"Thievish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forgotten the dates; I've heard that reason given; and another excuse is the fear of a conspiracy among the negroes to rob and murder the whites: and I think you can't deny that they are thievish." ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... Bourbons, this vile traitor wrote to Talleyrand, a few days after the abdication at Fontainebleau: "I always desired the return of that excellent Prince, Louis XVIII., and his august family." But these things are mere shadows of the incomparable villainy of this thievish ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... from the doorkeeper upon the plea that he did not feel well; and in five or ten minutes he was back among the boys, a hero of such moral grandeur as would be hard to describe. Not one of the fellows saw him as he really was—a little lying, thievish scoundrel. Not even my boy saw him so, though he had on some other point of personal honesty ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... against the gentlemen venturers who were directed by his Majesty there, and did prosecute that rebellion against them with fire and sword and all kinds of hostility, for the which and for other thievish and treasonable crimes committed by them they and every one of them were upon the second day of February, 1612, orderly denounced rebels and put to the horn - they have now combined and banded themselves in a most ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... speaking, and, not least, at their names; but, until the present day, I had been unacquainted with the most extraordinary point connected with them. How came they possessed of this extraordinary virtue? was it because they were thievish? I remembered that an ancient thief-taker, who had retired from his useful calling, and who frequently visited the office of my master at law, the respectable S. . ., who had the management of his property—I remembered ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... of in England as the prophylactic against the infected Hejaz. It is admirably suited for quarantine purposes, and it has been abolished, very unwisely, in favour of "Tor harbour." The latter, inhabited by a ring of thievish Syro-Greek traders; backed by a wretched wilderness, alternately swampy and sandy, is comfortless to an extent calculated to make the healthiest lose health. Moreover, its climate, says Professor Palmer (p. 222), is very malarious: ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... laughed at her own folly, yet she was glad Stanley had given her this chance to make up a silly day-dream. She waited until he had exhausted himself on the subject of valets, their drunkenness, their thievish habits, their incompetence, then ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... the weka (Ocydromus Australis), or the wood-hen, belonging to the class of rails, which have already become quite scarce upon North Island. In the grassy plains and forests of the Southern Alps, however, they are still found in considerable numbers. It is a thievish bird, greedy after everything that glistens; it frequently carries off spoons, forks, and the like, but it also breaks into hen-coops, and picks ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... young girls," he said, "and far more tractable; thievish, of course, and untruthful—but so are all children! They attach themselves to me in a pathetic, dog-like fashion, without hope of preferment or any ulterior object.... Yes, they have established themselves in my heart, somehow or ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... suspicions were correct, the boy should have somewhat of his—er—uncle's good looks and pleasant manner, whereas he was hairy, ill-favored, and, as his nature disclosed itself with increasing years, violent, thievish, treacherous; in short, he was Olopana at his worst. Every day added to the bad feeling between the boy and his father, for when he had grown old enough to appreciate the position to which he had been born, the youngster repaid the hate of his parent, and strove to deserve ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... of the country prepared to engage in a death-grapple with its barbarism,—when the most beneficent of all governments was threatened by the basest of all conspiracies, the most infamous of all treasons, the most thievish of all rebellions,—and when that government was sustained by the most glorious uprising that ever surged up from the heart of a great people to defend the cause of liberty and honesty and law,—did not the hot tide of that universal patriotism sparkle and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... our encampment (at Jenin in Palestine) our dragoman told us that the people of the village were so quarrelsome and thievish that it was never safe to stop a night there without an extra guard, and he had engaged the brother of the sheik of the village to occupy this responsible post. This man was a great, tall, athletic-looking fellow, but a deaf mute. While we ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... rime bedight Their branches bare. By day no sun appeared; by night The hidden moon shed thievish ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... lantern upon a table, he draws forth his picklock and chisels, and commences breaking open the bureau. Right—this thievish instinct has not deceived him, he has found all, all. Here is the little box of sparkling diamonds, and here ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... peasant, for though he lacks the sparkle, he is full of humour, and is the laziest and the most industrious of mankind. He lies and tells the truth in such a hopelessly uncertain manner that you cannot rely on him for either. He is ungrateful and faithful to the death, honest and thievish, all in one and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... and sparkling air, Fleet the pointed darts of frost, The filmy nets, now here, now there, For thievish birds, are lightly toss'd; Or, plac'd with silent heed, the wily snares, To lure the stranger-cranes, and timid hares. Rich viands they, whose pleasing flavor Crown his board, reward his labor. In those convivial hours the Heart forgets Its vain tumultuous hopes, and ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... Earth People. They said that they had been made from red clay. Their totem was a fox; and the French of the Great Lakes had dubbed them Foxes—had asserted that, like the fox, they were quarrelsome, tricky and thievish. As warriors they were much feared. They ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... withdrew from singing Halleluja, Who unto me committed this new office; No thief is he, nor I a thievish spirit. ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... of course, of a jackdaw or a magpie—these birds' thievish reputations made the guess natural. But the marks on the match were much too wide apart to have been made by the beak of either. I conjectured, therefore, that it must be a raven. So that, when we arrived near the coach-house, I seized ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... this member of a wealthy and respected family turned corsair, after losing all his capital in a mercantile speculation in Cyprus; how he, in his turn, was robbed of his ill-gotten gains on the high seas by some thievish merchants of Genoa; and how Landolfo, after passing through a variety of more or less improbable adventures, was finally rescued from drowning off the coast of Corfu by a servant-maid who, whilst washing dishes by the sea-shore, chanced to espy the unconscious ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... mobs, Picking Possessive Pronouns' fobs, And Interjections as bad as a blight, Or an Eastern blast, to the blood and the sight: Fanciful phrases for crime and sin, And smacking of vulgar lips where Gin, Garlic, Tobacco, and offals go in - A jargon so truly adapted, in fact, To each thievish, obscene, and ferocious act, So fit for the brute with the human shape, Savage Baboon, or libidinous Ape, From their ugly mouths it will certainly come Should they ever get ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... the same authority, 'who has had anything to do with the sea, would ever think of paying for a passage.' I give the statement as Mackay's, without endorsement; yet I am tempted to believe that it contains a grain of truth; and if you add that the man shall be impudent and thievish, or else dead-broke, it may even pass for a fair representation of the facts. We gentlemen of England who live at home at ease have, I suspect, very insufficient ideas on the subject. All the world over, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... always enter the beings of the finest singers and the most beautiful of all the birds, the spirits of the children of white people enter the bodies of stupid, ugly birds that just squawk around, and are neither interesting to look at nor pleasant to listen to, but are quarrelsome, and thievish. When I asked Oo-koo-hoo to name a few birds into which the spirits of white children entered, he mentioned, among others, the woodpecker—which the Indians consider to have, proportionately, the longest and sharpest tongue of all birds. That reminds ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... parricide, by renouncing their parent, by making her ruin their favourite object, and by associating themselves with her worst enemy, for the accomplishment of their purpose. France, and of course Spain, have acted a treacherous, a thievish part. They have stolen America from England, and whether they are able to possess themselves of that jewel or not hereafter, it was doubtless what they intended. Holland appears to me in a meaner light than any of ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... things in the whale-boat astern, to say nothing of the provisions in the lockers, I think it would be best if I got down and slept in her. I don't like the looks" (here he dropped his voice to a portentous whisper) "of these black gentry; they have such a wonderful thievish way about them. Supposing now that some of them were to slip into the boat at night and cut the cable, and make off with her? That would be a pretty go, ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... the Tinkers in a perhaps somewhat too unqualified reprobation. For there are tinkers and tinkers. Some of them, indeed, are stout and sturdy thieves,—veritable birds of prey,—whose rapacity is continually questing for plunder. But some of them have merely the magpies' and jackdaws' thievish propensity for picking up what lies temptingly in their way. And some few are so honest that they pass by as harmlessly as a wedge of high-flying wild duck. And I have heard it said that to places like Lisconnel ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... another name, she engaged a woman to accompany her as a servant; and this woman one day having committed some fault, was beaten by her master, who scolded her and told her she was lazy, thievish, and impudent. Smarting under the punishment, she determined to be revenged, and going to the magistrate told him: 'This man, who seems to you so respectable, is a wicked wretch who has abandoned his own wife, and run away ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... would hint to him to be careful, as it contained some rare and rich sweetmeats, negro nature, he well knew, would impel him to search for the bonbons; and the bag, under his clumsy treatment, would bear plain marks of having been tampered with, and, as the African had a most thievish reputation, he would never be believed if he swore himself guiltless. Voila! Here was a neat trick! If it had a drawback, it was that it was too simple, too little risque. A child might ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... in his place. He unrolled his blanket and carried it to the sheltered little nook under the ledge, and dragged the bag of doughnuts and the jelly and honey and bread after it. He had heard about thievish animals that will carry off bacon and flour and such. He knew that he ought to hang his grub in a tree, but he could not reach up as far as the fox who might try to help himself, so that was out of ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... wharf on the left bank of the Hudson might fairly be described as superlatively honest persons, nor had they done any act which could be construed as wrongful by the most captious critic; yet McCulloch's concealment of the lamp suggested something thievish and illicit, and, though he alone could give a valid reason for exercising extreme discretion, because he realized, better than the others, what a choice morsel this adventure would supply to the press if ever it became known, both Curtis and Devar listened like himself with bated breath ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... passed few people, but on approaching the centre of the City they saw numbers in front of the cafes and even going to the theatre. Flashy carriages of thievish men who had enriched themselves under the new conditions, rolled frequently by. The basis of their power, the squalid element with jealous, insolent eyes, also increased on ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... very peculiar. Constantly employed in creeping into small holes, and daubing themselves with honey, they often lose all the bright feathers and silky plumes which once so beautifully adorned their bodies, and assume a smooth and almost black appearance; just as the hat of the thievish loafer, acquires a "seedy" aspect, and his garments, a shining and threadbare look. Dzierzon is of opinion that the black bees which Huber describes, as being so bitterly persecuted by the rest, are nothing more than these thieving bees. I call them old ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... sturdy scout, once more shaking his head in open distrust; "they are a thievish race, nor do I care by whom they are adopted; you can never make anything of them but skulls and vagabonds. Since you trusted yourself to the care of one of that nation, I only wonder that you have not fallen in ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... their evening cup of tea; for these creatures, though they live in the open air, have their ideas of fireside comforts. There were two or three children sleeping on the straw with which the tents were littered; a couple of donkeys were grazing in the lane, and a thievish-looking dog was lying before the fire. Some of the younger gipsies were dancing to the music of a fiddle, played by a tall, slender stripling, in an old frock-coat, with a peacock's feather stuck ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... 'Mountaineers are thievish because they are poor; and, having neither manufactures nor commerce, can grow rich only by robbery. They regularly plunder their neighbours, for their neighbours are commonly their enemies; and, having lost that reverence for property by which ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... great town, Creaking the signs, and scattering down Shutters, and whisking, with merciless squalls, Old women's bonnets and gingerbread stalls. There never was heard a much lustier shout, As the apples and oranges tumbled about; And the urchins that stand with their thievish eyes Forever on watch, ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... dozen other dogs came from round all the corners and under the buildings—spidery, thievish, cold-blooded kangaroo-dogs, mongrel sheep- and cattle-dogs, vicious black and yellow dogs—that slip after you in the dark, nip your heels, and vanish without explaining—and yapping, yelping small fry. They kept at a respectable distance round the ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... wild roving crew of lawless pirates, Who, crowded in their narrow noisome ship, Upon the rude sea, with rude manners dwell; Naught of the fair land knowing but the bays, Where they may risk their hurried thievish landing. Of the loveliness that, in its peaceful dales, The land conceals—O Father!—O, of this, In our wild voyage ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... chained, so that dishonest people should not make way with them! In one Chapter Library, there occurs a denunciation of such thieves, and instructions how to fasten the volumes. It reads as follows: "Since to the great reproach of the Nation, and a greater one to our Holy Religion, the thievish disposition of some who enter libraries to learn no good there, hath made it necessary to secure the sacred volumes themselves with chains (which are better deserved by those ill persons, who have too much learning to be hanged, and ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... at all," said Harry, laughing, "though every Englishman thinks he is a judge of horseflesh, and I fancy those might possess endurance, if not up to much weight. As for the men, they seem to fancy themselves more than the Egyptians; but a more villainous, blood- thirsty, thievish-looking set of scoundrels, it has never been my luck ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... by Ammianus and Procopius in a larger, sense, has been derived, ridiculously, from Sarah, the wife of Abraham, obscurely from the village of Saraka, (Stephan. de Urbibus,) more plausibly from the Arabic words, which signify a thievish character, or Oriental situation, (Hottinger, Hist. Oriental. l. i. c. i. p. 7, 8. Pocock, Specimen, p. 33, 35. Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iv. p. 567.) Yet the last and most popular of these ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... Therefore tial. Thermometer termometro. Thesis tezo. They ili. Thick dika. Thick (dense) densa. Thicket arbetajxo, arbetaro. Thickness dikeco. Thickset dikkorpa. Thickskinned dikhauxta. Thief sxtelisto. Thieve sxteli. Thievish sxtelema. Thigh femuro. Thigh bone femurosto. Thimble fingringo. Thin (slender) maldika. Thine cia, via. Thing (matter) afero. Thing, some io. Thing, any io. Think pensi. Thinker pensulo. Think over pripensi. Thirst soifo. Thirsty, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... upon the temper of the house-holder, whether she would take that apparition quietly, deceived by Lanyard's mumming into believing she had only a poor thievish fool to deal with, or with a storm of bourgeois hysteria. In the latter event, Lanyard's hand was ready planted, palm down, on the top of the desk: should the woman attempt to give the alarm, a single bound would carry the adventurer across it in ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... embarked on board the barque Clymene, which was bound for Payta, in Peru, and was landed on Picton Island; but before the vessel had departed the Fuegians had beset the little party, and shown themselves so obstinately and mischievously thievish, that it was plainly impossible for so small a party to hold their ground among them. Before there could be a possibility of convincing them of even the temporal benefit of the white man's residence among them, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... thy skill, thine arrow's sharp head dip In yonder thievish Frenchman's guilty blood, I promise thee thy sovereign shall not slip To give thee large rewards for such a good;" Thus said the spirit; the man did laugh and skip For hope of future gain, nor longer stood, But from his quiver huge a shaft ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... we must look out for," remarked the captain. "These folks are said to be a little thievish. It will be well enough to put loose small articles out ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Farrars, they were working up to such a heat of excitement that they felt as if life were now only beginning. They had heard of the thievish raids made by the black bear on unprotected camps, and of his special fondness for pork. Not knowing that there was no chance of an encounter with Bruin so near to civilization as this, they peered at that hole in the roof, expecting ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... is as attractive as her looks I'd throw over the Salon for the sake of meeting her," he mused. "But that's frankly impossible, I suppose. At the best, she would not forgive me if she knew I had watched her in this thievish way. I could never explain it, never! She wouldn't even listen. Well, it's better to have dreamed and lost than never to have ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... sheep-dogs of France and Germany. They are often sent out in the pastures to gather up the horses, and will remain by them and keep them within bounds for days at a time. They are also much used in the management of sheep. Unlike the regular shepherd-dog of Europe, however, they are sometimes thievish and treacherous, owing to their wolfish origin. I do not think we could have made ten miles a day without Brusa. In the driving of pack-trains a good dog is indispensable. I always gave the poor fellow ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... defeat, the tribes seem to have given up all idea of prosecuting a war against their new neighbours, and, gradually relinquishing their thievish habits, settled in the neighbourhood of the Fort—sometimes hunting and trapping for the pale faces, and at others labouring away at ditching and brick-making, being paid chiefly in articles of clothing and small allowances of pisco. ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... brought against him. Reynard, still undismayed, demanded with well-feigned indignation whether he was to be held responsible for the sins of those messengers whose misfortunes were attributable to their gluttonous and thievish propensities only. ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... charitable. Fifty young or middle-aged men, who had been accustomed to self-guidance in America, would do more to promote the prosperity of the colony, than five hundred such emigrants as are usually sent out. The thievish propensity of many of the poor and indolent colonists is much complained of by the industrious. On this account, more than any other, it is difficult to raise stock. The vice has been acquired in America, and is not forgotten ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... called in Latin furunculus, "a little theefe; a sore in the bodie called a fellon" (Cooper), whence Fr. furoncle, or froncle, "the hot and hard bumpe, or swelling, tearmed, a fellon" (Cotgrave). Another Latin name for it was tagax, "a felon on a man's finger" (Cooper), lit. thievish. One of its Spanish names is padrastro, lit. step-father. I am told that an "agnail" was formerly called a "step-mother" in Yorkshire. This is a good example of the semantic method in etymology ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... of the Deity, and a future state, he had officiated for a full year as the conjuror or powwow of a tribe. When he returned to Europe, he brought with him a couple of human teeth, a pipe, a bow and arrow, a jackall, a wild sheep, a sharp-nosed, thievish Siberian cur, with his sleigh and harness, and a very pretty Samoyede girl, the last with a view to ascertain the peculiar cast of features and shade of complexion which should mark a half-breed, which he was so fortunate as to ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... danced through Mohammedan dream of Paradise, to dig pitfalls for the unwary feet of some misshapen country wench who was striving to lead an honest life. As a muley cow will turn from a manger filled with new-mown hay, and wear out her thievish tongue trying to coax a wisp of rotten straw through a crack in a neighbor's barn, so will man turn from consenting Venus' matchless charms ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... a'gad, they have not forgotten my trunk-mails of apparel amid the ample provision they have made for their own belly-timber—Mercy, a'gad, I were finely helped up if the vesture has miscarried among the thievish Borderers!" ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... are the Small People who live in rocks and stones, and cromlechs, the most mischievous, thievish little creatures that ever lived, and woe betide anyone who meddles with ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... shrewd question. You know I have a theory that a man is known by his dog. This beast seems to have changed character when he changed masters. When Enciso had him he was little more than a puppy, and then he was thievish and cowardly. Now he will attack an Indian as savagely as Leoncico himself. Pizarro must have put ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... to the illusion which he had been cherishing for a long time that Burgundy wine alone was good for him and kept his malady in check. There is something pathetic in the proportions which this wine-question gradually assumes: that it is so dear at Basle might be overlooked, but the thievish wagoners drink up or ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... swearing and thievish sinner, God hath prepared the curse, that "every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side, according to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... made head against a new host of Danes who landed on their coast; killed their chief, and captured their flag, on which was represented the likeness of a Raven—a very fit bird for a thievish army like that, I think. The loss of their standard troubled the Danes greatly, for they believed it to be enchanted—woven by the three daughters of one father in a single afternoon—and they had a story ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... of his Majesty. Incensed by these presumptuous words, which were none of my saying, the King exclaimed: "Since he left us without any cause, I shall not recall him; let him e'en stay where he is." Thus the thievish brigands brought matters exactly to the pass they desired; for if I had returned to France, they would have become mere workmen under me once more, whereas, while I remained away, they were their own masters and in my ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... tribe Zakka Khel is devoted to this dishonest calling, and at birth every male child is consecrated to thievish practices by a peculiar ceremony, in which the new-born infant is passed through a breach in the wall of his father's house, whilst the words "Become a thief" are chanted three times in chorus. Amongst the ancient Germans, according to ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... Rio Medio, leading a cloistered existence in the ruins of old splendour, used to call that thievish rabble Lugarenos—villagers. They were sea-thieves, but they were dangerous. At night, from these clusters of hovels surrounded by the banana plantations, there issued a villainous noise, the humming of hived scoundrels. Lights twinkled. One could hear the thin twanging ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... comparatively well-travelled post-route than a difference becomes manifest in the character of the people. Commercially speaking, the Persian is considerably more of a Jew than the Jew himself, and along a route frequented by travellers, the person possessing some little knowledge of the thievish ways of the country and of current prices, besides having plenty of small change, finds these advantages a matter for congratulation almost every hour of the day. The proprietor of a wretched little mud hovel, solemnly presiding over ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... deal with us, to pass sentence and execution upon us, before both sides be heard to speak. This principle in the forehead of your Laws foretells destruction to this Common-wealth. For it declares that the Laws that follow such refusal are selfish and thievish and full of murder, protecting all that get money by their Laws, ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... collects the revenue under the Lhassan authorities, and there is also a Tibetan fort, an officer, and guard. The inhabitants of this district more resemble the Bhotanese than Tibetans, and are a thievish set, finding a refuge under the Paro-Pilo of Bhotan,* [There was once a large monastery, called Kazioo Goompa, at Choombi, with upwards of one hundred Lamas. During a struggle between the Sikkim and Bhotan monks for superiority in it, the abbot died. His avatar reappeared ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... defraud &c 545; obtain under false pretenses; live by one's wits. rob Peter to pay Paul, borrow of Peter to pay Paul; set a thief to catch a thief. disregard the distinction between meum and tuum [Lat.]. [receive stolen goods] fence, launder, launder money. Adj. thieving &c v.; thievish, light-fingered; furacious^, furtive; piratical; predaceous, predal^, predatory, predatorial^; raptorial &c (rapacious) 789. stolen &c v.. Phr. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... wearing tails hanging down their backs. They excel in dancing and music, for they are active and lively, although they are of thicker build than the Germans. They cut their hair close on the forehead, letting it hang down on either side. They are good sailors, and better pirates, cunning, treacherous, thievish. Three hundred and upwards are hanged annually in London. Hawking is the favourite sport of the nobility. The English are more polite in eating than the French, devouring less bread, but more meat, which they roast in perfection. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... unlikely that a raven, or a crow, or a jackdaw, or a magpie, had found his bell, and from its thievish disposition, which attracts it to anything bright and shining, had carried it into its nest. With this thought he turned himself into a beautiful little bird, and searched all the nests in the island, and ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... required all the wisdom of Lieutenant Cook to conduct himself in a proper manner. His sentiments on the subject displayed the liberality of his mind. He thought it of consequence to put an end, if possible to thievish practices at once, by doing something that should engage the natives in general to prevent them, from a regard to their common interest. Strict orders had been given by him, that they should not be fired upon, even when they were detected in attempting ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... from the press before Luther heard of the deeds of violence of Rohrbach and his fellows. Fearing that complete anarchy would result from the triumph of the insurgents, against whom no effective blow had yet been struck, he wrote a tract Against the Thievish, Murderous Hordes of Peasants. [Sidenote: The peasants denounced] In this he denounced them with the utmost violence of language, and urged the government to smite them without pity. Everyone should avoid a peasant as he would the devil, and should join the forces to slay them ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... as an orator he pleased his hearers. This turned his head, and a spendthrift's blood runs in his veins. To bring his fair young bride to a stately mansion, he undertook the bad cause of the thievish tax-collector ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... arms, who march, wheel, advance, retreat; and are, for your behoof a magazine charged with fiery death, in the most perfect condition of potential activity. Few months ago, till the persuasive sergeant came, what were they? Multiform ragged losels, runaway apprentices, starved weavers thievish valets; an entirely broken population, fast tending towards the treadmill. But the persuasive sergeant came, by tap of drum enlisted, or formed lists of them, took heartily to drilling them; and he and you have made them this! Most potent effectual for all work whatsoever, is wise ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... a short-legged cock, which he had reared upon bread-crumbs. But one morning, being pinched with appetite (for hunger drives the wolf from the thicket), he took it into his head to sell the cock, and, taking it to the market, he met two thievish magicians, with whom he made a bargain, and sold it for half-a-crown. So they told him to take it to their house, and they would count him out the money. Then the magicians went their way, and, Minecco Aniello following them, overheard them talking gibberish together and saying, "Who would have ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... shells, which cracked and rattled under our horses' feet. Tantura is a poor Arab village, and we had some difficulty in procuring provisions. The people lived in small huts of mud and stones, near the sea. The place had a thievish look, and we deemed it best to be careful in the disposal of our ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... these: "I came this journey with a determination to observe very carefully all your hints as to occupations and observations, east and west, north and south, but I have been so worried by lazy, deceitful Sepoys, and thievish Johanna men, and indifferent instruments, that I fear the results are very poor." He goes on to say that some of his instruments were defective, and others went out of order, and that his time-taker, one of his people, had no ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... out before me. I watched—the specks were moving, they might be deer, or they might be wolves, but from the way they progressed I had little doubt they were men. They came from a quarter I did not like, inhabited by Dacotahs and Pawnees—treacherous, thievish rascals, who will take the scalp of an old woman if they can catch her asleep, and make as much boast of it as if they had killed a warrior in open fight. Still it was necessary to be on my guard against them. I waited till I ascertained ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... it took for the hampered and filibustered bill to come up for its passage or defeat), is known to those who have tried to do it. The railroads were outraged and incensed by the measure; they sincerely believed it to be monstrous and thievish. "Let the legislature try to confiscate two-fifths of the lawyers', or the bakers', or the ironmoulders', just earnings," said they, "and see what ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... went to a small table and sat down to a plentiful meal of such things as formed the dainties of persons of their rank of life. Upon the table stood the dish of sweetmeats which the thievish maidservant had brought to Mere Malheur with the groom's story of the conversation between Bigot and Varin, a story which, could Angelique have got hold of it, would have stopped at once her frightful plot ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... remnant of the sponge loaf. Nothing much worse than had already happened could befall him, and after brief temptation he kicked off his unlaced hobnails and stole downstairs. With some such vague idea of disguising crime as a thievish monkey might have had, he packed up a pair of neatly folded towels in the paper which had once held the loaf, and so retreated to his prison. All day long the familiar noises of the house, exaggerated into importance ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... of tobacco, sour cabbage, and olive oil. Petunikoff looked around him and made a face. Vaviloff looked at the icon, and then they looked simultaneously at one another, and both seemed to be favorably impressed. Petunikoff liked Vaviloff's frankly thievish eyes, and Vaviloff was pleased with the open cold, determined face of Petunikoff, with its large cheeks ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... not but that he was a drunkard and also thievish, but he was most arch in this sin of uncleanness: this roguery was his masterpiece, for he was a ringleader to them all in the beastly sin of whoredom. He was also best acquainted with such houses where they were, and so could readily lead the rest of his gang unto ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... I said to myself. The thought at once drove away all ideas of sleep; and I placed myself in an attitude to listen, and, if possible, lay my hands on the thievish intruder; for I now felt certain that, crab or no crab, whatever creature was making the scratching noise was the same that had ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... bed; Whereat the mistress of the house, A deadly foe of rats and mice, Was making ready in a trice To eat the stranger as a mouse. "What! do you dare," she said, "to creep in The very bed I sometimes sleep in, Now, after all the provocation I've suffered from your thievish nation? Are you not really a mouse, That gnawing pest of every house, Your special aim to do the cheese ill? Ay, that you are, or I'm no weasel." "I beg your pardon," said the bat; "My kind is very far from that. What! I a mouse! Who told you such a lie? Why, ma'am, I am ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... fell, as might have been expected, into a violent rage with the good-for-nothing landlord. "The thievish dog! he has dared to attack our firm and our head! To-morrow I'll take a whole troop of our fellows there. I'll drive him into his own yard, and we'll all play at leap-frog over him by the hour, and at every leap we'll give a kick to ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Mechlin lace. I knew very well that no lady of elegance could occupy such apartment, or, indeed, was to be found (I mean no disrespect to the abbe) in that quarter of Paris. The window plainly belonged to some thievish den, and the lace formed a portion of the spoils. I began to be distrustful of late visits to the abbe's quarters, and full of the notion of thievish eyes looking out from the strange window—I used half to tremble as I passed along the corridor. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... rated his own writings much above their value, and who was inclined to see all Voltaire's actions in the worst light, was enraged to think that his favourite compositions were in the hands of an enemy, as thievish as a daw and as mischievous as a monkey. In the anger excited by this thought, he lost sight of reason and decency, and determined on committing an outrage at ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... first landing, or rather where the stairs paused, there was an aviary in which either hawks screeched or owls blinked; generally there was a magpie there, and the quaint bird now hopped to Frank's finger, casting a thievish look on his rings. The drawing-room was full of flowers. There was a grand piano, dark and bright; the skins of tigers Lord Seveley had shot carpeted the floor, and on their heads, Helen rested her ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... treasure from thievish Barons and Margraves protected by scores of armed men, with the object of breaking their power, for the relief of commerce, I admired you, but to say that the despoiling of a helpless ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... itself persuade The eyes of men without an orator; What needeth then apologies be made, To set forth that which is so singular? Or why is Collatine the publisher Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown From thievish ears, ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... called to the Burgomeister. "Come hither, chief of a thievish municipality, tell me if these be indeed ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... The Thievish Raven, and the Mischief he caused. How the Wives and Daughters of Zurich saved the City. How the City of Lucerne was saved by a Boy. The Baker's Apprentice. How a Wooden Figure raised Troops in the Valois. Little Roza's Offering. A Little Theft, ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... weighed that which Evan had proposed. The woman said: "A lawyer will do this"; the man said: "Splendid is the bargain and costly and thievish are old lawyers." ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... America, for whom we scarcely seem to have a parallel in England. Of pure white blood, they are unknown or unrecognizable in towns; inhabit the fringe of settlements and the deep, quiet places of the country; rebellious to all labour, and pettily thievish, like the English gipsies; rustically ignorant, but with a touch of wood-lore and the dexterity of the savage. Whence they came is a moot point. At the time of the war, they poured north in crowds to escape the conscription; ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her course in a voyage to Hammerfest, and wrecked on a desolate shore. The survivors experience the miseries of a long sojourn in the Arctic circle, with inadequate means of supporting life, but ultimately, with the aid of some friendly but thievish Lapps, they succeed in making their way to a reindeer station and so southward to Tornea and home again. The story throughout is singularly vivid and truthful in its details, the individual characters are fresh and well marked, and a pleasant vein ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... I shall not have upset the milk, and these generals will not be looking at me so fiercely." In fact, I had actually begun to move towards the door when Monsieur Markov entered—a grey-headed man with thievish eyes, and clad in a dirty dressing-gown fastened with a belt. Greetings over, I stumbled out something about Emelia Ivanovitch and forty roubles, and then came to a dead halt, for his eyes told me that my errand had been futile. "No." ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... traits. He was thievish, and we were obliged to keep an eye on him, or he would steal all our lead-pencils, pocket-handkerchiefs and other small objects. What he took he secreted, and was marvelously cunning in ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... moment's indignation at the greed of Judas, which was masquerading as benevolence. His scathing laying bare of Judas's mean and thievish motive is no mere suspicion, but he must have known instances of dishonesty. When a man has gone so far in selfish greed that he has left common honesty behind him, no wonder if the sight of utterly self-surrendering love looks to him folly. The world has no instruments ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... certainly, to answer in the affirmative. Louville, her rival and enemy, a man of talent and ardour, but passionate, represents her as the wickedest woman on earth, to be got rid of at the earliest possible moment and at any cost, "sordid and thievish to a marvellous degree." He raises the same accusation against Orry, a clever man whom Louis XIV. had sent to Spain to put some order into her finances. These accusations seem to have been unjustifiable. The Marshal Duke of Berwick, who kept ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... that monkeys have never been among my favorites. There are a great many kinds, but all are mischievous, troublesome, and thievish. The dispositions of some of them are extremely bad, while others are so mild and tractable as to be readily tamed and taught a great variety of tricks. They live together in large groups, leaping with surprising agility from tree to tree. Travellers ...
— Minnie's Pet Monkey • Madeline Leslie
... considerably lessons the percentage of persons driven by destitution into the ranks of crime. Add to these the great bulk of juvenile offenders convicted of theft, and that peculiar class of people who steal, not because they are in distress, but merely from a thievish disposition, and it will he manifest that half the cases of theft in England and Wales are not due to ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... back to her again, she sat down to read it: it contained a complaint that Venetian ships had been seized by the English privateers, who then made all seas unsafe. The English nation, she then said, is not so small but that evil and thievish men may be found in it: while she promised enquiry and justice, she nevertheless reverted to her main point that she had received nothing from the republic during the forty-four years of her government but grievances and ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... good drivers of bargains, but to be honest and just in their transactions, and even in horse-dealing to resist those thievish tendencies which would seem, for some undiscovered reason, to be almost inseparable from that branch of traffic. In all matters they hold their own course quietly, live in their gloomy, silent commonwealth, and show little desire to interfere ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... the Germans treated the neutrality of Belgium) they presently found a hundred and seventy-three British vessels coming to know the reason why, though the Chinese coast was sixteen thousand miles from England. No, there is no question about the Navy's strong right arm. But it has no thievish fingers. ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... that a thievish orator at one of our Agricultural Fairs might appropriate page after page out of the "Gentleman Farmer" of Lord Kames, written in the middle of the last century, and the county-paper, and the aged directors, in clean shirt-collars and dress-coats, would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various |
