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Bait   /beɪt/   Listen
Bait

verb
(past & past part. baited; pres. part. baiting)
1.
Harass with persistent criticism or carping.  Synonyms: cod, rag, rally, razz, ride, tantalise, tantalize, taunt, tease, twit.  "Don't ride me so hard over my failure" , "His fellow workers razzed him when he wore a jacket and tie"
2.
Lure, entice, or entrap with bait.
3.
Attack with dogs or set dogs upon.



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"Bait" Quotes from Famous Books



... that Ne-geek had shot for the purpose, Oo-koo-hoo scattered a few feathers about. Some of these, as well as the pan of the trap, had been previously daubed with a most stinking concoction called "fox bait"—hereafter called "mixed bait" to prevent confusing this with ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... easy characters each afternoon on the blackboard for the girls to copy before going home. Thus the girls learned how to listen, to memorize, and to write. Since the number of girls increases perceptibly when we have a little English I use it as a bait. By Miss Merrill's consent, help was secured from the boarding-school in teaching half an hour of English every day in ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton

... Ransmores everything. The next day Fanny and I determined to go fishing, leaving Mrs. Ransmore to read novels in a hammock, an occupation she adores. Isaac was just as good as he could be all the time; he got rods for us, and made us some beautiful bait out of raw beef, for of course we did not want to handle worms; and we started for the river. We had just reached a place where we could see the water, when Fanny called out that somebody had a chicken-yard there, and that we would have to go around ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... artist painted a Magdalen on a canvas fabricated at Rome. A broker, in concert with Mignard, went to the Chevalier de Clairville, and told him as a secret that he was to receive from Italy a Magdalen of Guido, and his masterpiece. The chevalier caught the bait, begged the preference, and purchased the picture ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... know him, and don't care to, though his name is so familiar. New people always disappoint me, especially if I've heard them praised ever since I was born. I shall not get up for any Geoffrey Moor, so that bait fails." ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... opened any heart except Mrs. Beaumont's; but it is the misfortune of artful people that they cannot believe others to be artless: either they think simplicity of character folly; or else they suspect that openness is only affected, as a bait to draw them into snares. Our heroine balanced for a moment between these two notions. She could not believe Mr. Palmer to be an absolute fool—no; his having made such a large fortune forbad that thought. Then he must have ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

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

... deal with, whom she stood less upon punctilio with, than with these; for instance, it was not on one of them she could attempt to pass me for a maid; they were not only too knowing, too much town-bred to bite at such a bait, but they were such generous benefactors to her, that it would be ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... chaste Adeline Grew friends in this or any other sense, Will be discuss'd hereafter, I opine: At present I am glad of a pretence To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine, And keeps the atrocious reader in suspense; The surest way for ladies and for books To bait their tender, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... cut the slim pole that he had already picked out and measured with his eye, took squirming bait from the soft earth under a stone, just as millions of boys in the Mississippi valley have done, and started for the creek, Paul being delegated to accompany him, while Henry, Long Jim and the shiftless one proceeded to build a fire in the most secluded spot they could find. There was ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... delight widened the boy's face, and he wriggled in gleeful remembrance where he perched, on a tall oaken chair. "Oh, they will swallow any bait, those gudgeons, and some day their folly will be the end of them. I would not have them catch thee if they could be fooled, and well did I fool them, I ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... was all part of a plot, meant to deceive us while these villains—taking Hollins to be in at the other man's game—got clear away in some totally different direction? If it was, then it had been successful, for we had taken the bait, and all attention was being directed on Glasgow, and none elsewhere, and—as far as I knew—certainly none at Hathercleugh itself, whither nobody expected ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher

... proposal. The farmers were offered the double lure of high prices for their produce and a lower price for machinery. Never was he so proud of the farmers of his country as when they resisted the lure, they refused the bait, they could not be bought, they declined to barter either their independence or their imperial allegiance for gain. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... with gigantic piles, Thorough the centre their new-catched miles, And to the stake a struggling country bound, Where barking waves still bait the forced ground, Building their watery Babel far more high, To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky! Yet still his claim the injured ocean laid, And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples played, As if on purpose it on land had come To show them what's their mare ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... had scarcely got there on Saturday, when I got into 'Delila,' with my wife. 'Delila' is my Norwegian boat, which I had built by Fourmaise, and which is light and safe. Well, as I said, we got into the boat and we were going to bait, and for baiting there is nobody to be compared with me, and they all know it. You want to know with what I bait? I cannot answer that question; it has nothing to do with the accident; I cannot answer, that is my secret. There are more than three hundred people who have ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... which consider the body as corruptible and the soul an immortal spirit, which, when released from the bonds of the flesh as from a long slavery, rejoices and mounts upwards, lay an irresistible bait for such as have once tasted of their philosophy." The ideas which the sect cherished were popular in a certain part of Greco-Roman society, which, sated with the luxury of the age, turned to the ascetic life and to the pursuit of mysticism. Pliny the Elder, who was on the ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich

... the love that filled his heart and rose like a lump in his throat whenever he saw her pretty face and heard her soft voice. She was a fool, it is true, but she was like so many fools of her kind, full of a subtle craft which acts like the tempting bait on the hook that catches the ...
— A Few Short Sketches • Douglass Sherley

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

... cruelty and enormous guilt; he was like a 'fish whole,' in the full enjoyment of every providential blessing; while, spiritually, he was dead in sin. God loved and pitied him, and sent a cunning angler. Nathan the prophet there in the bait, which David eagerly seized; the hook entered his conscience, and he became as a fish wounded, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... a few words respecting this master, which I trust may serve as a warning to others. Allured by the bait that has been the ruin of so many of his class, the offer of a large grant of land, Captain N—- had been induced to form a settlement in this remote and untried township; laying out much, if not all, of his available means in building a log house, and clearing a large ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

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

... or grandpa saw the children starting out with hoe and shovels they probably thought the Curlytops were only going to dig fish worms, as they often did. Grandpa Martin was very fond of fishing, but he did not like to dig the bait. But Trouble was fretful that day, and his mother had to take care of him, so she did not pay much attention to Jan or Ted, feeling sure they would ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis

... Critick, with a certain sallow Male-contented Phiz, poring upon this Page, and sucking his Ring-finger, gives himself an unpleasurable minute to Judge whether I have paraphras'd right or no; well, all's one, fall back fall edge, I'm resolv'd to bait him with St. Cyprian a little more. "A Parson has, or should have, much better Books than Plays to look in; he has many Authors of Pious and Solid Authorities to please, and improve himself with, at the same time. Would a Parson be agreeably refresh'd, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet

... four winds of heaven bore forth in all directions the odour of the carrion; and the undertakers hurried up, so that the experiments, begun with four subjects, were continued with fourteen, a number not attained during the whole of my previous searches, which were unpremeditated and in which no bait was used as decoy. My ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... nearly three inches long, made of solid mother-of-pearl, the natural curve of the shell from which it was cut being preserved. A piece of bone was securely fastened to it by means of some pig's hair, but there was no bait, and it seems that the glitter of the mother-of-pearl alone serves as a sufficient allurement ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... one's hook to bait, And, squatting down, to watch and wait, To see the cork go under; At last suppose you've got your bite, You twitch away with all your might,— You've hooked ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... is that it was the anaana stuff that got him. She snipped off a lock of his hair one day with a pair of manicure scissors. This lock of hair was what we call the maunu, meaning the bait. And she took jolly good care to let him know she had that bit of his hair. Then she tipped it off to him that she had buried it, and was deeply engaged each night in her ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... understanding attached to the objects of the senses, becomes blind to what is for his real good, is dragged (to his ruin) by his heart which runs after all worldly objects, like a fish (dragged to its ruin) by the bait of meat. Like unto the body that is made up of different limbs and organs, all mortal creatures exist depending upon one another. They are as destitute of vigour as the pith of the banana plant. (Left to themselves) they sink in the world's ocean like a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... agencies were established at Sierra Leone for supplying hands to British Guiana, Trinidad and Jamaica. As wages they offered per diem $0.75 to $1, with leave to return at pleasure; the "liberated" preferred, however, to live upon sixpence at home, suspecting that the bait was intended as a lure to captivity. Nor were their fears lulled by the fact that the agents shipped amongst 250 "volunteers" some seventy-six wild slaves, fresh captives, who were not allowed to communicate with their fellow-countrymen ashore. In 1850 ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... as repentance. That do I see and hear. And therewith my master Lucas and Dan Tindall, and those of the new light, declare that all has been false even from the very outset, and that all the pomp and beauty is but Satan's bait, and that to believe in Christ alone is all that needs to justify us, casting all the rest aside. All seemed a mist, and I was swayed hither and thither till the more I read and thought, the greater was the fog. And ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... chain on the feet of reason, and a snare for the bird of wisdom."—To the mystery of thy service I devoted my heart, religion, and all my mental faculties; verily, I am now the bird of reason, and thou art the lure and bait. ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... addicted to giving utterance to any predominant opinion of the moment, being one of those persons who feel quite as much as they think. On the present occasion he did not spare the frigate, for, having caught at the bait that his companion had so artfully thrown out to him, he was loud in the expression of his distrust. All the signalling and showing of colors he now believed to be a republican trick; and precisely in proportion ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the Rocher de Cancale yesterday; and Counts Septeuil and Valeski composed our party. The Rocher de Cancale is the Greenwich of Paris; the oysters and various other kinds of fish served up con gusto, attracting people to it, as the white bait draw visitors to Greenwich. Our dinner was excellent, and ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... one a blow, fetch one a blow, fetch one a kick, give one a kick; have a cut at, have a shot at, take a cut at, take a shot at, have a fling at, have a shy at; be down upon, pounce upon; fall foul of, pitch into, launch out against; bait, slap on the face; make a thrust at, make a pass at, make a set at, make a dead set at; bear down upon. close with, come to close quarters; bring to bay. ride full tilt against; attack tooth and nail, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... sure, If they should speak, 'twould almost damn those ears[10] Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools. I'll tell thee more of this another time: But fish not with this melancholy bait, For this fool gudgeon, this opinion. Come, good Lorenzo:—Fare ye well, a while; I'll end ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare

... the wind was very light, and before noon it fell calm. Two sharks of a large size came under the stern of the vessel, and the sailors were soon very busy trying to hook one of them; but they refused the bait, which was a piece of salt pork, and after an hour they quitted the vessel and disappeared, much to the disappointment both of passengers and ship's company, the former wishing very much to see the sharks caught, and the latter ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... speake the name of God, and neuerthelesse were still Diuels; and when they said vnto Christ, they knew who he was, the holy one of God, &c. Mar. 1. 24.25. their mouthes were stopped, he would no such witnesse, that wee should learne, not to beleeue them when they say the truth: for this is but a bait, that wee might afterward follow their lies. There is much mention made of these, both in the Ciuill and [i]Canon Lawes, and diuersitie of punishment alotted out for them; so that none can doubt but that there hath beene, and are such. I might remember vnto you the authority of Clemens ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts

... initiate you; and this retreat is among the haunts of the fiercest bandits of Italy,—haunts which justice itself dares not penetrate. Fitting hermitage for a sage! I tremble for you. What if this stranger—of whom nothing is known—be leagued with the robbers; and these lures for your credulity bait but the traps for your property,—perhaps your life? You might come off cheaply by a ransom of half your fortune. You smile indignantly! Well, put common-sense out of the question; take your own view of the matter. ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... pure opaque blue—lapis lazuli, but far brighter. I saw a lovely dolphin three days ago; his body five feet long (some said more) is of a FIERY blue-green, and his huge tail golden bronze. I was glad he scorned the bait and escaped the hook; he was so beautiful. This is the sea from which Venus rose in her youthful glory. All is young, fresh, serene, ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... the bait. When the outlaws have slain enough of them, Pertolepe's men must flee this way: so will Red Pertolepe stay to take up his prisoners, and so shall I slay him in that moment with this mine axe. Ha!—said I not so? Hark I they break already! Peace now—wait and watch." So saying, Walkyn ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... know our limitations," Dr. O'Connor said at last. "He must be perfectly well aware that there's not a single thing we can do about him. He must know that we can neither find nor stop him. Why should he worry? He can afford to ignore us—or even bait us. We're helpless, and he ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett

... beset them,—perils by night and perils by day,—perils in the house and by the way. Their fierce and hungry young souls, rioting in awakening consciousness, ravening for pleasure, strong and tumultuous, snatch eagerly at every bait. They want then a mother able to curb, and guide, and rule them; and only a mother who commands their respect can do this. Let them see her sought for her social worth,—let them see that she is familiar with all the conditions of their life,—that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... "It's a sort of bait, like a piece of cheese in a mouse trap," remarked Ted, as he saw the goat nibbling. ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis

... lichen cropping out from every crevice; the unhinged doors and broken windows; the ladder rotting as it leans against the moss-grown roof, the broken well-sweep and deserted barn, offer an aspect of desolation and decay which should prove sufficient bait to tempt any ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... wished in this way to compromise Madam Imbert, and get her into the same boat with Maroney and her. I was doing everything possible to bring out the money, and was able to protect my detectives. I had placed tempting bait for both Maroney and his wife, and they were nibbling strongly. My anglers were experts, and would soon hook their fish, and after playing them carefully would ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton

... door had come to be the portal through which I stepped from safety into meddling. Yet I opened it now with laughter peeping from my sleeve. To bait the Englishman in Huron seemed a good-natured enough jest, and full ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... side on a level with the surface of the ground; on this they sprinkled a little earth, so that the rat would suspect nothing; over this they placed another flat stone, leaning at an angle and supported by a slender stick, to which were attached berries of the aromatic sumac as a bait. That night the young men sat up very late talking with their father, and did not lie down to sleep until after midnight, when, as their father directed, they lay side by side with their ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews

... I can think of," said Billy, "is to lasso them. Only we've got to get them to alight and walk round first. But either they can't walk or they don't like to walk. We must off offer them some bait. Now, what in thunder would tempt a creature that's one-third woman, one-third bird, and one-third angel to ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... Once before she had been lured by that bait, and she was wary. But the envy in the eyes of the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... the bait, remained to play the quivering captive until his last swirling struggle brought him within reach of the skilful dip and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... more of this, Monk, I tell you. You know just nothing at all about it, and I've no right to complain, nor any one to bait me with questions." ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

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

... succumbed to the siren's spell, and there was no reason at all, according to such reckoning, why the handsome and impulsive Alexis should escape. That a pretty Parisienne who was also an artist should fail to offer herself as a willing bait did not enter at all into ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... teach us, till earth and heaven Grow larger around us and higher above. Our sacrament-bread has a bitter leaven; We bait our traps with the name of love, Till hate itself ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... 'danger nigh'—because we are pleased with the beautiful foam, need we steer straight for the breakers? Not every tempting morsel is the enemy's bait, though we should be careful how we nibble;—he is no blunderer (a proof positive that he is not Irish), never leaves his trap sprung—and we ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the books were triumphantly produced, but Master Love, still mindful of his recent tribulations, regarded them shyly at first, as another possible bait to his own undoing; but presently curiosity, and the sight of a wonderful picture of Giant Despair, overcame his scruples, and he held ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... the washed dishes to their obvious places upon the shelves and with a broom she battled with the dust upon the floor and drove it out the open door. Then she swept up the hearth, singing as she swept, and tidied the arrangement of books, bait and tobacco upon the mantel, fingering them with ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley

... course. She is a herring boat, and though she isn't fascinatingly beautiful, she can sail. Dick—helped by Brownie—decked her over, and Dick picked up a new set of sails last year from a man who was selling off his gear. Have you put in the bait and the lines, Willy?" ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... a duck which had been "hotted up" after removal from the dining-room. "He feels hisself master of the whole lot of us already. I could see it in his hi. 'Is that the cabinet 'ock, Forbes?' he says to me, when I was a-filling round after the bait. 'No,' says I, 'it is not. We ain't got so much of our cabinet 'ocks that we can afford to trifle with 'em.' Of course I said it in a hundertone, confidential like; but I wanted him to know who ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... disposition of my kind to mistake it, when evil is stirring. When the Siouxes have gathered in the beasts, and have made sure that you are not upon their heels, they will be back nibbling like hungry wolves to take the bait they have left or it may be, they'll show the temper of the great bears, that are found at the falls of the Long River, and strike at once with the paw, without stopping to ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... to have the one she called "the best-born girl in all the city" at her school, which she boasted, in the presence of her servants, was not made like the others, with representatives of ten Eastern good families as social bait for a hundred ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... individually, without troubling about the women. At first the men shared with them. Many grew weak for lack of food. It was the occasion of many quarrels and invectives, many drawing away the companions of the rest by the bait or even by the promise of their own portion. Matho commanded them all to be driven away pitilessly. They took refuge in the camp of Autaritus; but the Gaulish and Libyan women forced them by ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... say, "These are my amusement"? But they are not mine. I want you to like me and be good-natured. It is not that you must always agree with opinions, or not take exception to what is exceptionable; it is only that you shall not say things in a sour, cross, disagreeable way. Impale the bait on your arming-wire, but handle it as if you loved it. Talk thunderbolts, if necessary, but don't "make faces." The soft south-wind is very, charming; the northwest-wind, though sharp, is bracing and healthful; but your raw east-winds,—oh! chain them in the caverns ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... fresh water creature like a cray-fish. It is regarded here as the world's chiefest delicacy—and certainly it is good. Guards patrol the streams to prevent poaching it. A fine of Rs.200 or 300 (they say) for poaching. Bait is thrown in the water; the camaron goes for it; the fisher drops his loop in and works it around and about the camaron he has selected, till he gets it over its tail; then there's a jerk or something ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the gondola continued until she was ten years old. Sometimes it was a melon held high in the air that tempted her; or a basket of figs, or some huge bunches of grapes; or a roll and a broiled fish from a passing cook-boat: but the bait always sufficed. With a little cry of joy the beads would be dropped, or the neighbor's child passed to another or whatever else occupied her busy head and small hands, and away she would run to the water steps and hold out her ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... is for such as them absent From Love's Court by yeares long and fele.* many I lay* my life ye shall full soon repent; *wager For Love will rive your colour, lust, and heal:* *health Eke ye must bait* on many a heavy meal: *feed *No force,* y-wis; I stirr'd you long agone *no matter* To draw to Court," quoth ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... with Dan is he's too old. When a fellow begins to get a little gray around the edges, he gets so foxy that you couldn't bait him into a matrimonial trap with sweet grapes. But, Sis, what's the matter with your keeping an eye open for a girl for Dan, if he's such a favorite with you? If I had half the interest in him that you profess, I certainly ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... growing warmer, and for the next few days the girls and the boys were content to take it easy under the awnings which had been spread over a portion of the deck. Once the lads amused themselves by fishing with a net and bait, but were not very successful. In the evening they usually sang or played games, and often Songbird would favor them with some of his poetry. For the most of the time Mrs. Stanhope and Mrs. Laning ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer

... beneficent Creator. In a state of inaction, Friends have been exposed to the influences of a corrupt public sentiment; they have, to a considerable extent, imbibed the prejudice against color, while some of them have been caught by the gilded bait ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge

... Rome, thou guiding-star, thou root and branch of all iniquity... Greed blindeth thy eyes, and too close dost thou shear thy [89] sheep... thou forgivest sins for money, thou loadest thyself with a shameful burden. Rome, we know of a truth that with the bait of false forgiveness, thou hast snared in misery the nobility of France, the people of Paris and the noble King Louis (VIII., who died in the course of the Albigeois crusade); thou didst bring him to his death, for thy false preaching enticed him ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor

... they are so hungry, they are amazing shy of the bait," said McShane. "By all the ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

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

... The lee line, abreast of the other, and six hundred yards from it, was composed of the "Pike," "Madison," and "Oneida," astern of which were the two heaviest schooners. The smaller vessels were displayed as a tempting bait, disposed, as it were, in such manner that the opponent might hope to lay hands on one or more, without coming too much under the "Pike's" heavy guns; for her two larger consorts, carrying carronades chiefly, might ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... after we get the work done," said his father. "Work first and play afterward is a rule we'll follow here, though there won't be much work to do. However, if we're to go fishing we'll have to dig some bait." ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope

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

... fisherman baits his line, ties it to a stake fixed on the river bank, and on the stake hangs a bell. Then the fisherman gets under the shadow of a gum-tree and enjoys a quiet life, reading or just lazing. If a cod takes the bait the bell will ring, and he will go and collect his fish, which obligingly catches itself, and does not need any play ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox

... again. This would take the record of at least an hour's conversation: another attachment would send in a still-alarm to the detective agency or police station, so that within that hour a man could be on the job with a new supply of records and bait the trap again." ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... fishing—or pretending to—all the morning, and he was desperately thirsty. He boarded with the Beckwiths on the Riverside East Shore, but he was nearer Riverside West, and he knew the Penningtons well. He had often been there for bait and milk and had listened times out of mind to Mrs. Pennington's dismal tales of her tribulations with hired girls. She never could get along with them, and they left, on an average, after a fortnight's trial. She was ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... but sooner or later they led me into thickets through which I could only go on all fours. I found a bear trap so constructed that, when sprung, an immense log would crush bruin to the earth; marten traps, where the animal was enticed by a tempting bait into a noose, which held it fast; and salmon traps, so made by means of wing dams, with lattice work and boxes in the centre of the stream, that no ascending fish could escape being caught. Grouse ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden

... Izaac's lovable self, his sunny streams and shady pools, his buxom milkmaids, and sequestered inns, and his kindly animadversions upon men and things in general. Yet, as I say, he does occasionally speak of fish and fishing, and amongst other matters, concerning live frogs as bait, after describing the properest method of impaling one upon the hook, he ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... a lucky bug he shall find a nickel; that to cross one's heart and lie, brings on swift and horrible retribution; that letting the old cat die causes death in the family; that to kill a toad makes the cow give bloody milk; that horsehairs in water turn to snakes in nine days; that spitting on the bait pleases the fish, and that to draw a circle in the dust around a marble charms it against being hit. What tradition, ancient and honorable in Boyville, declares is true, that is the Law everlasting, and no wise mans ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White

... to General Clements at Nooitgedacht had drawn all eyes to the state of Krugersdorp, which with its small garrison seemed to offer a tempting bait to De la Rey, and column after column arrived to assist in repelling the assault which was threatened for Dingaan's Day. Before the reinforcements arrived the General had taken every sort of precaution; amongst others, arresting most of the principal inhabitants of the ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... his third cup of coffee in gulps. Blake, who admired his employer's successes, whatever he thought of his methods, did not interrupt him. Keith was planning a campaign, figuring out the best bait for gulls. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... on red, because, like pirates, the dexterity of their profession consists in their engaging under false colours; but, for the delicate, the inculpable part of the sex, to vermilion their faces, seems as if ladies would fish for lovers as men bait for mackerel, by hanging something red upon the hook; or that they imagined men to be of the bull or turkey-cock kind, that would fly at any thing scarlet. [Takes the head off.] But such practitioners should remember that their faces are the works of ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens

... You think the money'd bring you no luck,—maybe a downright curse,—and how can I say it won't? Ha'n't it cursed me? Sandy said it would, even as your'n follered him. What's it good for, then? It burns my hands, and them that's clean, won't touch it. There, you damned devil's-bait,—my arm's sore, and my heart's sore, wi' the ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... Parker were irrigators. They gave the water to the land, instead of trying to keep it for a fishpond. Neither one ever ordered the populace to cut bait or fall in and drown. As a result we are enriched with the flowers and fruits of their energies; they bequeathed to us something more than a threat and a promise—they gave us the broad pastures, the meadows, the fertile ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... master. They had carried out more than one undertaking together. Peyrade, happy at having discerned Corentin's superior abilities, had started him in his career by preparing a success for him. He obliged his disciple to make use of a mistress who had scorned him as a bait to catch a man (see The Chouans). And Corentin at that ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... this is the bait. I waited to see what the hook would look like, saying that it was entirely agreeable with me, and asking ...
— He Walked Around the Horses • Henry Beam Piper

... from thy virtues:" and then, affrighted at his own evil thoughts, he said, "What is this! What is this? Do I love her, that I desire to hear her speak again, and feast upon her eyes? What is it I dream on? The cunning enemy of mankind, to catch a saint, with saints does bait the hook. Never could an immodest woman once stir my temper, but this virtuous woman subdues me quite. Even till now, when men were fond, I smiled, and ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... a rock on the beach to think it over, and, "Alec Corning," I said to myself at last—"they cert'nly tried you with the right kind o' bait—and hooked ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

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

... himself that tag from some childhood rhyme or story as he waited at the mouth of the gorge to play his own part in the action to come. A small force of mounted men, scouts, and volunteers from various commands were bait. It was their job to make a short stiff resistance, then fly in headlong retreat, enticing the Union riders into ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... show the material of which we are made. The dude at home is the dude in camp, and wherever he goes he demonstrates that he was made for naught. I do not know what a camping party would do with a dude unless they used him to bait a bear trap with, and even then it would be taking a mean advantage of the bear. The bear certainly has some rights which we are bound ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

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

... they have fed their hawks, will not suffer them to fly on a full gorge, but let them on a perch abide a little, that they may rouse, bait, tower, and soar the better. That good pope who was the first institutor of fasting understood this well enough; for he ordained that our fast should reach but to the hour of noon; all the remainder of that day was at our disposure, freely to ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... suspicion born of his profession. He liked Sir George; his smaller manhood went out in admiration to the other's splendid personality. On the other hand, he had viewed Soane's approaches to his client with misgiving. He had scented a trap here and a bait there, and a dozen times, while dwelling on Dr. Addington's postponements and delays, he had accused the two of collusion and of some deep-laid chicanery. Between these feelings he had now to decide, and to decide in such a tumult of anxiety and dismay as almost ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... early hopes enhance Thy rate and price, and mark thee for a treasure; Hearken unto a verser, who may chance Rhyme thee to good, and make a bait of pleasure. A verse may find him, who a sermon flies, And turn delight ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... employment of two half-idle fishermen being greater to the truckmaster, in the absence of an available market, than the like amount of fish caught by one customer. It is manifest, by the true theory of free trade, that it is unimportant whether the French and Americans obtain their bait and catch fish within our limits or not, or even whether the world is supplied by them or by us; but it is not so if foreign nations thereby rear, employ, and maintain in time of peace fifty thousand seamen, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and ripped them off with a saw, And soused them in the bilgewater, and served them to him raw; I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark, I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother shark; I had lapped him round with cocoa husk, and drenched him with the oil, And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze above my spoil; I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side, and tasselled his beard i' the mesh, And spitted his crew on the live bamboo that grows through ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... up Toby, eager to show that he had learned his lesson fairly well, even though not claiming to be as expert at some things as were Elmer and Lil Artha. "Now, with some cord and a bait I reckon rabbits could be trapped or snared. Then gray squirrels are plenty in here, if only you found a nest of the same in ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas

... am one of the few Bostonians who are contented to live in the knowledge that Wall Street is too big and bright and cute a metropolitan centre for country boys to monkey with, and you can say I am so tickled to get back my bait that I will never again, never, wander away from home. There is one moral that may be drawn by Wall and State streets from the last few days in Sugar. It is this: It is not necessary to-day, any more than it was in old days, to work deals with false stories or fakes. In doing what I did ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... throwing the live bait from the tanks into the water. Then he straightened up and ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... up north. They yarned a while, an' then went on to Poisonous Jimmy's place, an' in about an hour one on 'em come ridin' back with a can of beer that he said Poisonous had sent for us. We all knew Jimmy's little games—the beer was a bait to get us on the drunk at his place; but we drunk the beer, and reckoned to have a lark with him afterwards. When the boss come back, an' the station hands to take the bullocks, we started into Mulgatown. ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... them to explain that for three large cod-perch they should have one in exchange. We could catch none of these fishes ourselves, which was rather singular as some of our poor fellows were indefatigable in making the attempt every night, with hook and line and all kinds of bait. The natives seemed to understand our wants and they promised to bring us fish in the morning. At sunset the wind changed to the south-west and the sky became overcast: the air also was cooler, and after such heat as that which we experienced today, at this season, a fall ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... as soon as I can walk at all, we'll start, meantime we must get something to eat, and to do that I must think. Let me see. The gun is of no use now, but there are other ways of getting game besides shooting it. We must set some traps. This spoiled meat will do for bait. Get me a good piece of poplar wood, Tom, or cypress, or some other sort, that I can whittle easily, and I'll make some figure-four triggers. Then I'll tell you how to make dead-falls, and you must set as many of them as you can to make sure of getting something ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston

... {threw} it over {to} him. Then there was a {splash} in the water and the grasshopper {was gone}. I {did} this {two} or three times. Each time I {saw} the rush and splash and saw the bait had been {taken}. ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle

... perfectly. You gave me fifty pounds—fifty pounds for the support of the house which enabled you to entrap your dupes, while I was the bait to lure them to their ruin. Oh, you have been very generous, very noble; and now that your dupes are tired of being cheated—now that your cat's paw has become useless to you—I am to leave the country, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... transform it into a meadow. But meantime the mystical water was inhabited, especially around the mouth of the spring, by huge trout to whom tradition ascribed a singular and provoking disposition. They would take the bait, when the fancy moved them: but the fly they would always refuse, ignoring it with calm disdain, or slapping at it with their tails and shoving it out of their way as they played on the surface in the summer evenings. This was the mysterious ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... Hatteras fishermen had told me frequently seized their oars, snapping the thin blades in pieces, assuring me, at the same time, that mine would prove very attractive, being so white and glimmering in the water, and offering the same glittering fascination as a silver-spoon bait does to a blue-fish. These cheerful suggestions caused a peculiar creeping sensation to come over me, but I tried to quiet myself with the belief that the sharks had followed the blue-fish into deeper water, to escape ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... much more easily caught in traps than lions; and those most used, are made so as to fall upon them when they seize the bait. In Sumatra the natives poison the carcasses which are left for them, or they fasten these baits to a stake, or tree, and place a vessel filled with arsenic and water near by, of which the tiger invariably drinks, after making ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... and green, sneeringly. "I hate that girl, she puts on such airs. And travelling alone, in charge of the captain and clerk, shows what she is plainly. There, look! The bait has taken,—Mr. Gilbert is caught!" and the rainbow ladies joined in a loud laugh, as a fine-looking gentleman approached the fair, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... sworn to celibacy, she would have cast an eye upon the faithful Ralph, who was obedient to her behests whether at Gaol Delivery or Bear Garden. For her he would pack a jury or get a reprieve; for him she would bait a bull with the fiercest dogs in London. Why then should she fear the law, when the clerk of Newgate and Gregory the Hangman fought ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... still there and awake," thought Otter, "surely the father of crocodiles will take this bait; therefore I shall do best to be still awhile and ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... on, and it was just too dreadful. If you could have seen it you would never have touched it in the world. I got near enough to look at it, though, and then I saw that the address was so dirty and so covered with gum and bait and candy that all I could read was a capital "M" and a small "s" at the beginning and an "ert" at the end; the name between was hidden. I covered my eyes with my hand and gasped out to the boys that I wanted the things taken off it that ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... only truth in my statement; but I did not for a moment consider that I had told a lie, but only that I had employed a ruse, perfectly permissible in war, to throw the enemy off the track. He snatched at the bait. ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... an hour the galley dallied with the tempting bait that I had thrown out, now edging down towards us for a few minutes, and anon hauling her wind again, her commander apparently suspecting some ruse on our part. But at length our seemingly single-hearted anxiety to place as much water as possible between ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood



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



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