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Peck   /pɛk/   Listen
Peck

verb
(past & past part. pecked; pres. part. pecking)
1.
Hit lightly with a picking motion.  Synonyms: beak, pick.
2.
Eat by pecking at, like a bird.  Synonym: pick up.
3.
Kiss lightly.  Synonym: smack.
4.
Eat like a bird.  Synonyms: peck at, pick at.
5.
Bother persistently with trivial complaints.  Synonyms: hen-peck, nag.



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"Peck" Quotes from Famous Books



... joy of the ride. Beneath her Brunette was spurning the turf with dainty hooves; stretching out in her gallop, yet gathering herself cleverly at her fences, with alert, pricked ears—judging her distance, and landing with never a peck or stumble. The light weight on the pony's back was nothing to her; the delicate touch on her mouth was all she needed to ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... lady hang her crown?' I asked him. 'It must have a peck of diamonds in it. Can't I ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various

... birds of God," he said to himself, "we hover about a whole wood of the trees of life, venturing only here and there a peck, as if their fruit might be poison, and the design of our creation was our ruin! we shake our wise, owl-feathered heads, and declare they cannot be the trees of life: that were too good to be true! Ten times more consistent are they who deny there is a God at all, than they who believe in a middling ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... it good?" was John's mental comment, as he daily watched the proceedings, and while Hannah pronounced him "the hen-peck-ed-est man she had ever seen," the amused villagers knew that will had met will, and ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... London consumes one hundred and twenty bushels of coal in twenty-four hours, turns ten pair of stones, which grind eight bushels of flour an hour each, which is nineteen hundred and twenty bushels in the twenty-four hours. This makes a peck and a half of coal perform exactly as much as a horse ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... followers in the wilderness. Quoth one, 'My husband hath travelled as far as Plymouth (which is near forty miles), and hath with great toil brought a little corn home with him, and before that is spent the Lord will assuredly provide.' Quoth the other, 'Our last peck of meal is now in the oven at home a-baking, and many of our godly neighbors have quite spent all, and we owe one loaf of that little we have.' Then spake a third, 'My husband hath ventured himself among the Indians ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... the corn-spirit often assumes is that of a cock. In Austria children are warned against straying in the corn-fields, because the Corn-cock sits there, and will peck their eyes out. In North Germany they say that "the Cock sits in the last sheaf"; and at cutting the last corn the reapers cry, "Now we will chase out the Cock." When it is cut they say, "We have caught the Cock." ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... the bird would alight on his penholder and peck his fingers. Though he enjoyed the bird's presence and tricks, yet he was obliged at times to cage him, in order to carry on his work undisturbed. Later, when the bird began to sing, Albert could not praise ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne

... "Ah, that's it, is it? Ah, well I've been there myself! Don't you let the fancy upset you, sir! It 'ull pass afore we gets into the open. Nothing like the sea for teachin' you to forget gals you've left behind you! Come down below and try and peck a bit. There's cold beef—and pickles. That'll send them kind o' fancies ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... swollen out of his head from weeping, she felt full of compassion for him. She therefore beat her hands together and at that signal a thousand large birds called Woodpeckers flew in at the window. They immediately perched on Pinocchio's nose and began to peck at it with such zeal that in a few minutes his enormous and ridiculous nose was reduced to ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi

... till he laid bare the whole body of that miner, and found a pickaxe in his dead hand. This he hid, and reserved it for deadly uses; he was not clear in his mind whether to brain Hope with it, and so be revenged on him for having shut him up in that mine, or whether to peck a hole in the tank and destroy all three by a quicker death than thirst or starvation. The savage had another and more horrible reason for keeping out of sight; maddened by thirst he had recourse to that last extremity better men have been driven ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... morning after his mother's departure, Dicky almost missed kissing me good-by in his mad haste to catch his train. He rushed out of the door after a most perfunctory peck at my cheek, and I saw him almost running down the little lane bordered with wild flowers that led "across ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... your child; you'll soon believe The text which says, we sprung from Eve. As an old hen led forth her train, And seemed to peck to shew the grain; She raked the chaff, she scratched the ground, And gleaned the spacious yard around. A giddy chick, to try her wings, On the well's narrow margin springs, And prone she drops. The mother's breast All day with sorrow was possess'd. 10 A cock she met; her ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... worked on the railroad he had allowed him for food, one peck of corn meal, four pounds of bacon, and one quart of molasses per week. He cooked it himself at night, for the next day's use. He worked at packing cotton for four or five months, and in the middle of November, 1852, was sent ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... is forced upon my notice. I like neighbors, and I like chickens; but I do not think they ought to be united near a garden. Neighbors' hens in your garden are an annoyance. Even if they did not scratch up the corn, and peck the strawberries, and eat the tomatoes, it is not pleasant to see them straddling about in their jerky, high-stepping, speculative manner, picking inquisitively here and there. It is of no use to tell the neighbor that his hens ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... born in them parts, down to Canton, where father belonged; but mother was a Simsbury woman, and afore I was long-togged, father he moved onter the old humstead up to Simsbury, when gran'ther Peck died. Our farm was right 'longside o' Miss Buel's; you'll see't when you go there; but there a'n't nobody there now. Mother died afore I come away, and lies safe to the leeward o' Simsbury meetin'-house. Father ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... worn stairs; and, finding the door locked, solemnly touched the brass knob, read the name 'Ed Peck' on the plate, and wiped their feet on a very dirty mat. It was ridiculous, of course; but hero-worship is not the worst of modern follies, and when one's hero has won from the world some of its heartiest smiles ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... him," said Eustace to Mrs. Merrit, as she came into the study one afternoon toward dusk with a step-ladder. "You'd much better leave Peter alone. Starve him into surrender, Mrs. Merrit, and don't leave bananas and seed about for him to peck at when he fancies he's ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... could explain one of my failures a few years ago in planting some Persian walnuts. I went to another tree in western New York, and got a peck or more. They were planted the same day, in the same ground, and all came up. Those I got from another tree resembled a hill of beans, and stayed that way for three years. Why wouldn't those grow? In soil three feet from those, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association

... purpose, the influence of his poetry may be considered good. (We of course say nothing here of the volume called the "Merry Muses," still extant to disgrace his memory.) It is doubtful if his "Willie brew'd a peck o' Maut" ever made a drunkard, but it is certain that his "Cottar's Saturday Night" has converted sinners, edified the godly, and made some erect family altars. It has been worth a thousand homilies. And, taking his songs as a whole, they have done ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... she is, at all," said Hester, her plumage ruffled, administering her contradiction right and left to her two best friends like a sharp peck from a wren. "I think we ought to believe the best of people until they prove themselves ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... commander. General Kennedy's greatest claim to distinction was his good looks. He certainly was one of the finest looking officers in the army. I fear little contradiction when I say General Kennedy and Major W.D. Peck, of the Quartermaster Department, were two of the finest looking men that South Carolina gave to the war. I give a short sketch ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... private conversation! and me with my feathers all anyhow!" She began to peck at herself vigorously; but this was straying from the point, and annoyed me. However, Father ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James

... portion of the interior hollow, as we have seen in the case of the cactus branches. How the birds found that these stalks were hollow is a problem not yet solved, but, nevertheless, they take the trouble to peck away at the hard bark, and once penetrated, they commence to fill the interior; when one space is full, the bird pecks a little ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... placed under the shelter of one of the titanic caves which giant hands have carved in the acclivities of the chalk. Squire Boatfield ordered it to be removed. It was not fitting that birds of prey should be allowed to peck at the dead, nor that some unusually high tide should once more carry him out to sea, ere his murderer had been brought ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... finished with a dark stain and waxed, or, as it is small, it can be easily fumed. If stain is used, stain and wax the pieces before putting them together. The fuming process is more easily done after the clock is assembled. Secure a bucket, a peck measure, or any receptacle large enough, when inverted, to put over the clock. Pour about 2 oz. of strong ammonia into a saucer or small pan. Support the clock above the saucer and cover both with the inverted bucket. Allow ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 2 • H. H. Windsor

... times. Dey wasn't educated up to de use ob de pen. Deir han's was only fit for de ruff use ob de swoard. Now, as de modern poet says, our swoards rust in deir cubbards, an' peas, sweet peas, cover de lan'. An' what has wrot all dis change? De pen. Do I take a swoard now to get me a peck ob sweet taters, a pair ob chickens, a pair ob shoes? No, saar. I jess take my pen an' write an order for 'em. Do I want money? I don't git it by de edge ob de swoard; I writes a check. I want a suit ob clothes, for instance—a ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... before her, and on her lap crouched a sick and ruffled hawk; the creature shivered from time to time, closing the filmy lids of his keen eyes, which glowed with a dull fire when Hekt took him up in her withered hand, and tried to blow some air into his hooked beak, still ever ready to peck and tear her. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... doors from this was the office of The Birmingham Journal, a very different paper then from what it afterwards became. It had been originally started as a Tory paper by a few old "fogies" who used to meet at "Joe Lindon's," "The Minerva," in Peck Lane; and this was how it came about: The Times had, early in 1825, in a leader, held up to well-deserved ridicule some action on the part of the Birmingham Tory party. This gave awful and unpardonable offence, and retaliation ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards

... got to the store, who should be there but Abby Matilda Stevens and Rhody Mills! Abby is generally thought a beauty, because she has great black eyes that are always so bright and shiny I wonder the hens don't try and peck at them; then she is tall and slim waisted, and her hair is as black as a coal, and longer than common; but I never liked such dreadful sparkly eyes, do you? I think the kind that have a sort o' hazy look come into them—like the pond when a little summer cloud passes ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... excitement, but, alas! too late, Thunders half the field towards the portals of a friendly gate; Sees a dozen red-coats bobbing in the vale a mile ahead; Hears the huntsman's horn, and longs to catch those distant bits of red;— But in vain, for blind the fences, here a fall and there a "peck." Some one cries, "An awful place, sir; don't go there, you'll break your neck." Not the stiff, unbroken fences, but the treacherous gaps we fear; "Though in front the post of honour, that of danger's in the rear." Forrard on, then forrard ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... we hurry—come." He turned to Dufrenne, excitement showing in every line of his face. As he hurried toward the door he spoke over his shoulder to Monsieur Perrier. "Don't open your mouth to a soul—do you hear? If you do, you'll get yourself into a peck of trouble." The last thing they heard as they left the shop was the barber's howls ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks

... first one eye and then the other to the pink hands, for the gobbler seemed to consider them a perpetual repository of corn-dodgers, which indeed they were. Then the head and the wabbling red wattles would dart forth with a sudden peck, and the shriek that ensued proved that nothing could be much amiss with ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... mid-air. The glossy threads with which it is knitted are stout, and the structure is therefore, not liable to be torn by the beaks of insectivorous birds, while its pendulous position makes it doubly secure against their attacks, the apparatus giving way when they peck at it. There is a small orifice at each end of the egg-shaped bag, to admit of the escape of the moth when it changes from the little chrysalis which sleeps tranquilly in its airy cage. The moth is of a dull slatey colour, and ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... because it is cheap, but insist upon the revised and enlarged edition of 1892. Never acquire an antiquated Lempriere's or Anthon's Classical Dictionary, because some venerable library director, who used it in his boyhood, suggests it, when you can get Professor H. T. Peck's "Dictionary of Classical Antiquities," published in 1897. Never be tempted to buy an old edition of an encyclopaedia at half or quarter price, for it will be sure to lack the populations of the last census, besides being a quarter of a century or more in arrears in its other information. When ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... you to come across any one from the house, or to meet master; or were, in the streets, people to press against you, or horses to collide with you, as to make (his horse) shy, and he were to fall, would that too be a joke? The gall of both of you is larger than a peck measure; but it's all you, Ming Yen, who has incited him, and when I go back, I'll surely tell the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... I'm in a peck of troubel to-day, wot I'll have ter trust ter Providence to get me outer. A typergraffickal devil ain't s'posed to know everything, enyway. Now the hull offis is mad at me, 'cos I ain't a walk-in' ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray

... a piece of land on spec, Plow and sow, There's a place for every peck, You can grow. Swat the Kaiser in the neck, Issue him a passage check ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens

... others do;—copied in Biographie Universelle, vii. 278 (? Casimir).] is "lamentation over the Polish Anarchies" and "a Prophecy," which is very easily remembered. The poor old Gentleman had no doubt eaten his peck of dirt among those Polacks, and swallowed chagrins till he felt his stomach could no more, and determined to have done with it. To one's fancy, in abridged form, the Valediction must have ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... only, but arose from the ordinary and natural habits of a miller's daughter, accustomed, doubtless, to render the same service to every wealthier churl who frequented her father's mill. This stopped the mouth of vanity, and of the love which vanity had been hatching, as effectually as a peck of literal ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... it? you know—makes up for his own little peccadilloes by damning yours and mine. I forget how it goes. But there'll be more in by-and-by, and then we'll have another table. Those who come late will be more in your line; not so ready to peck your eyes out if you happen to forget a card. That Miss Ruff is dreadful." Here an awful note was heard, for the Lady Ruth had just put her thirteenth trump on Miss Ruff's thirteenth heart. What Littlebathian female soul could ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... sincerity; singleness of purpose, singleness of heart; honesty &c 939; plain speaking; epanchement [Fr.]. rough diamond, matter of fact man; le palais de verite [Fr.]; enfant terrible [Fr.]. V. be artless &c adj.; look one in the face; wear one's heart upon his sleeves for daws to peck at^; think aloud; speak out, speak one's mind; be free with one, call a spade a spade. Adj. artless, natural, pure, native, confiding, simple, lain, inartificial^, untutored, unsophisticated, ingenu^, unaffected, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... in this case is to remove from the blood the irritating waste which is inflaming the stomach, and this is better done by cleansing and stimulating the skin than by means of drastic drugs. A lazy man will swallow a peck of pills rather than go through an ordeal of cleansing like this, but in that case he need not be surprised if his poor stomach become only poorer still, while his purse will not get any heavier. Besides ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... de slaves wuz 'lowed ter stay on de plantation en 'lowed ter farm en gib half dey made. Atter slavery I useter wuk fer fifty cents en git a peck ob meal, three pounds ob bacon en a quart ob syrup ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... roomy, but we got a good sleep. In the morning before he was fairly awake Steward discovered fossils in the rocks over his head, and we remained till one o'clock in order that an investigation could be made. He collected about a peck of fine specimens. When we started again the canyon was so interesting, particularly to the geologists, that we stopped several times in a run of five miles between vertical walls not over six hundred feet apart. Camp was finally made on the right in ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... eating and drinking, and all of the very best, but she has gone and filled my portmanteau too, filled it up chock full, sir! A fine ham of bacon, sir, and a pair of roasted fowls, with two bottles of brandy, and a matter of a peck of biscuit." ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... went into the pockets of Master Hopkins. In this manner he made one old woman confess, because four flies had appeared in the room, that she was attended by four imps, named "Ilemazar," "Pye-wackett," "Peck-in-the-crown," and "Grizel-Greedigut." ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... is no fool," declared Nick, hotly. "He's made a peck o' money there in London town, and 's going to buy the Great House in Chapel lane, and ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... teach us nothing, Books done by pedants and tenebrific persons, under the name of men; dwelling not on things, but, at endless length, on the outer husks of things: of unparalleled confusion, too;—not so much as an Index granted you; to the poor half-peck of cinders, hidden in these wagon-loads of ashes, no sieve allowed! Books tending really to fill the mind with mere dust-whirlwinds,—if the mind did not straightway blow them out again; which it does. Of these let us say nothing. Seldom ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... from the table, that the plot which had the superphosphate, potash, etc., the year before, gives a peck less wheat this year than the other plot which had none. Practically, the yield is the same. There is an increase of 13 bushels of wheat per acre—and this increase is clearly due ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris

... storehouses had been growing for thousands of years in the Amazon jungle with their wealth securely sealed up in their bark, the peck of a bird, the boring of a beetle, or the scratch of a climbing animal being the only draft upon their treasure. The trees around the mouth of the river supplied whatever was needed for the little manufacturing that was at first done. But ...
— The Romance of Rubber • United States Rubber Company

... He shall be protected, when he acts with good faith, and to the best of his skill and knowledge. Gilbert v. Williams, 8 Mass. 57. The want of ordinary care and skill in such a person is gross negligence. Holmes v. Peck, 1 Rhode Island, Rep. 245; Cox v. Sullivan, 7 Georgia, 144; Pennington v. Yell, 6 Engl. 212. As between the client and the attorney, the responsibility of the latter is as great and as strict here as in any country when want of good faith ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood

... pressing in New York. As in most subjects of deep popular or scientific importance, the sense of need for more data by which to judge seemed in the air; and already the Labor Bureau of the State of New York, under the efficient guidance of Mr. Charles F. Peck, had begun a course of inquiries of the same nature. For years, beginning with the New York "Tribune," in the days when Margaret Fuller worked for it and touched at times upon social questions,—always in the mind of Horace Greeley, its founder,—there ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell

... object of my visit, of which, however, as I observed, she must be aware. She listened to me, blinked her eyes rapidly, and only lifted her nose till it stuck out still more sharply, as though she were making ready to peck. ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... amusement. The two creatures had become great friends, though Quacko now and then showed an inclination to pick the feathers out of his companion's back; but when he made the attempt, she resented it by a severe peck on his head—and one day caught the tip of his tail, and gave it a bite which was calculated to teach him not to behave in the same manner again. Whenever we asked Kallolo to try and catch us some more pets, he invariably ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston

... and one of the right sort; the others would be more likely to take up mud and pelt you with it, provided they saw you in trouble, than to help you. So take care of your horse, and feed him every day with your own hands; give him three-quarters of a peck of corn each day, mixed up with a little hay-chaff, and allow him besides one hundred weight of hay in the course of the week; some say that the hay should be hardland hay, because it is wholesomest, but I say, let it be clover ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... once saw through his disguise, and, despising him for his foolishness and conceit, began to peck him, and soon he was stripped of all ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... he was sent into hospital, and when he recovered, transported for the rest of the life that had thus been given back to him. While he was on his way down the town to go on board the vessel, I should think that if he had one dollar given him, he had at least half a peck, though I do not expect they would be much use to him where he was going to. I never heard any more of him, but I don't suppose many men could say that they had been ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence

... down a coarse bag containing a peck of corn, "thar, nigger, grab, you won't get no ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... juniper, I cut myself a staff, and sit down at the edge of the wood to trim it. Here and there among the trees a yellow leaf or so still hangs, but the birches are full of catkins set with pearly drops. Now and again half, a dozen small birds swoop down on one of these birches, to peck at the catkins, and then look about for a stone or a rough tree trunk to rub the gum from their beaks. Each is jealous of the rest; they watch and chase and drive one another away, though there are millions of catkins for them to take all they will. And the one that is ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... one would think I was a hungry pussy-cat, and she a hen-sparrow, with her wings all fluttering, and her little eyes aflame, and her beak ready to peck me just because I happened to look near her nest. Nay, child! if thou lik'st to be stifled in a nasty close room, learning things as is of no earthly good when they is learnt, instead o' riding on Job Donkin's hay-cart, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... hunting up the strayed beasts, and frequently had to pay the settlers for helping find them. There were no luxuries to be had for any money, and even such common necessaries as corn and salt were scarce and dear. Half a peck of salt cost a little less than eight pounds, and a bushel of corn the same. The surveying party, when not in the woods, stayed at the cabins of the more prominent settlers, and had to pay well for board and lodging, and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... upon the subject of weights and measures, agreed to by the house on the second day of June in the preceding year, the quart ought to contain seventy cubical inches and one half; the pint thirty-five and one quarter; the peck five hundred and sixty-four; and the bushel two thousand two hundred and fifty-six. That the several parts of the pound, mentioned in the eighth resolution of the former committee, examined and adjusted in presence of this committee,—viz. the half pound or six ounces, quarter of a pound ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... well, but the sagacious house-maid vetoed anything so wholesale as all that. She agreed that the accidental delivery of a side of bacon, or a mistake in the counting of a dozen eggs, or the overweighing and undercharging of a pound of butter, or the perfectly natural error of sending a peck and a half of potatoes when only a peck was ordered, might escape the keen observation of Mr. Bingle, but that anything more noticeable would cause the good gentleman to take his trade elsewhere. As she said to the distressed Diggs one evening, after carefully ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... children, too. Sometimes Aunt Nellie seems just like a girl, she is so jolly, she is not a bit like Aunt Josephine, though I am sure Aunt Josephine is a very nice lady and I don't mean that I don't love her, only Aunt Nellie kisses me as if she liked too and does not just peck my cheek. Last week she brought me home some lovly middy bloses like Peggy wears, and I play in bloomers all day and put on a white skirt for supper; Mr. Lee says Peggy and I look like twins. Auntie brought me a bathing suit, too, and a tennis raket Peggy says is better than hers. She ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott

... assented Mr Altham, with a sigh: for his fair and wayward Alexandra had cost him no little care before that summer afternoon. "And to speak truth, Master Tynneslowe, I would not be sorry to put the maid forth, for she is somewhat a speckled bird in mine house, whereat the rest do peck. Come within!" ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... and bare spots,—you wonder how there can be any enjoyment in them. I meet a girl in a chintz gown, with a small shawl on her shoulders, white stockings, and summer morocco shoes,—it looks observable. Turkeys, queer, solemn objects, in black attire, grazing about, and trying to peck the fallen apples, which slip ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... ditch to the trunk of an elm where the thick bark is green with lichen: he goes up the tree like a woodpecker, and peers into every crevice. His little beak strikes, peck, peck, at a place where something is hidden: then he proceeds farther up the trunk: next he descends a few steps in a sidelong way, and finally hops down some three inches head foremost, and alights again on the all but perpendicular ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... 'I understand the kelpie in the pot has been rude to your Nellie. I am going to kill him.' 'How will you do that, sir?' said Angus, quite short, for he was the girl's father. 'Here's a claymore I could put in a peck,' said Allister, meaning it was such good steel that he could bend it round till the hilt met the point without breaking; 'and here's a shield made out of the hide of old Rasay's black bull; and here's a dirk made of a foot and a half of an old Andrew Ferrara; and here's a skene ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbors of his who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my Lord, I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honor in the world. This is the appetite but of a few. It is a luxury, it is a privilege, it is an indulgence for those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made to shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the Moor, he despises his unsuspicious trustingness as imbecility, while he hates him as a man because his nature is the perpetual opposite and perpetual reproach of his own .... Now Reineke would not have hurt a creature, not even Scharfenebbe, the crow's wife, when she came to peck his eyes out, if he had not been hungry; and that gastros ananke, that craving of the stomach, makes a difference quite infinite. It is true that, like Iago, he rejoices in the exercise of his intellect; ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... quick to discover occasions to use it. Many a staid and demure-looking hen, or saucy, daring young chicken, had stolen quite near to her post, stopping every few moments to peer cautiously around, or to peck at a blade of grass or an imaginary worm, as if quite indifferent to the attractions presented by the field beyond, but just as they had come close to the fence, thinking themselves unnoticed, Nelly ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... will come now," the girl remarked, walking close beside me. "He's got two of the most spiteful chickens out there you ever saw, and whenever anything goes wrong with him he bolts right out there, no matter who is here, and makes those vicious things peck at each other. Mother and I try hard to reform ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... need is an old feller, lady. These young bucks ain't broke to the feed canvas. Now when you want to get off you call me. You don't weigh more'n a peck of beans." ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... do we live in History? Erostratus by a torch; Milo by a bullock; Henry Darnley, an unfledged booby and bustard, by his limbs; most Kings and Queens by being born under such and such a bed-tester; Boileau Despreaux (according to Helvetius) by the peck of a turkey; and this ill-starred individual by a rent in his breeches,—for no Memoirist of Kaiser Otto's Court omits him. Vain was the prayer of Themistocles for a talent of Forgetting: my Friends, yield cheerfully to Destiny, and read ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... the long table, scoured as white as snow, but puts no linen on it. On the buttery-shelves, a set of pewter rivals silver in brightness, but Dorcas does not touch them. She places a brown rye-and-Indian loaf, of the size of a half-peck, in the centre of the table,—a pan of milk, with the cream stirred in,—brown earthen bowls, with bright pewter spoons by the dozen,—a delicious cheese, whole, and the table is ready. When Dinah appears, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... the gills. And the two men at opposite sides of the pit—the one in his shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbows, the other in his sporting plaid—stooped with every lunge and craned their necks at every fall, and bobbed their heads with every peck, their ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... either in Pond or River, if you mean to have sport with some profit, you must take a peck of Ale-graines, and a good quantity of any bloud, and mix the bloud and graines together, and cast it in the places where you meane to Angle; this feed will gather the scale Fish together, as Carp, Tench, Roach, ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker

... With this, one pint of salt was given; and this was the entire monthly allowance of a full grown slave, working constantly in the open field, from morning until night, every day in the month except Sunday, and living on a fraction more than a quarter of a pound of meat per day, and less than a peck of corn-meal per week. There is no kind of work that a man can do which requires a better supply of food to prevent physical exhaustion, than the field-work of a slave. So much for the slave's allowance of food; now for his raiment. The yearly allowance ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... the seventeenth month there is great uncertainty in finding the mouth with anything held in the hand—a spoon, for instance, striking the cheeks, chin, or nose, instead of at once going between the lips; this forms a striking contrast to the case of young chickens which are able to peck grains, etc., soon after they are hatched. Sucking is not a pure reflex, because a satisfied child will not suck when its lips are properly stimulated, and further, the action may be originated centrally, as in a sleeping suckling. At a later stage biting is as instinctive ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... Miss Carrington was drawn to think of a certain thing Ferdinand Laxley had said he had heard from the mouth of this lady's brother when ale was in him. Alas! how one seed of a piece of folly will lurk and sprout to confound us; though, like the cock in the eastern tale, we peck up ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... blood; take to your wings and surround them on all sides. Woe to them! let us get to work with our beaks, let us devour them. Nothing can save them from our wrath, neither the mountain forests, nor the clouds that float in the sky, nor the foaming deep. Come, peck, tear to ribbons. Where is the chief of the cohort? Let him engage the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... biggest bird of the group had suddenly seemed to take umbrage at the appearance of the stranger, and stalking straight up to it darted its head sharply, evidently giving a vicious peck. ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... colourless. In Roestelia the peridia are large, growing in company, and splitting longitudinally in many cases, or by a lacerated mouth. In most instances, the spores are brownish, but in a splendid species from North America (Roestelia aurantiaca, Peck), recently characterized, they are of a bright orange. If Oersted is correct in his observations, which await confirmation, these species are all related to species of Podisoma as a secondary form of fruit.[k] In the Roestelia of the pear-tree, as well as in that of the mountain ash, the spermogonia ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... two nobles by the year," said Ralph, "and a peck of barley by the quarter, and a ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... to untie the bag, and soon disclosed to the view of the coast-guards, not the lemons, but almost half a peck of ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon

... I had been younger I could have smiled at Miss Martha, as Susy Gatchell and her graceless friends did, but somehow she appeared to me a creature trying to peck at the world and peek at the stars through the bars of a bird-cage. That's why, when I met her a morning or two before the Morenas exhibit, I asked her if she wouldn't like to see it. I knew that, once asked, she could be kept away by nothing short of an earthquake ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... district extending from Canal Street on the north to Wall Street on the south; but Edison soon realized that this territory was too extensive for the initial experiment, and he decided finally upon the district included between Wall, Nassau, Spruce, and Ferry streets, Peck Slip and the East River, an area nearly a square mile in extent. One of the preliminary steps taken to enable him to figure on such a station and system was to have men go through this district on various days and ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... minutes, Gahogan, of the Tenth; Gilder-sleeve, of the Fourteenth; Peck, of the First; Thomas, of the Seventh; Taylor, of the Eighth, and Colburn, of the Fifth, were gathered around their commander. There, too, was Bradley, the boyish, red-cheeked chief of the artillery; and Stilton, the rough, old, bearded regular, who headed the cavalry. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... which had been committed to his management and direction. This genial banquet was entirely composed of sea-dishes; a huge pillaw, consisting of a large piece of beef sliced, a couple of fowls, and half a peck of rice, smoked in the middle of the board: a dish of hard fish, swimming in oil, appeared at each end; the sides being furnished with a mess of that savoury composition known by the name of lub's-course, and a plate of salmagundy. The second ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... that every man eats a peck of dirt in the course of his life," said Happy Tom, "but I know that I've already beat the measure a dozen times over. Why, I took in a bushel at least at the Second Manassas, but I still live, and here I am, surveying this peaceful domestic scene. Arthur is mending his best uniform, ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... to be passing; and if he should, you are safe; for three knocks with his staff will make you hale, and he never forgets any kindnesses. Many stories are current of his wonderful cures; but there is one to be found in Peck's History of Stamford which possesses the rare merit of being written by the patient himself. Upon Whitsunday, in the year of our Lord 1658, "about six of the clock, just after evensong," one Samuel Wallis, of Stamford, who had been long ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... a foreboding that we shall not always be exempt from the woes which affect our neighbours. Wessex scarcely tempts the plunderer now; neither does East Anglia. Northumbria is half Danish, and kites do not peck out kites' eyes. No; on Mercia, poor Mercia, the blow must sooner or ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... The fowls who peck about the kennels, jerking their bodies hither and thither with a gait which none but town fowls are ever seen to adopt, and which any country cock or hen would be puzzled to understand, are perfectly in keeping with the crazy habitations of their owners. Dingy, ill-plumed, drowsy ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... circles a sick fish hovers In a pond surrounded by grass. A tree leans against the sky—burned and bent. Yes... the family sits at a large table, Where they peck with their forks from the plates. Gradually they become sleepy, heavy and silent. The sun licks the ground with its hot, poisonous, Voracious mouth, like a dog—a filthy enemy. Bums suddenly collapse without ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein

... he that labours for the sparrow-hawk Has little time for idle questioners.' Whereat Geraint flashed into sudden spleen: 'A thousand pips eat up your sparrow-hawk! Tits, wrens, and all winged nothings peck him dead! Ye think the rustic cackle of your bourg The murmur of the world! What is it to me? O wretched set of sparrows, one and all, Who pipe of nothing but of sparrow-hawks! Speak, if ye be not like the rest, hawk-mad, Where can I get me harbourage for the ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... grandson, Sirajuddaula, who'll probably succeed him, is no better than a tiger. He lives at Murshidabad, about one hundred miles up the river. He's a vain, peacocky, empty-headed youth, and as soon as the breath is out of his granddad's body he'll want to try his wings and take a peck or two at us. He may do it slyly, or go so far ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... as he snapped on the lights and grunted out something which optimism might translate into an affectionate husbandly greeting. She came dutifully forward and raised her face, still exquisite and cool from the outer air, for her lord's home-coming kiss. That resolved itself into a slovenly peck. ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... Elizabeth, too, was beginning to feel the effects of her run, or whether she did it out of the pure effrontery of her warped and unpleasant nature, I do not know; but she now slowed down to walk, and even began to peck in a tentative manner at the grass. Her behaviour infuriated me. I felt that I was being treated as a cipher. I vowed that this bird should realise yet, even if, as seemed probable, I burst in the process, that it was no light matter to be pursued by J. ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse

... us finish them!" cried Snap, and ran forward. The next instant he felt one of the wounded turkeys strike his face. He caught the game by the legs and then received a peck in the hand that drew blood. Before the turkey could do any more harm the young hunter stunned it by a blow against the tree and then finished it. In the meantime the other hen was killed by Whopper, while Jed Sanborn took his gun and poked the gobbler out of the ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill

... Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin,[326] And who the most in love of dirt excel, Or dark dexterity of groping well. Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around The stream, be his the weekly journals[327] bound; 280 A pig of lead to him who dives the best; A peck of coals a-piece[328] shall ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... in which I was at times hard and cold and disappointed in him, I have never forgotten that he turned in his tracks and walked majestically back to my side and peered into the outstretched hand with a trustful and inquiring peck. Some kind fortune had brought it to pass that I held the package of tea biscuits in my other hand, and in a few breathless seconds he was pecking at one and calling to the foolish, faithless lot ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... pursued their way in silence. It was one of those cold, but calm, bright days in winter, when the very air seems filled with silent ripples of gladness; when the sunshine rests like a glory on the leafless trees, and bright-eyed robins chirp and peck the moss, as they hop from bough to bough; when the light of heaven is so over all, that even the dun-colored earth, the decayed leaves and rotten branches, which the autumn blast has laid low, look beautiful, and seem to ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... melancholy words gave way in their turn to others of a nature lively and humorous: "Tam Glen," in which the thoughts flow as freely as the waters of the Nith, on whose banks he wrote it; "Findlay," with its quiet vein of sly simplicity; "Willie brewed a peck o' maut," the first of social, and "She's fair and fause," the first of sarcastic songs, with "The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman," are all productions of this period—a period which had besides its own fears and its ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... Witch said to the King Crow, "Fly at once to the strangers; peck out their eyes and tear ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... I mean we'd have had a row over the provisions. It wasn't too hours' run round to Tim Brady's, and I found the old man stowing away half-a-peck of cold boiled potatoes, and big bottles of tea, and goodness knows what. 'Is it for ballast ye're using the potatoes, Barney?' says I. 'Mind your own business, Master Dennis'—(and I could see he was cross as two sticks),—'and leave the provisioning to them that understands it,' says he. 'How ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... aged horses? The answer admits of no doubt whatever. For there should be no satiety in friendship, as there is in other things. The older the sweeter, as in wines that keep well. And the proverb is a true one, "You must eat many a peck of salt with a man to be thorough friends with him." Novelty, indeed, has its advantage, which we must not despise. There is always hope of fruit, as there is in healthy blades of corn. But age too must ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... with a gun across his knees, first one and then half-a-dozen large birds, emboldened by the silence, came stalking out from beneath the bushes, looking something like so many farmyard hens as they began to peck and scratch about. ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... together, still finding food. If you will consider the incredible number of little mouths, and the busy rate at which they ply them hour by hour, you may imagine what an immense number of grains of wheat must have escaped man's hand, for you must remember that every time they peck they take a whole grain. Down, too, come the grey-blue wood-pigeons and the wild turtle-doves. The singing linnets come in parties, the happy greenfinches, the streaked yellow-hammers, as if any one had delicately painted them in separate streaks, and not with a wash of colour, the brown buntings, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... few liked and many could not eat. It was boiled cracked wheat with a little meat chopped in, no sauce or other relish upon it. I mentioned the case to the doctor, who said, "They purchased a quantity of potatoes, half a peck of which I took to my house and cooked, finding only one or two, among the whole, fit to put into the human stomach. Hence, I looked over my army dietary, found the cracked wheat answered a good purpose, and proposed it here." The ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... sending out a gentleman to take money home to the families of the volunteers. But cuss the paymaster, "or any other man." Why don't the paymaster come? Send me some papers. I can't get any without a peck of trouble. ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... know how large a place he kept in his heart for the students,—rejoicing in their success, proud of their manly conduct, heart-sad over the tragedy of guilt and shame that befell any one of them. He had a warm heart, although he did not wear it on his sleeve for daws to peck at. To me as I go about the College yard he is a spiritual presence, summoning me to do my best, to be accurate, fearless, loyal to the truth as I know the truth, and loyal to those for whom I hold the truth in stewardship; and such a spiritual comrade he will be while memory lasts. My experience ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... appropriate name was given to the old gaol formerly existing in Peck Lane. A writer, in 1802, described it as a shocking place, the establishment consisting of one day room, two underground dungeons (in which sometimes half-a-dozen persons had to sleep), and six or seven night-rooms, some of them constructed out of the Gaoler's stables. The ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... subjects. A dark, stout-bodied woman, placing a large bonti (a fish-cutter) on a heap of ashes in the court, is cutting fish; the kites, frightened at her gigantic size and her quick-handedness, keeping away, yet now and again darting forward to peck at the fish. Here a white-haired woman is bringing water; there one with powerful hand is grinding spices. Here, in the storehouse, a servant, a cook, and the store-keeper are quarrelling together; the store-keeper maintaining, "The ghi (clarified butter) I have given is the right quantity;" the ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

... hedge-sparrow. For days a sparrow has been watched while it fed a hungry complaining intruder. It used to fly on the cuckoo's back and then, standing on its head and leaning downwards, give it a caterpillar. The tit-bit having been greedily snatched and devoured, the cuckoo would peck fiercely at its tiny attendant—bidding it, as it were, fetch more food and not be long about it. Wordsworth tells us in a famous line that "the child is father of the man," and no apter illustration of this ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... no enterprise," said Scott sadly. "What are those? Muffins? Well, well, I suppose I had better try and peck a bit." ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... France. 'My dear mother wrote to me that the granaries we had at our country seat had been secured by the revolutionary party, as well as every article of food in our town house. My mother and my younger brother were only allowed the scanty pittance of a peck of mouldy horse-beans per week. My dear father was shut up in prison, with an equally scanty allowance. But it was before I was acquainted with the sufferings of my beloved parents, that the consideration ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... George, soberly. "It sure hits your boat to a T. I only hope it don't get you fellows into a peck ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel

... can never harm you, nor will he ever reach Ganassi. The python would smother him; the mina-bird would peck out his eyes; the gentle fawn would ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart

... was compelled "to make a road with his club among the albatross. These birds were sitting upon their nests, and almost covered the surface of the ground, nor did they otherwise derange themselves for their new visitors than to peck at their legs ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... and Mack hits this small town of Pina, about thirty miles out from Denver, and finds an elegant two-room house that just suits us. We deposited half-a-peck of money in the Pina bank and shook hands with every one of the 340 citizens in the town. We brought along the Chinaman and the cuckoo clock and Buckle and the Instructor with us from Denver; and they made the cabin ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... working in the fields with her man, so that the three or four nurslings that she generally has are left in charge of the grandfather, an old cripple of seventy, who can't even prevent the fowls from coming to peck at the little ones.* And things are worse even at La Cauchois', for, as she has nobody at all to mind the children when she goes out working, she leaves them tied in their cradles, for fear lest they should tumble ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... advising or congratulating her, that the boys joked him. "Say, looky here! You're gom' to get into a peck o' trouble with your wife yet. You spend about hall y'r time in ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... a peck of spinach. Add one [Page 319] cupful of fresh bread crumbs and four tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Mix thoroughly and add a dozen skinned and boned sardines pounded to a paste. Heat thoroughly, adding stock or water if needed. Put on a platter, shape into a mound, lay ...
— How to Cook Fish • Olive Green

... As the lamb whose wool you train Through your tender hands. Would I were the bird that whirls Round, and comes to peck your curls, Happy ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... the thatch and took her bread and milk in the gray clear air, with the swallows circling above her head, and one or two of them even resting a second on the edge of the bowl to peck at the food from the big wooden spoon; they had known her all the sixteen summers of her life, and were her playfellows, only they would never tell her anything of what they saw in winter over the seas. That was her ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... time feathered neighbors of the Wren family were arriving from all directions. They didn't hesitate to call Miss Kitty Cat names. And some of them even darted quite near her, as if they meant to peck ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... habits of utterance or gesture. Some are continually applying the hand to some part of the face, the chin, the whiskers; some give the nose a peck with thumb and forefinger; others have the habit ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... straight streets and avenues. To the devil with systems and avenues! said he. That was all the doing of those cursed Frenchmen. He knew how it would be when they brought their plaguy frigate here in the first fever year—'93—and the fools marched up from Peck's Slip after a red nightcap, and howled their cut-throat ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner

... pigeons. The number of pigeons she collects about her is quite amazing; you would never have thought that San Massimo or the neighboring hills contained as many. They flutter down like snowflakes, and strut and swell themselves out, and furl and unfurl their tails, and peck with little sharp movements of their silly, sensual heads and a little throb and gurgle in their throats, while Dionea lies stretched out full length in the sun, putting out her lips, which they come to kiss, and uttering strange, cooing sounds; or hopping about, flapping her arms slowly ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... all you wanted last week, by the bushel or peck or barrel,—finest, juiciest apples you ever laid ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... lad, that you told me about this affair," he declared. "For I'm going to keep you out of a peck of trouble. Don't you go near the party! Keep just as far away from it as you can! When you see Johnnie Green come inside the pasture you scramble over the stone wall and hide!" And now ...
— The Tale of Snowball Lamb • Arthur Bailey

... time familiar with Mrs. Bowse's boarding-house and boarders. She knew Mrs. Peck and Mr. Jakes and the young lady from the notion counter (those wonderful shops!). Julius and Jem and the hall bedroom and the tilted chairs and cloud of smoke she saw so often that she ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... be prevailed on to feed out of the hand by any means. Under the strong influence of temptation they would strut with bold aspect, but timid, hesitating step, towards the proffered crumb, but the slightest motion would scare them away; and when they did venture to peck, they did so with violent haste, and instantly fled ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... hard, and tried to peck the hands that held it; but it was too young to hurt any one, so Twinkle's father decided he would carry it ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

... little work in de garden. Dey say I is too ole ter work, so charity gives me a little ter go upon every week. For one weeks 'lowance o' sumptin' ter eat dey gives me, hold on, I will show you, dat beats guessin'. Here it is: 1/2 peck meal (corn meal), 2 lbs oat meal, 2 lb dry skim milk, and 1 lb plate meat. Dis is what I gits fer one week 'lowance. I can't work much, but de white folks gib me meals fur washin' de woodwork in dere houses, de white folks in Hayes's Bottom. What ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... Wife, in turning up her Tail To bear the Threshing of her Gallant's Frail, A Groat (which always is a Cuckold's Fee) Under the Candlestick I've laid for me; Besides good Peck and Booze, so till she's Dead, She may and will Whore ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various

... more! This 'tis to have to do with one that has a Wife! I told you first of all what I shou'd find: An ugly Jade, to call me filthy Strumpet! Had I been by, I'd soon have made her smart for't! Any but such a Hen-peck'd Fool as you, that had but heard her say so, wou'd straight have given her such a dash o'th' Chops as shou'd have beat her Teeth into her Throat, and quickly spoil'd her Prating. But I am plagu'd with one that dares not speak a Word to vindicate me. If you are a weary ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous



Words linked to "Peck" :   kick, strike, British capacity unit, quart, plain, flood, dry quart, haymow, bushel, kvetch, eat, snog, complain, United States dry unit, quetch, buss, inundation, Imperial capacity unit, deluge, kiss, osculate, large indefinite amount, torrent, sound off, large indefinite quantity



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