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Skunk   Listen
verb
Skunk  v. t.  In games of chance and skill: To defeat (an opponent) (as in cards) so that he fails to gain a point, or (in checkers) to get a king. (Colloq. U. S.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Skunk" Quotes from Famous Books



... all the preachers that ever I heard, he certainly is the beatenest. Why, I ain't laughed so much since me and Abram went to Barnum's circus, the year before the war. He was preachin' one day about cleanliness bein' next to godliness, which it certainly is, and he says, 'You old skunk, you!' But, la! the worse names he called 'em the better they 'peared to like it, and sinners was converted wholesale every time he preached. But there wasn't no goin' to the mourners' bench and mournin' for your sins and havin' people prayin' and ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... ready money for that skunk," added the showman. He cocked his head to one side to avoid his cigar smoke, and stared down on P.T. pecking the last scraps of raw liver ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... be quoted; as for instance the web of the Spider, the pit of the Ant Lion, the mephitic odour of the Skunk. ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... homoeopathic pharmacopoeia which still makes use of the foulest matter—the extract of wood-lice, the venom of snakes, the poison of the cockchafer, the secretions of the skunk and the matter from pustules, all disguised in sugar of milk to conceal their taste and appearance; the world of letters, in the same way, triturates the most disgusting things to get them swallowed without ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... "The damned skunk didn't have no gun! All he had was a flashlight, and I broke that over his head. But he tole me the same story about the jailer—all except the gun." This testimony was volunteered ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... You'll git the truth—git the whole of it. Git what you ain't lookin' for. There ain't no liars up in our mountains 'cept them skunks in Gov'ment pay you fellers send up to us, and things like Hank Halliday. He's wuss nor any skunk. A skunk's a varmint that don't stink tell ye meddle with him, but Hank Halliday stinks all the time. He's one o' them fellers that goes 'round with books in their pockets with picters in 'em that no girl oughter see and no white ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... with the notorious skunk of America, the overwhelming odour which they emit appears to serve exclusively as a defence. With shrew-mice (Sorex) both sexes possess abdominal scent-glands, and there can be little doubt, from the rejection of their ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... to take his advice, and lay quiet while the cowboys gathered. From all directions I heard them coming, calling to each other that "the skunk that shot the woman is corralled," and other forms of the same information. In a moment I was jerked to my feet, only to be swept off them with equal celerity, and was half carried, half dragged, along the tracks. It wasn't as rough handling as I have taken ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford

... roared the rustler. "Lemme sit hyar an' shoot the eyes outen this—lyin' pup of a Belllounds!... Wade, put a gun in my hand—a gun with two shells—or only one. You can stand with your gun at my head.... Let me kill this skunk!" ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... of here, damn you!" he said. "Go out and take care of her horse—anything! If you are in here when she wakes up, I'll kill you! And take that other skunk out of here, too—take him to the dugout, and don't come back here for ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... we can't interfere and that was what my friend, President Wilson, meant when he opined that America was too proud to fight. So we're nootrals. But likewise we're benevolent nootrals. As I follow events, there's a skunk been let loose in the world, and the odour of it is going to make life none too sweet till it is cleared away. It wasn't us that stirred up that skunk, but we've got to take a hand in disinfecting the planet. See? We can't fight, but, by God! some of us are going to sweat blood to sweep the ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... fool," declared Peter presently. "The chances are that Ryan has a barrel of votes salted down where we'll have the devil's own time tapping them. You can't smoke out a skunk in a ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... device of the Partridge, and I have no doubt that it is quite successful with the natural foes of the bird; indeed it is often so with Man. A dog, as I have often seen, is certain to be misled and duped, and there is little doubt that a mink, skunk, racoon, fox, coyote, or wolf would fare no better. Imagine the effects of the bird's tactics on a prowling fox: he has scented her as she sits; he is almost upon her, but she has been watching him, and ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... than you are. When a fellow spends his life as I do, he has time to look all round things. He can't help knowing. And I'm not a skunk. It never was my intention to ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... sure to fetch along with him when taking this big hike, and that was his little camp hatchet. Fritz had begged to be allowed to carry his old Marlin shotgun, under the plea that they might run across some ferocious animal like a wildcat, or a skunk, and would find a good use for the reliable firearm; but the scoutmaster had set his foot ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... "The old skunk knows his own rollways are so far down stream that he's safe, flood water ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... had high hopes. He led. Last night I-sa-tai's medicine had been strong. This morning a foolish Cheyenne had killed a skunk—a reckless thing to do, for a skunk was a medicine animal. Whether this broke the medicine, I-sa-tai did not say. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... the skunk, and is about the size of a cat. It possesses short round ears, black cheeks, and a white stripe extending from the nose to the back. The upper part of the neck and the whole back are white, divided by a black line. Below, it is black, as are ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... actually strut. And it was all because he considered himself a very bold fellow. That was a new feeling for Happy Jack. He knew that all his neighbors considered him rather timid, and many a time he had envied, actually envied Jimmy Skunk and Reddy Fox and Unc' Billy Possum and even Sammy Jay because they did such bold things and had dared to visit Farmer Brown's dooryard and henhouse in ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess

... in those in which the tuberculate is least developed, and vice versa. The great and small intestines differ little in calibre, and many of them (i.e. the family) can diffuse at will a disgusting stench." This last peculiarity is a specialty of the American members of the family, notably the skunk, of the power of which almost incredible stories are told. I remember reading not long ago an account of a train passing over a skunk, and for a time the majority of the passengers suffered from nausea in consequence. Sir John Richardson writes: ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... M. Lampson & Co. will have about 100,000 in their September sale, and prices will very likely fall to 1s., or lower. The result will be, that the skunks will live in peace, and increase and multiply for some years to come. The skunk is the most 'disagreeable' of animals to man; but it is not, therefore, destroyed. I have a catalogue (Row, Row, Goad & Reece, brokers) of a fur sale (by the candle) at the London Commercial Sale Room, Mincing Lane, on the 21st and 22nd March, 1821, which ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... answered Amos Green, "was a merchant, the owner of a thousand skunk-skins, and his son knows a fool when ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... days of witches wasn't gone by, I shouldn't wonder if some of them hadn't got me in tow. But, I ain't going to give it up yet. I don't forget the old chap's knocking me down in the dark behind my back, as though I'd been no better than a woodchuck or a skunk." ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... Falls Hattie would look bored, pass a weary hand over her glossy coiffure and say: "Oh, yes. Clever little show. Saw it two winters ago in New York. This won't be the original company, of course." The year that Hattie came back wearing a set of skunk everyone thought it was lynx until Hattie drew attention to what she called the "brown tone" in it. After that Old Lady Heinz got her old skunk furs out of the moth balls and tobacco and newspapers that ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... a cowardly action, Julian," he agreed. "I'm hot with shame when I think of it. But don't, for heaven's sake, think I had anything to do with the affair! We have a secret service branch which arranges for those things. It's that skunk ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... "That old skunk rather turned you down, I guess," remarked Ike, after a long silence; "that old Macfarren, I mean," in answer to Shock's ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... wasn't anything," said Standifer, "hemming" loudly and buttoning his coat again, briskly. "And now, ma'am, who was the infernal skunk—I beg your pardon, ma'am—who was the gentleman ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... replied Nels, gravely. "I've seen a few sun-blinded an' locoed an' snake-poisoned an' skunk-bitten cow-punchers in my day, but Gene Stewart beats 'em all. He's shore runnin' ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... parson, that part of it had never struck me. I ain't bright and never was. But I ain't no skunk. I give that woman some of her own money back and that week I sold out at a loss and slunk around some more. I couldn't go back to my own work. I had a grudge against it, someway. By and by the money was all gone and an old pal of mine offered to set ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... Dutchman!" he called out, with a harsh, scornful laugh, to those behind him. "He will teach me manners, from his hiding-place behind the petticoats.—Come out, you skunk-skin pedler, and I'll break that sword of yours over ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... nightie, and reached out her two eager arms to take the kid off Chip's knees where he was perched contentedly relating his adventures with sundry hair-raising additions born of his imagination. The Kid was telling Daddy Chip about the skunk he saw, and he hated to be interrupted. He looked at his Doctor Dell and at the familiar, white garment with lace at the neck and wristbands, and he waved his hand with a ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... Bundercombe declared. "A withered old skunk, if ever there was one! You want a live man to see you through this, Paul. You let me go down and sound Harrison this afternoon. No reason that I can see why we shouldn't use this fellow's address, too, if we can make ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... whiskery old skunk, you ain't got the grit to shoot sour apples," was Billy's answer. "I know your kind—brave as lions when it comes to pullin' miserable, broken-spirited bindle stiffs, but as leery as a yellow dog when you face a man. Pull that trigger! Why, you ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... on eating his supper for some minutes without comment; but just as we finished, he said, "Boys, where did we put our skunk fence last fall?" ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... these gentlemen is my deputies. We're a-lookin' fo' a desprit scoundrel thet hes been doin' heaps o' mischief 'round heah. His latest work was tuh rob the house o' a cotton planter named Davis, an' nigh about kill the old man. We want him, an' we're jest 'bout determined not tuh go back without the skunk. Don't s'pose yuh could 'a' set eyes on sech a pizen ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... ghastly rosary The night mumbles over And the snow with its devilish and silken whisper... Patrolling arcs Blowing shrill blasts over the Bread Line Stalk them as they pass, Silent as though accouched of the darkness, And the wind noses among them, Like a skunk That ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... "I'll see that you keep it." He looked over his shoulder. The stage was filled with gayly-colored dresses. The mutineers had returned to duty. "Well, I'll be getting along. I'm rather sorry we agreed to keep clear of personalities, because I should have liked to say that, if ever they have a skunk-show at Madison Square Garden, you ought to enter—and win the blue ribbon. Still, of course, under our agreement my lips are sealed, and I can't even hint at it. Good-bye. See you later, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... don't trust yer none. I think ye're a skunk, an' I don't like ter see yer face eround this yere camp. How much ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor

... truculently into the faces gathered about him, mutely daring anybody else to state that reason. But few cared to discuss the redoubtable doctor, so he was permitted to continue. "Doc's a sight too friendly disposed toward sech a skunk as Jim Thorpe. We've clear enough proof that feller is a cattle-rustler. We've the evidence of our eyes, sure. There's the cattle; ther's his brand—and—running with his own stock, hidden away up in the foot-hills. Do we need more? Psha! No. At least no one with any savvee. I've see fellers strung ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... Beany had got a pile of ripe tomatose. then we would ding old William Hobbs door bell and when he come to the door we wood paist him. He always drives us out of his yard so we done it. when it struck 8 oh clock i sed i forgot to shet up my hens and a skunk may come round. Keene sed i will help you. i sed no i will do it. what would you do if we met a skunk. so i went down and hipered over to Elm Strete. Pewt and Beany was there with their hands full ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute

... to him out here on this very barrel," said Pixley, his anathema concluded, "I raised the bid on him; yessir, you kin skin me fer a dead skunk if I didn't offer him ten dollars and a box of cigars fer the bunch; and him jest settin' there laughin' like a plumb fool and tellin' me I didn't need to worry, they'd all vote Republican fer nothin'! Talked like a parrot: 'Vote a Republican! Republican eternal!' Republican! Faugh, he ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... as the mink, skunk, opossum, fox, and wolf, are in winter active and voracious, needing much food to supply the necessary animal heat of the body. Hence they are then much more bold than in summer, and the hen yard or sheep pen of the farmer is ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... shouted Welton. "You don't know the lowlived skunk! Erbe told me that if this suit was brought and you testified in the matter, that Baker would turn state's evidence against me! That would let him ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... the breeding season the bobolink undergoes a complete change; his form changes, his color changes, his flight changes. From mottled brown or brindle he becomes black and white, earning, in some localities, the shocking name of "skunk bird;" his small, compact form becomes broad and conspicuous, and his ordinary flight is laid aside for a mincing, affected gait, in which he seems to use only the very tips of his wings. It is very ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... the people. Most of them have no characteristic at all, except coarseness. We hope there is nothing peculiarly American in such examples as these:—"Evil actions, like crushed rotten eggs, stink in the nostrils of all"; and "Vice is a skunk that smells awfully rank when stirred up by the pole of misfortune." These have, beside, an artificial air, and are quite too long-skirted for working proverbs, in which language always "takes off its coat to it," if we may use a proverbial ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... his hand. "See thet air brown hoss go by. Knew 'im soon es I sot eyes on 'im—use' t' ride 'im myself. Hed an idee 't wus you 'n the saddle—sot s' kind o' easy. But them air joemightyful do's! Jerushy Jane! would n't be fit t' skin a skunk in them ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... joke they've put up on us yet. Hey, you Joke! Who sent you—Burns or Pinkerton? No, by God, you're such a bonehead I'll bet you're in the Secret Service! Well, you dirty spy, you rotten agent provocator, you can go back and tell whatever skunk is paying you blood-money for betraying your brothers that he's wasting his coin. You couldn't catch a cold. And tell him that all he'll ever get on us, or ever has got, is just his own sneaking plots that ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill

... "The skunk!" said he half aloud; "a man that'll steal rum will hook money next. Wall, it won't be many days before that city chap will buy his return ticket to Boston. Then I shan't have any further use for Abner. Let me see," he soliloquized, "what I've got to do to-morrer? Git the Deacon's ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... I was asleep, the damned skunk!" she flared. "I'd sooner hev rattlesnake-pizen on my lips!" She stopped rubbing the arm to scrub fiercely at her mouth with ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... skunk," Alix had frankly contributed. Cherry, now quietly established in her father's lap, had smiled with mischievous enjoyment; nobody else, to Peter's surprise, had paid this extraordinary remark the slightest attention. He remembered that he had fancied only the smallest ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris

... toward the brink of the world; but it is cheering to look out of my window, as I write, and see the brown thrasher getting food for her young out of the lawn, to hear the scratch of squirrels' feet across the porch, to catch a faint and not unpleasant odor of skunk through the open window as the breeze blows in from the woods, and to find, as I found in hoeing my melons early this morning, the pointed prints of a fox making in a confident and knowing line toward ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... saw him coming in at the door. He saw what I was doing, and glared at me vengefully. He actually turned white with rage at this breach of his authority, and came at me with set teeth and doubled fists. "Give me that apple, damn yeh!" he cried. "You sneakin' skunk, you, I'll larn ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... Skunk Nest's gang—that's this lot, and I got here—just in time! I don't believe you could have done it, Mr. Grier. No master is popular in the real sense with his men. I think they'd have turned you down. So it was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Police of the second Restoration was anxious to gratify. For that man, often compared in wiliness of conduct to a fox, but whose ethical side could be worthily symbolized by nothing less emphatic than a skunk, was as much possessed by his ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... customary depredations and violations. The stories related by the nuns themselves were not of a description to bear retailing in the public Press. I would to God that they could be told to every coward of a shirker at home, to every skunk of a "conscientious objector," to every rat of a "stop-the-war" "pacificist." They would stir to boiling indignation the dregs of their manhood—if they have any dregs. They would make them sick—even ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey

... a lot of yalla flowers and black-burds. The rode was full of dust and wagging marks. I met a man with a top buggy and smelt a skunk. Mrs. M. made a kake to-day—there ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... patiently. To be patient, Maurice did not need, now, to remind himself of the mountain and her faithfulness to him; he had only to remind himself of the yellow-brick apartment house, and his faithlessness to her. "I've got to be kind, or I'd be a skunk," he used to think. So he was very kind. He did not burst out at her with irritated mortification when she telephoned to the office to know if "Mr. Curtis's headache was better";—he had suffered so much ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... the animal world. Taking man as a centre, for instance, they show that this creature possesses, in common with every other creature, some observable property. Thus, man is, in one particular, like a sponge; in another, he is like an oyster; a hog is like a man; the skunk has one peculiarity of a man; the ourang-outang ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... and there was one of the seals coming out under the curtain behind him. It took Nat just two jumps to get off the stage. An attendant came out and captured the seal. Nat came back. "Well," he said, scratching his head; "I have followed every animal on earth but a skunk and a lizard, and now I have got that. Humph; Professor Woodward's Trained Shad. I think I will ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy

... The skunk is known at once by its black coat with white stripes, its immense bushy tail tipped with white, and its size, nearly that of a cat. It weighs three to seven pounds. It ranges from Virginia to Hudson Bay. In the Northwest is a larger kind weighing twice as much and with black tip to tail. Various ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... "There's a skunk down there with a bad eye an' a gun that jumps out of its leather like it had a mind of its own. He picked me for fifty bucks by nailing a dollar I tossed up at twenty yards. Then he gets a hundred because I couldn't ride ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... he had been right. That young skunk had paid a hundred dollars for a watch for Anna. To Rudolph it meant but ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... an animal which has lost one or both eyes, nor one the foot of which has been crushed, nor an animal of strong odour (like civet cat, skunk, etc., not an offensive smell to these natives); nor are she and her husband permitted to gather rubber, nor may wood be gathered for fire-making which has roads on it made by ants. She must not ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... indeterminate interval the four left the still, taking a bottle with them so that it might be had without delay, should they meet a snake or a hydrophobia skunk or some other venomous reptile. It was Casey who made the suggestion, and he became involved in difficulties when he attempted the word venomous. Once started Casey was determined to pronounce ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower

... the subject, having said what he had come to say; but inwardly he thought, "She's a brick! She's a loyal, plucky little brick, and Channing is a—skunk! Perhaps she chucked him, though," he reminded himself hopefully. "Serve him good ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... than ever. The light November chill had whipped a thin flush into her face. He watched her as she took off her dark skunk furs ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair

... that he drew out a bowie-knife which he had concealed among the things which he had extracted from the bag. "You don't know the sort of country you're in now. They don't think much here of the life of such a skunk as you. If you mean to live till to-morrow morning you must come ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... not who the writer of the piece is, but some of the Americans say it is Phineas Bond, an American refugee, but now a British consul; and that he writes under the signature of Peter Skunk or Peter ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... crest of the Cumberland to the yellow flood of the Ohio he knew that land, and he loved every acre of it, whether blue-grass, bear-grass, peavine, or pennyroyal, and he knew its history from Daniel Boone to the little Boones who still trapped skunk, mink, and muskrat, and shot squirrels in the hills with the same old-fashioned rifle, and he loved its people—his people—whether they wore silk and slippers, homespun and brogans, patent leathers and broadcloth, or cowhide boots and jeans. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... got away on us—the skunk! He's down there in the brush, somewheres, waiting for somebody to go in and drag him out by the ear. I betche he's laying low, right now, waiting for a chance to pot-shot us. We better git back out uh this." He edged away, his eyes on the thicket just below. To ride in there was impossible, ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... kept the tavern at St. Gabriel's Fork, over against the great saw-mill. Fingall was foreman of a gang in the lumberyard. Cynthie had a brother—Fenn. Fenn was as bad as they make, but she loved him, and Fingall knew it well, though he hated the young skunk. The girl's eyes were like two little fire-flies ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... mid-stream, and without upsetting any of the three. He told of long wanderings in the twilight solitudes of Canadian forests; of dangers from wolves and the wild coyotes, half-dog, half-wolf, heard nightly howling round the Indian camp-fires; and from the intangible malice of the skunk, a beautiful but dreadful power, to be propitiated with bated breath and muffled footstep. He told, too, of the chip-munks, with their sharp twittering bark; and he contrived to invest even these tiny creatures with an ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... from the 4th Congressional District of Californy. I'm jist lying here, with a derringer into each hand,—jist lying here kivered up and holdin' in on'y to keep from blowin' the top o' this d——d skunk's head off. I kinder feel I can't hold in any longer. What I want to say to ye, stranger, is that this yer skunk—which his name is Wiles—hez bin tryin' his d—dest to get a bribe onto Josh, and Josh, outo respect for his constituents, is ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... and has for years used the skin, which is 9 feet 8 inches long. The temperature was charming, although in the distance we could see the snow-capped mountains. We run through the antelope valley, gather some juniper plant, see a skunk, see natural oil wells at Saugus, pass the head of the Santa Clara Valley, see the San Fernando mountains, go through the greatest tunnel in America—the San Fernando tunnel, 6,967 feet long, go by Burbank, where there is a ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett

... Enoch. "But to punish him don't turn yourself into the same kind of a skunk he is. Kill him if you have to. Don't be a ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... the teledu), Sumatra and Borneo. The head and body are about 15 in. long, and the tail no more than an inch; the fur is dark brown, with the top of the head, neck and a broad dorsal stripe, white. Like the skunk, this animal can eject the foetid secretion of the anal glands. The sand-badgers (Arctonyx) are Asiatic; the best-known species (A. collaris) ranges from the eastern Himalayas to Burma; the smaller A. taxoides is found in Assam, Arakan and perhaps in China; and there is probably another ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... and the night, dreams and the phantoms of the gloom were supposed to be sent by Tezcatlipoca, and to him were sacred those animals which prowl about at night, as the skunk ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton

... Jean assured him. "I'm going to buy myself a musquash coat with a skunk collar. I've always wanted one frightfully. You'll stay and have luncheon with us, ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... soldiers thus involved at McDowell, Collins was the one who took it most to heart, for Collins had come to think ill of 'Tonio, whom at first he had championed. Collins despised 'Patchie Sanchez, whom he had known five years, and described as a "durrty cross betune a skunk and a spitbox," a greaser Indian who would knife his best friend. As for 'Tonio, whom he had known ever since he came to Arizona in '65, and once held to be "the wan good Indian in it," 'Tonio had made him believe he too held Sanchez in contempt. Yet, to all appearance, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... of eleven were great chums; they chased wild bees together, putting honey on the stone wall, getting a line on the bees; shelled beechnuts and cracked butternuts for the chipmunks; caught skunks in a trap, just to demonstrate that a skunk can be carried by the tail with impunity, if you only do it right (and, though succeeding one day, got the worst of the bargain the next); and waged war early and late on the flabby woodchucks which one could see almost ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... called a skunk, and a cur, and a coward, and by most other names that are bad and contemptuous. But the dingo at bay is as brave as a weasel; and no lion in all Africa is braver than a weasel at bay. Finn had brought himself to a standstill with an effort, a towering figure ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... the bartender, but his right hand remained hanging loosely at his side. It was near the holster, as Donnegan noticed. And the bartender, having met the boring glance of the big man for a moment, turned surlily away. The giant looked to Donnegan and observed: "Know a good definition of the word, skunk?" ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... to himself, as he started to his feet; "the skunk is coming this way. Good! he has the advantage of me in being mounted; but I have a rifle that I dare say will make up for the difference—enfant de grace! ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... you cowardly skunk!" I said, tucking up my shirt-sleeves; "stand up, and I will knock every ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... drove his rival round the Ring; Nor stops nor stays, nor rest, nor breath allows. Thereon the Corner raised redoubled rows, Yelled false alarms of "Rescue!" heaved half-bricks, And murderous missiles and unmanly kicks Poured on ENTELLUS, whilst fat DARES slunk Between his bullies, like a shabby skunk. ("Bah!" growled SAYERIUS. "Fancy CRIBBS or GULLIES Backing down under guard of blackguard bullies!") But now the Ref., who saw the row increase, Declared a "draw," and bade the combat cease. ("A draw?" SAYERIUS ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various

... those Skunk kids was trying to smoke a grape-vine cigarette," piped Tony Spider. "I ...
— Grand-Daddy Whiskers, M.D. • Nellie M. Leonard

... 'Skin me fur a skunk, but we've stood this long as we ought to!' exclaimed Baldy Bicknell, when he returned. 'You take care of yourselves till I ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... of that being Mr. John Coulter," chuckled he. "And, oh, the things I said to him! I tremble to recall them. I told him Corcoran was a low-down skunk, I know that. And I gushed on a lot about Hal and Louise. I only wish I could remember what I did say. Jove! He must have split ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... himself again and again, yawned prodigiously, and ended the exercise with a big, rasping miaow. At the sound there was a sudden rustling in the bushes behind the windfall. Instantly the catamount sprang, taking the risk of catching a porcupine or a skunk. But whatever it was that made the noise, it had vanished in time; and the rash hunter returned to his perch with ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... skunk has got there before us," said Hawk to his fellows, as they prepared to set out before daybreak, "the pale-faces will be ready for us, and we may as well go back to our wigwams at once; but if that badger's whelp has been slow of foot, we shall hang the scalps ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne

... and thinks that every furry thing which moves must be game; and so he is like the fool sportsman who shoots at a sound, or a motion in the bushes, before finding out what makes it. Sometimes the rat turns out to be a skunk, or a weasel; sometimes your pet cat; and, once in a lifetime, it is your own fur cap, or even your head; and then you feel the weight and the edge of Kookooskoos' claws. But he never learns wisdom by mistakes; ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long

... working at the stirrup leather got to his feet, indeed, carelessly, rifle in hand, and stared into the gloom; but presently he turned on his heel and sauntered back to his job of saddlery. Evidently the hound was used to voicing false alarms whenever a coyote slipped past or a skunk nosed inquisitively near. ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... it? See those red fibers? Why shouldn't such roots, and nuts like those great, burnished horse-chestnuts there—yes, and cattails, and poke-berries, and skunk cabbages, give forth an entirely new outfit of fruits and vegetables?" Berber smiled his young ruminating smile; then, with inevitable courtesy, he seemed to remember that he had not answered her question. "I am not surprised that you and Mr. Strang thought such ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... found it out in a month. She wasn't so much to blame as you might think," he pursued thoughtfully. "You see she had a tough time of it, and she was little and weak, and everything was against her. She came out West first to teach school, and then she got mixed up with some skunk of a man who pretended to marry her when he had a wife living in Chicago, and after that I guess she went on taking a dope just to keep up her spirits and ease the pain of some spinal trouble she'd had ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... Phineas and the rest would say the other thing. It puts me in a devil of a position. It's all right to say, 'Do your duty,' 'Stand up in your shoes,' 'Do what you think's right, never mind whose boy 'tis,' and all that, but I wouldn't have that old skunk goin' around sayin' I took advantage of my position to rob him of his son for anything on earth. I despise him too much to give him that much satisfaction. And yet there I am, and the case'll come up afore me. What'll I do, Jed? Shall I ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are Nature's watchmen—links which connect the days ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... Walker of Hermann's Corners? Wa'al, I guess the skunk mean enough to do that would get himself lynched by every decent chap in ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... the hound has robbed him," Jacky answered in a tone of such bitter hatred as to cause her companion to glance uneasily at the passionate young face before him. "I know, only too well. And right thoroughly has Lablache done his work. Say, Bill, do you know that that skunk holds mortgages on our ranch for two hundred thousand dollars? And every bill of it is for poker. For twenty years, right through, he has steadily sucked the old man's blood. Slick? Say a six-year-old steer don't know ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... neighed and snorted, and Bock began to bark. Even in my anxiety I almost laughed. "It sounds like an insane asylum," I thought, and reflected that probably the disturbance was only caused by some small animal. Perhaps a rabbit or a skunk which Bock had winded and wanted to chase. I patted him, and crawled ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... "Extraordinary damned skunk!" roared the driver, contemptuously. "Come out of that, Miggles, and show yourself! Be a man, Miggles! Don't hide in the dark; I wouldn't if I were you, Miggles," continued Yuba Bill, now dancing about ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... profanely. "When I got to the shack he was inside, standing over Doubler, strangling him. The damned skunk! You was right," he added; "it was him who shot Doubler!" He continued rapidly, grimly, taking a piece of paper from a pocket and ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... "You skunk!" said Polly. And Mamise laughed. Everything made her laugh now; she was so happy that ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... "No, it's that striped skunk that's doing the crooked playing," snapped Gowan. "Can't you savvy his game? It's all a frame-up—his sending off his guide and outfit, so's to let on to you he'd been busted up and kicked out by his dad. You take him in to keep his ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... hour. Tessie left him at the corner. She had once heard her father designate Ballou as "that drunken skunk." When she entered the sitting room her cheeks held an unwonted pink. Her eyes were brighter than they had been in months. Her mother looked up quickly, peering at her over a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, very ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... God's sake don't let 'em corral in the brandin' pens! They're dirty enough already, but if you git about six inches of sheep manure in there and then mill a few hundred head of cattle around on top of it, the dust would choke a skunk. Our cows ain't so over-particular about that sheep smell, but if we poor cowboys has got to breathe sheep and eat sheep and spit up sheep every time we brand, it's crowdin' hospitality pretty strong. But if they want grub or clothes or tabac, go ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... him, and it stopped to say so. It's seen him, I tell you, an' I'll git him. Ef it's an hour, or a day, or a week, it's all the same. I'm here watchin', waitin' dead on to him, the poison skunk!" ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... hear what he called us? You foul-mouthed brute! You liar! How dare you put such a name to a decent woman? Let me get at him. You coward! Oh, he struck me: did you see that? Lynch him! Pete, will you stand by and hear me called names by a skunk like that? Burn him: burn him! Thats what I'd do with him. ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... and proceeded to celebrate the event with a scalp dance. This dance and the whoops of the Indians attracted spectators from Traverse and St. Peter; and with boyish curiosity, I was as near as possible to the dancers. Suddenly I spied one brave, dancing about, with a skunk skin tied to his heel and trailing on the ground behind him. Obeying a mischievous impulse, I jumped upon the trailing skin, and stopped the wild dancer. The savage wheeled, quickly raised his tomahawk, and was ready to strike; but when he saw a white boy, he merely kicked me out ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... Davenport is nothing but a skunk," declared George Rogers. "I've known him for years. He has been in half a dozen oil-well propositions, selling stocks and leases. One time he caught three young fellows from Chicago and sold them ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer

... FUR NEW MODEL NEW FUR SET, NEW MOLESKIN COAT in Seal COAT as FUR COAT, as sketch, SET, as Musquash. An sketch, in as sketch, in Natural sketch, exact copy of good Seal in Natural Skunk, worked worked an exclusive Musquash, Musquash, from dark from full French Model, made from worked from selected skins, selected lined with reliable reliable recommended British rich French skins, lined skins, with for hard wear. skins. Brocade, with new striped ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various

... Jim himself!" He laughed. "He just made a joke of it. But he is a mean skunk! I've found out since that he wanted to buy Preston out for the part Preston had taken in another affair. There's a pretty case coming on directly, with Jim for hero. You ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... just been living on his own fat," said another voice. It was Jimmy Skunk who had spoken, and he now stood holding out his hand to Johnny Chuck and grinning good-naturedly. He had come up without either ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess

... was evidently loud enough to be heard in the next house, for our next-door neighbour once asked my husband why he selected such curious hours for hanging his pictures. Another strange and fairly frequent occurrence was the following. I had got a set of skunk furs which I fancied had an unpleasant odour, as this fur sometimes has; and at night I used to take it from my wardrobe and lay it on a chair in the drawing-room, which was next my bedroom. The first time that I did this, on going to the drawing-room ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour

... skunk!" cried the boy, slamming the door behind him, and ignoring his brother's outstretched hand. "I'd like to smash every bone in your body until there wasn't a piece as big as a toothpick left of you! You made me think you didn't care a rap about her—you said I wasn't worthy of her—that I was an ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes

... hand jerked back; and then the lean, small hand of Henry shot out and fastened on the tall man's wrist. "You skunk!" said Henry. "D'you want to get the kid for ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... felt that they could rely upon him, no matter how great the emergency. In the past the tribe to which White Buffalo belonged had been split, some fighting with the English and others with the French, but now some of the leaders, including Skunk Tail, were dead, and, the war being at an end, all were reunited under the leadership of White Buffalo and a young chief named Rain Cloud. But White Buffalo could not forgive some of the men of his tribe for taking up arms against the English and he was glad enough in consequence ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer

... said her uncle, who came in from the barn just then. "Don't you know a skunk when you ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... rice bran. It is very porous, and absorbs a good deal of the pickle in the three months in which it lies in it, and then has a smell so awful that it is difficult to remain in a house in which it is being eaten. It is the worst smell I know of except that of a skunk!" ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore

... answered. "I think I've always disliked you. But there at the Front and in the Forest you were brave and extraordinarily competent. You treated Trenchard abominably, of course—but he rather asked for it in some ways. Here you've been nothing but the meanest skunk and sneak. You've set out deliberately to poison the lives of some of the best-hearted and most helpless people on this earth.... You deserve hanging, if any murderer ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... young man, with a convulsive gasp. "I shan't ever see it again. The mean skunk's cheated me out of it. Consarn his picter! It took me most six months to save it up. I was workin' for Deacon Pinkham in our place. Oh, I wish I'd never come to New York! The deacon, he told me he'd keep it for me; but I ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger

... young devil had the gall," he muttered. "Acting like he'd been bit by a hydrophoby skunk. Nothing meaner 'n a mad wolf. I'd 'a' give him Carmena quick enough.... Learn her not to pass up a white man agin when she had her chance. But the young gal—— Blast Cochise. When ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... the 'chuck's will. If Thoreau's friends were to claim that he could carry Mephitis mephitica by the tail with impunity, I can say I have done the same thing, and had my photograph taken in the act. The skunk is no respecter of persons, and here again the trouble is to get hold of the tail at the right moment—and, I may add, to let go of it at the ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs

... Ruben Hendricks skeered a skunk out of a holler log. Si Pettingill stirred up a hornet's nest, Deacon Witherspoon sot down in a huckleberry pie and Aunt Nancy Smith got a spider on her, and she started in to yellin' and jumpin' like she had a fit, and two dogs got to fitin', and old Jim Lawson ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart

... builds a house in the water as Paddy does, and lives in very much the same way. The truth is, he is no more closely related to Paddy than he is to the rest of you. He is a true Rat. He is called Muskrat because he carries with him a scent called musk. It is not an unpleasant scent, like that of Jimmy Skunk, and isn't used for the same purpose. Jerry uses his to tell his friends where he has been. He leaves a little of it at the places he visits. Some folks call him Musquash, but Muskrat ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... Striped Chipmunk and started for the old stone wall to look for him. Another went in search of Danny Meadow Mouse. A third headed for the dear Old Briar-patch after Peter Rabbit. A fourth remembered Jimmy Skunk and how he had once set Blacky the Crow free from a snare. A fifth remembered what sharp teeth Happy Jack Squirrel has and hurried over to the Green Forest to look for him. A sixth started straight for the Smiling ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess

... "Well," continued he mentally, "let him do his worst; I mean mischief too, and we will see who is the better player at the game. But I must keep cool if I am to come out on top; and, who knows? the skunk may say something which will afford ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... skunk,' he howls; 'our throats is hot as hell, all th' skin's comin' off 'em; Bill Tomson's got his lips that blistered he can't hold his pipe between 'em. ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... the Academy has received numerous protests against the admission of Charles Ranck, the skunk trapper of Ellsworth, Neb., and J. K. Garlick, the "practical horseshoer" of ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... heard you a while back!" said Scott. "Sounded as if a grizzly had been bitten by a hydrophobia skunk." ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... blackberries. Along the road-side were barberry-bushes, hung all over with bright red coral pendants in autumn and far into the winter. Then there were swamps set thick with dingy-leaved alders, where the three-leaved arum and the skunk's-cabbage grew broad and succulent,—shelving down into black boggy pools here and there, at the edge of which the green frog, stupidest of his tribe, sat waiting to be victimized by boy or snapping-turtle ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... "Dog-fennel and skunk-cabbage! I don't believe there's water enough in the Ohio River to take out the wicked smell of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... "Don't try that on me. You've let Eva down plop, and I'm jolly glad; but all the same you're a skunk. Nothing can alter that. Why don't you marry ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... but just as soon as he had crawled through he sank in the black mud and could go no farther, so Little Whirlwind was despatched to succor him. To this day Badger's legs are black. Next Keldinshe{COMBINING BREVE}n, the Skunk, was sent, because he was light in weight; but even he sank in the mud and blackened his legs. Then the people sent Cha, the Beaver, who travelled about for a long time, and finding all the water running away in streams, built dams and thus formed ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... his first lesson in the woods, which was that a well-behaved skunk when taking his morning walk, ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes



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