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Patch up   Listen
noun
patch up  n.  To mend by patching; to patch; also used figuratively; as, to patch up frayed relations bewteen parties.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Patch up" Quotes from Famous Books



... The room had become restive, and now Jane realized that the youngest of the Owsleys was lustily bawling. She glanced at the little watch in her belt, crying: "Heavens!" Then dashed toward the door to rescue her neglected charges; leaving Nancy under the trees to patch up the ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... upon it all!" he concluded. "Since she must, and apparently will gratify this low taste, can you not return to New York, patch up the fellow into some sort of respectability and marry them with a blare of brazen instruments that will drown ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... beads, saucers full of pretty rings, marvels of Sevres or Dresden mounted exquisitely by Florent and Chanor, statues, books, all the frivolities which cost insane sums, and which passion orders of the makers in its first delirium—or to patch up its last quarrel. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... while, and he has refused to see his nephew, to my certain knowledge. After all, I cannot but pity poor Clarence for being driven into this match. Mr. Hartley has a prodigious fine fortune, to be sure, and he hurried things forward at an amazing rate, to patch up his daughter's reputation. He said, as I am credibly informed, yesterday morning, that if Clarence did not marry the girl before night, he would carry her and her fortune off the next day to the West Indies. Now the fortune was ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... two of the forest folk chanced to have a dispute which they could not settle between them they frequently visited Solomon and asked him to decide which was in the right. And in the course of time Solomon became known far and wide for his ability to patch up a quarrel. ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey

... move the machinery of a great state. And when any change is to become the permanent law of public action, it ought to take both time and thought to effect it. You do not wish to alter and re-alter the framework of a state or of a state's activity as you would patch up a ruinous old house. If you work at all in any department, you should wish to work on a massive, well-considered plan, so that what you do may last. It is not likely, therefore, that, in the great ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... great consequence to my habits and comforts was my being released from the Court of Session on November 1830 (18th day). My salary, which was L1300, was reduced to L840. My friends, just then leaving office, were desirous to patch up the deficiency with a pension. I do not see well how they could do this without being exposed to obloquy, which they shall not be on my account. Besides, though L500 a year is a round sum, yet I would rather be independent than I would ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... could be given, and if no armed clash took place, it would be demonstrated first, that they did not have so strong a hold on the South as they had thought they had; and second, that on the whole, it was to their interests to patch up the quarrel and come back into the Union. But he also saw that they had a serious problem of leadership, which, if rudely handled, might make it impossible for them to stand still. They had inflamed the sentiment ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... begged to state this was not the true question: it was whether they would found all the future proceedings upon error and misstatement, or upon incontrovertible facts. Another question was, would they be satisfied to patch up the wounds of the country for a short period or seek to remedy the disease in its spring and in its sources before it became still more alarming and incurable? The Duke of Kent said he had offered the resolution as it had been put into his hand; and if he had conceived ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... for your doing everything to improve your property and make it remunerative as far as you can. You know my objections to incurring debt. I cannot overcome it.... I hope you will overcome your chills, and by next winter you must patch up your house, and get a sweet wife. You will be more comfortable, and not so lonesome. Let her bring a cow and a churn. That will be all you will want.... Give my love to Fitzhugh. I wish he were regularly established. He cannot afford to be ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... ballad were inserted in the copy of Tamlane, given to the public in the first edition of this work. They are now restored to their proper place. Considering how very apt the most accurate reciters are to patch up one ballad with verses from another, the utmost caution cannot always avoid ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... turned over, and Ready commenced his work; while Mr. Seagrave, at his request, put the pitch-pot on the galley fire, all ready for pitching the canvas when it was nailed on. It was not till dinner-time that Ready, who had worked hard, could patch up the boat; he then payed the canvas and the seams which he had caulked with ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... phenomenal movement, for example, and velocity, succession, dates, positions, and innumerable other things are given you in the bargain. But with only an abstract succession of dates and positions you can never patch up movement itself. It slips through their ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... atrociously cruel in his barbarities. And he was thought to be all-powerful when he is so pitifully ineffectual, with all his crude power—the poor old fellow was forever bungling—then bungling again in his efforts to patch up his errors. Indeed, he would be rather a pathetic figure if he were not so monstrous! Still, there is a kind of heathen grandeur about him at times. He drowns his world full of people because his first two circumvented him; then he saves another pair, but things go still worse, so he ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... compensation &c 30; abatement of differences, adjustment, mutual concession. V. compromise, commute, compound; take the mean; split the difference, meet one halfway, give and take; come to terms &c (contract) 769; submit to arbitration, abide by arbitration; patch up, bridge over, arrange; straighten out, adjust, differences, agree; make the best of, make a virtue of necessity; take the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... the camp. When these crazy dogs found a location for the camp they were fortunate enough to find a big herd of buffalo. On their return, before they reached the camp they began to sing a crazy dog song, riding abreast. It means: 'A song to sharpen your knife, and patch up your stomach, for you are going to have something good to eat.' They made a circle, coming to camp from the sunrise, and moved toward the sunset, and then the leaders told the camp they had seen lots of buffalo. Then they dismounted ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon

... his paper a few moments longer, he felt that he ought to modify matters in some way or other. Evidently his wife was not going to patch up peace at a ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... be a sin to allow it; it would be spoiling a saint to patch up a sinner. Thayer's future is too broad to be limited by a futile creature like Lorimer. If he turns Quixotic, I'll poison him. At least, that will ensure his dying in the full ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... plot laid by the French Directory, but it seems certain that it was not made known to that body before it was carried out, and that with Napoleon himself it was a sort of after-thought, sprung from the desire to patch up an immediate peace with Austria on account of the appointment of Hoche to the chief command of the army in Germany. The god to which he immolated Venice was the selfish fear lest another general should reap ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... it trace the noble thoughts of great men, till it finds them mouldered into the common dust of conversation, and used to stop men's mouths, and patch up theories, to keep out the flaws of opinion. Such, for example, are all popular adages and wise proverbs, which are now resolved into the common mass of thought; their authors forgotten, and having no more an ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... personal quarrels about jewels retained in England which James claimed for his wife. Scottish sea-captains had been treated as pirates by the English authorities. Henry, having joined the league against France, wished to patch up the quarrel with James; James, incited by the French, would not make friends with the active enemy of France; the French Queen sent him a message bidding him strike a blow on English ground as her knight. West, [Footnote: Brewer, Henry ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... Judith! Of course my sister would not take it for the world; but if any one could find another bit, just to patch up the part above the ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... stood shakily trying to patch up a wound in his arm. As far as he could tell from a hasty reconnaissance, he was the senior officer present. "Give this to the C.O.: 'Objectives won. Situation on right doubtful. Estimated casualties two hundred.'" He handed the ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... fight, I remember. There must have been a couple of score blood-soaked handkerchiefs (or "sweat-rags") buried in a hole on the field of battle, and the Giraffe was busy the rest of the evening helping to patch up the principals. Later on he took up a small collection for the loser, who happened to be Barcoo-Rot in spite of the advantage of ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson

... themselves were innocent and friendly. Then the whites sent messages to express their regret; and though Martin declined longer to be responsible for the deeds of men of his own color, the Indians consented to patch up another truce. [Footnote: State Dept MSS., No. 71, vol. ii. Martin to Randolph, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... antiquaries, and, perhaps, begin to see the uselessness and folly of destroying ancient buildings for the sake of destroying them, even though they belong to an infidel age. To their credit, the Moors themselves are fond of antiquity in churches, and will patch up a marabet or mosque as long as they can. The Rais, still frightened, suggests that I should return to Tripoli. But I cannot now, I will not. I ought not, for I have acted over all the pains and perils of the journey to Soudan many days and nights, and exhausted myself with expectations, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... by Mrs. Mountstuart, you must go back. I'll do my best to take her away. Should she see you, you must patch up a story and apply to her for a lift. That, I think, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... about it—not a word, Hudson. We'll get the girl here, and patch up this quarrel between her and her young husband. When that's done we'll spring the news ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper

... that, after having been suffered, for half a century, to fall to decay, had undergone some clumsy repairs, merely to render it habitable. The ivy had been torn off the turrets, and the stones not wanted to patch up the breaches of time, and exclude the warring elements, left in heaps in the disordered court. Maria contemplated this scene she knew not how long; or rather gazed on the walls, and pondered on her situation. To the master of this most horrid of prisons, she had, ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... a step will I budge, my Lord Montagu," quoth Robin, bluntly,—"I know how these matters are managed at court. The king will patch up a peace between the duchess and you, and chop off my ears and nose as a liar and common scandal-maker. No, no; denounce the duchess and all the Woodvilles I will; but it shall not be in the halls of the Tower, but on the broad ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... right to warn me," said she, after a long pause. "I never should have consented to this alliance with the daughter of my enemy. It is of no use to patch up old enmities. Charles was humbled and defeated by me, and now comes this Josepha, to revenge her father's losses, and to bring sorrow to my child. Oh, my son, why did you not allow my counsel, and marry the Princess of Saxony? But it is useless ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... pale about the ears," Jimmie conceded, "but I think that's the result of hard work and not enough exercise. He spends all his spare time trying to patch up Beulah instead of tramping and getting out on his horse the way he used to. He's doing a good job on the old dear, but it's some ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... floor o' clean water an' a glass roof an' plenty o' green popple sticks stored in the corners to feed on. They have stiddy weather down thar—no cold winds 'er deep snow to bother 'em. When the roof rots an' breaks in the sunlight an' slides off they patch up the dam with mud an' sticks an' they've got a ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... enough pressure to crumble the hard stone. "I want you to see whether there is trickery in this. Trickery I can fight, for that there are weapons. But if Lumbrilo truly controls forces for which there is no name, then perhaps we must patch up an uneasy peace—or go down in defeat. And, off-worlder, I come from a line of warriors—we do ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North

... hang tattered from the spars, for they have since encountered other winds, and had neither the time nor strength to clear them. But they have contrived to patch up the foresail, and bend on a new jib from some spare canvas found in the stores. With these she is making way at the rate of some five or six knots to the hour, her head East and by South. It is twelve o'clock ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... to keep you comfortable in that respect. Natives never go anywhere without their women. Our shoes were completely worn, beyond possibility of repair, and the hair was entirely worn off our stockings. The consequence was that walking was torture. I could generally manage to patch up my shoes so that I could start out hunting when necessary, well knowing they would last only for a short distance, but trusting to my ambition in the chase to keep me going, and the necessity of the case to get me back ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... in a bag," put in Dick, who was still steadily fishing—"dug it out of a cabbage patch; an' I got a trow'l and dug all our cabbage patch up, but there weren't any babies but there ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... not Boulson; but that was not our business at the time. We who patch up Thomas Atkins when he gets hurt in the interests of his Queen and country are never surprised to find that the initials on his underlinen do not tally with those in the regimental books. When the military millennium ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman

... early period, the futility of the usual scholastic weapons had been seen by the more keen-sighted champions of orthodoxy; and, as the difficulties of the ordinary attack upon science became more and more evident, many of these champions endeavoured to patch up a truce. So began the third stage in the war—the period of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... picture of me when a boy, of all that had since happened to me, and of the waste of years to come—I stopped, faultered, and was going to turn back once more to make a longer truce with wretchedness and patch up a hollow league with love, when the recollection of her words—"I always told you I had no affection for you"—steeled my resolution, and I determined to proceed. You see by this she always hated me, and only played with my credulity till she could find some one ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt

... considered as her principal weakness. Cherbourg had done little to repair the copper of her bottom, which spread out in broad fans and seriously impeded her cutting of the water; and it had been found impossible to do more than to patch up the boilers for the day's business. They were not in a state to inspire the engineers with confidence. The Kearsarge, on the other hand, was in first rate condition and well in hand. She speedily showed that she could overhaul the Alabama. In fact, the Alabama entered the lists when she should ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... has tried several times to patch up matters with old Uncle Barney, but he will not listen to any explanations. He is rather queer at times, and I suppose he has it strongly fixed in his mind that my father is in some manner responsible for his poverty, and that we think ourselves ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer

... left, Sally! I must patch up Letty's fate myself. Flatter not yourself that she is going to be a good girl and marry in meeting; not she! If there's a wild, scatter-brained, handsome, dissipated, godless youth in all Slepington, it is on him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... answering questions just now, madam," said Arnold Baxter. "We wish to patch up this boat if we can, and at once," and he called ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield

... me, or of trying to patch up a reconciliation between us," she said on a softened note. "Mended things are never reliable. I can neither forget nor forgive what you have said to me to-day, and when you have had time to think things over, you will probably ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... finished my fine new house up at the Point when hither comes that evil being to whom I had sold my sorrowful soul. 'Obadiah,' says he, 'Obadiah Belford, I have a mind to live in New Hope also,' 'Where?' says I. 'Well,' says he, 'you may patch up the old meetinghouse; 'twill serve my turn for a while.' 'Well,' thinks I to myself, 'there can be no harm in that,' And so I did as he bade me— and would not you do as much for one who had served you as well? Alas, your reverence! ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... pleasant hours they had spent together on winter evenings when the lad was home from a voyage and had looked in to see his old master. There had been much to correct, and things of grave importance that Fris had had to patch up for the lad in all secrecy, so that they should not affect his ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... twenty-seven, in January, 1815, Byron married Miss Milbanke,—a lady whom he did not love, but to whom he was attracted by her supposed wealth, which would patch up his own fortunes. He had great respect for this lady and some friendship; but with all her virtues and attainments she was cold, conventional, and exacting. A mystery shrouds this unfortunate affair, which has never been fully revealed. The ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... make ready your rifles! Who can tell now what a day may bring forth? Patch up all quarrels, and stick at no trifles,— Let the world see what your loyalty's worth! Loyalty?—selfishness, cowardice, terror Stoutly will multiply loyalty's sum, When to astonish presumption and error Soon the shout rises—the ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... seem To patch up fragments of a dream, Part of which comes true, and part Beats and ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... boy up, Murphy," said Murray. "Patch up his face the best you can and keep him here until I get back. Understand, keep him here until I get back. Don't let him ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... been a thing to remember with satisfaction all the rest of his life. I do wish our great men would quit saying these flat things just at the moment they die. Let us have their next-to-the-last words for a while, and see if we cannot patch up from them something that will ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... forgiven, dove-like to the end, and her forgiveness stands between them. Kate recognizes it in the word on which the book closes—"We shall never be again as we were." Whether they accept the situation, whether they try to patch up their old alliance—these questions are no affair of the story. With Kate's word the story is finished; the first fineness of their association is lost, nothing will restore it. Milly has made the change by being what she was, ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock

... of a group to the southwest of the country where we found them, having fallen accidentally into the hands of our barbarians. What we could do for the security of our boat was very little indeed. Several wide rents were discovered near both ends, and these we contrived to patch up with pieces of woollen jacket. With the help of the superfluous paddles, of which there were a great many, we erected a kind of framework about the bow, so as to break the force of any seas which might threaten to fill us in that quarter. We also set up two paddle-blades for ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... it was dark, Ludar and I and some dozen others were ordered over the stern in baskets to patch up the holes made by the English shot, and repair the insulted gilding of his Majesty of Spain. No light work it was; suspended betwixt wind and water, groping with lanthorns at our work, rearing and plunging ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... constantly going. The night, however, passed away without any farther accident. It was not until noon, when the weather moderated, that all hands turned to and tried to repair the tattered sails. This operation was almost beyond their power. They managed, however, to patch up a mizen, which enabled the boat once more to stand on her ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston

... been literally packed throughout the convention; and, from the letters we have already received urging us to go hither and thither throughout the West, "The prairies seem to be all on fire with woman's suffrage." While politicians are trying to patch up the Republican party, now near its last gasp, the people in the West are getting ready for the new national party, to combine the best elements of both the old ones, soon to be buried forever out of sight. Woman's suffrage, greenbacks, free trade, homesteads ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the first day a breeze sprang up from the north, and we got up a sail, for we war pretty nigh done, having rowed by turns from the time we pushed off. We war afraid, you see, as they might patch up the other boats and set out after us, though we hoped they mightn't think of it, for these horse Indians don't know nothing of river work. They gave it up at last, and we got safely down to St. Louis. What the trouble was about I never heard, for not one of those who had landed ever got ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... principle ought to extend to every branch of fine art; and we should be prepared to maintain that there never has been, or could have been, a truly great musician, or sculptor, or poet, who was not also a truly good man. In a way the position is defensible enough; for one can, in every contrary instance, patch up the artist's character or else pick holes in his work. Who is to settle what is a truly great work or a truly good man. But a position may be quite defensible, yet obviously untrue. Again, if by great art we mean that which ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... do not I! I pity no mother that puts it out of her power to show maternal love, and humanity, in order to patch up for herself a precarious and sorry quiet, which every blast of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... King's servant, he was his closest friend, the very keeper of his soul; and the King leaned upon him and sought his guidance not only in State affairs, but in the most intimate and domestic matters. Often already had it fallen to Sully to patch up the differences created between husband and ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... the duke were vainly endeavouring to patch up a government without Peel or his personal adherents, Goulburn and Croker, the house of commons and the country gave decisive proofs of their resolution. A vote of confidence in Grey's ministry, proposed by Ebrington, was carried on May 10 by a majority of eighty. Petitions came in from ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... foreign ship of her class. To bring up our navy to the condition in which it stood in 1812 it would not be necessary (although in reality both very wise and in the end very economical) to spend any more money than at present; only instead of using it to patch up a hundred antiquated hulks, it should be employed in building half a dozen ships on the most effective model. If in 1812 our ships had borne the same relation to the British ships that they do now, not all the courage and skill of our sailors would ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... fellow that made the discovery of Dyot's(9) counterfeiting the stamp-paper. Lavallin has been this fortnight hunting after the clerk, to kill him; but the fellow was constantly employed at the Treasury, about the discovery he made: the wife had made a shift to patch up the business, alleging that the clerk had told her her husband was dead and other excuses; but t'other day somebody told Lavallin his wife had intrigues before he married her: upon which he goes down in a rage, shoots his wife through the head, then falls on his sword; and, to make ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... a lot of old junk of that sort in his storeroom," volunteered Hard. "I believe you could patch up one. Those sounds have died away—the fight's over," he added. "Let's go back and have a look, and see what ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... give them their due, they did abundance of good to the Church. They saved many a congregation from ignorant, ungodly, drunken teachers. That sort of men that intended no more in the ministry than to say a sermon as readers say their common prayers, and so patch up a few good words together to talk the people asleep with on Sunday, and all the rest of the week go with them to the ale-house and harden them in sin; and that sort of ministers that either preached against a holy life, or preached as men that never were acquainted with it; all those ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... Who to patch up his fame, or fill his purse, Still pilfers wretched plans, and makes them worse; Like gypsies, lest the stolen brat be known, Defacing first, then ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... to this wish the contradictions of sinners were too manifold. One must be stony-hearted not to feel some pity for him, as, just when he thinks he has evaded an orthodox brick, the tile of a disbeliever in the Fourth Gospel whizzes at him; or as, while he is trying to patch up his romantic reconstructions of imaginary Jewish history and religion, the push of some aggressive reviewer bids him make good his challenge to metaphysical theologians. But this interest ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury

... from San Jose attempted to patch up the broken skull after removing a large piece and leaving the envelope of the brain exposed. He had read something about trephining and inserting silver plates, and he hammered out a silver dollar and set it like a piece of ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... Mr. Gibney on a pile of old hemp hawser coiled on the bulkhead. "Danged if I don't feel sorry for old Scraggsy, for all his meanness," he declared. "It's goin' to cost him five hundred dollars to patch up the old boiler an' keep the Maggie runnin' until he can ship a new boiler. The ol' fool don't know a thing about the job himself an' there's four men down there, without a foreman, soldierin' on him an' soakin' him a dollar an' a half an hour overtime. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... spleen, but I plainly perceived at every operation that the farther we proceeded, we found the defects increase upon us, in number and bulk; from all which I justly formed this conclusion to myself, that whatever philosopher or projector can find out an art to sodder and patch up the flaws and imperfections of Nature, will deserve much better of mankind and teach us a more useful science than that so much in present esteem, of widening and exposing them (like him who held anatomy to be the ultimate end of physic). ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift

... with thy master; and art sorry for it, and for the mischief thou hast occasioned between him and me; and then I'll pity thee, and persuade him to pack thee off, with a hundred or two of guineas; and some honest farmer may take pity of thee, and patch up thy shame, for the sake of the money; and if nobody will have thee, thou must vow penitence, and be as humble as ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... lovingly from the hanger and helped his customer into it. Then he fell back, eyes lit with enthusiastic amazement. Only fate could have brought together this man and this suit, so manifestly destined for each other since the hour when Eve began to patch up fig ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... boats have gone into winter quarters, your Honor. The Mayflower went into dry dock last week to be calked up; the Pinta and the Santa Maria are slow and cranky; the Monitor and the Merrimac I haven't really had time to patch up; and the Valkyrie is two months overdue. I cannot make up my mind whether she is lost or kept back by excursion steamers. Hence I really don't know what I can lend you. Any of these boats I have named you could have had for nothing; ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... that needed relief: and the statute of 43 Eliz. seems entirely founded on the same principle. But when this excellent scheme was neglected and departed from, we cannot but observe with concern, what miserable shifts and lame expedients have from time to time been adopted, in order to patch up the flaws occasioned by this neglect. There is not a more necessary or more certain maxim in the frame and constitution of society, than that every individual must contribute his share, in order to the well-being of the community: and surely they must be very deficient in sound policy, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... devil knows what; and she spoke to my mother yesterday about repentance, and atonement, and a pack of stuff more, and wanted extreme unction, and to confess to a priest. It would be a fine salve, I fancy, that could patch up the wounds in her conscience; but if this Philip Hastings were to come to her with his grave face and solemn tone, and frighten her still more, he would get any thing out of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... strenuous efforts to patch up the affair failed. Shosshi went about broken-hearted for several days. To have been so near the goal—and then not to arrive after all! What made failure more bitter was that he had boasted of his conquest to his acquaintances, especially to the two who kept the stalls to the right and left ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... Lakes. One day when Brimstone Bill had Babe hitched to one of the old water tanks and was making his early morning trip, the tank sprung a leak when they were half way across Minnesota. Bill saved himself from drowning by climbing Babe's tail but all efforts to patch up the tank were in vain so the old tank was abandoned and replaced by one of the new ones. This was the beginning of the Mississippi River and the truth of this is established by the fact that the old Mississippi is ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead

... With one mighty assault its opponents have often razed to the ground the work of years. Yet, as soon as the eyes of its destroyers were turned, a multitude of loving hands and broken hearts set to work to patch up its scattered fragments and build it anew. ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... daresay you know, I disappointed him, and can in no way benefit by his death. In fact, he had the power to refuse me what was morally my right, and no doubt he exercised it. Still, now it's too late, I feel ashamed that I never tried to patch up the quarrel. ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... matter, his pride itself fought hard with his pride. That is the wont of savages. Would it not be better, now Bertram Ingledew had fairly disappeared for ever from their sphere, to patch up a hollow truce for a time at least with Frida, and let all things be to the outer eye exactly as they had always been? The bewildering and brain-staggering occurrences of the last half-hour, indeed, had struck deep and far into his hard Scotch ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... kissed the ugly hands of his Dutch mistresses, and thought it no dishonour. In England you can but belong to one party or t'other, and you take the house you live in with all its encumbrances, its retainers, its antique discomforts, and ruins even; you patch up, but you never build up anew. Will we of the New World submit much longer, even nominally, to this ancient British superstition? There are signs of the times which make me think that ere long we shall care as little about King George here, and peers temporal and peers spiritual, as ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... that longing for religion natural to man; and hence they endeavor to patch up some sort of a religion from the shreds of truth that are found in physical science, "rari nantes in gurgite vasto." Unfortunately, they are unacquainted with Catholic doctrine, and they see in the conflicting sects of Protestantism no good ground to base their faith upon. Accustomed to ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... get leave to go across the lines again. There doesn't seem to be any chance of a row with the dons; I expect it was all moonshine, from the first. Why, they say Spain is trying to patch up the quarrel between us and France. She would not be doing that, if she had any idea of going to war with ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... supercargo of a Hamburg ship loading with rice for China. We were mounted on a very miscellaneous lot of Lombock ponies, which we had some difficulty in supplying with the necessary saddles, etc.; and most of us had to patch up our girths, bridles, or stirrup-leathers as best we could. We passed through Mataram, where we were joined by our friend Gusti Gadioca, mounted on a handsome black horse, and riding as all the natives do, without saddle ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... Alliance and prepared the way for the secret Treaty of Dover (1670), was the impossibility of settling those religious difficulties which, despite the Act of Uniformity, were more rampant than ever. The king wanted to patch up peace, and to secure some working plan of comprehension or composure, under cover of which the Catholic religion should be tolerated and Presbyterianism formally recognised. But, king though he was, he could not get his way. The Church and the House of Commons, full as the latter was of his pimps ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... can be made on the basis proposed, satisfactorily executed [sic]; and we are not inclined to go out of our way to interfere in the internal government of France, however much we might desire to see it placed in more pacific hands. But I am satisfied we must not encourage our allies to patch up an imperfect arrangement. If they will do so, we must submit; but it should appear, in that case, to be their own act, and not ours.... I must particularly entreat you to keep your attention upon Antwerp. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... Thing there is a throng; Past all bounds the crowding comes; Hard 'twill be to patch up peace 'Twixt the men. This wearies me; Worthier is it far for men Weapons red with gore to stain; I for one would sooner tame Hunger ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... do it himself; and it's the irony of such cases that his employers, after ruining his life, will do all they can to patch up the ruins." ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... myself, "when was there ever a law that couldn't be evaded; a tax that couldn't be shuffled off like an old slipper; a prohibition that a smuggler couldn't row right straight through, or a treaty that hadn't more holes in it than a dozen supplemental ones could patch up? It's a high fence that can't be scaled, and a strong one that can't be broke down. When there are accomplices in the house, it is easier to get the door unlocked than to force it. Receivers make smugglers. Where ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... worrying, but that they must start as soon as they could replenish their stores. This they set about doing at once. New canvas with which to patch up their tents, cartridges for rifle and revolver, and provisions were purchased and lashed to the back of the remaining pack mule, or carried by the Overlanders in small packs on their ponies. As soon as possible, after studying the marked ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower

... sore, helped Tamada patch up the wounded, turning the hunters' quarters into a sick bay, using the table for operation. Beale was the worst off, but Tamada pronounced him not vitally damaged. After he had finished with them he insisted upon Rainey's lying, face ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... to make overtures to or to receive overtures from this military war-party which now is Germany. But, if it he possible so completely to whip the war party that it will somehow be thrown out of power at home—that's the only way they now see out of it. To patch up a peace, leaving the German war party in power, they think, would be ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... Court. Charles counted on having no need to commission a great fleet in the summer. He knew the Dutch were feeling the strain of the war and the destruction of their trade, and would soon have to patch up a peace, and he opened preliminary negotiations. Such negotiations must be prudently backed by an effective force on the war footing. The King had practically disarmed as soon as there was a prospect of peace. But the Dutch had fitted out the fleet in view of possible contingencies, and ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... wonder at ourselves, and curse our mirth. His walk of parts he fatally misplaced, And inclination fondly took for taste; 380 Hence hath the town so often seen display'd Beau in burlesque, high life in masquerade. But when bold wits,—not such as patch up plays, Cold and correct, in these insipid days,— Some comic character, strong featured, urge To probability's extremest verge; Where modest Judgment her decree suspends, And, for a time, nor censures, nor commends; Where critics can't determine on the spot Whether it is in nature ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... reparation made in such case. It is all very well for the man: he can go his ways as if nothing had happened, having had his moment of pleasure, but the girl has to bear the brunt. Some mothers would be content to patch up such an affair for a sum of money; she had known cases of it. But she would not do so. For her only one reparation could make up for the loss ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... rin to convintions, Will be Patrick's home-comforts and joys? Who'll clane up his broghans for Sunday, Or patch up ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... prefer it; only be pleased to observe that a sentiment felt is a fact, and a fact is a truth, and a truth may surely be expressed in a proposition. That is all I am anxious about at present. If so far, at least, we may not patch up the divorce which Mr. Newman has pronounced between the 'intellect and the 'soul,' it is of no use for us to talk about the matter. I say ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... to rivers, they presently patch up a canoe of birch bark, cross over in it, and leave it on the river's bank, if they think they shall not want it; otherwise they carry it ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... was good statesmanship and generalship, too. All subordinate things must bend to the great general interests of the country. It was a good move, for it settled the business. Gomaldo sent in the next day and tried to patch up a truce, but Notice wouldn't see his messengers. He told them they must surrender unconditionally. It was fine, soldierly conduct. ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... close enough to recognize Richard they lowered their weapons, jumped off their horses and kissed our hands, galloped in with us, and held our stirrups to alight. I need not say that we received all the hospitality of a Bedawin life. Richard wanted to patch up a peace between the Wuld Ali and the Mezrab tribe, but in this ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins



Words linked to "Patch up" :   agree, appease, restore, reconcile, concur, bushel, mend, conciliate, hold, repair



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