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Bait   /beɪt/   Listen
Bait

noun
1.
Anything that serves as an enticement.  Synonyms: come-on, hook, lure, sweetener.
2.
Something used to lure fish or other animals into danger so they can be trapped or killed.  Synonyms: decoy, lure.



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"Bait" Quotes from Famous Books



... say he is desperate. His own are losing faith in him. He snatched thee to be a bait for her, having it in mind that a man whom she hides in her private part of Khinjan must be of great value to her. He has sworn to have thee skinned alive on a hot rock should she ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... emptied its whole crew into the water, luckily close to shore. We fished for gold carp for hours together, and during our two summers we caught a couple of them; there were thousands of them swimming about; but a bent pin with the bait washed off is not a good lure. In winter, the lake had five feet of ice on it, which lasted far into the spring, and once or twice we got aboard this great raft and tracked across it, with as much awe and enthusiasm as ever Kane had felt in ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... country, not a single comfort of one single man would be affected by it. It is directed exclusively, and without the exception of a solitary instance, against the amusements and recreations of the poor. This was the bait held out by the Hon. Baronet to a body of men, who cannot be supposed to have any very strong sympathies in common with the poor, because they cannot understand their sufferings or their struggles. This is the bait, which will in time prevail, unless public attention is awakened, ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens

... if he would rather set about the business in any other way; nevertheless, he was keenly alive to the efficiency of so tempting a bait, reflecting at the same time with a kind of awe on Mr. Ryfe's temerity in affronting such a character ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... overheard all, and I have seen with my own eyes the two horrible wolves who are lurking to fall upon you, and heard with these ears their scheme for doing it. I never wrote the note on the tile which was signed with my name; Eulaeus did it, and you took his bait and came out into the desert by night. In a few minutes the ruffians will have stolen up to this place to seek their victim, but they will not find you, Publius, for I have saved you—I, Klea, whom you first met with smiles—whose sister you have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... snare—a noose of bright wire suspended near the head of a cunningly constructed alley of fir branches, leading up to the foot of a big hemlock. Just behind this noose, and hardly to be reached save through the noose, the bait had evidently been fixed. But the carcajou saw that some one little less cunning than herself had been before her. Such a snare would have caught the fierce, but rather stupid, lynx; but a fox had ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... refused to regard a servant in such a light? Or was it thus that she put him upon his honour? At the thought he winced with a consciousness of guilt. A third explanation occurred to his mind. Perhaps she left Lena behind, like a bait in a trap, with the old housekeeper as spy. This was a mean thought, he knew, suggested by his own duplicity, but he resolved to act upon the supposition and to avoid ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... continued Billy, "and I managed to get along. Then, I washed out my old bait bucket and at night I went down to the pasture of that park superintendent and milked his old ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison

... the head of a conspiracy which I have conducted, because I meant to have all the threads in my hands, if I was to see clearly. In order to prove the royalists, I threw them this bait, and many of them have taken the hook and come over to the young king. In this way I have made a division in the ranks of the royalists, and the Count de Lille already sees the consequences. The so-called orphan of the Temple has at this hour no enemy who hates him more than the Count ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... women met in the middle to shake hands and hold long conversations. Scores of young girls used to romp about, ducking each other under and climbing on each other's backs for support, and children of three or four used to swim about like white-bait, in and out, among us all. One stout old lady used to sit lazily in the water, like a blubber fish, knitting, occasionally moving her feet. We used to call her 'the buoy,' and held on to her when we ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... had been about we could not ascertain, but next morning we found near the spot one of the bags usually carried by gins and containing the following samples of their daily food: three snakes; three rats; about 2 pounds of small fish, like white bait; crayfish; and a quantity of the small root of the cichoraceous plant tao, usually found growing on the plains with a bright yellow flower. There were also in the bag various bodkins and colouring stones, and two mogos or stone hatchets (Figure 5). ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... Quito are few, and not very amusing. Indo-Castilian blood runs too slowly for merry-making. There are no operas or concerts, no theatres or lectures, no museums or menageries. For dramas they have revolutions; for menageries, bull-baitings. A bull-bait is not a bull-fight. There is no coliseum or amphitheatre; no matador gives the scientific death-wound. Unlike their fraternity in the ring of Seville, where they are doomed to die, the animals are only doomed ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... bait for some small pieces of gold-lace, which my uniform furnished, we succeeded in pulling several of these beautiful creatures out of the water; and were congratulating one another upon the delicious broil we should have, when our conversation was suddenly interrupted by a crackling noise, ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... quite effective as bait for a person who has not complete control over the eighth letter of ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... afore, thus it followeth. On this bank is the bear gardens, in number twain; to wit, the old bear garden [i.e., the one built in 1583?] and the new [i.e., the Swan?], places wherein be kept bears, bulls, and other beasts, to be baited at stakes for pleasure; also mastiffs to bait them in ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... intended to lead up to the subject of Susan Meynell, but Georgy did not rise to the bait. She only shook her head plaintively in assent to the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... he was not completely satisfying, Napoleon was prolonging his occupation of the Prussian territory, under the pretext of the alleged slowness of payment of the war contributions; he was organizing provisionally the government of Hanover, which he had reserved as a future bait for the English government; and he was treating with Spain for the passage of troops necessary for the invasion of Portugal. This power, constantly faithful to the English alliance, having refused to give in its adhesion to the continental blockade, the emperor had sent ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... is, after all, the King of the top family, and the greatest source of joy to the youth with a sure eye and a steady hand. The "Plugger" is the top you spin; the "bait" is the top you strike with the plugger. A "Giggler" is an unsteady top that goes dancing and hopping about. Boys love their "old reliable taw" in marbles, but their pride in this is never so great as that which they take in a conquering plugger. This should have what is known as a screw ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort

... and fishermen, and their name is legion, may be glad to learn a little about the fishing in Finland, and that the best rivers lie in the governor's province of Wiborg. There are lake salmon, trout, and grayling; minnows and sand-eels are specially favoured as bait. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... I was still-fishing, with a pole and reel, and fastened on my hook a peeled shedder crab. My line was of linen, six hundred feet long, and no heavier than that used for trout, but very strong. By a quick movement which an old bass-fisherman taught me I made my bait dart like an arrow straight over the water more than one hundred feet, my reel at the same moment whirling, in paying out, as if it would fuse from friction. Well, I soon hooked a fifty-pound fish, and we had a tussle that I shall never forget. ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... SOLE.—This, as a matter of course, greatly depends on the nature of the ground and bait upon which the animal feeds. Its natural food are small crabs and shell-fish. Its colour also depends on the colour of the ground where it feeds; for if this be white, then the sole is called the white, or lemon sole; but if the bottom be muddy, then it is called the black sole. Small-sized ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... strokes of social diplomacy—but only for a moment. She had heard the bell ring, and trusted that at the other end of the wire there might be one of those fatuous young men who nibbled at that wire like foolish fish round a gilt spoon-bait. Her ladyship decided to carry on the social farce a few minutes longer, instead of offering the ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... to burst with laughter to see how readily Adams swallowed the bait, but, maintaining the most ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... dear friend, where are your wits? as if She does not always toast a piece of cheese And bait the trap? and rats, when lean enough To ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... time, as darkness was coming on, and it was just possible that the hyena might prefer one of us to the bait which we had so kindly left for him. Scarcely, however, had we reached home, when ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... loyal, but take a care That with true zeal tact have a share. The lightning when it strikes the tree Runs with the grain, as oft you see; Those who at angling are adepts, Choose well their bait and guard their steps; So if you would the sinner gain, Bait well your ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant

... repugnance to the idea of separating the Western States from the Eastern and of invading Mexico. Burr's angling had gone on for an hour, with lures so tempting that the gudgeon seemed about to swallow bait, hook and all, when the conversation was disturbed by an unusual clamor of excited voices coming from the negro quarters. Blennerhassett, in a flurry, excused himself, and hastened to inquire what was the matter. He found his ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... the enthusiasm of Capital. They had listened with marked coldness to his story of a wonderful oil seepage and had turned a deaf ear on natural gas. He had baited a hook with a stratum of gypsum which would furnish the world with cement. Capital had barely sniffed at the bait. Nor had banks of shale adapted to the making of a perfect brick appealed to its jaded palate. But Symes was never at a loss for something to promote, for there was always a nebula of schemes vaguely present in his prolific brain. Irrigation was the opportunity of the moment ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... the wood, and a gate or two on, stopped again to look at the same sportsman fishing in a clear silver brook. I could not help admiring with a sort of childish wonder the graceful and practised aim with which he directed his tiny bait, and called up mysterious dimples on the surface, which in a moment increased to splashings and stragglings of a great fish, compelled, as if by some invisible spell, to follow the point of the bending rod till he lay panting on the bank. I confess, in spite of all my class prejudices ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... before the village the three yachtsmen paced back and forth in an ecstasy of apprehension. Pascherette had left them, after playing them like fish with her own charms and a hinted promise of Dolores's favors as bait; and the moment they were alone Venner shook off the spell in a resurging determination to attend to the safety ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... notes as I went on, as far as I could get through it. It is called Nemesis: a Moral Story, by SETON CREWE. Its sole merit would have been its being in one volume, were it not that this form, being a bait to the unwary, aggravates the offence. The heroine is Lucinda, a milliner's apprentice. Being compromised by a young gentleman under age, who suddenly quits the country, she goes to confess her sin to the simple-minded ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various

... either swimming or resting on their stools, or slight supports of grass and reeds, by the side of the stream. Though they exhibit considerable cunning at other times, they are easily taken in a trap, which has only to be placed in their holes, or wherever they frequent, without any bait being used, though it is sometimes rubbed with their musk. In the winter the hunter cuts holes in the ice, and shoots them when they come to the surface. Their burrows are usually in the high banks of the river, with the entrance under water, and rising within to above the level of high water. ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... word he married for money a woman, who was no longer young in years, nor beautiful in person, nor amiable in temper. But she was rich, and her money like charity covered a multitude of faults, and as soon as he saw the golden bait he caught at it, and they were married, for he was willing to do almost any thing for money, except work hard for it. It was a marriage however that brought no happiness to either party. Mrs. Anderson was an illy educated, self willed, narrow minded [woman], full of airs and pretensions, the only ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... and marshes, and sideways at the dark grim trees, and forward at the long bare road rising up, up, up, until it stopped abruptly at a sharp high ridge as if there were no more road, and all beyond was sky—and the stopping at the inn to bait, and being helped out, and going into a room with fire and candles, and winking very much, and being agreeably reminded that the night was cold, and anxious for very comfort's sake to think it colder than it was!—What a delicious journey ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... could quite understand that the flooded Tugela was not a satisfactory feature to fight in front of, but it seemed certain that they had some devilry prepared for us somewhere. The uninjured bridge appeared to me a trap: the unguarded position a bait. Suppose they were, we should be attacked at daylight. Nothing more than a soldier should always expect; but what of the position? The line we had to hold to cover the approaches to our hill-top was far greater than seven hundred men could occupy. Had we been only cavalry and mounted men ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... got first innings this morning with fish and milk! I had recognized the imprints under the trees for those of a cat, and I knew, that if a cat had been released here it would still be hiding in the neighborhood, probably in the bushes. I finally located a cat, sure enough, and came for bait! I laid my trap, for the animal was too frightened to be approachable, and then shot it; I had to. That yellow fiend used the light as a decoy. The branch which killed him jutted out over the path ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... I live and die; The meanest hind may claim this boon,—shall I, The daughter of an emperor, not have That birthright which belongs to all? Be slave To brutish force, that makes your sex our lord? Why does my hand such tempting bait afford? The gods have made me beauteous, rich, and wise, Presumptuous man considers me his prize. If nature dowered me with bounteous treasure You tyrants think 'twas all to serve your pleasure. Why should ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... considering his hurry, he had better, perhaps, have gone to Newark for a day's fishing off the piers. But he was at the St. Lawrence now, and it would not do to complain. He hired a boat, lines, bait and two navigators, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various

... was empty, however; and he prepared to bait the horses himself. As he stooped to place his lantern on the floor he caught the gleam of a small polished object at his feet. He picked it up and found that it was a silver coat-of-arms, such as ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... give feasts to you. You went about with your soul full of suspicion and hatred; you understood that you were environed by hostile powers that were trying to get your money, and who used all the virtues to bait their traps with. The store-keepers plastered up their windows with all sorts of lies to entice you; the very fences by the wayside, the lampposts and telegraph poles, were pasted over with lies. The great corporation which employed you lied to you, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... Gavran family derived their title from their vast Venus hotlands estates; that Gavran Sarn, the man who had brought this thing to the Fourth Level, had been born on the inner planet. When Verkan Vall donned that coat, he would become his own living bait for the murderous fury of the creature he sought. At the moment, mastering his queasiness and putting on the coat, he objected less to that danger than to the hideous stench of the scent, to obtain which a valuable specimen had been sacrificed at the Dhergabar ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper

... go digging for bait," said Mary, "I wonder if the two of you could make it convanient to spade an onion bed. If I had it spaded I ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... of Edison is shown by his device for killing the cockroaches which overran the Boston office. He arranged some strips of tinfoil on the wall, and connected these to the poles of a battery in such a way that when the insects ran towards the bait which he had provided, they stepped from one foil to the other, and completed the circuit of the current, thus receiving a smart shock, which dislodged them into a pail of water, ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... not keep his eyes on his cork while the little girl was so near, and more than once he was warned by a suppressed cry from the pickaninny when to pull. Once, when he was putting on a worm, he saw the little girl watching the process with great disgust, and he remembered that Melissa would never bait her own hook. All girls were alike, he "reckoned" to himself, and when he caught a fish that was unusually big, he walked ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... today to perceive a great number of bonitos. Every one on board bestirred himself, and on every side fish hooks were cast overboard; unluckily only one bonito allowed himself to be entrapped by our friendly invitations; he made a dart at the bait, and his good-natured confidence procured us a fresh meal, of which we had ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... coming down a strick of lightning," cried Roaring Ralph, as he helped the soldier from the water, "thar's no legs to a jumping bull-frog! Smash away, old bait!" he continued, apostrophising with great exultation and self-admiration the river whose terrors he had thus so successfully defied; "ar'n't I the gentleman for you? Roar as much as you please;—when it comes to fighting for anngelliferous madam, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... action; and till action, Lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait On purpose laid to make the taker mad; Mad in pursuit, and in possession so; Had, having had, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream; All this the world well knows; yet none ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... replied the Doctor enigmatically. "At all events, bring your pistol. In answer to any questions, we are going fishing. In point of fact, we are—with ourselves as bait. If you have a little time to spare this afternoon you might drop around to the office of the Post and get them to show you all the amnesia cases they have had stories on during the past three months. They will be interesting reading. No more questions now, old dear, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... public may be persuaded that the stage, even in its present form, is a school; but any one who is familiar with a school in its true sense will not be caught with that bait. I cannot say what will happen in fifty or a hundred years, but in its actual condition the theatre can serve only as an entertainment. But this entertainment is too costly to be frequently enjoyed. It robs ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... knocking up a temporary pen for the sheep, to filch the said line out of the cook's galley and to secrete it, afterward seizing an opportunity to transfer it to the gig's locker when he learned that she was about to be turned over to us. There happened to be a piece of dry shrivelled bait still transfixed upon one of the hooks; we therefore dropped it over the side, paid out the line, made fast the inner end to one of the thwarts, and forthwith forgot all about it in the small ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... and Teddy turned his attention toward securing the bait. In a few moments he had cast the line out in the stream and was sound asleep, in which condition he remained until night ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... probable you quite forget the rule which, as you yourself admit, should have governed your conduct. As soon as you meet a fact that seems even more than probable, you swallow it as eagerly as a gudgeon swallows an angler's bait." ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... books in a soothing monotone, and he sat with his reading-book before him, ruddy as the setting sun, and slowly, slowly settling down. But now and then he would jerk back suddenly into staring wakefulness as though he were fishing—with himself as bait—for schoolboy crimes in the waters of oblivion—and fancied a nibble. That was a dangerous time, full of anxiety. At last he went right under and slept, and the reading grew cheerful, full of quaint glosses and unexpected gaps, leaping playfully from boy ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... a dark and sidelong walk, And long and slouching was his gait; Beneath his looks so bare and bold, You might perceive, his spirit cold Was playing with some inward bait. 310 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... that after everything that has been happening recently I was willing thus to entrust myself to a German, but you must remember that so far as he knew I was an American, a member of a country whose goodwill has been angled for with every conceivable bait. It is not as if I had been a cathedral or a French priest or a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various

... paved the way for Rumania, should she decide on intervention. The road was clear for her to step in and occupy the Bukowina (which Russia was prepared to hand over), and probably Transylvania as well, which latter the proximity of a Russian force might—at the time—have enabled her to do. But the bait failed, no doubt for weighty reasons. Even if Rumania had favored the Triple Entente, which there is strong ground to presume she would, by entering the war, have found herself in as perilous a position as Serbia, with her ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... know well to whom you speak, dear mother, and how you must bait your hook in order that the fish may rise. When you paint it, I see nothing above domestic happiness, and am convinced that the height of felicity is to be found in the bosom of your family, surrounded by little marmots to love and caress you. I hope, too, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... string a hook, bait it with a bit of pork which he had brought, and then dropped it into a hole beside an alder bush at a bend ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... be the day when there was one at the parish church—a piece of information only relevant in so far as it suggested that Mr. Ives could accept an invitation to dinner if one were proffered him. Dora, very weakly, rose to the bait. Jack Ives, airily remarking that there was no use in ceremony among friends, seized the place next to Trix at dinner (her mother was just opposite) and walked on the terrace after dinner with her in the moonlight. When the ladies retired he came into the smoking ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope

... near a Board School when the children are about. I'm greatly obliged to you, Gammon; I never thought you'd be able to do it yourself. Could you be at the stable just before nine? I'd meet you and give you a send-off. Bait at—where is it?" He consulted the notebook. "Yes, Prince of Wales's Feathers, Catford Bridge; no money out of pocket; all settled in the plan of campaign. Rest the cobs for an hour or so. Get round to the stables again about five, and I'll be there. ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... which was brought forward told against him, but the necromancer promised Franz, as a bribe, if he would decide in his favour, to tell him by means of his art the true secret of the Princess's dream. Franz swallowed the bait greedily, and gave his unjust decision. Now, in order that the necromancer might not fail him, Franz had determined not to let him out of his sight till the day of trial. Very early in the morning of that day the necromancer came to Franz and ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... the secret of the success of all schemes to cure disease. The human family will not knuckle down and swallow the truth. The man or woman in poor health is looking for Aladdin's lamp everywhere and always. A new bait, dressed up in lubricated, oily words, promising impossible results, will be accepted as the simple unadorned truth, and will be bought and paid for, in the end forgotten. The royal road, the easy road, which they are looking for is impossible. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... committed without harm, and that purchase of a parchment is as good as repentance. That do I see and hear. And therewith my master Lucas and Dan Tindall, and those of the new light, declare that all has been false even from the very outset, and that all the pomp and beauty is but Satan's bait, and that to believe in Christ alone is all that needs to justify us, casting all the rest aside. All seemed a mist, and I was swayed hither and thither till the more I read and thought, the greater was the fog. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Savalette de Langes, Keeper of the Royal Treasury, Grand Officer of the Grand Orient, and a high initiate of Masonry—"versed in all mysteries, in all the lodges, and in all the plots." In order to unite them he made his lodge a mixture of all sophistic, Martiniste, and masonic systems, "and as a bait to the aristocracy organized balls and concerts at which the adepts, male and female, danced and feasted, or sang of the beauties of their liberty and equality, little knowing that above them was a secret committee which was arranging to extend ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... bred of putridity, begin to multiply, and the fish are sick for want of a fresh, and the cunningest artificial fly is of no avail, and the shrewdest angler will do nothing—except with a gross fleshly gilt-tailed worm, or the cannibal bait of roe, whereby parent fishes, like competitive barbarisms, devour each other's flesh and blood—perhaps their own. It is when the stream is clearing after a flood, that the fish will rise. . . . When will the flood clear, and the fish come on ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... husband such a fool," said she, now dismounted from her high horse and sitting confidentially down close to her visitor, "as to take the bait which that man threw to him? If he had not been so utterly foolish, nothing could have prevented ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... is much too severe. But rats, and they who catch them, badgers, and they who bait them, cocks, and they who fight them, and, above all, men with fists, who professionally box with them, come under the category of the Fancy. This, then, is the theme which the poet before us, living under the genial sway of the First Gentleman of Europe, undertook to ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... longer than he had intended, on a slight pressure of invitation from Mr. Brooke, who offered no bait except his own documents on machine-breaking and rick-burning. Mr. Casaubon was called into the library to look at these in a heap, while his host picked up first one and then the other to read aloud from in a skipping and uncertain way, passing from one unfinished passage to another ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... of those Western Mississippi River catfish stories, in which they use yearling calves for bait?" ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... to show it much. We had been out on the lake in the motor-boat fishing all the afternoon and—well, I must admit both my uncles had had frequent recourse to 'pocket pistols,' and I remember they referred to it each time as 'bait.' Then after supper nothing would do but fizzes and rickeys. I was disgusted, and after reading a bit went to bed. Harrington and my uncles sat up with Doctor Putnam—according to Uncle Jim—for a couple of hours longer. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... fishermen found the Christian faith, and we have been those fishermen who defended it against the forces of the Infidel, our fishing-boats being galleys and ships, our hooks the treasure of St. Mark, and our bait the life-blood of our citizens, who ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... as a temperance lecturer. In this field he found his vocation. "Avoid the bottle" is his slogan and battle- cry. He manages subtly to convey the impression that in his own life a great disaster was wrought by the bottle. He has even mentioned the loss of a fortune that was caused by that hell-bait of the devil, but behind that incident his listeners feel the loom of some terrible and unguessed evil for which the bottle is responsible. He has made a success in his vocation, and has grown grey and respected ...
— Lost Face • Jack London

... telling of Manabozho. He went fishing in the lake and let down a line. 'King Fish,' said he, 'take hold of my bait,' and he kept saying this until the King Fish felt annoyed and said, 'This Manabozho is a nuisance. Here, trout, take hold of his line.' The trout obeyed, and Manabozho shouted, 'Wa-i-he! Wa-i-he! I have him!' while the canoe rocked to and fro. But when ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... held the key to the enigma. He had no idea of that, but in spite of his ignorance he was deeply distrustful of both father and son. He knew and had often deplored the clause in John Harston's will by which the ward's money reverted to the guardian. Forty thousand pounds were a bait which might tempt even a wealthy man ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the bait the fishermen take, the fishermen take, the fishermen take, when they start out the fish to wake so early in the morning. They take a nip before they go—a good one, ah! and long and slow, for fear the chills will lay them low ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... bob-stay, watching with keen eye and lifted arm for the shark, which now dropped astern, now swam lazily alongside. Bill ordered one of the men to get out to the jibboom end with a piece of pork, and heave it as far ahead as he could fling. No sooner did the creature see the tempting bait than he darted forward, and turning round to seize it exposed the white under side of his body to a blow from Bill's harpoon, driven home with right good will. The men on deck who held the line hauled away on the slack, while others stood ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... breakfast for so voracious a guest, the giant retired to rest, and when at dawn the next day he went down to the shore, he was joined by Thor, who said that he had come to help him. The giant bade him secure his own bait, whereupon Thor coolly slew his host's largest ox, Himinbrioter (heaven-breaker), and cutting off its head, he embarked with it and proceeded to row far out to sea. In vain Hymir protested that his usual fishing-ground had been reached, and ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... fish has been nibbling for a long time at the bait; the cork has been bobbing up and down—and now he is fairly hooked, and pulls away toward the bank, and you ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... companies of Colo Weedon's Virginia regiment, and Colo Knowlton with his Rangers, were to steal round while a party [Crary's] were to march towards them and seem as if they intended to attack in front, but not to make any real attack till they saw our men fairly in their rear. The bait took as to one part; as soon as they saw our party in front the enemy ran down the hill and took possession of some fences and bushes and began to fire at them, but at too great distance to do much execution," ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... fishing. Cleveland then arranged a treaty which provided for reciprocal favors, and when the Senate withheld its assent the administration made a temporary agreement, (modus vivendi), under which American ships were allowed to purchase bait and supplies and to use Canadian bays and harbors by ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... he said, "my house is to be turned into a trap to catch Rachel; with a bait to tempt her, in the shape of an invitation from my wife and daughters. If you were anybody else but Franklin Blake, and if this matter was one atom less serious than it really is, I should refuse point-blank. As things are, I firmly believe Rachel will live to ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... Cristofero, "undertook the mission. With unparalleled skill, scheming and ingenuity, he decoyed and entrapped member after member of the Assembly, luring each one by some suitable bait to some spot where there was a trap-door giving on to the system of underground passages which runs, as is well known to the authorities, beneath part of Geneva. What the authorities did not know, is the number of trap-door ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... said Ollie, spreading out her dainty dress, and picking a daring grasshopper off her silk stocking. "It's just too mean that we can't have some fun. They say we are always in the way, that we can't even bait our own hooks—it is horrid to stick those nasty worms on!—but I can catch fish as well as any one, and if boys are around, why shouldn't they make themselves useful? And they say we scream so, and make such ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... There was a wistful pathos in the way Tavender shook his head. "Big money doesn't mean anything to me any more," he said, wearily. "I'm too old and I'm too tired. Why—four—five—yes, half a dozen times I've had enough money to last me comfortably all my life—and every time I've used it as bait to catch bigger money with, and lost it all. I don't do that any more! I've got something the matter with me internally that takes the nerve all out of me. The doctors don't agree about it, but whatever its name is I've got it for keeps. Probably I shan't live very long"—Thorpe recalled that the ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... replied Don, but still he did not take any more interest in the Sportsman's Club than he had done before. He did not snap up the bait thus thrown out, as Lester hoped he would. He was not to be bought, even by the promise of office. Lester saw that, and arose to ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon

... himself—while he gazed at Thornton in pained surprise; "but there'll never be more than the day's catch in the box at a time, though of course you don't know that. You see, we'll empty it every night, and start it off fresh every morning, with a trinket or two put back for bait. I'm glad you mentioned it though, it's a little detail I mustn't forget to speak to the Flopper about." But aloud he said, and there was a sort of shocked awe in his voice: "Steal—here! In this sacred ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... "She's a safe bait, is a woman, all the world over," said the spokesman, "and this one's finished her part of the business well enough. Now our parts have got to be done. Some time to-night you received a token. ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... who, like fallen angels, fear'd This new Messiah's coming, there did wait, And round the verge their braving vessels steer'd, To tempt his courage with so fair a bait. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... of their salvation hereafter, but this fondling offendeth Heaven, and abandoneth happiness, he knoweth not why or for what. He hath not so much as the common plea of human infirmity to excuse him; he can hardly say that he was tempted thereto by any bait. ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... bitter Fate! * And weet that His will He shall consummate: Night oft upon woe as on abscess acts * And brings it up to the bursting state: And Chance and Change shall pass o'er the youth * And fleet from his thoughts and no more shall bait." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... called, but with each solitary note drawn out through a full second or more, church-steeple fashion, and with a silken veil tied on its tongue to give each stroke a solemn softness and illusion of distance. Small wonder that the most of the company, just risen from "a plumb bait," turned that way and stared, seeing old Joy, with joyless face, tolling out the notes in persistent monotone while in front of her stood the Gilmores at either side of a chair, and on the chair, also standing, the daughter of Gideon Hayle. With her hands and eyes ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... minutes, Bill," he consoled. "A hard blow on the jaw always makes you sick at the pit of the stomach. That dizziness will pass away shortly. Meanwhile, I'm going to give you and your pals a little verbal and visual demonstration of what you're up against, and warn you to bait no traps for a certain young woman whom you've lately seen. She's going on to Tete Jaune. And I know how your partner plays his game up there. I'm not particularly anxious to butt into your affairs and the business of this ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... and tail whiskings, a bold squirrel would skip up close, and, after eating a little ground bait, would boldly come up and nibble out of a motionless hand. In two minutes half-a-dozen pretty little creatures would be fidgeting round, eating bread and butter daintily, neatly holding the morsel in their little forepaws and nuzzling into ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... of fresh bait had been lightered to the Lass, and there was nothing for it but to make sail and get back on the Banks as soon as possible, leaving Code to his fate but carrying on the work he ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... situated workman of your day. There is none in which peril to life or health is not reduced to a minimum, and the dignity and rights of the worker absolutely guaranteed. It is a constant study of the administration so to bait the less attractive occupations with special advantages as to leisure and otherwise always to keep the balance of preference between them as nearly true as possible; and if, finally, there were any occupation which, after all, remained ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... it was hoped that the gain in the permanence of such peace would offset the severity of its terms. But unfortunately this hope, which was indulged with the joy of anticipation, lasted only a short time; and it was soon learned that the propositions made to M. de Saint-Aignan were only a bait, and an old diplomatic ruse which the foreigners had made use of simply in order to gain time by deluding the Emperor with vain hopes. In fact, a month had not passed away, there had not even been time to complete the preliminary correspondence ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... pretended fixity. The excitement caused by this possibility is amply sufficient to stimulate research. And there is no need to discover an immediate practical application for the theory in order to bait the interest of vulgar minds. These would always be incapable of such difficult investigations, while really competent students were supremely indifferent to all lesser advantages attached to the discovery of truth. As ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various

... its eyes dusted, especially if the dust is fine and flattering. Wagner proceeded to make it so by labeling his themes, leading motives. Each one meant something. And the Germans, the vainest race in Europe, rose like catfish to the bait. Wagner, in effect, told them that his music required brains—Aha! said the German, he means me; that his music was not cheap, pretty, and sensual, but spiritual, lofty, ideal—Oho! cried the German, he means me again. I am ideal. And so the game went merrily on. Being the greatest egotist ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... of Great Britain. These were too strong to be resisted by them, and too powerful to be counteracted by any course of conduct, which the colonies could observe towards them; and they became ensnared by the delusive bait, and the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... I hate the nasty things! Somebody will have to bait my hook for me. I couldn't do it in a ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope

... It shall never be. I will take you away where he shall never hear of you. As to the money, it shall go to the winds, so that he shall never touch it. Do you think that it is you that he cares for? He has heard of all this wealth,—and you are but the bait upon his hook to ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... parties, bridge-madness, illicit love-making. I could never be quite sure whether Elise really loved dignified living for its own sake, or whether she was sufficiently discriminating to recognize the kind of bait which would lure the fine souls whose presence gave to her hospitality ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... entrepreneur had taken the bait. But it was too early to tell whether he had swallowed it without reservation. It all depended upon how much had been given away before he had discovered that Alexander was a telepath. Perhaps Alexander was merely leading him on. ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... trick. I feigned a slight slip of the foot, and, in the recovery, feigned loss of touch with Pasquini's blade. He thrust tentatively, and again I feigned, this time making a needlessly wide parry. The consequent exposure of myself was the bait I had purposely dangled to draw him on. And draw him on I did. Like a flash he took advantage of what he deemed an involuntary exposure. Straight and true was his thrust, and all his will and body were heartily in the weight of the lunge he made. And all had been feigned on ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... abundant on every part of the coast. We at first doubted not but we should procure a pilot from them to carry us to Macao; but though many of them came close to the ship and we endeavoured to tempt them by showing them a number of dollars—a most alluring bait for Chinese of all ranks and professions—yet we could not entice them on board us; though I presume the only difficulty was their not comprehending what we wanted them to do, for we could have no communication with them ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... while, as a member of a late Royal Commission, I gladly did my best to prevent the infliction of needless pain, for any purpose; I think it is my duty to take this opportunity of expressing my regret at a condition of the law which permits a boy to troll for pike, or set lines with live frog bait, for idle amusement; and, at the same time, lays the teacher of that boy open to the penalty of fine and imprisonment, if he uses the same animal for the purpose of exhibiting one of the most beautiful and ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... fifteen years, they tell me, since anyone fished that brook; And there's nothing in it but minnows that nibble the bait off your hook. But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set I know that it's full of ghostly trout for ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer

... to say I think it's a disgrace that they didn't do it long ago," she went on, her anger rising to the bait of ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... struck me. Putting my arm within his, I said, as coolly as I could, "Never mind the sea, Jackson; let us have a matabicho" (our local expression for a "drink"). He took the bait, and came away quietly enough to the house. Once there, I enticed him into the dining-room, and shutting to the door quickly, I locked it on the outside, resolving to keep him there until Mr. Bransome should return; for, being alone, ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... offer it to some other fish." So saying, Jack plied his paddle; but scarcely had he moved from the spot when a fish with an enormous head and a little body darted from under a rock and swallowed the bait ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... far between, a threat which Lieutenant Bob took quite heroically; indeed, it rather enhanced the value of his pleasant home than otherwise, for Juno was not a favorite, and his equanimity was not likely to be disturbed if she never crossed his threshold. She was throwing bait to Arthur Grey, the man who swore he was forty-five to escape the draft, and who, now that the danger was over, would gladly take back his oath and be forty, as he really was. With the most freezing kiss imaginable, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... her for a moment. "You shall not utter that word—you know but half the truth, and if you wrong me or trouble the girl I will turn traitor also, and tell the general the game you are playing with my cousin. You feign to love me as you feigned before, but his title is the bait now as then, and you fancy that by threatening to mar my hopes you will secure my ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard

... the big cities, away to the east, you would not ask that question, boy," answered the old trapper. "You would there have seen thousands of men who seem wonderfully clever, and yet who get caught over and over again by cunning rogues who know their weak points; just as we bait our traps with bark-stone, [see Note] for which the foolish beaver has such a fancy, so the knaves bait their snares with promises of boundless wealth, to be gained without labour or trouble. To my mind, nothing is to be gained without working ...
— The Trapper's Son • W.H.G. Kingston

... my inter-stellar journeys perhaps there was nothing so amusing to me as to see a company of these water creatures fishing for land animals. They would creep up near shore and throw out their wire lines with various kinds of bait, according to what they wished to catch. Then followed the inevitable waiting until some innocent Jullep or Petzel would grasp the tempting morsel on the hook. A skillful jerk fastened the victim, and instead of pulling him in the water, ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... treachery did not save him from Mortimer's revenge. In conjunction with the queen, Mortimer plotted to lure on Earl Edmund to ruin. Their agents persuaded him that Edward II. was still alive and imprisoned in Corfe castle, and urged him to restore his brother to liberty. The earl rose to the bait, and agreed to be party to an insurrection which was to restore Edward of Carnarvon to freedom, if not to his throne. When Kent was involved in the meshes, he was suddenly arrested in the Winchester parliament of March, 1330, and accused of treason. Convicted by his own speeches and letters, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... best of the American scenery that so strikes the European. Variety, however, has its charms; and before one has travelled fifteen hundred miles on the same river - as one may easily do in America - one begins to sigh for the Rhine, or even for a trip from London to Greenwich, with a white-bait dinner at the end ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... shawls ungracefully pinned. Serviceable man's boots do more than peep out from beneath the short, rusty-black skirts. Each monk and nun holds a small pad of threadbare black velvet, whereon a cross of tarnished gold braid, and a stray copper or two, by way of bait, explain the eleemosynary significance of the bearers' "broad" crosses, dizzy "reverences to the girdle," and muttered entreaty, of which we catch ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... to bait the horses, I saw the first countenance in Sweden that displeased me, though the man was better dressed than any one who had as yet fallen in my way. An altercation took place between him and my host, the purport of which I could not guess, excepting that ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... consisting of running knots attached to a central band. The crowing of this fowl soon attracts the wild birds which, coming in to fight, are almost sure to become entangled in one of the nooses. Slip loops, attached to a bent twig and released by disturbing the bait, are also employed in the ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole

... was cautious in entering on the subject of enlistment with his new friend, the sergeant; but the latter was twenty times as cunning as he, and knew by experience how to bait his hook. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... about an hour, disposed to do nothing but to lie dozing with a cigar in his mouth, stretched upon the broad of his back, on a bank facing the early sunshine just without the door; while our hosts were collecting bait, preparing fishing tackle, and cleaning or repairing their huge clumsy muskets. At length, when the drivers had been gone already for considerably more than an hour, he got up ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... hover about and inquire about their destination of the remaining crew, four in number. They were a cockney party of pleasure, it seemed, going to fish, for which purpose they had hired the boat, and laid in no end of bait for the fish, and prog for themselves. Jorrocks, though no great fisherman (not having, as he says, patience enough), is never at a loss if there is plenty of eating; and finding that they had got a great chicken pie, two tongues, and a tart, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... knew more about Bear-traps than most trappers do; that he either passed them by or tore open the other end of the bait-pen and dragged out the bait without going near the trap, and by accident or design Wahb sometimes sprang the trap with one of the logs that formed the pen. This ranch-owner found also that Wahb disappeared from his range each year during ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton

... caused a transformation in the appearance of the bush; everywhere little patches of green grass or saltbush could be seen, and wherever a teamster had stopped to bait his horses, a miniature field of oats had sprung into life. How we hoped that the rainfall had extended ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... animals are more highly endowed with this sense than is man. The dog, for example, appears to depend on the sense of smell almost as much as on sight. It is well known, also, that fishes have a sense of smell. Fragments of bait thrown into the water soon attract them to a fishing ground, and at depths which little or no light can penetrate. Deer, wild horses, and antelopes probably surpass all other animals in having ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... the high back, accepting his tribute of envious glances from the boys he knew. He was going off to meet adventures. They—had to stay at home and saw wood, and some of them would even be obliged to split it when they had a tin box full of bait and their fish-poles all ready for the afternoon's useful employment. There had been a time when Robert thought he would not like to be called "movers." Some movers fell entirely below his ideas. But now he saw how much finer it ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... of keys, and creaking of locks, As he took forth a bait from his iron box. Minnow or gentle, worm or fly,— It seemed not such to the Abbot's eye; Gaily it glittered with jewel and jem, And its shape was the shape of a diadem. It was fastened a gleaming hook about By a chain within ...
— English Satires • Various

... that we can bait our horses at a little inn which reminds me of the inns near our country home. I see the same sanded parlour, decorated with the same old sporting prints, furnished with the same battered, deep-coloured mahogany table, and polished elm tree chairs, that ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... some scurrilous verses, said to have been instigated by her enemy, Madame d'Etampes. Naturally, the petted beauty, whose charms were already on the wane, resented satirical allusion to her painted face, false teeth and hair, especially as she was warned, in very plain language, that a painted bait would not long attract her prey. These verses were attributed to one of the Bohiers, a nephew or a son of the old councillor who had built the chateau, and, to save his neck, he offered Chenonceaux to Henry, who begged Diane to accept ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... makes peace for himself with Frederick, being like to have his hands full with a rising in the Scotch Highlands; Austria will not, being still resolute to recover Silesia—rejects bait of Prussian support in imperial election for Wainz, Kaiser Karl being now dead. What is kaisership without Silesia? Prussia has no insulted kaiser to defend, desires no more than peace on the old Breslau terms properly ratified; but finances are low. Grand Duke Franz is ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... replied, poking out his lower jaw. "We've been sniffing the trail long enough. We'll give them a bait now." ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly

... has long resided in Tripoli; Dorade [Arabic], Rouget [Arabic], Loupe [Arabic], Severelle [Arabic], Leeche [Arabic], Mulaye [Arabic], Maire noir [Arabic], Maire blanc [Arabic], Vieille [Arabic]; these are caught with small baskets into which bait is put; the orifice being so made that if the fish enters, he cannot get out again. It is said that no other fish are ever found in the baskets. The names of some others fit for the table are Pajot ([Arabic or Arabic]). ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... the things of the world again, as thou hast already seen them. For what is it else to live again? Public shows and solemnities with much pomp and vanity, stage plays, flocks and herds; conflicts and contentions: a bone thrown to a company of hungry curs; a bait for greedy fishes; the painfulness, and continual burden-bearing of wretched ants, the running to and fro of terrified mice: little puppets drawn up and down with wires and nerves: these be the objects ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... remedy, and strongest too: And then this Dolabella, who so fit To practise on? He's handsome, valiant, young, And looks as he were laid for nature's bait, To catch weak women's eyes. He stands already more than half suspected Of loving you: the least kind word or glance, You give this youth, will kindle him with love: Then, like a burning vessel set adrift, You'll send him down amain ...
— All for Love • John Dryden

... But she can reach this notion only by standing her whole structure of reasoning on its head—in fact, by knocking it over and repudiating it. On the one hand, she argues that splendour of attire is merely a bait to overcome the reluctance of the opposite sex, and on the other hand she argues, at least by fair inference, that it is not. This grotesque switching of horses, however, need not detain us. The facts are ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... springes and snares and treacherous contrivances; deceive not the bird with the bird-limed twig; deceive not the deer with the dreaded feather foils;[52] and do not conceal the barbed hooks in the deceitful bait. If any thing is noxious, destroy it, but even then only destroy it. Let your appetites abstain from it for food, and let them consume {a more} ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... cried old Tom. "He'll not let go the whale till he has him in his flurry, and then he and his mates will make a feast of him. They have great strong teeth, bigger than a shark's, and are the most voracious fish I ever saw. They bait a whale just as dogs do a wild beast, or a bull, and seldom fail to kill him if they ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... every movement of the shark was distinctly visible. In obedience to the captain's orders, the sailors threw a strong rope over the starboard side of the yacht, with a big hook at the end of it, concealed in a thick lump of bacon. The bait took at once, though the shark was full fifty yards distant. He began to make rapidly for the yacht, beating the waves violently with his fins, and keeping his tail in a perfectly straight line. As he got nearer, his great projecting eyes could be seen inflamed ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... try something else to-morrow," said nurse cheerfully. So next morning she brought him a fishing-rod, and a large piece of toasted cheese. "Take this to the lough and bait your hook with it," she said, "and see if the black cat won't come up and take a bite. All ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... the pearl fisheries of Paria, as well as of more prolific veins of the precious metals in Hispaniola, and the prospect of an indefinite extent of unexplored country, opened by the late voyage of Columbus, made the viceroyalty of the New World a tempting bait for the avarice and ambition of the most potent grandee. They artfully endeavored, therefore, to undermine the admiral's credit with the sovereigns, by raising in their minds suspicions of his integrity, founded not merely ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... the Sun proves cloudy; then must he set forth either his ground Bait or Tackles, and of the brightest of his Flies. If the Sun prove bright, then must he put on some of the darkest of his flies. Thus must you goe to work with your Flies, light for darkness, and dark for lightness, with the wind in the South, ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker

... God best knows to what heights he may not ascend. Throw out hints that some other man, some rival, whom you may discover, has been talked of for the situation, and you will see how easily he will swallow the bait. Go, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... military operations in order to give diplomatic intervention an opportunity; and it is equally significant that, when the great war broke out, Italy remained neutral, in spite of the pressure from her allies and the tempting bait of a share of the spoil, which, it is said, is even now being offered to her.[159] This is but a bald description of Italy's policy, but it can be substantiated in detail from official documents. As early as July 25th ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History

... an angler convinces his friends that fishing is not merely the sport of catching fish, but an art that men are born to, like the art of poetry. Even such a hard-hearted matter as impaling a minnow for bait becomes poetical, for this is the fashion of it: "Put your hook in at his mouth, and out at his gills, and do it as if you loved him." It is enough to say of this old work, the classic of its kind, that it deserves all the honor ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... and went out. Within five minutes Swan, hearing hoofbeats, looked out through a crack in the door and saw Lone riding at a gallop along the trail to Rock City. "Good bait. He swallows the hook," he commented to himself, and his good-natured grin was not brightening his face while he washed the dishes and ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... Kinch, the town scoundrel, a bald and wealthy old bachelor who had lingered uncaught like a wise old trout in a pool, though generations of girls had tried every device, from whipping the' stream to tickling his sides. He had refused every bait and lived more or less alone in the big old mansion he had inherited from ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... soon hope to recover your own maiden-head as his love. Therefore, e'en set your heart at rest, and in the name of opportunity mind your own business. Strike Heartwell home before the bait's worn off the hook. Age will come. He nibbled fairly yesterday, and no doubt will be eager enough ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... if With unaccustomed modesty they all Hold off, being something loth to qualify, Let me select the fittest for the rite. By heaven! I'll make so warrantable, wise And excellent censure of their true deserts, And such a searching canvass of their claims, That none shall bait the ballot. I'll spread my choice Upon the main and general of those Who, moved of holy impulse, pulpit-born, Protested 'twere a sacrilege to burn God's gracious images, designed to rot, And bellowed ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... in the right place, or they did not use the right bait, for two small fish were all ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope



Words linked to "Bait" :   fish lure, gibe, assault, jeer, mock, flout, chum, trap, assail, set on, enticement, tempt, josh, stool pigeon, device, kid, fisherman's lure, banter, scoff, bemock, entice, barrack, chaff, temptation, jolly, attack



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