Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'



Prowl   Listen
verb
Prowl  v. t.  (past & past part. prowled; pres. part. prowling)  
1.
To rove over, through, or about in a stealthy manner; esp., to search in, as for prey or booty. "He prowls each place, still in new colors decked."
2.
To collect by plunder; as, to prowl money. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Prowl" Quotes from Famous Books



... more than one visit to the gentle spinster on Hunt's Hill before Genevieve quite succeeded in convincing Miss Sally that there were places in Texas where wild Indians did not prowl, nor wild horses race neck and neck across vast deserts of loneliness. At last, however, she had the satisfaction of hearing from John Sanborn's own grateful lips that everything was all right, and that the wedding day was ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

... breast The winged bright dart that from my golden string Speeds hissing as a snake,—lest, pierced and thrilled With agony, thou shouldst spew forth again Black frothy heart's-blood, drawn from mortal men, Belching the gory clots sucked forth from wounds. These be no halls where such as you can prowl— Go where men lay on men the doom of blood, Heads lopped from necks, eyes from their Sphere plucked out, Hacked flesh, the flower of youthful seed crushed or Feet hewn away, and hands, and death beneath The smiting stone, low moans and piteous Of men impaled—Hark, ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... farther on, a good housewife is shaking her troublesome child; a stout, overdressed woman of the shop-keeping class is flaunting her finery down one of the walks; a priest passes and, while his lips mumble prayers, his eyes, held in leash by fear, prowl around me; one of his flock curtseys to the ground ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... for lamps; but their flesh is thrown to the dogs. Many of the bears are very thin. It is only fat bears that can sleep all the winter in their dens without food; thin bears cannot sleep long, and even in winter they prowl about for food. Dogs are very much afraid of them. A large party of travellers, who were riding in sledges, drawn by dogs, observed the dogs suddenly begin to snuff the air, and lo! immediately afterwards, a bear at ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer

... flitted by so close that the smell of it poisoned the air, and from the forest, far away to the west, came the ripping saw-like cry of a leopard on the prowl. Many fierce things were hunting in the forest that night, but nothing fiercer than Meeus, as he stood in the moonlight, cigarette in mouth, staring across the misty forest in the direction of the ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... the 'fingers' for the horses' beds—a bed in each finger, Bob. If the animals are comfortably bedded down they will be fresh in the morning. And if we hide them in those fingers the scent will not be so apt to reach a grizzly or lion should any prowl ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... voice and utterance of the natural man, before the sophistication of the human intellect formed what we now call language. In this broad dialect—broad as the sympathies of nature—the human brother might have spoken to his inarticulate brotherhood that prowl the woods, or soar upon the wing, and have been intelligible to such extent ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... grassy jungles bordering the Koosee he is not generally met with. He is essentially a predatory animal, always on the outlook for a meal; round the villages, nestling amid their sal forests, he is continually on the prowl, looking out for a goat, a calf, or unwary dog. His appearance and habits are well known; he generally selects for his lair, a retired spot surrounded by dense jungle. The one we were after now had his home in a matted jungle, growing out of a pool of water, which had collected ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... a short crooked handle. However, as we did not propose to go in for any systematic navvying, and as there was nothing better to be got, back I went with it, and found Weems quite alive again, and on the prowl for ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... identical beast! The Feasible Dog, and the terror of Gosh! I know by the prowl of him. Hark to the growl of him! Heralding death to the subjects of Splosh. Oh, look at him glaring and staring, by thunder! Now each for himself, and ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... powers; but I bore them very tolerably, though variably. We put up at the best inn, very early, and then inquired what we could see In the town and neighbourhood. "Nothing!" was the concise answer of a staring maid. We determined, therefore, to prowl to the churchyard, and read the tombstone inscriptions: but when we asked the way, the same woman, staring still more wonderingly, exclaimed, "Church! There's no church nigh here!—There's the Prince Of Wales'S, just ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... no doubt, the noise of the bark-hunters that had started the ant-eaters abroad, for these creatures usually prowl only in the night. The same may have aroused the fierce puma from his lair, although he is not strictly ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... watched Daniel, watched him in the day, watched him in the night. He would prowl about his apartment after midnight, listening for the tone of a piano, and, after telling Daniel that he would be gone for the day, he would sneak back anxious and expectant. But he never heard any music, and this, instead of calming his nerves, made him sicker. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... there was a bear that had its den on that island, surely this must have been the spot; for it far excelled anything else that the scout had seen since he had started to prowl around. ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... conversational Mr. Schwirtz wouldn't come and converse. It was to his glory that he didn't. He appeared in masterful white-flannel trousers and a pressed blue coat and a new Panama, which looked well on his fleshy but trim head. He said, "Mornin'," cheerfully, and went to prowl about the farm. ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... accident. A floating derelict probably. I myself remember that a Norwegian barque bound out with a cargo of pitch-pine had been given up as missing about that time, and it was just the sort of craft that would capsize in a squall and float bottom up for months—a kind of maritime ghoul on the prowl to kill ships in the dark. Such wandering corpses are common enough in the North Atlantic, which is haunted by all the terrors of the sea,—fogs, icebergs, dead ships bent upon mischief, and long sinister gales that fasten upon one like a vampire till all the strength and ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... he thought, "the tramp thinks that I have gone to bed, and that he will get a drink, and then prowl around some more. Well, we will see. I will just get my shot gun and fire a shot to scare him, ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery

... away from Malone, putting the Magnum in his pocket and keeping the FBI agent covered with his own Police Positive. At the same time, he fished out the personal radio every patrolman carried in his uniform, and began calling for a prowl car in a low, somewhat ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Minneapolis, though as a rival to the waltz and two-step the new dance was ridiculed by every one. He mastered all the savoir faire of the boarding-house. But he was always hurrying away from it to practise football, to prowl about the Plato power-house, to skim through magazines in the Y. M. C. A. reading-room, even ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... to be expressed in anger, the anger of frustration over his own helplessness. With no chance of trying to penetrate the castle, he could not learn whether or not Ashe had been taken prisoner. And until the workers left the beach he could not prowl there hunting the grimmer evidence ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... to prowl round among Ernest's things and pry into the state of his wardrobe? If I had not had my time so broken up with giving lessons, I should have found out that he needed new shirts and set to work on them. Though I must own I hate shirt-making. I could not help ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... altered: instead of paying thirty-three dollars in taxes, out of every one hundred they receive, they complain if they have to pay seven. They are curious people. They do not know when they are well off. Mendicant priests do not prowl among them with baskets begging for the church and eating up their substance. One hardly ever sees a minister of the gospel going around there in his bare feet, with a basket, begging for subsistence. In that country the preachers are not like our mendicant orders of friars—they have two ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... she was spending some time with the Northern people who had lately bought Lynwood Plantation, a few miles down the river. She liked to prowl ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... was the second ha'nt. He has been hiding for two or three weeks in the spring-hole at Four-Pools, keeping hidden during the day and coming out at night to prowl around and steal whatever he could lay his hands on. He doubtless deserved punishment, but that fact would not make him the less bitter over the Colonel's beating. When I heard that story, I said to myself, 'there is a man who would be ready for revenge if chance put the ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... law. The tigers, once numerous round Tosari, have retreated into the jungle clothing the lower hills, and seldom issue from their forest lairs unless stress of weather drives them upward for a nightly prowl round byre and pen. The destruction of covert renders Tosari immune from this past peril, and the tragic tiger stories related round the hearthstone of the communal house are becoming oral traditions of a forgotten day, gathering ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... deter others, for there they went in spite of everything, and there they were taken in twos and threes, twice or thrice a day, all through the week. Of the fifty just mentioned, some were occupied in endeavouring to rekindle the fire; but in general they seemed to have no object in view but to prowl and lounge about the old place: being often found asleep in the ruins, or sitting talking there, or even eating and drinking, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... the days of the wilderness and the Indian war bands had come back again. He even felt exultation as he adapted himself so readily to the situation, and became equal to it. But Warner was grieved and exasperated. It hurt his dignity to prowl on his ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... want with him? I may be only an old fool, but I know what I know, and there have been no end of queer stories about this job already." He sat there meditating, till an idea took shape in his mind. "Can I dare to go round there and just prowl about? Of course he will be furious, but suppose that letter was a decoy and he is walking into a trap? One never can tell. An assignation in that particular street, with that prison opposite, and Gurn to be guillotined within the next ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... not, lads," said the Warden cheerily; "there be more ways of robbing a corbie's nest than one. Bide you here by the little postern, and Wat Scott and Red Rowan and I will prowl round, and see what ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... ones succeed one another, others prowl about frantic with impatience, biting their nails to the quick; for one and all have come with the same object. From honest Jenkins, who headed the procession, down to Cabassu, the masseur, who closes it, one and all lead the Nabob aside. But however ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... of the moon, be whispering some soft nonsense in the willing ear of some guileless doe, escaped from a parent's vigilant eye. For on such has the midnight marauder set his heart: after such does noiselessly prowl, favoured by darkness—the dissipated rascal—querens quem devoret— determined to make up, on the morrow, by a long meridian siesta on the highest pinacle of a snow-drift, for the loss of his night's-rest. Should ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... of Trailers and Master of Secrets! If the mighty Caliph, Haroun al Kenton, wishes to prowl in these grounds, seeking the heart of some great conspiracy, it is not for his loyal vizier, the Sheikh Ul ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... closed. "You'd better keep your dog inside and around the kid as much as possible. Keep your doors and windows locked. I'll see that the prowl car keeps an eye on the house. Call us if anything seems unusual or out of ...
— The Ultroom Error • Gerald Allan Sohl

... have social critics to comment on society entertainments—or financial critics to roast unhealthy commercial enterprises and advertise safe ones? How long d'you think Wall Street would stand for that? Why don't the papers hire dry-goods experts to prowl through the department stores, publishing the cost prices of merchandise and warning the public against bargain sales? That's what we do. We ridicule and warn and criticize, but we never build up. The theatrical ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... a sincere preference, to one or to the other side. In days of public commotion, every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended by a crowd of camp-followers, a useless and heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of march in the hope of picking up something under its protection, but desert it in the day of battle, and often join to exterminate it after a defeat. England, at the time of which we are ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... and chattered and shrieked as they dashed from tree to tree in aimless flight. Enormous bats hurtled in the air, blinded by the unusual light. From the dense undergrowth strange denizens of the woods, disturbed in their nightly prowl, leaped forth and scurried squealing between the galloping hoofs, reckless of anything save their own fear. Everything that was alive upon the island was in motion, and fear was the motor of ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... when Rube had gone out for his evening smoke, and that final prowl round necessary to see that all was prepared for the morrow's work, and the stock comfortable for the night, and Ma Sampson and Rosebud were busy washing up, and, in their department, also seeing things straight for the night, Seth betook himself to the parlor, that haven of modest comfort ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... Recklow was saying, in a voice made low and cautious from habit, "the dirty Boche prowl among us under protean aspects. One can never tell, never trust anybody—what with one thing and another and the Alsatian border so close—and those German-Swiss—always to be suspected and often ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... "cringe for recognition. Like beggars they prowl about that White House at Washington, yet never ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... strange and interesting environment into which they had now come. The unloading of the boat went on steadily, the slow stream of breeds, stooping under their heavy loads, passing up the steep bluff from the boat landing to the trading-post. The boys had time to prowl along the beach and watch the natives run their nets, and even pursue their native art of hunting; for that morning, hearing shots from the bank, they looked out to see a half-dozen native kayaks hurrying to a point ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough

... returns. The young squire wearies in his beautiful country house, and his heart is fixed in the dingy chambers, which he cannot relinquish, and for which wealth cannot compensate him. Even the poor clerks do not forget the Temple, and on Saturday afternoons they prowl about their old offices, and often give up lucrative employments. They are drawn by the Temple as by a magnet, and must live again in the shadow of the old inns. The laundresses' daughters pass into wealthy domesticities, ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... stopping with a beating heart whenever I heard, as I often did, the crash of breaking branches as some wild beast went past. Now and then great shadows loomed up for an instant and were gone—great, silent shadows which seemed to prowl upon padded feet. How often I stopped with the intention of returning, and yet every time my pride conquered my fear, and sent me on again until my object should ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... such—big, impassive, impressive in their very loneliness, in summer given over to the winds and the meadow larks and to the shadows fleeing always over the hilltops. Wild range cattle feed there and grow sleek and fat for the fall shipping of beef. At night the coyotes yap quaveringly and prowl abroad after the long-eared jack rabbits, which bounce away at their hunger-driven approach. In winter it is not good to be there; even the beasts shrink then from the bleak, level reaches, and shun the still ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... is better to conceal this; and lest dogs should prowl after it, and it should be found out, when you have read this ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... haunting Strawberry Hill, to rebuke the senile complacency of the chronicler of royal and noble authors, repaired, after the death of that prosperous man of wit and fashion, to his native town, to prowl in Redcliff church, and about the graves of his fathers in its churchyard, and the graves which they had successively dug there during a century and a half. His bones were left to moulder among those of other ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... no doubt that this was the private leak. There was great rejoicing at the discovery, and after a few appropriate words, not necessary to reproduce here, against a Providence that could allow the perpetrators of such infinite mischief to prowl about attempting to scuttle ships, it was generally concluded that the occasion being one of peril, should be allowed to pass without any stronger demonstration of ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman

... circle And softly slink away To prowl about the priest's farm, Then of a sudden they Are round the drink shop turning, Fain some bad word be learning— From peasants ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

... their game is to deprive them of the means of existence, as effectually as if the fields of our agriculturists were stricken with barrenness; and they are reduced, like famished wolves, to prowl through the forsaken woods in quest of prey. Their instinctive love of their country attaches them to the soil which gave them birth,[213] even after it has ceased to yield anything but misery and death. At length they are compelled ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... "I'll prowl in these parts every day, when it doesn't pour cats and dogs," Thornly explained; "and when you can escape the watch,—come to the Hills, blow the whistle and presto! change! I'll be on the scene before you can count twenty. Miss Janet, fame and fortune yawn before us—actually ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... Linden and Terry Clark left Greville the next morning after the affair, mixed matters to that extent that, for a time, the Winnebago was at fault. It was his intention to prowl around the settlement, awaiting his chance, for he suspected that Deerfoot had gone thither with the lad who had given the Wolf such a blow in the face; but the discovery of the footprints of the two boys leading to the southward mystified the Indian. He was quite close to ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... received a bullet full in the chest ... or rather my pocket-book received a bullet.... Here, you can see the hole.... So I tumbled from the tree, like a dead man. Thinking that he was rid of his only adversary, he went back to the house. I saw him prowl about for two hours. Then, making up his mind, he went to the coach-house, took a ladder and set it against the window. I had only ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... that we should seek to prowl through a private house, when the mistress is away? No; there are partly finished canvases up there that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... of the pilgrims. His Majesty was forced at last to proclaim martial law, and actually hunted and shot with his own hand several of his rebellious subjects, who, with most questionable intentions, had clandestinely encamped in the interior, whence they stole by night, to prowl barefooted on tiptoe round the precincts of the lava-palace. It is to be remarked, however, that prior to such stern proceedings, the more reliable men had been judiciously picked out for an infantry body-guard, subordinate to the cavalry body-guard of dogs. But the ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... must be crazy!" he said. "No one at his age that is not crazy or foolish would prowl about at the very edge of the river here, where a misstep means almost certain death. He should be ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... and others, creep into the thick branches of an evergreen tree, close up to the trunk. Some crawl under the edge of a haystack, others into thick vines or thorny bushes. All these are meant for hiding-places, so that beasts that prowl about at night, and like to eat birds, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... let appear. They had lived in Paris for years, but the fact that he had a German-sounding name had driven them back to New York. It was through Gertrude that Rose had got acquainted with them—she having wrung from Abe Shuman permission for the painter to prowl around back-stage and make notes for a series of queerly lighted pictures of chorus-girls and dancers—"Degas—and then some," as his admirers said. Gertrude was at the tea and two or three others. It ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... go past, and do not tarry beside a row of dusty boxes of books. The heat threatens the amateur with sunstroke. Then, says M. Octave Uzanne, in a prose ballade of book-hunters—then, calm, glad, heroic, the bouquineurs prowl forth, refreshed with hope. The brown old calf-skin wrinkles in the sun, the leaves crackle, you could poach an egg on the cover of a quarto. The dome of the Institute glitters, the sickly trees seem to wither, their leaves wax red and grey, a faint warm wind is walking the ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... punishment, m'lad, for letting Raphael and Michael catch onto you. You can't prowl around Heaven just now so you'll have to work here in Hell's Rear Annex for a while. Look!" Nick thumbed one of the gold pieces. "Your image stamped on all of them. Also 'Ivan—Tsar. ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt

... Be off and prowl around Notre Dame de Lorette. Loupart will probably come out of that wine-shop you see to the right. You can easily recognise him by his height and a ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain

... force. By himself?—but he cannot change for the better; he will hardly change for the worse. He remains for ever fairest and best in his own image. Therefore we refuse to listen to the poets who tell us of Here begging in the likeness of a priestess or of other deities who prowl about at night in strange disguises; all that blasphemous nonsense with which mothers fool the manhood out of their children must be suppressed. But some one will say that God, who is himself unchangeable, may take ...
— The Republic • Plato

... diurnal and nocturnal; not to imply that these habits necessarily belong to all the individuals composing either of these divisions, for that would be untrue, but simply that the figure of the pupils corresponds with that frequently distinguishing day-roaming animals from those that prowl only by night. It is remarkable that a more certain and serviceable specific distinction is thus afforded by a little anatomical point, than by any of the more obvious circumstances of form, size, or colour. Whether ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... The trunks are crushed and shattered By the fierce blast's unconquerable stress. Over each other crack and crash they all In terrible and intertangled fall; 135 And through the ruins of the shaken mountain The airs hiss and howl— It is not the voice of the fountain, Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl. Dost thou not hear? 140 Strange accents are ringing Aloft, afar, anear? The witches are singing! The torrent of a raging wizard song Streams the whole mountain ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... told her how when the neighbours hired the orchard that ran up to the windows at the back of the house, the dogs they kept there used to howl so wildly and wolfishly all night among the trees, and prowl under the walls of the house so dejectedly, that they were fain to open the door and let them in at last; and, indeed, small need was there for dogs; for no one, young or old, dared go near the orchard after night-fall. No, the burnished golden pippins that peeped ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... the house of Dr. Trescott had faded quietly into the evening, hiding a shape such as we call Queen Anne against the pall of the blackened sky. The neighborhood was at this time so quiet, and seemed so devoid of obstructions, that Hannigan's dog thought it a good opportunity to prowl in forbidden precincts, and so came and pawed Trescott's lawn, growling, and considering himself a formidable beast. Later, Peter Washington strolled past the house and whistled, but there was no dim light shining from Henry's loft, and presently ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane

... 'Tis farm-life true and countrified. In every corner grain is stacked, Old wines in fragrant jars are packed: About the farmyard gabbling gander And spangled peacock freely wander: With pheasant and flamingo prowl Partridge and speckled guinea-fowl: Pigeon and waxen turtle-dove Rustle their wings in cotes above. The farm-wife's apron draws a rout Of greedy porkers round about; And eagerly the tender lamb Waits the filled udder of its dam. With plenteous logs the hearth is bright. ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... isolated, and left to manage its own affairs, the politics of the solar system were comparatively simple; but what will they be when one globe interferes with another? Think of a German fleet of ether-ships on the prowl for a cosmical empire, bombarding Womla, and turning it into a Prussian fortress, or ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... his peculiar hobbling gait, as if slinking about on damaged feet. At the end furthest from the grating he would be lost altogether in the darkness. Only the slight limping shuffle could be heard. There was an air of moody detachment in that painful prowl kept up without a pause. When the door of the prison was suddenly flung open and his name shouted out he showed no surprise. He swerved sharply in his walk, and passed out at once, as though much depended upon his speed; but Captain Mitchell ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... had watched the waning of the day from his place in a smoking first for a while, before he got up and began to prowl restlessly about the corridors. "She will be so tired if she does not eat," he said to himself. "They ought not to let a child like that travel alone. I wonder—" He walked down the corridor again, but this time ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... and the muskrat built his house among the reeds. Not a raccoon nor a muskrat is the wayfarer likely to meet with here to-night; but the gray rat of civilization is to be dimly discerned, as he lopes along the gutters in his nightly prowl. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... something to do," says he. "Here I've been shut up in this confounded house for four mortal days! I can't read, can't eat, can't sleep. I just prowl around like a bear with a sore ear. I want something that will make me forget what a wretched, futile old fool I am. Do you know of anything that will fill ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... to Paris, Chris? I want to spend a whole year in Paris with you. We'll go to fine hotels along the Champs Elysees, we'll prowl through those queer places in Montmartre, remember? and once you'll take me to a students' ball, won't you, dear? I'd love to dance at a students' ball—with you!" Her eyes burned on him under fluttering black lashes—such long curling lashes! ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... remarkable because he lived in the centre of the region raided, and within one mile of the Devil's Hole. Faithful Wully proved himself worth all the dogs in the neighborhood. Night after night he brought in the sheep, and never one was missing. The Mad Fox might prowl about the Dorley homestead if he wished, but Wully, shrewd, brave, active Wully was more than a match for him, and not only saved his master's flock, but himself escaped with a whole skin. Everyone entertained a profound respect for him, and he might have been a popular pet but for his temper ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton

... then," said Charles Larkyns; "and, in the mean time, Verdant, let us take a prowl about the old place, and I'll put you up to a thing or two, and shew you some of the freshman's sights. But you must go and get your cap and gown, old fellow, and then by that time I'll be ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... "I'll come up tomorrow afternoon, and you and I will take a prowl about Eden and see what must be done. I'm ever so ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the fort, slightly to our right. Round this pile of stones they peered, looking for the Turk, who was always found, but here there were but few shots exchanged, as the Turks advanced our men made a rush backwards, or to the sands below, in time to prowl forward once more to have another look, and make ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... Sarah has a fear of burglars; most women have. As for myself, I prefer not to meet a burglar. It is all very well to get up in the night and prowl about with a pistol in one hand, seeking to eliminate the life of a burglar, and some men may like it; but I am of a very excitable nature, and I am sure that if I did find a burglar and succeeded in shooting him, I should be in such an excited ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler

... the trial that Maria had been frequently seen to clamber over the convent walls in the shape of a pig—that, proceeding to the cellar, she used to drink the best wine till she was intoxicated; and then start suddenly up in her own form. Other girls asserted that she used to prowl about the roof like a cat, and often penetrate into their chamber, and frighten them by her dreadful howlings. It was also said that she had been seen in the shape of a hare, milking the cows dry in the meadows belonging ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... if it were not time that he started back—for Aunt Lu had written urging him to keep the boy no longer than was absolutely necessary—Anton still lingered. Hitherto he had known no fear of any forest. He inherited his love for it and his knowledge. He had even loved best to prowl in its depths during the moonlit or starlit hours, and riding hither had anticipated a leisurely return. So long as he was back at the farm by morning he saw no ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... Then the drifting shadow of a huge butterfly attracted his attention, and soon he was nosing through the jungle on the trail of a wood-rat. It was not a very fresh trail. He knew that well enough; but in the deeps of him were all his instincts of ancient training—instincts to hunt, to prowl, to pursue living things, in short, to play the game of getting his own meat though for ages man had got the meat for him ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... and sure opinion is, that those who prowl about Spain are not Egyptians, but swarms of wasps and atheistical wretches, without any kind of law or religion, Spaniards, who have introduced this Gypsy life or sect, and who admit into it every day all the idle and broken people of Spain. There are some foreigners who would make ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... natural to persons of breeding, and, above all, a liberal flow of ideas. No one there thinks of keeping his thought for a play; and no one regards a story as material for a book. In short, the hideous skeleton of literature at bay never stalks there, on the prowl for a clever sally or an ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... here, I s'pose, as to go 'n' prowl round this town huntin' for Vermont," said Bob, thoughtfully. "But I guess I'll see if I can strike his trail. Any way I'll feel better, 'cause I'll know I've done something. It's no use to let a feller like him be run into these dens, if ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey

... the inspector of furnished lodgings who has inquired after the newly arrived travellers; bawdy houses where men prowl around nude women, while through the half-open doors of the rooms couples can be seen in dalliance; the society of the time, in villas of an insolent luxury, a revel of richness and magnificence, or in the poor quarters with their rumpled, bug-ridden folding-beds; impure sharpers, like ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... what you call winter, is coming on. You will soon see us lie down, and we shall not rise again till the spring. Take my advice. Do not leave the lodge. I have sure knowledge that that knavish Island Spirit is on the prowl, and as he has command of a particular kind of storm, which comes from the south-west, he only waits his opportunity to catch you abroad and do you a mischief. Try and amuse yourself. That cupboard," pointing to a corner of the lodge, "is never empty; for it is there that all the offerings are ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... latter advanced to enter Dutch House, shadows appeared on the ground glass of the side door; and opening with a jerk, it let out a gush of fetid air together with Respectability on the prowl—Respectability incognito, sly, furtive of air, ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... continued to prowl up and down, licking their chops and occasionally glancing at the top of the rock. Suddenly they halted in the middle of their beat, and, pricking up their ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon

... rooms with asphyxiating air and one hundred degrees temperature, rather than try to catch the faint whiff of breeze in their natural breathing places—the stoops of their homes; where naked women dance by night in the streets, and unsexed men prowl like vultures through the darkness on "business" not only permitted, but encouraged, by the police; where the education of infants begins with the knowledge of prostitution and the training of little girls is training in the arts of Phryne; where ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... and pass a winter. Not even New Orleans made me feel like that. I feel about New Orleans that it is a place to visit rather than to settle down in. I want to go back to New Orleans, but I do not want to stay more than a few weeks. I want to see some people that I know, prowl about the French quarter, and have Jules Alciatore turn me out a dinner; then I want to go away. So, too, I want to go back to Atlanta—just to see some people. I want to stay there a week or two. Also I want to go to St. Augustine ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... the Polar bears, and there's a sort of red light comes in the sky that they can see to prowl by, I suppose, and the stars, I should think they're brighter than even they were last night; weren't they bright last night, Nancy, just about ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham

... used to prowl about, hunting for diversion. There lay the familiar streets, frozen with snow or liquid with mud. They led to the houses of good people who were putting the babies to bed, or simply sitting still before the parlor stove, ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... reply. Like a feline creature on the prowl, he was watching the prey that had so nearly succumbed to his talons. Blakeney's face now was positively ghastly. The effort to speak, to laugh, to appear unconcerned, was apparently beyond his strength. His cheeks and lips were livid in hue, the skin ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... corner and watch one of these fin-de- siecle diplomatists work out her little problem. She generally comes plunging into our city from outside, hot for conquest, making acquaintances right and left, indiscriminately; thus falling an easy prey to the wolves that prowl around the edges of society, waiting for just such lambs to devour. Her first entertainments are worth attending for she has ingeniously contrived to get together all the people she should have left out, and failed to attract the social ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... Turkey Wood. There, in course of time, Mrs. Turkey made her nest on the ground, well hidden among some bushes, and in it laid twelve big eggs. It was the day on which she laid the twelfth big egg that old Mr. Bob-cat, who, of course, wasn't old then, took it into his head to prowl about in Turkey Wood. Already Mr. Bob-cat had begun to form a sneaky habit of stealth. He was very fond of watching his neighbors to find out what they were about, and it was this fondness of minding the business of other people instead of his own that was making him sneaky and stealthy, ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess

... and hyenas laugh to attract their prey," continued the old woman. "The evil spirits which prowl at night in the stones and ruins know many a trick ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... to a state of mute helplessness and completely at Copple's mercy. Next he gave us one of his animal tales. He was hunting along the gulf shore on the coast of Sonora, where big turtles come out to bask in the sun and big jaguars come down to prowl for meat. One morning he saw a jaguar jump on the back of a huge turtle, and begin to paw at its neck. Promptly the turtle drew in head and flippers, and was safe under its shell. The jaguar scratched and clawed at a great rate, but to no avail. Then the big cat turned round and seized the ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... past Kitty's barricade, stared at her doubtfully. This was a clever girl; she had proved her cleverness frequently. She might have some reason other than fear in keeping him out. So he put a fresh candle in the sconce and began to prowl. He pierced the attic windows with a ranging glance; no one was in the yard or on the Street. The dust on the windows ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... pleasant to see him so near; but now I'm glad he made the visit, for I don't think he suspects anything, and won't have a reason to prowl around. We must spend a good deal ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis

... lead up the haye and the round, when need was, with a fine muckender in her hand and a quaint, better than any woman of her neighbourhood; by reason of which things my lord priest became so sore enamoured of her that he was like to lose his wits therefor and would prowl about all day long to get a sight of her. Whenas he espied her in church of a Sunday morning, he would say a Kyrie and a Sanctus, studying to show himself a past master in descant, that it seemed as it were an ass a-braying; whereas, when he saw her ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... converse in," said Michu. "The gendarmes may prowl as much as they like; the worst they could do would be to ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... should I fear before a six-days child? Why should you prowl in heaven and gibber shrill, Like dogs that in an autumn night run wild, Like deer that sneak through forests, ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... me yesterday from Standerton, and from what he says we are likely to remain on here for some time longer defending the position which is no doubt an important one. My oxen are well, but some of the men are getting enteric. We have to be on the alert against Kaffirs who prowl up the hill with a view, as we think, of taking a look round on ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne

... heard already that a fox was on the prowl, and that men should look to their hen-houses. Moreover, did you note how he crossed himself like a priest, and what he said about being among good Christians? Also, it is Lent and a fast-day, and by ill-fortune, although none of us ate of it, there was meat upon the table, ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... individual who had a horribly depraved appetite for decaying human flesh. He would haunt the graveyards and eat the putrefying remains of the recently buried, preferring the intestines. Having regaled himself in a midnight prowl, he would fill his pockets for future use. When interrogated on the subject of his depravity he said it had existed since childhood. He acknowledged the greatest desire to devour children he would meet playing; but he did not possess the courage to ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... department was one of the last to be freed from duty. This was due to the inconsiderateness of the other departments, which omitted to disgorge their letters till the last moment. Mike as he grew familiar with the work, and began to understand it, used to prowl round the other departments during the afternoon and wrest letters from them, usually receiving with them much abuse for being a nuisance and not leaving honest workers alone. Today, however, he had to sit on till nearly six, waiting for the ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... difficult to awaken that for a while her friends were alarmed. Helen almost fell asleep while eating and talking. The men were more visibly affected by the mountain air than the women. Castleton, however, would not succumb to the strange drowsiness while he had a chance to prowl around ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... among the thieves, the receivers of stolen goods and light-fingered gentry, you search among the secret agents, among that low unclean crowd which gravitates to your Staff Offices and circulates about them, forever on the watch, on the prowl to surprise some secret, to buy over some conscience, to sell and bargain over some purloined document!... Look higher than that, gentlemen—much higher! Look higher than the Staff Offices, than the leaders in the political world, than members of the Government, even—fix your attention ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... lost, then Tarn shall take me back over the western seas, where all the remembered years lie floating idly aswing with the ebb and flow, to bring me again to the river of Munra-O. Far up that river we shall haply chase those creatures whose eyes are peering in the night as they prowl around the world, for Tarn ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... evening prowl with the young female panther before the evasive chance was grasped, and the storm-tossed, overdue Monarchic hoped to dock ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... twice a week, Mike the Angel liked to take off and prowl around Radio Row, just shopping around. Usually, he didn't work too late, but, on this particular afternoon, he'd been in his office until after six o'clock, working on some papers for the Interstellar Commission. So, by the time ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett

... suffer'd many things—I heard foretold A dreadful doom for Pilate,—lingering woes, In far, barbarian climes, where mountains cold Built up a solitude of trackless snows, There he and grisly wolves prowl'd side by side, There he lived famish'd—there, ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

... command I would order 'Boots and Saddles' to be sounded at once. There, sleep, Warren, and in the morning you will be your own grand self. Why speak of anything I could do for you and Grace? How could I serve myself in any surer way? As schoolgirls say, 'I won't speak to you again.' I'm going to prowl around a little, and see that all is right;" and he disappeared among the ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... saw, and if he strips her down and drives her—which he will—he'll catch us long before we can make Tellus. On the other hand, I gave Rodebush a lot of data, and if he and Lyman Cleveland can add it to their own stuff and get that super-ship of ours rebuilt in time, they'll be out here on the prowl; and they'll have what can give even Nerado plenty of argument. No use worrying about it, anyway. We won't know anything until we can detect one or the other of them, and then will be the time to do something ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... Mediterranean. At the end of his lower jaw there is developed a mobile and supple filament which he is able to use with the greatest dexterity. Concealed in the mud, without moving and only allowing the end of his head to emerge, he agitates and vibrates his filament. The little fishes who prowl in the neighbourhood, delighted with the sight of this apparent worm, regarding it as a destined prey, throw themselves on to it, but before they are able to bite and recognise their error they have disappeared in the mouth of the proprietor ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... which is implanted in most of us. She was frankly inquisitive, and could never be two minutes in a strange room without making a tour of it and examining its books, pictures, and photographs. Almost at once she began to prowl. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... used to prowl about a field in which Four Oxen used to dwell. Many a time he tried to attack them; but whenever he came near they turned their tails to one another, so that whichever way he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them. At last, however, they fell a-quarrelling among ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... sharply. "You better take old Buck to pack your blankets and grub," he told him, in a matter-of-fact tone. "We'll be swinging down that way in two or three days; by next Saturday you'll find us camped at the mouth of Jump-off Coulee, if nothing happens. That'll give you four days to prowl around. Come on, boys—we've got a big circle ahead of us this morning, and it's going to be hot enough to singe the tails off our cayuses ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... spoke, and I presume that Hastings' and Romer's thoughts were the same as my own, which were, that I would have given a great deal to find myself safe and sound again within the prison walls. However, daylight came at last; the wild beasts did not prowl any more; we walked on till we found a stream of water, where we sat down and took our breakfast, after which our courage revived, and we talked and laughed as we walked on, just as we had done before. We now began to ascend ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... prowl about the Swift house at night with a desire to rob his young master or injure him, did not surprise Koku in the least. He accepted the fact of the marauder's presence ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton

... it is the "stretching out of a hand," and it comforts the afflicted. But what shall we say to those on whom disgrace has laid its heavy, defiling hand? Is it well to write to them at all? Shall we not be mistaken for those who prowl like jackals round a grave, and will not our motives be misunderstood? Is not sympathy sometimes malice in disguise? Does not the phrase "I am so sorry for you!" sometimes sound like "I am so glad for myself?" ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... head no special words to fit the horror of his feelings. So he said—he had to say something, "Good God! What were you thinking of, Mr. Smith, to try to . . . " And then he left off. He dared not utter the awful word poison. Mr. Smith stopped his prowl. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... Harding becomes an inmate of this house I shall pack my valise, and start to Tromso! She approaches like Discord, uninvited, armed with an apple or a dagger. I am perfectly willing to share my fortune with her, but I'll swear I would rather prowl for a month through the plague-stricken district of Constantinople than see her domesticated here! You tried the experiment when she was a child, and we fought and scratched as indefatigably as those two amiable young Theban bullies, who are so ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... hundred and fifty pounds, so that after all I took out of that hole four hundred and fifty pounds more than I put into it. We got them all out and wrapped them up in a handkerchief, and then, fearing to carry home so much treasure, especially as we knew that Mr. Handspike Tom was on the prowl, made up our minds to pass the night where we were—a necessity which, disagreeable as it was, was wonderfully sweetened by the presence of that handkerchief full of virgin gold—the interest ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard

... jungle. Mounted very high on their stilts of bamboo, crowding each other very close together, compound touching compound for the sake of companionship and safety. Safety from the wild beasts of the forests, those that cry by night, and howl and prowl and kill; safety from the serpents, whose sting is death, shelter, protection, from all the dark, lurking dangers of the jungle—the evil, mighty forests, at whose edge, between it and the winding yellow rivers, they build themselves their homes. ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte

... good, and you do not see how profoundly you are to be pitied. But other people will see, and will tell you about it, only you will think they are under a hallucination, which is one of the phases of yours. The truth is I am a grubbing old scientist. I prowl around in laboratories and don't know much of anything else, and more than half the time my hands are stained with unaesthetic colours you won't like at all. And they tell me I have a foolish way of sitting and thinking about one thing, ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... primal man, Grim utilitarian, Loving woods for hunt and prowl, Lake and hill for fish and fowl, As the brown bear blind and dull To the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... the ideal; it contains the germ or possibility of that to which the spirit of man is traveling. It disciplines the individual in service to that greater being in which it will find its fulfillment, and a bad State is better than no State at all. To be without a State is to prowl backwards from the divinity before us to the beast ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... and parted the draperies at the lower window to look out again. "Ten o'clock of a still, cloudy night and—and the devil is on a prowl in ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... fresh fragrant lilies in her hand, and her tender face blanched and tearful, it seemed to the lawyer as if indeed the pet ewe lamb were being led away from peaceful flowery pastures, from the sweet sanctity of the cloistral fold, out through thorny devious paths where Temptations prowl wolf-fanged, or into fierce conflicts that end in the social shambles, those bloodless abattoirs where malice mangles humanity. How many verdure-veiled, rose-garlanded pitfalls yawned in that treacherous future now stretching before ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... who in this world led wicked lives are not allowed to go there. After death, these wicked persons take the shape of ghosts (Sta-au'[1]), and are compelled ever after to remain near the place where they died. Unhappy themselves, they envy those who are happy, and continually prowl about the lodges of the living, seeking to do them some injury. Sometimes they tap on the lodge skins and whistle down the smoke hole, but if the fire is burning within ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... Laddie, not liking to use the name "tramp," as the man, though he did have on a ragged coat, did not seem like the lazy wanderers who prowl about the country asking for food but ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope

... forth to seek our consul, and we found that, difficult as it was to leave the docks by sea, it was just as difficult by land. In war time two o'clock in the morning is no hour for honest men to prowl around wharfs. So we were given to understand by very wide-awake sentries with bayonets, policemen, and enthusiastic special constables. But at last we reached the consulate and laid siege. One man pressed the electric button, kicked ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis

... boat. There she was, lying careened on the deck, with patched sides, in a belt of chips, shavings, and sawdust; a few pensive sailors stood about, gazing down at her with serious eyes. Sebright, bent double, circled slowly on a prowl of minute inspection. Suddenly straightening himself up, he pronounced a curt "She'll do"; and, without looking at us at all, went off ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... Mind ye don't make a flash or we'll have some craft on the prowl along here. We can't ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore

... nearer and nearer, as the sound every minute became more loud. From this time sleep was renounced for the night, a large fire was immediately kindled, and a constant blaze kept up: This prevented the beasts from invading the tent; but they continued to prowl round it at a little distance, with incessant howlings, till the day broke, and then, to the great comfort of the affrighted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr



Words linked to "Prowl" :   walk, footle, prowl car, linger, tarry, lurch, lounge, lollygag, lurk, walking, mill around, mess about, mill about, prowler, loaf, lallygag, loiter



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com