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Crouch   /kraʊtʃ/   Listen
Crouch

verb
(past & past part. crouched; pres. part. crouching)
1.
Bend one's back forward from the waist on down.  Synonyms: bend, bow, stoop.  "She bowed before the Queen" , "The young man stooped to pick up the girl's purse"
2.
Sit on one's heels.  Synonyms: hunker, hunker down, scrunch, scrunch up, squat.  "The children hunkered down to protect themselves from the sandstorm"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Crouch" Quotes from Famous Books



... curled the giant snake five times about Christianity. Like a smile of scorn lies the moonlight down below there upon the green arena, where once stood the Colossus of the Sun-god. The star of the north[9] glimmers low through the windows, and the Serpent and the Bear crouch. What a world has gone by!" The Princess answered that "twelve thousand prisoners built this theatre, and that a great many more had bled therein." "O! we too have building prisoners," said he, "but for fortifications; and blood, too, still flows, but with sweat! No, we have no present; the past, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... be the policy of the devil; but Buell's policy is that of the amiable idiot. There is a better policy than either. It will neither steal nor maraud; it will do nothing for the sake of individual gain, and, on the other hand, it will not crouch to rebels; it will not fear to hurt the feelings of traitors; it will not fritter away the army and the revenue of the Government in the insane effort to protect men who have forfeited all right to protection. The policy we need is ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... and atmospheric effects can provide him with novelty, for most of Holland is like that. He has the formula. Nor is it necessarily new to him if he knows England well, North Holland being merely the Norfolk Broads, the Essex marshlands about Burnham-on-Crouch, extended. Only in its peculiarity of light and in its towns has Holland anything that ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... storm came up. The boat rocked badly and was in danger of tipping over. "Throw out all the heavy things, quick!" shouted one. "No, no, don't for the life of you do it!" called another. "Chop down the mast—here, give me the hatchet!" another one said. "Crouch way down—lie on the bottom." "No, keep moving over to the side that is tipped up!" "Hold the things in the bottom of the boat still, so they'll not keep rolling from side to side." "Jump out and swim!" Every one was ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... straight, pawing madly, and threatening even to fall backward. I saw that I had, indeed, selected a wicked one; for in every bound and spring, in every curvet and leap, the object was clearly to unseat the rider. At one instant he would crouch, as if to lie down, and then bound up several feet in the air, with a toss up of his haunches that almost sent me over the head. At another he would spring from side to side, writhing and twisting like a fish, till the saddle seemed actually ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... with good chests and arms, well-knit and gracefully poised by habitually having to creep and crouch, and run and fight. Sunburnt to a deep ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave

... Sir Harry Trevor's coming back to North Farthing next month. Mrs. Tolhurst got it from Peter Crouch, who had it from the Woolpack yesterday. He's coming down with his married sister, Mrs. Williams, and I'll ask Mr. Pratt, so as there'll be two gentlemen and two ladies. I'd ask you, Ellen, only I know Arthur hasn't ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... utter a low, humming noise, which has been compared to the sound of an Eolian harp. They crouch down on their breast—where there is a callosity—when about to receive their burdens, and also sleep resting in the same attitude. A halt during the day is necessary, in order that they may be fed, as these animals will not eat by night. In consequence of this they make ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... upon him from out of the sky. Under that colossal threatened impact he crouched down to the deck. Above him, falling upon him like a bolt from the blue, was a winged hawk unthinkably vaster than the one he had encountered. But in his crouch was no hint of cower. His crouch was a gathering together, an assembling of all the parts of him under the rule of the spirit of him, for the spring upward to meet in mid ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... and wailings smote mine ear: So that all trembling close I crouch'd my limbs, And then distinguish'd, unperceiv'd before, By the dread torments that on every side Drew nearer, how our downward course ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... alongside a large transport, carrying troops out to the West Indies; and the officers on board her, having got timely notice of what was happening, had prepared for her visit by turning up the soldiers, some five hundred in number, serving out ball cartridge to them, and causing them to crouch low behind the bulwarks. Then, just as the brigantine ranged up alongside to board, the soldiers at a blast from the bugle had poured in a fire of musketry that had literally swept her crowded decks and filled them with killed and wounded, causing her to haul off in a tremendous ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... together into a more natural attitude, it took a step or two, stumbled, and then dropped upon its knees, made another effort to rise, but failed, and doubled its hind-legs under it, to crouch so that the two barrels rested on the sand; and then the poor beast uttered a long hoarse sigh as if of relief, while for a time it made no ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... somewhat resembles "I dree I droppit it;" only, instead of standing, the girls forming the ring sit, or rather crouch in a sort of working-tailor attitude. One girl, occupying the centre, is "it." A second girl is on the outside. Immediately the ring begins ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... highest idea—with the beauty that creates beauty, not merely shows it, or itself exists beautiful. I believe that God has always done, is always doing his best for every man; that no man is miserable because God is forgetting him; that he is not a God to crouch before, but our father, to whom the child-heart cries exultant, 'Do with me ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber in this manner to my breast. At such times, although I ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... be the effect on us all if one morning we waited in vain for the sunrise? I tried to picture my own emotions as the truth was slowly borne in upon me that some unprecedented calamity had silently and without any premonition befallen the whole world of men. Would one crouch in a terror of apprehension? I could not see it that way. I believed that I should be trembling with a furious excitement, stirred to the very depths by so inspiring and adventurous a miracle. I had forsaken my speculation ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... another and flatter one another; and men wish to raise themselves above one another, and crouch before one another. ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

... as I did crouch there, hidden, I saw something come very quiet out of the bushes that did grow beyond the fire-hole; and it was great, and crept, and was noways coloured but by greyness in all its parts. And the glare from ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... passes in pictures across her inner sense. In a series of broken ejaculations, not sentences but lyric cries, she evokes the scenes of the past and of the future. Blood drips from the palace; in its chambers the Furies crouch; the murdered sons of Thyestes wail in its haunted courts; and ever among the visions of the past that one of the future floats and fades, clearly discerned, impossible to avert, the murder of a ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... seemed preferable almost to perish of cold upon the deck rather than rock in a narrow bunk below. The deck was a steep inclined plane, steady, but swept constantly with waves, as an incoming tide sweeps a beach. Caius was compelled to crouch by what support he could find, and, lying thus, he was glad to cover himself up to the chin with an unused sail, peeping forth at the gale and the moonlight as a child peeps from the ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... the bridge was now broken down), and further yet, a thick smoke curling up; but whence this came I could not see. Now we had been avoiding all roads this morning, and hiding at every sound of footsteps. But hunger was making us bold. I bade Delia crouch down by the stream's bank, where many alders grew, and set off ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... tapestried walls: then the great Cardinal spiders do so click there, are so like the death-watch, that Villiers, who is inveterately superstitious, will not abide there. The hall, with its enclosing galleries, and the buttery near, are manifestly unsafe. So they heard, nay crouch, mutter, and concoct that fearful treachery which, as far as their country is concerned, has been a thing apart in our annals, in 'my Lady's' closet. Englishmen are turbulent, ambitious, unscrupulous; but the craft of Maitland, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... door were so violent he often looked, expecting to see it shattered to atoms. Since he left no one has been put into this room, but the noises continue, and are heard throughout the house. Even the dogs cannot be coaxed into this room, and if forced into it, they crouch ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various

... triumph that was yet defeat. Far up on the mountain-side they looked and saw death pursuing death. They saw Morrison climbing higher and higher, saw him strain his eyes ever ahead, never behind, saw them rest on two figures, saw Morrison crouch behind a rock and a shimmer of light creep along the barrel of his levelled rifle. The eyes seemed eager as they rested on another figure above him that stretched forth a steady hand; saw jets of flame spring from two guns. Then ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... yet more forward; she seemed to crouch as if she wanted to get out of sight. Christina suddenly stopped and looked at her for an answer. Anna fingered her splashed apron; she tried to speak, but a lump rose in her throat, and she could not see for the hot tears that would, against ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... supposed, was only reached after two hours of agonizing effort, and at the foot Goodman sank speechless and exhausted, his eyes closed, his parted lips white and drawn. Browne looked at him despairingly, and calling the dogs made one crouch at either side close to the heart and lungs of the prostrate body, and then hastened ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... me," Winfree said, panting, "if you don't mind shedding it." He raised his saber in salute—the only fencing-movement he'd become proficient in—and jumped into a crouch. MacHenery closed, and the two blades met in a clanging opening. Peggy's father, for all his handicap of twenty years, was a fencer; Winfree, in his maiden effort as a sabreur, used his weapon like a club. He allemanded about ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang

... stand this," he said, and crept back from the rocks to the grass and crouched down, and suddenly wild sorrow for the death of Kurt, Kurt the brave, Kurt the kindly, came to his help and he broke from whimpering to weeping. He ceased to crouch; he sprawled upon the grass and ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... incident we are passing a prune-orchard, when, as though for our especial benefit, a couple of peasants working there begin singing aloud, and with evident enthusiasm, some national melody, and as they observe not our presence, at my suggestion we crouch behind a convenient clump of bushes and for several minutes are favored with as fine a duet as I have heard for many a day; but the situation becomes too ridiculous for Igali, and it finally sends him into a roar of laughter ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... seemingly; for sometimes in the cold winter months, when savage southerly gales swept over the cloud-blackened ocean from the white fields of Antarctic ice and smote the New Zealand coast with chilling blast, the girl would crouch beside the fire in Mrs. Lambert's drawing-room, and covering herself with warm rugs, stare into the glowing coals ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... ridges of the dark hills shorten their grey shadows upon the plain. Wait a little longer, and you shall see those scattered mists rallying in the ravines, and floating up towards you, along the winding valleys, till they crouch in quiet masses, iridescent with the morning light, upon the broad breasts of the higher hills, whose leagues of massy undulation will melt back, back into that robe of material light, until they fade away, lost in its lustre, to appear again above in the serene heaven like a wild, bright, ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... to work to build me a blind. This I constructed of tumbleweed and willow shoots, with a lucky sagebrush as a good basis. I made it thick below and thin on top, so I could crouch hidden, and rise easily to shoot. Also I made it hastily, working away with a concentration that would prove very valuable could it be brought to a useful line of work. There can nothing equal the busyness of a man hastening to perfect his arrangements before a flight of ducks is due ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... borne away upward by the blower's suction, and for some minutes Alice was able to help Coquenil with the new barricade. They built this directly in front of the iron door, with only space enough between it and the door to allow them to crouch behind it; they made it about five feet long and three feet high. Coquenil would have made it higher, but there was no time; indeed, he had to do the last part of the work alone, for Alice sank back ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... The dark bronze tigers crouch on either side Where red-coats used to pass, And round the bird-loved house where Mercer died And violets dusk the grass, By Stony Brook that ran so red of old, But sings of friendship now, To feed ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes

... of government; but he blessed the Lord that henceforward no more homage was to be paid, no more court to be made, but to him alone, to whom they were justly due. Disdaining as he did the servile adoration usually paid to a minister, he could never crouch before the power of the two Cardinals who succeeded each other: he neither worshipped the arbitrary power of the one, nor gave his approbation to the artifices of the other; he had never received anything from ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... left me at the foot of the mountain. You yourself are a beacon against the course you advise. Let us contrast each other. You took the straight path, I the crooked. You, my superior in fortune; you, infinitely above me in genius; you, born to command and never to crouch: how do we stand now, each in the prime of life? You, with a barren and profitless reputation; without rank, without power, almost without the hope of power. I—but you know not my new dignity—I, in the Cabinet of England's ministry, vast fortunes ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... half-hearted sort of way. My poor horse stood as near the fire as he could, without any food, and shivering, and I was constantly standing up and clapping my arms and stamping my feet if the fire got low, then, when a bit warmed, I would crouch inside my den and sometimes I dozed, only to waken up from sheer cold and resume my exercise. After some hours I had the satisfaction to notice that the snow had ceased falling, and a brighter night, with frost, had set in. This ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... forming the circle. Then the contraction of the circle began, the poor frightened fish harried shoreward by the streaks of concussion that smote the water. In the same fashion elephants are driven through the jungle by motes of men who crouch in the long grasses or behind trees and make strange noises. Already the palisade of legs had been built. We could see the heads of the women, in a long line, dotting the placid surface of the lagoon. The tallest women went farthest ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... bull-dog—combining the lightning swiftness of the one with the grim, fell ferocity of purpose of the other. The powerful rowdy was lying upon his back in the red dust, swinging flail-like blows into empty air, and upon him, in leopard-like crouch, pressing him to the earth, the man whom he had so wantonly attacked. And his throat was compressed in those brown, lean, muscular fingers, as in a claw of steel. It was horrible. His eyes were starting from ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... robbers behind the ledge changed their positions after nearly every shot. And Hal and Noll, after the warm, uncomfortable experience of having bullets fan their faces persistently, found it advisable to crouch low and dart here and there, firing from ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock

... the electric wires are long enough to enable him to stand some distance from the gun. And, if he likes, he can crouch behind that concrete wall of the next barbette. Still, there is some chance of an accident, for, no matter how carefully you calculate the strain of a bursting charge of powder, and how strongly you construct the breech-block to stand the strain, ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... they had walked in the door, Dal had felt Fuzzy crouch down tight against his shoulder. Now a wave of hostility struck his mind like a shower of ice water. He had never seen this thin, dark-haired youth before, or even heard of him, but he recognized this sharp impression of hatred and anger unmistakably. ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse

... of prey and their usual victims crouch together. Benefits received touch generous hearts. But the legionaries on board had no such sentiments. Paul's helpfulness was forgotten. A still more ignoble exhibition of the instinct of self- preservation than the sailors ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... come again as Judge. "God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that MAN whom he hath ordained." He shall come, not arrayed in the stern magnificence of Godhead! As we behold Him, we need not crouch in terror at His approach. Humanity will soften the awe which Deity would inspire. We can rejoice with Job not only that our Kinsman Redeemer "liveth," but that, as our Kinsman Redeemer, "He shall stand at the latter day upon ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff

... bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie: There I crouch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer Merrily. Merrily, merrily shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... head, snapping her fingers before the silent Chinaman. He watched her, and slowly—slowly—he began to crouch, lower and lower, but always that unblinking regard remained fixed upon the ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... to Mormon's big body, stiffening to the crouch that prefaced shooting. He faced toward the trees again, flinging his last ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... O torrent, of yonder dark sea, For there thou must crouch beneath tyranny's rod, Here thou art lonely, and lovely, and free,— Loud as a thunder-peal, ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow

... cleared away and the stars were shining brightly overhead, so that they had to keep under cover as much as possible. Jack hoped, however, that all the inhabitants of the place would be in bed. Again the dog barked. Jack, in a whisper, ordered the gunner and Jerry to crouch down and remain perfectly quiet for a few minutes, when immediately the dog became silent. After waiting a minute or two, he again led the way forward till he could see the tops of the lofty stacks rising high above the houses against the sky. They had made some way, when again ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... Monsieur went on musingly, "because I risk my life in wild errands. But, mordieu! I am the wise man. For they who think ever of safety, and crouch and scheme and shuffle to procure it, why, look you, they destroy their own ends. For, when all is done, they have never really lived. And that is why they hate death so, these worthies. While I, who have never cringed to fear, I live ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... Yet a wise man should remember both are casualties, which may give colour to his future fortunes. We must allow the enraged lion to chafe, but lest his roarings should terrify these tender lambs, and drive them out among beasts of prey, an old watch-dog will crouch beside them, and assuage their alarms. I fancy, pretty maids, you never were in company with a real round-head before; come, tell me truly, is he as terrible a ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... would not have deserted them, only the arrival of the farmer had averted a tragedy in the sumac. He did not learn to use caution for himself; but after that, if a gun came down the shining river, he sent a warning "Chip!" to his mate, telling her to crouch low in her nest and keep very quiet, and then, in broken waves of flight, and with chirp and flutter, he exposed himself until he had lured danger from his ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter

... years. Corn is scarce, there is a lack of herbage, and nothing is left to eat: when any one calls upon his neighbors for help, they take pains not to go. The child weeps, the young man is uneasy, the hearts of the old men are in despair, their limbs are bent, they crouch on the earth, they fold their hands; the courtiers have no further resources; the shops formerly furnished with rich wares are now filled only with air, all that was within them has disappeared. My spirit also, mindful of the beginning of things, seeks to call upon the savior ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... a step forward, but shrinking back until she appeared almost to crouch against the wall, she put out her hands as ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead between your knees; O you need not sit there, veiled in your old white hair, so dishevelled; For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave; It was an illusion—the heir, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... lounge for the cocottes, who still honour us with their presence. The line of the Prussian batteries and the flash of their guns can be seen. The hissing, too, of the bombs can be heard, when the cocottes crouch by their swains in affected dread. It is like Cremorne, with its ladies and its fireworks. Since yesterday morning, too, St. Denis has been bombarded. Most of its inhabitants have taken refuge in Paris, but it will be a pity if the cathedral, with the tombs of all the old ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... Slender, supple, quick of eye and limb; half shy, half defiant; fierce of look; an indefinable kind of pause coming and going on their whole expression, both of face and form, which might be equally likened to the pause before a crouch or a bound. The rough mental notes made in the first five minutes by Mr. Crisparkle would have ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... becomes we expose to majestic sorrow; wherefore none the less does the sage never cease his endeavours to enlarge this beautiful surface. Yes, it must be admitted, destiny is not always content to crouch in the darkness; her ice-cold hands will at times go prowling in the light, and seize on more beautiful victims. The tragic name of Antigone has already escaped me; and there will, doubtless, be many will say, "She surely fell victim ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... minutes. How I wanted to crawl out to the trench under the wagons where our men were keeping up a steady but irregular fire! Each was shooting on his own whenever he saw a man to pull trigger on. But mother suspected me, for she made me crouch down and keep right ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... content to hem a kerchief or mark a sampler, Moll would escape to the Bear Garden, and there enjoy the sport of baiting, whose loyal patron she remained unto the end. That which most bitterly affronted her was the magpie talk of the wenches. 'Why,' she would ask in a fury of indignation, 'why crouch over the fire with a pack of gossips, when the highway invites you to romance? Why finger a distaff, when a quarterstaff comes more aptly ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... the success that his gigantic brain conceived a startling idea for the entrance of the ghost, which was neither more nor less than for Ben to crouch under the stage, in the very hole where Johnny had come to grief, and at the proper time to rise up in a ghostly fashion, which must surely be very effective. Ben was disposed to object to this hiding under the flooring, more especially since he would be enveloped in the sheet, ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis

... Marian had felt the family attitude a good deal, and the Reynoldses were sorry for many things that had been said, when the coal merchant saved money and took up land on building leases in the neighbourhood of Crouch End, greatly to his advantage, as it appeared. Nobody had thought that Nixon could ever do very much; but he and his wife had been living for years in a beautiful house at Barnet, with bow-windows, ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... strong friend and beautiful bride. Let us settle the affair before I depart. What animal do you wish to be,—roaring lion, bellowing ox, bleating sheep, crowing cock? If you become a dog, you can crouch at Matheline's feet, and Bihan can lead you by a leash ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... turning away. Without pausing to answer her question, he started rapidly down the aisle, his head and shoulders bent forward in a peculiar crouch. A slight frown of perplexity and displeasure marred the serenity of Genevieve's face. But the benign voice of the bishop immediately soothed her ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... interested in mechanical things. When the phonograph was first put on the market he had one in his office at 1127 Broadway. Once in London he found a mechanical tiger that growled, walked, and even clawed. He enjoyed watching it crouch and spring. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... Crouch in Essex, is a great stretch of land, flat for the most part and rather dreary, which, however, to judge from what they have left us, our ancestors thought of much importance because of its situation, its trade and the corn it grew. So it came ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... evidently sunk in conversation, and perhaps did not notice where they were going; but they were certainly going to the wilder and more silent heights of the Heath. As their pursuers gained on them, the latter had to use the undignified attitudes of the deer-stalker, to crouch behind clumps of trees and even to crawl prostrate in deep grass. By these ungainly ingenuities the hunters even came close enough to the quarry to hear the murmur of the discussion, but no word could be distinguished except the word "reason" recurring frequently in a high ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... accomplished with his customary adroitness. It was soon obvious, even to so dull and so base a nature as that of the Duke, that it was his best policy to continue to cultivate so powerful a friendship. It cost him little to crouch, but events were fatally, to prove at a later day, that there are natures too malignant to be trusted or to be tamed. For the present, however, Alencon professed the most friendly sentiments towards the Prince. Solicited by ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... be set come morning—And that her'll be—I count as 'tis long enough as her have mistressed it over the house. [Shaking her fist towards the ceiling.] You old she fox, you may gather the pads of you in under of you now, and crouch you down t'other side of the fire like any other old woman of your years—for my May's comed back, and her'll show you your place what you've not known where 'twas in all the days of your old wicked life. ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... him, and as time passed and hunger waxed, its attacks were more difficult to resist. The draining of his energies left him unprotected against the piercing chill of the air. Frequently, he was forced to halt, in order that he might gather chips for a fire, and then crouch, shivering over the blaze for a time ere he dared resume his march. Indeed, as the night drew down on him, he felt himself so enfeebled, so sensitive to the icy wind, that he feared to sleep, lest he might never wake. So, for his life's sake, he kept moving, now by sheer stress ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... upon the road to Camelot. It made life interesting to be within measurable distance of the knights and ladies who lived and played and loved in the many-towered city of which one could gain so clear a view from the topmost branches of the hickory tree in the upper pasture. She liked to crouch in the elder bushes where a lane, winding and green-arched, crossed a corner of the cornfield, and to wait, through the long, still summer mornings for Lancelot or Galahad or Tristram or some other of her friends to come pricking his way through the sunshine. She could hear the clinking of his ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly

... fabled of the entrance to that sea, in Rio is partly made true; for here, at the mouth, stands one of Hercules' Pillars, the Sugar-Loaf Mountain, one thousand feet high, inclining over a little, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. At its base crouch, like mastiffs, the batteries of Jose and Theodosia; while opposite, you are menaced by ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... Make a leg to that man if you dare, without my permission. This smell is intolerable; but turn from it, if you can, unless I give the word. Bolt this yam!—it is done. Carry me across yon field!—off we go. Stop!—it's a dead halt. There, I've trained you enough for to-day; now, sirrah, crouch down in the shade, and be quiet.—I'm rested. So, here's for a stroll, and a reverie homeward:— Up, carcass, and march.' So the carcass demurely rose and paced, and the philosopher meditated. He was intent upon squaring the circle; but bump he came against a bough. 'How now, clodhopping bumpkin! ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... we are quite safe here," he said; "the wall is only two feet above the ground, so even this gale will not shake us. The roof is strongly put together to keep out marauders. Now, Mr. Gilmore, there is room for us to crouch inside; it is the only place of safety I know of, for even in the open we might be struck by the flying branches torn from the trees. Besides, it will be a comfort to Alice to know that we are in ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... I bade Lord Starling crouch low, and I paddled fiercely. I breathed hard not from exertion, but like a swimmer fighting for his breath. I was submerged in waves of terror, yet I had no name for what I feared. I learned then that ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... as moonlight at home; but the crypt itself was proof, blackness lived in it. The next night it was raining. We left the lights of Apia and passed into limbo. Jack finds a way for himself, but he does not calculate for my height above the saddle; and I am directed forward, all braced up for a crouch and holding my switch upright in front of me. It is curiously interesting. In the forest, the dead wood is phosphorescent; some nights the whole ground is strewn with it, so that it seems like a grating over a pale hell; doubtless this is one of the things that feed the night fears of the ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... our own. If there were no cowardice, there would be little insolence; pride cannot rise to any great degree, but by the concurrence of blandishment or the sufferance of tameness. The wretch who would shrink and crouch before one that should dart his eyes upon him with the spirit of natural equality, becomes capricious and tyrannical when he sees himself approached with a downcast look, and hears the soft address ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks, he might crouch and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their streamers across ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... I had one two-year-old rooster that made fifty-four mile an hour behind one of those sixty-horsepower Panhandles. When cars didn't come along often enough, they'd all turn out and chase jack-rabbits. They wasn't much fun at that. After a short, brief sprint the rabbit would crouch down plumb terrified, while the Honk-honks pulled off triumphal dances around ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... preserve it, as those that renounced the privilege of defensive arms; some of them abjuring the covenants expressly, and condemning the prosecution of the ends of them as rebellion, viz., the declaration and test; the most part did, Issachar like, crouch beneath all the burthens of maintaining and defending an arbitrary power and absolute tyranny, wholly employed and applied for the destruction of reformation, and paid such subsidies and supplies as were declaredly imposed for upholding the tyrant's ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery

... why should I mingle in Fashion's full herd? Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules? Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd? Why search for delight, in the ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... sometimes when all the men were away and his own work was done, he would crouch like a raccoon in the far corner of his deep square bunk with the board ends that made of it a sort of little cabin, and play to himself softly on his violin. No one ever heard him. After supper he was docilely ready to fiddle to the ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... mother; I cannot," was Betty's reply. "Fayther'll do no good; if Sammul sees him coming, he'll just step out of the road, or crouch him down behind summat till he's gone by. I must go myself; he'll not be afraid of me. Oh, sure he'll ne'er go right away without one 'Good-bye' to his own sister! Maybe he'll wait about till he sees me; and, please the Lord, if I can only light on him, I may ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... declaration of war. In one or two of her fragmentary rehearsals upstairs she had supposed she would say something conventional to begin with. But the reality struck conventionality clean out of the realm of the possible. Her silent pause there was as significant as the crouch of a hound; and she perceived that it was recognized to be so by the other that was there. There was in him that quick, silent alertness she had expected: half defiant, half timid, as of a fierce beast that expects ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... breathing hard, and fancying that the daylight must be close at hand, the boat gave another jerk, careening over sideways towards the rudder, for the carpenter had slowly descended into the bows, to crouch down ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... the story which once we loved to tell. "Good will! Good will!" we read it, and "Peace!"—we hear the name, And crouch among the ruins, and watch the cruel flame, And hear the children crying, and turn our eyes away— For them there's neither bread nor ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... monarchy and lovers of liberty have invariably despised each other, and waited only favorable opportunity to rob and murder. Even now, they crouch like lions at bay, and fight to ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... of. A shrapnel crashed overhead and a little to the right, and a sharp scream that died down into deep groans told of the first casualty. Another shell, and then another, roared up and smashed into the soft ground behind the trench, hurting no one, but driving the whole line to crouch low in the ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

... than confess they were well governed. Bah! the genius of Mexico is mutiny. They scarcely want a leader to move their madness. They rebel on any weak pretence. They bluster when they are courted; they crouch when they are oppressed. They are fools to all the world but themselves. I beg the Almighty to consider in my favor, that some over-hasty angel misplaced my lot. I should have been born ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... sometimes, when Oliver walked softly into a room, the mice would scamper across the floor, and run back terrified to their holes. With these exceptions, there was neither sight nor sound of any living thing; and often, when it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from room to room, he would crouch in the corner of the passage by the street-door, to be as near living people as he could; and would remain there, listening and counting the hours, until the Jew or the ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... self-sufficient. Calumet's eyes narrowed with dislike as he looked at him. There was interest in his glance, too, for this was his father's enemy—his enemy. But after the first look his face became inscrutable. He turned to see Dade standing beside him. Dade was rigid, pale; his body was in a half-crouch and there was an expression of cold malignance on his face. Quickly Calumet placed both hands on the young man's shoulders and shoved him back against the bar, thrusting his own body between ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer

... Father, has brought a God to our hearts whom we can love, whom we can know really though not fully, of whom we can be sure with a certitude which is as deep as the certitude of our own personal being; that He has brought to us a God before whom we do not need to crouch far off, that He has brought to us a God whom we can trust. Very significant is it that Christianity alone puts the very heart of religion in the act of trust. Other religions put it in dread, worship, service, and the like. Jesus Christ alone says, the bond between men and God is that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... of sun That she tilted o'er the flood, Moving like God alone O'er the glorious solitude— The billows crouch around her as her slaves. How exulting are her crew— Each sight to them is new, As they sweep along the blue Of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... made there, and the floor of the arcade is often covered with men studying the Koran, calmly meditating, or prostrating themselves in prayer. And so there is a great coming and going up the outside stairs and through the wonderful doorway: beggars crouch under the wall of the terrace; the sellers of cakes, of syrups and lemon-water, and of the big and luscious watermelons that are so popular in Cairo, display their wares beneath awnings of orange-colored ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... from the spot where these two brutes had met. Jack had crouched at once. We had often talked, over our camp-fire, of such an event as unexpectedly meeting a lion face to face; and Peterkin, who knew a good deal about such matters, had said that in such a case a man's only chance was to crouch and stare the lion out of countenance. We laughed at this; but he assured us positively that he had himself seen it done to tigers in India, and added that if a man turned and ran his destruction would be certain. To fire straight in the face of a lion in such a position would ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... morning, when she went about doing her errands. From head to foot, indeed, she was but one bruise! Oh! this murdering of childhood; those heavy hands crushing this lovely girl; how abominable that such weakness should have such a weighty cross to bear! Again did Gervaise crouch down, no longer thinking of tucking in the sheet, but overwhelmed by the pitiful sight of this martyrdom; and her trembling lips seemed to be seeking ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... path that led to the little plateau where the spring was, above which the shanties stood, ran at the other end of the hill. I struck the spruit or rivulet that was fed by this spring, being guided to it by the murmur of the water, and followed up its bank till I heard a sound which caused me to crouch and listen. ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... pince-nez the day after landing. I felt sure they would be found if only we searched long enough, and presently I came across one half of them. By this time about fourteen people, men as well as women, were looking for them. The gale was terrific, and when the gusts came the only thing to do was to crouch down. It was a comical sight, and I wish I could have photographed it. I was caught hold of several times by one of the elder girls and held when the gusts came. I promised a pot of jam to the one who should find the other half of the spectacles. We had been out over an hour ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... addition to those manners and accomplishments which are most pleasing to the world, he not only possesses a good education but a sense of justice which makes him regard every man as his brother; and which will neither suffer him to crouch to the haughty nor trample on ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... words, or maintain them with thy sword!—Crouch, like a low-born slave as thou art, and beg Macpherson's pardon, if thou darest not ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... that might not be her eyes followed him. Sometimes, when he was afield with his sheep, they saw her come out of the cottage and slink up the hedgerow to the fell's foot. She would climb the brae, search him out, and then crouch down and sit watching him, never taking her eyes off him. When he was at home her favourite place was at his feet. She would sit huddled there for hours, and his hand would fall upon her hair or rest on ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... shirking, accompanied by a liberal allowance of "narrow squeaks," I get back to my own bit of trench; and tobogganing down where I erroneously think the clay steps are, I at last reach my dug-out, and entering on all fours, crouch amongst the damp tobacco leaves and straw and light ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather

... And shall we crouch above these graves, With craven soul and fettered lip? Yoke in with marked and branded slaves, And tremble at the driver's whip? Bend to the earth our pliant knees, And speak—but ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark

... to Southminster to buy some wine for the Christmas feast. Sir Andrew asked what wine there was at Southminster. The Prior answered that he had heard that a ship, laden amongst other things with wine of Cyprus of wonderful quality, had come into the river Crouch with her rudder broken. He added that as no shipwrights could be found in London to repair it till after Christmas, the chapman, a Cypriote, who was in charge of the wine, was selling as much as he could in Southminster and to the houses about at a cheap rate, and delivering ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... hunks with his knife. It was after seven o'clock, and the crescent moon hung low by the ridge, waiting for the sun to take its complete departure before setting in for its night's joy-ride up the sky. It was eight before Pan finished his slow browsing in his bowl and came over to crouch with me out on the ledge of rock that overlooked the world below us. Clusters of lights in nests of gray smoke were dotted around over the valley, and I knew the nearest one was Riverfield; indeed I could see a bunch of lights a little way apart from the rest, ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... of savage beasts, And savage men more merciless. Alas! And am I, after all my golden dreams Of laurel'd glory, doom'd in wilds to fall, Ignobly and obscure, the prey of brutes? [Music. Fie on these coward thoughts! this trusty sword, That made the Turk and Tartar crouch beneath me, Will stead me well, e'en in this wilderness. [Music. O glory! thou who led'st me fearless on, Where death stalk'd grimly over slaughter'd heaps, Or drank the drowning shrieks of shipwreck'd wretches, Swell high the bosom of thy ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker

... cast us off to toil and die In foreign countries' harsh captivity? Our race is scattered now the wide world o'er; Our wailings rise to Thee from every shore; Baited or banished by the Christian Powers, Cursed by the Moslem mid our ruined towers, Like pariah dogs, an execrated race, We crouch to-day within our 'Wailing Place', Begging, and paying dearly for, the right To bathe with tears this consecrated site. How long, O Israel's God, shall this endure? Are not Thy promises to Jacob sure? Oh, speed the ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... little fighting rockets, and they never failed to interest him. But there wasn't time to admire them now. He went back up the ladder with two strong heaves, found the right ladder, and dropped down without touching. His knees flexed to take up the shock. He came out of the crouch facing a black-clad Planeteer sergeant ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin

... khaki suits, lying on the ground and facing the enemy's fire in the other direction. Held in check by the Germans and Americans in two feeble posts of a few men each, the Chinese commanders cannot get their men along the Tartar Wall, and command the Legations that crouch below. Perhaps that is why playing is only going on and no assaults. Now sobbing, now gurgling, the bullets pass thickly enough overhead here, sometimes in dense flights like angry wild-fowl, sometimes speeding in quick succession after one another as if they were all late and were ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... the principles of the British Constitution in withholding political power from the Roman Catholics. My most determined hostility shall always be directed against those statesmen who, like Whitbread, Grenville, and others, would crouch to a sanguinary tyrant; and I cannot act with those who see no danger to the Constitution in introducing papists into Parliament. There are other points of policy in which I deem the Opposition grievously mistaken, and therefore I am at present, and ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... as if a tiny hand were passing among the roots of Carey's hair and he tried to crouch lower, but it was impossible. Feeling though, that his life—if he were not already fatally injured— depended upon his getting beyond reach of the person firing, he gave himself intense pain by ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn

... aroused in her so strong a disgust, so hot a misery, that flight from him was all she thought of. On the sands, at the inn, in a carriage, he would still have been there, within reach of her, or beside her. The very dream of it made her crouch more closely behind ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Temptation sharp? Thank God a second time! Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon

... seen like this," said Freda, "that's certain. Let's crouch in here quite quietly for a minute or two, till they're out of the way—don't speak or anything. Hush! perhaps we can ...
— The Christmas Fairy - and Other Stories • John Strange Winter

... cold, and with weariness spent, You droop in your saddle, or crouch in your tent; Can you feel that the love so entire, so true, The love that we dreamed of,—is all things to you? That come what there may,—desolation or loss, The prick of the thorn, or the weight of the cross— You can bear it,—nor feel you are wholly bereft, ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston

... surely know that it bends toward justice. Justice will not fail, though wickedness appears strong, and has on its side the armies and thrones of power, the riches and the glory of the world, and though poor men crouch down in despair. Justice will not fail and perish out from the world of men, nor will what is really wrong and contrary to God's real law of justice continually endure. The Power, the Wisdom, and the Justice of God are ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... nodded assent. They had been so engaged that they did not see a woman enter the bar from behind, and crouch down beside Lady Jane, a woman whom the latter touched affectionately on the shoulder and whispered to once or twice, while she watched the preparations ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... placed at the foot of this bold range of heights near where the little river Thouet runs into the broad and rapid Loire. A massive-looking old chteau perched on the summit of an isolated crag stands out grandly against the clear sky and dominates the town, the older houses of which crouch at the foot of the lofty hill and climb its steepest sides. The restored antique Htel de Ville, in the pointed style, with its elegant windows, graceful belfry, and florid wrought-iron balconies, stands back from the quay bordering the Loire. In the rear is the Rue des Payens, whither ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly

... throughout the town. On the quayside all was ordered haste. Mooring ropes were cast off with a minimum of shouting, and the larger ships moved slowly down the harbour towards the open sea. The few small vessels left seemed to crouch ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife

... thereabouts. I said I would marry her when I had money enough. She said I had money enough now. We had a quarrel. She refused to walk out with me any more; she wouldn't draw me my beer; she took up with my fellow-servant, David Crouch. I went to her on the Saturday, and said I would marry her as soon as we could be asked in church if she would give up Crouch. She laughed at me. She turned me out of the wash-house, and the rest of them saw her turn me out. I was not easy in my mind. I went and sat ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... corruption, overshadowed by incredible swarms of flies. Yet the engineer who could face evil sights and nauseous smells was repaid by an inspection of the deep narrow trenches in which a rifleman could crouch with the minimum danger from shells, and the caves in which the non-combatants remained in absolute safety. Of their dead we have no accurate knowledge, but two hundred wounded in a donga represented their losses, not only during a bombardment of ten days, but also in that Paardeberg engagement ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... come from behind and slightly to the left of him, so he drew his left-hand weapon and spun to the left as he dropped to a crouch. He had turned almost completely around, drawn his gun, and fired three shots before the other man had even ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... there are any others behind, and in any case we could not be better placed than on this rock; from here we might defy a whole tribe of savages. Besides, we do not yet know that they will stop here. Both of you crouch ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... their footsteps afar. They come swiftly, but they will not find their prey. They are the last of the Danites, and they are in hiding here amid these mountains, but they have not forgotten how to strike and destroy. Crouch low, keep still, and you ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... camping every evening at the vile wells which offered a small quantity of abominable water. It was our habit to rise very early and to travel very late, but to halt during the intolerable heat of the afternoon, when, for want of trees, we would crouch in the shadow of a sandhill, or, if that were wanting, behind our own camels and merchandise, in order to escape from the insufferable glare of the sun. On the seventh day we were near the point where one leaves the coast in order to strike ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of him. As Roy's pinto clambered up and down the steep hills, he recalled the advice of Dave to ride a buckskin "that melts into the atmosphere like a patch of bunch grass." He wished he had taken that advice. A man looking for revenge could crouch in the chaparral and with a crook of his finger send winged death at his enemy. A twig crackling under the hoof of his horse more than once sent an electric shock through his pulses. The crash of a bear through the brush seemed to stop the beating ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... time of peace, you, as one of the commons, march up to the Assembly to lord it over the rich, who tremble and crouch before you, and seek to propitiate you with grants. They must labour, that you may be supplied with baths and games and spectacles and the like to your satisfaction; you are their censor and critic, their stern taskmaster, who ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... side. 2. High'way, a public road. Re-treat', a place of refuge or safety, Crouch'es, stoops low. 3. Taunt'ing, deriding, ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... walls, and he, as well as they, was specially interested in the outlook over the river. A platform four feet wide was built against the palisade the same distance from the top. It was reached at intervals by flights of narrow steps, and here in case of attack the riflemen would crouch and fire from their hidden breastwork. Close by and under the high bank flowed the river, a broad, deep stream, bearing the discharge from those mighty inland seas, the upper chain of the Great Lakes. The current of the river, deep, blue and placid ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing, Up this seashore in some briers, Two feather'd guests from Alabama, two together, And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown, And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand, And every day the she-bird crouch'd on her nest, silent, with bright eyes, And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, Cautiously ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... who was great, and long live his boot, which was still greater! Ladies, take the advice of a friend; make a mistake in your neighbor if you see fit. The property of love is to err. A love affair is not made to crouch down and brutalize itself like an English serving-maid who has callouses on her knees from scrubbing. It is not made for that; it errs gayly, our gentle love. It has been said, error is human; I say, error is love. Ladies, I idolize you all. O Zephine, O Josephine, face more ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo



Words linked to "Crouch" :   squinch, sit, huddle, hunker, bending, flex, change posture, cower, sit down



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