Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Bully   /bˈʊli/   Listen
Bully

verb
(past & past part. bullied; pres. part. bullying)
1.
Be bossy towards.  Synonyms: ballyrag, boss around, browbeat, bullyrag, hector, push around, strong-arm.
2.
Discourage or frighten with threats or a domineering manner; intimidate.  Synonyms: browbeat, swagger.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Bully" Quotes from Famous Books



... kind o' brave man will slap children, an' call a boy a calf, an' bully timid women, an' knock down little Chinks and dagoes! Oh, A know his kind o' thunder-barrel bravery, that makes the more noise the emptier and bigger it is—they're thick as louse ticks under the slimy side ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... dishonor. The very highest concern of a true man of honor is to keep the law of God, which the duelist breaks; and to keep the law of the land, which the duelist breaks. The duelist may have many motives, but "honor" cannot be one of them! A bully will fight a duel, upon occasion, to prove himself a man of brute courage, and kill or be killed for so low a cause. A coward will fight a duel, because he is afraid to refuse, on account of what bullies might say of him, and kill, ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... commission, as the public prints will tell you. And as to soldiers, the draft for America has been so great, that we have not ten thousand in the whole island, yet our Ministers have lately attempted to bully the States of Holland by a high flying memorial relative to the conduct of some of their governors in the West Indies. It might, however, be attended with very serious consequences if the Hollanders were to take their money ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... not heeding my troubled voice. "We shall meet again soon. And, by the way, see specially that a certain hare-brained poetic fool and a swaggering bully, his companion, come not near the place. If you catch them, you will do well to hang them on the gate. Heaven knows they have marred sport enough! And now, farewell. Your hand ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... to Rachel as far as Knype, whence she sprang. That is to say, one of the great ladies of Bursley, ranking in the popular regard with Mrs. Clayton-Vernon, the leader of society, Mrs. Sutton, the philanthropist, and Mrs. Hamps, the powerful religious bully. She had been impressed by her height (Rachel herself being no lamp-post), her carriage, her superlative dignity, her benevolence of thought, and above all by her aristocratic Southern accent. After eight-and-forty years of the Five Towns, Mrs. Maldon had still kept most of that Southern ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... made it known, you can imagine the gusto with which the police prepared to enter the house and confound the obliging host with a sight of my dripping garments and accusing face. And, indeed, in all my professional experience I have never beheld a more sudden merging of the bully into a coward than was to be seen in this slick villain's face, when I was suddenly pulled from the crowd and placed before him, with the old man's wig gone from my head, and the tag of blue ribbon still clinging to my ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... time you will know more about women—-at least, about me. You will have learned that I will not be hoodwinked. I cannot be bribed. Nor can my silence, or acquiescence in your villainy be bought. I will not connive with you. And you cannot browbeat, nor bully, nor cheat me." ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... embowered in a loose grove of palms and acacias, pimento shrubs, spendid star-apples, and bully-trees, with wild lemon, mahogany, dogwood, Jerusalem-thorn, and the waving plumes of bamboo canes. There is nothing British in it—nothing at all. It stands on brick pillars, is reached by a stair of marble slabs, and has a great piazza on the front. You enter a fine, big hall, dark- you will ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... some of the poor chaps out yonder 'ud give summat to sit down to this 'ere dinner. Bully beef wi' a pound or two o' raw flour, what you haven't got nothin' to cook wi'—it do make a man feel a bit sick, I can tell 'ee, when it do come ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... Frans. "I wanted to tell him that it went 'bully' for me at the examination this morning. I thought perhaps your highness might like to know it too. The teachers seem to think I shall stand 'tip-top' ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker

... sound in her worn and pallid face. "What's the difference?" she bully-ragged her conscience. "I might as well be broke as ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... all this street fighting was a Frenchman—Eugene Delacroix. While still a youth he was bullied, and the bully was such a redoubtable giant that it took somebody with the grit and genius of Delacroix to tackle him, but tackle him he did. The story of the fight, which is a long and glorious one, is so admirably told in Madame Bussy's life of Delacroix, that I have obtained permission to ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... Will, the old instinct still gripping him, "I'd like to get a snapshot of that bully ledge, now that the sun is peeping up, and shines ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen

... and has been accustomed to look into character well. His name as the illustrator, gave promise of success. Well do we remember an early picture by him—entitled, we believe, the Wolf and the Lamb. It represented two schoolboys—the bully, and the more tender fatherless child. The history in that little picture was quite of the manner of Goldsmith. The orphan boy's face we never can forget, not the whole expression of his slender form, though it is many years ago that we saw the picture. So that when the name of Mulready appeared ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... takin' a chance every day we stay here? I'm getting so I don't sleep. I got enough to do me; I ain't a hog. I got a bully corner all picked out, Jack—best corner in Seattle ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... do a thing more brutal than to humiliate one woman at the expense of another, I do not know it. And without entering any defense for the men who love several women at one time, I wish to make a clear distinction between the men who bully and brutalize women for their own gratification and the men who find their highest pleasure in pleasing women. The latter may not be a paragon, yet as his desire is to give pleasure, not to corral it, he is a totally different being from the man who ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... that walked upon two legs, that he could not pommel to death, with more or less ease, by means of his fists alone. And in this conviction he was not far wrong. Yet it must not be supposed that Jo Bumpus was a boastful man or a bully. Far from it. He was so thoroughly persuaded of his invincibility that he felt there was no occasion to prove it. He therefore followed the natural bent of his inclinations, which led him at all times to exhibit a mild, amiable, and gentle aspect,—except, of course, when he was roused. As occasion ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... Though I had come there fully determined to take his life, half my fury ebbed away when I heard this idiotic exclamation. I ought to add that I had told Chioccia not to let the girl or her mother leave the house, since I meant to deal with those trollops after I had disposed of their bully. So I went on holding my sword at his throat, and now and then just pricked him with the point, pouring out a torrent of terrific threats at the same time. But when I found he did not stir a finger in his own defence, I began ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... question of Chukkers and the Bully Boys, as the English cheap press called them, ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... pulled the soldiers out, robbed them of their ammunition and bayonets; in short, it was a hell of a row. All of us camping on the Hill were talking about this cowardly attack, when a detachment of said soldiers came up again, and the officer, a regular incapable, that is, a bully, with drawn sword began to swear at us, and called all of us a pack of scoundrels. He was, however, soon put to rights, by the whole of us then present offering ourselves to look out for the missing soldiers; and ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... Yorke, if this is the way in the drawin-rooms, I'm quite content to live below, in pease and charaty with all men; writin, as I am now, in my pantry, or els havin a quiet game at cards in the servants-all. With US there's no bitter, wicked, quarling of this sort. WE don't hate our children, or bully our mothers, or wish 'em ded when they're sick, as this Dairywoman says kings and queens do. When we're writing to our friends or sweethearts, WE don't fill our letters with nasty stoaries, takin away the carricter ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... whose lingo I can get along with," cried Pelliter. "I've been telling 'em what bully friends we are, and have made 'em understand all about Blake. I've shaken hands with them all three or four times, and we feel pretty good. Better mix a little. They don't like the idea of giving us the kid, now that Scottie's dead. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood

... that they sometimes use a stick in walking, "crowing" for roots, and in self-defence. Also, when a young one has succeeded in finding a choice root, and is observed by an older and stronger one, that the latter takes it away; but, should the young one have already swallowed it, then the bully picks him up, turns him head downward, and shakes him until he is forced to "disgorge!" Many such tales are current in the country of the boers, and they are not all without foundation, for these animals ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... at him wistfully as he gathered up the reins, then burst forth eagerly with, "Look here, why can't you come back tomorrow? We'll have a bully time. What do ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... from the land. The British answered with a blockade from the sea, giving notice, by their Orders-in-Council, that their Navy would stop the trade of every port which shut out British vessels. Napoleon hoped that if he could bully Europe into obeying his Berlin Decrees he would "conquer the sea by the land." But what really happened was quite the other way round; for Napoleon's land was conquered by the British sea. So much of the trade of the European ports had been carried on by British ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... been long and exhausting. The boy Henry, following, as his habit was, his bigger brother Charles, had taken part in the battle, and had felt his courage much depressed by seeing one of his trustiest leaders, Henry Higginson — "Bully Hig," his school name — struck by a stone over the eye, and led off the field bleeding in rather a ghastly manner. As night came on, the Latin School was steadily forced back to the Beacon Street Mall where they could retreat no further without disbanding, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... anxious to bring you to your point at once and to express his own opinion as shortly and plainly as possible. The temperamentally nervous who meet him but casually find him harsh and think him a bully. ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... from the officers of the fort,—two terriers, which were named Trim and Snob; Trim was a small dog and kept in the house, but Snob was a very powerful bull-terrier, and very savage; a fox-hound bitch, the one which Emma had just called Juno; Bully, a very fine young bull-dog, and Sancho, an old pointer. At night, these dogs were tied up: Juno in the store-house; Bully and Snob at the door of the house within the palisade; Trim in doors, and ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... I do not know, woman's bully and poltroon, that you plot to sell yourself, because your day has come, and no woman will bid for such an outcast, saving one that you may threaten. Rise, vermin—rise, lest I ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... mocking-birds absolutely refuse to sing before twelve o'clock at night, when the air is somewhat cooled: and the fireflies flicker more slowly than I ever saw them before. Our whole world here yawns, in a vast and sultry spell of laziness. An 'exposition of sleep' is come over us, as over Sweet Bully Bottom; we won't wake till winter. Himmel, my dear Boy, you are all so alive up there, and we are all so dead down here! I begin to have serious thoughts of emigrating to your country, so that I may live a little. There's not enough attrition of mind on mind here, to bring ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... and for contracting debt, and above all with an ample amount of native assurance which had been carefully cultivated, had made himself a name among the political adventurers of the time, and was the greatest bully in his trade next to Clodius, and naturally therefore through rivalry at the most deadly feud with the latter. As this Achilles of the streets had been acquired by the regents and with their permission was again playing the ultra- democrat, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... gentlemanly, take-you-by-the-arm touts; touts who intimidate and touts who wheedle; professionals, amateurs, and dilettanti, male and female; touts who would photograph you with your arm round a young lady against a faked background of the sublimest cataract, touts who would bully you into cars, char-a-bancs, elevators, or tunnels, or deceive you into a carriage and pair, touts who would sell you picture postcards, moccasins, sham Indian beadwork, blankets, tee-pees, and crockery; and touts, finally, who have no apparent object ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... any such chaff, and though he was a little staggered by Rip's own cottage, and by the sight of the cave above it which is labeled as the very spot where the vagabond took his long nap, he attempted to bully the attendant and drink-mixer in the hut, and openly flaunted his incredulity until the bar-tender showed him a long bunch of Rip's hair, which hung like a scalp on a nail, and the rusty barrel and stock of the musket. The cabin is, indeed, full of old guns, pistols, locks ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... had revived one night in yonder hovel, had he not since died of starvation? That little girl whom he had one morning brought in his arms to the refuge after her parents' death, was it not she whom he had just met, grown but fallen to the streets, and shrieking beneath the fist of a bully? Ah! how great was the number of the wretched! Their name was legion! There were those whom one could not save, those who were hourly born to a life of woe and want, even as one may be born infirm, and those, too, who from every ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... a low voice, which yet penetrated to every corner of the room, "I guess I am voicing these gentlemen when I say that your words show up your good heart, all the time. Your mentality, too, is bully, as we all predicate. One may say without exaggeration that your scholarly and social attainments are a by-word throughout the solar system, and be-yond. We rightly venerate you as our boss. Sir, we worship the ground you walk on. But we owe a duty to our ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... picture of laughing soldiers, celebrating Christmas in the trenches. And she carried it outside behind the black stump of a house which they called their home, and threw it on the cans that had once contained bully-beef. She was a little heart-sick at her loss, but she had no vanity. As she was stepping inside, the Doctor came down ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason

... "That's a bully way to get out of a scrape," said Andy to himself, as the ladies filed out of his chamber. "I expected they'd scold me. Plague take the old gun—it kicks as bad as a mule. Oh, Andy, you're a lucky boy to get off ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... be counted on to catch the ball—"go ahead and have a bully time and don't drown yourself. I'll drive the team straight to water, mother and dad and the ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... lessons, if she did not want to. Was there some occult reason why she should? Were these people, schoolmistresses, representatives of some mystic Right, some Higher Good? They seemed to think so themselves. But she could not for her life see why a woman should bully and insult her because she did not know thirty lines of As You Like It. After all, what did it matter if she knew them or not? Nothing could persuade her that it was of the slightest importance. Because she despised inwardly the coarsely working nature of the mistress. Therefore she was always ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... have piqued himself on calling the Pope the w- of Babylon, and have begun his remonstrance, with "you old d-d-." What extremes of absurdities! to flounder from Pope Joan to his Holiness! I like your reflection, "that every body can bully the Pope." There was a humourist called Sir James of the Peak, who had been beat by a felony, who afterwards underwent the same operation from a third hand. "Zound," said Sir James, "that I did not know this fellow would ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... disappointed and even deeply chagrined, for he had supposed himself more than capable of holding his own against this unsophisticated country lad. Had he not attempted to bully him while waiting for the banker and failed, thus arousing a spirit of rivalry and hostility between young Randolph and himself, he would of course have felt differently, but now an intense hatred was kindled within him, ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey

... your senses," he said in a low tone. Stella passed him and did not answer. It was, then, upon the question of that necklace that their voices had been raised when he reached the camp. He had heard Ballantyne's, loud and dominant, the voice of a bully. He had been ordering her to cover her throat. Stella, on the other hand, had been quiet but defiant. She had refused. Now she had ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason

... my dad—that's what I'll do," ejaculated the bully, at length, and he started immediately across the field, his long legs working like a pair of tongs in his haste to ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... at Alexandria. As night came on we appeared to have a good hold of the place, and orders came for our bearer division to land. They took with them three days' "iron" rations, which consisted of a tin of bully beef, a bag of small biscuits, and some tea and sugar, dixies, a tent, medical comforts, and (for firewood) all the empty cases we could scrape up in the ship. Each squad had a set of splints, and every man carried a tourniquet ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston

... a blockheaded bully of Alsatia, a cowardly, impudent, blustering fellow, formerly a sergeant in Flanders, who has run from his colours, and retreated into Whitefriars for a very small debt, where by the Alsatians he is dubb'd a captain, marries one that lets lodgings, sells ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... President were dignified and judicious, and his addresses were not lacking in power, but he was prone to indulge in unseemly repartee with his hearers when speaking on the stump. He exchanged epithets with bystanders who were all too ready to spur him on with their "Give it to 'em, Andy!" and "Bully for you, Andy!" giving the presidency the "ill-savor of a corner grocery" and filling his supporters with amazement and chagrin. The North soon looked upon him as a vulgar boor and remembered that he had been ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... a dozen times in a day, but Nap simply would not be defied. He looked over her head with disconcerting arrogance, and Dot found herself defeated and impotent. Dot had been selected for an important part, and it was not very long before she came bitterly to regret the fact. He did not bully her, but he gave her no peace. Over and over again he sent her back to the same place; and over and over again he found some fresh fault, till there came at length a day when Dot, weary and exasperated, subsided ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... hand, possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerous rival, Spitz never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth. He even went out of his way to bully Buck, striving constantly to start the fight which could end only in the death of one or the other. Early in the trip this might have taken place had it not been for an unwonted accident. At the end of this day they made a bleak and miserable camp on the shore of Lake Le Barge. Driving snow, a wind ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... don't want to join them!" he protested. "Why don't you stay with me—and talk?" "But you bully me so," she ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... older man's. The voice rang out now in excited pleasure as the boy gripped his father's shoulders. "Oh, but it's good to see you again, dad," he cried. "You're a great old boy, and I'm proud of you, sir. Think of it!" he almost shouted. "Ambassador to Forsland! Say, but that's bully!" He slipped his arm around his father's shoulder, while James Thorold watched him with eyes that shone with joy. "What do you call an ambassador?" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... to nod his head, slowly and thoughtfully. "Yes, of course," he agreed. "They're hunting you hard, and you're giving 'em a bully chase. But they'll get you, even up there. ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood

... blade How unfit for the maid, Where meekness and modesty reigns! Such a blundering bully I'll speak against truly, Whatever I get ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... see anything of Bill or Jack," observed Jerry, as he looked toward Noddy Nixon, and noted, that the bully was surrounded by ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young

... continued the man in the same eager whisper. "But—who was it was telling me? Some doctor I know who came down to see him. He said Carey does himself awfully well, has the house full of bully pictures, and the family plate, and wonderful collections—things he picked up in the East—gold ornaments, ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis

... can delight in his sufferings. The hickory club belongs to one sort of warrior; the rifle to quite another. The club and rifle represent different grades of civilization. The Negro has left the club; the language from Nashville does honor to the club. Billy and bully are the theme of this officer of the law, and for a "darkey even to look mad" is ample justification for "some policeman to bend his club double over his head." Were these policemen rioters? Or were they conservaters of the ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... "a bully club-house, and it's paid for too; and if you'll come along I'll give you a hearty welcome and some good cigars—and not dime ones, either," added he, throwing away the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... by what I have seen I think she bears out her reputation all right. Now I consider myself fully competent to do my duty and will do it; but I want to give you fair warning that if I am molested by either of your bully mates, as I presume you have two of them, I will take good care of myself. The days when an officer can treat sailors with impunity are a ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... seemingly receding into a far-away past, he had moments of yearning to be wholly sanctified. But the miracle of transformation which he had confidently expected as the result of his "coming through" was still unwrought. When John Bates or Simeon Cantrell undertook to bully him, as aforetime, there was the same intoxicating experience of all the visible world going blood-red before his eyes—the same sinful desire to slay them, one or both. And as for Sunday lessons on a day when all outdoors ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... the principal landlord, and, socially, the most important person in the neighbourhood. Sir Timothy did not like Mr. Courtney. He was of opinion that the R.M. was inclined to take a high hand at Petty Sessions and to bully the other magistrates—Sir Timothy was himself a magistrate—who sat with him on the Bench. He also thought that Mr. Courtney was "too d——d superior" in private life. Sir Timothy had the lowest possible opinion of the progress made by civilization in his own time. The Civilization of the Future, ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham

... disposition rather an impertinence, as calculated to rob us of the pleasure of illusion which it is the province of the drama to give. Closely analyzed, Tonio's speech is very much of a piece with the prologue which Bully Bottom wanted for the play of "Pyramus" in Shakespeare's comedy. We are asked to see a play. In this play there is another play. In this other play one of the actors plays at cross-purposes with the author—forgets ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... the wish of every pedestrian. The mild and timid gave the wall. The bold and athletic took it. If two roisterers met they cocked their hats in each other's faces, and pushed each other about till the weaker was shoved towards the kennel. If he was a mere bully he sneaked off, mattering that he should find a time. If he was pugnacious, the encounter probably ended in a duel behind ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Merrick got away from them, dropping a pocketbook containing the traction company bonds in his flight. This was at a time when Dick, Tom and Sam had returned to Putnam Hall for their final term at that institution. At the Hall they had made a bitter enemy of a big, stocky bully named Tad Sobber and of another lad named Nick Pell. Tad Sobber, to get even with the Rovers for a fancied injury, sent to the latter a box containing a live, poisonous snake. The snake got away and hid in Nick Pell's desk and Nick was bitten and for some time it was feared that he might ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)

... "Bully for you, Don John!" shouted Kennedy, after the yacht had crossed the channel where the sea was very rough and choppy. "You made a good bit in the last quarter of an hour, and we are a ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... lads, mechanics out of work, runaway apprentices, were readily drawn into the service by skillful recruiting officers. Thirty years before, it had been the custom of these landsharks to cheat or bully young men into the service. The raw youth, arriving in Paris from the country, had been offered by a chance acquaintance a place as servant in a gentleman's family, and after signing an engagement ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... like we'll get away this easy," said Dextry, scanning the back trail. "If we do, I'll be tempted to foller the business reg'lar. This grease paint on my face makes me smell like a minstrel man. I bet we'll get some bully ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... Marshal Wrangel, a lady of the court, more famous for her vanity than her beauty, complained to him that Menzel had done her scant justice in a large picture representing some important event of contemporary court history. Wrangel, who was famous as a brow-beating bully of the good old Prussian type,—people trembling at the mere sight of him,—promised to see Menzel, and to make him change the portrait of the lady to a more flattering likeness. Greatly to his surprise, however, when he broached the subject to ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... at play, Their dice throw away, While the winners do still win on; Let who will command, Thou hadst better disband, For, old Bully, thy doctors[6] are gone. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... enraged at the thought in his mind, and scooped up volley after volley of drifting snow and hurled them at him. There was only the thin glass between. It was like the defiance of a living thing. It threatened him. It dared him. It invited him out like a great bully, with a brawling show of fists. He had always been more or less pusillanimous in the face of winter. He disliked cold. He hated snow. But this that beat and shrieked at him outside the window had set something stirring strangely within him. It ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... said, "and I bet you're a bully little scout. What do you say?" Then he looked out over the water to be sure nobody ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... Square was the worst thing in the world for him. Privately she determined to approach her godfather on the subject at the very next opportunity, though she could make a very good, guess at the reason for his refusal. It was a purely selfish one. He liked to have the boy with him. Bully him and browbeat him as he might, Tony was in reality the apple of the old man's eye—the one thing in the whole ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... peace.... Mr. Peter also besought him humbly to consider his youth and short experience in the things of God, and to beware of peremptory conclusions which he perceived him to be very apt unto." [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 209.] This coarse bully was the same Hugh Peters of whom Whitelock afterward complained that he often advised him, though he "understood little of the law, but was very opinionative," [Footnote: Memorials, p. 521.] and who was so terrified at the approach of death that on his way to the scaffold ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... My dear Mrs. Higgins, she's been telling you stories. We didn't treat her brutally. We hardly said a word to her; and we parted on particularly good terms. [Turning on Higgins]. Higgins did you bully her after I ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw

... recognized that voice, and, looking in the direction, was astonished to see Dan Baxter. The bully was in the hands of two lumbermen, who ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield

... "Bully!" exclaimed Cousin Egbert. "I was thinking he ought to have a gents' furnishing store, on account of his mind running to dress, but ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... very terrible and well-meaning person, who once spoke severely to me for treating a matter with levity. I lost my temper, and said, "You may make me ashamed of it, if you can, but you shall not bully me into treating a matter seriously which I think is wholly absurd." He said, "You do not enough consider the grave issues which may be involved." I replied that to be for ever considering graver issues seemed to me to make life stuffy and unwholesome. ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... about the corners of his mouth, the swelling veins in his brow, and the mad bulging of his hideous eyes, for terror spoke in his words, and the Governor of Cesena, overbearing bully though he was, could on occasion, ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... I'm your guest, and I'm also your brother; but if you bully that unfortunate youngster, I'll just get into my saddle again, and ride off without putting ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke

... the girl flew to, and here is where Bully Bigg, the donkey, let her slip out of his fingers. I knew he was a fool, but I did not know he was such a fool," said the Dane (if he were ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... a queer thing. Every time I hit him he blinked and seemed to pause. I guessed the reason for that. He had gone through life keeping the crown of the causeway, and nobody had ever stood up to him. He wasn't a coward by a long chalk, but he was a bully, and had never been struck in his life. He was getting struck now in real earnest, and he didn't like it. He had lost his bearings and was growing as mad as ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... you look very majestic and very handsome; but I can't see you; and I am not intimidated. I am an Englishman; and you can kidnap me; but you can't bully me. ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw

... young Dunning short shrift. [He moves over to the fireplace and divides hip coat-tails] Now, about you, Bill! I don't want to bully you the moment you come down, but you know, this can't go on. I've paid your debts twice. Shan't pay them this time unless I see a disposition to change your mode of life. [A pause] You get your extravagance from your ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... never should have given him that chance to jeer at us. He made us tell him all about it when we met, and shaking with laughter at all the complications the mistake entailed, he declared, "Oh, but that's a bully story!" ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... body, on which material life failed to take a hold; one that could get through twenty nights without its breast-plate being unbuckled, and forty-eight hours on a handful of rice. On the contrary, Tartarin's body was a stout honest bully of a body, very fat, very weighty, most sensual and fond of coddling, highly touchy, full of low-class appetite and homely requirements—the short, paunchy body on stumps ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... assault upon the foreman. "The fight arose from a remark concerning the Forest Supervisor's daughter. Ranger Settle resented the gossip, and fell upon the other man, beating him with the butt of his revolver. Friends of the foreman claim that the ranger is a drunken bully, and should have been discharged long ago. The Supervisor for some mysterious reason retains this man, although he is an incompetent. It is also claimed that McFarlane put a man on the roll without examination." The Supervisor was the protagonist of the play, which was plainly ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... Azara, by the special desire of Napoleon, was nominated both his successor and a representative of the King of Etruria. Among the members of our diplomatic corps, he was considered somewhat of a Spanish gasconader and a bully. He more frequently boasted of his wounds and battles than of his negotiations or conferences, though he pretended, indeed, to shine as much in the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... "Bully for Stoop!" "Come out o' that, Stoop!" was shouted all over the house; but Stoop remained faithful to his post, and calmly ground away at ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... could not follow him. A part-grown puppy, somewhat larger and older than he, came toward him slowly, with ostentatious and belligerent importance. The puppy's name, as White Fang was afterward to hear him called, was Lip-lip. He had had experience in puppy fights and was already something of a bully. ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... perfect compound of the bully, coward, and sneak than Master Silas Brown I have seldom met with," remarked Holmes ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... take no care for us, but leave us in the streets; I warrant you, as late as it is, I'll find my lodging as well as any drunken bully of them all. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... very difficult for your attacking bully to imagine that a small State—I mean small numerically, and weak physically—will ever have the courage to stand up and resist the bully when he prepares to attack. The Germans did not expect Belgium to keep them ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... Olaf, a high-spirited and generous young man, comes under the spite of a domineering gentleman, all the more because he does some good offices of his own free will for this tyrannical person. Olaf is attacked and killed by the bully and his friends; then the story goes on to tell of the vengeance of his father and mother. The grief of the old man is described as a matter of fact; he was lame and feeble, and took to his bed for a long time after his son's death. Then he roused himself, and he and his wife went to look ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... kept himself in condition, did not over-eat and over-drink as Paul did. He could, without much difficulty, have met Paul's brutality in kind, and very likely have given him a good beating. And he knew well enough that if he did so, Paul would let him alone. For when was there ever a bully who was not also ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.

... it. Jack would naturally be angry when spoken to in that tone. Herring is a bully and ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh

... Hervey tells me on the subject; it is fraught with too much danger to France itself, and too certain a failure in the object for which the war is contemplated, to be persisted in, however they may bully and prepare for it. Canning has certainly recommended himself greatly to public opinion by the line he has adopted, and though we are given to understand there has been considerable differences in the Cabinet upon it, he has never changed his ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... and your common bully of a father-in-law in hell before I allow either of you to touch me or my clothing!" my pleasant connection declared fiercely. "Get out of my way, both of you! And be thankful if you don't have to answer for this outrage in ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of fourteen men—fewer sometimes, but fourteen if possible, as the proper full complement. The small carts in use are generally of rude and primitive construction. As everybody knows by now, rations comprise bully beef Spratt's biscuits—very large and rather hard—loaves of bread packed in sacks, bacon, jam, marmalade, Maconochies in tins, and, when possible, kegs of water. Let not the rum be forgotten. No soldier is more grateful for anything ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey

... Roosevelt's way to hide his thoughts in silence because of timidity, and then call his lack of action by some such fine name as "tact" or "discretion." When there was good reason for speaking out he always did so. Since a boy who is forever fighting is not only a nuisance, but usually a bully, some older folk go to the extreme and tell boys ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson

... should have perished, had it not been for the gratitude and kindness of a slave whom, during our stay at Behar, we had many times befriended and protected, as far as lay in our power, against the tyranny of a very cruel bully, who was his master. This poor fellow stole away at sundown, came to us, freed us from our bonds, brought us some of our own clothes which he had managed to get hold of, and, going with us, became our guide on the slow and painful course of our journey northward. ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... "Bully for you! Fancy you a menial. It just tickles me to death!" Then he added seriously: "But say now, I don't like it, Miss Tuppence, I sure don't. You're just as plucky as they make 'em, but I wish you'd keep right out of this. These crooks we're up against would as soon croak ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... Mr. Harley to give him the very money that was to buy them. The thought lighted up his cruel face like a red ray from the pit; it would be such a joke—such a triumph over the pig American! Meanwhile he would bully Mr. Harley, who did not know but what the ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... at night and thinking so much about the way their hair's done, and then consider what slaves they are, and what they're exposed to, and how many wicked people are on the watch to work them to death for no pay at all, and bully them, and to lead them all wrong, if they can, why, it just makes me think how sensible the good Lord is, that he's able to take care of them so well and look after them as much as he does. Professor ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... closed the book as quickly as possible, thinking the boy might be frightened in his dreams by the demons. But no, Ian was fascinated, not frightened. He would have liked the pygmies to come and play with him, and he turned to father with a sigh, saying, "They're bully pullers, dranpop. I guess if they and me pulled against Corney Delaney we could get him over the line all right," one of the boys' favourite pastimes being to play tug-of-war with the goat, the rope being fastened to its horns, but Corney was ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... rather hard—then said: "But he's honey and balm itself compared to Isabel! The Marshams are old friends of mine, but I don't pretend to like Isabel Fotheringham at all. She calls herself a Radical, and there's no one insists more upon their birth and their advantages than she. Don't let her bully you—come to me if ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... storm-filled air, The young brave sprang upon Two Bear; With mighty grasp he whirled him 'round And threw him fiercely to the ground. "Dog thou," he cried; "and darest thou pain This beauty with thy paws again I'll kill thee, ponderous as thou art!" Black with the fury in his heart, The bully rose, and toward the young And fearless champion wildly flung His tomahawk, which, lightly dodged, Swung through the hissing air and lodged Deep in the nearest cottonwood. Brief were the moments while they stood And glared into each other's eyes. Then ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... to Lafe's house," she announced presently. "Happy Pete and me and Peg live at Lafe Grandoken's home. Peggy makes bully soup." ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... ready to shoot at a moment's notice; so as to be ready when some impertinent bully draws a weapon as you have done—yes, I always go ready for impertinent fellows ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey

... "It's just bully," Sandy was saying generously, "I'm sorry that"—— He was interrupted by Christina's pinching his arm, and stopped suddenly. No one noticed in the dusk of the veranda, and when they were out in the lane, Sandy asked an explanation. "I might as well tell ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... Honour. Returning from that Berlin Conference he should have said, "I bring you Peace with Honour; peace with the seeds of the most horrible war of history; and honour as the dupes and victims of the old bully in Berlin." ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton

... old Roosevelt because he was a hearty, two-fisted fellow. ... The only fault I ever had to find with him was that he took defeat too hard. He had a sort of "divine right" idea, but he was a bully fighter. I went to his funeral and have joined in mass meetings in his memory, which I suppose is all I can do. ... Of course ... he said a lot of things that were unjust and unjustifiable, but if a fellow doesn't make a damned fool of himself once in a while he wouldn't be ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane



Words linked to "Bully" :   muscle, attacker, aggressor, blarney, hood, toughie, yob, strong-armer, domineer, sweet-talk, tough guy, colloquialism, punk, goon, palaver, tyrannise, cajole, good, plug-ugly, wheedle, skinhead, hoodlum, assailant, tyrannize, intimidate, assaulter, muscleman, thug, inveigle, coax



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com