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

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




Plod   Listen
verb
Plod  v. i.  (past & past part. plodded; pres. part. plodding)  
1.
To travel slowly but steadily; to trudge.
2.
To toil; to drudge; especially, to study laboriously and patiently. "Plodding schoolmen."






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 |





"Plod" Quotes from Famous Books



... one thing to jump a hook and ladder truck up Broadway to the relief of a fire-threatened block, and quite another to plod humbly along the curb from ash-can to ash-can. How Silver did hate those cans. Each one should have been for him a signal to stop. But it was not. In consequence, he was yanked to ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... their acquisitions, too numerous and too burdensome, constantly drop of their minds and they make no new ones. Their mental vigor has given way, the fecund sap has dried up; the finished man appears, often a finished man content to be put away, to be married, and plod along indefinitely in the same circle, entrenched in his restricted vocation and doing his duty, but nothing more. Such are the average returns—assuredly, the profits do not make up for the expenses. In England and in America where, as before 1789 in France, the inverse method is followed, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... operate for a month without drawing supplies of any kind from the north. The railway, which had progressed at the rate of about half a mile a day, had reached and was working to Ambigole Wells, where a four-gun fort and entrenchment had been built. The distance over which convoys must plod was reduced by half, and the business of supply was doubly accelerated. By degrees the battalions and squadrons began to move forward towards Akasha. Sarras, deprived of its short-lived glory, became again the solitary fort on a crag. Wady Halfa was also deserted, and, except for ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... research; and I am sometimes inclined to think that the proficiency of the French in philosophy, the arts, and sciences, is not so much the result of patient investigation and laborious and continued study, as a kind of intuition which amounts to genius. The French mind is quick, and does not plod slowly toward eminence; it leaps to it. Certainly, in brilliancy of talents the French surpass every other nation. I will not do them the injustice to speak of them as they are at this moment—crushed under the despotism of Louis Napoleon—but as they have been in the ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... crestfallen, Donald returned to Kildun and urged the Prince to instant flight. But not even the fear of immediate capture could induce the three wearied men to set out again in the wet and darkness to plod over rocks and morasses with no certain goal. So Donald had to control his fears and impatience ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... 'Nineteenth Century,' for last November, "and by no means the minority, who, however wealthy in regard to facts, can never rise into the region of principles; and they are sometimes intolerant of those that can. They are formed to plod meritoriously on in the lower levels of thought; unpossessed of the pinions necessary to reach the heights, they cannot realize the mental act—the act of inspiration it might well be called—by which a man ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... They wend; amid the infinitude of doubt and dim peril; they not doubtful: Fate and Feudal Europe, having decided, come girdling in from without: they, having also decided, do march within. Dusty of face, with frugal refreshment, they plod onwards; unweariable, not to be turned aside. Such march will become famous. The Thought, which works voiceless in this blackbrowed mass, an inspired Tyrtaean Colonel, Rouget de Lille whom the Earth still holds, (A.D. 1836.) has translated ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... news from this quarter, as you know the monotony of my life, and are aware it must at present be devoted to uninterrupted study. You have said a thousand times that I am only qualified to make my way by dint of plodding, and therefore plod I must. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... is an ideal occupation, not only for little children, but for older ones as well, affording admirable opportunities for the development of head, hand, and heart. It trains both hands in deftness and proves a delight to the left-handed child, who for the joy of using his left hand again, will plod patiently across with the right. The fat little hands soon learn to grasp the large needle, and the nerves and muscles of both hand and arm are strengthened by daily use. Both hand and eye are trained in accuracy, and the training in patience, perseverance, industry, ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd

... but they soon failed to lend themselves to any simulation of romance. After all, marching to the divine drumbeat was simply to follow the precepts ingrained in me as a child, but it is much easier to make a quick charge amid the blare of bugles than to plod along day after day to the monotonous grumble of the drum. I wished that the Professor had been a little more explicit, and yet his last words were always with me. It was as though they were intended ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... for it, but to turn back and begin all over again. It was very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began laboriously and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a snail's pace; stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know these elusive characters by sight wherever ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... of the staff of Peaceful Moments to arrive at the office on the following morning was Master Maloney. This sounds like the beginning of a "Plod and Punctuality," or "How Great Fortunes have been Made" story, but, as a matter of fact, Master Maloney, like Mr. Bat Jarvis, was no early bird. Larks who rose in his neighborhood, rose alone. He did not get up with them. He was supposed to be at the office at nine ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... was this pleasant ritual. She would plod all round the house, duster in hand, picking things up, giving them a little flick and putting them back again, patting treasures that she especially loved, sighing heavily with satisfaction at the pleasant sight of all her possessions tranquilly in their right places. As she looked around ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... Winston Churchill," says The Daily Express, "has to plod through life without a middle name." We all have our little cross to bear. Even the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS has to plod through life with the knowledge that there is another Winston Churchill ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various

... and uneven, Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind; But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, As full of gladness and as free of heaven, I, with my fate contented, will plod on, 30 And hope for higher raptures, when life's day ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... gold and salt mines. These poor folk prefer to run the risk of capture and the brutal punishment it involves, rather than remain longer in endless misery. Feeding on mushrooms and berries they plod their weary way back, amid perils of every kind, to their native homes, hundreds—it may be thousands—of miles distant. They avoid towns and highways, of course, but they freely enter the villages. The Siberian peasants, in silent pathetic fashion, show their sympathy ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... is good for: he can plod through the service well enough; but he has not a single ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... ground my humble feet did plod, My bosom beating with the glow of song; And high-born fancy walk'd with me along, Treading the earth ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various

... that their prejudices are, in fact, the principles by which they are governed, and which sometimes serves them for their excuse; since they know better, but do not care to give themselves the trouble of acting up to their knowledge. Thus they plod in the safe, and broad road of mediocrity, but without any reputation or name. They ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... form of temptation by any means. But what has been may be again, and it is none the easier to resist because it is unusual. When a young girl, with hot impatience, feels she is not advancing as rapidly as she should, the wealthy "patron of Art" declares it is folly for her to plod along so slowly, that he will free her from all trammels, he will provide play, wardrobe, company, and show the world that she is already an artist. To her trembling objection that she could only accept such tremendous aid from one ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... the green hedges. I stood and took breath, and cursed the wood and the heat and Madame's wariness. We must have come a league, or two-thirds of a league, at least. How far did the man expect her to plod to meet him? I began to grow angry. There is moderation even in the cooking of eggs, and this wood might stretch into Spain, for ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... to hospitality," he said; "we're always looking for the angel we are going to entertain unawares. Come along home with us, Lewis." And Lewis would plod up the hill and take his turn at the tin washbasin, and then file down the men's side of the stairs to the dining-room, where he and the three old brothers sat at one table, and Athalia and the eight sisters sat at the other ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland

... my covenant comes out, When every man gathers his fee; I'le take my blew blade all in my hand, And plod to ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... darker fallow. Though the road passes near the fortress it does not conduct directly to its fronts. As the place is without an inhabitant, so it is without a trackway. So presently leaving the macadamized road to pursue its course elsewhither, I step off upon the fallow, and plod stumblingly across it. The castle looms out off the shade by degrees, like a thing waking up and asking what I want there. It is now so enlarged by nearness that its whole shape cannot be taken in at one view. The ploughed ground ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... plod up the treadmill it had labored on for so many black hours. He set himself to get it clear in his own mind, forcing those fierce, burning thoughts of his into words, as if he had been speaking aloud. "Now, now here I am. What must ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... highway was the Ohio River; for to drift down stream in a scow was easier and quicker, and no more dangerous, than to plod through thick mountain forests. Moreover, it was much easier for the settler who went by water to carry with him his household goods and implements of husbandry; and even such cumbrous articles as wagons, or, if he was rich and ambitious, the lumber ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... real man! The practical, always—the ideal, never! Once I dreamed of the companionship of a congenial spirit, but, alas! 'A good way from the station!' Were I a man, I would, to reside in such a bower, plod cheerily over ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... Andy about it, and he liked the idea immense. Andy was a man of an involved nature. He was never content to plod along, as I was, selling to the peasantry some little tool like a combination steak beater, shoe horn, marcel waver, monkey wrench, nail file, potato masher and Multum in Parvo tuning fork. Andy had the artistic temper, which is not to be judged as a preacher's or a moral ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry

... was clever. But hard. Man wanted to tear down, not build up. Cynical. Oh, I do hope I'm not a sentimentalist. But I can't see any use in this high-art stuff that doesn't encourage us day-laborers to plod on." ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... Theophilus stirred Thor, and yet he could not break down the wall of reserve he had builded around himself. He had deluded himself that this comradeship was not for him, that he could never mingle with these happy-go-lucky youths, that he must plod straight ahead, and live to himself, because his ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... upon business. It would interest itself only in the hurrying throngs of foot passengers and the ideas they suggested: Here am I—so ran his thoughts—here am I, tucked away comfortably while all those poor creatures have to plod along in the storm. I could afford to be sick. They can't. And what have I done to deserve this good fortune? Nothing. Worse than nothing. If I had made my career along the lines of what is honest and right and beneficial to my fellow men, I'd probably be plugging home under an ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... who, with everything to make them happy, plod their discontented and melancholy way through life, less grateful than the dog that licks the hand that ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... Mr. Balfour and the late Mr. George Wyndham were the only pupils of Chittenden's who made names for themselves. The rest of us were content to plod along in the rut, though we had been taught to concentrate, to remember, and ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... Nello many a morning; but Patrasche, who understood him aright, would no more have consented to stay at home than a veteran soldier to shirk when the charge was sounding; and every day he would rise and place himself in his shafts, and plod along over the snow through the fields that his four round feet had left their print ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... stupid Groue, Now your companions; and that you the while (As you are cruell) will sit by and smile, To make me write to these, while Passers by, Sleightly looke in your louely face, where I See Beauties heauen, whilst silly blockheads, they Like laden Asses, plod vpon their way, 80 And wonder not, as you should point a Clowne Vp to the Guards, or Ariadnes Crowne; Of Constellations, and his dulnesse tell. Hee'd thinke your words were certainly a Spell; Or him some piece from Creet, or Marcus show, In all his life which till that time ne'r saw ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton

... you would be stronger for patience, if you used more of your strength for service. You do well if you do not sink under your burden, but you would do better if, with it on your shoulders, you would plod steadily along the road; and if you did, you would feel the weight less. It seems heaviest when you stand still doing nothing. Do not cease to toil because you suffer. You will feel your pain more if you do. Take the encouragement which Scripture gives, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... seen the last few days, now forsook me altogether. But I was not alone. By some process which I was too weak to solve, my arms, legs, and stomach were transformed into so many traveling companions. Often for hours I would plod along conversing with these imaginary friends. Each had his peculiar wants which he expected me to supply. The stomach was importunate in his demand for a change of diet—complained incessantly of the roots I fed him, their present effect and more remote consequences. I would try to silence ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts

... to be a sufficient recompense for the labour of the search. Fortunately for his design, he lived in the time when a poet might have spoken without hyperbole of the 'fairy tales of science.' To us, who have to plod through an arid waste of painful observation, and slow piecing together of cautious inferences before reaching the promised land of wondrous discoveries, the expression sometimes appears to be ironical. ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... not ask a favor of Martin Howe if she had to plod every step of the three scorching miles; and if he were brute enough to let her toil along in the heat—to walk while he rode—well, that was all she ever wanted to know about him. Her heart beat tumultuously as she ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... Hover the spirits of our dead; We cannot see them as we could In bygone days, when near they stood And shared the joys and griefs that came, But they are with us just the same. They see us as we plod along, And proudly smile when we are strong, And sigh and grieve the self-same way When thoughtlessly ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest

... always so. One wonders if it's even wise to mention it for fear of breaking the spell," mused Emma. "I suppose the best way to do is to plod steadily along and not think much about anything but the day's events. By the way, are you ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... towers, which we discerned in the distance in a sort of glory, we find that there are crooked lanes, muddy crossings, dull market-places, tiresome houses. Odd misshapen figures, fretful and wearied, plod through the streets or look out at windows; here is a ruin, with doleful creatures moping in the shade; we overturn a stone, and blind uncanny things writhe away from the light. We begin to reflect that it is after all much like other places, and ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... sounded "Right forward! fours right!" again, and the 300 of us resumed our onward plod over the rocky, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... is despatched ahead to fill his bottle with water at a well known to be some five miles farther ahead, and to meet us with it on the way. On through the sand and heat we plod wearily, myself almost sick with thirst, fatigue, and disgust. Mohammed Ahzim Khan, observing my wretched condition, insists upon me letting one of the sowars try his hand at trundling the wheel, while I rest myself by riding his horse. Both the sowars bravely try their best to relieve me, but they ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... conversation as in his own thoughts. Two things had forced themselves home,—the first when he looked down on that expanse of vivid water, vivid sky, vivid green. Here a man, even a young man, might waken to all his faculties and make something of life. He need not plod dully through years, to reach success only when he is old and tired. The landscape poured like wine into Ellery ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... way of avarice. Those who follow it make haste to be rich. The almighty dollar rolls before them along the road, and they chase it. Some of them plod patiently along the highway of toil. Others are always leaping fences and trying to find short cuts to wealth. But they are alike in this: whatever they do by way of avocation, the real vocation of their life is ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke

... reasoned as a sound patriot and a good strategist. MacMahon must have felt the same promptings, but obedience to the Empress and the Ministry, or chivalrous regard for Bazaine, overcame his scruples. He decided to plod ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... Santa Claus burst into tears, Then calmed again: "My reindeer fleet, I gave them up: on foot, my dears, I now must plod through snow and sleet. ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... and Erin heartening Washington, Prone Freedom rose, with head above the cloud. Beholding her transfigured, Thrall is cowed. His minions are bewildered. How they run! Some follow him against the rising sun; Others plod north. The Torries' vaster crowd Hide in dark places, and like Satan, proud, They hate the glory, that ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle

... PETER PLOD-ALL. Faith, I like her well, and I have broken my mind to her, and she would say neither ay nor no. But, thank God, sir, we parted good friends, for she let me kiss her hand, and bad, Farewell, Peter, and therefore I think ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... grammars; City men, planning their schemes; the wearers of motley, cudgelling their poor brains for fresh wit with which to please their master; shop boys and shop girls, silent now as, together, they plod homeward; the artisan; the labourer. Two or three hours you shall have to yourselves, slaves, to think and love and play, if you be not too tired to think, or love, or play. Then to your litter, that you may be ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... spot,—throw myself down on the flooded ground, and sleep a few minutes; then would awaken, almost drowned by the pitiless rain, and so sore and benumbed that I could scarcely stagger to my feet, and plod onward. ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... neither of these methods succeeded, when the meal hour had to be postponed, while I whetted my appetite, rather superfluously, with more miles of tramping. I was surprised to find I could go foodless for several days and still have strength to plod ahead and maintain my interest ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... been indefatigable in my service, and writes with such zeal for my interests, and such warmth of sorrow for my sufferings, as if he wrote with fire and tears. God bless him! I wish above all things to realize a school. I could be well content to plod from morning to night, if only I could secure a secure competence; but to toil incessantly for uncertain bread weighs me down ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... there's some excuse for the more vigorous sports," Evelyn maintained. "Of course, you can't eliminate a certain amount of cruelty; but, admitting that, isn't it just as well that men who live in a luxurious civilization should be willing to plod through miles of heather after grouse, risk their limbs on horseback, or spend hours in cold water? These are bracing things; they imply some moral discipline. It really can't be nice to ride at a dangerous fence, or to flounder down a rapid after an otter when you're stiff with cold. The ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... fine clothes there is a breast cancer-eaten, and at the bottom of the wine there is a bitter dreg called satiety; but Virtue does not much heed that; like the woman she is, she only notes that Sin drives a pair of ponies in the sunshine, while she herself is often left to plod wearily through the everlasting falling rain. So she dubs us "cynics" and leaves us—who can wonder if we won't follow her through the rain? Sin smiles so merrily if she makes us pay toll at the end; whereas Virtue—ah me, Virtue will ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... Felix, with a sort of half contempt in his tone; 'but these boys of ours are a different sort of stuff, and we have seen that it will never answer to pin them down to plod.' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... would cherish the trust which your fathers left, Ye must strive—ye must work—without ease. Strong have your good sires battled, oft have your fathers bled, If ye would hold up the flag which they've never let sag, Ye must plod—ye must creep where they've led. The shimmering icebergs call you; the plunging screw-drums scream, By shallowing shoals they haul you, to the beat of the walking beam. The twisting petrels chatter, ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... Lord of Coventry so fast? Bish. of Cov. To celebrate your father's exequies. But is that wicked Gaveston return'd? K. Edw. Ay, priest, and lives to be reveng'd on thee, That wert the only cause of his exile. Gav. 'Tis true; and, but for reverence of these robes, Thou shouldst not plod one foot beyond this place. Bish. of Cov. I did no more than I was bound to do: And, Gaveston, unless thou be reclaim'd, As then I did incense the parliament, So will I now, and thou shalt back to France. Gav. Saving your reverence, you must pardon me. K. Edw. Throw off his ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe

... the wagon and started homeward, but it was so dark that we had to plod along slowly. Old Sol was unusually torpid, as if the ominous obscurity had dazed him, too. After a time he stopped short and snorted; we heard the brush crackle and caught a glimpse of a large animal crossing ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... be won, I promise. So, Friend (my views to briefly sum), First, the collegium logicum. There will your mind be drilled and braced, As if in Spanish boots 'twere laced, And thus, to graver paces brought, 'Twill plod along the path of thought, Instead of shooting here and there, A will-o'-the-wisp in murky air. Days will be spent to bid you know, What once you did at a single blow, Like eating and drinking, free and strong,— ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... business selling fruit to the soldiers, and I once saw an old peasant woman, who was digging potatoes in her garden when a small shell burst about two hundred feet from her, shake her fist toward the German lines, mutter something, and plod angrily home to her cellar. There are rarely any children close to the trenches, but in villages that are only occasionally shelled, the school is open, and the class hurries to the cellar at ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... racy, even when they happened to be written in the pouring rain, in a shaking stagecoach, or by the light of a lantern. They were also promptly handed in at the office, despite the fact that the stages sometimes broke down and left their passengers to plod on foot through the miry roads leading into London. These reports and newspaper articles soon attracted attention; and Dickens received an offer for a series of humorous sketches, which grew into the famous Pickwick Papers, and ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... missionary's life is more ordinary than is supposed. Plod rather than cleverness is often the best missionary equipment." Rev. ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... gray-haired men in the church, and sallow-faced young men, who nodded their heads wisely and coolly, as they went out, and said, "An eloquent sermon, quite; but not much argument in it." As if all men were to plod to heaven on the vertebrae of an inexorable logic, and not—God willing—to be rapt away thitherward by the clinging force of a glowing and confiding heart! Alas, how the intellect droops in its attempt to measure or comprehend the infinite! How ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... thou rest, and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men,— The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... fairly good order until Bidwell's trail became a plain line leading up the hillside; then the stampede began. With wild halloos and resounding thwacking of mules they scattered out, raced over the hilltop, and disappeared, leaving Bidwell to plod ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... the piano is only a barrier—a wall between them and music. Their thoughts never seem to penetrate farther than the keys. They plod along for years apparently striving to make piano-playing machines of themselves, and in the end result in becoming ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke

... when thou dost plod, Alone, upon these wintry days, Along the old familiar ways Wherein ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... has been the history of trade and agriculture for generations. Nothing will ever convince me that it was intended for English agriculturists to go on using wooden ploughs, to wear smock-frocks, and plod round and round in the same old track for ever. In no other way but by science, by steam, by machinery, by artificial manure, and, in one word, by the exercise of intelligence, can we compete with the world. It is ridiculous to suppose we can do so by returning to the ignorance and ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... hard to cheer, but it was of no manner of use. All they could do was to plod on and drag their horses after them. The teams in the wagons halted again and again, panting and laboring, and every slight roll of the plain was a tremendous obstacle, but all was ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard

... occasion, and I am sure by this time that "want of cavalry" must be written on poor Methuen's. So you must figure to yourself a small army, an army almost all infantry, and an army tied to the railway on this march; and if we bring off no brilliant strategy, but simply plod on and take hard knocks, well, what else, I ask, under the circumstances ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... sleep. In a few huts Nadia again found a little mutton; but, contrary to Michael's hopes, there was not a single beast of burden in the country; horses, camels—all had been either killed or carried off. They must still continue to plod on across this ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was the first that could thus plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete. Think of it—I did not even exist! Let me but escape into my laboratory ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

... his eye On rusty mail, on battered shoon, and sigh, And murmur fitful curses and lament That in such base, unknightly garb he went— A lord of might whose broad shield bravely bore Of proud and noble quarterings a score. "And 't was forsooth for foolish ducal whim That he must plod abroad in such vile trim!" Revolving thus, his anger sudden woke, And, scowling, to the ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... the play of life plod from one to another scene, nor once rise to a height whence a glance might survey past and future. Memory and prophecy are twin sisters,—nay, they are essentially one muse, whom mankind worships on this side and slights on that. This is well, ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... as if she had seen him trimming hats, though she recognized the futility of trying to snatch the task from his hands in order to do it properly. The utmost she had been able to accomplish was to be allowed to plod daily from Gramercy Park to Fifth Avenue, in the hope of keeping bad from becoming worse; and even this insufficient oversight must be discontinued now, since Aunt Regina would monopolize her care. If she took the matter to heart, it was no more, she thought, than she had a right ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... craving exercise. The revolt of white women against this preordained destiny has in these latter days reached splendid proportions, but it is the revolt of an aristocracy of brains and ability,—the middle class and rank and file still plod on in the appointed path, paid by the homage, the almost mocking ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... going out of my quest. I could only plod along dismally, attentive to every movement of Shalah, praying incessantly that we might get well out of it all. To make matters worse, the travelling became desperate hard. In the Tidewater there were bridle paths, and in the ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... a motley, unattractive throng, They toil and plod, Dead to the holy ecstasies of song, ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... world will laugh when thou art gone And solemn brood of care plod on And each one as before will chase ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan

... going out as a governess, if she can find any one to take her, and Arthur is to plod on with Joe Jenkins, and Tom means to apply for the post of bell-ringer to the cathedral," interposed the incorrigible Annabel, who had once more darted in, and heard the last words. "Can you recommend Constance to a ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... "Well, plod along," replied Johnson. "Little boats keep near the shore. But, let me tell you, my young friend, your mind is rather too limited for a merchant of this day. There is Mortimer, who began business about the time you did. How much do you think ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur

... time she always had hold of my hand when I could spare it which was generally only when I read to her, for of course she and me had our bits of needlework to plod at and neither of us was very handy at those little things, though I am still rather proud of my share in them too considering. And though she took to all I read to her, I used to fancy that next to ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens

... sublime uprears; Plac'd on his chair of state, he seems a God, While Sophs and Freshmen, tremble at his nod. Whilst all around sit wrapt in speechless gloom, His voice in thunder shakes the sounding dome; Denouncing dire reproach, to luckless fools, Unskill'd to plod in mathematic rules. ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron

... are these that plod the road At dawn's first hour and evening's chime, Each back bent as beneath a load; Each sallow face afoul with grime? Nay, what are these whose little feet Scarce bear theme on to toil or bed! Do hearts within their bosoms beat? ...
— Selected Poems • William Francis Barnard

... for the shoddy goods And plod and plot and plan, And if you win the paltry prize Go prize it—if you can, But I would hurl it in your face To ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin

... in Saxony. Carl Proch was an honest farmer, who tilled a small tract of crown land and thereby supported his aged mother. Faithful to his duties, he had never a thought of discontent, but was willing to plod on in the way his father had gone before him. Filial affection, however, did not so far engross him as to prevent his casting admiring glances on the lovely Katrine, daughter of old Rauchen, the miller; and no wonder, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... back across the lawn, only to stop at the well in the garden, fill two buckets, and plod back to the firing-line again. He found plenty to do there; he helped Alixe, following her with his buckets where she passed among the wounded, the stained cross on her breast. Once a bullet struck a pail full of water, and he held his finger in the hole until the water ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... great misty world and his face was turned toward the east. He had no doubt that Auersperg had gone in that direction with Julie, and he meant to find her. But how? He prayed silently for the coming of Lannes with the Arrow. For such a search as this the swift aeroplane could serve while one might plod in vain over the ground. Lannes would come before the next night! He must come! If he had made an appointment for such a meeting nothing could delay him more than ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... study, momentarily forgotten. And in the case of the disliked study, every step is attended with toil. In some cases the child seems to learn every branch with the minimum effort, and with practically no effort; while in other cases the child has to plod wearily over every branch, as if breaking entirely new ground. And this continues into after life, when the adult finds this thing or that thing into which he naturally fits as if it were made for him, the knowledge concerning it coming to him ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson

... I continued with a weary monotony to plod, down to the very last line, and then da capo, and so on, in my uncomfortable half-sleep, for how long, I can't conjecture. I found myself at last, however, muttering, 'dead as a door-nail, so there was an end'; ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... tranquilly, and put some confidence in my goodwill, if not my power, to get on as well as may be, I shall not repine; but I verily believe that the "nobler sex" find it more difficult to wait, to plod, to work out their destiny inch by inch, than their sisters do. They are always for walking so fast and taking such long steps, one cannot keep up with them. One should never tell a gentleman that one has commenced a task till it is nearly ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... removal any one should think it worth his while to write my Life, I will give you a criterion by which you may judge of its correctness. If he give me credit for being a plodder he will describe me justly. Anything beyond this will be too much. I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... plod, plod away, Step by step in mouldering moss; Thick branches bar the day Over languid streams that cross Softly, slowly, with a sound Like a smothered weeping, In their ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... Stubborn patience and hard work are the sole remedies, or rather the sole means of temporary escape. Much of the Rambler is occupied with variations upon this theme, and expresses the kind of dogged resolution with which he would have us plod through this weary world. Take for example this passage:—"The controversy about the reality of external evils is now at an end. That life has many miseries, and that those miseries are sometimes at least equal to all the powers of fortitude is ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... force. They are all trimmed as much as possible to one pattern, and all make the same sad plaint. It is a day on which to thank God for the unknown tongue. The drover and his lad in dusty blue coats plod along stolidly, deaf and blind to all but the way before them; no longer wielding the crook, instrument of deliverance, or at most of gentle compulsion, but armed with a heavy stick and mechanically dealing blows on the short thick fleeces; ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless

... horse, ox, and ass, the three abreast, drag piles of country produce, jingling their fantastic harness, and primitive carts laden with red-soaked wine-casks rattle recklessly along; where bare-footed, girdled, and tonsured monks plod on their no-business, and every third man one passes is a rotund ecclesiastic, who never in his life walked at more than a mile an hour; where, at evening, carriages returning from the Villa Nazionale cram the thoroughfare ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... Crews and Jordan and Saxon. They're very dissimilar, but they've got something like the unifying motive of a monastery, and they're willing to serve and to plod and to be patient. I fight with Saxon because he's a pacifist, but like all pacifists he's a very pugnacious person, and he can get frightfully angry, but it's pitiful to see him when he's been angry, because he's so sorry afterwards. I'm not a pacifist, but I haven't ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... courtyard, under the spell of the starry, desert sky, I drifted back again in thought to the glorious days of Kublai Khan. My heart was hot with resentment that this thing had come. I realized then that, for better or for worse, the sanctity of the desert was gone forever. Camels will still plod their silent way across the age-old plains, but the mystery is lost. The secrets which were yielded up to but a chosen few are open now to all, and the world and his wife will speed their noisy course across the miles of rolling prairie, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, knowing ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... of his talents to the study of the law, distinguished him by the title of her Counsel extraordinary,—an office of little emolument, though valuable as an introduction to practice. But the genius of Bacon disdained to plod in the trammels of a laborious profession; he felt that it was given him for higher and larger purposes: yet perceiving, at the same time, that the narrowness of his circumstances would prove an insuperable bar to his ambition of becoming, as he once beautifully ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... was "an infidel!" Ah, no! The tale's incredible—it was not so. The untutored savage through the world may plod, Reckless of Heaven and ignorant of his God; But that a mind that's culled improvement's flowers From all her brightest amaranthine bowers, A mind whose keen and comprehensive glance Comprised at once a world—should worship chance, Is strangely inconsistent—seems ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

... and a short rest were welcome as the heat of the day came on, making the old dog plod wearily on with his tongue out, so that Stephen began to consider whether he should indeed have to be his bearer—a serious matter, for the creature at full length measured nearly as much as he did. They met hardly any one, and they and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... short section of our story we shall cram two months of history, taking but a furtive peep or two at our personages as they plod through it. ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... them down. Yet rather would I dwell With them, with wildness and its stealthy forms— Yea, rather with wild men, wild beasts and birds, Than in the sordid town that here may rise. For here I am a part of Nature's self, And not divorced from her like men who plod The weary streets of care in search of gain. And here I feel the friendship of the earth: Not the soft cloying tenderness of hand Which fain would satiate the hungry soul With household honey-combs and parloured ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair

... an' lang's the road! He fain at my side wud hae timed his plod, But, eh, he was sent for, an' hurried awa! Noo, I'm thinkin he's ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... instance, we can not highly praise the conduct of the narrative. It is full of improbable combinations. Persons and scenes are brought into juxtaposition, in a manner to violate every principle of vraisemblance. The effect is so to blunt the interest of the story, that we can hardly plod on to the winding-up. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... find it? The nearest town, where the only railway station then was, was eight miles off, and he was not likely to plod back thither again, and the village inn, five miles away, was little more ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Hold, sirrah; bear you these letters tightly; Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores. Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go; Trudge, plod away o' hoof; seek shelter, pack! Falstaff will learn the humour of this age; French thrift, you rogues; myself, ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... the dismal aftermath of battle seems to be concentrated along the highways, which are punctuated by dead men and dead horses thrown into the gutters to be out of the way. Long trains of horse-drawn wagons plod wearily along toward the front; the towns through which they pass are battered and nearly deserted; the poplars which line the roads are broken and gashed by shells, and the fields on either side are marred by shell craters and by the trenches of ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... he felt the strength of the new rich, and knew they had begun to transform the aristocracy, instead of the aristocracy transforming them. He knew that Veneering had carried off Twemlow in triumph. He very nearly knew what we all know to-day: that, so far from it being possible to plod along the progressive road with more votes and more Free Trade, England must either sharply become very much more democratic or as rapidly become very much ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... began to plod back along the road by which she had come not altogether full of hope, but full of a conviction that a crisis in her life was approaching. No crisis, apparently, had supervened; and there was nothing left for her to do but to continue upon that starve-acre farm till she could again summon courage ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... has often been urged before and far more often overlooked. We everyday folk plod year after year through routine, through fairly good or fairly bad, never quite realizing what we are experiencing, never seeing life as a whole, or any part of it, perhaps, in complete unity. Words, acts, sights, pass through our experience hazily, suggesting ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... face with life they would get smashed; but housework tempers the matter powerfully; and man's work out among other men; and then when children come and you have to contrive and pinch, why you just plod along and don't ever get flustered. It's just the first dash of cold water in the face, child; after that all lives is ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath nought to do with innocent laughter that can harm ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... the most barren cabin homes, wide-eyed, and eager to 'larn,' and grown-up men and women tramped barefoot miles and miles every day to try to get some of the 'larnin' they'd heard about. Then they would plod away with the utmost patience trying to read and write. It was intensely pathetic. Nothing has ever touched and interested me so much as some supply work I have done for our school," she added, a light upon her face, which thrilled ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins

... can such a mixture of races be seen, and each nationality was enjoying itself in its own peculiar fashion—all except the Chinese, who were, as usual, hard at work in their little dens. No recreation for this people. Work, work, work! They never play, never smile, but plod away, from early morning until late at night. The Chinaman's objection to giving his creditor in New York a note was because it "walkee, walkee alle timee; walkee, walkee, no sleepee." They seem to me to emulate these ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... log of man's fugitive castaway soul upon a doomed and derelict planet. The minds of all men plod the same rough roads of sense; and in spite of much knavery, all win at times "an ampler ether, a diviner air." The great poets, our masters, speak out of that clean freshness of perception. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... at the first trench. You understand he had been above ground all the time, while the fighters were in the trenches, where they had more protection. It was the over-fire that he was obliged to plod through, and you who have never seen a battle do not realize what a fierce thing this over-fire is. His orders having been safely delivered, Rene proceeded on his troubled way to the trench where he was to ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce

... Political Economy, gives us an account of this condition of things, as prevailing among the peasants in certain districts of Germany. "They labour early and late," he says, quoting from a German eulogist. "They plod on from day to day and from year to year, the most untirable of human animals." The German writer admires them as men who are their own masters. Mill holds them up as a shining and instructive example of the magic effect of ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... his old friend had to say, and felt sure that he could and would follow the advice given. Never before had right living seemed so attractive, and the path of duty so luminous. But the thought that chiefly filled him with joy was that henceforth he would not be compelled to plod forward as a weary pilgrim. He felt that he had wings; some of the divine strength had been given him. He believed himself changed, renewed, transformed; he was confident that his old self had perished and passed away, and ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... Mechanic echoes of the Mantuan song? From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray, Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way? Yes, thus the Muses sing of happy swains, Because the Muses never knew their pains: They boast their peasant's pipes; but peasants now Resign their pipes and plod behind the plough; And few, amid the rural tribe, have time To number syllables and play with rhyme; Save honest DUCK, what son of verse could share The poet's rapture and the peasant's care? Or the great labours of the field degrade, With the new peril of a poorer ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe

... ever reach a world where we shall not have to plod through so much doubt and misgiving, and where our real feelings will ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... brightness— Thy rainbows, thy pearls, thy clear emerald green; On rapids still toss'd into foam of pure whiteness; On falls the most glorious that Earth has e'er seen! Strength acquiring, in admiring All as the matchless work of God; Can, with pleasure, leave such treasure, And my journey onward plod. ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... any man. The employer of Master Bean had to cringe before two. Nobody can last long against an office-boy whose eyes shine with quiet, respectful reproof through gold-rimmed spectacles, whose manner is that of a middle-aged saint, and who obviously knows all the Plod and Punctuality books by heart and orders his life by their precepts. Master Bean was a walking edition of Stepping-Stones to Success, Millionaires who Have Never Smoked, and Young Man, Get up Early. Galahad, Parsifal, and Marcus Aurelius, as I say, might ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... violent and tumultuous kinds of hunting, is not easily interested in the quieter and more lasting varieties of sport. He will joyfully chase the wild boar, when horses, dogs, and horns, with the admiration of his friends and servants, concur to keep his blood boiling; but he will not care to plod alone through the woods for a long afternoon on the chance of bringing home a brace of woodcock; nor can he mention fishing without a sneer. Being thus deprived of the chief resource by which Anglo-Saxons combine activity and indolence, the French nobility cultivated ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... but on the whole sparingly practise. Their snuffy old scholars will even be proud to decry them. Where once the simians swung high through forests, or scampered like deer, their descendants will plod around farms, or mince along city streets, moving constrictedly, slowly, their litheness ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.

... day the doubly bereaved man started on his lonely journey back to the Dakota claim, back to an empty house, with a gnawing pain in his heart and a constriction like an iron band about his throat; back to his broad fields to plod to ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland

... utterance to no sound, except to reply cheerfully whenever I addressed her. The exceeding roughness of the passage made our progress slow, and quite frequently we were all obliged to dismount, generally glad enough of the change, and plod forward for some distance on foot. I possessed no knowledge then as to where we were, the map having deceived me so often I had long since lost all confidence in it as a guide, but now, in this later day, I can trace our ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... sunshine every day; It warms the bones and breathes upon the heart; But you I see out-plod a little way, Bitten with cold; your cheeks and fingers smart. Would you were here, we might in temples lie, And look from azure into azure sky, And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... had been a change of the olden customs, and instead of the long chapter, through which Uncle Ephraim used to plod so wearily, there was now read the Evening Psalms, Aunt Betsy herself joining in the reading, which she mentally classed with the "quirks," but confessed to herself that it "was most as good as ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... Pieters without a check at the same toilsome plod and on to Nelthorpe. Here we began to approach the Dutch lines of investment round Ladysmith, and the advance of half an hour brought us to a very strong picket, where we were ordered to halt and rest. Nearly two hundred Boers ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... instructive, but the gradual falling away of our members makes evident to me how unlikely it is that any official commission will ever settle the claims of spiritualism. As Maxwell has said: 'It is a slow process, and he who cannot bring himself to plod patiently and to wait uncomplainingly for hours at a time will not go far.' I confess that the half-heartedness of our members has disappointed me. I told them at the outset not to expect entertainment, but they did. It ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... turned to cold dull rain, which was far more depressing. I wished the mineral springs at Borsek had never been discovered. It was too late to turn back to St Miklos, where I devoutly wished myself, so I had nothing to do but plod on with my waterproof tight round me. It was impossible to go fast, for in places the mud was very deep and the road was beset ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... plod, till the loose drift was passed as if in a nightmare, and he felt as if his legs were moving mechanically. How long this had been going on he could not tell, for at last the horror of the pursuit had numbed ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... road through the storm of the afternoon before, had worried not a little about him, and would have gone back to his aid, if they could have done so. But the wind and snow had been too fierce; and they could only plod on, hoping that his usual luck and cleverness would not desert him, and that he ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... cried triumphantly. "He amuses me that way sometimes, and my fascinations never disturb the even tenor of his thoughts: he will plod on with his foolish old mathematics with my head on his shoulder. There! I oughtn't to have said that," she added with a little ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... herself into the saddle the distant plod of hoofs pounding the cattle tracks reached her. For one instant she sat in doubt. Then, with a half-thought fear lest her hard pursuit of the wounded deer had left her tough broncho spent, she swung him about and vanished like a ghost ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... anything that lay in his power to have the master back once more as he used to be a few years ago. Why, the business seems to have lost all its spring, nowadays," Mr. Jarvis went on, mournfully. "We do well, of course, because we couldn't help doing well, but we plod along more like a machine. It was different altogether in the days when Mr. Weatherley used to bring out the morning orders himself and chaff us about selling for no profit. ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... most of us have made. Habit comes, and takes the edge off everything. We drag remembrance, like a lengthening chain, through all our life; and with remembrance come remorse and regret. 'The vision splendid' no more attends men, as they plod on their way through the weariness of middle life, or pass down into the deepening shadows of advancing and solitary old age. The best comes first, for the men who have no good but this world's. And some of you have got nothing in your cups but dregs that you ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... the arrival of the unwary enthusiast with well lined purse. Rich and poor, high caste and low, all come to the sacred city. Some travel in state by lordly elephant or camel caravan, others by railway; but none follow a surer avenue to eternal grace than those who plod on foot over the Great Trunk highway, sweeping diagonally across India, after the manner of Kipling's holy man from Thibet whose footsteps were watched over by Kim. The "business" of Benares being the bestowal of holiness, the ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... withdrew from the cart unsteadily, and mounted his donkey. For a moment he looked doubtfully up and down the road, then he turned the poor tired animal's head once more toward the village, and they began to plod back up the slope. ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown

... stony field on the ridge to plough, and Brindle must be shod, And at noon, through the lane from the farm-house, I see him slowly plod; In the strong frame, chewing his cud, he patiently stands, but see! The bands have been placed around him—he struggles to be free: But John and Timothy hammer away, until each hoof is arm'd, Then loosen'd Brindle looks all round, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... fierceness of his attacks, of his blasphemies, betrays the Catholic at heart. If he did not believe, why should he have displayed such continual scorn? No, Rops was not as sincere as his friends would have us believe. He made his Pegasus plod in too deep mud, and often in his most winged flights he darkened the blue with his satyr-like brutalities. But in the gay middle period his pages overflow with decorative Cupids and tiny devils, joyful girls, dainty amourettes, and Parisian putti—they ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... Robin] Hold, sirrah, bear you these letters tightly; Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores. Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go; 75 Trudge, plod away o' the hoof; seek shelter, pack! Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues; ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... Cross the other evening, when a lady asked to be taken up. The stage was full; the law forbids the taking of more than twelve passengers inside; a remonstrance was instantly raised by one or more of the passengers against taking her; and she was left to plod her weary way as she could. I think that could not have happened in New-York. In another instance, a stage-full of passengers started eastward from Hyde Park, one of the women having a basket of unwashed clothes on her knee. It was certainly inconvenient, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... requiring quick thought and quick decision. You like to reason things out; you want to know why before you go ahead. Your success lies in lines which require slow, thoughtful, careful reasoning, mature deliberation, and an ability to plod diligently through masses of ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... was high when he awoke, and then a colder, hungrier boy you never saw. Six miles from home was he. There was nothing for it but to plod along, for there were no houses on that road. One mile, two miles, he walked. He picked some apples by the road-side, but they were sour and hard. Sometimes he tried to run, but ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... can play the violin, and not one of the lads can, though they want to do it very much. But, best of all, Nat, you really care to learn something, and that is half the battle. It seems hard at first, and you will feel discouraged, but plod away, and things will get easier and ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... fortune to meet with any difficult points, I fret not my selfe about them, but after I have given them a charge or two, I leave them as I found them. Should I earnestly plod upon them, I should loose both time and my selfe, for I have a skipping wit. What I see not at the first view, I shall lesse see it if I opinionate my selfe upon it. I doe nothing without blithnesse; and an over obstinate continuation ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... hold for them, whether they plod along in the servitude from which they have never been lifted since the Cyrenian was laid hold upon by the Roman soldiers, and made to bear the cross of the fainting Christ—whether they find homes again in Africa, and thus hasten the prophecy of the psalmist, who said: "And suddenly ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... the window. A great house like this would have a watchman, but these quick shuffling footsteps were surely not the dull plod of a servant. They passed on to the grass and died away. I began to think of getting ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... courage an' plod along, that's my advice. If she's meant fer you, ye'll win her all right. I'm a great believer in the idea that our own'll come to us some day, an' often in ways we least expect. But, hello! ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... comfortable to man and horse, were you but once there, after plodding through the desolations. But from that Sazawa by the Luschnitz on to Budweis, mounting and falling in such fashion, there must be ninety miles or thereby. Plod along; and keep a sharp eye on the whirling clouds of Pandours, for those too have got across upon us,—added to the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... home he apologized to Jinny for that cut across her flanks by hanging the reins on the overhead hook, and letting her plod along at her own pleasure. He was saying to himself that he hoped he had done right to tell the child to hold her tongue. "It was just tomfoolery," he argued; "there was no sin about it, so confession wouldn't do her any good; on the contrary, it would hurt a girl's self-respect ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland

... stately birds stand in the foreground of the scenery of the valley.... Such ponderous bodies moving with slowly-beating wings give a great idea of momentum from mere weight, a force of motion without swiftness; for they plod along heavily, seeming to need every inch of their ample wings to sustain themselves." [Footnote: Birds of the ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... listened to their honest chat: Said one: "To-morrow we shall be Plod plod along the featureless sands, And coasting miles and miles of sea." Said one: "Before the turn of tide We will achieve the eyrie-seat." Said one: "To-morrow shall be like To-day, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti



Words linked to "Plod" :   walk, footslog, slosh, splash, slop, walking, tramp, splosh, squelch, slog, pad, plodder, plodding, squish, trudge



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com