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

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




Pricking   Listen
noun
Pricking  n.  
1.
The act of piercing or puncturing with a sharp point. "There is that speaketh like the prickings of a sword."
2.
(Far.)
(a)
The driving of a nail into a horse's foot so as to produce lameness.
(b)
Same as Nicking.
3.
A sensation of being pricked.
4.
The mark or trace left by a hare's foot; a prick; also, the act of tracing a hare by its footmarks. (Obs.)
5.
Dressing one's self for show; prinking. (Obs.)






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 |





"Pricking" Quotes from Famous Books



... project. Then I beat my tabor; 175 At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears, Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses As they smelt music: so I charm'd their ears, That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns, 180 Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them I' the filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell, There dancing up to the chins, that the ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... only an exaggerated sense of responsibility as nurse and housekeeper kept back the tears that were pricking like ten thousand needles at my eyes. Savagely I reproached myself for having been away, and for having no foreknowledge of the coming blow. In one of his bags my father had a flask of brandy, and, guided by his directions, I unearthed this and administered a little to the patient. Promising ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... are moving. Hark to the mingled din, Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin. The fiery duke is pricking fast across Saint-Andre's plain, With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France, Charge for the golden lilies—upon them with the lance! A thousand spurs are striking deep, a ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... in the amusement called "tipping the lion" which consisted in flattening the nose of the victim on his face and boring out his eyes with the fingers. There were also the "dancing masters," who made people dance by pricking them with swords, the "sweaters," who pricked their victims with swords till they fell exhausted, and the "tumblers," who set women on their heads and mutilated their limbs.[140] Others rolled women down hill in barrels, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... Street. These drunken desperadoes—the predecessors of the roysterers who, in the times of the Regency, "boxed the Charlies," broke windows, and stole knockers—used to find a cruel pleasure in surrounding a quiet homeward-bound citizen and pricking him with their swords. Addison makes worthy Sir Roger de Coverley as much afraid of these night-birds as Swift himself; and the old baronet congratulates himself on escaping from the clutches of "the emperor and his black men," who had followed him half-way down Fleet Street. He, however, boasts ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... crupper. Then up it heaved, and on we held, to ropes, and went off for half a mile over the hot, soft sand; Captain Kirke riding a pretty Arab pony. I'd never been on an elephant before, to my knowledge, nor had I ever experienced the sensation of the black hair pricking through thin trousers, or the besom of a tail whacking my boots—I consider we entered Bhamo with a good ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... mind with pricking force the thought of Mary Batchelor at her door, blind with weeping and pain—of the poor boy, dead in his prime. Did those two figures stand for the realities at the base of things—the common labours, affections, agonies, which ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Madelon, pricking up her ears at the sound of the words, for indeed they had a most familiar ring in them; "why, I could do that for you," she added after a ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... we hung over their eyes to ward off snow-blindness. However, he was by no means the only culprit, and he lost his own fringe to Nobby quite early in the proceedings. It was not that he was hungry, for he never quite finished his own feed. At any rate he enjoyed the few weeks before he died, pricking up his ears and getting quite excited when anything happened, and the arrival of the dog-teams each morning after he had been tethered sent him to bed with much to dream of. And I must say his master dreamed pretty regularly too. Michael was killed right in front of the Gateway ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... rumbling; And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. 110 Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives— Followed the Piper for their lives. From street to street he piped advancing, And step for step they followed dancing, 120 Until they came to the river Weser, Wherein all plunged ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... hour before he was conscious that he lived. At first he felt nothing but a dull quickening throb within his body. His feet and hands were ice-cold, and he swayed from side to side, feeling for his strength. Then came the pricking of ten thousand tiny needles in his limbs. His heart beat as though it would burst its prison. His whole frame quivered. His bristles stood stiff-pointed from their roots. As the heart-throb slowed, his muscles slackened ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... showed me a likely way. I remembered that the cliff hereabouts was of no great height and scalable in a score of places. Very cautiously, and sometimes sitting and straddling the ridge while my fingers sought a new grip, I mounted to the edge of a heathery down; and there, after pricking myself sorely among the furze-bushes that guarded it, found a passage through and cast myself at full length ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... about the resolute bearing of the boy which for a moment seemed to impress the horse himself, for, pricking his ears and rolling his bloodshot eyes upon him, he desisted from ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... within my troubled breast, That in our yard I saw a murderous beast, That on my body would have made arrest. With waking eyes I ne'er beheld his fellow; His colour was betwixt a red and yellow: Tipp'd was his tail, and both his pricking ears Were black; and much unlike his other hairs: The rest, in shape a beagle's whelp throughout, 120 With broader forehead, and a sharper snout: Deep in his front were sunk his glowing eyes, That yet, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... run you through," Cyril said, pricking Harvey sharply in the arm as he was urging Nellie ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... eye I behold Mrs. Bouncer, still with some traces of her late anxiety on her faithful countenance, balancing herself a little unequally on her bow fore-legs, pricking up her ears, with her head on one side, and slightly opening her intellectual nostrils. I send my loving and respectful ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... to our connoisseur in contes—your friend the Chamberlain? It comes to occur to me that the gentleman's wardrobe may be as scanty as my own, and the absence of his coat may be the reason, more than my unfortunate pricking with a bodkin, for his inexplicable ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... trials to go through in the first place. The Princess set off on her journey. She had to walk many weary miles across the moor, the cold wind blowing in her face, the rough ground pricking her tender feet. But she walked on and on till at last the morning broke and she saw a road before her, bordered on one side by a forest of trees, for she had reached the extreme edge of the moor. She had gone but a little way when she came to a small ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth

... of his feelings sometimes drives him. He was reclining upon a sofa when I entered, but immediately arose and motioned me to take a seat. I had scarcely occupied a comfortable looking stuffed back-piece of furniture, when a pricking sensation in the region of my coat-tails caused me to resume the perpendicular with amazing rapidity, and, upon looking down, I observed the point of a pin protruding through the cushion of the chair. The Secretary did not lose his gravity, but very heartily ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various

... was pretty early, mounted his litter, so soon as he saw the dawn, and the clerics and officers of all kinds went before without a thought of anything. When the good knight heard them he sallied forth from his ambush, and went charging down upon the rustics, who, sore dismayed, turned back again, pricking along with loosened rein and shouting, Alarm! alarm! But all that would have been of no use but for an accident very lucky for the holy father, and very unfortunate for the good knight. When the pope had mounted his litter, he ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... pricking a framed canvas in the drawing-room of Kent Villa, a mile from Gravesend; she was making, at a cost of time and tinted wool, a chair cover, admirably unfit to be sat upon—except by some severe artist, bent on obliterating discordant colors. To do her justice, her mind was not in ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... the most part, almost intolerably irksome to bear the strain of the fads and fancies, the nerves and frets of a delicate, child-bearing woman; he had wondered more than once if jolly cynics like Rokeby weren't right after all; the numerous small inroads upon his pocket had been unexpected, pin-pricking sort of shocks. But all this now receded; the hour was upon them, upon him, and the woman he loved; what did a spoiled dinner matter? What did a fretful quarrel matter, if only she won through? He begged the doctor's immediate presence as a man begging life; but he himself hurried ahead, back ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton

... the swimming teacher, his guilty conscience pricking him, and the knowledge of having been false to his superior strong within him, came sneaking into the kitchen, he was startled and horrified to find the lightkeeper awake and dressed. Mentally he braced himself for the battery of embarrassing questions which, he felt sure, he should ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... as well as her family, he had previously known. On the twenty-eighth of January, in the presence of the curate of Saint Martin and of the chaplain of the Bellesme hospital, the following incident occurred. As the child could not sew without pricking herself with the needle, nor use scissors without wounding her hands, they set her to shelling peas, placing a large basket before her. As soon as her dress touched the basket, and she reached her hand to begin work, the basket was violently ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.— Give me a case to put my visage in: [Putting on a mask.] A visard for a visard! what care I What curious eye doth quote deformities? Here are the beetle-brows shall blush ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... Duke de Morny's in honor of the Duchess's birthday. They gave a play called "Monsieur Choufleuri restera chez lui le.......," which the Duke wrote himself, and for which Offenbach composed the music inspired by the Duke, who vowed that he "really did make the most of it." But, his conscience pricking him, he added, "At least some!" which I ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... went through the streets. If another boy did anything to him, Karl would write some verses that made the fellow look like a fool, and we would all recite them just to see the poor fellow get mad. Such fun we had then. But, I tell you, we were awfully afraid of Karl's pin-pricking verses! ...
— The Marx He Knew • John Spargo

... but the most enviable part of her was her neck, which was blue in colour and of a velvet texture, and of course showed off her diamond necklace as no white throat could have glorified it. The high-born fairies obtain this admired effect by pricking their skin, which lets the blue blood come through and dye them, and you cannot imagine anything so dazzling unless you have seen the ladies' busts in the ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... has said that while at home he did not like to work. It must be judged that his mind was affected by a certain indolence, that he was capable enough when he addressed himself to any particular task, but not self-disposed to exertion. He felt no constant, pricking incitement to do his best; but was content to do fairly well, as well as was necessary for the immediate occasion. One of his comrades in the academy said in later years that he remembered him as "a very uncle-like sort of a youth.... He exhibited ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen

... to make a mark on the skin that will be permanent, you have to prick the colors into it so deeply that they will go through the basement layer and reach cells which will not grow toward the surface. This "pricking-in" operation is known as tattooing; and it is as foolish as it is painful, for blood-poisoning and other diseases may be carried into ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... while the blacks were carrying him, for fear they would become apprehensive and add to them. Presently his captors discovered that he was conscious, and as they had little stomach for carrying a heavy man through the jungle heat, they set him upon his feet and forced him forward among them, pricking him now and then with their spears, yet with every manifestation of the superstitious awe in which ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... suddenly smitten with this dreadful calamity, whilst looking over some Marocco leather; he fell instantaneously; afterwards, when he had recovered his senses, he described the sensation as that of the pricking of needles, at every part wherein the carbuncles afterwards appeared: he died the same day in defiance ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... has given up the old spiritual standards, what has he in place of them?" asked Mrs. Pendleton, and she had suddenly a queer feeling as if little fine needles were pricking her skin. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... arrows of the papooses or children, who, in turn, were wonderfully amused at the bad shots of the little pale-face. Now and then, to be sure, the vicious child of some chieftain would amuse itself by pricking Kitty's tender skin with a thorn, and hearing her scream in consequence; or, having seen the black-and-blue marks upon her delicate arms, caused by the rough handling of her captors, they would pinch her flesh and watch for the change of color with intense interest. One day they tried it ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge

... conscious of the neighborhood of his kind, might betray his presence with a sign of recognition, he hurried back, and standing beside the animal, caressed his glossy neck and won his attention with the low murmurs of his voice. The good steed remained silent, only pricking up his ears and peering through the branches as the patrol went clattering by. Harold waited till the trampling of hoofs died away in the distance, and judging, from their riding on without a challenge or a pause, that there was no sentry within hail, he mounted and rode boldly out into ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... resolutions he remained uneasy all that day. When he went out to them that afternoon he found only his wife Silvia there and it was plain to him that she too was alarmed, but alas, poor creature, she could tell him nothing, only lick his hands and face, and turn about pricking her ears at ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett

... with some affection of the brain, leading it to make somersaults in the air (6/46. Mr. W.J. Moore gives a full account of the Ground Tumblers of India ('Indian Medical Gazette' January and February 1873), and says the pricking the base of the brain, and giving hydrocyanic acid, together with strychnine, to an ordinary pigeon, brings on convulsive movements exactly like those of a Tumbler. One pigeon, the brain of which had been pricked, completely recovered, and ever afterwards occasionally ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... Sir Percivale sat him down under a tree, and made sorrow out of measure. Anon the yeoman came pricking after as fast as ever he might, and asked Sir Percivale, "Saw ye, sir, any knight riding on my black steed? It hath been taken from me by force, wherefore my lord will slay me in what place he ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler

... at Beatrice Cary with a fresh pricking of conscience. What, after all, had she done to deserve the chief condemnation? She had played with fire. Had they not all played with fire? She had looked upon a native as a toy fit to play with, to break and throw away. Did they not all, behind their seeming tolerance and Christian ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... seem that Whizzer heard and felt the pricking of pride at the reproof. He made a feint at being frightened by a jack rabbit which sprang out from the shade of a rock and bounced down the hill like a rubber ball. As if Whizzer had never seen a jack rabbit before!—he who had been born and reared upon the range ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... ticket them, in order that when Gargantua came to visit them he would find everything in perfect order. There was an air of truth about these promises. The poor shrew-mouse was, however, in spite of this speech, troubled by ideas from on high, and serious pricking of shrew-mousian conscience. Seeing that he turned up his nose at everything, went about slowly and with a careworn face, one morning the mouse who was pregnant by him, conceived the idea of calming his doubts and easing his ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... as a baby, and will totter against them, if he lives to decrepitude; with a brain as full of tingling thoughts, such as they are, as a limb which we call "asleep," because it is so particularly awake, is of pricking points; presenting a key-board of nerve-pulps, not as yet tanned or ossified, to the finger-touch of all outward agencies; knowing something of the filmy threads of this web of life in which we insects buzz awhile, waiting for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... slugs, but they can stretch their bodies into a small, thin form. When waiting for a victim they lengthen and sway their threadlike bodies to and fro, ready to launch out at the first opportunity. So gently do they commence their work that the pricking sensation is felt only when they are gorged with blood and begin to ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... consideration; for the other Asse being of the same purpose that I was of, by feigned and coloured wearinesse fell downe first, with all his burthen on the ground as though hee were dead, and he would not rise neither with beating nor with pricking, nor stand upon his legs, though they pulled him by the tail, by his legs, and by his eares: which when the theeves beheld, as without all hope they said one unto another, What should we stand here ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... herself to her bed, and lay there, stretched out, still and passive to the torture. Every now and then tears cut their way under her eyelids with a pricking pain. Every now and then the burn in her arm bit deeper; but her mind remained dull to this bodily distress. The trouble of her body, that had so possessed her when Owen laid his hands on her, had passed. She could have judged her pain to be wholly spiritual, its intensity so raised ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... great comfort to have aunt Madge so near. If it had been Susy instead, Prudy would have had no company but the sound of her breathing. It was of no use to try to wake Susy in the dead of night. Pricking her with pins would startle her, but she never knew anything even after she was startled. All she could do was to stare about her, cry, and act very cross, ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May

... Pelman, pricking up his ears at the smooth conciliation of eye and voice, warily circled the room, holding Mitchell's eyes as he went, selected a corner chair for obvious strategic reasons, pushed it against the wall, tapped that wall apprehensively with a backward-reaching ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... right glad and comforted is he thereof. And the duke is utterly dumfounded, for now he knows well that he is betrayed unless his force is the greater; he bids his men close their ranks and keep together. And the Greeks, in close array, have not gone far from them, for now they are spurring and pricking. On both sides they couch their lances and meet and receive each other as it behoved them to do in such a fight. At the first encounter, they pierce shields and shatter lances, cut girths, break stirrups; the steeds stand bereft of those who fall upon the field. ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... Germans drove women in front of them by pricking them with bayonets. The wounds were afterward seen by ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... When he lifted his hand, each separate finger became at once an additional point from which light streamed. There was no thunder, but a low hissing and a crackling which did not amount to noise, although distinctly audible to all. Sensations most unpleasant of pricking and general irritation were felt by every one, according to ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... would have searched for and applied at once, but I only thought of it this morning. You see one of my uncle's men had a little accident, and an Indian went out to gather the gum. I happened to see him pricking the blisters on the trees and gathering the gum in a dish and I inquired why he was doing it. He explained to me, and this morning when I saw the cut, it suddenly came to me that if I could find balsam in the neighbourhood it would be helpful. ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... to be a fair, fat baby; and while her teeth were pricking through, like little pointed pearls, Susy's front teeth were dropping out. Then she grew to be a toddling child; and while she was learning to walk, Prudy was beginning to sew patchwork. For time does not stand still; it passed, minute by minute, over the heads of Susy, Prudy, and Alice, ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May

... word of direction to the maid as she lifted the portieres, Mrs. Markham entered the drawing room. Pricking with a sense of impatience, tinctured by nervousness over his own folly, Robert H. Norcross awaited her there. She stood a moment regarding him; in that moment, the quick perception, veiled away by an expression of thought, to which the ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin

... Winifred from the mattress in Primrose Court. So numbed was my brain that I at last pinched myself to make sure that I was awake. In doing this I seemed to feel in one of my coat pockets a hard substance. Putting my hand into the pocket, I felt the sharp corner of a letter pricking between a finger and its nail. The acute pain assured me that I was awake. I pulled out the letter. It was the one that the servant at the bungalow had given me in the early morning when I called to get my bath. I read the address, which ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... moving. Hark to the mingled din Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin. The fiery duke is pricking fast across Saint Andre's plain, With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne. Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France, Charge for the golden lilies—upon them with the lance! A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest, A thousand knights ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... had, however, made his escape from the wreck and found his way back again to Shoreby. He was now at Arblaster's heels, and, suddenly sniffing and pricking his ears, he darted forward and began to bark furiously at the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... see her pricking up her ears again, but she said little this time, and I went on to tell her of Bolton's two talks with me. When I came to his discovery her ardour was fairly aflame again, yet she still seemed to be holding ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston

... yellow friend, the cat, lay upon the hearth-rug, basking in the warmth of the fire, pricking up her ears, and turning her head from the children to Grandfather, and from Grandfather to the children as if she felt herself very sympathetic with them all. A loud purr, like the singing of a tea-kettle or the hum of a spinning-wheel, testified that she was as comfortable and happy ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... went out and sat in a row on the upper step, like birds on a telegraph wire, and papa read it aloud. I am lying by to-day—writing, reading, lounging, and enjoying the scenery. You ought to see papa eat strawberries!!! They are very plentiful on our hill. The grass on the lawn is pricking up like needles; easy to see if you kneel down and stare hard, but absolutely invisible otherwise; yet papa keeps calling me to look out of the window and admire it, and shouts to people driving by to do the same. He has just ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... such a manner that they only stick out about the tenth part of an inch, they prick the skin all over the mark, and then rub charcoal dust over the part, which enters the punctures, and leaves a mark that can never be effaced. This pricking generally gives a fit of sickness to the patient, who is obliged for some time to live only on boiled maiz. The warriors also pierce the lower part of their ears, and make a hole an inch diameter, which they fill with iron wire. Besides these ear-rings they have a belt hung ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... in shades of the night, His ears pricking up, and his hoofs striking light, And his tail whisking round, in the ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... untold. He can forget his oaths of the day before, let the fire burn upon the hearth and the candle sink to its socket,—in short, go to sleep again in spite of pressing work. He can curse the expectant boots which stand holding their black mouths open at him and pricking up their ears. He can pretend not to see the steel hooks which glitter in a sunbeam which has stolen through the curtains, can disregard the sonorous summons of the obstinate clock, can bury himself in a soft place, saying: "Yes, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... look over the weather quarter, sweep the horizon knowingly with your best eye, and after, walk forward towards the galley or kitchen, pricking your ears at certain sputtering and hissing sounds, the which, backed up by sundry savoury sniffs caught under the tack of the main-sail, give you foretaste of broiled ham, spitch-cock, eggs, frizzled bacon, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... anxiety which brings on her night wandering. Another current explanation also seems to me to have little ground. As Brandes has recently interpreted it, "The sleep walking scene shows in the most remarkable fashion how the pricking of an evil conscience, when it is dulled by day, is more keen at night and robs the guilty one of sleep and health." Now severe pangs of conscience may well disturb sleep, but they would hardly create sleep walking. Criminals are hardly noctambulists. Macbeth ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... islands marked on the chart in this region, possibly the islands reported by the shipwrecked pilot, possibly the island of Antilla; and Pinzon said he thought that they were somewhere in the region of them, and the Admiral said that he thought so too. There was a deal of talk and pricking of positions on charts; and then, just as the sun was setting, Martin Alonso, standing on the stern of the Pinta, raised a shout and said that he saw land; asking (business-like Martin) at the same time for the reward which had been promised to the first one who should see land: They ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... little singing afar off, as if from a distant convocation of cicadae, and before Henderson could guess what it meant, a cloud of dust was upon him, blinding and bewildering, pricking with sharp particles at eyes and nostrils. The pony was an ugly fellow, and when Henderson felt him put his forefeet together, he knew what that meant, and braced himself for the struggle. But it was useless; he had ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie

... for me. The Mother Prioress wants me. Good, now I am pricking myself on the tongue of my buckle. Monsieur Madeleine, don't stir from here, and wait for me. Something new has come up. If you are hungry, there is wine, bread ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... I thought of venturing boldly into their midst and appearing openly at Aix; but this would probably end in abruptly pricking the bubble, and nothing more was to be done. I thought of sending Philpotts to hunt up the Colonel and convey a letter to him detailing my situation, and was much taken with this idea, which I presently rejected because I did not clearly see what good could come of it. I ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... Shefford had grown involuntarily restless, and when her last tragic whisper ceased all his body seemed shaken with a terrible violence of his joy. He strode to and fro in the dark shadow of the stone. The receding blood left him cold, with a pricking, sickening sensation over his body, but there seemed to be an overwhelming tide accumulating deep in his breast—a tide of passion and pain. He dominated the passion, but the ache remained. And he returned to the quiet ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... all the day complayne, and when the medicine is brought them, are no longer sicke: as they who all the weeke long runne vp and downe the streetes with payne of the teeth, and seeing the Barber comming to pull them out, feele no more payne: as those tender and delicate bodyes, who in a pricking pleurisie complaine, crie out, and cannot stay for a Surgion, and when they see him whetting his Launcet to cut the throate of the disease, pull in their armes, and hide them in the bed, as, if ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay

... He had not been ashamed to betray his benefactor, to bite the hand that fed him, to desert a wounded comrade; but he was ashamed to confront his own blunder. I had the satisfaction of pricking, not his conscience, for he had none, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... the signal-guns were fired. At the first thundering report the steeds began to rear and plunge; at the second they grew quite still, alertly pricking up their ears; one or two of the old racers slightly pawed the ground. Then the third report sounded, and the same instant the whole row ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... pricking quills," they called. "Blackbanded father, we seek your aid. Look now! The Mother-maidens of Seed whose substance is the food alike of thy people and our people, have fled away. Neither our grandfather the Eagle, nor his younger brother the Falcon, can trace them. ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson

... foes are coming! Hark to the mingled din Of fife and steed, and trump and drum, and roaring culverin! The fiery duke is pricking fast across St. Andre's plain, With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almagne. Now, by the lips of those we love, fair gentlemen of France, Charge for the golden lilies now—upon them with the lance!' A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... events long ago forgotten danced before his eyes. He was not sure he could draw his finger out of the hole even if he wished to do so, it felt so strangely numb. What did it mean that knives seemed to be cutting, and pins pricking him from head to foot? What would happen if no one ever found him—no one ever came ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... felt as if a hundred pins and needles were pricking at his memory, for there rose up in it certain doubts and troubles touching Richard Hare and one Thorn. He laid his eager hand upon the other's arm. "Ebenezer James, what ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... themselves. They tell of one who hung herself from the end of the pole of a wagon, with her children tied dangling at her heels. The men, for want of trees, tied themselves, some to the horns of the oxen, others by the neck to their legs, that so pricking them on, by the starting and springing of the beasts, they might be torn and trodden to pieces. Yet for all they thus massacred themselves, above sixty thousand were taken prisoners, and those that were slain were said to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... professor was aware of a pricking along his spine. He looked at the unconscious face of the girl ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... from face to face. It was plain that he was angered rather than dismayed; he was like a bull at bay, shaking the pricking darts out of his shoulders. He took a hasty glance at his watch. 'Twas twenty minutes past the hour appointed for the calling of the convention. He could hear the distant band still bellowing bravely ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... refusal infuriated him. In the rush of feeling he lost what little judgment he might otherwise have had. He had meant to placate her by a temporary gentleness, to be offset by future brutalities. Now, in his rage, he forgot discretion under the pricking of lawless impulse. He reached out and dropped a huge hand on Plutina's shoulder, and twisted her about with a strength she was powerless to resist. The clutch of his fingers cut cruelly into her flesh, firm though it was, and she ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... creature, who had before stood stone still, without displaying the slightest inclination to move, and who in fact gave no farther indication of existence than occasionally rolling his eyes and pricking up an ear, sprang forward like a racehorse, at a most desperate gallop. I had expected that he might kick or fling himself down on the ground, in order to get rid of his burden, but for this escapade I was quite unprepared. I had no difficulty, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... fierce fume broke through Aderklaa; But Bellegarde, pricking along the plain behind, Has charged and driven them back disorderly. The Archduke Charles bounds thither, as I shape, In person ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... 20th. All the evening pricking down some things and trying some conclusions upon my viall, in order to the inventing a better theory of musique than hath yet been abroad; and I think verily I shall do it. This day at Court I do hear that Sir W. Pen do command this summer's fleet; and Mr. Progers ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... and his laughter there was a serious denunciation of any kind of intellectual restraint, however mild-seeming; beneath his verbal pin-pricking there was conversely an exoneration of man's right to inquire, to profess, and to persuade. Beneath his jests and sarcasms there was further a firm philosophical commitment that informed the rhetoric of all his earlier ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... privation. It was long before our football- field rose again from the deeps, and was dry enough for play. Its goalposts pricking up mournfully through the floods were a landmark which the boys recognised with rueful eyes in the midst of the drowned and ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine

... recketh he his rider's angry stir, His flattering 'Holla', or his 'Stand, I say'? 284 What cares he now for curb or pricking spur? For rich caparisons or trapping gay? He sees his love, and nothing else he sees, Nor nothing else with his proud ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare

... of hopelessness and definite belief in unbelief. But it would be strictly just to describe him at this time, at any rate, as a merely destructive person. He was one whose main business was, in his own view, the pricking of illusions, the stripping away of disguises, and even the destruction of ideals. He was a sort of anti-confectioner whose whole business it was to take the ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... pointing. It was long since he, had been in the field; on the grey expanse it was hard to distinguish the grey rabbit, especially amid the stones. The Judge pointed him out; the poor hare was crouched cowering beneath a stone, pricking up its ears; with a crimson eye it met the gaze of the hunters; as if bewitched, and conscious of its destiny, for very terror it could not turn its eye away from theirs, but beneath the rock crouched dead as a rock. ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... prickt, will euer rot. Againe, you must gather your fruit cleane without leaues or brunts, because the one hurts the tree, for euery brunt would be a stalke for fruit to grow vpon: the other hurts the fruit by bruising, and pricking it as it is layd together, and there is nothing sooner rotteth fruit, then the greene and withered leaues lying amongst them; neither must you gather them without any stalke at all: for such fruit will begin to rot ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson

... and camels. Whatever form it takes it seems to be so arranged that it cannot be stepped over or circumvented—one must in consequence walk through it and be pricked, unpleasantly. Camels and horses suffer rather severely sometimes, the constant pricking causing sores on their legs. So long, however, as a camel does not drag his hind legs he will be no worse treated than by having all the hair worn off his shins. The side of the foot is an easily affected spot, and a raw there, gives them great pain and ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... he comes with speed, William of Deloraine, And Hereward the Wake himself is pricking o'er the plain. The good knight of La Mancha's here, here is Sir Amyas Leigh, And Eric of the gold hair, pride of Northern chivalry. There shines the steel of Alan Breck, the sword of Athos shines, Dalgetty on Gustavus rides along the ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang

... Metals is tested by placing discs of different metals, copper, zinc, lead, and gold, or the poles of a magnet, on the frontal and occipital parts of the patient's head. Sometimes he feels pricking or heat, giddiness, somnolence, or a sense of bodily well-being. In general, criminals show great sensibility to metals; in hysterical persons this sensibility reaches an extraordinary degree of acuteness. By applying a magnet to the nape of the neck, the sensations of such ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... 1/4 inch thick and cut into squares. Pare and core apples and place one in center of each square. Fill each with a portion of the seasonings, sugar, raisins and dot with butter. Bring corners of the dough to the top of the apples and seal by pricking with a fork. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. ...
— Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking • Unknown

... the tea-table with a little inward pricking of conscience for wishing him gone. She wondered if he deemed her inhospitable, but if he did he disguised it very carefully, for his eyes held nothing but friendliness as they ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... and snuffed the air, pricking up his ears, tossing his head, and turning it on all sides, as if he partly suspected some mischief or other. Seeing nothing, however, and hearing no sound, he soon began ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... bad with a chill, or a jack-rabbit crept up and bit me to death, or anything. You see, there's a train of twenty-five big J. Murphy wagons will be along here over the San Bernardino trail. They are coming out of their way, almost any time now, on purpose to pick me up. Fact is, my ears have been pricking up all morning to hear the old bull-whips crack. There were thirty-one men in the train when they went down, and there may be more coming back. It's a train of Ezra Calkins, my adopted father. You see, they know I've been here on special business, and I sent ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... this letter he regarded it as only a passing cloud-shadow. "To-day I have a long letter from Greeley, full of sharp, pricking thorns," he wrote Weed. "I judge, as we might indeed well know from his nobleness of disposition, that he has no idea of saying or doing anything wrong or unkind; but it is sad to see him so unhappy. Will there be ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... save by confession, and this, in general, could be extracted only by the infliction of pain. It is instructive to note that in England where the spirit of the law was averse to torture, no progress in witch-hunting took place until a substitute for the rack had been found, first in pricking the body of the witch with pins to find the anaesthetic spot supposed to mark her, and secondly in depriving her ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... dirhems in a monastery there. After awhile, I went thither and taking the money, bound it about my middle. [Then I set out to return] and when I came to the desert, the carrying of the money was burdensome to me. Presently, I espied a horseman pricking after me; so I [waited till he came up and] said to him, "O horseman, carry this money [for me] and earn reward and recompense [from God]." "Nay," answered he; "I will not do it, for I should weary myself and weary my horse." ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... Knight[*] was pricking on the plaine, Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine, The cruel markes of many'a bloudy fielde; Yet armes till that time did he never wield: 5 His angry steede ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... fagged out early in the after noon, but they now began to show new vigor. Among the more astute there was a certain restlessness—an impatience at the restraint of the traces, an indecisive quickness of movement, a sniffing of snouts and pricking of ears. These became incensed at their more phlegmatic brothers, urging them on with numerous sly nips on their hinder quarters. Those, thus chidden, also contracted and helped spread the contagion. At last the ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London

... pictures. The European forest, with its long glades and green, sunny dells, naturally suggested the figures of armed knight on his proud steed, or maiden, decked in gold and pearl, pricking along them on a snow-white palfrey; the green dells, of weary Palmer sleeping there beside the spring with his head upon his wallet. Our minds, familiar with such, figures, people with them the New England woods, wherever the sunlight ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... to wait so long that at length he grew drowsy, and in order to keep awake he was just pricking himself with the branch of a neighbouring thorn-bush, when birr! whizz! a great bird dashed out of the hole and made off ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... are valuable as symptoms. They become larger and firmer, and the seat of a pricking or stinging sensation. The nipples are swollen, prominent, and sometimes sore or painful. The veins beneath the skin appear more conspicuous, and of a deeper blue than ordinary. The peculiar circles of ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... hobbling painfully into the distance, and in his pale blue eyes came that pricking ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... and simultaneous pricking of the closely-cropped ears of Juno and Bess proclaim that among the many footsteps outside they have detected the tread of ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty

... groaning, the torrent roaring, the snow falling all round; miles and miles away from human creatures. I fancied I saw it all, and that I, somehow, was Marcantonio Frangipani come to liberate her—or was it Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi? I suppose it was because of the long ride, the unaccustomed pricking feeling of the snow in the air; or perhaps the punch which my professor ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... Duke the wound had no salve, no consolation. When he was told that this young Tregear was the owner of his girl's sweet love, was the treasure of her heart, he shrank as though arrows with sharp points were pricking him all over. "I will not hear of such ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... the bank, thinking to gaze my fill at all this loveliness, and sat upon the puke, a feathery plant exquisite to the eye, but a veritable bunch of gadflies for pricking meanness. It is a sensitive shrub, retreating at man's approach, its petioles folding from sight, but with all its modesty it left me a stinging reminder that I had failed to respect ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... she could go on sewing at the hem and pricking her finger for ever if Mamma would only keep ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... His whip he plies, And bellows down the wind. The lightning rash With blinding flash Comes pricking on behind. ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... both. Van and his rider flew easily along, bounding over the springy turf with long, elastic stride, horse and rider taking the rapid motion as an every-day matter, in a cool, imperturbable, this-is-the-way-we-always-do-it style, while my poor old troop-horse, in answer to pressing knee and pricking spur, strove with panting breath and jealously bursting heart to keep alongside. The foam flew from his fevered jaws and flecked the smooth flank of his apparently unconscious rival; and when at last we returned to camp, while Van, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... far from these is the figure of a lady, one of the Maids of Honour to Queen Elizabeth, who is said to have bled to death by only pricking her finger ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... a somewhat false ring in this laugh. Face to face with the avowed trustfulness of his wife, Sulpice experienced a slight pricking of conscience. He thought of Marianne. His passion increased tenfold, but this very increase of affection made him afraid. He hastened to find himself again at Rue Prony. The Hotel Beauvau depressed him. It became ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... drift, we drift! Sometimes the sun shines bright on the wave, and the wheeling birds dip and hover, and our heart is full of song. But sometimes we plunge on rising billows, with the wind wailing, and the rain pricking the surface with needle-points; we are weary and uncomforted; and we do not know why we suffer, or why we are glad. Sometimes I have a far-off hope that I shall know, that I shall understand and be satisfied; but sometimes, alas, ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... taste of the once eagerly swallowed morsel is all but gone, but the morsel is still sought and swallowed. Impulses wax as motives wane, the victim is like an ox tempted on the road to the slaughter-house at first by succulent fodder held before it, and at last driven into it by pricking goads and heavy blows. Many a man is so completely wrapped in the net which his own evil deeds have made for him, that he commits the sin once more, not because he finds any pleasure in it, but for no better reason than that he has already committed it often, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... to meet Lize Jane, I always felt as if I was stealing raisins. I never exactly stole raisins; but when my mother said I might go to the box and get two or three, I had sometimes taken a whole handful. I knew by the pricking of my conscience that that was wrong, and in the same way I knew that this was wrong too. Mother was in the green chamber, covering an ottoman with green carpeting, so she wouldn't see me from ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May

... charmed their ears, That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns, Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... Padishah!" cried the Kizlar-Aga, throwing himself to the ground and hiding his face in his hands, "the Sultana Asseki would have me remind thee that thou do not neglect to ask counsel from Allah by the pricking of the Koran, before thou hast come to any resolution, as was the custom of thine illustrious ancestors as often as they had to choose ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... Marsilio Ficino, and others,—but always of flesh-and-blood people, living, moving, and having a being. That group of Platonists, with their looks of profound wisdom and dogmatic eloquence, are lifting their forefingers, pricking up their ears, opening their mouths, (each obviously interrupting the flow of the others' rhetoric,) in most lifelike fashion. One almost catches the winged syllogisms as they fly from lip to lip. We are almost drawn into the dispute ourselves, and are disposed to ventilate a score of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... under the dead leaves of the prickly 'Spaniard,' and possibly fed on the roots. The Spaniard leaves forked into stiff upright fingers about 1 in. wide, ending in an exceedingly stiff pricking point." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... Huntingdon, in England, in the years 1645 and 1646. The title he assumed indicates the part he acted: it was "Witch-finder-general." He travelled from place to place; his expenses were paid; and he required, in addition, regular fees for the discovery of a witch. Besides pricking the body to find the witch-mark, he compelled the wretched and decrepit victims of his cruel practices to sit in a painful posture, on an elevated stool, with their limbs crossed; and, if they persevered in refusing to confess, he would prolong their torture, in some cases, to more than twenty-four ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... before she offered Her aid to fair Juanna, whose excess Of modesty declined the assistance proffered: Which passed well off—as she could do no less; Though by this politesse she rather suffered, Pricking her fingers with those cursed pins, Which surely were invented for ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... making camp. They held steadily on through a deepening gloom that vanished under a sky of light—great, glittering stars half veiled by a greenish vapor of pulsing aurora borealis. His dogs first caught the noises of the camp, pricking their ears and whining in low eagerness. Then it came to the ears of the humans, a murmur, dim with distance, but not invested with the soothing grace that is common to distant murmurs. Instead, it was in a high, wild key, a beat ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... was not precisely the same among all the Indian tribes. The Pawnee sign for "wolf" was the first finger of each hand stuck up alongside the head, like ears pricking. But it was a sign easily read. All the signs were sensible and initiative. When the "future" was meant, the finger was thrust ahead with a screwing motion, as if boring; when the "past" was meant, the hand ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... cleft the feast in twain. For Dion his son, on grievance unknown, if it were not rather the hostility of Heaven, hanged himself; and be sure he was a dead man, had I not been there, and dislocated and loosed him from his implication. Long time I squatted a-knee, pricking and rocking, and sounding him, to see whether his throat was still whole. What profited most was compressure of the extremities ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... interposed, "he is delighted to be distinguished by you in any way. But, by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked"—and Colonel Colquhoun came out on to the terrace through the drawing room behind us. He shook hands with us all, his wife included, and ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... knife into your mouth,[*] opening the hand next vnto it, and thrust vp the other, so as it may appeare to the standers by, that you haue deliuered your hands thereof, and thrust it into your mouth: then call for drinke, after countenance made of pricking, and daunger &c. lastly, put your hand into your lap, and taking that knife into your hand, you may seeme to bring it out from behinde you, or from whence you list: but if you haue another like knife, and a confederate, ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid

... cry out at the inhumanity of one who, as things are to-day, should propose the substitution of pricking or cutting or burning for whipping? It would, however, be easy to show that small jabs or pricks or cuts are more human than the blows many children receive. Why may not lying be as legitimately cured by blisters made with hot coals as by black and blue ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... the same kind of substance with the surface, as long as the strokes could be heard. The horse, instinctively sagacious in avoiding danger, shrinks back in alarm from the least of these chasms, pricking up his ears, snorting and pawing, until permitted ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... are irritated by being roughly touched, or by the pressure of minute inorganic particles, or by contact with animal matter, or by the absorption of carbonate of ammonia, the tentacles become inflected; the basal portion being the chief seat of movement. Cutting or pricking the blade of the leaf did not excite any movement. They frequently capture insects, and the glands of the inflected tentacles pour forth much acid secretion. Bits of roast meat were placed on some glands, and the tentacles began to move ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... it, Andy,' said father. 'Keep a good look out that the beasts do not get at you; if they do, depend upon it, they will give you cause to repent your hunt. See! the natives are pricking them up with the points of their spears. Stand back so as to give him a wide berth, and we will let the natives see that some things can be done as well ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... and Gale was cold and wet with dew. Hunger and thirst were with him. His bones ached, and there was a dull, deep-seated pain throbbing in his unhealed wound. For days unshaven, his beard seemed like a million pricking needles in his blistered skin. He was so tired that once having settled himself, he did not move hand or foot. The night was dark, dismal, cloudy, windy, growing colder. A moan of wind in the mesquite was occasionally pierced by the high-keyed ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... this is a strictly candid history, I will at once confess the truth, on behalf of my hero and his brothers and sisters. They had spent the morning in decorating the old church, in pricking holly about the house, and in making a mistletoe bush. Then in the afternoon they had tasted the Christmas soup and seen it given out; they had put a finishing touch to the snow man by crowning him with holly, and had dragged the yule-logs home from the carpenter's. And now, ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... their ears, drew in their tails, and struck into their customary trot, but even old Mack looked back frequently, as if reluctant to face such a pricking and scarifying wind. The men felt the cold still more keenly, although they had taken care to cover every bit of the face except one eye, and that was completely blinded at times by the ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... with one finger extended, in reality to direct attention to the death's-head at her feet. Cf. Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, Letter xiii., in which the guide to the Abbey 'talked of a lady who died by pricking her finger; of a king with a golden head, and ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... as pinpoints pricking his body. His brain was like a church, the organ of music filling it, thundering, reverberating, dying away; and then, as he lay back exhausted, low, subtle, insinuating ran the theme in his ears, ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... asserted a society that probes pitilessly at secrets until all is apparent. His late companion's chance persistency made him feel that he could not keep his crime concealed in his bosom. It was sure to be brought plain by one of those arrows which cloud the air and are constantly pricking, discovering, proclaiming those things which are willed to be forever hidden. He admitted that he could not defend himself against this agency. It was not within the power ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... by the use of finely powdered charcoal, soot or gunpowder, the pricking instrument being made by tying together a small number of needles; though formerly, it is said, fish spines or sharp splinters of bone were used for the purpose. The marks consist of round spots of one-half to three-fourths of an inch in diameter immediately over ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... enrolled—was infinitely gratifying to me. The sides of the first room were quite embossed with suspended shields, cuirasses, and breast-plates. The floor was almost filled by champions on horseback—yet poising the spear, or holding it in the rest—yet almost shaking their angry plumes, and pricking the fiery ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... scented the distant stables, and was pricking forward her beautiful ears as I unslung my broad hat of plaited palmetto and placed it on my head, the better to salute my hosts when I should ride to their threshold in the Spanish fashion we ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... indications and symptoms of a witch, are reckoned various bodily marks and spots, said to be insensible to pain (page 20), inability to shed tears, &c. The pricking of witches was at one time a lucrative profession both in England and Scotland, one of the most noted prickers being a wretched imposter named Matthew Hopkins who was sent for to all parts of the country ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts

... over. For his feet were so completely benumbed that he had no feeling in them, and when he attempted to rise his ankles gave way under him and let him down again upon the deck. Then, as the blood once more began to circulate through his benumbed extremities, the pricking and tingling that followed soon grew so excruciatingly painful that he fairly groaned and ground his teeth in agony. To allay the pain I chafed his arms and legs vigorously, and in the course of a few minutes ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... and back to the natural pace, a gait as swinging and smooth as running water—yet still the road poured beneath them at the speed of an ordinary gallop. It was music to Terry Hollis, that matchless gait. He leaned and murmured to the pricking ears with that soft, gentle voice which horses love. The glorious head of El Sangre went up a little, his tail flaunted somewhat more proudly; from the quiver of his nostrils to the ringing beat of his black hoofs he bespoke his confidence that he bore the king of ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... skin is tender, or the feet perspire, wash with warm salt water or alum water, but do not soak the feet a long time, as this, although very comforting at the time, tends to keep them soft. Should blister's appear on the feet, prick and evacuate them by pricking at the lower edge with a pin which has been passed through the flame of a match and cover them with zinc oxide plaster applied hot. This plaster can be obtained on request at the regimental infirmary. If serious abrasions appear on the feet, or corns, bunions, and ingrowing ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... might be done, though hardly—over these Suffolk roads. But being very much alive with a voice to scream with, hands to fight with, a brain to think with and friends who know her from here to Yarmouth, or to Hull, and Monsieur Grey Dick's arrows pricking us behind ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... once. When the work is finished, remove the cork from the board, wash and dry thoroughly. A little oil on the needles will prevent rusting. With needles of the size suggested there is little danger of the points breaking, but it is worth remembering that the use of pricking machines was abandoned in curing prunes on a commercial scale in California because the steel needles broke and remained ...
— Canned Fruit, Preserves, and Jellies: Household Methods of Preparation - U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletin No. 203 • Maria Parloa

... pathetic colours, wringing a sigh from us as we scan its pages, or halt a space in the museum of Mexico's capital before the gilded tawdry coach of the ill-fated Austrian, which is preserved there in musty ruin. For up rose Napoleon III., pricking up his ears at this suggestion of a monarchy in America; and, urged by him, the tripartite convention by France, Spain, and England was brought to being in London, October, 1861, whose purpose was—or, at any rate by the British and Spanish—intervention and the enforcement of the just claims of ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... acquainted and familiar with the Prussians, having been in intercourse with them for the past three months and making the best of men as of things. "Our business requires it," they told each other on their way, no doubt in order to ease off some secret pricking of a remnant ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... flocked to pay their respects, but were most improperly received by John and his friends, who could not restrain their mirth at their homely garb, and soon proceeded to gibes and practical jokes; pricking them with pins, and rapping them on the head with a stick as they bent to pay homage, tweaking their ample mantles, and pulling their long beards and moustaches, all as if they had studied to enrage this proud and sensitive people. These were the Irish of the friendly country; and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... old story has it, the young student "came pricking on hastily, complaining that they went at such a pace as gave him little chance of keeping up with them. One of the party made answer that the blame lay with the horse of Don Miguel de Cervantes, whose ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker

... on indefinitely. The mother may continue the talk as long as the child is interested, by letting the pin give an account of the various adventures that happened to it in the course of its life, and finally call it to account for pricking a poor ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... a cigarette and puffed at it impatiently. His particular "code" of morality had been completely upset;—things seemed to have taken a turn for general offence, and the simplest thoughts became like bristles in his brain, pricking him uncomfortably in various sore and sensitive places. Then, added to his general sense of spleen was the unpleasant idea that he was really in love, where he had never meant to be in love. "In love", is a wide term nowadays, and covers a multitude of poor and petty passing ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... mortification. He even ordered a wall to be built before a window in his study, which afforded him too agreeable a prospect. He had also a girdle full of sharp points next his skin; and while he was eating or drinking any thing that was grateful to his palate, he was constantly pricking himself, that he might not be sensible of any pleasure. The virtuous Fenelon submitted without reserve to the arbitrary sentence of the pope, when he condemned a book which he had published, and even preached in condemnation of his own book, forbidding ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various

... to obey, and they hurried past the matron to their sleeping-quarters. Perpetua, a woman scarcely past fifty, whose face wore a pleasant expression of mingled shrewdness and kindness, stood pricking up her ears and listening; she heard from the water-shed a peculiar low, long-drawn Wheeuh!—a signal with which she was familiar as that by which the prefect Thomas had been wont to call together his scattered household from the garden of his villa on Mount Lebanon. It was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... and squirming. "She's tickling me with her whiskers. Oh, ow!" She was reduced to helpless mirth, stooping her head, reaching up futilely for the kitten, who had retreated to the nape of her neck and was pricking sharp little pin-pointed claws through to the skin. The children danced about chiming out peals of laughter. The dog barked excitedly, standing on his hind-legs, and pawing first at one and then at another. Then Paul looked at the clock, and they all looked ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... the opposite cotyledon, which was not tapped, hardly moved at all. The cotyledons in all these cases became horizontal again in less than half an hour. The pulvinus is the most sensitive part, for on slightly pricking three cotyledons with a [page 126] pin in this part, they rose up vertically; but the blade was found also to be sensitive, care having been taken that the pulvinus was not touched. Drops of water placed quietly on these cotyledons produced no effect, but an extremely fine stream ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... masterpiece, declared it to be a spurious Pincini, probably the work of some pupil whom he had employed in his declining years. The evidence of Deplis on the subject was obviously worthless, as he had been under the influence of the customary narcotics during the long process of pricking in the design. The editor of an Italian art journal refuted the contentions of the German expert and undertook to prove that his private life did not conform to any modern standard of decency. The whole ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... that in England the people will be pricking up their ears when they learn what we are doing here, and that we shall have plenty of emigrants from home. I hardly like to advise upon the subject here; there certainly is a wonderful amount of gold. What the chances of obtaining it and getting it taken home ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks

... and send it over the same surface afterward, I saw no reason why the thing would not talk. I determined to make a machine that would work accurately, and gave my assistants the necessary instructions, telling them what I had discovered. That's the whole story. The phonograph is the result of the pricking of a finger." ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... occasion probably never would arise—and she cannot wait. She wants to be shown at every moment that some one is thinking kindly of her, is making little, kind plots and plans for her, is wishing to ward off from her the chill winds, to keep from pricking her the thorns of the roses, to shut out from her the shadows of life and let in the ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... genius to write the fourth book of Gulliver's Travels; but after all, Yahoos are not men and women, and horses are not superior to humanity. The reason why, in reading the Anthology, we experience the constant pricking of recognition is because we recognize the baser elements in these characters, not only in other persons, but in ourselves. The reason why the Yahoos fill us with such terror is because they are true incarnations of our worst instincts. There, but for the grace of God, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... said the physician Rondibilis to Panurge, "that you feel in you the pricking stings of sensuality, by which you are stirred up to venery. I find in our faculty of medicine, and we have founded our opinion therein upon the deliberate resolution and final decision of the ancient Platonics, that carnal concupiscence ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... the chief ornament of a church, and then driving under the arch of the Great Western Railway, and feeling the strange vibration of some monster train passing over our heads,—a proceeding which never fails to make my pony show off his choicest airs and graces, pricking up his pretty ears, tossing his slender head, dancing upon four feet, and sometimes rearing upon two,—we arrive at the long, low, picturesque old bridge, the oldest of all the bridges that cross the Thames, so narrow that no two vehicles can pass at once, and that over every ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... satisfy themselves by flogging prostitutes or pricking them till they bleed, while others prefer to martyrize their victims slowly, and thus procure the maximum of pleasure. Others again are contented with scenes symbolical of servitude, in which women are compelled to adore and supplicate them, etc. ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... ears of Captain Preston, the officer of the day. He immediately ordered eight soldiers of the main guard to take their muskets and follow him. They marched across the street, forcing their way roughly through the crowd and pricking the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester



Words linked to "Pricking" :   puncture, prick



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com