Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Constable   Listen
noun
Constable  n.  
1.
A high officer in the monarchical establishments of the Middle Ages. Note: The constable of France was the first officer of the crown, and had the chief command of the army. It was also his duty to regulate all matters of chivalry. The office was suppressed in 1627. The constable, or lord high constable, of England, was one of the highest officers of the crown, commander in chief of the forces, and keeper of the peace of the nation. He also had judicial cognizance of many important matters. The office was as early as the Conquest, but has been disused (except on great and solemn occasions), since the attainder of Stafford, duke of Buckingham, in the reign of Henry VIII.
2.
(Law) An officer of the peace having power as a conservator of the public peace, and bound to execute the warrants of judicial officers. Note: In England, at the present time, the constable is a conservator of the peace within his district, and is also charged by various statutes with other duties, such as serving summons, precepts, warrants, etc. In the United States, constables are town or city officers of the peace, with powers similar to those of the constables of England. In addition to their duties as conservators of the peace, they are invested with others by statute, such as to execute civil as well as criminal process in certain cases, to attend courts, keep juries, etc. In some cities, there are officers called high constables, who act as chiefs of the constabulary or police force. In other cities the title of constable, as well as the office, is merged in that of the police officer.
High constable, a constable having certain duties and powers within a hundred. (Eng.)
Petty constable, a conservator of the peace within a parish or tithing; a tithingman. (Eng.)
Special constable, a person appointed to act as constable of special occasions.
To overrun the constable, or To outrun the constable, to spend more than one's income; to get into debt. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Constable" Quotes from Famous Books



... so easy, you loafer," said Peter, who saw the village constable approaching. "Here, Mr. Rogers, I want ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger

... Cadet's soul. He felt that he was behaving correctly and valiantly. What was the consequence? The uninvited guests opened everything themselves and rummaged where they pleased. A constable put aside all those books which looked suspicious. Several of these books had been published in Russia quite openly and sold no less openly. They took several books wholly innocent in their contents, simply because they ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub

... hear her coming!" cried Toady, half frantic at thought of the constable whom Tabitha ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown

... the stately Holmes of England, Whose glories never fade; The Constable of Burlington, Who ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... not have followed it; for it seems as if a fatality attended Princes, forcing them to shut their ears, those of the mind, at least, to the best advice, and especially in the most critical moments."—"And the Constable," said Madame, "what do you say of him?"—"I cannot say much good or much harm of him," replied he. "Was the Court of Francis I. very brilliant?"—"Very brilliant; but those of his grandsons infinitely surpassed it. In the time of Mary Stuart and Margaret of Valois it was a land of enchantment—a ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... 9th, King Lamb; 10th, Emperor Lamb; 11th, Pope Innocent, higher than which is nothing but the Lamb of God. Puns I have not made many (nor punch much), since the day of my last; one I cannot help relating. A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling me that eight people dined at the top of the spire of the cathedral, upon which I remarked that they must be very sharp set. But in general I cultivate the reasoning part of my mind more than the imaginative. Do you know Kate * * *. I am so stuffed ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold

... stage, and sitteth down in the chair of state. Then the lords, great constable, and marshal, went to the four corners of the stage, with the lion going before them; who spoke to the people these words, "Sirs, I do present unto you the king CHARLES, the rightful and undoubted heir of the crown, and dignity of this realm: this day is by the parliament of this kingdom appointed ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... of those arts, as we presume we may class it, with which pupils of the rural schools will have best cause to become acquainted, namely, Gardening! Readers on this plan have long been known in the schools of Prussia and Holland, and are even lately well received in England, in the form of Mr. Constable's popular series; though apparently, when finished, the American series will be more full and complete in topics and treatment of them than any preceding one. Of course, restricted space, and the range of maturity of talents addressed, compel the presentation ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... a son, high in the air, when two men came up the walk, from the street, and knocked at the side door. Mrs. Baggert, who answered the summons, was somewhat surprised to see Chief of Police Simonson and Constable Higby. ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton

... looking over her shoulder at the document. "It says if you are in doubt as to the name of the district of your Local Food Office you are to inquire of any policeman or special constable." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various

... character exhibited by the inimitable Cervantes. I have not yet encountered a windmill for a giant, nor mistaken this public-house for a magnificent castle; neither do I believe this gentleman to be the constable; nor that worthy practitioner to be Master Elizabat, the surgeon recorded in Amadis de Gaul; nor you to be the enchanter Alquife, nor any other sage of history or romance; I see and distinguish objects as they are discerned and described by other men. I reason without prejudice, can ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... whole band pass the church, except one man who entered, and I strained my sight so that I seemed to see behind as well as in front, and then it was I longed for my poignard, for I should not have heeded being in a church.' But the constable, it soon appeared, was not looking for Bibboni. So he gathered up his courage, and ran for the Church of San Spirito, where the Padre Andrea Volterrano was preaching to a great congregation. He hoped to go in by one door and out by the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... been driven into the sea. But the king loitered about the castles of the Loire with his favourite, La Tremouille, and his adviser, the Archbishop of Reims. They wasted the one year of Joan. There were jealousies against the Constable de Richemont of Brittany who had come with all his lances to follow the lily flag. If once Charles were king indeed and the English driven out, La Tremouille would cease to be powerful. This dastard sacrificed the Maid in the end, as he was ready to sacrifice ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... the 25th of October 1415, of Henry V. of England over the French. The battle was fought in the defile formed by the wood of Agincourt and that of Tramecourt, at the northern exit of which the army under d'Albret, constable of France, had placed itself so as to bar the way to Calais against the English forces which had been campaigning on the Somme. The night of the 24th of October was spent by the two armies on the ground, and the English had but little shelter from the heavy rain which fell. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... a man called Tetard, a former constable, who had given up his place, and become a dealer in stones. But besides being a former officer of justice and a merchant, as his cards told the world, he was also the agent of a fire insurance company. It was in this capacity that he presumed, as he told ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... ancient right of walking in procession and speaking. To take one instance: Mr. Burleigh, the well-known war correspondent, and Mr. Winks were arrested and "run in" with Mr. J. Knight, a workman, for seditious language. I went down to the police-station to offer bail for the latter: Chief-Constable Howard accepted bail for Messrs. Burleigh and Winks, but refused it for Mr. Knight. The next day, at the police-court, the preposterous bail of L400 was demanded for Mr. Knight and supplied by my faithful band, and on the ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... favoured the abbey. He granted a confirmatory charter himself, and obtained a bull from the pope confirming all the rights and privileges of the church. But several of the possessions of the abbey were lost in Wilfric's time. In one instance the High Constable of England seized a village belonging to the monks. Proceedings were taken against him and sentence pronounced; but he evaded even the king's orders, and at last actually secured the possession of the village for his own life, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting

... Father? O you shocking liars—'tis stolen goods that you've been and brought to our innocent house this day. But, Father, do you up and fetch in the constable, do you hear? ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... had brought me my supper, and I had nothing to do but to wait for the constable and train-time, I did the very thing that Whitredge had advised me not to do; I couldn't get it out of my mind that freedom at any price was now the most desirable thing on earth—in the universe, for that matter. It was facilely easy to picture a future in some far distant corner of the ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... who's going to do it?" he said. "We've just one constable here in Bray. And if there are Germans there in any number, what could he do? I suppose we might send word to Hambridge and get some police or some territorials over. Yes, that's the best ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske

... would have granted that. Yes, I foresee trouble arising out of this. Suppose 'Cayenne Pepper,' as we call the captain that commanded the 'Cayenne' at Grey Town, was to come to a port in Nova Scotia, and pepper it for insultin' our flag by apprehenden trespassers (though how a constable is to arrest a crew of twenty men unless, Irishman like, he surrounds them, is a mystery to me). What would be done in that case? Neither you nor I can tell, Squire. But depend upon it, there is a tempestical time comin', and it is as well to be on ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... up, like an angel's, into the sky. But sometimes he knew it was not; and that was when he caught himself in the middle of Caesar's mightiest prayers crooking his neck past the pitching bald pate of Johnny Niplightly, the constable, that he might get a glimpse of the top of Katherine's bonnet ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... hammered at two or three doors as he ran past, among them that of the police-constable, and himself had run on, in time to hear the prisoner's footsteps run up the lane leading to the barn. He had stopped then as he was out of breath, and as he thought they would have the man now, since there was no exit from the lane except through Mr. Patten's farm-yard, and if he'd gone ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... between Abigails and Andrews! I'll couple you. Yes, I'll baste you together, you and your Philander. I'll Duke's Place you, as I'm a person. Your turtle is in custody already. You shall coo in the same cage, if there be constable or warrant ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... urged that, simply for his amusement and gratification, I should read some three or four chapters more. Accordingly, the three or four chapters more I did read;—I read "how Wallace killed young Selbie the Constable's son;" "how Wallace fished in Irvine Water;" and "how Wallace killed the Churl with his own staff in Ayr;" and then Uncle James told me, in the quiet way in which he used to make a joke tell, that the book seemed to be rather a rough sort of production, filled with accounts of quarrels ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... I could get hold of 'em,' cried the indignant constable. 'I'd give 'em what for. Two windows 'ave they broke wi' their stones and their sluggin', an' one of 'em in the shop o' poor old Mrs. Dean. The old woman has hard enow work to make a livin' without rowdy young ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... good King Charles. Three yesty spirits sat convivially enjoying the warmth of the fire upon the huge hearth. A keg was braced in the centre of the room. One of the merry crew—none other, indeed, than Swallow, a constable to the King—sat astride the cask, Don Quixote-like. In place of the dauntless lance, he was armed with a sturdy mug of good old ale. He sang gaily to a tune of his own, turning ever and anon for approbation to Buzzard, another spirit of like guild, who sat ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... this—and then got clean away all the same! One o' them detectives got him once and disarmed him—but he managed to give them the slip, after all. Why, he's that full o' shifts and disguises thar ain't no spottin' him. He walked right under the constable's nose oncet, and took a drink with the sheriff that was arter him—and the blamed fool never knew it. He kin change even the color of ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... and watchmaker, besides dealing in paints, oils, glass, an' wall paper," explained the constable. "He carries a putty considerable stock of goods as are valuable. Yesterday, or early last night, when he was away, his shop was ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield

... no doubt an admirable motto for these times, but the Special Constable who was surprised by his wife while carrying on with a cook (which he thought to be part of his professional duty) complains ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various

... peltry brought to London from Quebec, the Kirke associates blew off the padlock which had been fixed to the storehouse door by an order of justice. Some time after, when Guillaume de Caen visited the store, accompanied by a member of the company and a constable, he discovered that only three hundred beaver skins and four hundred elk skins remained. Complaint was lodged with the king, who ordered Kirke to return the skins which were missing within three days, on pain of imprisonment ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne

... see whom I was to remark, and her eyes led me to a tall, large figure, with a broad gold-laced hat, who was clearing the lane which some of the company had infringed, with a stentorian voice, and an air and manner of such authority as a chief constable might ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... nature,—Scott gladly resolved to abandon the law, in which he had won scant success, and give himself wholly to literature. Unfortunately, however, in order to increase his earnings, he entered secretly into partnership with the firms of Constable and the brothers Ballantyne, as printer-publishers,—a sad mistake, indeed, and the cause of that tragedy which closed the life of ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... his health till I would be tellin' him," or words to that effect; while in reply to his questions they made statements superficially so clear and simple, and essentially so bewilderingly involved, that the longest experience could do little more for a constable than teach him the futility of wasting his time in attempts to ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... known to police and public alike, the sporting instincts of the nation stepped in to prevent my premature arrest. "Give the dogs a chance," was the prevailing sentiment, whenever some ambitious local constable wished to put an end to my drawn-out evasion of justice. My final capture by the winning pair was not a very dramatic episode, in fact, I'm not sure that they would have taken any notice of me if I hadn't spoken ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)

... Goldwing was considering what he should do. He was ready to meet the charge against him, though he could not explain where he got the money to pay for the boat. Pearl was after him for stealing the money at a hotel,—what hotel he did not know. Was Pearl a constable ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic

... the lying tongue of rumour had been busy with his name in his native village. It was said that he was an officer in the German Army, and on the strength of that rumour his parents were ordered by the Chief Constable to leave the village and not to dwell on the East Coast. It was a sentence of death on them. The order broke the old man's heart, and he committed suicide. The son arrived to find his father dead and his mother distracted by her bereavement. He took her away to the seaside ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... Pursglove, who was a native of Tideswell and founder of the local Grammar School, who surrendered his Priory of Gisburn to Henry VIII in 1540, but refused, in 1559, to take the Oath of Supremacy. Sampson Meverill, Knight Constable of England, also lies buried in the chancel, and by his epitaph on a marble tomb, brought curiously enough from Sussex, he asks the reader "devoutly of your charity" to say "a Pater Noster with an Ave for all Xtian soules, and especially for the soule of him whose bones resten under this ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... taken 'em out of jail and put 'em doing honest work," said the farmer. He pointed to guards who were marching to and fro with rifles in the hook of their arms. "Here's where you belong. I'm a constable of this ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... pleased the glory of her sex should know, This nook, here, of the Friars is no climate For her to live obscurely in, to learn Physic and surgery, for the constable's wife Of some odd hundred in Essex; but come forth, And taste the air of palaces; eat, drink The toils of empirics, and their boasted practice; Tincture of pearl, and coral, gold, and amber; Be seen at feasts and triumphs; have it ask'd, What miracle she is; set all the ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... Church is the centre of a great circle of remembrance. One of Constable's famous paintings represents the Cathedral of Salisbury outlined against a storm-swept sky, with a lovely rainbow arched beyond it. So stands the Church athwart the landscape of our lives. In each community the church is like a living thing! How ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... goes the Tailor and the seruing-man, and entering the house with the Constable, found them in the place where hee that reueald it, knew the broker alwaie laid such gotten goods. Of their ioy againe, I leaue you to coniecture, and thinke you see the broker with a good paire of bolts on his heele, readie to take his farewell of the worlde ...
— The Third And Last Part Of Conny-Catching. (1592) - With the new deuised knauish arte of Foole-taking • R. G.

... of the door without looking at him. He came suddenly back to say, "If it were a question of you alone, I would cheerfully lose something more than you've robbed me of for the pleasure of seeing you handcuffed in this room and led to jail through the street by a constable. No honest man, no man who was not always a rogue at heart, could have done what you've done; juggled with the books for years, and bewitched the record so by your infernal craft, that it was never suspected till now. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... Caster Bird-catching, Fourteenth Century Bird-piping, Fourteenth Century Blind and Poor Sick of St. John, Fifteenth Century Bob Apple, The Game of Bootmaker's Apprentice working at a Trial-piece, Thirteenth Century Bourbon, Constable de, Trial of, before the Peers of France Bourgeois, Thirteenth Century Brandenburg, Marquis of Brewer, The, Sixteenth Century Brotherhood of Death, Member of the Burgess of Ghent and his Wife, from a Window of the Fifteenth Century Burgess at Meals Burgesses with Hoods, Fourteenth Century Burning ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... his idea of calling a constable). Then I should advise you to take a chair, Mum, as we don't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various

... on with unbroken gaiety, unfolding plans which in their perfection of detail suggested a previous experience in outrunning the constable. ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... the destruction of his "Seven Tales," Hawthorne found himself advanced not so much as by a single footstep on the road to fame. "Fame!" he exclaims, in meditation; "some very humble persons in a town may be said to possess it,—as the penny-post, the town-crier, the constable,—and they are known to everybody; while many richer, more intellectual, worthier persons are unknown by the majority of their fellow-citizens." But the fame that he desired was, I think, only that which ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... touched his hat to Miss Winter, and then fidgeted along with his load, and jerked his head in a deprecatory manner away from them as he walked on, with the sort of look and action which a favorite terrier uses when his master holds out a lighted cigar to his nose. He was the village tailor and constable, also the principal performer in the church-music which obtained in Englebourn. In the latter capacity he had of late come into collision ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... A sudden panic of terror and shame seized them. It was as if they had wronged him. Suppose, after all, everything should come right and he should be able to explain? They sat and trembled until he entered. Then the constable ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... birth, and I could, with the most perfect honesty, expatiate on Lord Errol's good qualities; but he stands in no need of my praise. His agreeable manners and softness of address prevented that constraint which the idea of his being Lord High Constable of Scotland[317] might otherwise have occasioned. He talked very easily and sensibly with his learned guest. I observed that Dr. Johnson, though he shewed that respect to his lordship, which, from principle, he always does to high rank, yet, when they came to argument, maintained ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... The contrast of the chancel to the rest of the building is more peculiar than pleasing. At the Dissolution the monks' choir seems to have been allowed to fall into ruin, and the present restoration was made in 1743 in a debased classic style. Effigies of Sir Maurice Berkeley, Constable of the Tower (1585), and his wives are in a recess. He became the owner of the abbey after the Dissolution. A portion of a medieval cope is shown in the nave and two chained books (Erasmus and Jewel). The ancient tomb at the ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... JAKEMAN was in Eldon Road, Reading, last week, a cat suddenly pounced on him and bit him. We have not yet received a full account of the incident, but apparently the constable was on detective duty and cleverly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various

... now restored. On a board in the church is an inscription, setting forth it was built in consequence of a "voeu solennel des habitans de Cherbourg en 1450 de la delivrance de la domination etrangere"—that is, from the English, whose defeat the same year at Formigny, by the Constable de Richemont, expelled them for ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... like a forlorn traveller on an unknown desert. The robber must be laid hold of. Marner's ideas of legal authority were confused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim his loss; and the great people in the village—the clergyman, the constable, and Squire Cass—would make Jem Rodney, or somebody else, deliver up the stolen money. He rushed out in the rain, under the stimulus of this hope, forgetting to cover his head, not caring to fasten his door; for he felt as if he had nothing left to lose. He ran swiftly, till want ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... which seemed prejudicial to the Dutch commonwealth, were never executed by the king; and as the Spaniards made no complaints on that head, it appeared that, by secret agreement, the king had expressly reserved the power of sending assistance to the Hollanders.[v] The constable of Castile came into England to ratify the peace; and on the part of England, the earl of Hertford was sent into the Low Countries for the same purpose, and the earl of Nottingham, high admiral, into Spain. The train of the latter was numerous and splendid; and the Spaniards, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... shocking discovery was made just before midnight last night, near the York column, where a police-constable found the dead body of a man lying on the stone steps. The body, which was fully clothed in the ordinary dress of a labouring man, bore plain marks of strangulation, and it was evident that a brutal murder had been committed. ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... him. Things went fairly till near the other side, when the rope made out of the picketing lines of the horses broke by binding round the tree, from which it was being paid out, and the raft began to go down the raging current. At the risk of their lives Perry and Constable Diamond, grasping another rope, plunged into the torrent and managed to reach the shore and fasten it to a tree. But the current was too strong and this rope gave way. The boat went down a mile or so and, being caught in an eddy, was beached, and the stuff on board dragged ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... irksome and comfortless as possible. It was not till after a month's close imprisonment, by which her health had suffered severely, that she obtained, after many difficulties, permission to walk in the royal apartments; and this under the constant inspection of the constable of the Tower and the lord-chamberlain, with the attendance of three of the queen's women; the windows also being shut, and she not permitted to look out at them. Afterwards she had liberty to walk in a small garden, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... 'simply exhorting him to break his fiddle and come to Christ' (the phrase is a clergyman's, I beg to observe); and the saints are indignant that, after executing the pious purpose as far as the fiddle went, he was prevented by the chief constable from dragging him to the Tronk. The 'revival' mania has broken out rather violently in some places; the infection was brought from St. Helena, I am told. At Capetown, old Abdool Jemaalee told me that English Christians were getting more like Malays, and ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... government, besides saving the kingdom and keeping it safely in the most prosperous path, Portugal owed to King John and his English wife the training of their five sons, Edward the Eloquent, Pedro the Great Regent, Henry the Navigator, John the Constable, Ferdinand the Saint—the cousins of our own ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... person who applied for his answer might be detained. Four days afterwards, a man came to the window of the post-office, and enquired if there was any letter to the address of Thomas Tully. The postmaster pretended to be searching for the letter amongst a pile of others, and meanwhile a constable, who was in attendance, went round and captured the applicant. Upon the examination of the letter, it appeared that he was an Irishman, who had some time previously been hanging about Natchez, and had endeavoured to establish a school there. As he, however, had been unable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... He settled his waistcoat and glanced over the tall, lanky constable and the glittering bicycle. "I was taking a look at this old erection, with a view to buying it. I'm afraid it's ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... exclaimed, "what do ye take me for; a reg'lar home for the friendless? No, I ain't in the charitable business jist now. By the way, did ye know that the law don't allow hotel-keepers to let boys stay in the bar-room? Fust thing I know they'll be a constable a-swoopin' down on me here with a warrant. Don't ye think ye'd better excuse yourself? That's the door ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... end, with the curious coda on the "herb Pantagruelion" (the ancestor of Joseph de Maistre's famous eulogy of the Executioner), give, as it were, handle and top to it in unique fashion. But the body of it is the thing. The preliminary outrunning of the constable—had there been constables in Salmigondin, but they probably knew the story of the Seigneur of Basche too well—and the remarkable difference between the feudatory and his superior on the subject of debt, serve but as a whet to the project of matrimony which the debtor conceives. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... empire between the sons of Shah Jahan, are in substance only a free version of Bernier's work entitled, The Late Revolution of the Empire of the Great Mogol. These chapters have not been reprinted because the history of that revolution can now be read much more satisfactorily in Mr. Constable's edition of Bernier's Travels. Except as above stated, the text of the present edition of the Rambles and Recollections is a faithful reprint of the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... the fight, the fish-laden barrels were overthrown, and their contents scattered over the field; whence the name of the Battle of the Herrings. During this engagement, in which the French were defeated, fell, on the side of the French, two noble Scots—John Stuart, the Constable of Scotland, and his ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... or her delightful quarrel with the sexton of Seaham; Lord Conybeare is surely a little overdone; but I don't know either; he's such damned fine sport. Do you like Sally Barnes? I'm in love with her. Constable Muddon is as good as Dogberry and Verges put together; when he takes Solomon to the cage, and the highwayman gives him Solomon's own guinea for his pains, and kisses Mrs. Muddon, and just then up drives Lord Conybeare, and instead of helping Solomon, calls him all the rascals ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... you like, Buck. If you won't give up the money, I shall have to hand you over to the constable, and see what ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic

... sight of the Lazarus, that he allowed his prisoner to go free on parole. This incident has been likened to that of the bravoes arrested in their murderous intent by the organ-playing of Stradella; and also to the case of the soldiers of the Constable who, when sacking Rome, broke into Parmigiano's studio, but were so struck by the beauty of his pictures that they protected ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... family well remember the delight which he expressed on receiving, in 1818, a copy of this first edition, a small dark quarto of 1688, from his friend Constable. He was breakfasting when the present was delivered, and said, "This is indeed the resurrection of an old ally—I mind spelling these lines." He read aloud the jingling epistle to his own great-great-grandfather, which, like the rest, concludes with a broad hint, that as the author had neither ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... of Mahound, Tartarin escaped neatly. Drunk with fanatical fury, the two African collectors would have surely beaten him to pulp had not the god of chase and war sent him a delivering angel in the shape of the rural constable of the Orleansville commune. By a bypath this garde champetre came up, his sword tucked ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... expense, to say nothing of the indignation which I naturally felt, and all because I had set my face against a well known evil, and was determined not to submit to impudent extortion. Of course the case broke down. They contradicted themselves in almost every particular. The second constable indeed admitted that I had offered them a letter to the magistrate, and had not moved out of the verandah during the colloquy. I was honourably acquitted, and had the satisfaction of seeing the lying rascals put into the dock by the indignant magistrate and prosecuted summarily for getting up ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... man coming out. In a very elevated, not to say intoxicated, state. As a matter of fact, barely able to stand. Reeled against wall, and dropped handful of money. I lent helping hand, and picked up his money for him. Not my place to arrest drunken men. Constable's! No constable there, of course. Noticed, as I picked the money up, that there was a good deal of it. For ordinary rustic, a very good deal. Sovereign and plenty of silver.' He paused, mused for a while, and ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... we have little or no crime or breach of the peace; and, though I am no total-abstinence man, I ascribe this state of things to the absence of liquor shops, and on this account have always voted against licensing. Before I came here I acted as constable in Massachusetts, and have been deputy sheriff and overseer of the poor for five years, and I know from actual observation that more happiness is secured to men themselves, to their wives and children, and more peace to the home, than by any other cause in the world, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... firmly, and opening the door, I requested my unknown comrade to enter. I can still see in my mind's eye that constable's face. It looked ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... "Albert the Good." If I had to christen a pup now I should naturally call him "Jellicoe the Brave." "Albert the Good" scarcely lived up to his name and eventually I had to get rid of him. He bit a piece out of a constable's leg. Sir J—— B——, the presiding magistrate at Bow Street, was most charming about it however, and gave me a seat on the ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various

... property; but this is done, not in order to evade the guilt of perjury, but, in case of detection, to open a technical escape from its legal penalty. Promissory oaths are of equally little worth. There is not a public functionary from the President of the United States to the village constable, who does not take what is meant to be a solemn oath (though often administered with indecent levity) to be loyal to the constitution of the country or state, and faithful in the discharge of his ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... 'The constable?' shrieked Mr. Fishwick. Truth to tell, it had been his own idea to storm the splendours of the Castle Inn; and for certain reasons he had carried it in the teeth of his companions' remonstrances. Now between the suddenness of the ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... Constable, for it was he, like Rembrandt, was the son of a miller, and was born at a time when the winds and flowing waters were powers in the land, bearing a golden harvest on their health-giving and invisible currents, turning ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... actions are the only measure for time, which, if I may say so, is suspended for us by sleep—I felt my arm pulled, and heard a voice shouting in my ear: 'Eh! Abbe! Eh! Abbe, wake up!' Half dozing as I was, I believed it was a constable wanting to conduct me to the officer, and I deliberated with myself the easiest way in which I could break his head, and rapidly came to the conclusion that the candlestick would be the handiest weapon. It is unhappily, too true, my dear boy, that having once stepped ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... With few exceptions, they had been produced by the matchless English landscape painters of half a century since. There was no formal gallery here. The pictures were so few that they could be hung in excellent lights in the different living-rooms of the villa. Turner, Constable, Collins, Danby, Callcott, Linnell—the master of Beaupark House passed from one to the other with the enjoyment of a man who thoroughly appreciated the truest and finest landscape art that the world ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... do you mean by immanent morality?" The reader, given the head and tail of the matter, can supply the missing parts. Or, given its two bases, he can construct this triangle of Politics, Ethics, and the Constable, with Khalid's letter, offended Majesty, and a prison cell, as its three turning points. We extract from the report, however, the concluding advice of the Boss. For when he asked Khalid again what ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brainford. But that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks, for ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... beat outside to look after, sir," the constable answered. "If it wasn't that you seem respectable, I should begin to think that you wanted me out of the way for a ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... special interest in regard to the early days of the United States, in some ways complementary to each other in their different points of view, are: "Alexander Hamilton," by F. G. Oliver: Constable & Co., and ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... walked on. Ronald stood irresolute. He had obtained no clue as to the residence of the person of whom they were in search, and after a moment's thought he determined to keep an eye upon the constable, who would most likely join his comrade on the watch. This, however, he did not do immediately. He had probably been for some time at work, and now took the opportunity of going home for a meal, for he at once made his way ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... we read in a recent issue of a London daily paper that John Simmons (31), a meat-salesman, was accused of assaulting an officer while in the discharge of his duty, at the same time using profane language whereby the officer went in fear of his life. Constable Riggs deposed that on the evening of the eleventh instant while he was on his beat, prisoner accosted him and, after offering to fight him for fourpence, drew off his right boot and threw it at his head. Accused, ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... go straight to the constable, and if I do you'll be summoned and punished, and perhaps ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... consideration, and as any instrument which will enable an artist to arrive at the exact period, must be an improvement, and worthy of universal adoption, I will here describe one invented by Mr. Constable of England, which he ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling

... the uneasy din of the traffic, the sky was glorious with the far peace of a fine summer evening. Through the upper pane of the station window Police-constable Bennett, who felt that his senses at the moment were abnormally keen, recognised with a sinking heart such reds and yellows as bedecked the best patchwork quilt at home. By contrast the lights ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... went to the police office, and there explained his business. Nobody at the police office pretended to forget Mr Soames's cheque, or Mr Crawley's position. The constable went so far as to swear that there wasn't a man, woman, or child in all Barchester who was not talking of Mr Crawley at that very moment. Then Mr Toogood went with the constable to the private house ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... dogged obstinacy—he withdrew from the field of battle and moved slowly round the room staring abstractedly at the pictures. There was a seductive, female head by Greuze, a couple of reposeful landscapes by Morland, a little Constable—waterways, trees, and distant woodland, swept by wind and weather. But upon these the young man bestowed scant attention. That which fascinated his gaze was a series of half-length portraits in oval frames, representing his parents, himself, his sisters, and brothers. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... constable see!— "Are you come here for me?" Cries Punch, as he dances about. "Yes, yes; come to jail, 'Tis a terrible tale," Said the constable, "you must ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown

... The Constable of Castile—that he has nothing to add to the report of the Council of War of the Indias since the importance of the matter shows how proper it is that the Marques de Montesclaros should give prompt assistance ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... of Tooraloo hastening to the scene, followed by the local constable. The Mayor was a little, fat, breathless, beetle-shaped man, who hastened with difficulty owing to his robe of office being trodden on by the Constable, who ran close behind him in order to finish eating a banana in secret. He had some more bananas in a paper bag, and his ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay

... prohibited any one from sending money to Macan, and the governors order the same by their edicts under penalty of confiscation. Antonio Fiallo gave information of over thirteen thousand pesos sent him by Bartolome Tenorio, chief-constable of the court, making a gift to your Majesty of the portion which pertained to him as denouncer. And although this cause originated from the edicts of the government, the auditors tried it, acquitting the said Bartolome Tenorio—commenting on the suit in examination and review during my absence, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... least odd that we can trace a resemblance between the puppet and the original. The interjection, "I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress" (Act iii. scene 7), may very well indicate one who was already an expert in that sort of trifle; and the game of proverbs he plays with the Constable in the same scene, would be quite in character for a man who spent many years of his life capping verses with his courtiers. Certainly, Charles was in the great battle with five hundred lances (say, three thousand men), and there he was made prisoner as he led the van. According to ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that the work referred to is an edition of The History of Little Downey, that the prints in it are executed by a lady, and printed at home by the photographic process, and that a limited number of copies may be had on application to Messrs. {629} Constable and Co. of Edinburgh, the sale being for the benefit of the Glasgow Ragged School, we have no doubt many of our readers will be glad to secure copies, and help to forward the good work which its publication ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various

... Raffles strode past him with the air of a chief commissioner, and I followed before the man had recovered from his astonishment. The bare boards rang under us; in the bedroom we found a knot of officers stooping over the window-ledge with a constable's lantern. Mackenzie was the first to stand upright, and he ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... binding upon him, was an oath by the Holy Cross of Saint Lo d'Angers, which contained a Portion of the True Cross. If he prevaricated after taking this oath, Louis believed he should die within the year. The Constable Saint Paul, being invited to a personal conference with Louis, refused to meet the king unless he would agree to ensure him safe conduct under sanction of this oath. But, says Comines, the king replied, he would never again pledge that engagement to mortal man, though ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... asks, with a dignity that only heightens the attractions of the cap and gown. "Have you secured him? Sir Adrian, where is the constable? Have ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"

... the fruits of their raid, and recrossed the Pyrenees to go and resume in France their life of roving and pillage. There remained in Spain about fifteen hundred men-at-arms faithful to Du Guesclin, himself faithful to Henry of Transtamare, who had made him Constable ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... specimen, but it was from the plain end of the plank; the interior is finely waved and variegated. Your kind and unremitting exertions in our favour will soon plenish the drawing-room. Thus we at present stand. We have a fine old English cabinet, with china, &c.-and two superb elbow-chairs, the gift of Constable, carved most magnificently, with groups of children, fruit, and flowers, in the Italian taste: they came from Rome, and are much admired. It seems to me that the mirror you mention, being framed in carved box, would answer admirably ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... the devotion Head displayed in saving my pictures and tapestries at such a time. Besides the 'Man with the Hoe,' I have pictures by Tenniel, Troyon, Paul Potter, Corot, Monet, Renoir, Puvis de Chavannes, Pissaro, and Constable. The tapestries consisted of six Flemish pieces dating from the sixteenth century, of which the finest is a 'Resurrection.' It is a splendid example of tissue d'or work, and was once the property of the ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... children on that side of the house, he always tried to coax her round to the other side, for fear they would hear me cough, too. He said he had kept a close lookout for Dr. Flint, and if he saw him speak to a constable, or a patrol, he always told grandmother. I now recollected that I had seen him manifest uneasiness, when people were on that side of the house, and I had at the time been puzzled to conjecture a motive for his actions. Such prudence ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... knights on foot within the palisade Stand covered with the corslet's iron case; Beneath the Duke of Albany arrayed, Borne on a puissant steed of noble race: Who there, as lord high-constable obeyed, Was keeper of the field and of the place, And joyed Geneura's peril to espy With swelling bosom ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... remain of the keep erected here by Richard de Redvers, who died in 1137, although the castle continued to be held by his descendants until it was granted by Edward III to William de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, who was appointed Constable, an office he held until 1405. During the tenure by the de Redvers the resident bailiff regulated the tolls, markets, and fairs at his pleasure, and he also fixed the amount of the duties to be levied on merchandise. It was not until the reign of the third Edward that the burgesses ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath

... that perish. By declaring the savages to be in every respect British subjects, it becomes illegal to treat them otherwise than such. If a settler surprise a native in the act of stealing a pound of flour, he of course delivers him over to a constable, by whom he is conveyed before the nearest magistrate. Now this magistrate, who is an old settler, and well acquainted with the habits of the natives, is also a man of humanity; and if he were allowed to exercise a judicious discretion, would order the culprit to be well flogged and dismissed ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... events of the night were by no means over yet. A battered constable at the Yard who had just had his head bandaged up had a story to tell. The prisoners from No. 100, Audley Place, had not been conveyed to durance vile without one accident that had been attended with a fatal tragedy. The ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... not think that you will believe The Story of Fifine (CONSTABLE), although Mr. BERNARD CAPES takes some pains to give it an air of actuality; but if you are like me you will not be greatly concerned about that. Purporting to be the ill-used daughter of a mad French ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various

... didn't take long to see that the only one of the whole lot there that hadn't been cleaned since it was last fired was the Mannlicher David had shot his stag with the day before. The silly ass of a constable took it up and squinted through it as solemn as a judge, and then he just handed it to my cousin, and 'What have you to say to this, Sir David?' says he. Infernal cheek! 'I shot it off yesterday, and haven't had time to clean it since,' said ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... heroical appearance turned all eyes towards him, rode straight to the royal canopy, and, begging the king to stop the combat, disclosed the whole state of the matter, to the enchantment of all present, except the Duke of Albany; for the villain himself was on horseback there in state as grand constable, and had been feasting his miserable soul with the hope of seeing Ginevra condemned. The combatants were soon changed. Instead of Lurcanio and the unknown champion (whom the new comer had taken care to extol for his generosity), ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... all our subjects, from the highest to the lowest, and directed to the Souf-basha, or constable of our country, kindly to receive and entertain the English Franks[159] or nation, when any of their ships may arrive at Jasques, or any other of the ports in our kingdom, to conduct them and their merchandize ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... high-constable of Westminster, in the Police Report, says, "I have known the time when I have seen the regular thieves watching Drummonds' house, looking out for persons coming out: and the widening of the pavement of the streets has, I think, done a great deal of good. With respect to pick-pocketing, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various

... braif Lord Ogilvy, Of Angus sheriff principall, The constable of gude Dunde, The vanguard led before them all. Suppose in number they war small, Thay first richt bauldlie did pursew, And maid thair faes befor them fall, Wha then that race did ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang

... vaulted cells in the basement, where the condemned felon in silence awaited his doom, or the airy wards above, where the impecunious debtor or the runaway sailor meditatively or riotously defied their traditional enemies the constable and policeman, now echo the Hebrew, Greek and Latin utterances of the Morrin College professors, and on meeting nights the disquisitions before the Literary and Historical Society, of lecturers on Canadian history, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... turn from the blessed memory of that dear old grandmother, or the gentle words and caressing hand of that blessed mother gone to the unknown world, to face in its stead the idea of a female justice of the peace or township constable? For my part I want when I go to my home—when I turn from the arena where man contends with man for what we call the prizes of this paltry world—I want to go back, not to be received in the masculine embrace of some ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.



Words linked to "Constable" :   police constable, U.K., John Constable, peace officer, Chief Constable, lawman, United Kingdom, law officer



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com