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Rake   Listen
verb
Rake  v. t.  (past & past part. raked; pres. part. raking)  
1.
To collect with a rake; as, to rake hay; often with up; as, he raked up the fallen leaves.
2.
Hence: To collect or draw together with laborious industry; to gather from a wide space; to scrape together; as, to rake together wealth; to rake together slanderous tales; to rake together the rabble of a town.
3.
To pass a rake over; to scrape or scratch with a rake for the purpose of collecting and clearing off something, or for stirring up the soil; as, to rake a lawn; to rake a flower bed.
4.
To search through; to scour; to ransack. "The statesman rakes the town to find a plot."
5.
To scrape or scratch across; to pass over quickly and lightly, as a rake does. "Like clouds that rake the mountain summits."
6.
(Mil.) To enfilade; to fire in a direction with the length of; in naval engagements, to cannonade, as a ship, on the stern or head so that the balls range the whole length of the deck.
To rake up.
(a)
To collect together, as the fire (live coals), and cover with ashes.
(b)
To bring up; to search out and bring to notice again; as, to rake up old scandals.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rake" Quotes from Famous Books



... wants to be a farmer And with the farmers stand The hay seed on his forehead And a rake within ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... sinking frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people—Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay, up yonder. He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours. By his knack of sermonising and pious discoursing, he contrived to make a great impression on Mr. Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master became, the more influence he gained. He was relentless in ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... kindled, had burned to the last ash. If he had been there to add more coal in season, it would have survived; but he had been otherwise engaged. There was nothing to be done except rake out the ashes and begin anew. This he did. When he removed the kettle he decided at once that it was much too small for the purpose required of it. To boil a lobster of that size in a kettle of that size would necessitate boiling one end at a time, and that, both for the victim ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... brothers used the ordinary scythes, he carried one with twelve blades, and managed it so cleverly, in spite of the jests of his companions, that he cut as much grass as all of them together. And again, when they went to turn over the hay, Niezguinek used a rake with twelve teeth, and so cleared twelve plots of ground with every stroke. His haycock, too, was as large as a hill in comparison with those of his brothers. Now, the day after the making of the haycocks the old man and ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko

... more convenient to those who used the island. By getting down her spars and other hamper, the power of the winds would be much lessened, though Mark felt little apprehension of the winds at that season of the year, so long as the sea could not make a long rake against the vessel. He believed the ship safe for the present, and felt the hope of still finding a passage, through the reef to leeward, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... beggar; and as for the fashionable society which he saw, he saw it from my Lord Bagwig's side-table, whose flatterer and hanger-on he was known to be. Regarding Mrs. Barry, the lady of Castle Brady would make insinuations still more painful. However, why should we allude to these charges, or rake up private scandal of a hundred years old? It was in the reign of George II that the above-named personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now; and do not the Sunday papers and the courts of law supply ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... constantly reiterated in the face of facts,—reiterated with undoubting assurance and a certain complacency which seems to say, "Thank God! we are not as this man was." There is a satisfaction which some people feel in spotting their man,—Burns drank; Coleridge took opium; Byron was a rake; Goethe was cold: by these marks we know them. The poet found it necessary, as I have said, in later years, under social pressure, for the sake of the work which was given him to do, to fortify himself with a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... tax themselves with not so much as a single Christian thought about ameliorating the wretchedness of Germany and securing for the oppressed Church somewhere a shelter of defense against the murderous attacks of devil, Pope and Turks. The noblemen rake and rend, robbing whomever they can, prince or otherwise, and especially the poor Church; like actual devils, they trample under foot pastors and preachers. Townsmen and farmers, too, are extremely avaricious, extortionate and treacherous; they fearlessly ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... consequence of all these conditions all the dominating positions along the Austro-Italian frontier were strongly fortified by the Austrians. They have long occupied the crest of every mountain in such a way that their guns could rake any Italian approach from below, along a front of 450 miles—about the distance from New York to Buffalo, and almost the same as that of the whole French-British-Belgian eastern ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... dryly, "There he stands,"—pointing to Wolfe, who stood with a group of men, leaning on his ash-rake. ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis

... stop and back her. Sighting the first gun himself, he directed the man at the lockstring to fire. He waited a moment for the smoke to clear away, and then, with his glass, he saw several forms lying on the wharf by the side of the cotton pile. He had fired so as to rake the rear of this breastwork, and before the soldiers there understood what he was doing. Those who had not dropped before the fire were picking up their wounded companions, and retreating with all ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic

... Or else what followes? Exe. Bloody constraint: for if you hide the Crowne Euen in your hearts, there will he rake for it. Therefore in fierce Tempest is he comming, In Thunder and in Earth-quake, like a Ioue: That if requiring faile, he will compell. And bids you, in the Bowels of the Lord, Deliuer vp the Crowne, and to take mercie On the poore ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... was spoiled. The mistress and the older children and the old servants were all of the same opinion. Ruster caused them a suffocating disgust. They were moreover afraid that when he and Liljekrona began to rake up the old memories, the artist's blood would flame up in the great violinist and his home would lose him. Formerly he had not been able to remain ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... Tyrrell had let her alone! It is of no use to rake up these things, my dear Rosamond. Let her come to Sirenwood, and do such good as she can there, if it can comfort her. It was for my sake that the unconscious girl was brought here to have her life spoilt, and I would not stand in the way of what ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... did, is not our affair, since we were not then, as we are now, responsible for the good government of Zululand; and seeing the amount of slaughter that goes on under our protectorate, it ill becomes us to rake up these things against Cetywayo. What we have to consider is his foreign policy, not the ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... silent and sat with a half-made cigarette in his fingers thinking gravely. Rosalind, at a writing-table behind him, moved her lips at Sally to convey an injunction. Sally, quickly apprehensive, understood it as "Let him alone! Don't rake up the electrocution!" But Sally's native directness betrayed her, and before she had time to think, she had said, "All right; I won't." The consequence of which was that Fenwick—being, as Sally afterwards phrased it, "too ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... Marmont proposed a plan to the First Consul, so bold that the enemy could not suspect it. It was nothing less than to move the artillery along the highroad, notwithstanding that the enemy could rake it. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... sooner had they reached the sledge-track than they gave way to their terror, and ran in a body for the fort. Those within, seeing this confused rush of men from the distance, mistook them for the enemy; and an over-zealous soldier touched the match to a cannon which had been pointed to rake the sledge-track. Had not the piece missed fire, from dampness of the priming, he would have done more execution at one shot than the Iroquois in all ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... and frowned—"that is not what I was going to say." (What she had really been going to say was—"until her marriage.") "And why do you rake up that old story? I thought it had all been forgotten ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... itself, perishes by the assistance it receives. But the contrivers of this scheme of Government will not trust solely to the military power, because they are cunning men. Their restless and crooked spirit drives them to rake in the dirt of every kind of expedient. Unable to rule the multitude, they endeavour to raise divisions amongst them. One mob is hired to destroy another; a procedure which at once encourages the ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... disappeared, and Montague had never seen her again. He knew that she had gone to New Orleans to live, and he heard rumours that she was very unhappy, that her husband was a spendthrift and a rake. Scarcely a year after her marriage Montague heard the story of his death by an ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair

... crawled faintly upstairs again, and had just fallen asleep with her head on the window-sill, when a wandering dog had to come directly under the window, and sit there and bark for half an hour at a rake-handle. ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... the land within, and another dark strip fringing the barren Eilean Chaisteil outside,—lay the Betsey, looking wonderfully diminutive, but evidently a little thing of high spirit, taut-masted, with a smart rake aft, and a spruce outrigger astern, and flaunting her triangular flag of blue in the sun. I pointed first to the manse, and then to the yacht. The minister ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... out all my store of tools, and gave every man a digging-spade, a shovel, and a rake, for we had no barrows or ploughs; and to every separate place a pickaxe, a crow, a broad axe, and a saw; always appointing, that as often as any were broken or worn out, they should be supplied without grudging out of the general stores that ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... began to retrace their way down the long road, and after a moment Hawley said, "We'll find out all about it anyway, for Mr. Whitaker will tell us. He's all on our side. That's what comes of having his grandson in our class. Say, fellows, you just ought to have heard Mott rake over our class. He had the nerve to stand there and tell Mr. Whitaker that we were the worst lot that had ever ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson

... were all my share, With equal soul I'd see Her nine-and-thirty sisters fair, Yet none more fair than she. Choose ye your need from Thames to Tweed, And I will choose instead Such lands as lie 'twixt Rake and Rye, Black Down and ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... and in the ladies' drawing-room each fresh piece of news was torn with avidity. The consumption of notepaper was extraordinary. Two, three, four, and even five sheets of paper were often filled with what these scavengeresses could rake out of the gutters of gossip. 'Ah! me arm aches, and the sleeve of me little coat is wore; I am so eager to write it all off to me ant, that I am too impatient to wait to take it off,' was the verbal form in which the girl in red explained her feelings ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... on, and stand upside down on shelf in cellar. Pick cranberries this month. Then cover the bog with a foot of water to drown bugs and to protect from frost. Rake up the fallen leaves and use as a mulch for flowers and shrubs. Hardwood leaves like oak and chestnut contain more plant food than those from soft wooded trees.—Garden and Farm ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various

... will tell you frankly that the circumstances of married life have hitherto hampered the expression of that which is in me, and confined the scope of my individuality within narrow and uncongenial limits. I am not complaining; I have no intention to rake up the past; but it is proper you should know that I believe myself capable of larger undertakings than have yet been afforded me, and worthy of ampler recognition than I have yet received. If I accept you as a husband, it will be because ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... of a minute!" he cried. "Carrington is out there with the guns! As soon as their troops are far enough back he'll open on us with the cannon, and he'll rake this fort like a hurricane beating upon a forest. Only the earthworks will protect us ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... are behind it the better for us. It is sickening to hear men talk as though they were more refined than was the Son of God! Such preaching is like raking the garden with the teeth upwards. You may as well have no rake at all, if you do not use ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... against preferring a Man of Pleasure to a Man of Probity, upon that dangerous, but too commonly received Notion, That a Reformed Rake makes the best Husband. ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson

... said it t' my face an' be done with it. 'Yuh can know a man's face but yuh can't know his heart,' as the sayin' is, an' it's the same way with women—anyway, it's the same way with Mis' Beckman. You can know her face a mile off, but yuh never know who she's goin' t' rake over the coals next. As the sayin' is: 'The tongue of a woman, at last it biteth like a serpent an' it stingeth like an addle,' an' I guess it's so. Anyway, Mis' Beckman's does. I do b'lieve on my soul—what's the matter, ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... "Ay, and a rake. A-ah!" muttered the old man after a moment, drawing a long breath, "if only that boy of hers weren't blind! But he doesn't carry the name, while you."—He broke off with a savage laugh. "What's that you said a moment ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... while he watched events, Solomon got a rake and began gathering together the few autumn leaves which had fluttered down in his front yard. It was not useless labor, for they would "come in handy" later in ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson

... said a gentle voice, pointing to a shaded window. "He is asleep now, and we must have the window open for air this sultry evening. I would not rake that bed ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... scales, exclaiming: "What in the world do you suppose can be the matter with me?" She had been a beautiful woman, a "belle" of "Miss Margaret's" day; she had married a man who was rich and handsome and witty—and a rake. Now he was drunk all the time, and two of his children had died in hospital, and another had arms that came out of joint, and had to be put in plaster of Paris for months at a time. His wife, the one-time darling of society, ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... was Sunstruck, being too Lazy to move into the Shade, and next Day he Passed Away without an Effort. The Widow gave him the best Funeral of the Year and then put all the Money she could rake and scrape into a ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade

... made the wine fly with a whirl. I hunted up old Bill and Dad Ryan, and made up my mind we would tackle the gentry and given them something to spend their money for. Bill opened up, and the young sprigs of the aristocracy began to pile up the bills, which Bill was not slow to rake in. There was nothing mean about Bill, and he didn't refuse to take gold watches and sparklers; and after the game closed, some of the fellows resembled picked ducks. They wanted to redeem their watches and diamonds, ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... said Ralph, after a short term of silence, during which he had eyed the sufferer keenly, 'to think that the man about town, the rake, the ROUE, the rook of twenty seasons should be brought to this pass ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... plainly anxious to believe her accusation. Perhaps it flattered her a little. Perhaps it lent him an added touch of glamor. He was wondering how he should satisfy her. He could remember no hearts that his fascination had broken. He could rake up ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... indifferent to our rulers, to supply them with this powerful and universal excitement in its highest degree of moral influence, or in its lowest degree of impurity; to bring before them, with all the attractions of the drama, the memory of heroes and sages, patriots and martyrs, or leave them to rake for the indulgence of eye and ear in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... buying with borrowed money all sorts of dainties; he answers, because he is unwilling to be reckoned sordid, or of a mean spirit: he is praised by some, condemned by others. Fufidius, wealthy in lands, wealthy in money put out at interest, is afraid of having the character of a rake and spendthrift. This fellow deducts 5 per cent. Interest from the principal [at the time of lending]; and, the more desperate in his circumstances any one is, the more severely be pinches him: he hunts out the names of young fellows that have just put on the toga virilis under rigid ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... blinds. By offering a ha'penny to the one who swept and raked the garden paths most thoroughly, the garden path was swept and raked until the weeds and the soiled gravel had been turned over and buried out of sight, and with no worse damage than a bump on Tom's forehead, where the handle of the rake had struck him, and some tears on Debby's part because she had lost ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... so faithfully that it had become one of the facets of the polyhedron. Such men do not love, as a woman defines love; they merely have the mating instinct. And even lust finds a cold hearth in such hearts, though on occasion it will rake the embers together and make shift to blow them into some brief, fierce flame. At times, Farley's thought of Ardea was libertine; but oftener she figured as the woman who would grace the home of affluence, ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... regarded and as such accepted in every sense by the society to which these gentlemen belong. Another gentleman now has his fourth wife, and he, too, is a most strenuous believer, and not his bitterest enemy can rake up the smallest accusation against his character. He, too, is a strong and upright man, fully capable of another wife if time should chance to bring it about. Now, the odd part of it is that, having married four times, and each time in the same village, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... know of the licentiousness of manners under Charles II., we are still lost in astonishment at the audacious ribaldry of Wycherley and Congreve. Decency is not merely violated in the grossest manner in single speeches, and frequently in the whole plot; but in the character of the rake, the fashionable debauchee, a moral scepticism is directly preached up, and marriage is the constant subject of their ridicule. Beaumont and Fletcher portrayed an irregular but vigorous nature: nothing, however, can be more repulsive than rude depravity coupled with claims to higher refinement. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... them through the open front of the shed to the docks outside. The boats had gone out at three o'clock in the morning, he said, in the deep dark. They were coming in now heavily, loaded high with horny oysters, and Ez pointed out the rake-set iron nets with which the shellfish were dragged from their beds. "Got 'em out of ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means

... story, the moral, in both is nearly the same. The wild course of riot and extravagance, ending in the one with driving the Prodigal from the society of men into the solitude of the deserts, and in the other with conducting the Rake through his several stages of dissipation into the still more complete desolations of the mad-house, in the play and in the picture, are described with almost equal force and nature. The levee of the Rake, which forms the subject of the second plate in the ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... now. Those rake-hell counsellors were laughing, and bantering, and sparring after their wont. The carriage swayed and jerked, as one got in, and then again as the other followed. The door clapped, and the coach was now jogging ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... was on his hands and knees planting out young cabbages, but he jumped up and ran after Peter, waving a rake and calling ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... was given to him, Mansfield was fascinated with his opportunity, but he kept his counsel. He applied every resource of his ability to the composition of his performance of the decrepit old rake. He sought specialists on the infirmities of roues; he studied specimens in clubs, on the avenue, and in hospitals; and in the privacy of his own room he practiced make-ups for the part every spare moment. The rehearsals themselves were sufficiently ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... been established at the Hall before Rebecca's fascinations had won the heart of that good-natured London rake, as they had of the country innocents whom we have been describing. Taking her accustomed drive, one day, she thought fit to order that "that little governess" should accompany her to Mudbury. Before ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the wheel dropped a friendly nod at Jim. He waited till the wheel had stopped and saw the man behind it rake in his chips before he spoke. Then, as he scattered more chips here and there over the board, he welcomed Yeager with ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... The young rake laughed so heartily at this idea that he did not notice that Hemstead's acknowledgment was frigidly slight; but ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... Mary's character, important though its exculpation be to her, is not really the point of chief practical interest in this case. Suppose all Mr. Wood's defamatory allegations to be true—suppose him to be able to rake up against her out of the records of the Antigua police, or from the veracious testimony of his brother colonists, twenty stories as bad or worse than what he insinuates—suppose the whole of her own statement to be false, and even the whole of ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince

... or a chaplaincy, or something; or rather, I expect we must get it for him. Oh, no, we have no Church influence, and we don't know any bishops; but one can always rake up influence, and get to know people, if one ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... of the leader of the community whom Jones had promised to rake over the coals that ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... outside the village there was a pond, and round the pond was a crowd of people. And they had got rakes, and brooms, and pitchforks, reaching into the pond; and the gentleman asked what was the matter. "Why," they say, "matter enough! Moon's tumbled into the pond, and we can't rake her out anyhow!" So the gentleman burst out a- laughing, and told them to look up into the sky, and that it was only the shadow in the water. But they wouldn't listen to him, and abused him shamefully, and he got away as ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... you damn ole skinflint," he was apostrophizing Porter, "an' I'll be next the best they can do, an' stan' in on the rake-off. Gee! I thought they was out fer a trial," he muttered, looking disconsolately at the three as they cantered the first part of the journey. "I'll ketch 'em at the half, on the off ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... If you do, I'll leave you at once. Look at the women who are playing. Is there one there whom it would not disgrace you to touch? Look what they are. Look at their cheeks, and their eyes, and their hands. Those men who rake about the money are bad enough, but the women ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... to rake up any man's faults; but when an editor begins to suggest some new man against whom nothing is known (except that he wrote indifferent verse)—who is not even known to have been on speaking terms with Suckling—as the proper target of Suckling's coarse raillery, we have a right ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... not, so help me God! four words of truth in your intolerable libel! You are a man; you are old, and might be the girl's father; you are a gentleman; you are a scholar, and have learned refinement; and you rake together all this vulgar scandal, and propose to print it in a public book! Such is your chivalry! But, thank God, sir, she has still a husband. You say, sir, in that paper in your hand, that I am a bad fencer; I have to request from you a lesson in the ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... give his hand away? Throw it in the diskyard an' not play it none; jest nacherally let the gent who's needy that a-way rake in the chips on the low hand. Cherokee mebby does it this fashion so's he don't wound the feelin's of this yere victim of his gen'rosity. Thar's folks who turns sens'tive an' ain't out to take alms none, who's feelin's he spar's that a-way by losin' to 'em ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... Evelina could barely see the tip of the red feather that bobbed rakishly in his hat. Once he disappeared, leaving the dog to keep a reluctant guard over the spade and scythe. When he came back, he had a rake and a large basket, which made ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... Fanshawe's portrait (reproduced here), the original of that engraved in her Memoirs in 1830 (by no means too faithfully); portraits of her husband Sir Richard, by Dobson [Footnote: An interesting portrait of Sir Richard in fancy dress by Dobson is at West Horsley Place.] and Lely; Sir Simon (the rake), with Naseby Field in the background: Sir Richard's grandfather, Thomas, Remembrancer to Queen Elizabeth; Alice, the second wife of Sir Richard's cousin, John of Parsloes (the daughter of his cousin Sir Thomas Fanshawe of Jenkins, and the mother-in-law of the Duke of ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... man with the muck rake," said Marjorie, quoting from her old love, Pilgrims Progress, "don't you know there was a crown held above his head, and his eyes were on the ground and he could not ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... than ever this season, was earning her father's commendation as his "right-hand man." She insisted on driving the four horses which drew the binder in the harvest. In the haying she operated the horse-rake, and helped man the hay-fork in filling the barns. She grew as tanned as if she had spent the time at the seashore or on the links; and with every month she added to her charm. The scarlet of her ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... of them showed but a sign of weakening he would cut him down upon the spot. But the hairy scoundrels who made up the crew of the Royal James had no idea of lying there with their ship on its side, while two other ships—for the Sea Nymph was now afloat—should sail around them, rake their decks, and shatter them to pieces. So the crew consulted together, despite their captain's roars and oaths, and many of them counselled surrender. Their vessel was much farther inshore than the two others, and no matter what happened afterward they ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... title-page in mauve. Trifles may be significant; whether this symbol was suggested by the editor, or whether the editor was influenced by it, are questions deserving thought. Turning to matters less subtle, we wish that Mr. Alexander Carlyle had not found it necessary to rake up the ashes which reticence had allowed to grow cold. Also, we wish that he had adopted some other policy towards Jane Welsh; the pin, even between deft fingers, is an ignoble and unattractive weapon. In his notes he contrives a small and unpleasant sensation ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... could not permit my scientific calm to be interrupted by the blackmailing visits of so insignificant a person. And then after many years you came, Maisie. You also got between me and that work which was life to me. You also showed that you would rake up this old matter and bring dishonour upon a name which has stood for something in science. You also—but you will forgive me. I have held on to life for your sake as an atonement for my sins. Now, I go! Cumberledge—your ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... be written on the reasons why such names as Sir John Brute, Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, Sir Peter Teazle, Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, Lord Foppington, Lord Rake, Colonel Bully, Lovewell, Heartfree, Gripe, Shark and the rest were regarded as a matter of course in "the comedy of manners," but have become offensive to-day, except in deliberate imitations of the eighteenth-century style. The explanation does not lie merely in the contrast ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... sure you all thought they were going to marry each other once. And they constantly dine together tete-a-tete. Now that's a very good start. Are you quite sure he hasn't got a wife and family in Egypt, or she a husband and family somewhere else? I don't want to rake up family skeletons." ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... nobody who is not a fool would think of painting that homely Saxon peasant-monk's face without the warts and the wrinkles. But it is quite as unhistorical, and a great deal more wicked, to paint nothing but the warts and wrinkles; to rake all the faults together and make the most of them; and present them in answer to the question: 'What sort of a man was ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... this juncture our brigade started back on the road along the edge of the woods, and soon reached the Warrenton road leading to the Stone Bridge. Our regiment preserved good order until they had nearly reached the bridge; the enemy had a battery in position to rake the road over which the retreat was being conducted, and on arriving in proximity to the bridge, we found it to be completely blocked with teams; a large army wagon had, in crossing, been struck by a shell and the horses killed. The battery of the 2d Rhode Island ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke

... times and the new touch each other and mix up; where the women use towels, and table-cloths, and bed-spreads, of their mothers' own hand-weaving, and hem their new ones with sewing-machines brought by travelling agents to their doors; where the men mow and rake their fields with modern inventions, but only get their newspapers once a week; where the "help" are neighbors' girls, who wear overskirts and high hats, and sit at the table with the family; where there are rag carpets ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... which, planted with osiers, leads to a small meadow belonging to Fardorougha Donovan. In this meadow, his son Connor is now making hay, and on seeing Flanagan approach, he rests upon the top of his rake, and exclaims ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... that old wart-legged ostrich of a rooster of her'n to lead 'em. They'd almost peck the seeds out of my hand, and the minit I'd turn my back they was over into that patch, right foot, left foot, kick heel and toe, and swing to pardners—and you couldn't see the sun for dirt. And at every rake that rooster lifts soil enough ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... booming of cannon clearly indicated to us that hot work was being done by our comrades below. It had been hoped that that column would be able to strike the enemy in flank at Brandy Station, in the early part of the day, giving us an opportunity to rake them furiously in front. Hence we were somewhat retarded in our movements, waiting or expecting the combinations and juxtapositions which had been planned. But, failing in this, at length we advanced towards the station, where, at ten o'clock, we engaged ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... confesses that she sent him down to Hades to hunt the Death swan, so Lemminkainen's mother hastens down to the River of Death, only to learn her son has perished. Hastening back to the blacksmith Ilmarinen, the frantic mother beseeches him to make her a rake with a handle five hundred fathoms long, and armed with this implement begins to dredge the river. Presently she fishes out one by one the garments and various fragments of her son! Thanks to powerful incantations she restores Lemminkainen to life, speech, and motion, whereupon the youth thanks her, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... poignant expression. Within those four walls the noise was so startlingly loud that, in spite of himself, the bear drew back—not intending to retreat, indeed, but only to consider. As it chanced, however, seeing out of only one eye, he backed upon the handle of a hay rake which was leaning against the wall. The rake very properly resented this. It fell upon him and clutched at his fur like a live thing. Startled quite out of his self-possession, he retreated hurriedly into the moonlight, for further consideration of these unexpected ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... continued, "but de Lor' ees my strong 'an my sheel." She was speaking very slowly, and had bent over the fire to rake the ashes together. She went on muttering some more of the Bible texts she always called on in any perplexity, until a new idea flashed to her from some uncovered ember, and she turned quickly, laughing in a low, shrill way, "He! ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... live like some we know, Maenius or Nomentanus?" There you go! Still in extremes! in bidding you forsake A miser's ways, I say not, Be a rake. 'Twixt Tanais and Visellius' sire-in-law A step there is, and broader than a straw. Yes, there's a mean in morals: life has lines, To north or south ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... hands ashore, and I suppose he'll have Squire Cleaves, who's as sharp as a razor new set, and he'll rake us all ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... Kit for their partner—I could not but think them bewitched, but they all reasoned with themselves that Sir Kit would make a good husband to any Christian but a Jewish, I suppose, and especially as he was now a reformed rake; and it was not known how my lady's fortune was settled in her will, nor how the Castle Rackrent estate was all mortgaged, and bonds out against him, for he was never cured of his gaming tricks; but that was the only fault he had, ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth

... on Henry. If he chose to question the propriety of the Swiss mission, it was perhaps bad taste in him, but after all fair political game; but to speak of one so nearly connected with him, and whom he had affected always to maintain intimacy with, as a person wholly unknown, to rake into his diplomatic life, and by implication accuse him of overstating his losses in his claim for compensation fifteen years ago, shows such a total absence of all feeling that I cannot trust myself ever again to exchange ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... think she might consider herself precious lucky. It's only that'—he looked dubious for a moment—'I'm not quite sure whether she's the kind of girl to be content with a husband she found she couldn't convert. I can imagine her marrying a rake on the hope of bringing him to regular churchgoing, but then Mutimer doesn't happen to be a blackguard, so he ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... consideration in all the families where there are marriageable daughters. M. and Madame Gerard, perfumers in the Rue St Martin, are also of the party. The perfumer enacts the gallant gay Lothario, and in his own district has the reputation of a prodigious rake, though he is ugly, and ill-made, and squints. But he fancies he overcomes all these drawbacks by covering himself with odours and perfumes—accordingly, you smell him half an hour before he comes in sight. His wife is young and pretty. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... my side; What is the use with daily toil To war with weeds, to clear the soil, And with keen intermittent labour To graft and prune for fruit with flavour The peach and plum, if such as he, Voracious vermin, may make free? Give them the roller or the rake, And crush as ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... Rake (Lord), a nobleman of the old school, fond of debauch, street rows, knocking down Charlies, and seeing his guests drunk. His chief boon companions are Sir John Brute and Colonel Bully.—Vanbrugh, The Provoked ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... among the dense vines and weeds of the swampy land. Mala suerte! When you take away from an Esperandan his coffee, you abstract his patriotism and 50 per cent. of his value as a soldier. The men began to rake up the precious stuff; but I beckoned Kearny back along the trail where they would not hear. The ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... neighbors to dinner at the Wild Goose. There was no refusing him, for he had got the complete upper-hand of the community, and the peaceful burghers all stood in awe of him. But what a time would the quiet, worthy men have, among these rake-hells, who would delight to astound them with the most extravagant gunpowder tales, embroidered with all kinds of foreign oaths; clink the can with them; pledge them in deep potations; bawl drinking ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... and desolate at home, stripped of my boast, my hope, my consolation, my helper, my counsellor, and my guide, (you know in part what I have lost, and would to God I could clear myself of all neglect and fault in that loss,) yet thus, even thus, I would rake up the fire under all the ashes that oppress it. I am no longer patient of the public eye; nor am I of force to win my way and to justle and elbow in a crowd. But, even in solitude, something may be done for society. The meditations ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... laugh with a harvest.' Nothing was said about the value of the manure obtained from the consumption of a ton of oil-cake, or malt-combs, or bran, or clover-hay. For many centuries, the hoe, the spade, and the rake constituted Adam's ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris

... likely to happen, had laid his express command on her never to see Hugh Trevor, my father, more, on the very night that she eloped. Add to which, she had the example of an elder sister, to terrify her from such dereliction of duty; who, having married a rake, had been left a widow, poor, desolate, and helpless, and obliged to live an unhappy dependent on her offended father. 'I'll please my eye though I break my ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... pathetic hoeing; but it was neither effective nor finished. When completed, the bed looked somewhat as if a hen had scratched it; there was that touching unevenness about it. I think no one could look at it and not be affected. To be sure, Polly smoothed it off with a rake and asked me if it wasn't nice; and I said it was. It was not a favorable time for me to explain the difference between puttering hoeing and the broad, free sweep of the instrument which kills the weeds, spares the plants, and loosens the soil without leaving it in holes and hills. But, after ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... on,' Lucy said absently, as she slid down to the ground; to which the parrot replied, 'Certainly not. I wish you wouldn't rake up that old story. It was quite false. I never did put a kettle ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit

... tenor of agreeable timbre, and he was gentle, even to womanliness. Indeed, he was like a receptive, lovable old woman, the kind he celebrates so often. He never smoked, his only drink was water. I doubt if he ever drank spirits. His old friends say "No," although he is a terrible rake in print. Without suggesting effeminacy, he gave me the impression of a feminine soul in a masculine envelope. When President Lincoln first saw him he said: "Well, he looks like a man!" Perhaps Lincoln knew, for his remark has other ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... Creek Cottage, Mrs. Atherley will say to me, "That's an Amphilobertus Gemini," pointing to something which I hadn't noticed behind a rake. ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... it was. Mr. Knowlton had got a rake in hand, his coat hung on the fence, and he was raking hay as busily as the best of them. Diana gave a little sigh, and turned to her pan of berries. This young officer was a new language to her, and she would have liked, she thought, to spell out a little more of its graceful peculiarities. ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... used to ride a-hunting in a tie-wig. The interpretation of these outward signs may not be very obvious to modern readers; but it is plain from other indications that he was one of the frequenters of coffee-houses, aimed at being something of a rake and a wit, was on speaking terms with Dryden, and familiar with the smaller celebrities of literature, a regular attendant at theatres, a friend of actresses, and able to present himself in fashionable circles and devote complimentary verses ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... announced the coming of the count. Accompanied by several friends and by servants bearing torches, he hurried forward, a naked sword in hand. His gloomy eyes seemed to pierce the shadows and to rake even the darkest corners of ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac

... for the wild Sea Rovers who gather at Cowes and Southampton. The Rover may always be recognised on shore—and, by-the-way, he stays ashore a good deal—for his nautical clothing is spick and span new, the rake of his glossy cap is unspeakably jaunty, and the dignity of his gesture when he scans the offing with a trusty telescope is without parallel in history. When the Rover walks, you observe a slight roll which no doubt is acquired during long experience of tempestuous ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... tent. It stood a little within the royal garden of Belem and (the weather being chilly) the guard of the gate usually kept a small brazier alight for her. This evening for some reason he had neglected it, and the fire had sunk low. She stooped to rake its embers together, and, as she did so, at length her laughter escaped her; soft laughter, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... it was ever my good fortune to know; and years had to pass away before misrepresentation, ridicule, and denunciation, ceased to be the most notable constituents of the majority of the multitudinous criticisms of his work which poured from the press. I am loth to rake any of these ancient scandals from their well-deserved oblivion; but I must make good a statement which may seem overcharged to the present generation, and there is no piece justificative more apt for the purpose, or more worthy of such dishonour, ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley

... but at a disadvantage, for the smaller ships of the English were so quickly handled that they were able to take up positions to rake their enemy, without exposing themselves to the broadsides which would have sunk them. When at last they had crippled their foes, they would either close upon them and carry them by boarding, or, leaving them helpless ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... came back as they talked,—that buoyant world of the reaper and the binder, when harvesting was a kind of Homeric game in which, with rake and scythe, these lusty young sons of the East contended for supremacy in the field. "None of us had an extra dollar," explained Stevens, "but each of us had what was better, good health and a faith in the future. Not one of us had any intention of ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... school hour when he appeared, to her surprise, marshaling a file of some of the smaller children whom he had evidently picked up en route, and who were, to her greater surprise, apparently on the best of terms with him. "Thought I'd better rake 'em in, introduce myself to 'em, and get 'em to know me before school begins. Excuse me," he went on hastily, "but I've a lot more coming up, and I'd better make myself square with them OUTSIDE." But Mrs. ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... county-jail (the only stone building where all the dwellings were of wood) was described as "the house whose underpinning comes up to the eaves"; while the place unmentionable to ears polite was "where they don't rake up the fires at night." A man, speaking to us once of a very rocky clearing, said, "Stone's got a pretty heavy mortgage on that farm"; and another, wishing to give us a notion of the thievishness common in a certain village, capped his climax thus:—"Dishonest! why, they have to take in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... (1-100). The Mistress of Pohjola at length tells her on what errand she has sent him, and the sun gives her full information of the manner of Lemminkainen's death (101-194). Lemminkainen's mother goes with a long rake in her hand under the cataract of Tuoni, and rakes the water till she has found all the fragments of her son's body, which she joins together, and succeeds in restoring Lemminkainen to life by charms and ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... once the news leaked out everybody hastened to glean a fortune in the pearl line; but the boys laughed in their sleeves, knowing full well that they had "skimmed the cream off the pan." True, a few gems were found, but nothing to compare with their rake-off. And as the supply of mussels soon became exhausted the flurry had long since died ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie

... along the Mississippi. It is down by the river side and is the main drinking place in the town. He has got hundreds of dollars from the families of the trappers who come down the river in the spring, and for years he has gathered in about every cent I could rake together. ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... under his orders every time. Whatever Burke done, it was Mann behind him; and when Burke got a rake-off of a thousand, Mann got two. As I'm tellin' you, they arranged the whole affair in my rooms. There was Mann and Burke, and McAdoo, and one or two others, and myself. I ain't claiming to be any better than the rest. I was there—not that I was ag'in you, ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow

... but a single regiment of reserves. The men in the ditch at my side, when I first saw the cannon, were so busily engaged in keeping out the rebels who filled the ditch on the other side of the parapet, that I do not believe they ever saw the two cannon posted to rake the ditch. ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger

... tortoiseshell, horn or cane, with a carved human hand, usually of ivory, mounted at the extremity. Its name suggests the primary use of the implement, but little is known of its history, and it was unquestionably also employed as a kind of rake to keep in order the huge "heads" of powdered hair worn by ladies during a considerable portion of the 18th and the early part of the 19th centuries. The backscratcher varies in length from 12 to 20 in., and the more elaborate examples, which were occasionally hung from the waist, are silver-mounted, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various



Words linked to "Rake" :   scrape, rounder, tool, run down, crease, smooth, rake handle, brush, rake up, rake-off, gather, move, rake in, sweep, libertine, profligate, rip, displace, see, rakehell, glance over, slope, garner, pull together, skim, croupier's rake, pitch, garden rake, rake off, gradient, debauchee



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