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Croaking   /krˈoʊkɪŋ/   Listen
Croaking

noun
1.
A harsh hoarse utterance (as of a frog).  Synonym: croak.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Croaking" Quotes from Famous Books



... withdrew the other hundred-franc note and held the two together in his hand. Once more the gnome made his strange, croaking sound and the ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... into the Magic Bush. The little King was immediately changed into a strange red Frog, which ran away croaking fearfully. ...
— The Great Red Frog • Mosnar Yendis (AKA Sidney Ransom)

... in such a queer, hollow, croaking voice, "Paul Lessingham." I was dreadfully startled. To hear a perfect stranger, a man in his condition, utter that name in such a fashion—to me, of all people in the world!—took me aback. The policeman who was holding his head remarked, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... of a distant torrent came to them. The hoarse croaking of frogs and the chirping of crickets were mingled with the hooting of owls and the nearer hum of mosquitoes. Bats and moths were flitting on silent wings among the trees, and there was a rustle of dry leaves, as unseen animals of the night ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton

... the clouds that covered the moon had just thinned enough to render darkness visible, and nothing was to be heard save the continual croaking of the frogs, which are very large and numerous in the marshes of the Danube, when four boats pushed off and proceeded quickly, yet quietly, ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... incandescent sky, beneath the sun, so as to seem dark and indistinct. Whatever was pinkish of it was now hidden by a skerry of weedy boulders. But he perceived that it was made up of seven rounded bodies distinct or connected, and that the birds kept up a constant croaking and screaming, but seemed afraid to approach it ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... grave, pacific air, Where never mountain zephyr blew: The marshy levels lank and bare, Which Pan, which Ceres never knew: The Naiads, with obscene attire, Urging in vain their urns to flow; While round them chant the croaking choir, And haply soothe some lover's prudent woe, Or prompt some restive bard and ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... to this croaking of a raven; and forgot how many times it had been heard before disturbing their slumbers and ringing its echoes in the hollow night. They knew it was true that the Indian nations, excited by their own wild passions, were in the way of total extirpation by each other's hand. And, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... find among the rice fields. On the night of April 22, 1914, a party of frog catchers were returning from a hunt when the man carrying the load of frogs was attacked by a tiger and killed. The animal made no attempt to drag the man away and it would appear that it was attracted by the croaking of the frogs." ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... Suddenly a croaking sound from a branch overhead arrested his attention, and Lionel saw a great magpie staring down at him with ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... fishermen were dragging a net,—picturesque group beneath the high and bare crags! A raven was seen aloft: not hovering like the kite, for that is not the habit of the bird; but passing on with a straight-forward perseverance, and timing the motion of its wings to its own croaking. The waters were agitated; and the iron tone of the raven's voice, which strikes upon the ear at all times as the more dolorous from its regularity, was in fine keeping with the wild scene before our eyes. This carnivorous fowl ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... Her body was much larger than those animals ever are, and on this account it was much more hideous in appearance; for she looked like a wretched dwarf, with a frog's head, and webbed fingers. Her eyes had a most piteous expression; she was without a voice, excepting a hollow, croaking sound, like the smothered sobs ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... enjoyed by the great nobles was "the silence of the frogs,[14]" which, whenever the lady was confined, bound the peasants to spend their days and nights in beating the swamps with long poles to save her from being disturbed by their inharmonious croaking. And if this or any other feudal right was dispensed with, it was only commuted for a money payment, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... vampires, bats and goat-suckers dart from their lonely retreat and skim along the trees on the river's bank. The different kinds of frogs almost stun the ear with their hoarse and hollow-sounding croaking, while the owls and goat-suckers lament and mourn all ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... a true republic—a "government of the people, by the people, for the people," and we shall hear no more the oligarchical cry of croaking conservatism calling for a "white man's government"—appealing by this, and like slogans of class and caste to the lowest and meanest principles of human nature, dangerous alike to real republicanism and true democracy. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... the birds crowded on the gibbet; not one was on the corpse. They were talking among themselves. The croaking was frightful. The howl, the whistle and the roar, are signs of life; the croak is a satisfied acceptance of putrefaction. In it you can fancy you hear the tomb breaking silence. The ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... then twists them in the coils around its hind legs and buries himself in the water, until the incubation period is over and the tadpoles escape and relieve him of his burden. In other species the croaking sacs of the males, which were previously used for amatory callings, become enlarged to form cradles for the young. There are also instances of the female co-operating with the male in this care of offspring. Thus in the Surinam toad the male spreads the ova on the back of the female, ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... place, and to declaim in the same strain, refusing for many years to buy a house there, because all was going to destruction; and at last I had the pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one as he might have bought it for when he first began his croaking. ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... oncoming express dinned in his ears. It was close now, and suddenly—suddenly as a darting bird—Dinah was on her feet. Billy found his voice in a hoarse, croaking cry, but almost ere it left his lips he saw Scott leap into view ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... Zophar did to poor old pauper Job. Yes, Job's comforters were Old Plain Talk, and Old Prudence, and Old Conscience, to your poor old father. Friends? I should like to know who you call foes? With their everlasting croaking and reproaching they tormented poor Old Honesty, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... objection to part with, not only flying at the head of the man who removed them, but some little time after they had been removed similarly attacking the man who ascended the tree to look at the nest. After the eggs were gone, they sat themselves on a small branch above the nest side by side, croaking most ominously, and shaking their heads at each other in the most amusing manner, every now and then alternately descending to the nest and scrutinizing every portion of the cavity with their heads on one side as if to make sure that the ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... undergrowth of spiky leaves, and rear their tall aerial arms against the deep blue background of the sea or darker purple of the distant hills. White pigeons fly about among their branches, and the air is loud with cooings and with rustlings, and the hoarser croaking of innumerable frogs. Then, in the olive-groves that stretch along the level shore, are labyrinths of rare and curious plants, painted tulips and white periwinkles, flinging their light of blossoms and dark glossy leaves down the swift channels of the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... Hamar murmured, "shall be heralded in by the shrieking of an owl, the groaning of the mandrake—there is mandrake in the saucepan—the croaking of a ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... their happiest tunes; and the oriole sang a lullaby to her hanging cradle that rocked in the wind. I heard the twitter of skimming swallows and the scattered covey's piping call; I heard the robin's gay whistle, the croaking of crows, the scolding of blue-jays, and the melancholy cooing of a dove. The swaying tree-tops seemed vocal with bird-song while he played, and the labyrinths of leafy shade echoed back the chorus. Then the violin sounded the hunter's horn, and the deep-mouthed pack of fox hounds ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... demonstrated. Since the hearing but slowly grows more acute during the first days, no utterances of sound at this period can be regarded as responses to any sound-impressions whatever. The first cry is purely reflexive, like the croaking of the decapitated frog when the skin of his back is stroked (Vol. I, p. 214). The cry is not heard by the newly-born himself and has not the least value as language. It is on a par with the squeaking of the pig just born, the bleating of the new-born ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... Frog by nature is both damp and cold, Her mouth is large, her belly much will hold, She sits somewhat ascending, loves to be Croaking in gardens ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... light of what he termed my "croaking" and say I need have no fears for him; and I believe he spoke from the sincerity of his good intentions; he thought all others as sincere and open-hearted as himself, and happy had it been for him if he had found ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell

... the nest, and found on examination that it was composed like a vast raft of large trees. There were five hundred eggs, larger in girth than a tun of Chian. We could make out the chicks inside and hear them croaking; we hewed open one egg with hatchets, and dug out an unfledged chick bulkier than ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... time he took it in his head that he would travel to Rome. On the way he passed by a marsh, in which a number of frogs were sitting croaking. He listened to them, and when he became aware of what they were saying, he grew very thoughtful and sad. At last he arrived in Rome, where the Pope had just died, and there was great doubt among the ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... sat on her horse and looked down into the dale and its stony people once more, and saw nought stirring save three ravens who, not far off, were flapping about from stone to stone of the Greywethers, and croaking loud to each other as if some tidings were toward. She watched their play for a little, and then gat off her horse, and sat down on the grass of the knoll, and drew forth her victual, and ate and drank; for she deemed it happier to eat and drink there ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... river into El Afroun, I found my horse so entirely knocked up, that it was clearly impossible to proceed. So, of necessity, I turned into the auberge, and had a very good dinner, enlivened by a serenade from a legion of frogs, croaking ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham

... himself of these thoughts by falling asleep, and solving them in the morning when his head would be fresh, he lay down on his clean bed. But it was long before he could sleep. Together with the fresh air and the moonlight, the croaking of the frogs entered the room, mingling with the trills of a couple of nightingales in the park and one close to the window in a bush of lilacs in bloom. Listening to the nightingales and the frogs, Nekhludoff remembered the inspector's ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... the South, as bad as I thought their cause, for the boldness with which they silenced all opposition and all croaking, by press or by individuals, within their control. War at all times, whether a civil war between sections of a common country or between nations, ought to be avoided, if possible with honor. But, once entered into, ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... and as Hermod followed a crow fluttered out. He knew that this was Thaukt, the evil hag, transformed. He followed her, and she went through the world croaking, "Let Hela keep what she holds. Let ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum

... at her again involuntarily, and saw her talking eagerly with the station-master. From her gestures, he guessed she was telling of the horrible sight she had just seen, the stranger soldier so hideously disfigured. He uttered a short croaking sound, an abortive curse, and then his head fell on his chest, and he sobbed ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko

... themselves—victims of a relentless fate, cornered, trapped, in the grip of destruction. All the fair structure of their hopes came crashing about their ears.—And all the time the old woman was going on talking. They wished that she would be still; her voice sounded like the croaking of some dismal raven. Jurgis sat with his hands clenched and beads of perspiration on his forehead, and there was a great lump in Ona's throat, choking her. Then suddenly Teta Elzbieta broke the silence with a wail, and Marija began to wring her hands and sob, "Ai! Ai! ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... completeness of Nature's laws! As you get into high latitudes and colder regions—where the air is not so readily tainted by putrid substances—the necessity for such a scavenger no longer exists, and he is rarely met with. There the great vulture gives place to the croaking raven, and the ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... effective manner of frogging is by the headlight on dark nights. To do this most successfully, one man in a light canoe, a good headlight and a light, one-handed paddle are the requirements. The frog is easily located, either by his croaking, or by his peculiar shape. Paddle up to him silently and throw the light in his eyes; you may then pick him up as you would a potato. I have known a North Woods guide to pick up a five-quart pail of frogs in an hour, on a dark evening. ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears

... with the bird," said the King, "although I'm a bit tired of his song. It's too sweet," said he, "and I prefer the cawing of crows and the croaking of ravens. However, it is much admired by others, and therefore ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo

... shadow cast over the radiance of their happiness, and this thin, tall girl, all in black, with black hair fluttering round her pale face, seemed like a big black bird of evil presage: her skirts flapped round her knees like wings and her voice sounded cold and harsh like the croaking of a raven. ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... demoniac chuckle of the laughing jack-ass, the screeching of cockatoos and parrots, the hissing of the frilled lizard, and the buzzing of innumerable insects hidden under the dense undergrowth. And then at night, the melancholy wailing of the curlews, the dismal howling of dingoes, the discordant croaking of tree-frogs, might well shake the nerves ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... ever was 309and ever will be a leading fashionable vice, which only poverty and ruin can correct or cure. The clergy must, however, be greatly delighted at the following picture of the cloth, drawn by one of their holy brotherhood. "The Bath church," says the satirist, "is filled with croaking ravens, chattering jays, and devouring cormorants; black-headed fanatics and white-headed 'dreamers of dreams;' the aqua-fortis of mob politics, and the mawkish slip-slop of modern divinity; rank cayenne pepper, and genuine powder of post!" Really a very flattering description of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... happy that heard but one crier. Yes, quoth Solon, and Athens, now a commonwealth, hath but one crier and one magistrate, the law, though the government be democratical; but you, my friend, have been so accustomed to the croaking of ravens and the prating of jays, that you do not hear clearly your own voice. For you maintain it to be the happiness of a city to be under the command of one man, and yet account it the merit of a feast if liberty is allowed every man to speak ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... well be imagined. The settlement, composed of mean hovels, with a few large structures of mud, or plastered wattle, thatched with palm leaves, was surrounded by water, marsh, and forest, the breeding-place of myriads of croaking frogs and of clouds of mosquitoes; even to one in perfect health existence in such a place would have been a burden. The inhabitants mustered about eighty or ninety, mostly Indians of that degenerate class ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... a thousand mornings risen on the scene in the sight of the outlaw. Numberless birds fluttered from place to place, snatching their prey, carolling, feeding their young, chattering, croaking, warbling, and swinging on the bending rush. But if you looked again, strange signs of nature's mute anguish began to show. On every log or bit of smaller drift that rain-swollen bayous had ever brought from the forest and thrown upon their banks some wild tenant of the jungle, hare or ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... for here too not a bird is to be seen. The smell arising from this swamp in the night, was so bad as to oblige us to shut all the windows and doors of the boat, which, added to the bellowing and croaking of the bull frogs—the harsh and incessant noise of the grasshoppers, and the melancholy cry of the whip-poor-will, formed a combination not of the most agreeable nature. Yet, in defiance of all this, we were ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... know," said the old frog gentleman in his hoarsest, deepest, thundering, croaking voice. "Perhaps I may meet with a fairy or a big giant, or even ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis

... when the Toads are croaking in a brook, and they see any one come, they are all quite silent, supposing that a ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... croaking voice, and she looked up and saw a great frog with goggle eyes looking at her and ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel

... addition to deer and bear the hunters brought in a raccoon. One of these hunters brought into camp a wild tale of a snake which, he said, "made a guttural noise like a turkey." One of the French voyageurs confirmed this story; but the croaking snake was never found ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... words about its reality has himself lost the pearl of great price. It is he who is to be pitied, and not the lovers. They hear the birds of paradise singing in the bowers of Eden, while he hears only the croaking of the raven. ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... of all was the flood of applications for cabin accommodations at Temple Camp; that was just as sure and reliable as the first croaking of the frogs or the softening of the rich, thick mud in Barrel Alley, where ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... they found good pasturage and buffalo in abundance. The weather was overcast and rainy, and a general gloom pervaded the camp; the voyageurs sat smoking in groups, with their shoulders as high as their heads, croaking their foreboding, when suddenly towards evening a shout of joy gave notice that the lost men were found. They came slowly lagging into camp, with weary looks, and horses jaded and wayworn. They had, in fact, been for several days incessantly on the move. In their hunting excursion on the prairies ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... Rubery, "let us have no croaking." But at two o'clock, the navigator had not shown his face. They could not sail without a captain. Wearily they went below and left a sentinel on watch. He was a young man who had eaten heavily and ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... froggs much croaking in ditches and pools, &c., in the evening, foretells rain in little time to follow: also, the sweating of stone pillars or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various

... the side of the building and looked in a window. He stood for a moment, watching with bulging eyes, half drew a pistol, thought better of the notion and replaced it, and then darted back to the saloon from which he had emerged, croaking hoarsely: "Fight! fight!" ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... said Mr. Jocelyn savagely, "it was through one of your damnable fraternity that I acquired what you are pleased to call my chains, and now you come croaking to my employers, poisoning ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... angrily, and would have made some insolent reply, but a sudden sense of shame caused him to remain silent. Feeling irritated with his father, and grieved for Lialia, while despising himself, he went down the steps into the garden. A little frog, croaking beneath his feet, burst like an acorn. He slipped, and with a cry of disgust sprang aside. Mechanically he wiped his foot for a long while on the wet grass, feeling a cold shiver down ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... another, that as likely as not I'd wind up in the blacksmith shop or the hotel or fall in the creek. I ain't safe on the streets to-day, Hank. And, anyway, I've got to keep up fires and water boiling and them dumb'd frogs under the willows from croaking so's She can sleep to-night. That ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... encouraged than otherwise. If one attempts to catch a newt by its tail it shakes it off and runs away, leaving it behind. Rats and mice are numerous. There are myriads of cockroaches; but happily fleas, house-flies, and bugs are scarce. In the wet-season evenings the croaking of frogs in the pools and ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... beautiful business. You were even complaining of one single whistling blackbird [Merle; means also a whistling or hissing fellow.] pastorally perched on your book— what shall I say then of the croaking of that host of ravens and of obliques hiboux [Oblique owls; the term is repeated afterwards, and evidently refers to some joke, or else to some remark of Lenz's.—Translator's note.] that spreads ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... near by set up a low, meditative croaking. Uncle Bill raised his head abruptly. Their straining ears caught the sound of someone running, stumbling along the uneven track that wound in from the shore. A whistle cut ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... listened, she had looked; then, terrified by the light and noise, she had rushed from her cell to see. The aspect of the Place, the vision which was moving in it, the disorder of that nocturnal assault, that hideous crowd, leaping like a cloud of frogs, half seen in the gloom, the croaking of that hoarse multitude, those few red torches running and crossing each other in the darkness like the meteors which streak the misty surfaces of marshes, this whole scene produced upon her the effect of a mysterious battle between the phantoms of the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... lingered by the way, and laughed to hear the grand chorus of bull-frogs croaking among the rushes of the river, and the echoes of their own voices dying away in the distant forest. And then, standing in the gravelled walk before the door of Azalia's home, where the flowers bloomed around them, they looked up to the stars, shining so far away, and talked ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... underfoot and in the crevices of the rocks. They found a jellyfish—a pulpy translucent mass; and once even caught a sight of a seal in the hollow of a breaker, with sleek and shining head, his barbels bristling, and heard his hoarse croaking bark as he hunted the ...
— Blix • Frank Norris

... fruitful, and its gardens bore ripe produce. It was a city with impenetrable gates, empty, still, without a voice or a cheering inhabitant, but the owl hooting in its quarters, and birds skimming in circles in its areas, and the raven croaking in its districts and its great thoroughfare-streets, and bewailing those who had been in it. The Emeer Moosa paused, sorrowing for its being devoid of inhabitants, and its being despoiled of people and dwellers; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... climbing the huge tree to the nest. One day when the mother had brought home some unknown small animal—a mink, I thought—I came suddenly out of my hiding and crossed over to the nest. It had always fascinated me. Under it, at twilight, I had heard the mother heron croaking softly to her little ones—a husky lullaby, but sweet enough to them—and then, as I paddled away, I would see the nest dark against the sunset with Mother Quoskh standing over it, a tall, graceful silhouette against the glory of twilight, ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... the margin of the water, and says, "Williroo, williroo, williroo," to which another bull-frog, from a distant part of the swamp, replies, in hoarser accents, "Get out, get out, get out;" and presently a sudden chorus is heard of old and young, as if each party was desirous of out-croaking the other. ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... peculiar sensation in Mrs. N—'s breast nor in yours; and, therefore, cannot know that they are alike. She is an idle, croaking gossip, and I wish she would never cross our threshold. She always ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur

... In the light the nearer leaves of the surrounding trees showed in strong relief; beyond that copper fretwork all was blackness. Out of the dark came the breathing of the horses, fastened near the tobacco-cask, the croaking of frogs in a marshy place, and all the stealthy, indefinable stir of the forest at night. At times the wind brought a swirl of dead leaves across the ring of light, an owl hooted, or one of the sleeping dogs stirred and raised his head, ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... me," he resumed presently, while they raced down a long hill toward the black pines and the fading red of the afterglow. In a marshy pond near the roadside frogs were croaking, while from the darkening fields, encircled with webs of mist, there floated the mingled scents of freshly mown grass, of dewy flowers, of trodden weeds, of ploughed earth, of ancient mould—all ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... success and popularity, keenly sensible of injury, but prompt to forgive; Grenville's character was stern, melancholy, and pertinacious. Nothing was more remarkable in him than his inclination always to look on the dark side of things. He was the raven of the House of Commons, always croaking defeat in the midst of triumphs, and bankruptcy with an overflowing exchequer. Burke, with general applause, compared him, in a time of quiet and plenty, to the evil spirit whom Ovid described looking down on the stately temples and wealthy haven of Athens, and scarce able to refrain from ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... frog is a very pretty little creature, exquisitely green; it has a shrill cry, almost like the note of a semi; and it is called amagaeru, or 'the rain frog,' because, like its kindred in other countries, its croaking is an omen of rain. The pond frogs are called babagaeru, shinagaeru, and Tono-san-gaeru. Of these, the first-named variety is the largest and the ugliest: its colour is very disagreeable, and its full name ('babagaeru' being a decent abbreviation) ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... maternal relative to a cat!" chuckled Ingred. "Stop the orphan if you can, but you might as well try to stop the brook! She's quiet for five minutes then bursts out into song again like a chirruping cricket or a croaking corn-crake. I want to ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... grumbler I. I only claim the privilege of croaking in my own corner here, without uniting my throat to the grand chorus of the marshNi quito Rey, ni pongo ReyI neither make king nor mar king, as Sancho says, but pray heartily for our own sovereign, pay scot and lot, and grumble at the excisemanBut here comes the ewe-milk ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... several Marks in it of Graves and Burying-Places. There is such an Eccho among the old Ruins and Vaults, that if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary, you hear the Sound repeated. At the same time the Walk of Elms, with the Croaking of the Ravens which from time to time are heard from the Tops of them, looks exceeding solemn and venerable. These Objects naturally raise Seriousness and Attention; and when Night heightens the Awfulness of the Place, and pours out her supernumerary Horrors upon every thing in it, I do not at all ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... and I wondered if he were going to break out in song. He did not, but he seemed loath to go his way. How different he looked from the dark-colored frogs which in large numbers make a multitudinous croaking and clucking in the little wild pools in spring! He wakes up from his winter nap very early and is in the pools celebrating his nuptials as soon as the ice is off them, and then in two or three days he takes ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... bird, and bust, and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore— What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking 'Nevermore.' ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... fight my doubts away, And be on guard against my fears; The feeble croaking of Dismay Has been familiar through the years; My dearest plans keep going wrong, Events combine to thwart my will, But fighting keeps my spirit strong, And I ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... around, conscious of one purpose, and by a marvellous understanding and co-operation create for themselves a symphony with beauties and harmonies of its own, and such as to stand unrivalled in man's musical world. In the great chorus are voices from the lowest bass of the croaking bullfrog, squatting in the marshes, to the myriads of tiny green tree tenors, between which are millions of altos, contraltos, sopranos, coloraturas and other voices not yet in our musical vocabulary. These are ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... want you to go to school, so that you may learn something about our religion." Ricardo was willing enough, so he took his Catechism and set out. Instead of going to the school, however, he went to a neighboring pond and listened to the merry croaking of the frogs. When eleven o'clock came, he went home and told his mother about the real school. The poor woman was very happy, thinking that her son was spending his time wisely. Ricardo took great delight in joining the chorus of the frogs, for his ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... Kakakew and his mighty crew did not fly back to the forest. Their number gave them courage. The taste of Ahtik's flesh and the flavour of it in their nostrils intoxicated them, to the point of madness, with desire. Neewa was dazed. Over him, behind him, on all sides of him they swept and circled, croaking and screaming at him, the boldest of them swooping down to beat at him with their wings. Thicker grew the menacing cloud, and then suddenly it descended like an avalanche. It covered Ahtik again. In it Neewa was fairly smothered. He ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... of the night, when it was all still and quiet, and when even the frogs had stopped croaking, and it wasn't time for the roosters to begin to crow; yes, when it was dark, and still and silent and not a sound was heard, suddenly what should happen but that right in the Wibblewobble house there came a loud: ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis

... about two feet, and that between the men might have been even less. One stood apart from the group. He was similarly dressed but instead of a drawn sword, he carried a drum hung about his chest. This fellow drawled out signals the tone of which suggested a mighty easy-life, and then croaking a strange song, he would strike the drum. The tune was outlandishly unfamiliar. One might form the idea by thinking it a combination of the Mikawa Banzai ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... to the story with his big eyes wide open behind his spectacles, and said in his deep, croaking voice: ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore, 70 What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore." ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... raven 'mid the pines so dark, The pines so silent and so dark at morn A ragged bird with feathers rough and torn, Whetting his grimy beak upon the bark, And croaking hoarsely to the ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... like that," said Victoire fretfully. "Isn't it bad enough to wait and wait, without your croaking like ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson

... bird after him. The rest looked about for a moment, very much surprised at the unusual movements of their companion; but its cries and the appearance of the black soon told them what had happened, when with loud, croaking sounds they set off, and rushed towards the very spot where the party lay hid, evidently intending to fly into the neighbouring trees for shelter. As they came close, Walter started up, bow in hand, and instantly ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... Despite the croaking of the frogs, the snore of the tree toads, the incessant buzz and chirr of insects, and the multitudinous nocturnal sounds incidental to life upon a tropical island overgrown with vegetation, ay, and despite ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... the pale moon Washes the trees with silver, and the wave Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune, The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave The nightjar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass, And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde

... the song never ceases for a moment, although each individual frog creates only one little gush of music, composed of half-a-dozen trills, and then stops a moment for breath before commencing the second bar. Bull-frogs, too, though not so numerous, help to vary the sound by croaking vociferously, as if they understood the value of bass, and were glad of having an opportunity to join in the universal hum of life and joy which rises everywhere, from the river and the swamp, the forest and the prairie, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... you two," broke in Captain Wadleigh behind them, as he gripped an arm of either boy, "no croaking. We ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock

... carriage to drive on and wait on the road, and we went on foot through the lime avenue. I offered my arm to Clara, but we walked all abreast, accompanied by the croaking of the frogs in the ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... dreame every night of't, and the Ravens With their unlucky throates never leave croaking Some danger to ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... sighted, & thereafter came east unto the Skani side, plundering and harrying wherever he put ashore. Now as he was sailing his course off the skerries of east Gautland put he ashore and offered up a great sacrifice, and whiles this was solemnized came two ravens flying up, loudly croaking, & for this reason deemed the Earl that Odin had accepted his sacrifice, and that good fortune would favour him in his battles. Even so burned he all his ships and came ashore with every man of all his host, and carried war throughout the land. Against him was arrayed Earl Ottar, he that held ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson

... in the vast Northern solitudes a dreadful silence seemed to hang upon all Nature. Insects there were none, of a species to cause a humming sound, and save for croaking of frogs some distance away the stillness remained unbroken for ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson

... the river bank as regularly as though they had office-hours and stationed themselves on a pile of lumber near where Bruce caulked and tarred the seams of the three boats which were to make the first trip through the rapids. They made Bruce think of so many ancient ravens, as they roosted in a row croaking disaster. By the time the machinery was due to arrive they spoke of the wreck of the boats as something foreordained and settled. They differed only as to where ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... night had settled upon the ranch. The lowing of the cattle was hushed, the dogs were silent; and the voices of men and the tramp of horses' hoofs were gone. There was only the harsh croaking of the frogs in the Mosquito River and the cry of the prowling coyote to disturb the ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... them. You never saw any place more desolate from a distance, nor one that less belied its promise near at hand. Some crows and gulls flew away croaking as I scrambled in. The snow had drifted into the vaults. The clachan dabbled with snow, the white hills, the black sky, the sea marked in the coves with faint circular wrinkles, the whole world, as it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Beppo, after unstrapping his burden and eating his poor meal of macaroni, found rest, not on the little seat outside his own door with his wife and children, but on the sand-bank, or on a neighbor's doorseat where he could smoke his pipe in peace beyond the sound of Nina's croaking, scolding voice. The two boys were like their mother, and Beppo found little comfort in them, so it must be confessed that when in the summer of 1860 Nina was called away to a country where Old Beppo ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... them could now catch a distant croaking that announced the fact as stated by the observant Toby; and they knew that with that pond so close by they would be apt to take all the bullfrogs they wanted during ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie

... were standing about in crowds in the queerest and most ungainly attitudes in the world, croaking and barking, according to their usual wont, at the unexpected visitors who had so unceremoniously come to disturb the quietude of their island home. They looked excessively funny, waddling about awkwardly on their short legs and flapping their wings ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... Chamber himself toward one o'clock, he was carried through the doors by the surging mob which invaded the palace, and in half an hour he shouted himself quite hoarse in adjuring the crowds from the tribune to let the Assembly deliberate in peace. But while he was literally croaking in his attempts to make the people hear reason, news was brought to him that M. Blanqui and some other adventurous spirits, taking time by the forelock, had repaired to the Hotel de Ville, and were setting up a government of their own. Upon this, Gambetta precipitately ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... sailor protested, but Mark raised his voice as loudly as he could in a stentorian "Ahoy!" and as if the occupants of the forest had kept close upon their heels there came the same sneering laugh, and the hoarse croaking ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... You might be a raven as far as croaking's concerned. One would think we were in a hole and couldn't get out. Trust to Sucre and Miller; they'll pull us through ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... occasion of a short visit of my son Major Van Buren to Albany before he goes South to drop you a few lines. Although I have not admitted it in my conversations with those who are given to croaking, and thus alarm our friends, I have nevertheless witnessed with the keenest regret the distractions among our friends at Albany; & more particularly in relation to the state printing. It is certainly a lamentable winding up of a great contest admirably ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... floating ships are higher than the roofs of the dwellings. The stork, on the house-peak, may feel that her nest is lifted far out of danger, but the croaking frog in the neighboring bulrushes is nearer ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... boy, Harry," she said, "and I hope that you and all your comrades will come back in safety to Winchester. But that is enough croaking from an old woman and I'm ashamed of myself. Did you ever see a happier crowd than ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... average father. He was affectionate, bullying, opinionated, ignorant, and rather wistful. Like most parents, he enjoyed the game of waiting till the victim was clearly wrong, then virtuously pouncing. He justified himself by croaking, "Well, Ted's mother spoils him. Got to be somebody who tells him what's what, and me, I'm elected the goat. Because I try to bring him up to be a real, decent, human being and not one of these sapheads and lounge-lizards, of course they all ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... plain-work, and to purling brooks, Old-fashion'd halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks... (To) divert her eyes with pictures in the fire, Hum half a tune, ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams

... had reached was so perfectly still that every cloud in the sky, every mangrove, root and spray, and every bending bulrush, was perfectly reproduced in the reflected world below. Plaintive cries of wild-fowl formed appropriate melody, to which chattering groups of monkeys and croaking bull-frogs contributed a fine ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... heard, imitating the croaking of a frog or the cry of the owl so common there, and then a young girl would appear at the window, and pass her head through the opening between the bars, which were, however, too high for the man to reach. A low and tender conversation was then carried on, and at length, after a different hour ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... ha!" came a croaking laugh from inside the cabin as Dick and his chums neared the door. "That's ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... croaking over our petty disappointments, and forgetting the worst share that falls upon papa. Failing this money, how will he ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... you young people would dance a bit—for as it is the young ladies sit and sit, just croaking ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... mean time Pyrot, burnt by the sun, eaten by mosquitoes, soaked in the rain, hail and snow, frozen by the cold, tossed about terribly by the wind, beset by the sinister croaking of the ravens that perched upon his cage, kept writing down his innocence on pieces torn off his shirt with a tooth-pick dipped in blood. These rags were lost in the sea or fell into the ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... music fails when attempting to express material appearances is proved by the affected absurdity of programme music. Quite lately such experiments have been made. The imitation in sound of croaking frogs, of farmyard noises, of household duties, makes an excellent music hall turn and is amusing enough. But in serious music such attempts are merely warnings against any imitation of nature. Nature has her own language, and a powerful one; this language ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky

... croaking, you blundering old fool!" snapped Travers, as Mrs. Bawdrey gave a heart-wrung cry and hid her face in her hands. "You and your eternal doldrums! Here, Bawdrey, lend a hand, old chap. We can ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... with you! I want to go to sleep. I am tired of your croaking voice. Leave me alone!" So the Stork flew away in ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown

... anchored in the commercial port, was dancing restlessly, tugging at its hawsers, with a mournful croaking. All the nearby boats were tossing in the same way, just as though they were out on ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... me two high-balls.' Then he turned on Ahuna. 'Go and let yourself die, old heathen, survival of darkness, blight of the Pit that you are. But don't die on these premises. I desire merriment and laughter, and the sweet tickling of music, and the beauty of youthful motion, not the croaking of sick toads and googly-eyed corpses about me still afoot on their shaky legs. I'll be that way soon enough if I live long enough. And it will be my everlasting regret if I don't live long enough. Why in hell did I sink that last ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... dinner and during the evening, now and then causing his father some irritation by croaking, "Taw, p'taw-p'taw!" while the latter was talking. And when bedtime came for the son of the house, he mounted the stairs in a rhythmic manner, and p'tawed himself through the upper hall as ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox; I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of HELIOGABALUS, In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous. I tell undoubted RAPHAELS from GERARD DOWS and ZOFFANIES, I know the croaking chorus from the "Frogs" of ARISTOPHANES; Then I can hum a fugue, of which I've heard the music's din afore, And whistle all the airs from that confounded nonsense "Pinafore." Then I can write a washing-bill in Babylonic cuneiform, And tell ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... a wild flutter of hens as they entered. Mrs. Sloane drove them before her. "The hen-house roof fell in, an' I have to keep 'em in here," she said, and shooed them and shook her shawl at them, until they alighted all croaking with terror upon the bed ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... rain, flashing lightning, and pealing thunder. At last the tempest dies away, and in the trio and chorus, "Now cease the Conflicts," night comes on, with its song of the quail,—which Beethoven subsequently utilized in his Pastoral Symphony,—the chirp of the crickets, the croaking of the frogs, the distant chime of the evening bells, and the invocation to sleep. Of the ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... been "deadened," by girdling them near the ground. These dead trees were all standing in ghastly nakedness, and so thick in many places that it must have been difficult to plow through them, while flocks of crows and buzzards were sailing around them or perched in their tops, cawing and croaking, and thereby augmenting the woe-begone looks of things. The planter himself was of a type then common in the South. He was a large, coarse looking man, with an immense paunch, wore a broad-brimmed, home-made straw hat and butter nut jeans clothes. His ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... town in my way to E. Green, and find it not only greatly thinned, but those remaining in a much more melancholy mood than when I left it. The language even of the Government is most croaking, and you may be assured the Queen's party is far from diminishing. The City is completely with her,—not the Common Council, but the shopkeepers and merchants,—and I have great doubts if the troops are not ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... turned a light green full of lucence. The minor sounds of the ranch near by seemed to be surrounded by a sea of silence outside. Single sounds came very clearly across it. And behind everything, after a few moments, I made out a queer, monotonous background of half-croaking calling. For some time this puzzled me. Then at last my groping recollection came to my assistance. I was hearing the calling ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... for a fowl sent him, and says that although he is half blind, his eyes are sharp enough to see that it is a very fat one. The touch of human nature makes the whole picture live. Horace, journeying to Brindisi, and trying to sleep a little on a canal boat, is kept awake by mosquitoes and croaking frogs, and by the long-drawn-out, tipsy singing of a drunken sailor, who at last turns off the towing mule to graze, and goes to sleep till daylight. It is easier to see all this than to call up one instant of a chariot race in the great circus, or one of the ten thousand fights in the Colosseum, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... we were thinking of,' put in the eldest, with her croaking voice. 'Nothing could have ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing



Words linked to "Croaking" :   vocalization, utterance, croak



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