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Daw   Listen
noun
Daw  n.  (Zool.) A European bird of the Crow family (Corvus monedula), often nesting in church towers and ruins; a jackdaw. "The loud daw, his throat displaying, draws The whole assembly of his fellow daws." Note: The daw was reckoned as a silly bird, and a daw meant a simpleton. See in Shakespeare: "Then thou dwellest with daws too." ()






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Daw" Quotes from Famous Books



... and he's agreed to write my biography, on condition that I make a last dying speech when they bring me out on the plaza to do it, 'If I had taken the advice of my friend T. B. Aldrich, author of 'Marjorie Daw and Other People,' I should not ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... sent off a message to Scotland Yard. You see, Mr. Ross, there seemed so much that was odd about the case that I thought we had better have the best man of the Criminal Investigation Department that we could get. So I sent a note asking to have Sergeant Daw sent at once. You remember him, sir, in that American ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker

... with his feathers as much as he could. The shepherd, seeing what had happened, ran up and caught him. He at once clipped the Jackdaw's wings, and taking him home at night, gave him to his children. On their saying, "Father, what kind of bird is it?" he replied, "To my certain knowledge he is a Daw; but he would like ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... as you may take upon a knife's point, and choke a daw withal:—You have no stomach, signior; ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]

... Gween's last night, To see her niece, Miss Mary Hertz, And found her making—cwushing sight!— The weddest kind of flannel shirts! Of cawce I wose and saught the daw, With fewy flashing from my eyes! I can't approve this hawid waw;— Why don't ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... inundation, which laid a part of that island under water, and particularly the town of Ialysus. The fruitfulness of the daughter of Alcidamas occasioned it to be said, that she was changed into a dove. The rage of Maera is shown by her transformation into a bitch; and Arne was changed into a daw, because, having sold her country, her avarice was well depicted under the symbol of that bird, which, according to the popular opinion, is fond of money. Phillyra, the mother of the Centaur Chiron, was said to be changed ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... borrowed feathers, look at himself honestly and boldly in the glass, and we will warrant him, on the strength of the least gaudy, and as yet unpraised passages in his poems, that he will find himself after all more eagle than daw, and quite well plumed enough by nature to fly at a higher, because for him a more natural, pitch than ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... and impatient. "Baa, baa, black sheep, bow, wow, wow; goosey, goosey gander; see-saw, Mary Daw; chick-a-dee-dee, will you listen to me. And now ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.

... a nice collection; but you haven't seen the best of all. We expect her every minute; and Margery Daw is to let us know the minute she lights on the island," replied Peter, with ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... by any rich upstart and have no redress. A second shepherd appears with another grumble: 'We sely wedmen dre mekyll wo.' Some men, indeed, have been known to desire two wives or even three, but most would sooner have none at all. Whereupon enters Daw, a third shepherd, complaining of portents 'With mervels mo and mo.' 'Was never syn noe floode sich floodys seyn'; even 'I se shrewys pepe'—apparently a portentous omen. At this point Mak comes on the scene. He is a notorious bad character of the neighbourhood, who boasts himself 'a yoman, I ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... example, is the queerest collection of chunks of reading. English history from the beginning, with occasional glances at Continental affairs, European history for about a century, bits of economics, and—the Politics of Aristotle! It is not education; it is a jack-daw collection....This sort of jumble has been the essentials of the more pretentious type of "higher education" available in Great Britain up to ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... tendance spend! Who ever leaves sweete home, where meane estate In safe assurance, without strife or hate, Findes all things needfull for contentment meeke, And will to Court for shadowes vaine to seeke, Or hope to gaine, himselfe will a daw trie: That curse God send ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... cock doth craw, the day doth daw, The channerin' worm doth chide; Gin we be mist out o' our place, A sair pain ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick

... sat upo' the chair, White as the day did daw; Her smile was a sunlight left on the sea, Whan ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... other Publishers, who make the Works of other People their own, without acknowledging the Piracy they are guilty of, or so much as paying the least Complement to the Authors of their Wisdom: No, Gentlemen and Ladies, I am not the Daw in the Fable, that would vaunt and strut in your Plumes. And besides, I know very well you might have me upon the Hank according to Law, and treat me as a Highwayman or Robber; for you might safely ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]

... sketches of life. But Cumberland had little originality. He aimed without success at Fielding's constructive excellence, and imitated that great master's humor, only to reproduce his coarseness. The character of Ezekiel Daw, the Methodist, in "Henry," is fair and just, and contrasts very favorably with the libellous representations of the Methodist preachers in Graves' "Spiritual Quixote," and other contemporary novels. Another writer of fiction of considerable ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... precious gums and scented woods in thy torch at the melting of aristocratic hearts, with what a pitiful penny-dip thou hast lighted up our little back-street romance.—Marjorie Daw, and Other Stories. ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... kinship with the dainty ideals of Theophile Gautier and Alfred de Musset, this does not obscure his originality or his individual charm; and the same thing may be said with regard to his prose. The first of his short fictions that made a decided mark was 'Marjorie Daw.' The fame which it gained, in its separate field, was as swift and widespread as that of Hawthorne's 'The Gentle Boy' or Bret Harte's 'Luck of Roaring Camp.' It is a bright and half-pathetic little parody on human life and affection; or perhaps we should call it a parable symbolizing the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... Roasted daw, steamed widgeon and grilled quail— On every fowl they fare. Boiled perch and sparrow broth,—in each preserved The separate flavour that is most its own. O Soul come back to where such ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various

... his cow was the popular favorite. Above all the din of the race, the voice of the little Canadian could be heard screaming, "Mush daw! Mush daw!" as he plied his stick, and sometimes, "Herret, Jinnay! Herret, twa sacre petite broot!" In the height of the confusion, the jackass brayed. That was the final touch ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... theologians spent three months in splitting. This," pointing to a little mannikin about four inches high, "is the man of straw whose defeat in debate gave one of our United States Senators his brilliant reputation. And this, finally, is a handful of straws out of the pile on which Jack Daw slept when he gave up his bed to buy his wife a looking-glass, or, as some ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... jeer at it now in cold print but it goes down like hot cake that stuff. He was in the bakery line too, wasn't he? Why they call him Doughy Daw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged to that chap in the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely. Entertainments. Open house. Big blowout. Wetherup always said that. Get a grip ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... says, "I will tell as best I can remember, I was born eighty-eight years ago in Manchester, Ky. under a master by the name of Daw White. he was southern republican and was elected as congressman by that party from Manchester, Ky. He was the son of Hugh White, the original founder of Whitesberg, Ky. Master White was good to the slaves, he fed us well and had good places for us to sleep, and didn't whip ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... a sack of twigs turned out on the turf, such as the hedgers rake together after fagoting. Looking up into the trees on a summer's day not a bird could be seen, till suddenly there was a quick 'jack-jack' above, as a daw started from his hole or from where the great boughs joined the trunk. The squire's path went down the hollow till it deepened into a thinly wooded coomb, through which ran the streamlet coming from the wheat-fields under the road. As the coomb opened, the squire ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... seen any of Shakespeare's plays, and he said no. She asked him if he would like to see one. He said sure—he'd try anything once. She invited him to go to see "Hamlet" with her, and he said he was game. Lest his sensitive feelings be hurt by finding himself a humble daw among the peacocks of the rich, gay world, she bought seats in the balcony and wore her ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... We entered the Castle through the great door-way and were soon treading the walls that had once sustained the cannon and the sentinel, but were now covered with weeds and wild flowers. The drum and fife had once been heard within these walls—the only music now is the cawing of the rook and daw. We paid a hasty visit to the various apartments, remaining longest in those of most interest. The room in which Martin the Regicide was imprisoned nearly twenty years, was pointed out to us. The Castle of Chepstow ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown

... Daw, your dear Bad Boy, Prudence, and Judith the Bethulian, And many more, to wish you birthday joy, And sunny ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke

... liberty was won, Church and State divorced, politics and religion torn asunder. The day of complete religious liberty had daw'ned in Connecticut, and in a few years the strongest supporters of the old system would acknowledge the superiority of the new. As the "old order changed, yielding place to new," many were doubtful, many were fearful, and many there were who in after years, as they ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... seen something of the great Shwe Dagon pagoda in Rangoon, but there are many others almost equally beautiful, if not so large: the exquisite Shwe Tsan Daw at Prome, the Arracan near Mandalay, while in old Pagan, Pegu, Moulmein, and a host of other places, are temples which one might well think could not be surpassed for beauty. I have told you that these pagodas are usually bell-shaped—a delicate and most elegant form of design, ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly

... at the second bidding, Came like a sow out of a midding, Full sleepy was his grunyie:[133] Mony swear bumbard belly huddroun,[134] Mony slut, daw, and sleepy duddroun, Him servit aye with sonnyie;[135] He drew them furth intill a chain, And Belial with a bridle rein Ever lashed them on the lunyie:[136] In Daunce they were so slaw of feet, They gave them in the fire a heat, And made them ...
— English Satires • Various

... 1804] Sept. 17th one of the hunters killed a bird of the Corvus genus and order of the pica & about the size of a jack-daw with a remarkable long tale. beautifully variagated. it note is not disagreeable though loudit is twait twait twait, twait; twait, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... the perilous ha', The wild Red Cock on the roof shall craw, And the lady shall flee ere the day shall daw, And the land shall girn ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... grants. With proud elate, Behold him, minister of state! Around him throng the feather'd rout; Friends must be served, and some must out: Each thinks his own the best pretension; This asks a place, and that a pension. The nightingale was set aside: A forward daw his room supplied.[14] This bird (says he), for business fit Has both sagacity and wit. With all his turns, and shifts, and tricks, He's docile, and at nothing sticks. Then with his neighbours, one so free At all times will connive ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... up a little longer, and her lips dropped apart in her attempt to understand the situation. One would scarcely have been surprised to hear her say, "Cut-cut-cut-ca-daw-cut?" so fluttered ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... lays, With solemn air to Virtue's praise, Alike abusive and erroneous, They call'd it hoarse and inharmonious. Yet so it was to souls like theirs, Tuneless as Abel to the bears! A Rook[5] with harsh malignant caw Began, was follow'd by a Daw;[6] (Though some, who would be thought to know, Are positive it was a crow:) Jack Daw was seconded by Tit, Tom Tit[7] could write, and so he writ; A tribe of tuneless praters follow, The Jay, the Magpie, and the Swallow; And twenty more their throats let ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... hostess took an interest in my pursuit; one of the best chambers in the house was given up to me, and the young men took me on long rambles in the neighbouring forests. I saw very little hard work going forward. Everyone rose with the daw, and went down to the river to bathe; then came the never-failing cup of rich and strong coffee, after which all proceeded to their avocations. At this time, nothing was being done at the plantations; the cacao and tobacco crops were not ripe; weeding time was over; and ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... well as you look I would see no cause for complaint," said her mother coolly; "but a 'daw in borrowed feathers' ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth



Words linked to "Daw" :   Corvus, genus Corvus, jackdaw, Corvus monedula, corvine bird



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