and I powder my nose, we will be in Hayesville to face the General in all of his glory. Mind you kiss my hand so he can see you! I want to give him that sensation in payment of ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... you'd come back all right, and if you didn't she could pay me when she could. What do you think she did? Why, she burst out crying, and said, 'God bless you, sir, for saying my husband will come back! So many have discouraged me.' I declare to you her feeling was so right down genuine that I had to mop my own eyes. But she wouldn't take any more credit, and she bought so little that I've been troubled. I'd have sent her something, but your wife somehow ain't one of them kind that you can give ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... seen who measured six feet four inches. I observed some who had thick lips, flat noses, and full cheeks, and, in some degree, the features and look of a negro. Two things contributed to the forming of such an idea; first, their rough mop heads, and, secondly, their besmearing their faces with black pigment. Their hair and beards are, in general, black. The former is very much frizzled, so that, at first sight, it appears like that of a negro. It is, nevertheless, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... litter of duffle-bags, guns, saddles, and camp utensils gave evidence of the presence of many hunters and fishermen. The slovenly landlord was poring over a newspaper, while a discouraged half-grown youth was sludging the floor with a mop; but a cheerful clamor from an open door at the back of the hall ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... clothes, a gown that Madge has brought in her suit-case and a hat that she has also brought, both of which her father will easily recognize, while Madge will redden her face with rouge, muss her hair, don a torn, calico dress, and with a scrub-rag and a mop in her hands easily pass for ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler

... of the tesselated floor of the governor's house are once again consigned to darkness; the trench is filled up; the sod laid smoothly down; he wipes the perspiration from his forehead with the same handkerchief he had used to mop the skeleton and tesserae clean; and we make for the eastern ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... and forlorn looking, as she lies in a huge, old-fashioned wooden bed, appears very black in contrast to the clean white sheets and a thick mop of snowy wool on her head. She does not know her age, but from her appearance and the details she remembers of her years as slave in the Slade home, near Cold Springs, Texas, she must be very old. She lives in Woodville, Texas, with her husband, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... foot of the ridge, where the green plain fought with the blighting edge of the Stew-Kettle, he stood for many minutes before he started east-ward. With keen eyes gleaming behind his mop of scraggly face-bristles he critically surveyed both land and air, and then, with the slight limp in his gait which would always remain as a mark of Jed Hawkins' brutality, he trotted deliberately in the direction of the whiskey-runner's ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... threw the wash about On both sides of the way, Just like unto a trundling mop, Or a wild ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various

... I shall have a sweet and beautiful temper in heaven, where there will be nothing to try it, no worries, misunderstandings, elections, long and tedious telephone conversations; people who insist on selling me a dustless mop when I am hot on the trail of an idea. There will be none of that, so that it will not be difficult to keep sweet and serene. I would not thank any one to hand me a sword and shield when the battle is over; I want it ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... no boastfulness in the tone, and Spud O'Malley nodded as he glanced respectfully at the young man who threw back his disheveled mop of hair from a lean face and marked down some cryptic figures on ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin

... the hot side of the barn, and painting was no light work. The agent was forced to mop ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... Lucius. "I'm goin' to belt the life out of her if she comes around here disturbin' the peace. I'm peaceable now, Stella—we've got perfect peace now, ain't we? But if she tries to—Well, you'll see what'll happen, young lady. Go an' get a mop and clean up that water. D'ye hear ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... tiny head in its scarlet setting with shuddering fascination. It had a hideous little face; a broad, brutal face of the Tartar type; and the mop of gray-brown hair, so unhuman in color, and the bristling mustache that stood up like a cat's whiskers, gave it an aspect half animal, half devilish. I clapped the lid on the box, thrust it back on the shelf, and, plucking down the first ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... Say, if they had all cut their initials around on the door frames and the—ah—mop boards it would be great stuff to puzzle 'em out and make a list of 'em, wouldn't ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... about three hours. I had a little glass container folded in my own handkerchief, which I put in his overcoat pocket as a parting souvenir, crushing it as I did so. I reasoned that undue anxiety which he displayed might cause him to mop his brow, close to that student-duel scar. One smell of the chemical on that handkerchief, in the quantity which I gave, was enough to quiet his worries. Now ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... to mop with a lace handkerchief at a damaged upper lip from which a stream of blood was running; he even seemed to be weeping a little. Finally, he vanished in at the door, very much bent together. The undaunted David ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... flushing. He was a pleasant-faced youngster of not more than eighteen or nineteen, with a tangled mop of blonde hair and blue eyes, the pupils of which were curiously dilated. Stratton, whose extended arms had caught the boy just under the armpits, could feel his heart ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... so hot that any feeling sent beads of perspiration to the face. Sommers paused when Lindsay began to mop ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... with a mountain ascending, a vision of trees, and a nest by the Dove? Why should the song of a thrush cause bright volumes of vapor to glide through Lothbury, and a river to flow on through the vale of Cheapside? As she stood at that corner of Wood Street, a mop and a pail in her hand most likely, she heard the bird singing, and straight-way began pining and yearning for the days of her youth, forgetting the proper business of the pail and mop. Even so we are moved by the sight of some of Mr. Cruikshank's works—the "Busen fuhlt ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of the Anglo-Saxon sect; and the leather of his shoes is patented and the loop of his necktie is copyrighted. For these things John Tom had grafted on him at college along with metaphysics and the knockout guard for the low tackle. But for his complexion, which is some yellowish, and the black mop of his straight hair, you might have thought here was an ordinary man out of the city directory that subscribes for magazines and pushes the lawn-mower in ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... following the creeping barrage the Brigade moved forward—the Somersets leading on the right with ourselves following. The Devons were to mop up the village of Moislains, and once clear of the village we were to come up on the left of the Somersets and take the first objective. The barrage fell a long way ahead of us and left untouched a party of the enemy holding the trench immediately ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... brought out, and her mop of red-gold hair was assisted to fall in wet spirals all over her lovely head, which always "wiggled" too much for any more formal style of hair-dressing. Her Sunday hat being tied on, as the crowning glory, this lucky little princess, this child of Fortune, ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... which poor brother Bill Used to be drawn to Pentonville, Stood in the lumber-room: I wiped the dust from off the top, While molly mopp'd it with a mop, And brush'd it ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... she commanded sharply, "do you take the bucket and mop and begin on the front steps. And mind that ye don't bring me heavy hand down on ye! Och, lassie darlin'," she added, when she had drawn the startled girl out of hearing of the others, "give yer old Katie a kiss, and then be off! Troth, it breaks me heart to see ye go—but ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... little Teddy Garland out of Martha's arms and stood him up on the table by the door, steadying the small chap with one big brown hand. The baby had a mop of yellow curls, and a pink and white face, and big blue eyes. He laughed out at the men before him and waved his hands in delight. Pa Sloane thought he had never ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... distinguished-conduct medal, and went blithely up the steps to the dance-hall. He was tall and outrageously thin, and pale with the pallor that comes from long confinement. His hands and feet seemed too big for the rest of him, and his blond hair stuck up in a bristly mop above his high forehead. But Sergeant Graham walked with the buoyant tread of one who has a good opinion not only of himself but of mankind ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... bareheaded and with the wind blowing his thick mop of wavy hair straight back from his forehead, glanced back with swift ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... A light quick step was heard mounting the stairs. A latch key was impatiently inserted in the hall door. A bamboo cane was dropped loudly into the holder of the hat-rack; a soft hat was thrown down carelessly somewhere—it sounded like a wet mop flung into a corner; and there entered a young man straight, slender, keen-faced, with red hair, a freckled skin, large thin red ears, and a strong red mouth. As he stepped forward into the light, he paused, parting the haircut of his eyes ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... stand too much over this up 'ere, you know, Sawkins. Just mop it over anyhow, and get away from it as quick ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... wave. Then suddenly, because he wasn't a man, because he couldn't do what he wanted to do, he began to cry, not as a boy cries, but more as a man cries, in shame and bitterness, his shoulders shaken by great convulsive sobs, his head buried in his hands, his fingers running through his tangled mop of hair. ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... and semi-solidified, opodeldoc-looking compound results, which will retain its consistency and hold the ingredients intimately blended for months. Apply by smart friction with the hand, or gently with a soft brush or mop along the course of ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... the imposition on Mrs. Handsomebody's desk, and listlessly set out to find the others. I could hear Mary Ellen in the kitchen thumping a mop against the legs of the furniture in a savage manner that bespoke no mood of airy persiflage. Therefore, I did not go down the back stairs, but throwing a leg over the hand-rail of the front stairs, I slowly slid to the bottom, and rested there a space on my stomach, an attitude peaceful, ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... big cat got home she shook herself and said: "That old iron fountain is no good! It is a poor place to hide! I am as wet as a mop! Who would ever have expected that old fountain to blow up like that? General Scamp is letting his place run down so fast that I do not think I will go over there any more! I will dry my fur, then I will go over to the dump ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field

... tightly but somewhat aslant across his brow. After these two facts had become emphatic, others appeared sufficiently important. One was that under the scarlet rag the hair was plentiful, but white as with the last snows of mortality. Another was that under the mop of white and senile hair the face was strong, handsome, and smiling, with a well-cut profile and a long cloven chin. The length of this lower part of the face and the strange cleft in it (which gave ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... which I could not deny; and then with passionate sobs Peni said that 'I was very unjust indeed.' 'Indeed, indeed, dear mama, you are unjust! Ferdinando does everything for you, and I do nothing, except tease you, and even' (sobbing) 'I am sometimes a very naughty boy.' I had to mop up his tears with my pocket-handkerchief, and excuse myself as well as I could from the moral imputation of loving ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... spot and reached for the thing he had killed, but his fingers closed on a coarse mop of hair and he turned Snettishane's face upward to the starlight. He knew how a shotgun scattered at fifty yards, and he knew that he had peppered Snettishane across the shoulders and in the small of the back. And Snettishane knew that he knew, ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... left climbed an unknown man. His features were those of a Spaniard. As the officer's eyes challenged him he halted, panting, to mop his brow with the air of one who takes a breathing space after violent exertion. The newcomer smiled pleasantly as he leaned against a bowlder and genially volunteered: "It is a long journey from the shore." Then after a moment ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... do this, mother," said Janet. She knew her mother was thinking of the newly-found joy that Lise's disgrace had marred, but she released her hands, gently, and took the mop from the nail on which ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... her hair hanging in a tousled mop from its loosened pins. Catching Lorry's hand, she squeezed it, looking up at her like an ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... know that he has joined with Ralph only to make fun of him. In due time, Ralph comes back armed with kitchen utensils and a popgun, and attended by Matthew and Harpax. The issue of the scrape is, that the lady and her maids beat off the assailants with mop and broom; Matthew managing to have all ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... did not encounter any of that small animal of the kangaroo family, which were plentiful about the hills at home, but went journeying on along through the bush, with the grass-trees rising here and there with their mop-like heads and blossom-like spike. Even birds were scarce, and toward evening, as they were growing hungry and tired, and were seeking a satisfactory spot for camping, Tim let fall a remark which cast a damper ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn

... prostrate, barking his chin, but no howl came from him, and he picked himself up with dignity, merely asking for the loan of a handkerchief, his own "useful little hanky," as he explained, having been used to mop up a ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... greatest problem, for, despite Kay's hurried flight to the nearest occupied post, it was difficult to convince the Federation officials that the devils were really gone, buried beneath a mile of crumbled earth. And Kay had to be back to mop up other, smaller bands that had spread through ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... gust thief mop' ing awk' ward pet' tish ly in dig' nant un bear' a ble med' dle some en light' ened ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... boiling in fact," Kirillov declared delighted. "Sit down. You're muddy, but that's nothing; I'll mop up the ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... going to tell you that I had a mop of beautiful red hair, and that Teddy went with Reddy. I guess you'd have known me if you'd heard that," was the good-natured ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... least little jump, and the question that had ticked away so busily all those months began to buzz, buzz in his ears; but it was only a handkerchief the man was getting out. Doubtless he was going to mop his face. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... to be the most faithful of the whole series, and it is certainly the handsomest, giving even a more flattering representation than the full-face portrait by Pickersgill which serves as frontispiece to the modern editions of the Ballads. In this latter the curious towzled mop of hair, in which our fathers delighted, rather mars the effect; while in Maclise's sketch (which is in profile) it is less obtrusive. In this latter, too, there is clearly perceivable what the Shepherd in the Noctes calls "a sort of ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... get a dish-mop and wash the dishes," said Eliza. "I can manage to have an instructive book propped open on the kitchen table, and keep my mind upon higher things as I ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... her to cast cautious side glances in the direction of the next table. This center of attraction was a small girl about eight or nine years of age, a dainty elfin little person with bewitching blue eyes and a mop of short, flaxen curls. She was evidently well used to traveling, for she would lift a tiny finger to summon the waiter, and gave him her orders with all the savoir-faire of an experienced diner-out. Perhaps her clear-toned treble voice was a trifle too high-pitched ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... she went on, after the noise of the hot water rushing from the faucet was over, and she began dropping the things carefully down through the cloud of steam into the great pan full of suds, and fishing them up again with a fork and a little mop,—"about the dusting, I didn't finish. It's a work of art to dust Mrs. Scherman's parlor. Don't you think there's a pleasure in handling and touching up and setting out all those pretty things? Don't they ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... 377.).—IGNORANS no doubt refers to the oft-repeated allusion to "Dame Partington and her mop;" and taking it for granted that he does so, I will enlighten him a little on the subject. The "original Mrs. Partington" was a respectable old lady, living, at Sidmouth in Devonshire; her cottage was on the beach, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various

... And as for washing dishes and wiping them he was quicker than any of the young folks. To behold an officer in gold braid presiding at the dishpan at first caused a protest from Mrs. McGregor; but when the little old man asserted that it was a treat to be inside a home and handle a mop and soap-shaker what could one say? So he mixed the foaming suds and dabbled in them up to his elbows, and when his sister witnessed the general frolic into which his leadership suddenly transformed ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... to-day I find them full of faults—often preposterous, usually ill-constructed, at times unnatural beyond belief. John Gilpin never threw the Wash about on both sides of the way more like unto a trundling mop or a wild goose at play than did Henry Kingsley the decent flow of fiction when the mood was on him. His notion of constructing a novel was to take equal parts of wooden melodrama and low comedy and stick them boldly together in a paste of impertinent drollery and serious but entirely ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... sundown. Off and on, you know. They whip me till they got tired and then they go and res' and come out and start again. They kept a bowl filled with vinegar and salt and pepper settin' nearby, and when they had whipped me till the blood come, they would take the mop and sponge the cuts with this stuff so that they would hurt more. They would whip me with the cowhide part of the time and with birch sprouts the other part. There were splinters long as my finger left in my back. A girl named Betty Jones come over and soaped the splinters so that they ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... the thin one!" said Pete Murphy. "She's a pippin, if you please. Quick as a cat! Graceful as they make them. And look at that mop of red hair! Isn't that a holocaust? I ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... my business, while in the nursery, to dust all the furniture and the floor, with a flannel mop, made and kept for this purpose. The floors were all painted and varnished, and ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... sobbing and digging like a fiend. It was really a bit too weird, and I mouched off. But when I'd gone about half a mile, I got an attack of the want-to-knows, came back, and sneaked along the hedge. There he was still, but he had finished, and was having a mop round, and putting the last touches to a heap of stones. I strolled ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... all pretense of work and stood, leaning on his mop-handle, his rheumy old eyes glowing with ...
— Criminal Negligence • Jesse Francis McComas

... begged, and implored, but his trembling hands were upon my throat. First he dragged me to my feet, then he threw me upon my knees, and at last, with that grim brutality which characterizes him, he directed me to go and get a mop and bucket from the forecastle and remove the dark red stains from the chair and deck. This he actually forced me to do, gloating over my horror as I removed for him the traces of his cowardly crime. Then, with his hand upon my shoulder, he said, 'Girl! ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... the bragian little traitor! right among the ladies, Mrs. Harris; looking his wickedest and deceitfullest of eyes while he was a talking to 'em; laughing at his own jokes as loud as you please; holding his hat in one hand to cool his-sef, and tossing back his iron-grey mop of a head of hair with the other, as if it was so much shavings—there, Mrs. Harris, I see him, getting encouragement from the pretty delooded creeturs, which never know'd that sweet saint, Mrs. C, as I did, and being treated with as much confidence ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... of the articles we had brought for bartering, placed some before us, and held others up in our hands. As we kept our weapons concealed, our proceedings had the desired effect. In a few minutes a man's face with a huge mop-like head of frizzly hair appeared from behind one of the mats, then another and another. The first made his way along the bridge leading to the bank, stopping every now and then as if he doubted his own discretion in thus approaching us. ...
— The Mate of the Lily - Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book • W. H. G. Kingston

... hands, you old limb of Satan, or I shall be after you with a mop," cried the laughing voice of Mrs. Raymond from the side of the sick woman's bed, betraying at once how she had divided her attention. Then, advancing into my chamber, she added, as coolly as though she had been suggesting a visit ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... and that helped to mop up some of the ink. Miss Davis sent Jessie to get a cloth from Maria, the maid, and she used that to wipe the ink off the desk. Sunny Boy and the lead soldier she sent upstairs to the bathroom, where Maria scrubbed them both with water and a stiff little brush. ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White

... the truth, I don't shrink from owning it," continued Magdalen. "I'm one of the ladies she means. I said she had a head like a mop, and a waist like a ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... moment the sleeper raised his head. Bob saw a little, middle-aged man, not over five feet six in height, slenderly built, yet with broad, hanging shoulders. His head was an almost exact inverted pyramid, the base formed by a mop of red-brown hair, and the apex represented by a very pointed chin. Two level, oblong patches of hair made eyebrows. His face was white and nervous. A strong, hooked nose separated a pair of red-brown eyes, small and twinkling, like a chipmunk's. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... he was one where there are many others,— Some scrivening to the end against their fate, Their puppets all in ink and all to die there; And some with hands that once would shade an eye That scanned Euripides and Aeschylus Will reach by this time for a pot-house mop To slush their first and last of royalties. Poor devils! and they all play to his hand; For so it was in Athens and old Rome. But that's not here or there; I've wandered off. Greene does it, or I'm ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... negligees and trollopees; their clumsy shanks, like so many shins of beef, were cased in silk hose and embroidered slippers; their raw red fingers, gross as the pipes of a chamber organ, which had been employed in milking the cows, in twirling the mop or churn-staff, being adorned with diamonds, were taught to thrum the pandola, and even to touch the keys of the harpsichord! Nay, in every village they kept a rout, and set up an assembly; and in one place a hog-butcher was master ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett



Words linked to "Mop" :   mop-headed, sponge mop, mop up, soak up, mop handle, dry mop, mow, pull a face, absorb, swab, make a face, swob, dustmop, dust mop, cleaning equipment, suck, wipe up



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