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Bum   /bəm/   Listen
Bum

verb
(past & past part. bummed; pres. part. bumming)
1.
Ask for and get free; be a parasite.  Synonyms: cadge, grub, mooch, sponge.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bum" Quotes from Famous Books



... around me. Says Corder, struggling with his pack, "Bann, will you help me into my corset." Pickle says to Reardon (out of David's hearing) "Ten cents for a bum piece of pie that you have to eat with your hands! That gets my goat." And just now has come a hoot from every part of the camp when from I company, in line to start and loading guns for a skirmish, sounded the ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... Ale-draper near New-palace-yard, Who used to Jerk the Bum of his Wife; And she was forced to stand on her Guard, To keep his Clutches from her Quoiff: She poor Soul the weaker Vessel, To be reconcil'd was easily won; He held her in scorn, But she Crown'd him with Horn, Without Hood or Scarff, and rough ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various

... Luck, I'll take that there camery and bust it over your danged head!" he spluttered. "I'll show ye! Call me a bum that's wearin' a shurf's star fer the first time in his life, will ye! Why, I'll jest about ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... much censured, as if it had allowed of gallantry and scurrilous jests, and approved of balls and comedies, which was very far from the saint's doctrine. A preacher of that Order had the rashness and presumption to declaim bitterly against the book in a public sermon, to cut it in pieces, and bum it in the very pulpit. The saint bore this outrage without the least resentment; so perfectly was he dead to self-love. This appears more wonderful to those who know how jealous authors are of their works, as the offspring of their reason and judgment, of which men are of all things the fondest. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... ... a bum for a few weeks, hanging around soldiers' barracks, blacking shoes for free meals ... till Provost Marshal General Bell, in an effort to clear the islands of boys who were vags and mascots of regiments, gave me and several other rovers and stowaways free transportation ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... isn't in any of the books," James said. "In other words, do we or do we not attain a maximum? You're making some bum assumptions; among others that space isn't curved and that the dimensions of the universe are very large compared to the length of our jumps. I'll see if I can put it into shape to feed to Compy. You've always held that these generators work ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... roughly and seemed embarrassed. "No, I'm just a—bum! A sort of roughneck out of ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... before I ran away with the circus," he soliloquized in the midst of the throng milling up the Elevated station stairs. "And later, when I had come back from the circus, I took that long bum on brake-beams. And when I had come back from that, a little later I went off in the forecastle of the 'Tropic Bird' to Tahiti. And each time that flapping business came first. Every time I've done something wild and foolish, I've flapped first like ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper

... hands me a species of coma and leaves me with twenty-five dollars! That's what I get. What I've been doing is a longer story. I apologize for not having seen your friend who brought the letter, but it's up to you to apologize for a bum epistle to ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... to live; I will not touch thine eyes For all the treasure that thine uncle owns: Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy, With this same very iron to bum them out. ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... them people? (Looks about suspiciously.) Haven't skipped, I hope! (Goes to room Right.) Anybody in here? Humph! Looks like they're hard up! A bum lot! (Belle appears Left with shawl over shoulders and a loaf of bread in her hand.) Oh! Here you are! ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair

... a tune in McGuffy's saloon, and it's cheery and bright in there (God! but I'm weak—since the bitter dawn, and never a bite of food); I'll just go over and slip inside—I mustn't give way to despair— Perhaps I can bum a little booze if the ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service

... he exclaimed; "a blow-out! I was a fool to leave that bum shoe on the rear! And the ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell

... Herbert, leading the way. "It's a pretty bum joint, but it's the best in the house—the best I could find in this wretched hole of a town. I'm mighty glad to see you, old pal, though I may not appear to be. Oh, blazes! but ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... "Art's a bum mistress if she makes you hustle like that!" commented Ogilvy. "Shake her, Kelly. She's a wampire mit ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... not only a dirty trick that you tried to play me," he said, in an altered, harsh tone, "but it was a fool-trick. That drunken old bum of a Tavender writes some lunatic nonsense or other to Gafferson, and he's a worse idiot even than Tavender is, and on the strength of what one of these clowns thinks he surmises the other clown means, you go and spend your money,—money I gave you, by the way,—in bringing ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... up a hero's dress in a handkerchief, slung it on the end of a tragedy sword, and quietly stole off at dead of night—"the bell then beating one,"—leaving my queen and kingdom to the mercy of my rebellious subjects, and my merciless foes, the bum-bailiffs. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... makes it easier. It's the woman's suit-case, and if we can't find out who she is from that, we're pretty bum, eh?" ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... looked so queer, Kate wanted to laugh, but she was too far from home to dare. He presently put his head conveniently in between Sawdy and Lefever and offered some news of his own: "There's been a big electric storm in the up country, Sawdy; the telephones are on the bum." ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... he doesn't do anything? He's not going out anywhere since his mother's death; he has no clubs to go to, I understand. What does he do—go to his office and come back, and sit in that shabby old brick house all day and blink at the bum portraits of his bum and distinguished ancestors? Do you know what he does with ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... rule for elevator boys is still somewhat in the air, because so few of these bum hotels over here have elevators, but you can sort of reason the thing out if you put your mind on it. When you get on a street car in Germany, what tip ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken

... white with anger. "That will do!" he exclaimed. "Clear out! I do not intend to allow any such riff-raff as you to order me to—Oh, pray do not be alarmed, ladies! This rowdy is not likely to assault me. Nothing will happen, I assure you. Clear out, you bum,—do you hear me?" ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... "They have some bum from that squatters' camp over on the East Side who claims the Fuzzies beat up his ten-year-old daughter," Fane was saying. "They have both of them at police headquarters, and they've handed the story out to Zarathustra News, and Planetwide Coverage. Of ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... know that his name is Jack Hoag; he's a little bit of a trapper and a big bit of a bum; stuck me last year. He doesn't come out this way; they say he goes out by the west ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... man was that hybrid of tramp-land, an alki-stiff that has degenerated into a stew-bum, with so little self-respect that he will never "boil-up," and with so little pride that he will eat out of a garbage can. He was truly horrible-appearing. He might have been sixty years of age; he might have ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... a bunch like that," Dickie commented. "A man that can't get a job to-day is a bum. And the fellow doesn't live that ever gets through knocking around. That is ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... any external commotion around me would have caused me to perish. Every harsh and undeserved indignity I had to suffer only increased my secret rancour, and whilst accustoming myself more and more to wine as a stimulant and so stirring up the fire to make it bum more merrily, I heeded not that this was the only way by which good could come out of the ruinous evil. In these few words, in this brief statement, I hope you will find the key to many things which may have appeared to you contradictory, if not ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... Escal. Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the 205 Great. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a tapster, are you not? come, tell me true: it shall be the ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... "Bum. My fever was high all night," moaned the sufferer. "I heard you fellows come up, and I hoped someone might drop in. I suppose you were ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field

... dark, the camp fires were allowed to bum low; and shortly afterwards the whole corps, with the exception of the sentries, were sound asleep. At four o'clock they were roused, and marched silently off in the appointed direction. By five o'clock each party was at its post and, ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... pulling down his neckcloth with a smile. 'That man exists no more: by an exercise of will I have destroyed him. There is something like it in the poets. First, a brilliant and conspicuous career - the observed, I may say, of all observers, including the bum-bailie: and then, presto! a quiet, sly, old, rustic BONHOMME, cultivating roses. In ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... goes down the crick beating a drum befo' a war. He wuz a Revolushun drummer, and cum back to beat the drum befo' de war. But some say you can hear de drum 'most any spring now. Go down to the Crick and keep quiet and you hear Brrr, Brrr, Bum hum, louder and louder and den it goes away. Some say dey hav' seen de little man, but I never seen him, but I heayd de drum, 'fo de war, and ater dat too. There was a white man kilt hisself near our place. He uster play a fiddle, and some time he come back an play. I has heayd him ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... the rogue has no manners at all, that I must own; no more breeding than a bum-baily, that I grant you:- 'tis pity; the fellow ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... of self entered into its composition in about equal proportions; hence the sailing-master who neglected to salute the flag, or who through ignorance, crass stupidity, or malice aforethought flew prohibited colours, was no more liable to be taught an exemplary lesson than the bum-boatman who sauced the officer of the watch when detected in the act of smuggling spirits or women into ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... in—for the love of heaven come in, else you will ruin me entirely." "How so?" cried Opie "Marry, thus," replied the other, "my neighbors over the way will see you, and say, 'Fuseli's done,—for there's a bum bailiff,'" he looked at Opie, "'going to seize his person; and a little Jew broker,'" he looked at Northcote, "'going to take his furniture,—so come in ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... a cool customer," the man appraised, "but if you think you're going to put anything over on us this time, you've made a bum guess." ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne

... with the red tie" (that was my cosmopolite), said he, "got hot on account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place he come from by the ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... "what I'm a-tellin' yer. I wanter be a good boy. My pa, he drinks. He drinks like—" The word he used, in description, was not the sort of a word that should have issued from childish lips. "An' my big brother—he ain't like Pa, but he's a bum, too! I don't wanter be like they are—not if I kin help it! I wanter be th' sort of a guy King Arthur was, an' them knights of his'n. I wanter be like that there St. George feller, as killed dragons. I wanter do real things," unconsciously he was quoting from the gospel of Rose-Marie, ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster

... given his name as "Solomon Rosenbum, vid der accent on der bum," was a rather disreputable-looking man of about thirty, having the appearance of the Jew peddler, and carrying a pack, which he had stuffed down between his knees and the back of the next seat, thus completely fencing in ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... th' other table sits a Knight, And here a grave old man ore right Against his worship, then perhaps That by and by a Drawer claps His bum close by them, there down squats A dealer in old shoes and hats; And here withouten any panick Fear, dread or care ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... Benny the Bum: "I wanna know kin I borry a red lantern off'n you? I find I gotta sleep in the street to-night an' I'll harfta warn the traffic ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... home. He was feeling very well satisfied with himself for some reason which he did not try to analyze, but which was undoubtedly his sense of having saved Bill from throwing away six hundred dollars on a bum car; and the weight in his coat pocket of a box of chocolates that he had bought for Marie. Poor girl, it was kinda tough on her, all right, being tied to the house now with the kid. Next spring when he started his run to Big ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... acumen that she saw even vaguely the real Bill Siddall, the money-maker, beneath the General William Siddall, raw and ignorant and vulgar—more vulgar in his refinement than the most shocking bum at home and at ease in foul-smelling stew. Every man of achievement hides beneath his surface—personality this second and real man, who makes the fortune, discovers the secret of chemistry, fights the battle, carries the election, ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... case, he made for a time an honest attempt to double; but ultimately his indignation got the better of his diplomacy, and with an oath that made the windows rattle, he roared, "Do you think I am going to be bum-bailiff to a parcel of blood-suckers!" And yet these gentlemen had sometimes, in their moderation, charged as little as sixty per cent. Henceforward Burton looked evil upon the whole Jewish race, and resolved to write a book embodying ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... A.M. still coaling up. Every thing working smooth and nothing to stop, it is a beautyfull night and the Southern Cross looms up with more beauty than I ever seen befor. But the ships bum Boat is all right too, she loomed up with a big ketle of hot Steaming cocoa, Just the thing a man wants when he has the mid watch. the wether is very cold down hear. a few of the men is going ashore to morrow. I dont think I will be able to go as I will have the afternoon watch, any way I dont ...
— The Voyage of the Oregon from San Francisco to Santiago in 1898 • R. Cross

... selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then invigorated himself with a bum for his throttle, and a fresh application to his head, and applied himself to the collection of a second meal; this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... won't try any more monkey-shines. It's a square deal and a square divide, so far's I'm concerned; if we stick together there'll be profit enough for all concerned. Sit down, Mul, and have another slug of the captain's bum rum." ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... come in here and claim by the right of personal interest that we should be most willing to tell you our business. Then in the next breath you defend the installation over on the other side of town for their attitude in giving the bum's rush to people who try to ask questions about their business. Go read your Constitution, Mr. Fisher. It says there that I have as much right to defend my home against intruders as the A.E.C. has to defend their home ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... my chance, an' I'll make them bum fifteen-cent mellings look like a penny a piece afore I gits done ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... et co:nsi:'dera: vi'a:s e'ius et di'sce sapie'ntiam: quae cum no:n ha'beat du'cem nec praecepto:'rem nec pri:'ncipem, pa'rat in aesta:'te ci'bum si'bi et ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge

... grumbled Annie, and reached to take the knitting away from her friend. "The war's over, thank God! Give yourself a chanct. Get warm first, anyways. You'll ruin your eyes—didn't the doctor tell you so? You got one bum lamp right now." ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough

... if they had not told him anything he was to repeat. Still, "No; no message." "But did they say nothing? Are you sure they said nothing?" Jamie, sadly put out and offended at being thus interrogated, at last burst forth, "They neither said ba nor bum," and indignantly left the room, banging the door after him. A characteristic anecdote of one of these old domestics I have from a friend who was acquainted with the parties concerned. The old man was standing at the sideboard and attending to the demands ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... to work, that happiness has wrecked more poems than sorrows ever helped to flow in sparkling jets. Dinah, happy in seeing Etienne taking his ease, smoking a cigar after breakfast, his face beaming as he basked like a lizard in the sunshine, could not summon up courage enough to make herself the bum-bailiff of a magazine. ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... the maelstrom of contradictory historical data, some of which credits Wiglaf with being the greatest ruler Mercia ever had and some of which indicates that he was nothing but a royal bum. It is not the purpose of this biography to try to settle the dispute. All we know for a fact is that he was a very human man who had faults like the rest of us and that shortly after becoming king he ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... inside of yore haid 'stead of brains. Yore disposition concernin' wimmen is gen'ally soured. You 'mind me of the man from New Jersey who come out west to buy a ranch. A hawss throwed him five times hand-runnin'. He ropes a steer that happens to run into the bum loop he was swingin' an' it snakes him out'n the saddle. A pesky cow chases him when he was afoot, a couple calves gits a rope twisted round his stummick an' lastly a mule kicks him into a bunch ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... I would always desert the office if there's a plausible excuse to bum about the waterfront. Is there any passion in the breast of mankind more absorbing than the love of ships? A tall Cunarder putting out to sea gives me a keener thrill than anything the Polo Grounds or the Metropolitan Opera can show. Of what avail a meeting of the Authors' League when ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... old onion, that tears it," Stevens declared as he unplugged. "No use going any further on these bum reference points. I'm going to report to Newton—he'll rock the Observatory on its foundations!" He plugged into the telegraph room. "Have you got a free high-power wave?... Please put me on Newton, in the ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... cain't water 'em. I ain't got rights to even lay my hands on 'em! O-h-h!" he shuddered, and agonizedly pulled taut on every tired, aching muscle. "Yuh oughter be beat up with a club. Yuh oughter get pounded with a rawk. You're a rotten, whisky-soaked bum, that's all yuh are now, and yuh oughter be killed and kicked out ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... "Messenger, send Mr Portfire here." The gunpowder functionary, he of the flannel cartridge, appeared. "Gunner, send one of your mates into the maintop, and let him bum a ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... handsome round face, and dark hair and eyes; she had shortish petticoats, and thickish ankles in good lace-up boots which, made much noise as she walked about. She had a huge paper parcel in her hands, which she placed on the bed; then for a moment she rested her bum on the bed-side, and Jenny did the same by the side of her. The parcel was between them, her ankles were within a few inches of my nose; I gently lifted the valance, and saw up the calf of her legs, her petticoats cut as they were in those days, being drawn up by sitting ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab; And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And on her withered dewlap pour the ale. The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe, And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.— But room, ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... thy tender leg shall rake: (I spare the thistles for Sir Arthur's[2] sake) Sharp are the stones; take thou this rushy mat; The hardest bum will bruise ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... if old Gogie had to keep track of seventy-'leven accounts and watch every single last movement of a fool girl that can't even run the adding-machine, why, he'd get green around the gills. He'd never do anything but make mistakes! Well, I guess the old codger must have had a bum breakfast this morning. Wanted some exercise to digest it. Me, I was the exercise—I was the goat. He calls me in, and he calls me down, and me—well, just lemme tell you, Wrenn, I ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... pursuit, Burley Balfour, pistol in hand, among the first. No scene of history has ever written itself so deeply on my mind; not because Balfour, that questionable zealot, was an ancestral cousin of my own; not because of the pleadings of the victim and his daughter; not even because of the live bum-bee that flew out of Sharpe's 'bacco-box, thus clearly indicating his complicity with Satan; nor merely because, as it was after all a crime of a fine religious flavour, it figured in Sunday books and afforded a grateful relief from ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... you've got 'em going,' said the bar-keep to the bum. 'But cheer up And beer up. The worst ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... usual rents. This disability on the part of the property owners to obtain their rents was at once removed by Lord Roberts. In order to give effect to this decision it was necessary to appoint officials. Practically what was really required was a sort of glorified bum-bailiff, with the necessary assistance, the bum-bailiff holding a position similar to that of a magistrate. I was asked to suggest the name of a senior officer of the Australians who would be suitable. I did so. But the point arose by what name was the appointment to be designated? I don't ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... Mrs. Petty. "In my belief it's come on through reading those newspapers. If I had my way I'd bum the lot. Can I trust you to watch him while I go and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... aint no Little Fatima fer looks; but I knows it, see. Young McKilligan bent me bugle in a ten-round go wunst; I gets this here split whistler the time I licked Kay-O Bergey, an' I's born with this here wheeze in me pipes, an' with that bum layout I aint buttin' into no cynthia ortchesstra, believe me. But I knows it, see, an' I got a kick in each mitt an' I aint never renigged on a pal, Mr. Kendrick, an' I goes to church reg'lar every damn Sunday, see. Y'r auntie'll be safer'n if she was at home; fer ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... destructivrous to corns of poor peoples and are worthy for killing because they devast the fields too much by their carnivrous fooding. I have also four nice horses for riding which I can let your sons use for the hunting purpose. They are well accustomed to the bum-bum-budam of guns and ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... 'While I ain't sayin' it's pure joy to have him around, I ain't got the heart to hand it to him. I don't mind trimmin' boobs—that's what they're for—but this Elsy thing is too soft. He must be in quite a wad on this bum ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote

... back, he blinks upward through the murk trying to find the owner of the whistle, he brandishes his shovel murderously over his head in one hand, pounding on his chest, gorilla-like, with the other, shouting:] Toin off dat whistle! Come down outa dere, yuh yellow, brass-buttoned, Belfast bum, yuh! Come down and I'll knock yer brains out! Yuh lousey, stinkin', yellow mut of a Catholic-moiderin' bastard! Come down and I'll moider yuh! Pullin' dat whistle on me, huh? I'll show yuh! I'll crash yer skull ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill

... welcomed with a stentorian shout ably echoed by Mr. Trumpeter, each of whom fell to and consumed a bottle with much assumption of inebriety. After dissembling complete disintegration and coma, Mr. Glotch raised his head from the ground and mourned, "Oh, boy! The guy that named this juice sure was a bum judge of distance." "You said it," echoed Mr. Trumpeter, and they were rewarded by a series of titters from the ladies which encouraged them into ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... on me. "This Dry-towner bum tried to talk us into making a priority call to Magnusson, the Chief at Central. He knew a couple of the S.S. passwords. That's what got him through the gate. Remember, Cargill passed the word that somebody would turn up trying to ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... was changed over into the Steenhundred and Umpty-umpth, wasn't it? The last that was heard from them they were at Blankville-sur-Bum. Now they've moved to Bingville-le-somethingorother. Clerk! Shove this ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... happiness, because I wished we could all be as happy as she was. All the same I took pains to go round to that boarding house a couple times more because it seemed like the girl's happiness might have a bum foundation. Darling Clyde was as merry and attentive as ever and Vida was still joyous. I guess she kept joyous at her work all day by looking forward to that golden moment after dinner when her boy would sing Good night, ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... chose to admire the busy thoroughfare seated on the backs of these animals. The native camel-drivers in their national costumes moved around and mingled with the strangers—which gave the populated street a peculiar charm to the eye, whereas the "Bum-Bum Candy" sold by Egyptian confectioners, afforded a strange sensation to the palate of ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... "Him still making good in the business, and me a bum! Well, it's all my own fault. If I'd stuck to the fire-eating and not drinking fire-water I'd be somewhere to-day. Just ask Bill Watson what sort of an act Ham Logan had—'Coal-fire Logan!'" exclaimed the ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... returned brusquely. "Girls usually think they know it all as soon as they've learned to dance and dress and flirt a little. They never know anything about things like architecture, for instance. That house is about as bum a house as any house ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... they lived. I'm afraid I wasn't interested. Aren't you glad the fire didn't bum the cupola? I almost wish they could leave the house that lovely weathered brown tone, instead of painting it white with green blinds again. Dad would like it that way, too. I suppose everybody would say it was flying in the face of tradition, ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... are run over; and his shirt should have gone to the wash last week. Also his chin is decorated in two places with surgeon's tape and has a thick growth of stubble on it. As I drifts in he's makin' a bum attempt to' roll a cigarette and is gazin' disgusted at ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... handed round wi' right good will; The cantie auld folks crackin' crouse, The young anes ranting thro' the house— My heart has been sae fain to see them That I, for joy, hae barkit wi' them!"... By this, the sun was out o' sight, An' darker gloamin' brought the night: The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone, The kye stood rowtin' i' the loan; When up they gat, an' shook their lugs, Rejoic'd they were na men but dogs; An' each took aff his several way, Resolv'd to meet some ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat

... directed to take the vessel to Portsmouth, was the spurious progeny of the first-lieutenant of a line-of-battle ship, and a young woman who attended the bum-boat, which supplied the ship's company with necessaries and luxuries, if they could afford to pay for them. The class of people who obtain their livelihood by these means, and who are entirely dependent upon the navy for their subsistence, are naturally anxious to ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... in the evening, and the cannons went off with a bum! bum! and the soldiers presented arms. That was a marriage! The princess and the shadow went out on the balcony to show themselves, and ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen

... boys looked glum, an' they nudged me an' kinder shoved me front. So, bein' elected, I sez, 'Friend,' sez I, 'art is on the bum. It ain't your fault; the boys is sad an' sorrerful, but they ain't never knocked you to nobody, Mr. Guilford. You was good to us; you done your damdest. You made up pieces for the magazines an' papers an' you advertised how we was all cranks together here at Rose-Cross, a-lovin' Nature an' dicky-birds, ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers

... and manner how Gargamelle was brought to bed, and delivered of her child, was thus: and, if you do not believe it, I wish your bum-gut fall out and make an escapade. Her bum-gut, indeed, or fundament escaped her in an afternoon, on the third day of February, with having eaten at dinner too many godebillios. Godebillios are the fat tripes ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... all the bullies, blackguards, bankrupts, blacklegs, bum-bailiffs, and even the gipsies in the neighbourhood," &c. {157} This and much more of a scurrilous character appeared in large type with the printer's name ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... Baxter, after sipping one himself and forgetting the need for reserve in his remarks. "You mustn't be a bum sport at a dance like ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... good head, Montana," said his honor. "Open up to that there Declaration. Here, Larsen, put your hand on this and swear you're telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They ain't going to be any bum testimony taken in this court. We ain't going to railroad this ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... it demanded, "a bum joke you're trying to put over, or what? Come home at once!—Don't you know a packed house is waiting to see Miss Burton in her act? What do ye ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... and moreover, very hungry. The first lieutenant did not forget his promise: he sent us a good dinner, and a glass of grog each, which we discussed under the half-deck, between two of the guns. We had some money in our pockets, and we purchased some sheets of paper from the bum-boat people, who were on the main-deck supplying the seamen, and I wrote to Mr Drummond and Mr Turnbull, as well as to Mary and old Tom, requesting the two latter to forward our clothes to Deal, in case of our being detained. Tom also wrote ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Waymark, smiling, as he lit his cigar. The result was that, in a quarter of an hour Sally had related her whole history. As Ida had said, she came from Weymouth, where her father was a fisherman, and owner of bum-boats. Her mother kept a laundry, and the family had all lived together in easy circumstances. She herself had come to London—well, just for a change. And what was she doing? Oh, getting her living as best she could. In the day-time she ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... whatever the father might have been, his son was able to uphold the family pride, and I had my revenge. Some day soon now my boy will read his father's story[25] himself, and I hope will not be ashamed. They read it in their way in the other boy's house, and got out of it that I was a "bum" because once I was on the level of the Bowery lodging house. But if he does not stay there, a man need not be that; and for that matter, there are plenty who do whom it would be a gross injury to call by such a name. There are lonely men, who, with no kin of their ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... good bum!" the old man shouted at me. "That no-good from nowhere! I'll fix him! Thinks he's something, does he? I'll show him! Anything he can do ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton

... I?" Tim twirled an imaginary moustache. "I recognise it every time I look in the glass! Well, how are you aside from the bum fist?" ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... When an ugly "bum," well up to trap, creeps like a rascal from the sheriff's-office, and with his capias armed, ere you are half-dressed, gives you the chase, and, as you "leg" away for the bare life, his knuckles dig into the seat of your unmentionables, gripping you like a tiger—that indeed is une ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various

... could look down and see everything, you know. They could see the big ponds up in the sky where the rain is made, and the awful big windmills up there where the wind blows from, and the cannons that bum ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... come back from my vacation, I'll let you in on it. I don't like to say this, Mac—but when I was slippin' it to you, I never asked whether you wanted it to get a hair cut with or to try and put Wall Street on the bum. If—" ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer

... rolling up, in a handkerchief, a long, slender "skin" of grog, like a sausage, and in that manner ascending to the deck out of a boat just from shore; or openly bringing on board cocoa-nuts and melons, procured from a knavish bum-boat filled with spirits, instead of milk or water)—we will only mention here two or three other modes, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... Uwins! I. O. Uwins! Baron's son although thou be, Thou must pay for thy misdoings In the country of the free! None of all thy sire's retainers To thy rescue now may come; And there lie some score detainers With Abednego, the bum. ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... growled the Man-Who-Knew-It-All to the Bum Actor. "Screw out of the water every souse she makes; lot of dirty sailors skating over the decks instead of keeping below where they belong; Chief Engineer loafing in the Captain's room every chance ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... wants to get back to land!" the other exploded. "If worst comes to worst we've got the wireless, haven't we? We can light on the water and send out an S. O. S., can't we? I must say you're a mighty bum sailor." ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell

... Seventeen had pulled out, westbound, about one-forty in the morning. There wasn't anything else till six-one. Them are always the hardest hours. A fellow's got to stay awake, see, and nothin' to keep him—unless maybe a coyote howlin' a mile off, or maybe a bum knockin' around among the box cars on the sidin', or, if it's cold, the stove to tend. That's all. Unless you put a record on the old phonograph and hit 'er up a few minutes now and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... told me you are going to send that loafer money he should come over here and bum round our ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass

... the throne, her eyes and his were on a level. She laid hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes until he could see his own twin portraits in hers that were glowing sunset pools. Heart of the Hills? The Heart of all the East seemed to bum in her, rebellious! ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... piece of base metal with the King's stamp upon it, a fog raised by the sun to obscure his own brightness. He came to preferment by unworthy offices, like one that rises with his bum forwards, which the rabble hold to be fortunate. He got up to preferment on the wrong side, and sits as untoward in it. He is raised rather above himself than others, or as base metals are by the test of lead, while gold and silver continue ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... take it—maybe the bum will object," laughed the first, as the unshaven Winslow advanced ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings

... daytime. "Majority rules," they said, "and there's three of us against you. We can't sleep while you have that lamp burning. The light keeps us awake and it also makes the room so hot that the devil couldn't stand it. If you stay up reading to-night we'll give you the bum's rush." ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... I'm here to-day. I knew you were thinking that. I knew it all the time I was in Colorado, growing up from a sickly kid, with a bum lung, to a heap big strong man. It forced me to do things I was afraid to do. It goaded me on to stunts at the very thought of which I'd break out in a clammy sweat. Don't you see how I'll have to turn handsprings in front of you, like the school-boy in the ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... it. Slovaks and bum farms are played out. There's no money in Shadow Hill—or if there is, it's locked up—or the income tax has paralysed it. No, I'm through. There's nothing doing in land; no commissions. And I'm considering a ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... look from eyes that seemed to bum like red coals, but he said nothing whatever. He took the coffee Sylvia held out to him and drank it as ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... little lick—tippy-tap! Then leaving a call with the night clerk for eight o'clock in the morning, she seems to drift off into a peaceful slumber, but awakens on the moment and hurrying all the way up to the other end of Main Street she slams the bass keys a couple of hard blows—bumetty-bum! And so it goes for quite a long spell after that: Tippy-tap!—off to the country for a week-end party, Friday to Monday; bumetty-bum!—six months elapse between the third and fourth acts; tippetty-tip!—two years later; dear me, how the old place has changed! Biffetty-biff! Gracious, ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... through worse than this. I ain't hurted bad. I ain't got mine just yet, old scout! Would I leave meself croak—an' that bum, Mike the Kike, handin' me fren's the ha-ha! Gawd," he muttered hazily, as though his mind was beginning to cloud, "just f'r that I'll get up an'—an' go—home—" His voice flattened ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers

... to stand together this way or there wouldn't be any political parties in a short time. Civil service would gobble up everything, politicians would be on the bum, the republic would fall and soon there would be the cry ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt

... tonic and cosmetic, We may take our beauty sleep; We may rub and punch and powder But the claws go deep and deep; And before we understand it All our beauty's on the bum For the years are turning yellow ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller

... me outer dis deal. You oughter know that. I'm on de bum all right enough, but dat other t'ing don't go wit' me. Burglary is no good. I'll say good night and many ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... caramels. Elizabeth Witherspoon would call, "Fannie, would you be so kind as to bring me another box of caramels?" Annie, without stopping her work or so much as looking up, raises her voice and calls down the room—and in her heart she is the same exactly as Elizabeth W.—"Fannie, you bum, bring me a box of car'mels or I'll knock the hell clean out ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... over the trail for your place. 'You're goin' to have a rest, Stampede,' she says to me, smiling so cool and sweet like you wanted to eat her alive. 'All you've got to do is show us the way and carry the bums.' 'Carry the what?' I asks. 'The bums,' she says, an' then she explains that a bum is a thing filled with powder which makes a terrible racket when it goes off. So I took the bums, and the next day one of the Indians sprained a leg, and dropped out. He had the firecrackers, pretty near a hundred pounds, and we whacked up his load ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... refusing to aid the deputy marshal in kidnapping was not an act of levying war, or treason against the United States. "In so doing he is not acting the part of an honest, loyal citizen [who ought to do any wickedness which a bum-bailiff commands]; he may be liable to be punished for a misdemeanor ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... went out that night to stand his shift, he found Weary at his side instead of Cal. Weary explained that Cal was feeling pretty bum on account of that fall he had got, and, as Weary couldn't sleep, anyway, he had offered to stand in ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower

... de sassafras blossom hab de keen smell o' de root, An' it hab rich er tender yaller green! De co'n hit kinder twinkle when hit firs' begin ter shoot, While de bum'le-bee hit bum'le in between. ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... cried, turning quickly and facing Olivr, "yer can't bum round here after ten, ye know. Keep yer eyes peeled for them ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... very interested by Vespa's reply to a mother who had written him," he went on. "Her daughter ended up in a Bohas camp for schizos, and her son had left his wonderful home and brilliant future to become a bum. She wanted to know why. Vespa took six long paragraphs to give six explanations, all equally valid and all advanced by equally distinguished sociologists. He himself favored the mass hysteria theory. But if you looked at his gobbledegook closely, you could ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer

... couple of days; during which time the crew got and kept most unaccountably drunk. The officers tried every method to solve the mystery, but without effect. The truth was, the men became suddenly fond of cocoa-nuts, selecting them from the bum-boats in preference to any other fruit. The secret was, that the shell was bored before the nut was quite ripe, the juice poured out, and Arrack substituted in its place. Our next place of stopping was Madras, where we took in more cargo, but no more cocoa-nuts, as no fruit-boats ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... dust-covered crown and torn rim. He was going forth to eat as the wanderer may eat, and sleep as the homeless sleep. By the time he had reached City Hall Park he was so completely plastered with yells of "bum" and "hobo," and with various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him at intervals, that he was in a state of the most profound dejection. The sifting rain saturated the old velvet collar of his ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... she cudn't do nuthin' 'gainst him onct he wus married to her. I thought o' thet right away. Yer see this wus how it happened: Kirby sed he'd like fer ter marry her, an' I sez, 'why not then? Thar's an ol' bum ov a preacher yere at Yellow Banks, a sorter hanger-on ter one o' them militia companies, what'll do eny damn thing I tell him too. I got the goods on him, an' ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... seized on and sold her shote she wuz fattin' for winter's use; sold it to the saloon keeper over to Zoar for about half what it wuz worth, only jest enough to pay her tax. But then the saloon keeper controlled a lot of bum votes and the collector wanted to keep in ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... went "Bum, bum, bum, diddle dum," and pranced around on a pair of short, fat legs in red stockings. Two fat little arms beat the drumsticks on the top of his head, or what appeared to be the top of his head, which was in reality a funny face, ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory

... his typesetting with the same diligence that he had brought to bear in the writing. This was stolen time, too. He worked an hour in the morning and two hours at night. Other printers offered to help, and a genial, bum electrotyper, damnably cheerful, offered to come in and lend a hand, provided Henry George would agree to give a funeral oration over the derelict one's grave at the proper ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... is not to come, with a hey, with a hey, Now safe is David's bum, with a ho; Then hey for Oxford ho, Strong government, raree show, With a ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... Yes, I got it now," answered the proprietor, with some animation, as if suddenly interested. "He come in the week we opened—worst-lookin' bum you ever see—toes out of his shoes, coat all torn. Said he had no money and asked for something to eat. Billy here was goin' to fire him out when one of my customers said he knew him. I don't let no man go hungry if I can help it, and so I sent him downstairs and cook filled him up. ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith



Words linked to "Bum" :   laggard, slug, street person, dillydallier, no-account, freeload, dosser, vagrant, couch potato, body part, dilly-dallier, trailer, lie-abed, slugabed, drone, sunbather, lagger, torso, nonworker, goof-off, woolgatherer, unpleasant person, lounge around, dallier, disagreeable person, body, laze, drifter, stagnate, obtain, dawdler, colloquialism, cheap, sluggard, shirker, loon, mope, lazybones, trunk, slacker, floater, daydreamer, good-for-naught, ne'er-do-well, layabout, goldbrick, whittler, rat, lounger, clock watcher, good-for-nothing, inferior, spiv, trifler, idle, poke, vagabond, arse



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