"Nickname" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that inhuman man," replied Helen; "I wish you would not ask him, papa. I am told he equals Sir Robert Whitecraft in both cowardice and cruelty. Is not that a nickname he has got in consequence of his activity in ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... commanding presence are powerful auxiliaries towards oratorical success; but Curran's appearance was so mean that he was once taken for a shoeblack. His stammering, blunders, and collapses in early life earned for him the nickname of "Orator Mum." Yet to what a lofty eminence did not his sleepless ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... perseverance, firmness, the habit of danger and suffering, and a spirit always ready, pliant, and quick in making the most of their situation. Finally, among the soldiers still under arms, the dread of a nickname, by which they themselves ridiculed their comrades who had fallen into disorder, retained ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... foulmouth," the Saga itself explains the origin. In a state of society where so many men bore the same name, any circumstance or event in a man's life, as well as any peculiarity in form or feature, or in temper and turn of mind, gave rise to a surname or nickname, which clung to him through life as a distinguishing mark. The Post Office in the United States is said to give persons in the same district, with similar names, an initial of identification, which answers the same purpose, as the Icelandic nickname, thus: "John P Smith."—"John ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... reported this demand to Congress, the names of the three French agents were suppressed, and instead they were called Mr. X, Mr. Y, Mr. Z. This gave the mission the nickname "X, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... Grindems," said Maxwell,—making use of a playful nickname which he had invented for his friend. "He made a pot of money at the wine business, and had he stuck to it he would have been a ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... time about to sail for America, in order to marry a lady of that country. In a letter to Morehead, he recalls his old-fashioned country residence of Hatton, in West Lothian, and Mr Morehead's family now resident there. Tuckey was a nickname for one of Mr Morehead's daughters; Margaret was another. Till the last, he had pet names for all his own descendants and relatives, having no doubt felt how much they contribute to the promotion of family affection. 'I am almost ashamed of the degree of sorrow I feel at ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... notions that appealed to the peasant and the common soldier. In 1825 Nicholas I. had cowed the would-be rebels at his capital by a display of defiant animal courage. Alexander III. resolved to do the like. He had always been noted for a quiet persistence on which arguments fell in vain. The nickname, "bullock," which his father early gave him (shortened by his future subjects to "bull"), sufficiently summed up the supremacy of the material over the mental that characterised the new ruler. Bismarck, who knew him, had a poor idea of his abilities, and summed up his character by saying that he ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... which, I believe, won for the local [Footnote old 39th: regiment the nickname of "Green Linnets," have been changed for no apparent reason. ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... manage beds; but washing and eating can be carried on most economically by a syndicate of three. I myself entered a little after sunrise into articles of agreement, and became one of the firm of Pennsylvania, Shakespeare, and Dubuque. Shakespeare was my own nickname on the cars; Pennsylvania that of my bedfellow; and Dubuque, the name of a place in the State of Iowa, that of an amiable young fellow going west to cure an asthma, and retarding his recovery by incessantly chewing or smoking, and sometimes chewing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Romans had forfeited all their earlier successes and had not a foot's breadth of Pontic soil in their possession. More pointed and effective was the ridicule of the inhabitants of the capital, who failed not to nickname the mighty conqueror of the globe after the great powers which he had conquered, and saluted him now as "conqueror of Salem," now as "emir" (-Arabarches-), now as the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... an opprobrious nickname by the effeminacy of his dress and manner." Does Mr Mitford know that Demosthenes denied this charge, and explained the nickname in a perfectly different manner? (See the speech of Aeschines against Timarchus.) ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for her, and it meant a great deal to them. She was his only child, and it had at first been a great disappointment to every one that she was not a boy. But Raeburn had long ago ceased to regret this, and the nickname referred more to Erica's capability of being both son and daughter to him, able to help him in his work and at the same time to brighten his home. Erica was very proud of her name, for she had been called after her father's greatest friend, Eric Haeberlein, a celebrated republican, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... know," protested Rosy, "that Jane is 'Miss Marshall'? And does he think that I shall let him go on calling me by a mere nickname?" ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... gave his costume a semiofficial air by wearing a necktie instead of a bandanna, even at a roundup. The glasses, the necktie, and his little solemn pauses before he delivered an opinion, had given his nickname. ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... continent of roguery. Those there are who give the credit to the valiant Moll Cutpurse; but though the Roaring Girl had wit to conceive a thousand strange enterprises, she had not the hand to carry them out, and the first pickpocket must needs have been a man of action. Moreover, her nickname suggests the more ancient practice, and it is wiser to yield the credit to Simon Fletcher, whose praises are chanted ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... the Imperial loge near them Aurelius, now for more than a year a widower, presided over the games, clad in his gorgeous silk robes and attended by his fifteen-year-old son Antoninus, afterward known by his nickname of "Commodus." The four tiers of the Colosseum were packed with spectators, pontiffs, senators, nobles, ambassadors magistrates and other notables in the front seats along the coping of the arena wall, lesser notables in the first tier, well-to-do persons in the second tier, traders and manufacturers ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Schilter informs us it was about this period that most of them attained such rather unblessed consummation; Rupert of himself not able to help it, with all his willingness. The people called him "Rupert Klemm (Rupert Smith's-vise)," from his resolute ways; which nickname—given him not in hatred, but partly in satirical good-will—is itself a kind of history. From historians of the Reich he deserves ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to himself, "Her cat has had kittens"—and went and asked the cook; it was not so, the cook had detected the happiness, but did not know the cause. When Halliday found the duplicate ecstasy in the face of "Shadbelly" Billson (village nickname), he was sure some neighbour of Billson's had broken his leg, but inquiry showed that this had not happened. The subdued ecstasy in Gregory Yates's face could mean but one thing—he was a mother-in-law short; it was another mistake. "And ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... nickname, of course; but they always call me so, and I like it best," the boy was explaining to Leslie, while they ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... out of heaven. He was a great conqueror, he held a large part of this earth under his dominion, he subdued ... (blank in original) kings, and slew them, and flayed them, and brought their skins with him; so that besides his own name, he received the nickname ... which means 'lord of ... skins of kings;' he was ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... will under seal of secrecy tell its father's name to her mother or the midwife; and then between themselves they will call the child by a name taken from the father's family but they will never tell it to anyone else. When the child grows up he is given some nickname and if he turns out well and is popular his name is often changed again and he is ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... pulley and rope were to be used for, but Buffalmacco refused to say. Nevertheless they promised faithfully to get him what he wanted; for they knew him to possess the merriest wit in the world and the most fertile in amusing contrivances, having earned his nickname of Buffalmacco for these very qualities. And truly he knew some excellent turns, that have ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... intrinsic value; oftenest the former only. What, for instance, was in that clouted Shoe, which the Peasants bore aloft with them as ensign in their Bauernkrieg (Peasants' War)? Or in the Wallet-and-staff round which the Netherland Gueux, glorying in that nickname of Beggars, heroically rallied and prevailed, though against King Philip himself? Intrinsic significance these had none: only extrinsic; as the accidental Standards of multitudes more or less sacredly uniting together; in which union itself, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... members of the party, will give her the juice until only one of us is left with his eyes open. If that isn't enough to pull us clear, we'll have to give her the whole works and let her ramble by herself after we all go out. How about it, Blackie?" unconsciously falling into the old Bureau nickname. "Do you think we can make it stop at unconsciousness ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... the dauphin and to vex her ladyship at the same time, but who could not be deterred by these effusions from lecturing Marie Antoinette on her disregard of her rank, and on the danger of making herself too familiar, till she provoked the young princess into giving her the nickname of Madame Etiquette; and, no doubt, in her childish playfulness, to utter many a speech and do many an act whose principle object was to excite the astonishment or provoke the frowns of the ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... of his distinguished professors." It cannot be denied that Espronceda's conduct left much to be desired. According to Escosura he was "bright and mischievous, the terror of the whole neighborhood, and the perpetual fever of his mother." He soon gained the nickname buscarruidos, and attracted the notice of police and night watchmen. "In person he was agreeable, likable, agile, of clear understanding, sanguine temperament inclined to violence; of a petulant, merry disposition, of courage rash even bordering upon temerity, and more inclined to bodily ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... worded that awful handbill? She longed to stamp her foot, or scream, or give vent to her angry feelings in some way. How dared they single her out by such a nickname? She snatched the parcel from the hands of the astonished clerk and left the store with more speed ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... a singular and characteristic fashion at the bridge of the nose, and she seemed much struck by this. He was represented in the uniform of Charles X's gardes du corps, in which he had served for two years, and had acquired the nickname of "le beau Pasquier." Mrs. Deane seemed never to tire of gazing at it, and remarked that my father "must have been the very ideal of a young girl's dream" (an indirect compliment which made me blush after what she had just said of the likeness ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... lewd jokes of everything human and divine, and were noted for their cruelty to animals. If Alessandro became execrated as "The Tyrant and Ravisher of Florence," Lorenzino was scouted as "A monster and a miracle," and his depreciative nickname underwent a new spelling—"Lorenzaccio,"— "Lorenzo ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... friends? What were these three young artists doing? Where did they go for an outing? What did they take with them? What forest did they decide would be a good place to spend a vacation? How did they live in this forest? What shelter did they have? What nickname did they give Corot? How did he like to paint? How did he dress? What did he do while painting? Where was this picture painted? What is it sometimes called? What time of day did he usually start out to paint? What are the nymphs doing? What did Corot wish to tell us about the trees? What ...
— Stories Pictures Tell - Book Four • Flora L. Carpenter
... a series of quiet, monotonous years. Always around the little one, they went into raptures at everything he did. His mother called him Poulet, and as he could not pronounce the word, he said "Pol," which amused them immensely, and the nickname of "Poulet" ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... quarter-master, whose real name or nickname (I forget which) was Billy Magnus, appeared over the gangway hammocks, holding the missing urchin in his immense paw, where it squealed and twisted itself about, like Gulliver between the finger and thumb of the Brobdingnag farmer. The mother had just strength enough left to snatch her ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... not get them entered, and there are so many fishermen of the same name, that one is often confounded with another, unless they are known to the parties, or have 'T' names attached to them, which are a sort of nickname. But the fishermen are quite well pleased when they get their settlement as soon as the fishing is done. It is only along the Fifeshire coast, and about Stonehaven and Aberdeen, that any of the crews during the great summer fishing for herrings are agreed, or deliver ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... lived at Furman. My mother mind Mr. Trowell's father. His name was Mr. Ben Trowell. I call him, Bub Ben. Bub was for brother. Dat de way we call folks den—didn't call 'em by dere names straight out. Mr. Trowell's mother we call, Muss, for Miss. Sort of a nickname. We call Mr. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... Rochefoucauld." The coadjutor protested, and the Duke of Brissac, his relative, threatened the Duke of La Rochefoucauld; whereupon the latter said that, if he had them outside, he would strangle them both; to which the coadjutor replied, "My dear La Franchise (the duke's nickname), do not act the bully; you are a poltroon and I am a priest; we shall not do one another much harm." There was no fighting, and the Parliament, supported by the Duke of Orleans, obtained from the queen a declaration of the innocence ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... as Bee and Mrs. Jimmie preferred to believe. It is said to have cost seventy thousand dollars, and was built by Count Frederick of Tyrol, who was called "The Count of the Empty Pockets," to refute his nickname. ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... Balta?" Sime asked himself after locking the door again. The name was not unusual and did not bring any familiar associations to his mind. The given name, Scar, once a nickname, had been in general use for centuries. ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... Baron who lives opposite to the Palace Rondanini). This designation is sufficiently precise, especially as the Italians are accustomed to speak of people either by their Christian names, or else by some nickname. Enough; I have gained my object; and I escape the dreadful annoyance of having to give to everybody an account of myself and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... name as Lorillard ought not to have such a silly nickname. But he's always called Lollie. He is a nice boy, but I ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... one's friends who give one a bad name), is careering round and about Mrs. Bethune with a vigour hardly to be expected of him. He is looking even younger than usual. Though fully forty-five, he still looks only thirty—the reason of his nickname! Everyone is a little surprised at Mrs. Bethune's civility to him, she having been studiously cold to all men save her cousin Sir Maurice during the past year; but Mrs. Bethune herself is quite aware of what she is doing. Of late—it seems difficult of belief—but of late she has fancied Maurice ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb he had received the nickname of BROM BONES, by which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cock fights; and, with the ascendancy ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... four times found a match—an employe in his office, a retired major, an army contractor, and a half-pay captain—while she had refused an army lacemaker, who had since made his fortune, had won her the name of the Nanny Goat, which the Baron gave her in jest. But this nickname only met the peculiarities that lay on the surface, the eccentricities which each of us displays to his neighbors in social life. This woman, who, if closely studied, would have shown the most savage traits of the peasant class, was still the girl who had clawed her cousin's ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... at the time of the Revolution and joined the royalists of La Vendee. It has been suggested that the name arose from the cry they used when approaching their nocturnal rendezvous; but it is more probable that it was derived from a nickname applied to their leader Jean Cottereau (1767-1794). Originally a contraband manufacturer of salt, Cottereau along with his brothers had several times been condemned and served sentence; but the Revolution, by destroying the inland customs, ruined ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... one; but as for himself, he refused to be associated with any such movement. A storm of expostulation and angry protest broke out; but the advanced Reformers failed to move Lord John from the position which he had taken. So they concentrated their hostility in a harmless nickname, and Lord John for some time forward was called in Radical circles and certain journalistic publications, 'Finality Jack.' This honest but superfluous and embarrassing deliverance brought him taunts and reproaches, as well as a temporary ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... The incident was told all over the town, and gravely discussed by everybody. Within a week he had lost his first name; Pudd'nhead took its place. In time he came to be liked, and well liked too; but by that time the nickname had got well stuck on, and it stayed. That first day's verdict made him a fool, and he was not able to get it set aside, or even modified. The nickname soon ceased to carry any harsh or unfriendly feeling with it, but it held its place, and was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have drifted out of Doggie's mind as one of no importance had not the detested appellation by which Phineas hailed him struck the imagination of his comrades. It filled a long-felt want, no nickname for Private J. M. Trevor having yet been invented. Doggie Trevor he was and Doggie Trevor he remained for the rest of his period of service. He resigned himself to the inevitable. The sting had gone out of the name through his comrades' ignorance ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... town beggar, known far and wide in Ithaca as the greediest and laziest knave in the whole island. His real name was Arnaeus, but from being employed to run errands about the place he had received the nickname of Irus. Highly indignant at finding his rights usurped by a new-comer, and thinking to find in that battered old man an easy victim, he began to rate his supposed rival in a big, blustering voice: "Give place, old man, to thy betters, and force me ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... a harsh blow to know that her pet had consorted with such a person, who was not only a sheepman but had earned his nickname in a way that our best people thought not nice. He'd gone home one day years ago and found his favourite horse had been took by an Injun. Being a simple-mannered man of few words, he just said that by sundown to-morrow he would ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... man: Goshawk's my title. Guy the Goshawk! so they called me in my merry land. The cap sticks when it no longer fits. Then I drove the arrow, and was down on my enemy ere he could ruffle a feather. Now, what would be my nickname? ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... least as wisely as the aristocracy which had preceded it. Of aristocratic rule in foreign countries—of such rule as preceded the French Revolution—he thought as poorly as most men think; but for the aristocracy of England he had a singular esteem. It is true that he gave it a nickname; that he poked fun at its illiteracy and its inaccessibility to ideas; that he was impatient of "immense inequalities of condition and property," and huge estates, and irresponsible landlordism; that he contemned ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... that we sassed. that is he said we did but we dident. Charlie is a city feller, he lives in Chelsy and think he knows a pile about things and gets mad if we call him names. now every feller who amounts to anything has a nickname, and some of them have 2 or 3. my nicknames are Plupy and Skinny and Polelegs, and Beany is called Bullethead and sometimes Fatty. i told Charlie that if i called him Charlie the fellers would call him sissy or Mary and he better agree to let me call him bulldog or tomcat or diddly or gobbler ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... Das Heimliche Gericht. Bordas, M, politics of. Borgo San Donino, remarkable highway robbery at. Borromean Islands, splendid villa in Isola Bella. Bourbons, the: want of patriotism of the Duc de Berri, their injudicious conduct; Louis XVIII and Monsieur at Ghent; amusing nickname of Louis XVIII; dislike of the French people to; their atrocious policy; send emissaries to South of France from Coblentz; unpopularity of; fulsome adulation of; cause removal of Sismondi from Geneva; character of royal families of France, Spain, ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... moment in a reverie from which he roused himself to inquire cautiously after the boss. There was no boss, it was a co-operative party. That chap standing over there by the dray in the end of the cutting was their spokesman—their representative: they called him boss, but that was only his nickname in camp. Steelman expressed his thanks and moved on towards the cutting, followed respectfully ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... regretted that he ekes them out by ascribing to the doctrines of the philosophers with whom he does not agree, logical consequences which have been over and over again proved not to flow from them: and when reason fails him, tries the effect of an injurious nickname. According to the views of Mr. Spencer, Mr. Mill, and Mr. Darwin, Mr. Mivart tells us, "virtue is a mere kind of retrieving:" and, that we may not miss the point of the joke, he puts it in italics. ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... surpassing arduousness. Mme. de Stael, who, by her very superiority perhaps,—certainly by her vehemence,—was prevented from ever being a perfect example of what was necessary in this respect, acquired the nickname of Presidente de Salons; and it would appear, that, with her resolute air, her loud voice, and her violent opinions, she really did seem like a kind of speaker of some House of Commons disguised as a woman. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... joined the force that King Charles and Queen Henrietta helped to start from Plymouth. Sir Edward Cecil was in command, and, as a result of this expedition, earned for himself the nickname of Sit-Still. Peeke's account is excellent, although he begins by saying that he knows not 'the fine Phrases of Silken Courtiers'; but 'a good Shippe I know and a poore Cabbin and the language of a Cannon ... as ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... now pass over into Suffolk. It is worth asking how Suffolk came to earn the nickname of Silly Suffolk. 'Silly,' say the learned, is derived from the German selig, meaning 'holy or blessed,' and is said to have been applied to Suffolk on account of the number of beautiful churches it contains; Suffolk, ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... to read. This contained a longer and more sensational account of the same tale, and with this difference, that instead of giving the simple and sentimental view of the French writer, the English journalist jeered greatly, and also stated that the nickname Lazarus had been given in derision, and that the man, who was either mad or an imposter, had been hooted, pelted, and even beaten ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... Tartars, were stories the like of his to be heard. And because he was always talking of the greatness of Kublai Khan's dominions, the millions of revenue, the millions of junks, the millions of riders, the millions of towns and cities, they gave him a nickname and jestingly called him Marco Milione, or Il Milione, which is, being interpreted, 'Million Marco'; and the name even crept into the public documents of the Republic, while the courtyard of his house became known as the Corte Milione. To return from ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... not for his danger," said Cunningham; "such game as we are beyond his bird bolts. But I would have thee tell the whole to the Devil's Oliver [Oliver Dain: Oliver's name, or nickname, was Le Diable, which was bestowed on him by public hatred, in exchange for Le Daim, or Le Dain. He was originally the King's barber, but afterwards a favourite counsellor. S.], who is always a good friend to the Scottish Guard, and will see Father ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Ness!" he interrupts. "The name is as false as my manner! My name is Fink, Eddie Fink, and please don't add the Mister. When a lad I had a nickname, but, alas, I—" ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... gets a nickname in America. A Frenchman is a "frog," a negro a "coon" and a Welshman a "goat." All the schoolboys who were not Welsh delighted in teasing us by applying the uncomplimentary nickname. This once resulted ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... Oglypiglaf, Musdaemon and Orugix. They are pure schoolboyisms. But it is perhaps fair to relieve the author from the reproach, which has been thrown on him by some of his English translators, of having metamorphosed "Hans" into "Han." He himself explains distinctly that the name was a nickname, taken from the grunt or growl (the word is in France applied to the well-known noise made by a paviour lifting and bringing down his ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... nickname 'realist' slides easily into another sense. The realist is sometimes supposed to be more shallow as well as more prosaic than the idealist; to be content with the outside where the idealist pierces to the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... which I saw Palus revealed to me, and brought home to me with great force, the reason for his nickname, its origin and its astonishing appropriateness. The word "palus" has a number of very different meanings: manifestly its fitness as a pet name for the most perfect swordsman ever seen in any arena came from its use ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... same opinion; and yet the opinion is not without difficulty. In the Caledonian war, the son of Severus was known only by the appellation of Antoninus, and it may seem strange that the Highland bard should describe him by a nickname, invented four years afterwards, scarcely used by the Romans till after the death of that emperor, and seldom employed by the most ancient historians. See Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1317. Hist. August. p. 89 Aurel. Victor. Euseb. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... almost choked the King when he heard of Magdeburg's fate. "I will avenge that on the Old Corporal (Tilly's nickname)," he cried, "if it costs my life." Without further ado he forced the two Electors to terms and joined the Saxon army to his own. On September 7, 1631, fifteen months after he had landed in Germany, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... no son, the Senate recognized Gaius Caesar, son of Germanicus and Agrippina, grandson of Julia, and great-grandson of Augustus, as Emperor. He is better known as CALIGULA,—a nickname given him by the soldiers from the buskins he wore. He was twenty-five years of age when he began to reign, of weak constitution, and subject to fits. After squandering his own wealth, he killed rich citizens, and confiscated their property. He seemed to revel ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... thus, having come to the observatory to tell him that his dinner had been waiting for half an hour, and for a while watched him unnoted with the little shaded lamp shining on his face. Instantly, in her quick fashion, she christened him, Hibou, and Hibou or Owl, became his nickname in that establishment. Indeed, with his dark eyes and strongly marked features, wrapped in a contemplative calm such as the study of the stars engenders, in that gloom he did look something like an owl, however different may have been his appearance ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... enrolment in the Militia. This force and the Army consequently suffered, while the Volunteer Associations grew apace. On 27th October 1803 the King reviewed in Hyde Park as many as 27,000 of the London Volunteers and showed his caustic wit by giving the nickname of "the Devil's Own" to the Inns ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the surviving military leaders of the old school find difficulty in adjusting themselves to the new conditions. Among them was General Cirilo de los Santos, better known by his nickname "Guayubin" (the name of the town where he was born) who took an active part in the political disturbances of the Republic for many years. When I traveled through the country with Prof. Hollander on his financial investigation we were guests of this hero of a hundred revolutions, who was then ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... as he was fairly seated, Alec said in a low voice across the double desk to one of the boys opposite, calling him by his nickname, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... greater significance in the fact that he was one of her father's old-time cowboys—a grizzled, middle-aged, light-weight centaur whom she would not have recognized had not the driver called him by his quaint well-known nickname. ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... you call me Katharine, Scott? It is so much more dignified than that old baby name. I'd meant to call our baby by it, really call her by it, not by some uncouth nickname. Yes. I know I was baptised Catie; but so you were baptised Walter. We both of us, you see, have something to forget. Any way, I am determined to save the baby so much, so I want to take plenty of time to choose a good name for him. There's no hurry, for the present." She was silent, for a moment. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... first. Wycliffism as an influence rapidly declined with the death of Wyclif himself, as it hardly could but decline, considering the absence from his teaching of any tangible system of church government; and Lollardry came to be the popular name, or nickname, for any and every form of dissent from the existing system. Finally, Henry of Lancaster, John of Gaunt's son, mounted the throne as a sort of saviour of society,—a favourite character for usurpers to pose in before the applauding assemblage of those who claim "a stake in the country." Chaucer's ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... "baby-names never ought to go beyond home. It is the fashion to use them now; and, besides the folly, it seems, to me, an absolute injury to a girl, to let her grow up, with a nickname attached to her." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... is a request he often makes to his wife and children. In 1886 the Rt. Hon. W. H. Smith became leader of the House of Commons, and had thus reached one of the highest positions any Englishman can occupy. "Old Morality" was the nickname by which he was known; and this term is one of great honour. No man ever gained higher respect from all parties, and no man was ever more fully trusted by the people at large. Thus though Mr. Smith never entered the Church, and perchance missed a bishopric, ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... election for sheriff, when even the head-boards of the scant cemetery were consulted to fill the poll-lists, it was discovered that neither candidate had thought fit to avail himself of his actual vote. He was debarred the rude heraldry of a nickname of achievement, and in a camp made up of "Euchre Bills," "Poker Dicks," "Profane Pete," and "Snap-shot Harry," was known vaguely as "him," "Skeesicks," or "that coot." It was remembered long after, with a feeling ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... chance. It was a society, newly started, for helping the deserving poor; they had to subscribe not less than a penny weekly to it, and at the end of the year each subscriber was to be given fuel, etc., to the value of double what he or she had put in. "The three Ps" was a nickname given to the society by Dr. McQueen, because it claimed to distribute "Peats and Potatoes with Propriety," but he was one of its heartiest supporters nevertheless. The history of this society in ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... they contrived to get her into the nursery, and there was Edward Monson Redwood ("Pantagruel" was only a later nickname) swinging in a specially strengthened rocking-chair and smiling and talking "goo" and "wow." And the heart of Mrs. Redwood warmed again to her child, and she went and held him in her ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... national habit and taste in this matter. But we, all of us together, need to be both vigilant and firm; for the beginnings of corruption here are very insidious. Let us never grow ashamed of our saving Saxon shamefacedness. They may nickname it prudery, if they will; but let us, American and English, for our part, always take pride ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... produced disaffection with the government of which Lord Palmerston was the head. The ministry, defeated on an unimportant matter, but one which showed the animus of the country, was compelled to resign, and the Conservatives—no longer known by the opprobrious nickname of Tories—came into power (1858) under the premiership of Lord Derby, Disraeli becoming chancellor of the exchequer and leader of his own party in the House of Commons. But this administration also was short-lived, lasting only about a year; and in June, 1859, a new coalition ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... and he was probably a Samuel Jones whose name Lord Northmoor had noted as a boy on board David's ship. He belonged to a decent family in a country village, but had run away to sea, and was known at Westhaven by this nickname. He had a brother settled in Canada, who had lately written to propose to him a berth on one of the Ontario steamers, and it was poor Mrs. Hall's dread that her daughter should accompany him, though happily want of money prevented it. As to his appearance, as to which there had been special inquiries, ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and with a certain fierceness of visage, born of their warlike and quarrelsome nature, and which never leaves them, even in their old age. The elder of the two, whose native name was Binoke, but who had been given the nickname of "Tommy Topsail-tie," had this facial characteristic to a great degree, and was, in addition, of a somewhat morbid and sullen disposition, disliking all strangers. But he was yet the veriest slave to Flemming's children, who tyrannised over him ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... famous "Bell the Cat," was born about 1450 and succeeded his father, George the 4th earl, in 1462 or 1463. In 1481 he was made warden of the east marches, but the next year he joined the league against James III. and his favourite Robert Cochrane at Lauder, where he earned his nickname by offering to bell the cat, i.e. to deal with the latter, beginning the attack upon him by pulling his gold chain off his neck and causing him with others of the king's favourites to be hanged. Subsequently he joined Alexander Stewart, duke of Albany, in league with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... the treasury benches especially partook of it. It is marvellous that the government did not prepare itself for some such occurrence; but, as in the management of the war, so in the management of the house, they were always "too late"—so that the nickname of "the late ministry" was bestowed upon them while yet they held, with whatever firmness they at any time possessed, the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and a very lovable one this time, was a nephew of the doctor's, Will Johnston by name, but universally called "Teter," an odd nickname, the reason of which he did not seem to understand himself. This Teter was one of those good-natured, obliging, reckless, happy-go-lucky individuals who never fail to win the love of boys. His generosity was equalled only by his improvidence, and both were ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... sound of his nickname a flicker of intelligence came into the little thief's eyes, but he was still dazed, and did not recognize ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... if I were a gossip or a shopkeeper,"—[This nickname, which Darius afterwards earned, is more fully spoken of]—answered the son of Hystaspes. "Be it so; I have been burning all this time to defend the customs of our country. Know then, Ladice, that if Auramazda dispose the heart of our king ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... politic and Christian course. She found it much pleasanter to chuckle over the discomfiture of the Irish patriots, to ridicule the failure of their peaceable agitation, to sneer at their poor effort in arms, to nickname, and misrepresent, and libel the brave-hearted gentleman who led that unlucky endeavour; and above all to felicitate herself on the reduction that had taken place in the Irish population. That—from her ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... the latter only developed his tendency to a naturalistic style. That which with Michelangelo was the symbol of a higher power in nature was adopted by Tintoretto in its literal form. Most of his defects, it is probable, arose from his indefatigable vigour, which earned for him the nickname of Il Furioso. Sebastian del Piombo said that Tintoretto could paint as much in two days as would occupy him two years. Other sayings were that he had three brushes, one of gold, one of silver, and ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... the green-coated pygmies to which the grotesque fancy of Northern Europe has reduced them. Banu in Pers. a princess, a lady, and is still much used, e.g. Banu-i-Harim, the Dame of the Serraglio, whom foreigners call "Queen of Persia," and Aram-Banu"the calm Princess," a nickname. A Greek story equivalent of Prince Ahmad is told by Pio in Contes Populaires Grecs (No. ii. p. 98) and called {Greek}, the Golden box. Three youths ({Greek}) love the same girl and agree that whoever shall ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... the earliest specimen of Horace's writing which we have, occurs in the Seventh Satire of the First Book. Persius, a rich trader of Clazomene, has a lawsuit with Rupilius, one of Brutus's officers, who went by the nickname of "King." Brutus, in his character of quaestor, has to decide the dispute, which in the hands of the principals degenerates, as disputes so conducted generally do, into a personal squabble. Persius leads off with some oriental flattery of the general and his suite. ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... nickname was first bestowed upon them by the continental priests, who generally ridiculed them for their vulgarity. They were, for the most! part, simple ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... which Stephen got his nickname. It is scarcely necessary to add that he wrote no more until he reached his little room in the house ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "It is a nickname he has got. Cotogni, the sculptor, was in despair for a model last year. Griggs and two or three other men were in the studio, and somebody suggested that Griggs was very near the standard of the ancients in his proportions. They persuaded him to let them ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... to return unto the stricter rule— As far as words make rules—our common notion Of orphan paints at once a parish school, A half-starved babe, a wreck upon Life's ocean, A human (what the Italians nickname) "Mule!"[814] A theme for Pity or some worse emotion; Yet, if examined, it might be admitted The wealthiest orphans are to be ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... form of Gwynplaine's fame. His name, Gwynplaine, little known at any time, had disappeared under his nickname, as his face had ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... I must tell you about. From the first week that I got here, the children have had a nickname for me. I noticed them laughing and nudging each other on the street and in the school, and whenever I passed they raised their right hands in salute, and gave a funny little clucking sound. They seemed to pass the word from ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... trick of that young tough," rejoined the deputy sheriff. "That's how the boy got the nickname of 'tag.' He won't work, and lives on other people's work. Anything that he can say 'tag' to he thinks belongs ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... to drop his Club nickname and give him the full benefit of his social label, "The Hon. William Cecil Wychwood Stanley Drayton," on the occasion of our next meeting, which happened upon the steps of the Savoy Restaurant, and I thought—unless a quiver of the electric ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... at last. It seems that, many years before, a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at a distant seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had set up as a shopkeeper. His name—but I could never learn whether it was his real one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in life—was Gathergold. Being shrewd and active, and endowed by Providence with that inscrutable faculty which develops itself in what the world calls luck, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... the establishment when on duty. Might not then the barbers' aprons be a tradition of the barber-surgeons? I refrained from asking the question in that company. The scheme was, that we should pass for Carabins—such is the nickname of French students in chirurgery—and in this quality demand admission. The Cerberus of the prison grinned at the deceit, but wearied and amused by our importunities, he actually opened the quicket and admitted us. There are two grated doors of this kind, one always locked ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... with his tongue hanging out, and wagging his tail in good-humor with all the world. Nothing could stop him, however, where strange dogs were concerned. He was a Whig dog, of course, as any one could tell by his name, which was Tippecanoe in full, and was given him because it was the nickname of General Harrison, the great Whig who won the battle of Tippecanoe. The boys' Henry Clay Club used him to pull the little wagon that they went about in singing Whig songs, and he would pull five or six boys, guided simply by a stick which he held in his mouth, ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... turned off with oily brusqueness; he was not close-mouthed, he talked freely of events in his past life; and he told some really wonderful tales of his experiences in the British army. He was no braggart, however, and his one great story which gave him the nickname by which he was called at Pontiac, was told far more in a spirit of laughter at himself than in praise of his own ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... men may not be popular, but if they have the real thing in them they soon compel respect. By the undergraduates Milton was called "The Lady of Christ's." And it is plain, from his own references to this nickname in a Prolusion delivered in the college, that he owed it not only to his fair complexion, short stature and great personal beauty, but also to the purity, delicacy and refinement of his manners. He contemptuously asks the audience who had given him the nickname ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... and willing to receive all comers, many went to him every day, and some continued for the space of thirty, nay forty years, to visit him very often both morning and evening, so that his room went by the agreeable nickname of the Home of Christian mirth. Nay, people came to him, not only from all parts of Italy, but from France, Spain, Germany, and all Christendom; and even the infidels and Jews, who had ever any communication ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... he had; but as a matter of fact he bullied and ill-used his entire household, and especially Damie, for whose keep he received but a small sum of money. His real name was Zechariah, and he got his nickname from his once having brought home to his wife a couple of finely trussed pigeons to roast, but they were in fact a pair of plucked ravens, which in that part of the country are called "crappies." Crappy Zachy, who had a wooden leg, spent most of his ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... Francesco. Throughout the nozze he took the lead in a grand imperious fashion of his own. Wherever he went, he seemed to fill the place, and was fully aware of his own importance. In Florence I think he would have got the nickname of Tacchin, or turkey-cock. Here at Venice the sons and daughters call their parent briefly Vecchio. I heard him so addressed with a certain amount of awe, expecting an explosion of bubbly-jock displeasure. ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... kitchen, where he informed the cook that, in his opinion, the guv'nor was not a force, and that, if he were a betting man, he would put his money in the forthcoming struggle on Consul, the Almost-Human—by which affectionate nickname Mr. Mortimer senior was generally alluded to in ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Beaumont, declared to be possible. Naturally I was ashamed of these impertinent lava currents, and felt inclined to call them "Laves mousseuses." [Elie de Beaumont "is said to have 'damned himself to everlasting fame' by inventing the nickname of 'la science moussante' for Evolutionism." See "Life ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... before the heavy snows set in. It was therefore decided that the young hunters should start within a week, accompanied by Mukoki, the old Indian, a cousin of the slain Wabigoon, whom Wabi had given the nickname of Muky and who had been a faithful comrade to ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... messengers and warrants would have gone out against any that durst have opened their lips, or drawn their pens, against the persons and proceedings of their juntoes and cabals? How would their weekly writers have been calling out for prosecution and punishment? We remember when a poor nickname,[3] borrowed from an old play of Ben Jonson, and mentioned in a sermon without any particular application, was made use of as a motive to spur an impeachment. But after all, it must be confessed, they had reasons to be thus severe, which ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... the subject of new jests. That glorious boast had brought to his mind the genealogical trees of the illustrious ancestry of his prize cattle. The German was a pedigreed fellow, and thenceforth he called him by that nickname. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... pe than her own son, Mistress Reekie?" answered the piper, calling her by her husband's nickname, as was usual, but, as was his sole wont, prefixing the title of respect, where custom would have ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... in the personal abuse poured out by his own countrymen on the Queen's representative, the survival amongst a large section of Europeans of the same hatred that had invented for a Viceroy who was determined to temper justice with mercy after the Mutiny the scornful nickname ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol |
