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Duck   /dək/   Listen
Duck

verb
(past & past part. ducked; pres. part. ducking)
1.
To move (the head or body) quickly downwards or away.
2.
Submerge or plunge suddenly.
3.
Dip into a liquid.  Synonyms: dip, douse.
4.
Avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues).  Synonyms: circumvent, dodge, elude, evade, fudge, hedge, parry, put off, sidestep, skirt.  "She skirted the problem" , "They tend to evade their responsibilities" , "He evaded the questions skillfully"



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"Duck" Quotes from Famous Books



... Soup alla Canavese Naselli con piselli. Whiting with peas. Coscia di manzo al forno. Braized ribs of beef. Lingua alla Visconti. Tongue with grapes. Anitra selvatica. Wild duck. Zabajone ghiacciato. Iced syllabub. Crostatini alla capucina. ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters

... about, you coward?" growled Bud. "He won't shoot you; but he'll beat you at this game, I'll bet a hoss, and me, too, and make us both as 'shamed of ourselves as dogs with tin-kittles to their tails. You don't know the master, though he did duck you. But he'll larn you a good lesson this time, and me too, like as not." And Bud soon snored again, but Hank shook with fear every time he looked at the blackness outside the windows. He was sure he heard foot-falls. He would have ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... thought that I appreciated it! You will find no fault with me on that score now. The lake is beautiful enough, but I begin to hate the sight of it, especially when a Yankee insists on my telling him whether we have in all Europe anything better than a duck-pond in comparison. Little Lida is my drop of comfort, since she has ceased to be mortally afraid of 'Brother.' Love to ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Battleford and Prince Albert must shortly capitulate to them, and then the squaws would receive the white women of those places as their private prisoners to do with as their sweet wills suggested. Already many of the accursed whites had been slaughtered, as at Duck Lake, for instance, but many more had yet to die. They must be utterly exterminated, so that the elect might possess ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... if I follow this beginning. Well my dear Brother, if I scape this drowning, 'tis your turn next to sink, you shall duck twice before I help you. Sir I cannot drink more; pray let me ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... that matter?" answered Puck; "we shall see how it is over there." Over there was very much the same as it was over here. The duck ducked ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... my dear?" said she. "Is that a face to bring in to your little Duchess? I will not be your Duchess any more, monsieur, no more than I will be your 'little duck,' you old monster." ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... Froward I saw no animals except dogs owned by savages. These I saw often enough, and heard them yelping night and day. Birds were not plentiful. The scream of a wild fowl, which I took for a loon, sometimes startled me with its piercing cry. The steamboat duck, so called because it propels itself over the sea with its wings, and resembles a miniature side-wheel steamer in its motion, was sometimes seen scurrying on out of danger. It never flies, but, hitting the water instead ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... "Duck!" yelled Ned with sudden energy. "They're going to fire!" A number of the giants could be seen fitting arrows to bow strings, while others raised to their lips the long hollow reeds, from which the blow guns were made. It was the first time the enemy had fired and doubtless they had held back ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton

... on immediately after the 'First Part,' succeeding which I suppose Lohengrin will sing his Duck Ditty, while the Boy Scout, dressed as Uncle Tom's Cabin, after biting the triggers off all the guns, and pulling his wig well down over his eyes"—imitating the action—"will sally forth into the limpid limelights, and after he has been shot once in the face by a 16-inch howitzer and has been ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... in the Della Salute I could see her picture, posed as Magdalen. She got fourteen cents a day for her work, and had been at it so long she had no desire to quit. She took great pride in Enrico's white-duck suits and explained to me that she never let him wear one suit more than two days without its being washed and starched; and she always pipeclayed his shoes and carefully inspected him each morning before sending him forth to his day's work. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... Buyer who discounted his Bills and was good as Old Wheat. So he gave a Correct Imitation of a Man who is tickled nearly to Death. After calling the Country Customer "Jim," he made him sit down and tell him about the Family, and the Crops, and Collections, and the Prospects for Duck-Shooting. Then, selecting an opportune moment, he threw up Both Hands. He said he had almost forgotten the Vestry Meeting at Five O'clock, and going out to Dinner at Six-Thirty. He was about to Call Off the Vestry Meeting, the Dinner, and all other Engagements for a Week to come, but Jim would not ...
— More Fables • George Ade

... wi' an unco shout, [children, surprising] The deuk's dang o'er my daddie, O! [duck has knocked] The fient ma care, quo' the feirie auld wife, [devil may, lusty] He was but a paidlin body, O! [tottering creature] He paidles out, and he paidles in, An' he paidles late and early, O; This seven lang years I hae lien by his side, An' he is but a fusionless carlie, O. [pithless ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... years old. He was small, thin, a little crooked, with long hands resembling the claws of a crab. His faded hair, scanty and slight, like the down on a young duck, allowed his scalp to be plainly seen. The brown, crimpled skin of his neck showed the big veins which sank under his jaws and reappeared at his temples. He was regarded in the district as a miser and a hard man in ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... personal—is to go about under a constant burden; the difference between a thorough-going and an easy-going circumspection is a large additional demand upon the forces of the brain. The being on the alert to duck the head at every bullet is a charge to the vital powers; so much so, that there comes a point when it is better to run risks than to pile up costly precautions and bear ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... Cora Van de Grift, I find this entry: "This is the hardest place I ever struck. I saw two men killed to-day in a gambling fight." Men engaged at their work or passing along the streets were quite often compelled to duck and dodge to escape sudden fusillades of bullets. There was little regard for the law, and "killings" seldom ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... I waited supper long for Muir. It was a good supper—a mulligan stew of mallard duck, with biscuits and coffee. Stickeen romped into camp about ten o'clock and his ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young

... Hartzenbosch," Mohandas Feinberg said. "You're a respectable-looking duck; you ever have any experience leading a ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper

... recalled the case of a duck that had been sucked into the same soft pond mud the summer before, and cited the instance. He forgot to add that on that occasion the mud had not ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... with, unfinished supply problems. Such matters as rubber boots for the men, duck boards for the trenches, food for the mules, and ration containers necessary for the conveyance of hot food to the front lines, were not permitted to interfere with the battalion's movements. In war, there is ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... a white duck frock, or rather shirt: which, laying on deck, I folded double at the bosom, and by then making a continuation of the slit there, opened it lengthwise—much as you would cut a leaf in the last new novel. The gash being made, a metamorphosis took place, transcending ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... becomes weaker. Sometimes he weeps bitterly, sometimes laughs boisterously, at other time he passes hours on the seashore, flinging stones in the water and when the flint makes 'duck-and-drake' five or six times, he appears as delighted as if he had gained another Marengo or Austerlitz. Now, you must agree that these are indubitable ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... leaves flowers of a pink or yellow color, another white; one variety will produce a leaf black or brown, another yellow or dark red. The following list includes nearly all of the principal varieties now cultivated:—Connecticut seed leaf (broad and narrow leaf), New York seed leaf, Pennsylvania (Duck Island), Virginia and Maryland (Pryor and Frederick, James River, etc.), North Carolina (Yellow Orinoco, and Gooch or Pride of Granville, etc.), Ohio Seed leaf (broad leaf), Ohio leaf (Thick Set, Pear Tree, Burley, and White), Texas, Louisiana (Perique), ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... voice came in through the window, and turning towards it she saw that a young lad clad in blue duck was singing as he drove his binder through the grain. The song was a very simple one which had some vogue just then upon the prairie, but her eyes grew suddenly hazy as odd snatches of it reached her through ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... already quite dusk when we finally drew in beside Travers' wharf, and made fast. Our approach had been noted, and Travers himself—a white-haired, white-bearded man, yet still hearty and vigorous, attired in white duck—was on the end of the dock to greet us, together with numerous servants of every shade of color, who immediately busied themselves toting luggage up the steep path leading toward the house, dimly visible ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... not omit to notice the duck trade carried on by the poorer order of people round the town. They hatch the ducks under hens generally in their living rooms, often under their beds, and fatten them up early in spring on garbage, of which horse flesh not unfrequently ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... Americans called it the "long yellow feller," and sometimes a negro trooper would turn and with a yell shoot at it as it passed over. A little way off, a squad of the Tenth Cavalry was digging a trench—close to the top of the hill. Now and then one would duck—particularly the one on the end. He had his tongue in the corner of his mouth, was twirling his pick over his shoulder like a railroad hand, and grunting with every stroke. Grafton could ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.

... sun the green reach of the delta had a most peaceful appearance. There was a family of duck-dogs fishing from the beach, scooping their broad bills into the mud to locate water worms. And moth birds danced in the air currents overhead. Yet Dalgard was ready to agree with his companion—beware the easy way. They dipped ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... his best. Sparks burned holes in his shirt; a flare of sheet fire from a brush-heap singed his eyelashes and the hair over his forehead. When old Ike Frazier cried out, "It's no use here any more, boys!" Will was the last one to duck his head and run for the road up the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... Methodist church of some sort, Free, or Reformed, or something, and they made a great deal of that. Auntie Bloom used to get rather excited over it herself sometimes when she 'testified.' I used to duck my head when she waved her arms about. 'A new creature!' she used to shout. 'There's nothing like being a new creature!'" And Adele quoted the ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock

... which they passed, knowing that the game, never having been shot at, would not take fright at the noise. Sometimes they came upon great masses of snakes, intertwined and coiled like worms; in these cases Cortlandt brought his gun into play, raking them with duck-shot to his heart's content. "As the function of these reptiles," he explained, "is to form a soil on which higher life may grow, we may as well help along their metamorphosis by artificial means." They were impressed ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in "Hamlet" and the "Iliad," in all the Scriptures and Mythologies, not learned in the schools, that delights us. As the wild duck is more swift and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild—the mallard—thought, which 'mid falling dews wings its way above the fens. A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild flower ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... convinced that he at least (whatever might be maintained about mankind generally) had a right to be free from anything disagreeable. That he should ever fall into a thoroughly unpleasant position—wear trousers shrunk with washing, eat cold mutton, have to walk for want of a horse, or to "duck under" in any sort of way—was an absurdity irreconcilable with those cheerful intuitions implanted in him by nature. And Fred winced under the idea of being looked down upon as wanting funds for small debts. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... dubitat, or a flap against the Maggot of Heresie, Efflorescentina Flosculorum, or a choice collection of F. (sic) Withers Poems or the like, I do not intend to meddle with it. Alas, sir, I am as unlikely to read your book that I can't get down the title no more than a duck can swallow a yoked heifer'—and then follows an imitation of gulps straining at ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... thought so when I arrived two days ago. When I came in sight of the place a lot of girls waved from the window and yelled at me. I no sooner got inside than a queer looking duck whom I took to be a nut came rushing up to me and cried: 'Too late for soup!'—This is Campe de Triage de la Ferte Mace, Orne, France, and all these fine people were arrested as spies. Only two or three of them can speak a word of ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... work on a white parkie for the musician. I played with Jennie for a time before the lesson, and Ageetuk came in on an errand, while Polly, the Eskimo servant, jabbered in a funny way and wabbled over the floor like a duck, as is her habit when walking. This girl is short, fat and shapeless, with beady black eyes, and a crafty expression, certainly not to be relied on if there is truth ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... own particular cubby-holes and "rooms," and they "visited" their dolls back and forth all around the pile. And as they played they talked very fast about all sorts of things, being little girls and not boys who just yelled and howled inarticulately as they played ball or duck-on-a-rock or prisoner's goal, racing and running and wrestling noisily ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield

... a writ of ejectment! Pardon me! Be not angry, sir," pleaded Pothier supplicatingly, "I dare not knock at the door when they are at the devil's mass inside. The valets! I know them all! They would duck me in the brook, or drag me into the hall to make sport for the Philistines. And I am not much of a Samson, your Honor. I could not pull the Chateau down upon ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... stable-sergeant, who was Anthony Fritzen, of Scranton, Penna. The horses were then led to the corral and the real stable duties of the day commenced. In leading the horses through the stable to the corral, the length of your life was dependant upon your ability to duck the hoofs of the ones remaining in ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman

... on we crossed a small stream bordered with black cherry trees, many of the smaller ones broken down by bears, of which animal we found many signs. One mile farther on we made our camp about a mile below the middle canon. To-night we have antelope, rabbit, duck, grouse and the finest of large trout for supper. As I write, General Washburn, Hedges and Hauser are engaged in an animated discussion of the differences between France and Germany, and the probabilities of the outcome of the war. The three gentlemen ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford

... said—a remark which struck me as rather unreasonable, seeing that French partridges were not exactly as common as linnets. He afterwards showed me his collection of birdskins, dwelling lovingly, for reasons which I cannot remember, upon that of a pin-tail duck. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... urging stringent methods against the Stedingers, Frieslanders, inhabiting the country between Weser and Zeider Zee. He wrote, "The Devil appears to them (the Stedingers) in different shapes, sometimes as a goose or duck, and at other times in the figure of a pale, black-eyed youth, with a melancholy aspect, whose embrace fills their hearts with eternal hatred against the Holy Church of Christ. This Devil presides at their sabbath when they all kiss him and dance around him. ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... drive with my sword-bayonet through the rascal's throat stopped his little game; for the swarthy Arab dropped his scimitar instanter, with a gurgle of rage and an upward roll of his eyes, "like a dying duck in a thunder-storm," as father used to say, tumbling down all of a heap as ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... that," he said. "'Tis all fish oil and bummaloes {small fish the size of smelt, known when dried as 'Bombay duck'} in Bombay." ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... ballad, there had walked, or rather reeled, into the room, a gentleman in a military frock-coat and duck trousers of dubious hue, with whose name and person some of my readers are perhaps already acquainted. In fact it was my friend Captain Costigan, in his usual condition at this hour of ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... who lived at Bass Cove, where he shot wild ducks, took some to town for sale, and attracted the attention of a portly gentleman fond of shooting. This gentleman went duck shooting with Joe, and their adventures were more amusing to the boy than to ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic

... bum hangin' round the river front in Saint Louee who hed preacher's papers, en wore a long-tailed coat. Thar wan't no low-down game he wudn't take a hand in fer a drink. His name wus Gaskins; I hed him up fer mayhem onct. I'll bet he's the duck, for he hung round Jack's place most o' the time. Whatcha want ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... of varieties, the wild Black Spanish, the Canvass-Back, and the ordinary little duck of the farmyard, are all good. The common duck is the only one we recommend for the American poultry-yard. A close pasture, including a rivulet, or a small stream of water, affords facilities for raising ducks at a cheap rate. From ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... upon opening their packs was a pair of rubber boots for each. They were ladies' knee-boots, the smallest size in stock, but the Gales entered them bodily, so to speak, moccasins and all, clear to their hips, like the waders that duck-hunters use. When they ran they fell down and out of them, but their pride remained upright and serene, for were not these like the boots that Poleon wore, and not of Indian make, with foolish beads on them? Next, the youthful heir had found a straw hat of strange and wondrous fashion, with ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... meats—chicken, duck, and other poultry, game, etc.—are of much less nutritive value than either beef, pork, or mutton, partly because of the large amount of waste in them, in the form of bones, skin, and tendons, and partly from the greater amount ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... acacia the most characteristic, grains, fruits, and edible roots being all imported; the fauna is no less peculiar, including, in the absence of many animals of other countries, the kangaroo, the dingo, and the duck-bill, the useful animals being likewise all imported; of birds, the cassowary and the emu, and smaller ones of great beauty, but songless; minerals abound, both the precious and the useful; the natives are disappearing, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the officers appeared in white. White duck curtains replaced the wooden doors. The women blossomed out in the daintiest of summer frocks, the men in white flannels, and although most of us found our shoes difficult to put on (in spite of the fact that we all had shoes a half a ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer

... on the threshold presenting a curious figure for he wore a heavy coat over a white duck suit. Where had she seen such a suit before? With a catch at her heart she remembered—at the hospital, that time Dale had been run over. "Oh!" she cried. ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... it was all fun—no harm meant. I'll read the next. "Mr. LIMPETT met Miss ZEFFIE in the Burlington Arcade. He said to her, 'O, you little duck!' She said to him, 'Fowls are cheap to-day!' The consequences were that they never smiled again, and the world said, 'What price hot potatoes?'" (Everybody looks depressed.) H'm—not bad—but I think we'll play something else now. [ZEFFIE ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various

... most nervous duck I ever ran across. When I saw you last your pocket was full of the silver plate of that pantry, and I can thank you for a fright myself, for when I saw you, I was just getting ready to crack a neat little crib. Say! why didn't ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... be at least odd, because it was his own grandfather who was swallowed up by the lily-white duck, just after the cat and her kittens came tumbling into Mrs. Mouse's hall, although Mr. Crow says, in some poetry I've got of his, that one animal is always like others of his kind. If old Mr. Frog went down the throat of a duck, I don't know why his grandson shouldn't feel proud of ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice

... with it, my duck? I couldn't lend it to anybody safer. If I deposit, the bank is as likely to fail as he. As long as he has the whole capital to swing, he will make the more ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... 66, and the whole score was but 137, in which Mr. Pulman's 30 was very useful; Mr. Royle, Mr. Game, and Mr. Webbe got 21, 22, and 21, and Mr. Grey Tylecote, not out, contributed an invaluable 12. The tail of the Cambridge side made 14 among them in the first innings, not an assortment of duck's eggs. Cambridge went in, with 175 to get, much like Oxford in 1870. An over was bowled before seven o'clock, and resulted in a four to leg. Sharpe and Hamilton, who went in last, first innings, went in first in the second, to avoid losing ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... mamma," she answered; "but I'll tell them they mustn't pull off their shoes and stockings and paddle in the lake, saying, 'quack,' and making believe they are a duck, like brother did. I'll tell them that's ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... "Why not 'duck?' It's a day for ducks. Only you're so afraid of paying me compliments. I see you think you know why I've come. Tell me at once, or I ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... evening came down, and day went out almost imperceptibly. Blackness grew under the furze caverns, and the last glimpse of the estuary faded away in a steely glimmer; a brown ghost of an owl slid low over the spiked ramparts, and wings—the wings of fighting wild-duck coming up from the sea to feed—"spoke" like swords through the star-spangled blue-black canopy ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... grinders in his ugly mouth, and to have preserved him mercifully for fifty years—for that is about the rascal's age. If that fellow's dagger breaks he can kill his victim with those teeth, as a fox does a duck, or smash his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... his teeth). In course you didn't, my dear; but I did, and I thought I'd mention it. Is that my supper, hey? Do my nose deceive me? (Sniffing and feeling.) Cold duck? sage and onions? a round of double Gloster? and that noggin o' rum? Why, I declare if I'd stayed and took pot-luck with my old commander, Cap'n John Gaunt, he couldn't have beat this little spread, as I've ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sat under the steep bank, pencil in hand, and a fresh sheet of paper on his knee. Chippy nudged Dick, and made signs to him to duck down, ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... ever failed of bringing us home something or other; and particularly we found in this part of the country, after the rains had fallen some time, abundance of wild fowl, such as we have in England, duck, teal, widgeon, etc.; some geese, and some kinds that we had never seen before; and we frequently killed them. Also we catched a great deal of fresh fish out of the river, so that we wanted no provision. If we wanted ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... fitting to appoint to each deity the bird that has most in common with it. For instance, are they sacrificing to Aphrodite, let them at the same time offer barley to the coot; are they immolating a sheep to Posidon, let them consecrate wheat in honour of the duck;(2) is a steer being offered to Heracles, let honey-cakes be dedicated to the gull;(3) is a goat being slain for King Zeus, there is a King-Bird, the wren,(4) to whom the sacrifice of a male gnat is ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes

... de Lord: he gib us signs Dat some day we be free; De norf-wind tell it to de pines, De wild-duck to de sea; We tink it when de church-bell ring, We dream it in de dream; De rice-bird mean it when he sing, De eagle when he scream. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We'll hab de rice an' corn: O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

... COURT.—During the period of her keeping company with Mr. Sanders, had received love letters, like other ladies. In the course of their correspondence Mr. Sanders had often called her a 'duck,' but never 'chops,' nor yet 'tomato sauce.' He was particularly fond of ducks. Perhaps if he had been as fond of chops and tomato sauce, he might have called her that, as a term ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... I observed a wild duck swimming on the waves, a single solitary wild duck. It is not easy to conceive, how interesting a thing it looked in that round objectless desert of waters. I had associated such a feeling of immensity with the ocean, that I felt exceedingly disappointed, when I was ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... wharf, with some naval officers, when he came down from his first trip. The steamer seemed an animated hen-coop. Live poultry hung from the foremast shrouds, dead ones from the mainmast, geese hissed from the binnacle, a pig paced the quarter-deck, and a duck's wings were seen fluttering from a line which was wont to sustain duck trousers. The naval heroes, mindful of their own short rations, and taking high views of one's duties in a conquered country, looked at me reproachfully, as who should say, "Shall these things ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... enough, under the lee of the top, to make fast to one of its eye-bolts—using a bit of small hawser, that was in the boat, for that purpose. The boat was then dropped a sufficient distance to leeward of the spars, where it rode head to sea, like a duck. This was a fortunate expedient; as it came on to blow hard, and we had something very like ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... came out in a comfortable top buggy, which I drove myself, and brought a luncheon of cold ham and canvas-back duck and a flask of brandy. Tied the horse under a tree out of sight of the house, and stood where I could command a full view of the premises without being seen. All day yesterday, as long as it was light enough to see, I watched in vain. No one left the house, except ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... wouldn't advise you to run across the Green Meadows in sight of King Eagle. I am told he is very fond of Rabbit. In fact he is very fond of fresh meat of any kind. He even catches the babies of Lightfoot the Deer when he gets a chance. He is so swift of wing that even the members of the Duck family fear him, for he is especially fond of fat Duck. Even Honker the Goose is not safe from him. King he may he, but he rules only through fear. He is a white-headed old robber. The best thing I can say of him is that he takes a mate ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... take to it like a duck does to water," added Slim. "But it's a shame to mention ducks in the same chapter with this atmosphere! Zow hippy! But it's hot an' dusty an' thirsty! Come along there, you old hunk of jerked beef!" he added to his pony, giving a gentle reminder with the spurs and pulling ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... Camel. In some ways she was an extraordinary vessel. She measured six hundred tons; but when she had taken in enough ballast to keep her from upsetting like a shot duck, and was provisioned for a three months' voyage, it was necessary to be mighty fastidious in the choice of freight and passengers. For illustration, as she was about to leave port a boat came alongside with two passengers, a man and his wife. They had booked the day before, but had ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... gently, smiling, on tiptoe, she brought the pink bolster from the Frau's bed and covered the baby's face with it, pressed with all her might as he struggled, "like a duck with its ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield

... duck than ever. I put her to bed myself, and she was quite delicious. Eat, I say; ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... said Nickie, "but last night I watched the Chow and his missus dining on roast duck. You notice there's a door in this partition just at the back of my cage. Curious, is it not? Well, I found an old rusty key in the crack under the wall, and it fits the lock of that door. Remarkable that, don't you think? Now, I shan't be surprised ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... power of the tender's officers to mitigate the hardships of the pressed man's lot to any appreciable extent, let them be as humane as they might. For this the pressed man himself was largely to blame. An ungrateful rogue, his hide was as impervious to kindness as a duck's back to water. Supply him with slops [Footnote: The regulations stipulated that slops should be served out to all who needed them; but as their acceptance was held to set up a contract between the recipient and the Crown, the pressed man was not unnaturally ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... water is as real as the reality. The Plaza, monstrous tons of steel and stone, floats between two elements. Then darkness gathers, the reflected lights in the blackening water grow more golden, and suddenly, perhaps, a duck swims across a tenth story window and sets it dancing in golden ripples. You may fare far among the ancient and "picturesque" cities of the earth without finding a rival for this strange bit of beauty in New York, an ethereal sky-scraper ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... the Billickin would exclaim (still no word being spoken by Rosa), 'you do surprise me when you speak of ducks! Not to mention that they're getting out of season and very dear, it really strikes to my heart to see you have a duck; for the breast, which is the only delicate cuts in a duck, always goes in a direction which I cannot imagine where, and your own plate comes down so miserably skin-and-bony! Try again, Miss. Think more of yourself, and less of others. ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... mantelshelf, but this little boy was white, or rather sallow-faced, and well dressed too, in a tight, round, leather cap, and a dark blue kind of shaggy gown with hairy leggings; and what he was shooting at was some kind of wild-duck or goose, that came tumbling down heavily with the arrow right across ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... love, this little fellow will soon be the decoy duck for others; he seems a nice, gentle lad, but I shall seek to have some talk with him to-morrow, and see what he is made of; boys, under women's instructions, are generally ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... head and shoulder on the sky-line, which he took for those of an officer, and was accurate enough to make the head and shoulders duck and to get a swarm of bullets ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... Polly! Ah reckon you're right, so Ah'll throw on that striped shirt-waist your Maw gave me, and the duck skirt with ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... made by a mole, and you know that they are all somewhere beneath your feet: moles, pocket gophers, and the pretty striped gopher which used to sit up on his hind legs, fold his front paws, and look at you in the summer time, then give a low whistle and duck; meadow mice in their cozy tunnels through which the water will be pouring when the spring freshets come; the woodchuck in his long, long sleep, and the chipmunk with his winter store of food. And so watching, ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell

... But he did know that warm and angry glow for the reflection of London's light and life; he could not forget he was in London for a moment. Her mighty machinery with its million wheels throbbed perpetually in his ears; and yet between the beats would come the quack of a wild duck near at hand, the splash of a leaping fish, the plaintive whistle of water-fowl: altogether such a chorus of incongruities as was not lost upon our very impressionable young vagabond. The booming strokes of eleven recalled him to a sense of time and his immediate needs. His great adventure was ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... tell you what they were for," answered Little. "We were going to have some fun, pelting them with stones, just as we used to play duck on shore, you know; but we concluded not to do so, lest the stewards in the kitchen should hear the noise, and make ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... leaping, to see if Will Peake would equal my jump (which, Heaven help him! he could not do), that the gallant was swinging over the pond before anyone understood what was afoot. Then they broke up the ring and closed in on us, so that I, having dropped my burden amidst the duck-weed, was fain to lose myself among the crowd and give one ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... case of those aquatic animals which are generated on land, such as crocodiles, river-tortoises, and a certain kind of serpents, which seek the water as soon as they are able to drag themselves along. We frequently put duck-eggs under hens, by which, as by their true mothers, the ducklings are at first hatched and nourished; but when they see the water, they forsake them and run to it, as to their natural abode: so strong is the impression of nature in ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... Priory. As it is now in private occupation and is not shown to strangers, I have not seen it; but of old many persons journeyed thither, attracted by the quaint mural paintings, in the Prior's room, of domestic animals uttering speech. "Christus natus est," crows the cock. "Quando? Quando?" the duck inquires. "In hac nocte," says the raven. "Ubi? Ubi?" asks the cow, and the lamb satisfies her: ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... he appeared at church in Rochester on a Sunday during the campaign. "He wore an elegant snuff-colored broadcloth coat with velvet collar; his cravat was orange with modest lace tips; his vest was of a pearl hue; his trousers were white duck; his silk hose corresponded to the vest; his shoes were morocco; his nicely fitting gloves were yellow kid; his long-furred beaver hat, with broad brim, was of Quaker color. As he sat in the wealthy aristocratic church of the town, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... letter-writers made their final description of themselves so wholly a part of their last sentence that the former cannot be dissociated from the latter. 'I have not room to tell you any more,' wrote Stephen Duck to Joseph Spence in 1751, 'than that I am, Dear Sir, your most affectionate.' 'These,' said her royal mistress to Mrs. Delany in 1785, 'are the true sentiments of my dear Mrs. Delany's very affectionate Queen, Charlotte.' Hood once finished a charming epistle to ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams

... into it, she recovered the natural right of which she had been so wickedly deprived,—namely, gravity. whether this was owing to the fate that water had been employed as the means of conveying the injury, I do not know. But it is certain that she could swim and dive like the duck that her old nurse said she was. The way that this alleviation of her misfortune was discovered, was as follows: One summer evening, during the carnival of the country, she had been taken upon the lake by the king and queen, in the royal barge. They were accompanied by many of the courtiers ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... of the Polite Part of Mankind I have printed the most beautiful Poems of Mr. Stephen Duck the famous Wiltshire Poet. It is a full Demonstration to me that the People of New England have a fine Taste for good Sense and polite Learning having already sold ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... of rest between the filling of one's barrow and the start up the run. In an hour's time my poor hands were covered with blood blisters, and my left knee was a lame duck indeed, made so by the slight wrench given it each time I struck in my spade with my left foot; but I made no complaint. About 10 o'clock the man next to me with an oath threw down his spade and vowed he would do no more work. Putting on his vest and packet, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... drake (Anas boschas), after the breeding-season, is well known to lose his male plumage for a period of three months, during which time he assumes that of the female. The male pin-tail duck (Anas acuta) loses his plumage for the shorter period of six weeks or two months; and Montagu remarks that "this double moult within so short a time is a most extraordinary circumstance, that seems to bid defiance to ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... flicker of shade on shade. In the leaves 'tis palpable: low multitudinous stirring Upwinds through the woods; the little ones, softly conferring, Have settled my lord's to be looked for; so; they are still; But the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill, — And look where the wild duck sails round the bend of the river, — And look where a passionate shiver Expectant is bending the blades Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and shades, — And invisible wings, fast fleeting, fast fleeting, Are beating The dark overhead ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... squirrels in these woods; at least I expect so, for they abound in all the forests. We must knock some of them over if we can. I believe they are not bad eating, though I never tried one. Then by the streams we ought to be able to pick up some wild duck, though of course at this time of year the greater portion of them are far north. Still I have great hopes we shall be able to keep ourselves in food with the assistance of what we may be able to ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... were almost half way across the pond, when Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the duck girls, came out of their pen. They had just washed their faces and their yellow bills, and had put on their new hair ribbons, so they ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis

... Madgin gave a farewell duck of the head and went. He took his way homeward through the park like a man walking in his sleep. With wide-open eyes and hat well set on the back of his head, with his blue bag in one hand and his umbrella under his arm, he trudged onward, even after he had reached the busy streets of ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various

... varieties of living stock are offered for sale—geese, ducks, chickens, rabbits, pigeons, and birds of various sorts. I sometimes went down here and bargained for an hour or so over a fat goose or a Muscovy duck, not with any ultimate idea of purchasing it, but merely because it was offered to me at a reduced price. It was amusing, also, to study the manners and customs of the dealer, and enjoy their amazement when, after causing them so much loss of time, I would hand over five kopeks ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... of sixteen, or thereabouts, selected from the hands on the plantation with reference to their size and muscular development. They were clothed in white duck pants, blue cotton frocks, trimmed with white, and wore uniform straw hats, encircled by black bands, upon which was inscribed, in gilt letters, the name of the boat, "Edith," in compliment ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... Buddy was very fond of adventures, which means having something happen to you. He was almost as much that way as Alice Wibblewobble, the little duck girl, was fond of romantic things—that is she liked fairies, and princes, and kings, and knights with golden swords, and all oddities like that. Well, Buddy Pigg went in the little grove of trees, and now you just wait and listen—an adventure is ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis

... afternoon, came Hamlin and Avery, big, handsome, genial, sauntering men, clothed in white duck and low-cut shoes. They permeated the whole office with an aura of debonair prosperity. They passed among the clerks and left a wake of abbreviated given names and ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... to pour forth the dark-hued masses of the enemy the youth felt serene self-confidence. He smiled briefly when he saw men dodge and duck at the long screechings of shells that were thrown in giant handfuls over them. He stood, erect and tranquil, watching the attack begin against a part of the line that made a blue curve along the side of an adjacent hill. His vision being unmolested by smoke from the ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... hedge he came to the duck-pond, or at least to what was the duck-pond by day. But by night it was a great bowl of silver moonshine all noisy with singing frogs, of wonderful silver moonshine twisted and clotted with strange patternings, and the little man ran ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... usually so strongly flavoured that, plainly boiled, they are not good for eating; they answer, however, very well for various culinary preparations where eggs are required; such as custards, &c. &c. Being so large and highly-flavoured, 1 duck's egg will go as far as 2 small hen's eggs; besides making whatever they are mixed with exceedingly rich. They also are admirable ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... himself and said: "The would-be catcher is caught. I thought Viola Martin would duck him if anybody could. Tell me about these smile-proof bachelors. When once they are struck, they fall ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs

... were more familiar than parents knew. As a rule boys could skate and swim and were sent to dancing-school; they played a rudimentary game of baseball, football, and hockey; a few could sail a boat; still fewer had been out with a gun to shoot yellow-legs or a stray wild duck; one or two may have learned something of natural history if they came from the neighborhood of Concord; none could ride across country, or knew what shooting with dogs meant. Sport as a pursuit was unknown. Boat-racing came after ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... for the old bitch, Miss Percival. She'll not feed the lot of them. We'll be wise to duck the ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... seen the inside of a church, and the father thought he knew his own interest better than to force them to it; for church-time was the season of their harvest. Then the hens' nests were searched, a stray duck was clapped under the smockfrock, the tools which might have been left by chance in a farm-yard were picked up, and all the neighboring pigeon-houses were thinned; so that Giles used to boast to tawny Rachel, his wife, ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More

... she has brought.] — Then my thousand welcomes to you, and I've run up with a brace of duck's eggs for your food today. Pegeen's ducks is no use, but these are the real rich sort. Hold out your hand and you'll see it's no lie I'm ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge

... he was younger than I—a short, stocky, red-headed chap, dressed in dirty white duck trousers and a torn ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings

... that Clover would be as disengaged and as much at their service as she had been in the valley; and lo! she sat on the piazza with a knot of girls about her, and a young man in an extremely "fetching" costume of snow-white duck, with a flower in his button-hole, was bending over her chair, and talking in a low voice of something which seemed of interest. He looked provokingly cool and comfortable to the dusty horsemen, and very much ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge

... His cigar bobbed up and down with the movement of his lips. "Come out. You can duck under the canvas right here. Lift it ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon



Words linked to "Duck" :   Aix sponsa, beg, quibble, Aythya americana, family Anatidae, Anas clypeata, poultry, broadbill, cloth, Oxyura jamaicensis, wood widgeon, sheldrake, Aix galericulata, anseriform bird, quack-quack, bluebill, Aythya ferina, dipper, Anatidae, Aythya valisineria, canvasback, Anas rubripes, Bucephela albeola, Bucephela clangula, shoveller, redhead, Anas acuta, cricket, Anas penelope, pochard, goldeneye, souse, material, dive, avoid, teal, fabric, put off, plunge, plunk, wigeon, shoveler, score, drake, dunk, widgeon, whistler, wood duck, scaup, pintail, Anas platyrhynchos, Cairina moschata, butterball, dabbler, evade, textile, mallard, move, bufflehead



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