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Scurry   /skˈəri/   Listen
Scurry

noun
1.
Rushing about hastily in an undignified way.  Synonyms: scamper, scramble.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Scurry" Quotes from Famous Books



... approach towards friendship. He had in him a very pleasant and happy vein of sentiment which he was only too delighted to exercise so long as no urgent demands were made upon it. Once or twice women and men younger than himself had made such urgent demands; with what a hurry, a scurry and a scamper had ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... place of renown, natural, historic or artistic, is sure to teem with as much interest as that to which we are bound. So rich a palimpsest is French civilization, so varied is French scenery, so multifarious the points of view called up at every town, that hurry and scurry leave us hardly better informed than when we set out. Thus it has ever been my rule to indulge in the most preposterous peregrination, taking no account whatever of days, seasons or possible cons, hearkening only to the pros, and never ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... stick an automatic revolver in his hip-pocket, and take a blackjack in his hand, and rush into a room where thirty or forty Russians or "Sheenies" of all ages and lengths of beard were struggling to learn the intricacies of English spelling. Peter would give a yell, and see this crowd leap and scurry hither and thither, and chase them about and take a whack at a head wherever he saw one, and jump into a crowd who were bunched together like sheep, trying to hide their heads, and pound them over the exposed parts of their anatomy until they scattered into the open again. He liked to ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... moment there was utter silence in the room, through which the words just spoken seemed to scurry like living things, anxious to be out and away. Laurie, his eyes on the girl, showed no change in his position, though a spasm crossed his face. Epstein, putting up one fat hand, feebly beat the air with it as if trying to push back something that was approaching him, something ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan

... the wood and did not go back to the Harbor at all. But he was perfectly certain that he was not missed. The Fair Harbor for Mariners' Women fairly perspired excitement. Caroline Snow, her washing hung upon the lines in the back yard, found time to scurry down the hill and tell Judah the news. The captain had limped up to his room for a forgotten pipe, and when he returned Judah was loaded with it. He fired his first broadside before his lodger ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... bell clanged through the house and Nyoda sprang up with a start. "Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes, girls," she exclaimed. "Scurry upstairs and remove the stains of travel while I ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey

... somehow the art of 1291. One feels no greater hardness in the Parliamentary zeal which razed the cross in 1647 than in the stony fidelity of detail which hurts the eye in the modern work, and refuses to be softened by any effect of the mellowing London air. It looks out over the scurry of cabs, the ponderous tread of omnibuses, the rainfall patter of human feet, as inexorably latter-day as anything in the Strand. It is only an instance of the constant futility of the restoration which, in a world so violent ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... test to the unsociable, was horrid to her. There would be either a solitary meal in the big dark dining-room, or what was worse, guests to entertain (for Lady Kingsmead never appeared until after eleven), and the disagreeable hurry and scurry contingent on the catching of different trains. But here she seemed to have escaped from what Tommy called Morning Horrors, and it was delightful to lie in her bed and wonder what, in this extraordinary house, was likely ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... powerful, to come forward and point to more timid ones the way. When she enters her own once more, she will repay your loan with interest, for that hath ever been Rome's way. I tell you, Rome in these days is like a sinking ship, from which the rats scurry in swarms, to stand aside and wait to see if there be prospect of a safe return. Here, overseas, you get but an echo of the truth. Every day the call goes out ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... clatter of horses' feet! A runaway's coming down the street! Flurry, scurry, Children, hurry! Drop your playthings! Quick! don't wait! Run and get within the gate! Push the baby in the door, Scramble in yourselves before —Whoa! Whoa! There they go! Pell-mell rushing, snorting, quaking, Wagon rumbling, ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein

... of Mr. Wyse writing her that exquisitely delicate note with regard to Thursday. It was a herculean task, no doubt, to plug up all the fountains of talk in Tilling which were spouting so merrily at her expense, but a beginning must be made before she could arrive at the end. A short scurry of nimble steps brought her up to ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... the Jungle-land, listening to the scurry of frightened animals, and shivering in the cool night air as the bright sparks of the ships' exhausts faded into the black starry sky. A man and a woman alone, speechless, watching, staring with awful longing into the skies as the bright rocket ...
— The Link • Alan Edward Nourse

... couple of twelve-pounders that he had run out through his stern-ports. The shots were well aimed, but did not quite reach us, striking the water twice fair in line with us, and then making their final scurry, and sinking within about thirty yards ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... in his life Jasper kept quite still. He could see a kitten playing in the dooryard; and he would have liked to tease it. And there were the hens, too. Jasper smiled as he thought of the way they would scurry for shelter if he should cry out like a hawk. But he made no noise, for he was afraid the strange bird might be lurking about somewhere, ready to pounce upon him before ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... soutar, triumphantly, 'I telled ye sae! Not ae word aboot the puir lad's sins! It was a' a hurry an' a scurry to get the new shune upo' 'im, an' win at the calfie an' the fiddlin' an' the dancin'.—O Lord,' he broke out, 'I'm comin' hame as fest 's I can; but my sins are jist like muckle bauchles (shoes down at heel) upo' my feet and winna lat me. I expec' nae ring and nae robe, but I wad fain hae ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... always made a noise when he was passing along. This was a good thing for bad boys, for it gave them time to scurry into the wigwams, out of his way. He was so big that when he set one of his feet down on the ground there would be sounds like the ringing of bells and the hooting of owls. When he put the other foot down the sound was like the roaring of buffalo bulls ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young

... and several times during the night Fritz tried to "get" us. Each time, however, he was successfully driven off by our anti-aircraft and machine guns. Whenever we heard the planes overhead and shrapnel began to burst around us, we would scurry to cover underneath the cars, which gave us protection from the falling pieces of shrapnel ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West

... stream" its advocates do not mean splashing and lifting the feet above the surface, sending the water hither and yon on to the banks, into the pools, with the soil of silt or mud or fine gravel from the bottom, polluting the stream many yards ahead, and causing every fish to scurry to the shelter of a hole in the bank or under a shelving rock. They intend that the rodster shall enter the water quietly, and, after a few preliminary casts to get the water gear in good working order to proceed down stream by sliding rather than lifting his feet from ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... this cold white light a disquieting feeling pervaded the atmosphere and the gnawing anxiety was turning into unbearable agony. Suddenly, an aide-de-camp dashed past on a horse, covered with froth and fuzzy with dampness. Officers began to scurry back and forth; sharp commands were ...
— The Shield • Various

... to go, he saw a small dark object scurry over the snow. At first he thought it a raven. But at last, with a little circle, it appeared to flop over and to lie still, a dark ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell

... it was so near and so low as almost to be in reach of Prosper's hand. He saw that it was not a gull, but a pigeon, and started on a reminiscence. Just then one of the towering falcons stooped and engaged. There was a wild scurry of wings; then the other bird dropt. The Countess cheered the hawks: Prosper saw only the white bird with a wound in her breast. Then as the quarry began to scream he remembered everything, and ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... streets. Below the flying-men the packed thousands are crouched still to earth. At the sound of the engine's drone, at sight of the wheeling shape, square miles of country stiffen to immobility, men scurry under cover of wall or bush, the long, moving lines in the trenches halt and sink down and hang their heads (next to movement the light dots of upturned, staring faces are the quickest and surest betrayal of the earth-men to the air-men), the open roads are emptied of men into ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... had been wished for when the enemy squadron so suddenly appeared. In the fights over the German trenches another of our planes had somehow vanished. No one could say further except that Erwin, the missing pilot, had been seen mounting high up amid a scurry of clouds, with two pursuing Fokkers ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry

... recovered, there came a heavy fall of snow, which was followed by such a succession of storms that we concluded to keep her with us, provided she was willing to stay. We gave her the freedom of the house. For some time she was wild and shy; under a chair or the lounge she would scurry if any one approached her. Plainly, she did not feel welcome or safe in our house, and I gave up the idea of taming her. One day, however, we had lettuce for dinner, and while we were at the table Sarah, my eldest daughter, who has a gift for taming and handling wild creatures, declared ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... operation. Only a few red lights remained now. Rick looked through the glass ports and saw the gantry crane being wheeled away. Jeeps, trucks, and private cars were moving out of the area, haste evident in their spinning wheels and hunched drivers. The movement was like a scurry of ants. Rick watched, taking in everything. He didn't even notice when the massive door was swung shut, closing against its airtight cushion ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... clothes, a watch, or greenbacks. Frequently he would be one of the little traders, with a sack of beans, a piece of meat, or something of that kind. Pouncing upon him at night they would snatch away his possessions, knock down his friends who came to his assistance, and scurry away ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... Mary would follow with a smaller pan of bread crumbs. Then both mother and little girl would call, "Chick, chick, chick! Chick, chick, chick! Chick, chick, chick!" as if they were singing the same tune over and over. At this, such a hurry and scurry ...
— Five Little Friends • Sherred Willcox Adams

... others. Hinpoha was still asleep; Migwan was coaxing a chipmunk up on the bed with peanuts; Sahwah was noiselessly getting into her bathing suit. Seeing that Gladys was awake, both girls waved their arms in friendly greeting. Talking was not allowed before the first bugle. There was a soft scurry of little feet on the floor, and another chipmunk darted in and paused inquiringly beside Gladys's bed. Migwan tossed her some peanuts and Gladys held one out gingerly to the little creature. He hopped up boldly and took it from her fingers, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... corners, I suddenly gathered my skirts, spun round, and, as fast as I could, was off at a heavy trot back to the quay. She was after me, but being taken by surprise, I suppose, was distanced a little at first. However, by the time I could scurry myself down into the boat, she was so near, that she only saved herself from the water by a balancing stoppage at the brink, as I pushed off. I then set out to get back to the ship, muttering: 'You can ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... on the ground beneath the best shade-trees, panting with drooping wings and bills wide open, scarce a note from any of them during the midday hours. Quails, too, seek the shade during the heat of the day about tepid pools in the channels of the larger mid-river streams. Rabbits scurry from thicket to thicket among the ceanothus bushes, and occasionally a long-eared hare is seen cantering gracefully across the wider openings. The nights are calm and dewless during the summer, and a thousand voices proclaim the abundance of life, ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... and kittens parading before people's feet, so that Dolores felt as if she had been turned into a den of wild beasts, and resolved against ever again venturing into the court at 'feeding-time.' A big bell gathered all the children up together into a race to the house. There was another scurry to change shoes and wash hands, and then Mysie conducted her cousin into a large, cheerful, wainscoted room on the ground floor, with deep windows, and numerous little, solid-looking deal tables. ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... house; she had been too preoccupied to notice it before. Now it shook the house rudely, and then went howling and roaring across the plains. It was strange to hear it and to feel its force, and yet to see no evidence of it: not a tree to wave its branches, not a cloud to scurry through the sky; only the vast level prairie and the immovable hills, and up above them a sky, liquid and serene, with steady stars shining in its depths, all unconcerned with the raving wind. She ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... my courage. As a weapon I had brought an old pitchfork handle. Scrambling suddenly over the wall, I uttered a shout, and the dark objects scudded away across the field, making a great scurry over the stubble of the wheat-field, but they were not very fleet. I came up with one of them after a hundred yards' chase, when it suddenly turned and faced me with a strange loud squeak! Drawing back, I belabored it with my fork handle ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... brief account of Quadling's movements on the day before his departure from Rome, very much as they have been described in a previous chapter. These were made mostly in the form of reflections, conjectures, hopes, and fears; hurry-scurry of pursuit had no doubt broken the immediate record of events, and these had been entered next day in ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths

... The scurry of hoofs as the horses clambered up the steep banks, the low- spoken words of encouragement which were given their steeds by the robbers, and suddenly the shrill whistle giving the long-looked-for signal rang out on ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

... French word, meaning meadow. Pampas is the Peruvian word for field. The words are synonyms, but come from different hemispheres of the world. Does it not seem strange that a word descriptive of these treeless wildernesses of North America should be a gift, not of the Indian hunter who used to scurry across them swift as an arrow of death, but should really be the gift of those hardy and valorous French voyagers who had no purpose of fastening a name on the flower-sown, green meadows that swayed in the wind like some emerald sea? So the Incas ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... children stood there looking at the most wonderful sight their eyes had ever seen, there was a soft padding of feet and a hurry-scurry behind them, and from the outside darkness beyond the flame-stalks came a crowd of little brown creatures running, jumping, scrambling, tumbling head over heels and on all fours, and some even walking on their heads. They ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit

... nigh to the bottom, and I thought my eyes had strucken fire, for I saw lights frisking and frolicking up and down the hill. Then I sat down to watch, and, sure enough, such a puck-fisted rabble, without cloak or hosen, I never beheld—all hurry-scurry up the hill, and some of the like were on the gallop down again. They were shouting, and mocking, and laughing, like so many stark-mad fools at a May-feast. They strid twenty paces at a jump, with burdens that two of the best oxen about ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... as if the bullet had gone wide. The next moment it could be seen that something had been hit, but it was hard to tell what. Then out of the scurry and whirl, the old terrier was observed to ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... ward is all scurry and rush. I don't reflect; I'm putting on my cap anyhow, and my hands are ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold

... tight corner. But fear is not the hall-mark of a coward; it is at worst a natural impulse to seek safety and take precautions, and at its best it is the intellectual penalty that a strong man pays for having a will-power that will not permit him to scurry away from danger and earth himself like a rabbit ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... mottled stalks, the little earth kindreds went busily about their affairs and their desires, giving scant thought to the aerial world above them. All that made life significant to them was here in the warm, green gloom; and when anything chanced to part the grass to its depths they would scurry ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... recollection of a phrase dropped by Conway during dinner which sent him in this untimely scurry to Elm-tree Hill. 'As distant as El Dorado, and as desirable.' The sentence limned with precision the impression which London used to produce upon Drake. The sight of it touched upon some single chord of fancy in a nature otherwise prosaic, of which the existence was unsuspected by his few companions ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... and murmurs the spell by which after a moment the swarm of little smoke-grimed Nibelungs arrives groaning and straining under the weight of the Hort; again they pile it in a heap, and at Alberich's command scurry home. ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... a bugle blares; somewhere rearward a bell jangles. On the deck overhead is a scurry of feet. In the mysterious bowels of the ship a mighty mechanism opens its metal mouth and speaks out briskly. Later it will talk on steadily, with a measured and a regular voice; but now it is heard frequently, yet intermittently, like the click of a blind man's cane. Beneath your feet the ship, ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... gnats would give them no peace in the daytime; they drive out the drove towards evening, and drive them back in the early morning: it's a great treat for the peasant boys. Bare-headed, in old fur-capes, they bestride the most spirited nags, and scurry along with merry cries and hooting and ringing laughter, swinging their arms and legs, and leaping into the air. The fine dust is stirred up in yellow clouds and moves along the road; the tramp of hoofs in unison resounds afar; the horses race along, pricking up ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev

... dropping. The others crouched and followed, stumbling one over the other, their dark evil faces bloodless, their knees knocking together with superstitious terror. They fled from the church and down to the bay, and swam to their craft. Estenega and Chonita rode out. They watched the ugly vessel scurry around Point Lobos; then Chonita spoke for the ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... village old dog Spot scarcely stirred from the farmyard. He left the woodchucks to scurry about the pasture as they pleased. For he felt that he ought to keep ...
— The Tale of Snowball Lamb • Arthur Bailey

... scrags of a skeleton, and crumbles in low but rugged cliffs into the flat domain of sea. Here the landing is bad, and the anchorage worse, for a slippery shale rejects the fluke, and the water is usually kept in a fidget between the orders of the west wind and scurry of ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... necessity of replying, for at this moment the express entered the station with a deafening roar. As it was scheduled to remain only a few minutes, the private car was hurriedly attached to the end of the train. In the ensuing hurry and scurry of passengers who were anxiously being scrutinized by the Grand Duchess, there appeared a man dressed in dark clothes, and wearing a gray beard. He was searching hurriedly through the cars for an empty seat. The Duchess gave a faint ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... taking no mean advantages, and allowing himself to be betrayed into as few mistakes as possible; but let him not begin before the beginning. If he could know all that is inside the breast of that mean man who commenced the scurry, the cunning man who desires to steal a march, my young friend would not wish to emulate him. With nine-tenths of the men who flutter away after this ill fashion there is no design of their own in their so riding. They simply wish ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope

... Of Jack's swift scurry across the Channel and over the Continent it is not necessary to enter into details. He made the journey with the utmost speed, and chafed at every delay. At last the train ran into the station of Brindisi, ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... so widely published that when he eluded one crowd another posse sprang up wherever he reappeared. His entrance into a town was a signal for the clergy to scurry to cover. Some of them, to put themselves on record and insure themselves against temptation, denounced Jim and his attachee as traveling fiends, emissaries ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... proclaims him something over twenty, announces that he likewise is on the way to Yuzgat; and after listening attentively to my explanations of how a wheelman climbs mountains and overcomes stretches of bad road, he solemnly inquires whether a 'cycler could scurry up a mountain slope all right if some one were to follow behind and touch him up occasionally with a whip, in the persuasive manner required in driving a horse. He then produces a rawhide "persuader," and ventures the opinion that if he followed close behind me to Yuzgat, and touched ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... away, please, away, away!" I hear him unreservedly plead while he thrusts them again at me, and I scurry back into our conveyance. ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... Buffalo in the teeth of the wind, and the world is turned to snow. All goes merrily. The machine strikes little drifts, and they scurry away in a cloud. The three engines breathe easily; but by and by the earth seems broken into great billows of dazzling white. The sun comes out of a cloud, and touches it up till it out-silvers Potosi. Houses ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... I suppose she got unkivered in the scurry after the Yankee; but bear a hand, and kiver her, unless you wish a fellow to stay ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... the arms of the sleek-haired cook who sat on the table edge and faced the door. Her head was thrown back in complete abandonment and her hair was coming down about her shoulders. The boy's close-set eyes peered up sharply as Mary Louise opened the door. Then there was an immediate scurry, the lamp was switched off, and directly Maida ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... felt the fragrance of young briars and hawthorn mingled with the smell of last year's decaying leaves which carpeted the pathway. She noted the beauty of the foliage against the moon, heard the swift scurry of a frightened rabbit and the faint snort of a hedge-hog ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... in the schools. One wonders if they are going to be allowed, like their fathers and mothers, to have personalities to lose. I have all but caught myself kidnapping children as I have watched them flocking in the street. I have wanted to scurry them off to the country, a few of them, almost anywhere—for a few years. I have thought I would try to find a college to hide them in, some back-county, protected college, a college which still has the emphasis of Persons as well ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... ones are seen, venturesome, determined individuals, on their travels, in the energy of youthful maturity, tempted by curiosity, but these soon realize that they are not secure where so many humans abound, and scurry back to their desert fastnesses. As refuges are created and breeding grounds established, sheep will return, and, it is hoped, make their permanent home in the reserves. There are still enough of them in scattered places for this purpose. I was told ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... over a mossy stone, or pick off a bit of bark from a fallen tree, without disturbing a whole colony of these slate-coloured creatures, with their mailed coats, made of ten rings, or plates of armour. They seem to know the use of their armour well enough, for if disturbed you will see them either scurry off as fast as their many little feet can carry them—and they are able to run forward or backward at pleasure—or else roll themselves up into tight balls, so that feet and head and feelers are all safe, under the ringed shield ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... to the door, there was a cry and a scurry within, as Phrony Tripper, after a glance out toward the gate, ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... looking out with fear upon the foam and spray and vapour of the flood, saw thousands of the damned flying before the face of one who forded Styx with feet unwet. 'Like frogs,' he says, 'they fled, who scurry through the water at the sight of their foe, the serpent, till each squats and hides himself close to the ground.' The picture of the storm among the trees might well have occurred to Dante's mind beneath the roof of pine-boughs. Nor is there any place in which the simile of the frogs and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... however, he walked with firm step to an automobile waiting at the rear of the big hall, and guarded by a group of friends, was driven rapidly to the Johnston Emergency hospital. Preparation had there been made for a careful examination and for treatment by Dr. Scurry L. Terrell, who attended Col. Roosevelt during his entire trip, Dr. R. G. Sayle and Dr. T. A. Stratton, both ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey

... pavement there was a scurry of sandalled feet; the crowd opened, and a party of girls rushed about the speaker and his fair friend, and began singing and dancing to the tabrets they themselves touched. The woman, scared, clung to the man, who put an arm about her, and, with kindled ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... engine hidden beneath its hood. A car of such character, passing readily as the town-car of any family in modest circumstances, or else as what Paris calls a voiture de remise (a hackney car without taximeter) was a tremendous convenience, enabling its owner to scurry at will about cab-ridden Paris free of comment. But it could not be left standing in public places at odd hours, or for long, without attracting the interest of the police, and so was useless in the present emergency. Lanyard, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... civilisation. Somebody, too, had been at this people with a camera before, for I hardly had time to take mine out of its case before the whole population, which had collected around, stampeded in all directions in the utmost confusion. Only a little child—whom the mother dropped in the hurry-scurry—was left behind, and he was a quaint little fellow clad in a long coloured gown and a picturesque ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... the soldiers! Oh-hoo-hoo-hoo!" There was a scamper and a scurry, a trampling of horses. The two trembling hands, getting in each other's way, unfastened the door, which was not even locked, and beheld Pucklechurch gathering himself up with a bleeding head, a cloud of smoke and flame, and helmets ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... west, the sea is clearer than ever, and far down below will be discerned lazily swimming to and fro great reddish-brown or bright blue groper, watching the dripping sides of the rock in hope that some of the active, gaily-hued crabs which scurry downwards as you approach may fall in—for the blue groper is a gourmet, disdaining to eat of his own tribe, and caring only for crabs or the larger and more luscious crayfish. Stand here when the tide is high and the surf is sweeping in creamy sheets over ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke

... "Uncoil the wire," he directed. "Go to its full length at right angles to the hole. We have to time this exactly right. When the crystal comes around again, I'll shove the tube into the hole, then scurry for cover. When I'm clear I'll yell, and you pump the dynamo. Dominico and Kemp stay with Koa. Make sure no one is in the way of ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin

... complacency. However, they did not prove a sufficient counterpoise to his very square shoulders, which, obeying the laws of gravitation, destroyed his equilibrium, and threw him a somersault, when exit Eschylus Stave, esquire, head foremost, with a formidable rumble tumble and hurry—scurry, down the back steps, his long shanks disappearing last, and clipping between us, and the bright moon ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... seasoned, well carpentered, innocent of chink or shrinkage, impervious to the human eye. Visible above it the domed heads of enormous elm trees steeped in sunshine, rising towards the ample curve of the summer sky. At intervals, with tumultuous rush and scurry, the thud of the hoofs of unseen horses, galloping for all they are worth over grass. The suck and rub of breeches against saddle-flaps, the rattle of a curb chain or the rings of a bit. A call, a challenge, smothered exclamations. The long-drawn swish of the polo ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... now sent to scurry through the dormitory and see if it could find any other Lakerimmers. This squad finally came down the stairs, the biggest one of the Crows carrying little History under his arm. History was waving his arms and legs about as if he were a ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes

... the wrong magazine! He half rose, meaning to scurry back and get the one he wanted; but it was too late now. He heard the pebbles knocked loose where the faint trail dipped down over the knob directly behind the station. So he settled back with his pipe for solace, and scowled ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... the bill and ran out. He watched her scurry down the street with satisfaction wrinkling under his beard. "It was a kind of happy idee and it seems to be workin'," he observed. "I've allus thought I knew enough about cowards to write a book on ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... in her heart. From modest shame, she unconsciously became purple in the face, and not venturing to ask another question she continued adjusting his clothes. This task accomplished, she followed him over to old lady Chia's apartments; and after a hurry-scurry meal, they came back to this side, and Hsi Jen availed herself of the absence of the nurses and waiting-maids to hand Pao-y ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... Impeachment—on your own conditions, 130 Or RICHMOND'S wild fortifications, Enough to ruin twenty nations, Or any thing you know can't fail, To be a tub to Party's whale. Then whilst they nibble, growl, and worry, 135 All keen and busy, hurry-scurry; Britannia's ship you onward guide, Wrapt in ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell

... kind of god in the machine. This halt delayed the procession and meant that a hand was being engaged; but oftener than not the pause was short, and the look on the late applicant's face as he or she turned to scurry back like a chased dog along the corridor told ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... scamper back to the house in fear, tumbling over each other and shouting, the eldest girl making good her escape with the baby. My companion swings his hat, and cries, "Hullo, baby!" And when we have passed the gate, and are under the wall, the whole ragged, brown-skinned troop scurry out upon the terrace, and run along, calling after us, in perfect English, as long as we keep in sight, "Hullo, baby!" "Hullo, baby!" The next traveler who goes that way will no doubt be hailed by the quick-witted natives with this ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... have a scurry," and he led her down on to the floor and floated her out into a paradise of music and movement. Dick was the best partner she had ever danced with. He had often snubbed her about her own dancing, but he had danced with her all the same, more ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... thousand miles, but have we surpassed them in thoughts of enduring value? Washington and Franklin could not travel sixty miles an hour in a railroad train, or twice that speed in an aeroplane, but does it follow that they did not travel to as good purpose as we, who scurry to and fro like the ants ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... both to keep the sled from overrunning the dogs, but in the space of four minutes it was accomplished, and with a final rush they took the level trail of the lake's frozen and snow-covered surface. As they did so a gust of wind brought a scurry of snow in their faces, and Benard looked anxiously up ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... pricked up and cautious mien They come to see. When they have seen, They snort and turn and off they scurry In a contemptuous ...
— A Horse Book • Mary Tourtel

... rather strange in such a countryside, they two could peer forth at the last sunlight gold-powdering the fringed branches, at the sunset flush dyeing the sky above the Beacon; watch light slowly folding gray wings above the hay-fields and the elms; mark the squirrels scurry along, and the pigeons' evening flight. A stream ran there at the edge, and beech-trees grew beside it. In the tawny-dappled sand bed of that clear water, and the gray-green dappled trunks of those beeches with their great, sinuous, long-muscled roots, was that something which man can never ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... during the long winter. Its endless buildings look grey, its sky and its streets assume a sombre hue; the scattered, leafless trees and wind-blown dust and paper but add to the general solemnity of color. There seems to be something in the chill breezes which scurry through the long, narrow thoroughfares productive of rueful thoughts. Not poets alone, nor artists, nor that superior order of mind which arrogates to itself all refinement, feel this, but ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... there, A small child in a pinafore with ribbon on her hair. I hear her in the garden when I go to pick a rose; She follows me along the path on dancing tipsy-toes; I hear her in the hayloft when the hay is slippery-sweet— A rustle and a scurry and a sound of scampering feet; Yet though I sit as still as still, she never comes to me, The funny little laughing girl my ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner

... scurrying around and poking under the fallen leaves, but he hadn't found a single nut. Happy Jack couldn't stop to quarrel any more, because you see he was afraid that Chatterer would find the biggest and fattest nuts, so he began to scurry around and hunt too. It was queer, very queer, how those nuts could have hidden so! They hunted and hunted, but no nuts were to be found. Then they stopped and stared up at the top of the tall hickory tree. Not a nut ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess

... dog after his first point, since he works too close behind them. The covey will keep together if not pursued with too much haste, and one gets shot after shot; still, at last you must run lively, as the frightened covey scurry along at a remarkable pace. Heavy shot are necessary, since the blue quail carry lead like Marshal Massena, and are much harder to kill than the bob-white. Three men working together can get shooting enough out of a bunch—the chase often continuing for a mile, when the covey gradually ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington

... hiding-place the lizard on the wall. Think soberly, O ye kings! how your crowns are but yellow metal, and your purple robes the food of moths, and the sceptres of your power no better than hedge-twigs for the driving of rats. Round about your crystal orbs scurry the fleas at play in the night-time; in a little while the joints of your legs will grapple the degrees of your thrones with no more zest than an old ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... sleek, come the educated slaves—journalists, doctors, judges, and poets; the attorney, the artist, the player, the priest. They likewise scurry across the Park, looking anxiously from time to time at their watches, lest they be late for their appointments; thinking of the rates and taxes to be earned, of the bonnets to be paid for, the ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... it wear hitherto. One moment of suspended faculties, and he sprang up with a wild cry that filled the little shanty with its shrill terror. The others gazed astounded upon him, then followed the direction of his starting eyes, and echoed his frantic fright. There was a wild scurry toward the door. The overturning of the lamp was imminent, but it still burned calmly on the elevated hearth, while the shoeing-stool capsized in the rush, and the red head of its lowly occupant was lowlier still, rolling on the dirt floor. Even with this disadvantage, however, he was not ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... less hurry and scurry of getting ready, but the elder Maynards were of systematic and methodical habits, so that really everything was ready ahead of time. Two trunks had been sent on by express to Grandma Sherwood's, and one large trunk which was to accompany them on their trip, was already fastened in ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... been fixed by a limelight man, who was now lighting various burners under red glasses. The scene was one of confusion, verging to all appearances on absolute chaos, but every little move had been prearranged. Nay, amid all the scurry the whistle blower even took a few turns, stepping short as he did so, in ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... were beginning to scurry around them now, showing that the wind was arriving. Frank knew this when he once more started around the peak, for he ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... bugbear of bufferish Middle-Age! Swift "scurry-funging" may do for the young, The "hey-diddle-diddle, the Cat-and-the-fiddle" age. "Over the moon" I myself once had sprung, Thirty years syne, in sheer fervour athletical— Now, like the dog, I would laugh, and look on. Once, with sheer "drive," I'd a sense ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various

... yuh? Git outa here! Fight, why don't yuh? Put up yer mits! Don't be a dog! Fight or I'll knock yuh dead! [But, without seeming to see him, they all answer with mechanical affected politeness:] I beg your pardon. [Then at a cry from one of the women, they all scurry to the ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill

... fire now opens on the extreme left, and in a few minutes the artillery are ordered forward, and the six guns pass us at a gallop. They are soon lined up and firing shrapnel at some Boers, who scurry away over the brow of a kopje. The guns limber up and jump the railway line—a pretty stiff little obstacle—the narrow gauge metals being on top of a narrow embankment. Then across a level field of veldt, and they commence to ascend ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch

... wrinkled in thought, and restless anxious eyes indorse the serious aspect of the place. The very bustle of counsel, the scurry of clerks, the dash of messengers, proclaim matters of moment to be afoot. The whispered consultation, the pregnant nod, the nervous litigant buttonholing his lawyer, his advisers urging a certain course ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... ahead had stopped; its three passengers had descended, and hand in hand were running over the rough ground towards the shore. A small dinghy was waiting for them at the edge of the shingle. So there had been method in their mad scurry after all. ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... gate had been reinforced by another man, to hold the crowd back. When the would-be spectators found that only work men and invited guests would be admitted to the yard the disappointed ones made a scurry for the nearest portions of the ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham

... the earth and aloft through the air! Now see the man, as for combat, enter— Where is the peril he fears to adventure? See how the puppets speed on to the race,} Each his own fortune pursues in the chase; } How many the rivals, how narrow the space! } But, hurry and scurry, O mettlesome game! The cars roll in thunder, the wheels rush in flame. How the brave dart onward, and pant and glow! How the craven behind them come creeping slow— Ha! ha! see how Pride gets a terrible fall! See how Prudence, or Cunning, out-races them all! See how ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... of their cloudless future, the lovers enter the dingy mining town of Woodward. The weather-beaten cottages, which never have known a coat of paint, do not attract their attention. The groups of ragged children playing in the dusty road, scurry out of the path of the horses. On the hillside to the left stands the Jumbo Breaker, the largest coal crusher in the world. Its rambling walls rise to a height of several hundred feet up a steep incline. The noise of the machinery within can be heard distinctly from the roadway. The ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... somewhat late, owing partly to John's indecision and partly to an accident with Rose's costume. On reaching the Town Hall, not only Ethel and Milly, but Rose also, had deserted Leonora eagerly, impatiently, as ducklings scurry into a pond; they passed through the cloak-room in a moment, Rose first; Rose was human that evening. Leonora did not mind; she anticipated the dance with neither joy nor melancholy, hoping nothing from it in her mood of neutral calm. John was talking ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... bellow, turn off at a tangent, and scurry along faster than ever, was the work of a moment, but it was too late! The savages were in the midst of the snorting host. Bows were bent and guns were levelled. The latter were smooth-bores, cheap, and more or less ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... suppression. The city-bred Cecily, accustomed to horse exercise solely as an ornamental and artificial recreation, felt for the first time the fearful joy of a dash across a league-long plain, with no onlookers but the scattered wild horses she might startle up to scurry before her, or race at her side. Small wonder that, mounted on her fiery little mustang, untrammeled by her short gray riding-habit, free as the wind itself that blew through the folds of her flannel blouse, with her brown hair half-loosed beneath her slouched felt hat, she seemed to ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... us. But presently, as I suppose happens in most old houses, began to echo and answer in my ears a medley of infinite small stirrings and whisperings. Now out of the distance an old timber would relax its fibers, or a scurry die away behind the perishing wainscot. But amid and behind such sounds as these I seemed to begin to be conscious, as it were, of the lightest of footfalls, sounds as faint as the vanishing remembrance of voices in a dream. Seaton was all in obscurity except his ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... anywhere. It was Rajah. In the next room, and she had not known that Warrington (she would always know him by that name) was stopping at the same hotel! She listened intently. Presently she heard muffled sounds: a clatter of metal. A few minutes later came a softer tinkle, scurry ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... the rocks, and kneeling and taking deliberate aim, opened fire on the foremost of the foe. A gaudy warrior goes down in the flood, and a yell goes up to heaven. Another good shot slays a feather-decked pony and sends his rider sprawling, and wisely the others veer away to right and left and scurry to more distant range. But up the slopes to the south still others dart. From three sides now the Indian bullets are hissing in. In less than four minutes of sharp, stinging fight, gallant Sergeant Carey is stretched on the turf, with a shattered ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... a sense of almost prideful possession. They discovered a high point on which a rustic observatory could be built; they planned paths and trails; they found where the water-line came just under an overhanging rock which would make a cave large enough for three or four boats to scurry under out of the rain. They found delightful surprises all along the bank of the future lake, and Miss Stevens declared that when the dam was built and the lake began to fill, she never intended to leave it except for meals, until it was up to the level at which they would permit ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester

... determined. They closed in on him. A little man got firmly in his path. He took the little man by the shoulders and stood him aside with some friendly word. And now he was past ten rows or more of them on his way through, and the crowd began to scurry away. They scampered like ants, clawing at one another's backs to make ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers

... lowly earth to which they must soon return. Yet the blood was hot and the nerves were highly strung, and life seemed capable of great things in this moody, contemplative morning. There was a wonder in the little wren that picked her way among the fronds, and a thrill in the scurry of the watchful rabbit; and when they reached the crest of the upland and saw an open expanse of park, with the deer moving away through the mist, their souls dilated, and in happy ecstasy they looked upon Nature with the same innocent wonderment as the first ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... said in a martyrised tone. 'You do scurry one so, Jacinth.' And then when, having borne this certainly unmerited reproach in silence, Jacinth with relief heard the door close on her sister and began to hope she was going to have a little peace, it was opened again ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... me the only thing for the Professor to do, and I expected that at the mere mention of the terrible Lukens he would scurry to the mountain-top as fast as his legs would carry him. Yet he held the constable in as little terror as he did Mr. Pound, for instead of fleeing he drew me to him, and held me in an embrace so tight as to make me struggle ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... those of the staff who were remiss in their work. It was only of an evening, when she was free of the shop, that she could be said to be anything like her old, light-hearted self. She would wash, change her clothes, and scurry off to a ham and beef warehouse she had discovered in a turning off Oxford Street, where she would get her supper. The shop was kept by a man named Siggers. He was an affected little man, who wore his hair long; he minced about his shop and ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... of hill, which sloped downward into what they called the "flats," through which the creek ran. The barn stood very close to uncleared woodland, and the banks ending the woodland showed a decidedly rocky exterior. Appleman, chasing a woodchuck one day, had seen him scurry into a hole in this rocky surface, and prying away with a handspike had unloosed a small mass of rock and discovered a cave; not much of a cave, it is true, but one of at least twenty feet in length and eight or ten in breadth, and full six feet in height. This discovery occurred a ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... youngest scarcely dared to scurry across the floor, its little heart beating pit-a-pat, and they found it so hard to get time to look for food that they ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... two meek voices, and after a few irrepressible giggles, silence reigned, broken only by an occasional snore from the boys, or the soft scurry of mice in the buttery, taking their ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... scuffle. The scurry of sheep's feet on the Green. A dog barking. The shepherds were back ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... at it all; but the sparrows were all in a hurry-scurry. They were not nearly ready. Some had not even a nest; others had laid an egg or two; but the majority had sat on the cow-house roof, week out, week ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland

... In a minute or so I heard the trampling of a horse: and then, with a scurry of hoofs, Joan was off on the King's errand, and riding into ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... and cupboard they explore, Each creek and cranny of his chamber, Run hurry-scurry round the floor, And o'er the ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... argon atom declines all fellowship. When the chemist has played his tricks upon it, it finds itself crowded together with other atoms of the same kind; but lift up the little test-tube and these scurry off from one another in every direction, each losing its fellows forever ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams

... and I started in the early morning from Berkeley, for a trip to Wild-cat Canon. The birds are singing their Te Deum to the morning sun. The California partridges run along the path ahead of us, their waving crests bobbing up and down as they scurry out of sight under the bushes, seldom taking wing, but depending on their sturdy little legs to take them out of harm's way. A cotton-tail, disturbed in his hiding, darts away, bounding from side to side like a rubber ball, as if expecting a shot to overtake him before he can get safely ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson



Words linked to "Scurry" :   scuttle, haste, rush, hurry, crab, run, skitter, rushing, scramble



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