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Pluck   /plək/   Listen
Pluck

verb
(past & past part. plucked; pres. part. plucking)
1.
Pull or pull out sharply.  Synonyms: pick off, pull off, tweak.
2.
Sell something to or obtain something from by energetic and especially underhanded activity.  Synonyms: hustle, roll.
3.
Rip off; ask an unreasonable price.  Synonyms: fleece, gazump, hook, overcharge, plume, rob, soak, surcharge.
4.
Pull lightly but sharply with a plucking motion.  Synonyms: pick, plunk.
5.
Strip of feathers.  Synonyms: deplumate, deplume, displume, pull, tear.  "Pluck the capon"
6.
Look for and gather.  Synonyms: cull, pick.  "Pick flowers"



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"Pluck" Quotes from Famous Books



... some natives who came running from that side. A big induna blazed at me, missed me, and then fumbled at his belt for another cartridge. It was not a proper bandolier he had on, and I saw him trying to pluck out the cartridge instead of easing it up from below with his finger. As I got my horse steady and threw my rifle down to cover him, he suddenly let the cartridge be and lifted an assegai. Waiting to make sure of my aim, just as his arm ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... only for the bones I hate those eels cod yes Ill get a nice piece of cod Im always getting enough for 3 forgetting anyway Im sick of that everlasting butchers meat from Buckleys loin chops and leg beef and rib steak and scrag of mutton and calfs pluck the very name is enough or a picnic suppose we all gave 5/- each and or let him pay it and invite some other woman for him who Mrs Fleming and drove out to the furry glen or the strawberry beds wed have him examining all the horses toenails first like he does ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... and out, and his pluck was gone, And he said to me in a gloomy way: "I've wasted my chances, one by one, And I'm just no good, as the people say. Nothing ahead, and my dreams all dust, Though once there was something I might have been, But I wasn't game, and I broke my trust, And I ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest

... to the air, at your time of life, as you could once.—I will box with you, said the Professor, row with you, walk with you, ride with you, swim with you, or sit at table with you, for fifty dollars a side.—Pluck survives ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... poor in beauty thus content remain To see their jealous cause revenged in thee, And their fair foes afflicted with like pain. Lo, the clear proof of thy divinity; For unto God is only due this praise The highest to pluck down, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable

... reason for shame, for to them the danger seemed real; and believing it to be real, they had not shrunk, but had faced it with very commendable pluck. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... one can look at the district you inhabit without feeling certain that this increase will continue. Impatient, restless, and ignorant of his true interests would that man be, indeed, who, under such circumstances, would not desire to tread in the steps of his fathers, to face, with British pluck and spirit, any difficulties that may arise; and to rejoice that his lot has been cast in that Empire which has withstood every danger, whose might has been moulded by centuries, and whose flag has never waved over any people whose character has not been ennobled by the free ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... from the worst motives, they were to be found in that miserable creature, as he stood there urging himself on to hate those whom he should have loved—cursing those who were nearest to him—fearing her, whom he had ill-treated all his life—and striving to pluck up courage to take such measures as might entirely quell her. Money was to him the only source of gratification. He had looked forward, when a boy, to his manhood, as a period when he might indulge, unrestrained, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... are my views," he answered: "If the Comte de Vegin as he grows up should continue to show pluck and a taste for things military, as by birth he is bound to do, we will relieve him of the abbey on the eve of his marriage, while he will have profited thereby up to that time. If, on the contrary, my son should show but inferior mental capacity, and a pusillanimous character, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... heroic days of his youthful vigor. He was rather fond of recalling how he had carried his pick on his shoulder and his knife in his belt, with two Yankee sayings in his head, and little besides for baggage: "Muscle and pluck!—Muscle and pluck!" and "Go ahead for ever!" That was the sort of thing to be done when a man or a ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... fingers began to pluck at the letter, tearing it into pieces, tearing the pieces over and over again into tiny shreds. The train stopped at station after station, people got on and off—Jimmie Dale's hat was over his eyes, and his eyes were glued again to the window. Had ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... expansion of Europe over all the five continents and the seven seas which has marked the past five centuries, the Englishman found a roomy place in the sun. By luck or pluck, by trusted honesty or sublime assurance, and with little aid from his government, he soon outdistanced Frenchman and Dutchman, Spaniard and Portuguese, in the area and richness of the regions over which his flag floated and in which his trading-posts or his settlements ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton

... loaned the charm to another woman, similarly affected, who also soon experienced relief. Thereupon a natural curiosity prompted them to examine the mystic spell, and this is what they read: "May the Devil pluck out thine eyes, and replace ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... the fore sight of his gun shot a great number of times but killed only the number mentioned. as the elk were scattered we sent two parties for them, they returned in the evening with four skins and the flesh of three Elk, that of one of them having become putrid from the liver and pluck having been carelessly left in the animal all night. we were visited this afternoon by Delashshelwilt a Chinnook Chief his wife and six women of his nation which the old baud his wife had brought for market. this was the same party that had communicated ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... actions of a man who had not heard, but whose walk, instead, had terminated of itself or of his own volition. To heighten this effect, now and again, still casually and carelessly, he would stoop and pluck another poppy. Thus did he deceitfully save himself the indignity of being put out, and rob us of the satisfaction of putting him out, but he came, and he came often, each time getting away with an able-bodied ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... my tongue, and thou thoughtest, wickedly, that I am even such a one as thyself. But I will reprove thee, and set before thee the things which thou hast done. O consider this, ye that forget God: lest I pluck you away, and there be ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... following letter, thoroughly characteristic of the pluck and cheerfulness of the young British officer, was received from a cavalry subaltern ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... the uttermost; but for his cozening me to my face, as he has done so long, and for his smooth, false ways, and for his impudent tales, which I had half believed, and for his audacious attempt to pluck you from the hand for which I had designed you, I hate him. I tell you," cried out the old man, fiercely, "if this villain had fifty lives, and the law would help me to them, I would exact them all! ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... always children," he said, smiling gravely. "See an old child whom thou hast made happy with a toy. But we are men too soon again; the King bids thee come with me before him. And, my son, if thou wouldst please me more than by any gift, I pray thee pluck that spear-head from thy helmet before thou comest into the ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... on the face, especially in old age. With the tribes of North America, Catlin estimates that eighteen out of twenty men are completely destitute by nature of a beard; but occasionally there may be seen a man, who has neglected to pluck out the hairs at puberty, with a soft beard an inch or two in length. The Guaranys of Paraguay differ from all the surrounding tribes in having a small beard, and even some hair on the body, but no whiskers. (19. Catlin, 'North American Indians,' 3rd. ed. 1842, vol. ii. p. 227. On the Guaranys, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... called a 'smirchiness' of feature, he had learned to assume an air of superiority, which by its sheer audacity prevented a casual observer from setting him down as the vulgarian he undoubtedly was; and his amazing pluck, boldness and originality in devising ways and means of smothering popular discontent under various 'shows' of apparent public prosperity, was immensely useful to all such 'statesmen,' whose statesmanship consisted in making as much money as possible for themselves out ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... men like devils; yea, every foul spirit, and hateful bird, flock to, and take shelter in Babylon; let us not be frighted or dejected, but pluck up our hearts, and say, This is one of the signs that the downfall of Babylon is near. Wherefore it follows, after that the prophet had told us that these birds should dwell in the land of the people of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... with Argus tail of gold and green,[13] High strutting, with elated crest, As much a peacock as the rest. His trick was recognized and bruited, His person jeer'd at, hiss'd, and hooted. The peacock gentry flock'd together, And pluck'd the fool of every feather. Nay more, when back he sneak'd to join his race, They shut ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... to him now, or you will never see him more! the hand of death is on him,—cold, clay-cold is its touch! he is breathing his last—Oh murdered Delvile! massacred husband of my heart! groan not so piteously! fly to him, and weep over him!—fly to him and pluck the ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... Your mercie. Spare my Sonn and I shall goe As willingly to death as to my rest After a painfull child birthe. Looke on him! How fitt the subiect is to invite your pittie! What Tyrant hand would cut this Cedar up Ere its full groath (at which it stately head Would give a shade to heaven), or pluck this Rose As ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... rather the ground which it includes, is several acres in extent. A terrace encloses it toward the lagoon; on the side of the land, a palisade with several gates. These are scarce intended for defence; a man, if he were strong, might easily pluck down the palisade; he need not be specially active to leap from the beach upon the terrace. There is no parade of guards, soldiers, or weapons; the armoury is under lock and key; and the only sentinels ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of his house. Their chief, named Begue, he calls and bids: "Guard well This man as one who all my kin betrayed." Him Begue received, and set upon the count One hundred of his kitchen comrades—best And worst; they pluck his beard on lip and cheek; Each deals him with his fist four blows, and falls On him with lash and stick; they chain his neck As they would chain a bear, and he is thrown For more dishonor on a sumpter mule, There guarded so until ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... I said, it cannot be That Bogota shall be denied Her Arismendi, too—her chief To pluck her honor up, and pride; The wild Llanero boasts his braves That, stung with patriot wrath and shame, Rushed redly to the realm of graves, And rose, through blood and death, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... He made reply in a low, level voice, a voice in which there was something that made her pluck the child to her and hold him right to her breast. "You are not going home to-night. You are going for a ride with me; and if—Oh, that's your little game, is it?" lurching forward as she made a frantic clutch at the handle of ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... she had learned in this latter department served her well in her new station. After marriage she found Albert to be just the man she had known him to be in other years. He was kind to a fault; free-hearted and generous; ready always to answer the call of friendship; and prone to pluck the flowers that bloom to-day, regardless of what may be ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... discreet and forbidding-looking friend of youth; but when it was a question of paying for board or lodging, or for the necessary implements for the cultivation of his Elysian fields, his imagination and pluck alike deserted him. There was no inspiration to be found in vulgar necessity, in debts contracted for past requirements. Like most of those who trust to their luck, he put off till the last moment the payment of debts that among the bourgeoisie are ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... you've come to day. I didn't know whether you meant to break off or not. I don't cherish any rancor. I don't see any use in carrying the war into friendships. We made the best fight we could. We did better than your side. You had the most men and the biggest fellows. We showed good pluck, if we did get licked. If you hadn't come to-day I should have been gone without seeing you, for I began to think that you were as narrow as these prating abolitionists. My commission is ready for me now at Richmond, and I'm just aching to get my regimentals on. I'm to be ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... ten thousand words of men. Behold, if all things could be said against thee which the utmost malice could invent, what should it hurt thee if thou wert altogether to let it go, and make no more account of it than of a mote? Could it pluck out a ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis

... most lonesome places, and were always full of glee and merriment, for their little voices could be plainly heard. These little men, the pukwudjininees, are not deeply malicious, but rather delighted in mischief and freaks, and would sometimes steal away a fisherman's paddle, or come at night and pluck the hunter's feathers out of his cap in the lodge, or pilfer away some of his game, or fish. On one occasion they went so far as to entice away into their sacred grove, and carry off a chief's daughter—a small but beautiful girl, who had been always inclined to be ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... the job?" he cried. "Not one to volunteer? Why, you laugh at me, and call me Frenchy, and brag about your English pluck, and not one man will come forward. Here you, Bob Hampton, your trick's over at the wheel; come ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... out of the question to withdraw, as there was nothing left to them but to arm themselves with whatever pluck and boldness they had at their command in order to carry out the role they had undertaken to play in the ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... 'uns," he said, nearly wringing my hand off in his approval. "You can't beat 'em for pluck. My missus is one of 'em, and she went bush with me when I'd nothing but a skeeto net and a quart-pot to share with her." Then, slapping the Maluka vigorously on the back, he told him he'd got some sense left. "You can't beat ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... his arrival in France. She was no less charm'd with his conversation than she had been with his person, and impatient to know who he was, made an offer of shewing him her face on condition he would pluck off his mask at the same time: but this he would by no means agree to, because still hoping to get rid of her, and have some discourse with mademoiselle Charlotta, he did not think proper he should be known by any other, who might perhaps make remarks on his ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... arms, learning was the forbidden fruit that no Negro dared taste. Positive and explicit statutes everywhere, as fiery swords, drove him away hungry from the tree of intellectual life; and all persons were forbidden to pluck the fruit for him, upon pain of severe penalties. Every yearning for intellectual food was ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... from earthland long ago; But Merlin stays still hanging on his cross. He would not move a nail that nails him there, He would not pluck a thorn that crowns him there. He hung himself upon the blessed cross With Ethel; she has gone to wear the crown That wreathes the brows of virgins who have kept Their bodies with their ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... wander amid the academic bowers, until the blast of war rung in his ears, and called him to the field of honour. Edward was ever foremost in the hour of danger. It was his fate to meet the enemy often, and as often did "he pluck honour from the pale- fac'd moon." He fought at Chippewa—bled at the side of the gallant Lawrence-and nearly laid down his life on the ensanguined plains of Marengo. But it would be a fruitless task to include all the scenes of his danger and his glory. Thanks ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... Lieutenants T. Connally and Winston Churchill also turned about to rescue two non-commissioned officers of their respective troops. They succeeded in their laudable task. Surgeon-Captain Pinches, whose horse had been shot under him on the north side of the khor, was saved by the pluck of his orderly, Private Peddar, who brought him out on his horse. Meanwhile, Captain Kenna and Lieutenant Montmorency, who were accompanied by Corporal Swarbrick, saw Lieutenant Grenfell's body and tried to recover it. They fired at the ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... struck with the spade, the bitterest cries and shrieks burst forth from it, and while the roots are being laid bare demons are heard to howl in horrid concert. When the preparatory work is done, and when the hand of the daring man is laid on the stem to pluck forth his prize, then is it as if all the fiends of hell were let loose upon him, such shrieking, such howling, such clanging of chains, such crashing of thunder, and such flashing of forked lightning assail him on every ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous

... expresses, and his words are the distillations of life. His spiritual percipience has rendered his soul a veritable garden of emotions, and with his pen he transplants these in the written page. And men see and come to pluck the flowers to transplant again in their own souls that they, too, may have a garden like unto his. His elan carries over into the lives of these men and they glow with the ardor of his emotions and are inspired to deeds of courage, of service, and of solace. For every flower ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... right? Eh, old fellow, who cares about that nowadays? And how clean they pluck you, too! That's the fact ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... rifle. While they are on their long and slow march, they speculate upon the good luck that may attend the master's gun, and upon arrival at the general bivouac in the evening they are always on the alert to skin and divide the antelopes, pluck the guinea-fowls, &c. &c. We now travelled in this delightful manner; there were great numbers of guinea-fowl throughout the country, which was the same everlasting flat and rich table land, extending for several hundred miles to the south, and dotted with green mimosas; while upon our ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... fortunate and auspicious way. O foremost of the Kurus, this way will lead thee to the Saugandhika wood. (Proceeding in this direction), thou wilt behold the gardens of Kuvera, guarded by Yakshas and Rakshasas. Do thou not pluck the flowers (there) personally by thy own force; for the gods deserve regard specially from mortals. O best of the Bharata race, the gods confer their favour (upon men), (being propitiated) by offerings, and homas, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... ruby now," said the Prince; "my eyes are all that I have left. They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him. He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde

... thus addressed it: "What a lovely flower is the Rose, a favorite alike with Gods and with men. I envy you your beauty and your perfume." The Rose replied, "I indeed, dear Amaranth, flourish but for a brief season! If no cruel hand pluck me from my stem, yet I must perish by an early doom. But thou art immortal and dost never fade, but bloomest for ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... 't is hard by; a stone's throw from this square. So, lean on me—you are not well. This way. Pluck up good heart, sir; we shall soon ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... has more pluck than I gave him credit for," said Bob Hale, after we had silently watched the departure of the boat. "Isn't it a pity a man who knows so much, and is such a good teacher, ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... deep and troubled waters Comes the cry; Wild are the waves around me— Dark the sky: There is no hand to pluck me From the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... thought Collingbourne was a brand that it would be creditable to pluck from the burning, so he followed him up stairs, telling him there was salvation for all, only to meet with the reply that he better mind his own business or he would get salivated so his ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... pluck out of his roote, and the Sonne him shal disenherite, and of the Holy le disracinera, et le Filz le ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous

... he really got away, Paget overtook him and brought him down. But then Paget was exceptionally fast. In the two most important branches of the game, the taking of passes and tackling, Barry did well. As far as pluck went he had enough for two, and when the whistle blew for no-side he had not let Paget through once, and Trevor felt that his inclusion in the team had been justified. There was another scratch game on the Saturday. ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse

... more than he could say on the subject. He felt more in his heart than he could express in words. He trusted that the success of Forrest and his party would be a solace to him in his latest day, and that in their latter days they would look back with pride to the energy and pluck they displayed in their younger. He called upon them to drink The health and success of Mr. Forrest and his companions during ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... and New York State, to order his tool, Governor Seymour, to veto the measure. As was anticipated by the aldermen, the courts pronounced that the Common Council had no power to grant franchises. Vanderbilt's franchise was, therefore, annulled. So far, there was no hitch in the plot to pluck Vanderbilt. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... not minister to a mind diseas'd; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain; And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff, Which ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... were a power on earth from the start—and that by the masterful quality of their mind and spirit. They had endless pluck, intellectual and moral. They believed that the kingdom in this world was with ideas. It was, you might say, one of their original Yankee notions that it was the property of a man to have opinions and to stand ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... life of the place," said one of them. "She's got a lot of pluck, too, and laughs when we hurt her. She thinks she's going to get well, ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... in the street, he saw the window of Elodie's chamber half unclose and a little hand pluck a red carnation, which fell at his feet like a ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... my prophecy Come home to you!—you must retire yourself Into some covert; take your sweetheart's hat And pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face, Dismantle you; and, as you can, disliken The truth of your own seeming; that you may,— For I do fear ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare

... fast about gan fly, And throstles sang, would have no rest. He pressed to pull fruit with his hand, As man for food that was near faint. 130 She said "Thomas, thou let them stand,[34] Or else the fiend thee will attaint! If thou it pluck, soothly to say, Thy soul goes to the fire of hell; It comes never out or Doomesday, 135 But there in pain aye for to dwell. Thomas, soothly, I thee hight[35], Come lay thy head down on my knee, And thou shalt see the fairest sight That ever saw man of thy country." 140 He did in ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... summer several skirmishes between the Indians and United States soldiers occurred, in which the Indians and their black allies fought with remarkable pluck, ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney

... Nat," he said cheerfully. "But we have plenty of pluck, my boy, and Ebo will help us to make a canoe to take us to the Moluccas, where I dare say I can get some merchant to fit us out again. Well, Ebo," he cried, ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... back were unavailing. Nothing in the world should carry him up the mountain again, now that he had happily got so far down. I worked his best and his worst feelings with equal want of success; even national jealousy failed, and he was content to know that a French maire had not pluck to face three-quarters of an hour of climbing, when an English priest was ready to lead the way. The schoolmaster declined to go alone with me, on the ground that neither of us knew the mountain, and threatening clouds were gathering all around. When, at last, I ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... end. Lanfranc had gone to Canterbury. The Conqueror, assured by trusty reporters of the death of Wilfred, rejoiced that so satisfactory an accident had befallen, sparing all publicity and shame to one he could but admire, as he ever admired pluck ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... the royal pig with peoples' woe, And grimly glad went laboring till late— The morose alchemist we know as Fate! That ev'ry guest might learn to suit his taste, Behind had Conscience, real or mock'ry, placed; Conscience a guide who every evil spies, But royal nurses early pluck out both ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... captains, men vowed to noble service, loyal aid, whose names are in all mouths, who go forth upon this adventure not (I trust in God) with an eye single to the gain of the purse, but thinking, rather, to pluck green laurels for themselves, and to bring to the Queen and England gifts of waning danger, waxing power! What reproach—what evil augury—nay, perhaps, what maiming of our enterprise! Leaders and commanders ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... been suggested for the cure of hydrophobia. Crabs-claws, Spanish fly, and dragon roots, given three mornings before the new or full moon, was suggested as a specific by Sir Robert Gordon. Theodore De Vaux remarks that the person bitten should immediately pluck the feathers from the breech of an old cock and apply them bare to the bites. If the dog was mad the cock was supposed to swell and die. If the dog was not mad the cock would not swell; in either case ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... caressed her; Stretched up their dishes, Panniers and plates: "Look at our apples Russet and dun, Bob at our cherries, Bite at our peaches, Citrons and dates, Grapes for the asking, Pears red with basking Out in the sun, Plums on their twigs; Pluck them and suck them, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... Maltese, who knew that—for a foreign settlement at least, and one, too, possessing in all the ranks and functions of society an ample population of its own—such a stately and wide-branching tree of patronage, though delightful to the individuals who are to pluck its golden apples, sheds, like the manchineel, unwholesome and corrosive dews on the multitude who are to rest beneath its shade. It need not, however, be doubted, that Sir Alexander Ball would exert himself to preclude ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... are pagans," said Sarah, with dignity. "Rest, if ye are tired, pluck some grapes for yourselves, and go with God. Our servants are not glad to ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... his English "pluck"—even stimulated by this resemblance to the national knight—Harry Blount felt shy to approach that creature that challenged the passage ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... not trust me? [Vernon comes down, R.] Oh, Harry! I wish he would find out what a lot of pluck and common sense there is in this feather ...
— Our American Cousin • Tom Taylor

... limpid mirror of their minds, in which all nature was reflected, was less noble than the sharp face of a stone which can catch but one ray. They were both subject to political prejudices and prepossessions. Shakspeare has made of many a youth of the nineteenth century an ardent Lancastrian, ready to pluck a red rose with Somerset and die for Margaret and her prince; and Scott in like manner has made many a Jacobite, though in the latter case our novelist is too full of sense even in the midst of his own ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... inflamed, the doctor said; it was a mystery to him, he kept telling them, how she had kept up so long; an ordinary girl would have given in and taken to her bed long ago. But then he was not acquainted with the indomitable spirit and pluck that were Judy's characteristics. ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner

... between the shafts, and we went downstairs, while his wife held a light for us. When we got outside I stood the body up, so as to deceive the coachman, and said: 'Come, my friend; it is nothing; you feel better already I expect. Pluck up your courage, and make an effort. It will soon be over.' But as I felt that he was slipping out of my hands, I gave him a slap on the shoulder, which sent him forward and made him fall into the carriage, and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... passed, but galloping on, he overtook it at the next stage, and on his arrival at Washington, Mr. Hays at once introduced him to the Secretary of War. On presenting him, he explained the disadvantages of his education, but begged indulgence for him on account of his pluck and determination. The Secretary plied him with questions, but Jackson was not to be diverted from his purpose; and so good was the impression which he made that he then and there received his warrant, accompanied by some excellent ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... cannon, which a passing British man of War sent to besiege them. The men were taken to Gloucester, but the cannon was left there where it remained until it found a better place in the town-hall yard. There, all renovated, it now stands as a precious relic of American pluck. ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various

... course very foolish; and if the driver had given him a few sharp cuts with his whip, it might have done Alcibiades a great deal of good. But the man was so amused by the little fellow's pluck, that he actually turned around ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber

... condemn the campaign of robbery and murder conducted by the Black Prince against the peaceful inhabitants of Southern France in 1356, but it would be still more difficult to do justice to the magnificent pluck and grit which enabled 8,000 Englishmen at Poitiers to put to flight no less than 60,000 of the chosen chivalry of France. The wire-pullers of state-craft have often worked with ignoble aims, but those who suffer in the working out of political schemes often sanctify the service by their self-sacrifice. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... Maleotti got near to Simone, and after trying unavailingly to catch the attention of his eye, made so bold as to come hard by him and to pluck him by the sleeve of his doublet once or twice. This failing to stir Messer Simone, who was thorough in his cups, Maleotti spurred his resolve a pace further, and first whispered and then shrieked a call into Messer Simone's ear. The whisper Messer Simone passed ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... thicket my heart's bird!' The screams and hootings rose again: They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred Their noisy plumage; small but plain The lonely hidden singer made A well of grief within the glade. 'Whist, silly fool, be off,' they shout, 'Or we'll come pluck your feathers out.' ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... Colonel Weisinger, cried out "Forward!" and eight hundred brave Virginians sprung to their feet and rushed two hundred yards up the hill. It had not the precision of a West Point drill, but it exhibited the pluck of Grecians at Thermopylae. The men disappeared irregularly as they reached the numerous ditches that led to the main ditch until all were hid from view. The firing was not very great for the bayonet and butt of the muskets did more damage than the barrel. If any ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... people. The outrages committed at Lexington and Bunker's Hill had, in truth, exasperated the people at large, and this exasperation was increased tenfold when, at a later period, news arrived of the invasion of Canada. They saw that it was a rude attempt to pluck a jewel from the British crown, and it excited feelings of resentment in their breasts deep and lasting. Not a few Englishmen who maintained that the Americans were justified in taking up arms to assert their own rights were ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... uncle, I shall have to live in the world, to hold intercourse with my fellow-beings, to see them, and I can not, for that reason, pluck out my eyes. You have told me many times that you wish me to devote myself to a life of action, preaching the divine law, and making it known in the world, rather than to a contemplative life in the midst of solitude and isolation. Well, then, this being so, how would ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... had told George that if he had pluck he might get through. Would he show that last virtue of ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham

... to make up their minds to encounter failure again and again before they succeed; but if they have pluck, the failure will only serve to rouse their courage and stimulate them to renewed efforts. Talma, the greatest of actors, was hissed off the stage when he first appeared on it. Lacordaire, one of the greatest preachers of modern times, only acquired celebrity ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... aside as a joint fund for speculation. Bob, in a series of learned discourses, had convinced me that it was not only folly, but a positive sin, to leave this sum lying in the bank at a pitiful rate of interest, and otherwise unemployed, while every one else in the kingdom was having a pluck at the public pigeon. Somehow or other, we were unlucky in our first attempts. Speculators are like wasps; for when they have once got hold of a ripening and peach-like project, they keep it rigidly for their own swarm, and repel the approach of interlopers. Notwithstanding ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various

... remember, and I prayed that I should have pluck and courage not to fail. But it was a very hard thing that he had asked me to do, and he had said well in saying that he would not ask it of me if it did not mean more than ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... suffered badly from lack of water on the way, and confirmed the news that the Bedouins had brought, of a drought unparalleled in the memory of living man. Sociable fellows all, full of contentment, pluck, and endurance, they lightened the last hour ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... nakedness has its moral value in teaching us to learn to enjoy what we do not possess, a lesson which is an essential part of the training for any kind of fine social life. The child has to learn to look at flowers and not pluck them; the man has to learn to look at a woman's beauty and not desire to possess it. The joyous conquest over that "erotic kleptomania," as Ellen Key has well said, reveals the blossoming of a fine civilization. We fancy the conquest is difficult, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... massed in one black whole, the entire sorrows that affected physical humanity, and rose in a holy passion of indignation and of sorrow at the sight of that enemy, Death, with whose beginnings He had wrestled in many a miracle of restoration, and whose sceptre He was now about to pluck from his bony clutch. Therefore I say that Christ the healer bore, and thereby bore away, the sicknesses and the infirmities ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... by guardian angel nurst, Thou took'st a shape of human grace, Until, a lowly flower at first, Thou grew'st the first of mortal race. Alas! if I who still was blessed When thou wast but a lowly flower— To pluck thy image from my breast, Though thus thou will'st it, have no power; Thou still to me, though lifted high In hope and heart above the glen, Where first thou won my idol eye, Must spell my worship just ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... his usual intemperate manner: "but I cannot help it. It is not wise to pluck unripe fruit—do ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... a little fool. Wait till you are told. Why, Bathsheba, you have lost all the pluck and sauciness you formerly had, and upon my life if I had known what a chicken-hearted creature you were under all your boldness, I'd never have—I ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... Mendota, Minn.—"Mrs. Carry Nation. Dear Sister:—These days back the season's routine duties of a Catholic priest have prevented me from expressing to you my sympathy and my admiration for your pluck. You are the John Brown of the temperance cause. Your smashing of saloon fixtures has been but a very little thing beside the effect it had, and was bound to have, all over the country, and the world, in building up backbone and ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the round and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately and that we would get the ransom and be off with ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... about the heroic and self-sacrificing Hungarian surgeon. When I read it, I thought of that woman in Paris, and what she would think of these reports. Perhaps she would say to herself, "So he is not everywhere the same coward as he was here! He has some pluck, some ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... Boulogne cafes, loud in their denunciations of perfidious Albion, while smoking their endless cigarettes and sipping their poisonous absinthe; and how, but for the staunch fidelity of the ill- fated Emperor Napoleon—since deserted by his quondam ally—and the jaunty pluck of our then gallant premier, brave "old Pam"—whose loss we have had ample reason, oftentimes of late, to deplore—there might have been a sudden rupture of that "entente cordiale" between the two nations, which was cemented in the ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... You will meet with obstacles on the route to fame undoubtedly, as others have done, and, like the others who have finally arrived, you must overcome them one at a time as they appear, by sheer force of willpower, determination, pluck or whatever you desire to call it. If you are a weakling and lack strength of character do not ever take up a stage career, for you will get many a bump; so be prepared to stand it. For only those who are determined to succeed will ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... Rage with wave on shattering wave and thundering reef on reef. Death is fallen upon the prisoners there of darkness, bound Like as thralls with links of iron fast in bonds of doom; How shall any way to break the bands of death be found, Any hand avail to pluck them from that raging tomb? All the night is great with child of death: no stars above Show them hope in heaven, no lights from shores ward help on earth. Is there help or hope to seaward, is there help in love, Hope in pity, where the ravening hounds of storm make mirth? Where the light but ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... that none of them car'd to meddle with him, or come near him; only the Roe his Nurse, which never left him, nor he, her; and when she grew Old and Feeble, he us'd to lead her where there was the best Food, and pluck the best Fruits for her, and give her ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail

... Miss Vivian," he said. "If it had, perhaps I couldn't have told you how much pluck I think you've got stored away inside of you. And as for your being suspicious of the likes o' me, I don't wonder a mite. Only, you see, there are tramps and tramps. To the best of us, I guess trampin' just means followin' ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... the rest," returned Courtland with still greater solemnity. "You gather the buds of the witch-hazel in April when the moon is full. You then pluck three hairs from the young lady's right eyebrow when she ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... a child he had been, poor dear—the very pearl of the Rohans! What Rohan of them all was ever a patch on this poor bastard of Antoinette Josselin's, either for beauty, pluck, or mother-wit—or even for honor, if it came to that? Why, a quixotic scruple of honor had ruined him, and she was Rohan enough to understand what the temptation had been the other way: she had seen the beautiful ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... for toil to quell; for her mind shaketh not in the storm of fear. What man begat her? From what tribe was she torn to dwell in the secret places of the shadowing hills? She hath assayed a struggle unachievable. Is it lawful openly to put forth my hand to her, or rather on a bridal-bed pluck the ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar

... be rather absurd to despise what one so horribly well understands. Besides, we weren't cowards—we weren't cowards a bit. My childhood was one long, reiterated terror—nights and nights of it. But I never had the pluck to tell any one. No one so much as dreamt of the company I had. Ah, and you didn't see either that my heart was absolutely in my mouth, that I was shrivelled up with fear, even at sight of the fear on your face in the dark. There's absolutely nothing ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... Despite his indomitable pluck and resolve, the confinement, uncertainty, and contention told heavily on Nelson's health and spirits. His temper was too kindly and social not to feel the general alienation. It could not affect his purpose; but the sense of right-doing, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... whereupon, with a dash, she cuts one of the fringes off. Ten women suddenly surround a man wearing fringes, pull off his coat and put his fringes and laces into their bags, just as if a bold flock of tomtits, fluttering and chattering in the air, should suddenly dart on a jay to pluck out its feathers; thenceforth a man who enters a circle of women stands in danger of being stripped alive. All this pretty world has the same pastimes, the men as well as the women. Scarcely a man can be found without some drawing room accomplishment, some trifling ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... her young face was his reward; he turned away and climbed the companion. And in the shattered wheel-house he faced his own trouble, muttering: "I've done my best; I've tried to show the pluck he showed. He's got his chance now!" And he leaned heavily on the wheel, covering his eyes with his hands; for he was fiercely in love, and he had destroyed for a friend's sake all that he had ever ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... more than ever to be dreaded in that young man? To have robbed him, is nothing; to have addressed the woman he loves, is not much; but to hold in your keeping both his crown and his honor, why, he would rather pluck out your heart with ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... continually; he knew him by heart. To the end of his life, in his severest writings, he quoted verses or whole passages out of his much-loved poet. Dido's adventure moved him to tears. They had to pluck the book out ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... seeking to recover the stolen horse, he unintentionally stole another. In trying to restore the wrong horse to his rightful owner, he was himself arrested. After no end of comic and dolorous adventures, he surmounted all his misfortunes by downright pluck and genuine good feeling. It is a noble ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... though he knew himself to be, yet it required a very high courage to listen to the damning accumulation of evidence against him, and if there is one thing that the ordinary man appreciates more than sensation, it is pluck. Then, but not for a long time, the uproar subsided, and the silence descended again. Then ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... cowards, Chevalier? I have joined the Grand Company. If the rest are cowards, I am not: I stand ready to pluck the peruke off the head of any man in New France, and carry it on my sword to the Place d' Armes, where I will challenge all the world to come ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... bring The lost ones back; yearns with desire intense, And struggles hard to wring Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... time was beguiled by an accordion, produced somewhat ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his pack. Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation of this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great earnestness ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... occurred along the winding course of the waters. His also was the duty of noting the license numbers, and of surprising those immoral anglers who sought to kill fish illegally on distant reaches of the river. His keen eyes, great activity, and approved pluck well fitted Will for such duties. He often walked twenty miles a day, and fishermen said that he knew every big trout in the Teign from Fingle Bridge to the dark pools and rippling steps under Sittaford Tor, near the river's twin birthplaces. He also knew where the great ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... Fluettes represented the wealth and aristocracy of the community, while Felix Page was a poor, struggling young man whose only advantages and prospects for the future lay in his indomitable pluck and a resolution that was ready to ride roughshod ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... was apparent to Charles, who knew he was only attempting to pluck something by chance out of the dark maze. But another and shrewder idea started ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... herein we see its fitness to round and complete the existence of our own. Hitherto I have known few pleasures save of the severer kind: my satisfactions have been those of the solitary student. I have been little disposed to gather flowers that would wither in my hand, but now I shall pluck them with eagerness, to place them in ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... Casian shore by the hand of one of his old soldiers. A good officer but otherwise of mediocre gifts of intellect and of heart, fate had with superhuman constancy for thirty years allowed him to solve all brilliant and toilless tasks; had permitted him to pluck all laurels planted and fostered by others; had brought him face to face with all the conditions requisite for obtaining the supreme power—only in order to exhibit in his person an example of spurious greatness, to which history knows no parallel. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... hands and exchanging all sorts of boyish exclamations of welcome with Lathrop Beasley, a tall, rather slender youth who had been their companion in Florida. Like the boys, Lathrop was an accomplished aviator and wireless operator, although he had not the initiative or the sturdy pluck to perform the feats that they had. He was, however, a boy of considerable brain and skill and among the boy-aviators of the country ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... fellow of heroic stature, hatless and bare-breasted—made a vicious sweep at his head with a clubbed rifle. The officer parried the blow at the cost of a broken arm and drove his sword to the hilt into the giant's breast. As the body fell the weapon was wrenched from his hand and before he could pluck his revolver from the scabbard at his belt another man leaped upon him like a tiger, fastening both hands upon his throat and bearing him backward upon the prostrate Governor, still struggling to rise. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... notice us. How is it then that you don't find your way as far as there; for she may possibly remember old times, and some good may, no one can say, come of it? I only wish that she would display some of her kind-heartedness, and pluck one hair from her person which would be, yea thicker ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... committed? Juliet may know that, and so, fearful lest he should be accused of the murder, asked me to stop proceedings. Can Basil Saxon be guilty? No," Mallow shook his head and resumed his walk, "he has not pluck ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... I swear it. You shall not touch pitch and not be defiled. If there be pitch on earth he is pitch. If your eye offend you, pluck it out. He is my step-son, I know; but I will pluck him out like an eye that has offended. It is he that has robbed ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... Regiment, which incapacitated him for further service in the infantry, he enlisted in the cavalry. By reason of his familiarity with the topography of the country about Harper's Ferry and the lower portion of the Valley, together with his indomitable pluck and steady nerve, he was often employed as a scout, and in this capacity frequently visited his home near Charlestown. The residence, situated, as it was, a quarter of a mile from and overlooking the town, was approached by a wide avenue leading by a gentle ascent to the front ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... a happiness too great for words—the sight and feeling of this lovely garden were for the poor tired and dulled little girl, ecstasy past telling. She did not care to go running about to find where the streams came from or to pluck the flowers, as some children would have done. She just sat down on the delicious grass and rested her tired little head on a bank and felt ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth

... of sensual gratifications, when not lamented, are as implacable enemies to Christ as Judas and Herod were. How can ye believe, seeing ye seek the honour that cometh from men? Hew, then, your Agags in pieces before the Lord. Run from your Delilahs to Jesus resolutely. Cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye that offends you. 'Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and I will receive you.' Nevertheless, when you strive, take care not to make yourself a righteousness ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen

... rushing by and wiped out the fair impression. Cruel wave, treacherous sand, frail reed; I said, 'I hate ye I'll trust ye no more, but with a giant's arm, I'll reach to the coast of Norway, and pluck its tallest pine, and dip it in the crater of Vesuvius, and write upon the burnished heavens; 'My Country, I love thee! And I'd like to see any durned ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... man is actually discouraged. Now you need some American pluck, old chap. An American of your age ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... removed aside his beard, saying, "that that had never committed treason." When the executioner asked his forgiveness, he kissed him and said, "thou wilt do me this day a greater benefit than any mortal man can be able to give me; pluck up thy spirit man, and be not afraid to do thy office, my neck is very short, take heed therefore that thou strike not awry for saving ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... Deep lines ran either side from nose to mouth, and the like across his forehead. He had cut himself while shaving that morning, and a large patch of black plaster showed in the centre of his long, prominent chin: as he walked, he now and then lifted a hand to pluck nervously at it; save in this unconscious gesture, he betrayed no sign of excitement or preoccupation, for, as he walked, he looked about him and once, for ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... Shokas undertook to perform, the daring duty. Discovery would mean to them the loss of their heads, probably preceded by cruel tortures of all kinds; so, though they eventually betrayed me, I cannot help giving them credit for the pluck and fidelity they ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... veered the wind to the east again. And west they drave, and long they ran Till they saw a land was white and wan. "Yea," Snbiorn said, "my home it is, Ye bear a man shall have no bliss. Far off beside the Greekish sea The maidens pluck the grapes in glee. Green groweth the wheat in the English land, And the honey-bee flieth on every hand. In Norway by the cheaping town The laden beasts go up and down. In Iceland many a mead they mow And Hallgerd's grave ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... long enough to pluck from the backs of the fallen birds the long, silky plumes, which they carefully placed in a stiff leather valise, then hastened on to another part of the island where ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... Look alive, senor," the turnkey ordered, and to emphasize his words reached a hand forward to pluck away the sobbing lad. Bucky caught his wrist and tightened on it like a vise. "Hands ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... common to the wage-earning classes. It is true that Isaac Hecker and his brothers, of whom the eldest had but recently attained to the dignity of a voter, although still poor and hard-working, had already, by virtue of sheer industry and pluck, passed over to the class of wage-payers. But they were not less ardent reformers after than before that transition. Isaac at all events, was consistent and unchanged throughout his life in the political principles he adopted among the apprentices and journeymen of New York ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... quiet and very despondent. Few soldiers about. The Line is reviled, the Mobile extolled. From all accounts the latter seem to have behaved well—a little excited at first, but full of pluck. Let the siege only last a week and they will be capital soldiers, and then we shall no longer be called upon, to believe the assertions of military men, that it takes years of drill and idling in a barrack to make ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... the garden faded, and all seemed changed and dim; instead of the beautiful arched walks, in which a moment before they appeared to wander, it was beneath the vaulted roof of some temple that they now moved; instead of the bed of glowing flowers from which he was about to pluck an offering for her bosom, an altar rose, from the centre of which upsprang a quick and lurid tongue of fire. The dreamer gazed upon his companion, and her form was tinted with the dusky hue of the flame, and she held to her countenance a scarf, as if pressed by the unnatural heat. Great fear ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... Critic—almost inevitably at the fifteenth remove from the heart of things because he is the least creative, unless he is a man of genius, or has pluck and talent enough to work his way through the other fourteen moods and sum them up before he ventures ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... our ascent of the Ogowe rapids, for I have done so already sufficiently to make you understand the sort of work going up them entails, and I have no doubt that, could I have given you a more vivid picture of them, you would join me in admiration of the fiery pluck of those few Frenchmen who traverse them on duty bound. I personally deeply regret it was not my good fortune to meet again the French official I had had the pleasure of meeting on the Eclaireur. He would have been truly great in his description of his ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... MIRROR, in hard times as in good times, steadily growing, enlarging its scope and influence, and gaining strength with which to make and maintain new advances; and at the same time has made it yield every year a handsome income. Only a man of pluck, push and perseverance, of courage, sagacity and industry, could have done this; and he who has accomplished it need point to no other achievement to establish his title to a place among the strong men of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various



Words linked to "Pluck" :   tweeze, pull together, overcharge, undercharge, extort, chisel, fearlessness, deplumate, mushroom, gouge, charge, berry, twang, gutlessness, force, gather, draw off, steal, cheat, strip, wring, rob, draw away, plunk, collect, pulling, garner, squeeze, rack, draw, bill, rip off



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