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Scarecrow   Listen
noun
Scarecrow  n.  
1.
Anything set up to frighten crows or other birds from cornfields; hence, anything terifying without danger. "A scarecrow set to frighten fools away."
2.
A person clad in rags and tatters. "No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march with them through Coventry, that's flat."
3.
(Zool.) The black tern. (Prov. Eng.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scarecrow" Quotes from Famous Books



... now, and nothing else. My real name's Jenkins; but if you or any one else were to ask for Isaac Jenkins, there's not a soul in these parts as'd know as such a man ever lived. No; they call me 'Old Crow.' Maybe 'cos I look summat like a scarecrow. But I cannot rightly tell. It's my name, howsever, and you must call me ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... There lies the glass! There lies the slime! 'Tis but a jest; I but keep time, Thou hellish pest, To thine own chime! [While the WITCH steps back in rage and astonishment.] Dost know me! Skeleton! Vile scarecrow, thou! Thy lord and master dost thou know? What holds me, that I deal not now Thee and thine apes a stunning blow? No more respect to my red vest dost pay? Does my cock's feather no allegiance claim? Have I my visage masked today? Must I be forced ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... said Desmond heartily. "I am a bit of a scarecrow, no doubt, but we've won the trick, man. The real guy is down below, dead from fright by this time, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... commercial codes. Then, as this argument served only to make them the laughing-stock of their antagonists, they assumed the offensive; and, showing that the socialists understood nothing at all themselves of this organization that they held up as a scarecrow, they ended by saying that it was but a new socialistic chimera, a word without sense,—an absurdity. The latest writings of the economists are full of ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... a nod of her head. "Thank ye, Dickon! And now for making this scarecrow. Be within call, Dickon, in ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... inference. I must tell you that my grandfather was a notable lawyer, and who knows but that a scrap of his mantle may not have descended upon me! Now to answer your question right away—you will admit that pretty often your aunt is dressed like a last year's scarecrow; that she is drowsy, stupefied, and generally inaccessible. At another time she is real smart and vivacious, and puts other women in the shade. Then suddenly she disappears, shuts herself up along ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... reprieve. What do you think a fellow is—a scarecrow? All hat and clothes and no feeling, no inside, no brain to make fancies for himself? No!" he went on violently. "Never in his life will he go again into that room of yours—never ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... two over. Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot? Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence? The gentleman in the scarecrow's hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come! I'll throw you in a working model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack so long ago that upon my word and ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens

... child?" she sobb'd, "Look here!" I saw it in the wheel entangled, A weather beaten rag as e'er From any garden scarecrow dangled.' I. 85, 86. ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... the better for that." A cluster of fine lines appeared at the corners of the Governor's laughing eyes. "But, once for all, you must get rid of your false impressions of me, and see me as a fact, not as a kind of social scarecrow. First of all, you think I am an extremist—well, I am not. I am merely a man of facts. I see the world as it is and you see it as you wish it to be—that is the difference between us. I have lived with realities; I know actual conditions—and you know ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... only hoarse, since now (Heaven and my soul bear record of my vow) I my desires screw from thee and direct Them and my thoughts to that sublime respect And conscience unto priesthood. 'Tis not need (The scarecrow unto mankind) that doth breed Wiser conclusions in me, since I know I've more to bear my charge than way to go; Or had I not, I'd stop the spreading itch Of craving more: so in conceit be rich; But 'tis the God of nature who intends And shapes my ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... a young squadron commander, "I have in the second company a mustachioed scarecrow, Sergeant-Major Dobrzynski, who calls himself Sprinkler, but whom the Masovians call the Lithuanian bear. If you bid me, General, we ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... like flowers hiding in a thick-set hedge. The face might be anywhere; he might move suddenly in any direction; he was prepared, as it were, to move forward, sideways, or backwards according as the wind decided or the road appeared—a sort of universal scarecrow of ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... to keep off the fisherman's hook; the squirrel never cracks an empty nut; the crow soon learns the harmlessness of the scarecrow. But man, though he may have twenty times wriggled off the hook, the patient angler catches him at last. He always cracks the empty shell, then cries: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' This cry he might be spared would he learn a lesson from the squirrel, who weighs his ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... he said; "Casimir has never rightly liked me since. And had the Black Riders caught me, over to his dogs I should have gone without so much as a belt upon me. He would have kept them without food for a week on purpose to make a clean job of my poor scarecrow pickings." ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... successor. The vicissitudes of his short reign need not be narrated. While Pollock was gathering his brigades at Gundamuk in the beginning of the following September, a forlorn Afghan, in dirty and tattered rags, rode into his camp. This scarecrow was Futteh Jung, who, unable to endure longer his sham kingship and the ominous tyranny of Akbar Khan, had fled from Cabul in disguise to beg a ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... from her. I fired pointblank, I fired again (the Colt's did not fail); they swept by, hooting, jostling; they thudded on; and rising I screeched and waved, as bizarre, no doubt, as any animated scarecrow. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... I remember observing the contrast the neat, bright doctor, with his powder as white as snow and his bright, black eyes and pleasant manners, made with the coltish country folk, and above all, with that filthy, heavy, bleared scarecrow of a pirate of ours, sitting, far gone in rum, with his arms on the table. Suddenly he—the captain, that is—began to pipe ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... keep thee aloof from the debasing influence of thy own sex, with their sparrow-like frivolity and their enslaving superstition, except, indeed, from that of our cousin Brigida, who may well serve as a scarecrow and a warning. And though—since I agree with the divine Petrarca, when he declares, quoting the 'Aulularia' of Plautus, who again was indebted for the truth to the supreme Greek intellect, 'Optimam foeminam nullam esse, alia licet alia pejor sit'—I cannot boast that thou ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... scarecrow, taking things as coolly as though he had always been used to having white men row him about a harbour," laughed Cabot, "and yet I don't suppose he was ever in a ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe

... to be, although in the sear o' the leaf, highly intellectual; but the old Scotch cloak, the broad-brimmed hat of the covenanter, the loose under vest, the thread-bare coat shaking in the wind, like the unmeasured garment of the scarecrow, and the colour-driven nankeens, grown short by age and frequent hard rubbings; then, too, the flowing locks of iron gray straggling over the shoulders like the withered tendrils of a blighted vine—all ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... Yes, I'll trot; and I'll trot with a sick heart, Kit French, to leave you drinking your wits away with that low blind man. For a low man you are—a low blind man—and your clothes they would disgrace a scarecrow. I'll go to my bed, Kit; and O, dear boy, go soon to yours—the old room, you know; it's ready for you—and go soon and sleep it off; for you know, dear, they, one and all, regret it in the morning; thirty years I've kept this house, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson

... with a throne for wages, Stripped like the iron-souled Hindu sages, Draped like a statue, in strings like a scarecrow, His helmet-hat an old tin pan, But worn in the love of the heart of man, More sane than the helm of Tamerlane, Hairy Ainu, wild man of Borneo, Robinson Crusoe—Johnny Appleseed; And the robin might have said, "Sowing, he goes to the far, ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... are not often met with in the forest, little native settlements occur from time to time, where, surrounded by small clearings, over which a primitive scarecrow mounts guard, sufficient rice is grown for their needs. These little hamlets are occupied by woodmen, or little communities of Chins, a kindred race to the Burmans, though differing from them in many customs, most curious of which ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly

... in the street, and no man stands more upon't that he is the king's officer. His jurisdiction extends to the next stocks, where he has commission for the heels only, and sets the rest of the body at liberty. He is a scarecrow to that ale-house, where he drinks not his morning draught, and apprehends a drunkard for not standing in the king's name. Beggars fear him more than the justice, and as much as the whip-stock, whom he delivers over to his subordinate magistrates, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... hurry; he jogged along leisurely, evidently on the lookout for an opportunity to replenish his wardrobe. Truth to say, this needed replenishing—Leslie resembled a scarecrow clad in a suit of soiled pajamas. But by this time most of the shops had their shutters up. When the last one had been left behind O'Reilly spurred his horse into a gallop, relieved to know that the ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... to free himself). Let me at him! Isn't he the pleasant sort of a scarecrow for any woman to be crossing the ocean with! It's back from the docks of New York he'd be turned (trying to rush at him again), with a lie in his mouth and treachery in his heart, and another man's wife by his side, and he passing ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... scorns, and contumelious taunts, In open market-place produced they me, To be a public spectacle to all. Here, said they, is the terror of the French, The scarecrow that affrights our children so. Then broke I from the officers that led me, And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground, To hurl at the beholders of my shame. My grisly countenance made others fly, None durst come near for fear of sudden death. In iron walls they deem'd me not ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... beckoned the bearers to follow him, and led the way into the temple. Mounting a platform eight or ten feet high, he advanced to an ugly scarecrow of an idol, slapped it, kicked it, and toppled it to the ground. Then, with vast labor and much joyful shouting, the ponderous form of Father Higgins was hoisted aloft, and installed in the seat of the dethroned deity. Next Professor ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... should know which leg you stand upon. We are nothing but a merchantman, and I don't suppose you are bound by the ship's articles to fight unless you see fit, but whether we fight or not, our fate is the same; if we are such d—d fools as to let that garlic-eating scarecrow make a prize of us without firing a gun, we shall be sent to the mines for life; but if we will only stand by each other, I'll be bail that we give him something that he can't eat. Now if you are all ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... tied hand and foot, and when I released myself I was in such a taking at the scarecrow figure I must cut that I shunned the sight of men, and kept to the fields. But I had not eaten since noon of the day of my misadventure, and, being desperately hungry, I entered your gate to beg a meal, purposing to pay for it by some ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... ridiculed and dishonoured by his very votaries. His hideous figure was made use of only as a bugbear to frighten children; and to drive the birds from fruit trees; with whose filth he was generally besmeared. Yet this contemptible God, this scarecrow in a garden, was held in high repute at Lampsacus, and esteemed the same as [502]Dionusus. He was likewise by the Egyptians reverenced as the principal God; no other than the Chaldaic [503]Aur, the same as Orus and Apis: whose rites were particularly ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... says I, 'for you'll get your feet all cut, but you can muddy your shoes,' which she did, I pumpin' on 'em, so that the dust in the back yard would stick. Then we starts off across the country, and, upon my word, I was pretty nigh ashamed to be seen walkin' with such a little scarecrow. When I bought the tickets at the station she asked me how much they was, and put it down in her book. When we got into the cars the people all looked hard at her, and I reckon they thought some ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton

... argument. But, in the present case, we should reflect how apt mankind are to relent after they have inflicted punishment;—so that, perhaps, the same men who would have detested the noble Lord, while alive and in prosperity, pointing him as a scarecrow to their children, might, after being witnesses to the miserable fate that had overtaken him, begin in their hearts to pity him; and from the fickleness so common to human nature, perhaps, by way of compensation, acquit him of part of his crimes; insinuate that he was dealt hardly with, and thus, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... maid speak of me as a dumpy old scarecrow? No, thank you!" and she calls the waiter to bring a ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... when she placed us naked and miserable on the shore of this great ocean-world. Swim who can, and whoso is too clumsy let him sink. The right is with him that prevails. Family honor? A valuable capital for him that knows how to profit by it.—Conscience? An excellent scarecrow with which to frighten sparrows from cherry-trees.—Filial love? Where is the obligation? Did my father beget me because he loved me? Did he think of me at all? Is there anything holy in his gratification of carnal appetite? Or shall I love him because he loves me? That ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... lignajxo, trabetajxo. Scanty malsuficxega. Scapegoat propekulo. Scapula skapolo. Scar cikatro. Scarabaeus skarabo. Scarce malsuficxa. Scarcely apenaux. Scarcity malsuficxo. Scare timigi. Scarecrow timigilo. Scarf skarpo. Scarlatina skarlatino. Scarlet skarlato. Scatter disjxeti, dissemi. Scene scenejo. Scene (painted) sceno. Scenery pejzagxo. Scent odoro. Scent flari. Sceptic skeptikulo. Sceptical skeptika. Sceptre sceptro. Schedule katalogo. Scheme projekto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... Mount Sarmiento (the highest mountain in the south, excepting Mt.!! Darwin!!). We then shall scud away for Concepcion in Chili. I believe the ship must once again steer southward, but if any one catches me there again, I will give him leave to hang me up as a scarecrow for all future naturalists. I long to be at work in the Cordilleras, the geology of this side, which I understand pretty well is so intimately connected with periods of violence in that great chain of mountains. The future is, indeed, to me a brilliant ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... shabby little Montmartre restaurant, Janiaud chanced to be seated, at a table in a corner, sipping his favourite stimulant. He was deplorably dirty and suggested a scarecrow, and the English editor looked nervous when I offered an introduction. Still, Janiaud was Janiaud. The offer was accepted, and Janiaud discoursed in his native tongue. At midnight the Editor ordered supper. Being ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... does that Arkansas ass know about it? Fame's nothing—the market price of your marble scarecrow is the thing to look at. It took you six months to chisel it, and you can't sell it for a hundred dollars. No, sir! Show me fifty thousand dollars and you can have my daughter —otherwise she marries young Simper. You have just six months to raise the money in. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Record of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of Kansas, the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Tiktok, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger; Besides Other Good People too Numerous to Mention ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... evening Goodwin walked back to the town with his guest, leaving him at the corner of the Calle Grande. As he was returning homeward one "Beelzebub" Blythe, with the air of a courtier and the outward aspect of a scarecrow, pounced upon him hopefully from the door ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... "do tell! You've completely taken me in! I expected a scarecrow. What for did you frighten me with that letter I got last week? It might have been ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... men have devised to keep up what is called the social compact. Honor! truly a very convenient coin, which those who know how to pass it may lay out with great advantage.*** Conscience! oh yes, a useful scarecrow to frighten sparrows away from cherry-trees; it is something like a fairly written bill of exchange with which your bankrupt merchant staves ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... and fame. Or, being a French-Flemish youth, I might have been drawn in a hand-cart by my compeers, to tilt for municipal rewards at the water-quintain; which, unless I sent my lance clean through the ring, emptied a full bucket over me; to fend off which, the competitors wore grotesque old scarecrow hats. Or, being French-Flemish man or woman, boy or girl, I might have circled all night on my hobby- horse in a stately cavalcade of hobby-horses four abreast, interspersed with triumphal cars, going round and round and round and round, we the goodly ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... broad, topped by a shock of red hair, gave him a kind of intellectual charity that made his whole countenance shine with kindness. Yet his clothes belied the promise of his brow. They were ill-fitting, with an air of Sunday-bestness that gave him an incongruous scarecrow effect. It was easy to see why Market Street was beginning to call him that "Mad Adams." As he lifted his glance from the floor, his eyes met Laura Van Dorn's, then flitted away quickly, and the smile she should have had for her own, he gave to his audience. He began ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... "What a scarecrow!" he muttered, looking back at the individual in black. "What a gorgon!" he continued, as his eyes travelled to the man in motley. "Gog and Magog, by Heavens!" he commented, as he ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... men that that would be a merry thing to do. He was such a scarecrow they gave him a scarecrow horse. It was old and blind of one eye and limped on three legs, dragging the fourth behind it. The lad mounted and rode forth with all the rest, and when the courtiers saw him they laughed and ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle

... the son of a poor widow who lived near Jack's house. He was somewhat younger than myself and small for his age, but a sharp, intelligent little fellow, though amusingly ignorant of affairs in general. His chief employment was acting the part of a scarecrow by frightening birds from the cornfields, and running on errands into Bideford for any of the neighbours, by which means he enabled his mother to eke out her scanty pittance. I used to share with him my school pasty, and now and then I saved a piece ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... it contained the accumulated rubbish of 10 years. Aunt Alma's appearance was enough to give one fits, a tweed dress kilted up so high that one saw her brown stockings as she walked, and a hat like a scarecrow's. When I think how awfully well dressed Mother always was, and how nice she always looked; of course Mother was at least 20 years younger than Aunt Alma, but even if Mother had lived to be 80 she would never have looked like that. Thank goodness, on the way from the station we did not ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... touched by them; but this is not the case in the Districts above Agra." [92] In Hamirpur they appear to have some connection with the Kurmis, and a story told of them in Saugor is that the first Lodhi was created by Mahadeo from a scarecrow in a Kurmi woman's field and given the vocation of a farmservant But the Lodhis themselves claim Rajput ancestry and say that they are descended from Lava, the eldest of the two sons of Raja Ramchandra ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... Claudia," he said, laughing, "that you did not see me at the time I was rescued, for I was such a scarecrow that you would never have been able to regard me with due and proper respect afterwards. I was so thin that my bones ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... laughed Mr. Adams. "Don't let's rig up a scarecrow, to spoil our good-byes. Charley and I'll take care of ourselves; won't we, Charley? We'll stick by each other, and other folks can do as they please, as long as they don't interfere. Come on; let's go aboard, and you can see our state-room, and ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... hollow; the memories of a lifetime cloud his vision. "Perhaps you would do well not to trust me," he says; the warning of a hypocrite to satisfy his startled conscience as once more his gaze lifts bold and far along the road which lies through the corner guarded by this scarecrow of a boy. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... valley, so that we hear the words of welcome repeated again and again, growing fainter and fainter as the sound of the voice travels from cliff to cliff. The performer is delighted with a few soldi, and the jaded scarecrow of a horse seems pleased with his momentary halt. Iterum altiora petimus; by degrees we reach the airy platform upon which Ravello stands, and finally alight at the comfortable old inn so long associated with the excellent ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... failings and eccentricities of the family had been reviewed before the public eye, like a succession of cinematograph pictures. It did not occur to Stephen that he was an object of pity, but he felt that through his own folly and that of another, he had become a kind of scarecrow, a figure of fun: and because until now the world had laughed with instead of at him, he would rather have faced a shower of bullets than a ripple ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... become a scarecrow that all these children desert me so suddenly!" exclaimed Miss Laura, looking helplessly about and lifting her skirts the higher to avoid the dirty suds which somebody ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond

... to him, his eyes blazing. "Shut your dirty mouth, or I'll tear you apart!" he threatened. "You're a liar, an' you know it. Sharp told me about you settin' the Toltec on Betty. I know the rest. I know you tried to make a monkey out of my dad, you damned old ossified scarecrow! If you open your trap again, I'll just naturally pulverize you! I reckon that's all I've got to say ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer

... saying, "Maister Wauch, how have ye the conscience to send hame such a piece o' wark as that coat to ony decent man? Do ye dare to imagine that I am a Jerusalem spider, that I could be crammed, neck and heels, into such a thing as that? Fye, shame—it would not button on yourself, man, scarecrow-looking mortal though ye be!" ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... New York? I loved it so I never went to bed for fear I'd miss something. But when I went 'Back to the Land,' did it take me long to fall in love with the forests and the green fields? It took me a week. I go to bed now the same day I get up, and I've passed on my high hat and frock coat to a scarecrow. And I'll bet you when those bears once scent the wild woods they'll stampede for them like Croker going ...
— The Nature Faker • Richard Harding Davis

... spending a half-crown when John Breakstone's family are without a loaf; or 'standing' a bottle of port for poor old Polly Rabbits, who has her thirteenth child; or treating himself to a suit of corduroys for little Bob Scarecrow, whose breeches are sadly out at elbows. Think of these temptations, brother moralists and philosophers, and don't be too ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... ungainly strides, his coat-tails flapping like a scarecrow's. The coat, in fact, was a cast-off one of Mr. Wesley's, narrow in the chest, short in the sleeves, but inordinately full in the skirts. The Rector had found and taken Johnny from the Charity School at Wroote to help him with the maps and drawings for his ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... fingers, and then later clasped and finally raised them above her upturned face, while her body swayed with the vehemence of her feelings. Her garb, too, lent a pathos, for it was naught but a faded calico dress that hung from her attenuated frame like the raiment of a scarecrow. It may have been the shadowy room or the mournful dirge of the nearby ocean that added an uncanny touch to her words and looks, but from the moment she arose until her utterance ceased, Albert was spell-bound. So peculiar, and yet so pathetic, was her prayer, ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... that scarecrow 'as got 'em bad!' said Ortheris. 'Seems like if 'e comes any furder we'll 'ave ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... done, for few women would have cared to link themselves publicly with such a gaunt and tattered scarecrow as I undoubtedly was then; but Grace was born with high courage and a manner which made all she did appear right. When Calvert said that he would send for Colonel Carrington, she calmly placed her hand ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... Moreton's, a respectable clergyman. Mrs. Freke was so much incensed by his insolent interference, as she was pleased to call it, that she made an effigy of Mr. Moreton dressed in his canonicals, and hung the figure up as a scarecrow in a garden close by the high road. He was so much beloved and respected for his benevolence and unaffected piety, that Mrs. Freke totally failed in her design of making him ridiculous; her scarecrow was torn to pieces by his parishioners; and though, in the true spirit ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... committing the same fault. The beautiful theory of this non-vindictive justice is, that having convicted a man of a crime worthy of death, we entirely pardon the criminal, restore him to his place in our affection and esteem, and then hang him, not as a malefactor, but as a scarecrow. That is the theory. And the practice is, that we send a child to prison for a month for stealing a handful of walnuts, for fear that other children should come to steal more of our walnuts. And we do not punish a swindler for ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... remember you had the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman to help you conquer those enemies," suggested the Wizard. "Just now, my dear, there is not a single warrior ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... whither he has gone like any other young dandy, an agreeable addition to a country shooting-party because of his chestnut locks, his blue eyes, his handsome person, and general recklessness of character; agreeable, he reflects, to elderly roues and established married women, but a scarecrow to mothers, and a stumbling-block to daughters, as being utterly penniless and rather good-for-nothing. Once more he comes down late for dinner, to find a vacant place by that beautiful girl, with her ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... certainly will be a awful thing for you. A woman can't ever say 's she was a brakeman or in the war, 'n' them 's the only good excuses 's can be give. Then, too, if you have a wooden leg 'n' the wind catches you at it, it'll take you in a way 's 'll make you look more like a scarecrow 'n a Christian. Mrs. Macy says 't she was speakin' to Mr. Kimball about you, 'n' he was nigh to serious f'r once in his life. She says he says 't they take the hair off o' horse-hides with plaster 'n' that wooden legs is very hard to ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner

... into the back yard, and though your landing might be soft enough, it would have a nameless horror, far more killing than a stony fall. The women stand about frowsy and unkempt, with wild Irish eyes, all wearing the shawl as a hood, many in picturesque tatters, like the cast-off rags of a scarecrow, rags and flesh alike unwashed and of evil odour. The children look healthy and strong, though some of them are almost in puris naturalibus. Their faces are washed once a week; one of them said so, but the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... was a gentleman in the main, and a very pleasant companion, though he had at first sight, in his everyday working suit, that scarecrow look which tall gaunt men, who have been somewhat battered by wind and weather, are apt to get. Our second mate, Ben, or rather "Benjie" Stubbs, as he was usually called, was nearly as broad as he was long, with puffed-out brown ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... cannot but think," retorted he of the wistful countenance, "that Guy Fawkes, that poor, fluttering, annual scarecrow of straw and rags, is an ill-used gentleman. I would give something to see him sitting pale and emaciated, surrounded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder, and expecting the moment that was to transport him to ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... cubits, and the beams one cubit, and the covering plaster one cubit; and the height of the upper story was forty cubits, and the string course one cubit, and the rain channel two cubits, and the beams one cubit, and the covering plaster one cubit, and the battlement three cubits, and the scarecrow one cubit. Rabbi Judah said, "the scarecrow was not counted in the measurement; but the ...
— Hebrew Literature

... A scarecrow of a figure appeared suddenly in the rays of the head-lights. It was Herbert, scratched, bleeding, dripping with water, and clad simply in a shirt and trousers. He dragged out his kit bag and fell into ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... encouraged enemy. Now a dozen are down in a heap, and there is momentary cessation, then up and pressing on again. Here a fiery spirit grows pugnacious, but is restrained by his class-mates; there another has his shirt torn off him, and presents the picturesque appearance of an amateur scarecrow. There are, in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... of human life. A lean and threadbare scarecrow flapped his ragged coat-sleeves in the wind that swept across the barren garden patch farther up the slope,—this was the nearest approach to human life that came within the range of vision. And as if to invite jovial companionship, this pathetic gentleman wore his ancient straw ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... a scarecrow in the cornfields. If they entered a house, he sat in the parlor; if they peeped into the kitchen, he was there. He made himself at home in every cottage, and, under one disguise or another, stole into the ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... and the exposure which it would entail. I must, I said, give the true key to my whole life; I must show what I am that it may be seen what I am not, and that the phantom may be extinguished which gibbers instead of me. I wish to be known as a living man, and not as a scarecrow which is dressed up in my clothes. False ideas may be refuted indeed by argument, but by true ideas alone are they expelled. I will vanquish, not my accuser, but my judges. I will indeed answer his charges and criticisms on me one by one, lest any one should say that ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... poison. But there, I think, Lindore would be more eloquent than me, so I shall leave it for him to discuss that chapter with you. But, to return to your own immediate concerns. Pray, are you then positively prohibited from falling in love? Did Mrs. Douglas only dress up a scarecrow to frighten you, or had she the candour to show you Love himself ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... part of the afternoon in throwing stones at a scarecrow. His aim was fairly good, and he succeeded in knocking off the hat and finally prostrating the wooden framework. Followed—an exciting chase ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton

... progress attained of late, has advanced so far upon certain lines that it has been hardly possible to proceed further in those directions without entering upon the forbidden field. Therefore, the old signboards against trespassing have been taken down. For "mesmerism," that verbal scarecrow, has been substituted "hypnotism," which word has had a wonderfully legitimatizing effect; while "animal magnetism," that once flouted idea, has been proven to be an existent fact by methods as accurate as those adopted by Faraday or Edison ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various

... forward with an invincible fascination. Gently releasing himself, and bidding the girl stand back, he moved toward the unsightly heap. Gradually it disclosed a grotesque caricature of a human figure, but so maimed and doubled up that it seemed a stuffed and fallen scarecrow. As is common in men stricken suddenly down by accident in the fullness of life, the clothes asserted themselves before all else with a hideous ludicrousness, obliterating even the majesty of death in their helpless yet ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... mare with laughter, though well I knew the screeching scarecrow up the pole would have me drawn and quartered for that day's work. I whipped the hounds off in the end, took 'em by road to Fermoy that same evening and boxed 'em to my brother-in-law in Carlow. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various

... get gazing up at him, a pygmy flashed with sun. A weathercock or scarecrow or both things in one? As bright as a jewelled crown ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... at one such gathering that a ghost appeared—a lank, saffron ghost, ragged as a scarecrow—wearing a foolish smile and the cape of a cavalryman's overcoat with no coat beneath it. The apparition was a youth of about twenty, with a downy beard all over his face, and countenance well mellowed with coal-soot, as though he had ridden several days ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... Uncle Jason had not moved from his tracks. "Now we're all right, sir," said the girl, cheerily, taking his arm and by her very touch seeming to galvanize a little life into his scarecrow figure. ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... of me or of Moll turning tail at a scarecrow," says Jack, adding with a sneer, "we are ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... Emma had delivered the letter. There were the library steps on which Arline Thayer had sat and cried so disconsolately because she could not go home for Christmas. Once more she saw a strange procession winding its way across the campus headed by a walking, chattering scarecrow, Emma Dean again in her famous representation of "Never Too Late to Mend," which had been one of the great features ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower

... consideration. The fat betting man and the scarecrow little butler walked aside and talked, both apparently indifferent to the impatience of a number of small customers; sometimes Joey called in his shrill cracked voice if he might lay ten half-crowns to one, or five shillings to one, as the case might be. Watkins would then raise his ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... provoke argument and recrimination. He was naturally quarrelsome—and a bully because of his unquestioned physical courage. He was popular in a way with those of his fellows who looked upon a gunman—a killer—as a kind of hero. The foreman of the T-Bar-T found him valuable as a sort of animate scarecrow. Gary's mere presence often served to turn the balance when the T-Bar-T riders had occasion to substantiate a bluff or settle a dispute with some other outfit riding the high country. And because Gary imagined that Bailey of the Concho had deliberately ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... to move; the eyes alone could be detected in motion, and these small orbs, scintillating in their deep sockets, were the only signs of life which he showed. Standing rigid and still, he appeared, not a statue, but a scarecrow, propped up by a stick; and the long, brown, weather-washed rifle did not belie ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... that malkin is a diminutive of mal, abbreviated from Mary, now commonly written Moll. Hence, by successive changes, malkin or maukin might mean a dirty wench, a figure of old rags dressed up as a scarecrow, and a mop of rags used for cleaning ovens. The Scotch maukin, for a hare, seems to be an instance of an animal acquiring a proper name, like renard in French, and jack for ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various

... taken for an animated scarecrow on the way?" laughed Ruth. "Better 'bide a wee,' Tommy. Sister will get here with your rompers ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... is impossible? Look at me! Do I not look like a hungry heir in the testamentary coat of his rich cousin the brewer? Would it not be thought that I was a scarecrow, to drive the birds ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... with linen wings. But when I look, and cast mine eyes below, What monster meets mine eyes in human show? So slender waist with such an abbot's loin, Did never sober nature sure conjoin. Lik'st a strawn scarecrow in a new-sown field, Reared on some stick, the tender corn to shield, Or, if that semblance suit not every deal, Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel. Despised nature suit them once aright, Their body to their coat ...
— English Satires • Various

... claimed, in the trial of Fries and Callender five years before. The requisite two-thirds of the Senate did not vote him guilty, and this method of curbing the Judiciary failed. "Impeachment is not even a scarecrow," admitted the disappointed President. The enemy had retired into the stronghold of the Judiciary, as he said, to be fed from the treasury, and from thence to beat down Republicanism. "By a fraudulent use of the ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... she said, pettishly. "I live on cream, and it's no good. Of course, I know I'm an object and a scarecrow; but I'd rather people didn't ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... thanks to Konief that I heard at all; he wrote me all about it. He says my brother cut off the gold tassels from my father's coffin, at night because they're worth a lot of money!' says he. Why, I can get him sent off to Siberia for that alone, if I like; it's sacrilege. Here, you—scarecrow!" he added, addressing the clerk at his side, "is it ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... blooming spangled orf'cer," shrieked Simmons; "I'll make a scarecrow of that orf'cer!" ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling

... see, ould Denis himself, tuck a faver whin the son was near a year in the college, an' it proved too many for him. He died; an' whin young Dinny hard of it, the divil a one of him would stay any longer in Maynewth. He came home like a scarecrow, said he lost his health in it, an' refused to go back. Faith, it was a lucky thing that his father died beforehand, for it would brake his heart. As it was, they had terrible work about it. But ould Denis is never dead while young Denis is livin'. Faix, he was as ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... tongue from the wicked little charmers. If the flower assimilated their dead bodies as the pitcher plant, for example, does those of its victims, the fly's fate would seem less cruel. To be killed by slow torture and dangled like a scarecrow simply for pilfering a drop of nectar is surely an execution of ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... unteachable, untamable creatures men are. They learn wisdom about all the little matters of daily life by experience, but they do not seem to do so about the higher. Even a sparrow comes to understand a scarecrow after a time or two, and any rat in a hole will learn the trick of a trap. But you can trick men over and over again with the same inducement, and, even whilst the hook is sticking in their jaws, the same bait will tempt them once more. That is very largely the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... old scarecrow ran in here like a lamp-lighter, as soon he saw me bowling after him, and has left the key in the lock; so I shall take the liberty of exploring a little; I've a strong though undeveloped taste for architectural ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... with quick ears. Though Hozier's whisper could hardly have reached him, he held up a warning hand, even while he brought the catamaran ashore on the shingle, so gently that not a pebble was disturbed. He rose, a gaunt scarecrow, stepped off, and drew the shallow craft somewhat further up the sloping beach. Then he helped Iris to her feet. She became conscious at once that his thumb-nail was of extraordinary length, and—so strangely constituted ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... was a veritable scarecrow. A man with a torn coat and rent trowsers, and a battered hat which barely held together upon his head. He was covered from head to foot with mud. His face ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... you take me for? A scarecrow, to keep people away from the house? That fine husband of yours, I'll have you know, is my husband's brother. You expect me to shut the door in his face and spit fire at him when he comes around? But, after all, ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... l'Education du dauphin; OEuvres completes (1828), t. xvii. pp. 541, 545.] Bossuet had good grounds for speaking so. Louis XII. himself said, in 1511, to the ambassador of Spain, that "this pretended council was only a scarecrow which he had no idea of employing save for the purpose of bringing the pope to reason." Amidst these vain attempts at ecclesiastical influence the war was continued with passionateness on the part of Julius II., with hesitation on the part of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... and his comic, scarecrow pal who originated from the dark side of trouble, on Earth and out here, too, ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... gentlemen, it seems unreal, that an incident so insignificant should scatter us and send us into flight like sparrows at whom a scarecrow has been shaken! But is this the first time that students have gone to prison for the sake of liberty? Where are those who have died, those who have been shot? Would ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... he holds communion when a boy with Murtagh, the scarecrow of an Irish academy, he associates in after life with Francis Ardry, a rich and talented young Irish gentleman about town. If he accepts an invitation from Mr. Petulengro to his tent, he has no objection to go home with a rich genius to dinner; who then ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... worth. If I took cotton goods I would get the full value, but not if I took tea. Then, if under this system a man gets into debt, it is more in appearance than in reality; and should that man ask money from the apparent creditor, the old account will be shaken at him as a scarecrow, and he is generally told to pay his credit and transfer his custom, and that consequently nails him to the old plan. As to the difference in the price of meal, what deceived me in that line was, that I ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... wary. The crow is wary, and something more. Other shy birds, for instance ducks, avoid every strange object. The crow considers whether there be anything dangerous in the strangeness. An ordinary scarecrow will not keep our crow from anything worth a little risk. He fathoms the scarecrow, compares its behavior, under various circumstances, with that of the usual wearer of its garments, and decides to take the risk. To protect ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... the slope, and fell to work. Just there he could keep the whole traffic of the road under his eye, as well as the fields around his house; and for a moment it gave him a shock as he called to mind that in the only field that lay out of sight he'd left a scarecrow standing—in a patch that, back in the summer, he had cropped with pease for the agent's table up at the War Prison. To be sure, 'twasn't likely to mislead a search-party, and, if it did, why a scarecrow's a scarecrow; but my grandfather didn't ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... peeping from his burrow would not even draw in his head at his approach; the rooks about Scaurnose never took to their wings until he was within a yard or two of them: the laird, in his half acted utterance, indicated that they took him for a scarecrow and therefore were not afraid of him. Even Mrs Catanach's cur had never offered him a bite in return for a caress. He could make a bird's nest, of any sort common in the neighbourhood, so as deceive the most cunning of the nest ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... been sent in six months before) was called "A Check." A country lout is sitting on a fence-rail shouting, and the hunt comes up. "Seen the fox, my boy?" asks the huntsman. "No, I ain't!" replies the lad. "Then what are you hollarin' for?" "Because," answers the scarecrow, "because I'm paid for it." This picture was a valuable introduction, procured through a friend who forwarded his drawing, for it brought him an invitation to illustrate "Romford's Hounds" and "Hawbuck Grange," as well as an established, though intermittent, connection ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... a scarecrow who's stuffed with straw, and the other a woodman made out of tin. They haven't any appetites inside of 'em, you see; so they ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... Adams as a hawk does a hen; he watched Etienne as a hawk does a scarecrow, Etienne watched Miss Adams as a weasel does a henhouse. He ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... no poet can make you feel more than he feels himself, though he cannot always make another feel as much; and that the worth of his art exists only just in so far as he can say what he feels; and then I thought of my old friend's mind as I might think of a scarecrow among lonely fields, a thing absurd, ragged, and left alone, while real men went about their business. I did not say it, but I thought it in my folly. So I told my young friend that story; and ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... must tell the treuth, them are breeches come off of a scarecrow. It stands to reason that none of us could ever have worn 'em. This here's the way I got 'em. My husband bought Mr. Crane's piece that jined on to ourn, and I made him throw in the scarecrow, cause I meant to have a rag party; and I reckon that you'll get a good many strips out on 'em, though they ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen

... me, I own, Thou sorry scarecrow of skin and bone; To be called lean by a skeleton, who'd ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... now," said Mrs. 'Ero Edwards, "wot you never see a woman doin', and one's a burglar, an' the other's a scarecrow." ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson

... when he had been lifted on to the table, he took the frying-pan by the handle, and began vigorously beating on it with the stick. He did not mind the noise now since he was helping to make it. Meanwhile old Jacob began flinging his arms and legs about in all directions, looking like a scarecrow made to tumble about by means of springs and wires. He pounded the clay floor with his ponderous old boots until the room was filled with a cloud of dust; then in his excitement he kicked over chairs, pots, kettles, and whatever came in his way, ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.

... inside his room, he turned and locked the door, still smiling grimly. He strode to the closet, flung the door open, lifted his dress suit from its peg, and held it at arm's length where it swayed like a scarecrow. ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge

... you being in the world was a holy terror to myself. I give you my word you came through my sleep the same as a scarecrow or a dragon. ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory

... covered cart laden with an assortment of tinware had stopped on the outskirts of the village. The owner, a bent scarecrow of a fellow, was effecting repairs to his nag's harness with a piece of string. Evening was setting in, and the south-east wind swept a grey haze across the coast road and sombre marshes. The tinker ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... Vowed to choose from hundred maidens, And among a thousand maidens, Bring the noblest of the hundred, From a thousand unattractive; From the swamp you bring a lapwing, From the hedge you bring a magpie, From the field you bring a scarecrow, From the fallow field ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... child?" she sobb'd, "Look here!" I saw it in the wheel entangled, A weather beaten rag as e'er From any garden scarecrow dangled.' I. 85, 86. ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... "What an old scarecrow!" he exclaimed, laughing. "Whatever could your aunt have been thinking of to send it! We will despatch it to be chopped up for firewood, and buy ...
— Tom, Dot and Talking Mouse and Other Bedtime Stories • J. G. Kernahan and C. Kernahan

... holes in it which you will not let anybody patch because you are too proud to wear patches, and those wretched faded trousers, out at the knees, and which have been turned up and hemmed at the bottom so often that they are six inches above your shoes, and your whole scarecrow appearance, I was so ashamed of you that I could not keep the tears out of my eyes. To tell a respectable gentleman like Doctor Wicker that you were my brother was more than I could bear; and I was glad when I saw you get up and sneak ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... us all! Is every rascal clown Whose arm is stronger free to knock us down? Has every scarecrow, whose cachectic soul Seems fresh from Bedlam, airing on parole, Who, though he carries but a doubtful trace Of angel visits on his hungry face, From lack of marrow or the coins to pay, Has dodged some vices in a shabby way, The right to stick us with his cutthroat terms, And bait his ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... 'em to the old maids, Dawn. You'll grow into a scarecrow that would frighten any man away if you hang on to ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... him to understand that she was to marshal him to the altar, Balder, never more heroic than at that moment, offered her his arm, which she accepted with an air of scarecrow gentility. Either the change of costume had struck in, or it was the symbol of inward change. She seemed struggling against her torpor, her dimness and deadness. She tried, perhaps, to recall the day when that dress was first put on,—the day of Helen's marriage, when Salome ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne



Words linked to "Scarecrow" :   effigy, image, bird-scarer, strawman, straw man, scarer, simulacrum



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