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verb
Bully  v. t.  (past & past part. bullied; pres. part. bullying)  To intimidate or badger with threats and by an overbearing, swaggering demeanor; to act the part of a bully (1) toward. "For the last fortnight there have been prodigious shoals of volunteers gone over to bully the French, upon hearing the peace was just signing."
Synonyms: To bluster; swagger; hector; domineer.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bully" Quotes from Famous Books



... laugh escaped the artist. "Bully for you, Son! That's a poser! Aside from taxing the poor and having enemies beheaded, I'm puzzled to know what he really did do to earn his ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... presence he so persistently bemoans,—worldly bishops, phantasm-aristocracies, presumptuous upstarts, shallow sway-wielding dukes,—what are all these, and much else, but so many exemplications of might that is not right? When might shall cease to bully, to trample on right, we shall be nearing Utopia. Utopia may be at infinite distance, not attainable by finite men; but as surely as our hearts beat, we are gradually getting further from its opposite, the coarse rule of force and ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... man has come, post haste, from the plantations above Paspahegh. Three days ago, Morgan, the trader, was decoyed into the woods by that Paspahegh fool and bully, Nemattanow, whom they call Jack of the Feather, and there murdered. Yesterday, out of sheer bravado, the Indian turned up at Morgan's house, and Morgan's men shot him down. They buried the dog, and thought no more of it. Three ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... Harvey, in his Reminiscences (p. 122), has an anecdote in regard to Webster and Pinkney, which places the former in the light of a common and odious bully, an attitude as alien to Mr. Webster's character as can well be conceived. The story is undoubtedly either wholly fictitious or so grossly exaggerated as to be practically false. On the page preceding the account of this incident, Mr. Harvey makes ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... Bonaventure. You will go, will you not—when I ask you? Think how fine that will be—to be educated! For me, I cannot endure an uneducated person. But—ah! ca sre vaillant, pour savoir lire. [It will be bully to know how to read.] Aie ya yaie!"—she stretched her eyes and bit her lip with delight—"C'est t'y gai, pour savoir ecrire! [That's fine to know how to write.] I will tell you a secret, dear Bonaventure. Any girl of sense is bound to think it much greater ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... "I woke up in the middle of the night out of a dream. I dreamed I'd made a statue of Satan after the fall from heaven, and that everybody said: 'Well done, Barbs, bully for you,' 'Got Rodin skinned a mile'—it was you said that—and so forth and so on. I rose, swollen with conceit, and made a sketch of the head I'd dreamed about, so's not to forget the pose, and then I went to sleep again. Next day, early, a man stopped me in Washington ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... German policy ever since. [Cheers.] The more you study this question the more you will see that the use the Germans made of their three aggressive and victorious wars against Denmark, against Austria, and against France has been such as to make them the terror and the bully of Europe, the enemy and the menace of every small State upon their borders, and a perpetual source of unrest and disquietude to their ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... that he was partly drunk. Yet, as he faced the stranger eye to eye, the Kentuckian was as wary as he had been when bellying down a Tennessee ridge crest to scout a Yankee railroad blockhouse. He knew what he fronted; this was more than a drunken bully—a really dangerous man. ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... Kate, but civilly enough, for she had grown to see that she could not bully her husband, as she had done her father and her sister; "it's nearly two, and it will be supper-time ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit

... the world until that night—so many years ago; and since then I have carried a load on my soul that makes me—even Hannah Hinton, who never flinched before man or woman or beast—a coward, a quaking coward! Sin stabs courage, lets it ooze out, as a knife does blood. Don't bully me, Peleg! I won't bear it. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... troop was Captain Bludder, a huge Alsatian bully, with fiercely-twisted moustachios, and fiery-red beard cut like a spade. He wore a steeple-crowned hat with a brooch in it, a buff jerkin and boots, and a sword and buckler dangled from his waist. Besides these, he had a couple of petronels stuck in his girdle. ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... 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 ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... freight thieves, but Sid 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 ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)

... sped by the line o' the British craft; The skipper called to his Lascar crew, and put her about and laughed:— "It's mainsail haul, my bully boys all—we'll out to the seas again— Ere they set us to paint their pirate saint, or ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... (who used to bully at the Bedford Coffee-house because his name was Roach) is set up by Wilke's friends to burlesque Luttrel and his pretensions. I own I do not know a more ridiculous circumstance than to be a joint candidate with the Tiger. O'Brien used to take him off very pleasantly, and perhaps you may, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... 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

... manner of his preaching, 'testifying' and 'persuading,' the former addressed more to the understanding, and the latter to the affections and will, and may learn how Christian teachers should seek to blend both—to work their arguments, not in frost, but in fire, and not to bully or scold or frighten men into the Kingdom, but to draw them with cords of love. Persuasion without a basis of solid reasoning is puerile and impotent; reasoning without the warmth of persuasion is icy cold, and therefore nothing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... need for more. The big bully was rendered insensible, besides being effectually subdued, and from that time forward he quietly consented to play any fiddle—chiefly, however, the bass one. But he harboured in his heart a bitter hatred of Grummidge, and resolved ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne

... of Sardinia; who is at the old trade of his Family, and shifts from side to side, making the war-balance vibrate at a great rate, now this scale now that kicking the beam. For he holds the door of the Alps, Bully Bourbon on one side of it, Bully Hapsburg on the other; and inquires sharply, "You, what will you give me? And you?" To Maria Theresa's affairs he has been superlatively useful, for these Two Years past; and truly she is not ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... slot about four feet deep and three feet wide diagonally across, dam off as much water as you can so as to leave about a hundred yards of squelchy mud; delve out a hole at one side of the slot, then endeavour to live there for a month on bully beef and damp biscuits, whilst a friend has instructions to fire at you with his Winchester every time you put your head ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather

... all the ballad-mongers and broadsheet vendors of the town. The unsigned publication of the States-General, with its dark allusions to horrible discoveries and promised revelations which were never made, but which reduced themselves at last to the gibberish of a pot-house bully, the ingenious libels, the powerfully concocted and poisonous calumnies, caricatures, and lampoons, had done their work. People stared at each other in the streets with open mouths as they heard how the Advocate had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... stupid, infantile, and deficient in reasoning ability and judgment," Doris said. "Koffler is a typical adolescent problem-child show-off type, and Burris is an almost perfect twelve-year-old schoolyard bully. They both have inferiority complexes long enough to step on. If the purpose of this test is what I'm led to believe it is, I can't, in professional good conscience, recommend anything but that you get rid of both ...
— Day of the Moron • Henry Beam Piper

... telling him of the freedom she had taken, by thinking—It will do as well to tell him of it to-morrow: a few notes, out of such a parcel as he has in his desk locked up from me, can't signify; and he'll only bluster and bully when I do tell him of it; so let him find it ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... mean man and a bully. He knew what the Regiment thought about his action; and, when the troopers offered to buy the Drum-Horse, he said that their offer was mutinous and forbidden by ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... the four friends frequently came into conflict with Buck Looker, the bully of the town, and his two boon companions, Carl Lutz and Terry Mooney, who were of the same stripe, though they deferred to Buck ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

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

... tern, dazzling in their whiteness, and these did all in their power to infuriate the hawk and lure him from the water. They flew round him and over him; they called him names; they said he was a bully and that all of us (which was true) ought to be ashamed of ourselves; they daunted and challenged and attacked. But the enemy was too strong for them. A fusillade drove them off, and once again we were free to consider the case of the duck, who was still swimming anxiously ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... into town this afternoon and went with Istra to dinner at the Lafayette. She told me all about her experiences in Paris and studying art. She is quite discontented here in N. Y. I don't blame her much, it must have been bully over in Paree. We sat talking till ten. Like to see Vedrines fly, and the Louvre and the gay grisettes too by heck! Istra ought not to drink so many cordials, nix on the booze you learn when you try to keep in shape for flying, though Tad Warren doesn't seem to learn it. After ten we went ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... about them?" Julian enquired. "I feel a little dazed about it all, even now living in an unreal atmosphere and that sort of thing, you know. It seems to me that we ought to have out the bloodhounds and search for an engaging youth and a particularly disagreeable bully of a man, both dressed ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... her head. Presently the tumult quieted down. "They're afraid of her," she said. "She has a dreadful whip. She likes to bully them. I think she's rather cruel. But she does love Berg; she says he's the only real dog ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... "Now comes bully Sempronius, comically accoutred and equipped with his Numidian dress and his Numidian guards. Let the reader attend to him with all his ears, for the words ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... half an hour, while the young Princes gathered around me, and we sat down on the floor and the boys got out their knives, and we played mumbletypeg on the carpet, just as though we were at home, and all the boys talked English, and we had a bully time. The princes had all read "Peck's Bad Boy" and I think the Emperor and Empress have encouraged them in their wickedness, for the boys told me of several tricks they had played on their father, the Emperor, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... 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 forward leaped, with fearful ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... sometimes look back and laugh at the manner in which you used to bully the old judge, and the gaping jury, and your own brother lawyers, while the foam would run through your clenched teeth and from your lips in very passion; and then I wondered, when you were doing so well, that you ever gave up there, to undertake ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... repudiated in a sentence, and our demagogues distanced in the race. Did the envoy echo the voice of his master, when he announced that the American Union must be dissolved by foreign intervention, because, if reunited, it would be too strong, and bully the world—therefore France and England combined must strike us when we were supposed to be weak and divided. It is not the author of such atrocious and dastard sentiments that would lead the banner of France ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... you all jus' whoopin' and hollerin' for nothin'. Tryin' to bully the game. (FRANK and LIGE rise and shake ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes

... wounded in his right arm, and our captain was killed. This made us waver and fall back. But the chaplain rushed forward to lead us, exclaiming, 'Boys, come on! The enemy is wavering; we are sure of a victory!' On we rushed after him, and drove the foe off the field. After that we called him the 'Bully chaplain.' He lost his wig, ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle

... deed, so great was my delight in writing about Mrs. Proudie, so thorough was my knowledge of all the shades of her character. It was not only that she was a tyrant, a bully, a would-be priestess, a very vulgar woman, and one who would send headlong to the nethermost pit all who disagreed with her; but that at the same time she was conscientious, by no means a hypocrite, really believing in the brimstone which ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... to fight," cried the little bully, who had not the pluck to approach within twenty feet of ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... slain. His death opened the way for the succession of his brother, Robert of Belleme, to the great English possessions of their father in Wales, Shropshire, and Surrey, to which he soon added by inheritance the large holdings of Roger of Bully in Yorkshire and elsewhere. These inheritances, when added to the lands, almost a principality in themselves, which he possessed in southern Normandy and just over the border in France, made him the most powerful vassal of ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... like to have seen you first, but it would only distress you, and I might not have been able to go through with it after. Nedda, darling, if you still love me when I get out, we'll go to New Zealand, away from this country where they bully poor creatures like Bob. Be brave! I'll write to-morrow, if they ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... "Bully for you, Johnny. Too many syllables. Well, now! he's hit that horse again. One more for the court of inquiry. Steady, men! There's Two Whistles switching now. They ought to call that lad Young Dog Tray. And there's ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... humorous gleam into his eye, and when he looked at me for half a minute he burst into a great roar of laughter. "Newspaper man?" he asked me. I answered in the affirmative, and he stretched out an unwashed hand. "I am Forbes," he said. "I am here for the Daily News; if I can't bully a man I ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... They were true only to self-interest, brave only in the absence of danger. The court of Burgundy swarmed with these Italian mercenaries, many of whom had followed Charles to Peronne. Count Campo-Basso, who afterward betrayed Charles, was their chief. Among his followers was a huge Lombard, a great bully, who bore the name of ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... "Bully!" said Mac, and Bill, her chin on her hand, looked across at me with approval. After all, again, my lack of enterprise in interrogating Mr. Carville the night before was bearing fruit. It was crediting me with a sportsmanlike reluctance to steal a march on my friends. I had, unconsciously done ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... drosky driver as he greedily accepted his handful of driver's rations. He had not seen rice for three years. Thankfully he took the food. His family left at home would also learn how to barter with the generous doughboy for his tobacco and bully beef and crackers, which at times, very rarely of course, in the advanced sectors, he was lucky enough to exchange for handfuls of vegetables that the old women plucked out of their caches in the rich black mould of the small garden, or from a cellar-like hole under a loose ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... tiny, the father's temper had become so irritable that it was not to be trusted. The child had only to give a little trouble when the man began to bully. A little more, and the hard hands of the collier hit the baby. Then Mrs. Morel loathed her husband, loathed him for days; and he went out and drank; and she cared very little what he did. Only, on his return, she ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... buckskins whether he was after the fox or fresh air, was out on this particular morning; and it happened that, as the cavalcade wound beneath the down, Mr. George trotted along the ridge. He was a fat-faced, rotund young squire—a bully where he might be, and an obedient creature enough where he must be—good-humoured when not interfered with; fond of the table, and brimful of all the jokes of the county, the accent of which just seasoned his speech. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... she would hear of it all later and understand. The fellow's right to resent the small attentions I had shown to Mistress Mortimer I questioned greatly—she had plainly enough denied the existence of any relationship between them other than family friendship,—and I meant to teach this loyalist bully that I was not the sort to be driven away by loud words, or the flash of ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish

... Fairlie, falling back helplessly in the chair, and closing his eyes. "Please don't bully me. ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... 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

... June 20. Bully for the Soldiers, they are hear at last, "I thought they would com tomorrow," some of the papers say there is 20.000 of them, that is enough to eat the plase up for lunch. Well I hope we will soon crack this nut that is so ...
— The Voyage of the Oregon from San Francisco to Santiago in 1898 • R. Cross

... Wit. Don't bully me, Sir! I am here to answer any questions you like to put, always supposing that you have ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various

... alike, all were simultaneously bagged. Unless, like the Irishman's swallow, you could be in two places at once, down you went on the recording-tablets. Christopher Sly, from the ale-house door, if caught while the Merry Duke had possession of him, must be chronicled for a peer of the realm; Bully Bottom, if the period of his translations fell in with the census-taking, must be numbered among the cadgers' "mokes"; nay, if Dogberry himself had encountered the officials at the moment of his pathetic lamentation, he were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... of sexual satisfaction diminishes; at the best, also; there lacks the sense of social equality, the feeling of possession, and scope for the exercise of feminine affection and devotion. These the prostitute must usually be forced to find either in a "bully" ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... the terms of peace had been announced, Russia interfered, securing the help of France and Germany to bully Japan. The combination met with no opposition; the government played jiujutsu, and foiled expectations by unlooked-for yielding. Japan had long ceased to feel uneasy about her own military power. Her reserve strength is probably much greater than has ever been acknowledged, ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... to New York City to help catch German spies," cried Henry, beginning to dance about again in his excitement. "Isn't it bully! And we'll catch 'em, too, just as we did ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... tripped over the roaring bully as he lay on his back in the aisle. Stuyvesant had rushed in, and between them they dragged him to a place of safety. There, his limbs unbound, his tongue unloosed, Murray indulged in a blast of malediction on the ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... some all but dormant remnant of feeling within his heart was touched, we will not pretend to say. But for a while he walked on silent, as though wavering in his resolution, and looking as if he wished to be somewhat more civil, somewhat less of the bully, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... foreleg to a sharp, grinding grip of the enemy's tongue. How he managed it was a puzzle, but sooner or later he got his grip in, to let go at the piercing yell of defeat that invariably followed. But Brown was a gentleman, not a bully, and after each fight buried the hatchet, appearing to shake hands with his late adversary. No doubt if he had had a tail he would have wagged it, but Brown had been born with a large, perfectly round, black spot, at the root of his tail, and his then owner, having an eye for ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... thirty-two campaigns, thirty years' service, two wounds, one of them received at Rome when we fought for that old bully ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... 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

... By bluffing. You see, I was not fool enough to think that you would—particularly notice a fighting bully." ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... live at St. Pol, a dirty little town, but full of character. The hotel was filthy and the food impossible. We ate tinned tongue and bully-beef for the most part. Here I met Laboreur, a Frenchman, who was acting as interpreter—a very good artist. I think his etchings are as good as any line work the war has produced. A most amusing man. We had many happy dinners together at (p. 027) a ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen

... Gourlay. "Some of these profs. think too much of themselves. They wouldn't bully me! There's good stuff in the Gourlays," he went on with a meaning look at Armstrong; "they're not to be scoffed at. I would stand ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... from day to day. He served as pilot on a steamboat trip, then as clerk in a store and a mill; business failing, he was adrift for some time. Being compelled to measure his strength with the chief bully of the neighborhood, and overcoming him, he became a noted person in that muscular community, and won the esteem and friendship of the ruling gang of ruffians to such a degree that, when the Black Hawk war broke out, they elected him, a young man of twenty-three, captain of ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... to do but give to each his rightful share, which he did with a very sulky air. Afterwards I had a talk with the man, telling him that my idea of a good fu t'ou was one who kept the men up to their work, and at the same time did not bully or mulct them of their hard-earned money. Such a man would get a good reward at the end. My reputation for lavishness stood me here in great stead, for henceforth there was no difficulty on this score. ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... 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

... friend, a Mr. Wakefield Damon, of the neighboring town of Waterford. Mr. Damon had the odd habit of blessing everything he saw or could think of. Another of Tom's friends was Miss Mary Nestor, whom I have mentioned, while my old readers will readily recognize in Andy Foger a mean bully, who made much ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton

... say die' motto has stuck by him all the time," mused Tom. "It's a bully motto, too. By the way, have you fellows ever heard the story of the mouse that fell in the ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... only laughed and continued the inquisition gaily. He next wished to know who was dearer to the heart of the housekeeper, the assistant or her late husband, to which she rejoined "Why should I lament Vorkel? He was a bully, who never could learn how to cut out a coat, and always stole his customers' cloth." At that moment there was an ominous crash on the floor, and a powerful odour filled the laboratory; the phial had slipped from the hands ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... who mention weapons which they really have made up their minds to use, do not display them in a threatening manner. That is the device of bullies who think to frighten their adversaries by the threatening exhibition as they do by their threatening words. Sam Hardwicke was not a bully, and he did not wish to frighten anybody. He merely wished to make the boy hold his tongue, and he meant to do that in any case, using whatever measure of violence he might find necessary to that end. He mentioned his fist merely ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston

... with the bailiff. He would have a short way with the bailiff. Secure in the confidence of his bankers, he was ready to bully the innocent bailiff. He would not reflect, would not pause. He had heated himself. His steam was up, and he would not let the pressure be weakened by argumentative hesitations. His emotion ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... greatly 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, and with burning passion ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey

... will easily be supposed they had provocation enough; they could scarce have room to tell their tale, the Spaniards were so eager to tell them theirs; and it was strange enough to find, that three men should thus bully nineteen, and receive no ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... and the horrible fright he has undergone, the bully of former days simply shudders and cringes now. He crouches at Abbot's feet, gazing fearfully around him at the circle of ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... all you little yaller boys An' roll the cotton down! Oh, a husky pull, my bully boys, ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... "Bully-good!" declared Amy. "You'll come home to dinner with me, and we will spend the evening with Jess helping her build a radio thing so we can do without buying the New Melford Tribune ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose

... too," I said; "the little scoundrel used to be boatswain of Bully Hayes's brig, the Leonora. Hayes kicked him ashore at Jakoits Harbour, on Ponape, for stealing a cask of rum from the Leonora, and selling it to the crew ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke

... or has trained one of his master's, in that peculiar line. It is of little importance what breed the dog may be. I have known curs that were excellent ''coon-dogs.' All that is wanted is, that he have a good nose, and that he be a good runner, and of sufficient bulk to be able to bully a 'coon when taken. This a very small dog cannot do, as the 'coon frequently makes a desperate fight before yielding. Mastiffs, terriers, and half-bred pointers make the ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... [Coll.], nuclear powered carrier; submarine, submersible, atomic submarine. boat, pinnace, launch; life boat, long boat, jolly boat, bum boat, fly boat, cock boat, ferry boat, canal boat; swamp boat, ark, bully, battery, bateau [Can.], broadhorn^, dory, droger^, drogher; dugout, durham boat, flatboat, galiot^; shallop^, gig, funny, skiff, dingy, scow, cockleshell, wherry, coble^, punt, cog, kedge, lerret^; eight oar, four oar, pair oar; randan^; outrigger; float, raft, pontoon; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... that Tibbits woman bully you for twenty years, now I'm going to bully you for a bit instead, and between us we'll give those poor dears a bit of ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... bully, Arthur. I suppose there are officers like that in every army. But all the Germans are not like him. You must remember that there are some, at least, like Colonel Schmidt who gave us our freedom after we had been caught. He was kind to us, and he would have been courteous here, ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske

... 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, ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... of dress than either Nancy or Biddy, and revelled in the notion of astonishing "the old niggard," as she called him; and this she did "many a time and oft." In vain did Flanagan try to keep her extravagance within bounds. She would either wheedle, reason, bully, or shame him into doing what she said "was right and proper for a snug man like him." His house was soon well furnished: she made him get her a jaunting car. She sometimes would go to parties, and no one was better dressed than the woman ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... ominous squaring of the shoulders, what he meant by treading on his toes,—to which he, poor man, instead of replying that it was so obviously unintentional that no gentleman would think of demanding an apology, is fain, in order to escape the impending blow, to answer by assuring the bully in the most soothing terms that no insult was intended, that he never will do so again, and hopes that the occasion may serve as a precedent for Mr. Bully himself to avoid the corns of his neighbors for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... that business was meant when he received Mr. Chamberlain's ultimatum to open the drifts. The President 'climbed down' and opened them! He has several advantages which other leaders of men have not, and among them is that of having little or no pride. He will bluster and bluff and bully when occasion seems to warrant it; but when his judgment warns him that he has gone as far as he prudently can, he will alter his tactics as promptly and dispassionately as one changes one's coat to suit the varying conditions of the weather. Mr. Kruger climbed down! It did not worry ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... said, as the lights of the motor lit up the drive. "I've had a bully time, and I'll see you ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... blackmailer took all my money to keep his mouth shut and take me to a 'safe place.' The safe place was up this river. I came up here with him in a canoe paddled by some tough Peruvians. Then he began trying to bully me into doing dirty work for him—running women into Peru. I saw red again and jumped for him. He gave me that ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... served his time in sail, he was a bully boy, It'd wake a corpse to hear him hail 'Foretopsail yard ahoy!' He knew the ways o' squaresail and he knew the way to swear, He'd got the habit of it here and there and everywhere; He'd some samples from the Baltic and some more from Mozambique; Chinook and Chink and double-Dutch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various

... not much variety to the food, but there was plenty of it, and it was good. There was bully beef, of course; that is the real staff of life for the British army. And there were potatoes, in plentiful supply, and bread and butter, and tea—there is always tea where Tommy or his officers are about! There was a lack of table ware; a dainty soul might ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... encouragement, which made her the more earnest. If the Parson had been anxious to receive her into the path he trod, she would have lagged; as it was, his brusqueness awaked a sensation of pleasure in her—there was no male to snub and bully her now that Archelaus had gone away. She set up to herself the image of Boase that some more educated women make of their doctor—a bully who had to be placated, who would scold her if she transgressed his ideas. She took to ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... figures as a private gentleman in the morning, in the evening represents a priest: at one time, he is a peaceable limb of the law; at another, a swaggering bully. The next day, with a gold-headed cane in his hand, he will assume the deportment of a monied man buried in calculations; the most singular disguises are quite familiar to him. In the course of the twenty-four hours, he is an officer of distinction and a journeyman ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... pretty little maid to wait on me and I wish you could see us talking to each other. She comes in, bows until her head touches the floor and hopes that my honorable ears and eyes and teeth are well. I tell her in plain English that I am feeling bully, then we both laugh. She is delighted with all my things, and touches them softly saying over and over: "It's mine ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... (ASIDE.) He wants to bully, ah!—the old grudge makes me touchy (ADVANCING.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark side of mankind—devilish dark at ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... her in disguise, and acts as guardian angel to her reckless and sometimes brutal husband; and lastly, the other humours of a certain marvellously patient citizen who allows his wife to hector him, his customers to bully and cheat him, and who pushes his eccentric and unmanly patience to the point of enduring both madhouse and jail. Lamb, while ranking a single speech of Bellafront's very high, speaks with rather oblique approval of the play, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... bully of his age (and the kindest-hearted man) thought very differently of the son. Richard Brinsley had written a prologue to Savage's play of 'Sir ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... be in any fear of him physically. For one thing my indignation was too hot to admit fear; I happen to be quite good enough at boxing to be able to take care of myself, and I was sure—all the more from his continuing to lie there—that such a despicable bully ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William

... a depressing effect of having (perhaps) been a beauty once, and she regarded Sylvia and Felicity with that mingled affection, pride, and annoyance compounded of a wish to serve them, a desire to boast of them, and a longing to bully them that is often characteristic of elderly relatives. The only special fault she found was that they were too young, especially Sylvia. Mrs. Crofton did not explain for what the girls were too young, but ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... for the command of an expedition like this, which will require much tact in its leader. At the same time, a large and powerful frame—especially if united to a peaceable spirit—is exceedingly useful in a wild country. Without the peaceable spirit it only renders its possessor a bully and a nuisance. I am further directed to furnish you with the needful supplies and men. I will see to the former being prepared, and the latter you may select—of course within certain limits. Now go and make arrangements for a start. The ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... you know what he done to you to-day, and still you wanna paint for war now and immediate? No, Bully, not a-tall. You listen to me. I got a better plan. A whole lot better ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... it's your fault,' pursued Miss Derrick, with unaccustomed moderation of tone. 'I never knew a man who behaved like you do. You seem to think the way to make anyone like you is to bully them. We should have got on very much better if you had ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing

... on me to do so against my will, and no man shall bully or threaten me, a priest of our holy church." He had partially opened the ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... was pale, very pale, and I know that I trembled. Ah, it is the pale passions that are the fiercest,—it is the violence of the chill that gives the measure of the fever! The fighting-boy of our school always turned white when he went out to a pitched battle with the bully of some neighboring village; but we knew what his bloodless cheeks meant,—the blood was all in his stout heart,—he was a slight boy, and there was not enough to redden his face and fill his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... ignore this and other sexual subjects, we may do whatever else we like: we may bully, we may bluster, we may rage, We may foam at the mouth; we may tear down Heaven with our prayers, we may exhaust ourselves with weeping over the sorrows of the poor; we may narcotize ourselves and others ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... up his mind not to speak to the fellow, but he reckoned without Jake. For as Jack came up the bully held up a hand as a signal to halt. Jack was not a little apprehensive at first, but Jake, in surly tones, ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster

... at school were precisely those which I have described. Our grammar was not so philological, abstruse and arid as the instruments of torture employed at present. But I hated Greek with a deadly and sickening hatred; I hated it like a bully and a thief of time. The verbs in [Greek text] completed my intellectual discomfiture, and Xenophon routed me with horrible carnage. I could have run away to sea, but for a strong impression that a life on the ocean wave "did not set my genius," as Alan Breck says. Then we began to read ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... Got you down flat, old chap. Can't bounce and bully me now. Give me much of your nonsense, I'll punch your old head. Now, then, where'll you ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... general principle. What has led to the lamentable results under which we suffer? What has rendered the winds so tempestuous that they must needs blow down our noble ship? What has provoked the ire of those big bully waves so that they advance to demolish us? Ah! hark just here how the Diogenid tumble and thump their tubs! each one rapping out his own tune; each one screaming to boot, to be heard ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various



Words linked to "Bully" :   goon, bullyrag, slap-up, muscle, sweet-talk, browbeat, hood, keen, push around, smashing, coax, muscleman, tyrannise, inveigle, peachy, hooligan, yobo, intimidate, attacker, bully tree, dandy, aggressor, tough guy, boss around, swell, not bad, bullyboy, ballyrag, bully beef, great, corking, yob, roughneck, tyrannize, yobbo, assaulter, neat, palaver, bully off, bully pulpit, assailant, hector, thug, ruffian, blarney, toughie, strong-arm, strong-armer, plug-ugly, cracking, good, nifty, groovy, domineer, bang-up



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