Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Fair game   /fɛr geɪm/   Listen
Fair game

noun
1.
A person who is the aim of an attack (especially a victim of ridicule or exploitation) by some hostile person or influence.  Synonyms: prey, quarry, target.  "Everyone was fair game" , "The target of a manhunt"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Fair game" Quotes from Famous Books



... of abstracting a fork, And JENNY would blush with shame At stealing so much as a bottle or cork (A bottle I think fair game). ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... through the grounds, or taking long cross-country walks. Halsey played golf at the Country Club day after day, and after Louise left, as she did the following week, Mr. Jamieson and I were much together. He played a fair game of cribbage, but he ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... though this is perhaps done with good humour, his feelings are wounded by it. At other times when the company are of a less liberal complexion, there is a determination, soon understood among one another, to hunt him down, as if he were fair game. A toast is pressed upon him, though all know that it is not his custom to drink it. On refusing, they begin to teaze him. One jokes with him. Another banters him. Toasts both illiberal and indelicate, are ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... Verloc's case—brings out in front of the London background, from them, too, I obtained those little satisfactions which really count for so much against the mass of oppressive doubts that haunt so persistently on every attempt at creative work. For instance, of Mr. Vladimir himself (who was fair game for a caricatural presentation) I was gratified to hear that an experienced man of the world had said "that Conrad must have been in touch with that sphere or else has an excellent intuition of things," because Mr. Vladimir was "not only possible in detail but quite right in essentials." ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad

... which the girl downstairs lacks. The girl upstairs has the protection of family, friends, social position. The last is of greatest importance, because the woman without a social position has ever been regarded by a large class of men as fair game. The domestic worker sometimes finds this out within the shelter, the supposed shelter, ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... abused. If anything can make me think meanly of my young brothers of the press, it is the way they pelt and pester Susan B. Anthony. For shame, boys! Never a one of you will make the man she is. Even some of our Washington editors turn aside from the fair game. Providence, in its inscrutable wisdom, has provided for them in the Board of Public Works, to vent their virtuous indignation and manly scorn of the woman they are determined shall stand in perpetual pillory ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... Miss Matty draw near, he hastily changed the conversation, and after a little while, turning to me, he said, "Don't be shocked, prim little Mary, at all my wonderful stories. I consider Mrs Jamieson fair game, and besides I am bent on propitiating her, and the first step towards it is keeping her well awake. I bribed her here by asking her to let me have her name as patroness for my poor conjuror this evening; and I don't want to give her ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... pupils in the fair game of love I have had,' he said. 'You shall be the seven and twentieth. Twenty and seven are seven and two. Seven and two are nine. Now nine is the luckiest of ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... arrived at Longmount, bought up this claim, rather for the beauty of the scenery than for any substantial advantages, were cheated in land, goods, oxen, everything, and, to the discredit of the settlers, seemed to be regarded as fair game. Everything has failed with them, and though they "rise early, and late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness," they hardly keep their heads above water. A young Swiss girl, devoted to them both, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... had various other peculiarities, which I brought out one by one, and saddled on to different characters. You see she was a perfect mine of singularities and idiosyncrasies. After I had used her up pretty well, I came dawn upon my poor relations. They were perfectly fair game; what better use could I put them to? I studied them up very carefully, and as there were a good many of them I helped myself freely. They lasted me, with occasional intermissions, I should say, three or four years. I had to be very careful with my poor relations,—they were ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... you what,' said the tall man, who had replaced his high hat more jauntily than before on the side of his head, 'We've caught you now, fair game, and we'll let you off on conditions. You must not be frightened, Miss. Upon my honour and soul, I mean no mischief; do I, Lollipop? I call him Lord Lollipop; it's only chaff, though; his name's Smith. Now, Lolly, I vote we let the prisoners go, when we just introduce them to Mrs. Smith; ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... fox appeared the deerhound made after him, and, in his attempt to dodge, reynard was bowled over on to his back. But directly he was called, the deerhound came back to our heels, apparently not considering the vulpine race fair game. I will not vouch for the accuracy of the story, but our coachman asserts that he saw this deerhound at play with a fox in our kitchen garden,—not a tame fox, but a wild one. I believe, myself, that this actually did happen, as the man who witnessed the occurrence ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... always considered fair game, and there was no finesse in Rover raids upon them. Those were conducted with a cold-blooded determination to strike hard at a long-time foe. However, within the past year there had been several raids on fairings ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton

... on my own knowledge, of being any less innocent than a set of cleaner and better dressed people might have been; for, though one of them stole my pocket-handkerchief, I could not but consider it fair game, under the circumstances, and was grateful to the thief for sparing me my purse. They were quiet, civil, and remarkably good-humored, making due allowance for the national gruffness; there was no riot, no tumultuous swaying to and fro of the mass, such ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... conduct of this nobleman; of other women against whom he had plotted, and whom he had overcome; of the conversation which he, Harry himself, had had with Lord Mohun, wherein the lord made a boast of his libertinism, and frequently avowed that he held all women to be fair game (as his lordship styled this pretty sport), and that they were all, without exception, to be won. And the return Harry had for his entreaties and remonstrances was a fit of anger on Lady Castlewood's part, who would not listen to his accusations; ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... part of the voyage out to China Mr Hazlit's visage had presented a sea-green aspect, edged with yellow. The great Demon of the sea had seized upon and held him with unwonted avidity and perseverance. It appeared to regard him as fair game—as one whose life had been largely devoted to ploughing up its peculiar domain—or rather, inducing others to plough there—and who was therefore worthy of special attention. At all events, the wealthy merchant did not appear above-board until the lapse of two weeks after leaving ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... about a third of the way from Mtende's to Mataka, has lost the friendship of all his neighbours by kidnapping and selling their people; if any of Mataka's people are found in the district between Makanjela and Moembe, they are considered fair game and sold. Makanjela's people cannot piss Mataka to go to the Manganja, so they do what they can by kidnapping and plundering all ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... with a good deal of the Spaniard in them," explained Miss Morley. "We must make certain allowances for their southern temperaments and customs. They're very poor, and they look upon American and British tourists as made of money, and therefore fair game to be fleeced. The best plan is to take them quite calmly, and never lose your temper however excited they may get. When you've lived here for a time you learn how ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... "Consider you fair game?" she said, with her head archly on one side. "That would be arrant poaching. Don't fear, Graydon, I shall never regard any man as game, not even if I should become a fat dowager with a bevy of plain daughters and ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... unfortunate Jews, each party considered them fair game; and there were frequent attacks upon them, and frightful massacres, when the choice of death or of Christianity was offered to them, and the Barons seized their treasures. The curses of Deuteronomy, of the trembling heart, and the uncertainty ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... had a code of ethics which differed in some respects from that ordinarily accepted in their state of life. They honoured their mother—they couldn't help it, as they said themselves, apologetically; but their father they looked upon as fair game for their amusement. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... those actresses, poor little devils, who have to earn all they get. I followed you down the road, you see. That was a dirty trick, if ever I heard one. The City shark was different. If a chap must go a- robbing, that sort of fellow is fair game. But your friend, and then the girls—well, I say again, ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... was sure to be filled with the ships of the detested Christians trafficking in every direction. In the ethics of the Moslem all ships which sailed under the banner of the Cross, no matter to what nation they belonged, were fair game, even supposing that her insignia were the Crescent—well, supposing the spot to be sufficiently remote, dead men tell no tales, and the pirates were to be trusted to see to ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... to know why he himself should have been selected for this singular experience. Why was HE considered fair game for these girls? And, for the matter of that, now that he reflected upon it, why had even this gentle, refined, and melancholy Cherry thought it necessary to talk slang to HIM on their first acquaintance, and offer to sing him the "Ham-fat Man"? It was true he had been a little ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... life of Epictetus. On the contrary, his writings abound in directions as to the proper bearing of a philosopher in life. He warns his students that they may have ridicule to endure. Not only did the little boys in the streets, the gamins of Rome, appear to consider a philosopher "fair game," and think it fine fun to mimic his gestures and pull his beard, but he had to undergo the sneers of much more dignified people. "If," says Epictetus, "you want to know how the Romans regard philosophers, listen. Maelius, who had the highest philosophic reputation among them, once ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... with dauntless brow Addressed him to his task, as I do now, And from each hypocrite stripped off the skin He flaunted to the world, though foul within, Did Laelius, or the chief who took his name Prom conquered Carthage, grudge him his fair game? ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... many minutes of your time to read; I thought them in as many seconds. Indeed, I had not time to form a plan of either defense or escape, when my antagonist, evidently concluding that I was fair game, dropped upon all fours, uttered a loud roar and rushed upon me with open mouth; simultaneously, I turned and fled ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... men are to respect her—it is only a scoundrel that will dare to say an insulting word to her? But if she is a bit fast and giddy, if she has little or no respect for herself, if her foolish feet have slipped ever so little, then she is fair game. "She gave him encouragement; what else could she expect? It was her own fault." To expect that any man with an ounce of true manhood in him would at once say, "That young girl does not in the least realize the danger she is in, and I must get between ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... guard—how the excitement of the approaching conflict had defeated his capacities of thought, and led him on to the commission of so great a part of the general offence. Touching the initial affair with the squatters, he had no compunctious scruples. That was all fair game in his mode of thinking, and even had blood been spilled more freely than it was, he seemed to think he should have had no remorse. But on the subject of the murder of the guard, for so he himself called his crime, his feeling ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... "Gargoyle" into a "Beetle" was not an easy process. He had to fit himself into new surroundings, new conditions, new methods, with new companions. And while these new companions had given him a cool reception, his old companions, thinking him fair game for ridicule and sport now that he had "gone over to the enemy," had determined on giving him a warm ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... he answered; "I know not whether a warrior—such there have been—a princess who shall hold many tribes in her hand, or a prophetess; but I am certain that the arrow of thy manitou shall bring down some fair game." ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson

... these commercial gentlemen knows no limits, and hotel-waiters are, at all times, fair game for their stings and arrows. In one of the northern hotels, there used to be a portly and rubicund waiter who might have passed for the High Priest of the Goddess of Health. His face shone, if I may say so, with the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... "It's not a fair game, George. They tire you out. And I'm not well. My stomach's all wrong. And I been and got a cold. I always been li'ble to cold, and this one's on my chest. And then they tell you to speak up. They bait you—and bait you, and bait you. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... open to you if you don't go back? Come, what's your position? Neither fish, flesh, nor fowl; fair game for everybody. Believe me, Mrs. Dedmond, for a pretty woman to strike, as it appears you're doing, simply because the spirit of her marriage has taken flight, is madness. You must know that no one pays attention to anything but facts. If now—excuse ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... 'way right now!" Charnock interrupted. "You gotta put up a fair game, and I can't stop when I've all the boys' dollars in ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... attack another Christian settlement for some time to come; that in the interval they might find some pleasure, if no great credit, by turning their attention to the Indians. The infidels, he said, were God's natural enemies and fair game to the Christian. To make a long story short, Nuflo's Christian band, after some successful adventures, met with a reverse which reduced their number from nine to five. Flying from their enemies, ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... would still be with mothers wearing the Three Bar mark," she said. "After they leave the cows they're slicks, fair game for the first man that puts his rope on them—and Slade wouldn't risk running one of his own brands on them before they left ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... him for a young man in love. Katie's heart hardened against Ann at the possibility. That would not be playing a fair game. Ann was not in position to let Katie's friends fall in love with her. Katie had not ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... on the score of immorality; but we must remember that the age in which they were written was one of lax notions, especially among men of rank, who regarded all women accessible, either from indiscretion or inferiority of rank, as fair game, and acted accordingly. But whilst we agree with one of Johnson's bitterest sentences as to the immorality of Chesterfield's letters, we disagree with his styling his code of manners the manners of a dancing-master. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... that same set And clothed in white and red. He bare a lancegay in his hand, And a man led his mail, And riden with a light song Unto Bernysdale. But at Wentbridge there was a wrestling, And there tarried was he: And there was all the best yeomen Of all the West country. A full fair game there was up set; A white bull up i-pight; A great courser, with saddle and bridle With gold burnished full bright; A pair of gloves, a red gold ring, A pipe of wine, in fay: What man beareth him best, Iwis The prize shall bear away. There was a yeoman in that place, And best ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... suppose it was Jerry's helplessness that must have appealed to the mother in her, his youth, innocence and genuineness. Perhaps she was weary treading the mazes of deception and intrigue with which the girl Marcia surrounded herself. Jerry wasn't fair game. All that was good in her had revolted at the maiming ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... way, at a glance," Lorne went on. "The conservatism of the people—it isn't a name, it's a fact—the hostility and suspicion; natural enough: they know they're stupid, and they half suspect they're fair game. I suppose the Americans have taught them that. Slow—oh, slow! More interested in the back-garden fence than anything else. Pick up a paper, at the moment when things are being done, mind, all over the world, done against them—when their shipping is being captured, ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... difference did it make whether AMES represented Mississippi or not? Mississippi was disloyal, and didn't deserve to have any representative. AMES was a good fellow, and a good officer. Besides, he had been through West-Point and knew something. He understood he played a very fair game of billiards, and he would be an ornament to the Senate. Let us let him in. The Senate had already let in REVELS, who had been sent by AMES; and it was absurd to keep out AMES, who was the master of the REVELS. He considered that, in the language of a manly sport with which senators were familiar, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various

... "It was fair game," he cried, as he saw his friends. "Piggy here was masterless, roaming around the woods feeding on nuts until he was fat and juicy! My, how good he will taste! At first I thought he was a bear, but bear or hog he was bound ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... will not repeat the experiment, then; though I shall consider myself fair game if I ever ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... hotel I knew everything that had ever happened in Algiers. A nice compliment to my age. I am not so old as that! But," she added, with a frank smile, "all the hotels and guides expect commissions when they send people to me. I suppose they thought this pretty girl fair game, and that once in my place she would buy. So she did. She bought a string of amber beads. She liked the gold light in them, and said it seemed as if she might see a vision of something or some one she wanted to find, if she gazed through ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... only by communion, but also by conduct, must we keep in the light. The fugitive found outside the city of refuge was fair game for the avenger, and if he strayed beyond its bounds there was a sword in his back before he knew where he was. Every Christian, by each sin, whether it be acted or only thought, casts himself out of the light into the darkness that rings it round, and out there he is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... game he won he proposed, as luck was perhaps taking a turn in his favour, to double the stakes, and I indulged him. He suffered me to win the following game. I say suffered, cheating being taken into the account; for I am certain that at the fair game I am his master. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... splendid prospects of engagement with the "Morning Post," all my visionary guineas, the deceitful wages of unborn scandal. In truth, I wonder you took it up so seriously. All my intention was but to make a little sport with such public and fair game as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Wilberforce, Mrs. Fitzherbert, the Devil, &c.—gentry dipped in Styx all over, whom no paper javelin-lings can touch. To have made free with these cattle, where was the harm? 'twould have been but ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... I was glad to be taken for an American, as it gave me a better opportunity of seeing things as they really are. An English person going about staring and questioning, with a note-book in his hand, is considered "fair game," and consequently is "crammed" on all subjects; stories of petticoated table-legs, and fabulous horrors of the bowie-knife, being among the smallest ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... set. This child was not fair game for a man like Durand. When Clay rose to leave the diner he knew that he meant to sit ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... causes me not a little annoyance. They have a noble breed of canines throughout the Angora goat country - fine animals, as large as Newfoundlands, with a good deal the appearance of the mastiff; and they display their hostility to my intrusion by making straight at me, evidently considering me fair game. These dogs are invaluable friends, but as enemies and assailants they are not exactly calculated to win a 'cycler's esteem. In my unusual appearance they see a strange, undefinable enemy bearing down toward their friends and owners, arid, like good, faithful dogs, they hesitate not ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... to work at home, to cook and clean house and mind the baby? Do you believe that a girl should like to take care of her clothes and be able to make them; that she should know how to be thrifty and to conserve the family money in buying and using food and clothing; that she should play a fair game and put the group above her personal interests? Do you believe that she should value a strong healthy body above clothes and cosmetics, and rejoice in the hope of being some day the healthy ...
— Educational Work of the Girl Scouts • Louise Stevens Bryant

... ereintage, the "smashing" of a literary foe is very delightful at the moment, but it does not look well in the light of reflection. But these deeds are mere peccadilloes compared with the confirmed habit of regarding all men and women as fair game for personal tattle and the sating of private spite. Nobody, perhaps, begins with this intention. Most men and women can find ready sophistries. If a report about any one reaches their ears, they say that they are doing him a service ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... tested. There was a woman in the Swede's house, a slim wisp of a little Jewess, with the sweet face of a Madonna and the eyes of a wanton. Well—she smiled on me. She had good reason to; was I not making my gold pieces dance a merry tune? Was I not fair game for any huntress? ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... my views of you, George," his friend said with mild satire. "I always looked upon you as fair game for the Norfolk dowagers with their broods of daughters, but I never contemplated your fixing your affections upon a ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... I can learn his father and he have stood by them very closely;—and did so, too, when there seemed to be but little hope. But they might be paid for all they did at a less rate than that. If she sticks to him nobody can beat him out of it. What I mean is, that it was all fair game. He ran his chance, and did it in a manly fashion." The Earl did not quite understand Sir William, who seemed to take almost a favourable view of these monstrous betrothals. "What I mean is, that nobody can touch him, or find fault with him. ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... had a number of butts on hand—men whom he attacked for their delinquencies, real or imaginary, or whom on account of idiosyncrasies he thought to be fair game, just for the fun of it. One of the first of these was Lord William Lennox, a nobleman of literary pretensions, whose efforts, however, were said to be more pretentious than literary. His novel of "The Tuft-Hunter" was quickly "spotted" by the critics, and Hood was the first ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... doctor refused to borrow from him. He had a conscientious objection to victimising his personal friends. Doyle, so he explained, lived very largely by lending money, and therefore offered himself as fair game to the impecunious borrower. The shopkeepers throve on a system of credit. They were fair game too. Major Kent was in a different case. To borrow from him was to take a mean advantage of the good nature of ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham

... tragedians, and most particularly in Euripides—the pet aversion and constant butt of Aristophanes' satire—are parodied. All is fish that comes to the Comic dramatists net, anything that will raise a laugh is fair game. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... It's to me he's got to answer, Donald. And to me he shall answer. I am going to kill him. But it will not be murder. Since you have come into this room I have made my final plan, and I shall follow it to the end coolly and deliberately. It will be a great game, Mac—and it will be a fair game; and I shall play it happily, because Joanne will not know, and I will ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... his unwritten plays while ladling his soup, and who staggered and fell across chairs in illustration of highly emotional lines and, what was worse, he was of those who regard every unescorted woman as fair game. Bold of glance and brassy of smile, he began to make eyes at his sister-in-law from their ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... Sabbath are the regular targets taken out by our moral riflemen and archers, though so seldom to hit fair in the centre, that we may find ourselves, like spectators at the match, respecting the old targets more than we do the shots. Yet homilies and exporters are thought fair game. I have even heard splendid lecturers whose wit ran so low or who were so pushed for matter as to talk of what divinity-students wear round their necks, which seems a superficial consideration. The anciently venerated desk has two sharp enemies, the radical and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... formidable {200d} and dragon-like {200e} weapons, And of the fair game, {200f} which was played in front of the unclaimed course of Gododin. Profusely did he bring a supply {200g} of wine into the tents, for the benefit of the natives, {200h} In the season of the storm, as long as it trickled from the vessels, And the army, a well nourished host, continued ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin

... my readers may rest assured that the rule shall be observed. He would be a poor-spirited prisoner, who would not tell all the mean things he knows about his jailors, and since Wirtz was hung, at any rate, such gentry have become fair game. ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... cafes, his Arabic was not yet wholly perfect. Sometimes he went about in European dress, and that was equally dangerous, for in those days the Fayoum was a nest of brigandage and murder, and an European—an infidel dog—was fair game. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Frank," remarked the Chief, promptly; "and if I were in your place I'd be on my guard. He might try to steal your new biplane I've heard them talking about; or even burn down your whole outfit. Better get a gun, and keep watch. He's fair game, you know, if so be you catch him prowling around after dark. An escaped convict hasn't any rights in the ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... over, the female encountering a male in the open must evidently regard him as fair game, and devour him as the termination of the matrimonial rites. I have turned over many stones, but have never chanced upon this spectacle, but what has occurred in my menagerie is sufficient to convince me. What a world these beetles live in, where the matron devours ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... but the men. I don't tease father or mother or you,—but men are fair game; they are such thumby, blundering creatures, and we can confuse ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... imagined himself tied to any woman upon earth for the remainder of his days. Without being unduly proud in his own conceit, he was clearly aware that he might be looked upon through worldly eyes as a desirable match—as fair game for a number of wary marriageable maidens; and it did not occur to him that even Laura herself might by any choice of her own, still stand hopelessly beyond his reach. The thing that troubled him was the knowledge of his own impetuous emotions—with ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... tradesmen's entrance and the back premises; here also was the pantry window, of which more anon. The right house was the residence of an opulent stockbroker who wore a heavy watch-chain and seemed fair game. There would have been two objections to it had I been the stockbroker. The house was one of a row, though a goodly row, and an army-crammer had established himself next door. There is a type of such institutions in the suburbs; the youths go about in knickerbockers, ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... without the surroundings and clothes to put them in are not much of a gift. Beauty in a third-class carriage and shabby clothes looks cheap and is fair game for any ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... admonished, "you leave Roger alone. He's as Nature made him and not fair game for such as you. Leave him to some simple country maiden—Edna Langdon, for instance, who rides straight to hounds and whose broad acres—or what will be her broad acres when Papa Langdon is ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... your life:—why do you not turn dervish, like us? We hold men's beards as cheap as dirt; and although our existence is precarious, yet it is one of great variety, as well as of great idleness. We look upon mankind as fair game—we live upon their weakness and credulity; and, from what I have seen of you, I think you would do honour to our profession, and in time become as celebrated as even the famous Sheikh Saadi himself.' This speech was ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... fear of me makes them act very cowardly. I have gone amongst the whole population kindly and fairly, but I fear I must now act rigidly, for when they hear that we have submitted to injustice, they at once conclude that we are fair game for all, and they go to lengths in dealing falsely that they would never otherwise attempt. It is, I can declare, not my nature, nor has it been my practice, to go as ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... averse from disparaging an old rival, "Oh, poor chap, he hasn't many party tricks. I'd back him at cat's-cradle, and I dare say he plays a very fair game at noughts-and-crosses. Besides, he'll do what he's told, and fetch things for you. You'll find him a handy and ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... For several days an Owl (Bulaca newarensis) was flying about near the Cinchona Bungalow at Mongpho, and being a stupid creature at the best, and doubly so during daylight when it had no business to be abroad, was evidently considered fair game by the Long-tailed Drongo and Swallow-Shrikes, and so awfully 'sat upon' by them, that its life must have become a burden to it until it left the place in despair of ever getting either ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... an erroneous one, among persons of quality, as to violating the freemasonry, the signs, ceremonies, and absurdities, of their privacy. Now, this applies only so far as individuals are indicated, and it is so far right. But fashionable classes are fair game, if not shot at sitting; or poached, or snared, or bagged, in any ungentlemanlike, unsportsmanlike fashion. They belong to human character, and human nature; and the reason they have seldom been painted well is, that they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... She was an impartial referee; her one desire being to play a fair game. She was aware of Berenice's playing at cross purposes and watched her closely. At ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... goodness she'll keep her head!' he thought; 'she might easily grow desperate.' In fact, now that she had cut loose from her poor threads of occupation, he couldn't imagine how she would go on—so beautiful a creature, hopeless, and fair game for anyone! In his exasperation was more than a little fear and jealousy. Women did strange things when they were driven into corners. 'I wonder what Soames will do now!' he thought. 'A rotten, idiotic ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... furniture-store. There were many rooms in the apartment and they all produced a similar impression. I subsequently learned that the superabundance of sofas, chests of drawers, chairs, or bric—brac-stands was due to Shiphrah's passion for bargains, a weakness which made her the fair game of tradespeople and artisans. Several of her wardrobes and bureaus were packed full of all sorts of things for which she had no earthly use and many of which she had smuggled in when her husband and the ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... was ever so much nicer when there was no one to tease her. It was true that Jasper certainly, and perhaps Wilfred, would not have molested her if she had not offended the latter, and offered herself as fair game; but Gillian, who had to forestall and prevent their pranks, could not feel their absence quite the privation her ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... black, and he was about to answer angrily, but Cayley said: "On my honour—I will play a fair game," he said. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, their scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to be learned. And he who approaches this subject should carefully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has already misled ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... help. The cat cry of the underworld! He had known that cry two years before. He had many friends who would answer it. They had introduced themselves at his boxing bouts. They had liked him because he played a fair game and "packed a winning wallop." If any of them were near they would ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell

... in my mind to ask him what would be done with me, but I did not. That was perhaps a matter which must be settled hereafter, and not on the eve of a fight at sea. Moreover, I thought that a Frankish ship was fair game for any one, and that if I were needed there was no reason at all why I should not take a hand in the fight. Certainly I should fare no worse for taking my plight in the best way I could. So I held my ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler

... had been full of interest. A Papist priest was, of course, fair game. (Why, the Spanish Armada itself had been full of them, it was said, all come to subdue England.... Well, they had had their bellyful of salt water and English iron by now.) But this Papisher had hit back and given ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... ourselves, ain't it? We say, 'Thou shalt not steal,' and then when we steal the Indian's land or the Frenchman's ships, we say, 'Oh, that don't mean not steal from our enemies; they are fair game.'" ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... quite different from proportion. We should not have said so much on this subject either in our former article, or at present, but that there is in all Mr Sadler's writings an air of scientific pedantry, which renders his errors fair game. We will now let the matter rest; and, instead of assailing Mr Sadler with our verbal criticism, proceed to defend ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... drawn along his backbone. Now they were fair game for the whole system. Any Patrol ship that wanted could shoot them down with no questions asked. Of course that had always been a possibility from the first after their raid on the E-Stat. But to realize ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... had been wasted. But on the other side of the Rhine women exist solely for the comfort of men. In militaristic Germany Fritz lost not an iota of the esteem of his friends of either sex; as for Marie, she had failed in a fair game, that was all. The girl's mother even excused his conduct by saying that he was ambitious to get ahead in the army. Like most of her sex in Germany she has been reared to venerate the uniform so much that anything done by the man who wears it is quite excusable. Indeed, Marie's ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... any of these brutal, silly, or impossible things. She was not dreaming. All was true. Miss Rolls had meant well, and Mr. Balm of Gilead did not exist. He was only Peter Rolls, a rich, selfish fellow who thought girls who had to work fair game. His sister must know his true inwardness. Probably she had learned through unpleasant hushed-up experiences, through seeing skeletons unfleshed by Peter stalk into the ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... "It was a fair game and the Mouse was chief under the agreement. He looked quite small among the rest but he walked right out to the centre ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman

... either, I wot; for thou'st led an ill life, Master Marlowe; and so the sweet Saint thou spok'st of, will remain my fair game—behind the scenes. ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... generally. The only trouble was the training that Madame Welstoke had given me. After a body has learned a little of being shrewd like a snake, a cat, or a weasel, and looking on anybody as fair game for blackmail or threats or health cures, it is very hard to shut the cover down on them and never employ those methods any more. I liked the Judge and I might say I loved his wife, but there was still something in me that kept me watching for secrets or skeletons in the closet, and ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... Duchessa, "I think she was fair game. One can carry delicacy too far. He was entitled to the benefits of his discovery—for, after all, it was a discovery, was n't it? You have said yourself how indispensable the eye of the beholder is—'the seeing eye.' I think, ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... garrison, and the lieutenant of police had only eight gendarmes under him, so that there were no patrols, it was impossible to get any proof against them. The sub-prefect was immediately posted in the "order of the night," and considered thenceforth fair game. This functionary made a practice of breakfasting on two fresh eggs. He kept chickens in his yard, and added to his mania for eating fresh eggs that of boiling them himself. Neither his wife nor his servant, in fact no one, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... a licentiousness in the press quite intolerable—to attack and involve private characters in their public lampoons! To Dr. Burney they could have no right; but Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor is fair game enough, and likes that or any other way whatever of obtaining notice. You know what Johnson said to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... sign. Who was she? What sort was she? he demanded of himself. God! if she was one sort. And why should she not be that sort? Did not the River carry many sorts? Was not the army ever gallant? What officer ever hesitated in case of a fair damsel? And what fair damsel was not fair game in the open contest among men—that old, old, oldest and keenest of all contests since ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... deride a man's ugliness, but the ugly is fair game when self-obtruded into notice by personal vanity and conceit. Moreover, this form of negro folly is not to be destroyed by gentle raillery; it wants hard words, even as certain tumours require the knife. Such aping of Europeans extends from the physical to the moral man, and in general only the ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... present. To answer would have been to avow that the cap fitted. Mrs. Yorke, looking at her as she sat with troubled, downcast eyes, and cheek burning painfully, and figure expressing in its bent attitude and unconscious tremor all the humiliation and chagrin she experienced, felt the sufferer was fair game. The strange woman had a natural antipathy to a shrinking, sensitive character—a nervous temperament; nor was a pretty, delicate, and youthful face a passport to her affections. It was seldom she met with all these obnoxious qualities combined in one ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... and you refused it. You must admit I dealt fairly with you. I did not move till you had set your own trap and fallen into it. Now, if you do not give me the letters—well, you will give them to none else in this world. It has been a fair game, and I am winning now. I've only used means which one gentleman might use with another. Had you been a lesser man I should have had you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... plan you suggest is worthy of you, Madame. The Englishman is fair game, being a common enemy. Let us gain our ends through the heart, since his purse is impregnable to assaults. But the countess? Why not the pantry maid, since the other is an American? They lack discrimination. The king grows weaker every day. Nothing ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... girls not to stare at others, nor to take any apparent notice of personal peculiarities, deformities, or oddities of dress or demeanor. Teach the children always to play a fair game upon the playground, and not to lose their tempers over any little difference of opinion that ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... Surely Jim's sin in robbing a railway must be regarded as a venial one. Honest men do that every day and appear to think nothing of it! Nobody appears to think anything of it. A railway would seem to be the one great unpardonable outlaw of the land, which does good to nobody, and is deemed fair game by everybody who can catch it—napping. But it is not easily caught napping. Neither was ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... between her thighs; it was the same with my cousins. Then I began to have cock-stands and suppose a pleasurable feeling about the machine, though I do not recollect that. I then found out that servants were fair game, and soon there was not one in the house whom I had not kissed. I had a soft voice and have heard, an insinuating way, was timorous, feared repulse, and above all being found out; yet I succeeded. Some of the servants must have liked it, who called ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous



Words linked to "Fair game" :   target, victim



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com